Don't confuse us with FACTS!

[Huckleman2000]

Interesting article about how the brain recasts factual information to preserve biases, misconceptions, and preconceived ideas.

[...]Mankind may be crooked timber, as Kant put it, uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation, but it’s an article of faith that knowledge is the best remedy. If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.

In the end, truth will out. Won’t it?

Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger. [...]

“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”

These findings open a long-running argument about the political ignorance of American citizens to broader questions about the interplay between the nature of human intelligence and our democratic ideals. Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information. And then we vote. [...]

 

[bronzeage]

A fact is only a fact if one believes it.

I watched a magician pull a bowling ball out of a briefcase. I saw this happen, but do not believe the bowling ball was ever in the briefcase.

There is not fact based on observation or evidence, which can't be doubted.

 

[TxRad]

I just wish they would learn the difference between fact and opinion.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

First impressions are the culprit. First impressions have a significant impact on how subsequent information is categorized. Whatever happens first tends to lock your brain up forever.

Lets say your first experience with Usual Suspects is an essay contest sponsored by your school. Your name is Marsha Brady and your competitor's name is Shaniqua Shabazz. The school assign's Shaniqua's essay to Tyquan Rap Brown who scores it according to its weight. Several ounces means Shaniqua invested lotsa time researching, organizing, and polishing her material; a few ounces means she's succinct and pithy and knows how to eliminate bullshit. Your paper is assigned to Bernie Goldberg, a reputed grammar nazi.

 

[rgraham666]

Also recommended on this subject, Snapping; and this essay I wrote a couple of years ago, Information Disease.

 

[Dragonlipz]

I just wish they would learn the difference between fact and opinion.

Don't ask them to overtax their abilities.....

 

[mynameisben]

So, a band of political scientists analyze the reactions of politicians to truthful facts and then generalize their findings to apply to all of humankind? That's like watching dogs salivate when bacon is wiggled above their noses and concluding that bovine butt crack sweat is a necessary precursor to interplanetary space exploration.

 

[Huckleman2000]

So, a band of political scientists analyze the reactions of politicians to truthful facts and then generalize their findings to apply to all of humankind? That's like watching dogs salivate when bacon is wiggled above their noses and concluding that bovine butt crack sweat is a necessary precursor to interplanetary space exploration.

No, that's not what the article said at all. But, you've provided an excellent example of the phenomenon in action.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts.

I've been saying this for a long time. The brain is an emotion-processing unit as much as it's an information processing one, and every thought and every fact that enters is given a little emotional flag. We salute the ones we like and we reject the ones that cause dissonance.

And it doesn't help that our society's gotten to a place where we scorn true open-mindedness and objectivity as "waffling" and instead admire zealotry.

"The best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity." -- Yeats, The Second Coming.

Or as Homer Simpson says: "Facts are meaningless. They can be used to prove anything."

 

[driphoney]

And it doesn't help that our society's gotten to a place where we scorn true open-mindedness and objectivity as "waffling" and instead admire zealotry.

No, it doesn't, and it can't bode well for us, can it?