Exposed to facts, misinformed believe lies more strongly

[Omar B]

Very true Bill. People when confronted usually defend themselves. Same when their ideas are confronted. Go ahead, try and tell me the NY Giants are not the greatest team to ever play football and all other teams should give up. Even though they didn't make it to the Superbowl last season.

[Steve]

So if you were presented with evidence that Ayn Rand didn't believe a word of her philosophy and was taking all of you for a ride, you would quickly accept the new facts? Or would you defend your chosen philosophy? It's not hard to poke holes in Objectivism, devastating philosophical critiques are easy to find. Yet you still follow it.

Facts and philosophy are not the same thing.

[Steve]

I see that not only does everyone cling to their beliefs more strongly if those beliefs are shown to be wrong, but everyone is paranoid and thinks that particular study was done to discredit their particular beliefs.

Well done all around!

I think we're all bozos on this bus.

As I said, it really just proves that cognitive dissonance is a real thing.

Of course, in this political climate, one needs to be careful about evolving opinions. Regardless of why an opinion has changed, politicians on both sides of the aisle will be called anything from traitor to flip flopper if they allow facts and reason to interfere with a hardline partisan stance.

[Bill Mattocks]

As I said, it really just proves that cognitive dissonance is a real thing.

Of course, in this political climate, one needs to be careful about evolving opinions. Regardless of why an opinion has changed, politicians on both sides of the aisle will be called anything from traitor to flip flopper if they allow facts and reason to interfere with a hardline partisan stance.

I completely agree with you. I watched John McCain roundly booed for his stance on immigration reform by his own party, and now I (sadly) see him having to revise his stance in a pathetic attempt to keep his job by pandering to those who refuse to accept that his belief was one of conscience and is now one of employment requirement. As you said, it doesn't matter which party, this is just one example.

[Empty Hands]

Facts and philosophy are not the same thing.

In this instance, I think they are related. It is not specific facts, divorced of context, which makes the study subjects defensive. It is how those facts impinge on their political philosophy and worldview.

[Tez3]

There are people though that whatever they tell you you can't believe them! We all know someone like that, they can tell you your own name and address but you have to check first before you agree lol!

'Flip flopper' I like it ..desciptive!

[Blade96]

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/07/...more-strongly/

I read of this when I studied USSR history. and then people who had grown up with Stalin were exposed to some of the truths about him via Khrushchev and it was a real shock. and many of them even today a lot of the Russian people still think of stalin positively.

It is easy to see how people who believe something, exposed to something else, wouldnt change their views. I dont think they're stupid. I see how it woulednt be easy for them to accept.

[Archangel M]

Funny how it's always THEM..or THOSE people who are stupid, misinformed, etc.

[Tez3]

I read of this when I studied USSR history. and then people who had grown up with Stalin were exposed to some of the truths about him via Khrushchev and it was a real shock. and many of them even today a lot of the Russian people still think of stalin positively.

It is easy to see how people who believe something, exposed to something else, wouldnt change their views. I dont think they're stupid. I see how it woulednt be easy for them to accept.

You can't blame them though, the Soviets made lying to the people an art form. The media was controlled by the State so any information that came out was with the permission and the views of the current regime, there was no reason to believe yet another Soviet leader. In their situation who's to know who tells the truth or what the truth even is. Even now we don't know everything that went on there during the Soviet years.

[Bob Hubbard]

You ever notice....anyone driving faster than you is a maniac, and anyone driving slower than you is an *******? I wonder why that is.......

[SensibleManiac]

Besides, what are fact anyway?

Facts are whatever has been proven by evidence and the scientific method to be true.

Facts are always verifiable or they are not facts,

I think this article and study is very important in teaching us that we need to develop our logical faculties and apply them when trying to understand truth and facts.

If not we're just talking through our asses

Anything else is just rationalization. In other words emotional thinking.
That's the difference between being rational and rationalizing.

And by US I mean ALL OF US.

[chrispillertkd]

Funny how it's always THEM..or THOSE people who are stupid, misinformed, etc.

Kind of by definition, really

Pax,

Chris

[Thesemindz]

http://hanson.gmu.edu/moretrue.pdf

Humans today have many epistemic virtues. We are clever animals who
have discovered a vast division of labor, enabling our unprecedented and
rapidly increasing power and understanding of science, industry, and more.
But we also have many epistemic vices, such as using our knowledge to
enable cruelty.

In particular, we often choose beliefs that are not the closest feasible
approximation to the truth. By this I do not mean that we fail to spend
all possible resources on obtaining or analyzing information. Instead, I
mean that our beliefs are biased because we have motivations other than
that of approximating truth while conserving resources (Mele, 2001). For
example, because we like to think well of ourselves and our groups, we
tend to overestimate our abilities and morality, exaggerate our influence,
and take credit for our successes while blaming external factors for our
failures (Giannetti, 1997).

http://www.gmu.edu/centers/publiccho...er/deceive.pdf

This happens when people agree on what the answers would be in each imaginable world, but argue over which of these imaginable worlds is the real world. This theory can thus apply to disputes about facts that are specific or general, hard or easy to verify. It can cover the age of a car, the correctness of quantum mechanics, whether God created the universe, and which political candidate is more likely to induce prosperity. It can even apply to morality, when people believe there are objectively correct answers to moral questions.

Are we addicted to ideas?

Video game addiction, or more broadly video game overuse, is excessive or compulsive use of computer and video games that interferes with daily life. Instances have been reported in which users play compulsively, isolating themselves from, or from other forms of, social contact and focusing almost entirely on in-game achievements rather than broader life events.

Psychologists who see pornography as addictive may consider online, often Internet, pornography more addictive than ordinary pornography because of its wide availability, explicit nature, and the privacy that online viewing offers. Some claim that "addicts" regularly spend extended periods of time searching the internet for new or increasingly hardcore pornography.

...defines workaholism by signposts and characteristics, as both a substance addiction (to adrenaline and other stress hormones) and as a process addiction (to compulsively doing or avoiding work). WA further defines compulsive working as a progressive, addictive illness...

[Bruno@MT]

Funny how it's always THEM..or THOSE people who are stupid, misinformed, etc.

This calls for a quote from my favorite author, Terry Pratchett:

It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things