41–50 of 347 posts
> There must be some way, they maintain, to convince people that vaccines are good for kids, and handguns are dangerous. There is: have them been born outside the US. Those two beliefs are specific to Americans; hardly a good example of "humanity" as a whole.
Strangely the most successful country in the history of mankind by all criteria.
Another factor here is when people abuse the word "fact" regularly. If you ever get into a discussion with somebody who claims they've proved their point by citing "facts", then actually follow up on their citations and discover that it doesn't actually say what they think it says it creates an impression of the messenger, not the message. Enough messengers saying the same faulty message over and over and you distrus…
1: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/20/upshot/the-er...
2: http://www.nature.com/news/crowdsourced-research-many-hands-...
Another factor here is when people abuse the word "fact" regularly. If you ever get into a discussion with somebody who claims they've proved their point by citing "facts", then actually follow up on their citations and discover that it doesn't actually say what they think it says it creates an impression of the messenger, not the message. Enough messengers saying the same faulty message over and over and you distrus…
> then actually follow up on their citations Not to mention that citations are not all they are touted to be. Just because something has been written by someone somewhere doesn't make it an objective reality fact. Just because something has been published on a peer reviewed journal doesn't make it an objective reality fact. Just because something has the consensus opinion doesn't make it an objective reality fact. Ju…
Facts don't change our minds because we make up our world views and beliefs in a way that's expedient for us to happily continue about our lives. For instance, we all NEED to believe we're the 'good' guys. Whether the 'we' is our religion, our job, our state, political stance, etc... This prevents existential angst from realizing we're in the wrong, and then needing to change our behaviour which would disrupt our eve…
And even deny that ever had any other position.
Seriously, not trying to inject politics or my opinion on Trump, but there do seem to be a lot of these "why do people make act so crazy" articles lately. I too am trying to make sense of it all and failing.
If the sampled facts that give rise to the models are random, then the models will tend to be similar.
However, if the facts that make up the models are selectively placed in the models there can arise dramatically different models pulled from the same facts.
Since all models are simplifications or subsets of all facts in reality they will always be prone to this fact selection bias.
I guess it should come as no surprise that the comments section for an article called “facts don’t change our minds” would be so disappointing. For me, this article — and many like it that point out how whimsical and feeble our natural, undisciplined cognitive capacities are — are a rally cry to continue the enlightenment project, as best we can and in as personal a way as we can. Years ago I learned that my family m…
From my own experience as a reluctant religious agnostic, I see the faith/doubt-freedom issue as less clear-cut.
Some Christians I know appear capable of doing things that I, as an agnostic, cannot. The first thing that comes to mind is showing care for people I find unlovable.
For those Christians, either their faith or (if real) the Holy Spirit in whom they have faith allows them to act in a selfless way towards such people. Those Christians have a freedom that I don't.
OTOH, their faith (or the Holy Spirit, if real) also constrains their actions and thoughts in ways mine aren't.
Facts don't change our minds because we make up our world views and beliefs in a way that's expedient for us to happily continue about our lives. For instance, we all NEED to believe we're the 'good' guys. Whether the 'we' is our religion, our job, our state, political stance, etc... This prevents existential angst from realizing we're in the wrong, and then needing to change our behaviour which would disrupt our eve…
> When it becomes expedient to change our opinion, then we're very quick to do so. And even deny that ever had any other position.