Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13810764

> In 1975, researchers at Stanford invited a group of undergraduates to take part in a study ... A few years later, a new set of Stanford students was recruited for a related study.

We have to wonder if Stanford undergraduate student generalises to the whole population.

It doesn't require much stretching of the imagination to see that circa 1975 Stanford undergraduates, as a cohort, may score below average on objective measures of humbleness.

We have this weird fetish these last few years with asserting in broad language that people don't change their minds, don't respond to evidence, dig their heels in further when presented with evidence that contradicts their preconceived opinions, etc. It's all over pop psychology and the headlines.

Bugs the heck out of me, because if the language they use is literally true, then no one would ever be convinced to change their minds ever. And yet, we do.

It's true that perhaps some or many people never change their minds, or that all people might be apt to behave that way when they're not focusing their attention, but that's wildly different language then the headlines use.

This article is obviously guilty as well - "Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds". Like, ever? The content of the article doesn't back up the headline, but the headline is what people remember.

Even some of the content is probably guilty. In the Stanford capital punishment study, is it really true that each and every individual in the study responded as they describe? Because that's how the article is written.

And the problem is it gives people more excuse to give up - to not engage with someone who is wrong, or to dismiss someone who is right (that they think is wrong). Because, studies!

The real lesson is the opposite - that we have to study and learn critical thinking, and practice, as a discipline, changing our minds when the evidence or reasoning warrants it. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's impossible, and in fact the ability to do so is part of what makes us an evolved species - or more generally, our ability to surpass our instincts and evolved traits.

Show me some experiments that demonstrate what conditions need to be in place, in order for people to change their minds after they've proven to be resistant. (Hint: psychological safety and lack of time pressure.) That's what'll be valuable. I'm tired of all these other studies that just say we don't.

Don't facts need to be contextualized in a larger belief framework to be useful? "Sun rises in the East" is a fact that is compatible with a heliocentric and geocentric view of the world. So that fact on its own is useless in explaining the world. In politics, your ideology will guide your interpretation. If you have a particular view on, say, immigration, you will highlight certain facts, suppress or dismiss inconvenient facts, and in general interpret all facts through your ideological lens.

My problem with the studies described at the beginning is with this conclusion:

Even after the evidence “for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions in those beliefs,” the researchers noted.

My understanding, from the descriptions in the article, was that it was not the beliefs were _refuted_, it was just that what they were told originally was not true. The subjects had no reason to believe the latter assertion above the former.