Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 163 posts

Re: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

#31

Post by geezerjay »

raverbashing wrote: post #13
tunesmith wrote: post #6

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 chan…

Agreed "Facts don't change people's mind" forget about the presentation of the facts, usually in a condescending and over authoritarian way. No fact is an absolute truth that shouldn't be open to discussion, facts help, but when people get "holier than thou" about them, that's usually when the pushback happens (not only on those occasions, though)

I would also add that the word "fact" is often abused to refer actually to strongly-held beliefs instead of actual substantiated and well-accepted info. Thus when those feeling empowered by holding facts criticise others for not changing their mind when faced with their facts, they are actually attacking others for not succumbing to their personal beliefs.

Re: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

#32

Post by netcan »

This is a tangent.

How much/long does a study like this cost/take? Is it possible/useful to scale this?

From reading into some of the replicability discussion, I've gotten curious about social science generally. What's an expirement like this trying to prove/demonstrate. The journalistic narrative likes the easy "X debunked." I imagine researchers have a more nuanced perspective.

I guess what im asking is what does the larger effort look like? Do these studies eventually add up to a larger understanding of how we do form opinions, where facts do change our minds....

Replicability is one thing. How about generalisability?

Re: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

#33

Post by 7952 »

tunesmith wrote: post #6

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 chan…

I agree that people do change their minds, but it is not neccessarily a direct result of facts. Things like emotion, social pressure, and moral arguments are far more persuasive. People just get angry when their facts arn't enough to pursuade someone. But sometimes you need to engage people at a more personal level than just science and statistics.

Re: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

#35

Post by gameswithgo »

titanix2 wrote: post #18
tunesmith wrote: post #6

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 chan…

Well, most of the time the "Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds" question could actually be rephrased as "Why Don't Everybody Agree with the Left?" I just skimmed the article, but the mention of Steve Bannon at end is an indication that the article probably belongs to that trend. This turns the issue into the political ground, not the scientific one. Thus, the word "fact" is used as an appeal to authority when its actua…

How about "why don't facts change people's minds about global warming"?

or "why don't facts change people's minds about gun control?" (this is an issue with both the left, they are both wrong about many aspects of gun issues!)

These are just two cases that came to mind, where I have friends/family who I talk to about it, and I can explain some facts in great detail that I'm familiar with, and in that moment they will seem to change their mind a little bit. But a couple months later they are right back to their old thinking. Maybe people tend to forget the stuff they would rather not believe.

Re: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

#36

Post by gameswithgo »

casefields wrote: post #30
brightball wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I really enjoyed arguing politics on the internet. Not trolling, but legitimately arguing. I ran into several people who would just link-bomb the conversation. So one day, when I had a couple of hours free I sat down and read every single link. All of them. The lack of substance beyond an opening paragraph that claimed a point was appalling. When it was brought to the attention of those link-bombers,…

That's called the Gish Gallop and for whatever reason is the mode de jure for winning an Internet argument now. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop

> winning an Internet argument now.

and before! The prevalence of dumb things to link and dumb people to link them is a bit higher now but the Gish Gallop isn't new on the internet.

Re: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

#37

Post by geezerjay »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #10

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 r…

It is also important to note that facts, in the true sense of the word, represent single observations of a phenomenon, while beliefs are more about models that reflect relationships between observable phenomena and a way to model and predict behavior.

Thus it's easy to understand that a single observation, particularly one which is given at face value, is not enough to scrap whole models.

To provide an example, should we scrap the whole notion of gravity accelerating all dropped objects uniformly independent of mass if someone observes a feather taking more time to fall than a canonball? I mean,that's a fact. Anyone ca see it and reproduce the same behavior. So, should everyone just abandon the notion of gravity acritically because of a single fact was presented?

Re: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

#38

Post by discreteevent »

tunesmith wrote: post #6

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 chan…

I remember reading some article with a former head of Goldman Sachs. He was saying that the best traders aren't necessarily the smartest ones. The best traders are those who don't get attached to a position. So from that example, it would seem that some people are able to change their minds in response to feedback (and do well because of it).

Re: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

#39

Post by bilbo0s »

7952 wrote: post #33
tunesmith wrote: post #6

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 chan…

I agree that people do change their minds, but it is not neccessarily a direct result of facts. Things like emotion, social pressure, and moral arguments are far more persuasive. People just get angry when their facts arn't enough to pursuade someone. But sometimes you need to engage people at a more personal level than just science and statistics.

>But sometimes you need to engage people at a more personal level than just science and statistics...

Now I don't know if I would write this off as simple "emotion". Obviously, "emotion" is probably part of it, but so is "social pressure", etc as you point out. I'd probably summarize that collection of factors as "Ideology". Convincing people to change their minds is likely one reason that ideology is actually useful to humans, even though oftentimes it bears little resemblance to the underlying reality we live in. It allows us to understand and interpret the world in ways that are comfortable and intuitive. Being "comfortable" matters.

Re: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

#40

Post by powercf »

Retric wrote: post #21
titanix2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, most of the time the "Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds" question could actually be rephrased as "Why Don't Everybody Agree with the Left?" I just skimmed the article, but the mention of Steve Bannon at end is an indication that the article probably belongs to that trend. This turns the issue into the political ground, not the scientific one. Thus, the word "fact" is used as an appeal to authority when its actua…

The Left has plenty of unsupported ideas. The question is really why people debate Physics or Chemistry. People that thought the Sun was a perfect sphere would discount things they could directly see with their eyes.

> People that thought the Sun was a perfect sphere would discount things they could directly see with their eyes.

What do you mean by this? The Sun is, to a very good approximation, a perfect sphere. Or as perfect a sphere as one is likely to find in the physical world.

Post reply on HN