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Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

niemanlab.org

21–30 of 137 posts

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#22
post #14

> Within the conservative political blogosphere, global warming is either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. Within other geographic or online communities, vaccines, fluoridated water and genetically modified foods are known to be dangerous. Right-wing media outlets paint a detailed picture of how Donald Trump is the victim of a fabricated conspiracy. To this day you'll find most well off (and extr…

I'm supposed to be avoiding politics here, but: I thought vaccines were kind of a 'fringes of both sides' issue until our Republican rep here in Bend, Oregon got the rug pulled out from under her by her own party: https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2019/05/vaccination-boosti... I was surprised, I didn't think it'd go down that way. The sheer vitriol that our rep gets on her social media because of that one thing is qu…

The unifying thread for anti-vaxxers is a fear of authority. You can find that anywhere. Left, right and center.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#23

Twice I have been through interviews that use hours of psychology assessments to filter candidates. One of those was a large hedge fund. Through that I have learned that objectivity is a measurable and identifable personality trait that is astonishingly rare. Most humans are hardwired to seek mutual security, which means banding together as a stress coping mechanism. That incidentally means some natural revulsion of…

>Through that I have learned that objectivity is a measurable and identifable personality trait that is astonishingly rare. How does one test for this? I would like to mark my own belief to market.

It's easiest to tell when someone is in a mildly stressful situation, and to see if they can focus on the task and evaluate tactical options to move forward, or if they get defensive.

Also, hello username buddy.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#24

> Within the conservative political blogosphere, global warming is either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. Within other geographic or online communities, vaccines, fluoridated water and genetically modified foods are known to be dangerous. Right-wing media outlets paint a detailed picture of how Donald Trump is the victim of a fabricated conspiracy. To this day you'll find most well off (and extr…

Portlander here.

Sometimes it's hard being a liberal when you have to deal with the fluoride idiots or the "EM radiation causes autism" ... not just from the lesser-intelligent, but from intelligent-yet-highly-misinformed people (e.g., I know severeal doctors who believe Wi-Fi routers might be dangerous and are worried about 5G deployment... yes, I said DOCTORS ... show me some double-blind studies, people).

Every group has their wingnuts, but I'm sure as heck am glad my liberal wingnuts aren't calling for the extermination of nonwhite/nonchristian/nonheteronormitive people.

So I got that going for my side. Yay? Feh.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#25
post #10

Hardwired and perhaps trained as well. If you ever develop serious skill at debugging logic problems it will be because you have no choice but to accept facts that don't fit into your world view, or maybe it is because you stop having a rigid world view because of how many times you eventually realize you weren't seeing the bigger picture.

A number of times, I've had to debug something where the impossible was happening. The question then became "Which thing that I think is impossible is actually possible? And how do I find out?"

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#26

> Within the conservative political blogosphere, global warming is either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. Within other geographic or online communities, vaccines, fluoridated water and genetically modified foods are known to be dangerous. Right-wing media outlets paint a detailed picture of how Donald Trump is the victim of a fabricated conspiracy. To this day you'll find most well off (and extr…

Vaccine "skepticism" used to be more prevalent among the (mostly left) urban health freaks. But that is changing rather rapidly, see for example https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/27/anti-vaccine-repub... . This might be a good example actually of people self-sorting into one of the two tribes. And Republicans (not conservatives) have conquered the science-is-bad spectrum so thoroughly they don't need to fear com…

It doesn't make much sense to use "left" and "right" to describe quite a bit of US politics, but even more so out west, where strange combinations of political outlook and motivation are easy to find.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#27
I was uninvited from from the house of a friend because i pointed out that payscale.com was claiming that asian women are paid more than men. The lady of the house then claimed i was unqualified to raise such a discussion point because i am a male.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Through that I have learned that objectivity is a measurable and identifable personality trait that is astonishingly rare. How does one test for this? I would like to mark my own belief to market.

It's easiest to tell when someone is in a mildly stressful situation, and to see if they can focus on the task and evaluate tactical options to move forward, or if they get defensive. Also, hello username buddy.

Defensiveness or stress tolerance or problem solving are not objectivity

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#30
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm supposed to be avoiding politics here, but: I thought vaccines were kind of a 'fringes of both sides' issue until our Republican rep here in Bend, Oregon got the rug pulled out from under her by her own party: https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2019/05/vaccination-boosti... I was surprised, I didn't think it'd go down that way. The sheer vitriol that our rep gets on her social media because of that one thing is qu…

The unifying thread for anti-vaxxers is a fear of authority. You can find that anywhere. Left, right and center.

Yep. I did not expect the voting to be so partisan, though.
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