Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017) • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by mistermann » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

olah_1 wrote: post #100

mistermann wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general public has been lied to, to a significant degree. People who have full trust in entities that have and continue to publish untruths seem more irrational to me than supposedly irrational skeptics, etc (it is unknowable what the aggregate rationality of a given group is, but good luck finding anyone rational enough to realize that).

This comment is too vague and general for me to interact with. I have a notion that I disagree with what you’re getting at here, but I can’t be sure. I agree that the public is lied to. But that is usually through editorialization of headline news that omits or emphasizes convenient information for the sake of a narrative. What I’m talking about is being presented with raw information and considering it.

> I agree that the public is lied to. But that is usually through editorialization of headline news that omits or emphasizes convenient information for the sake of a narrative.

How would you have any way of knowing this? And I mean that as a serious question, not as snark.

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

#102

Post by simonh » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

waterhouse wrote: post #92

simonh wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a rejection of the claim at all though, even though OP dislikes it. Why should objective proof exert a 'slow force' on our reason? Surely it should be decisive. Saying it can take a generation is tantamount to admitting that objective proof can have to wait for the people who reject it anyway to literally die off before it gets accepted. So what OP seems to be actually rejecting is an extreme version of th…

There are cognitive metastrategies that can look like irrationality in the small, but are pretty sensible for people with limited information and research time. Consider: "a stranger makes a sophisticated argument, which seems convincing, whose conclusion is that you're wrong about something important". If you always respond to this by doing whatever the stranger advocates, you're likely to end up getting scammed or…

>If you always respond to this by doing whatever the stranger advocates, you're likely to end up getting scammed or getting eaten up by a political movement or otherwise doing something you later regret.

That's amazing, it's an excellent summary of the theory the article proposes for why we instinctively discount evidence against our preconceived opinions. Basically it's to stop us getting scammed, but in the hunter-gatherer context in which we evolved, not a modern society with robust systems for validating evidence.

The pre-conceived opinions the studies test aren't always even things the test subjects actually care about though. They can be opinions about things they were only just exposed to and wouldn't be expected to have any personal investment in, such as opinions about fictional characters that only exist in the test. We're not talking about proving to conservatives that liberalism is right, or vice versa, some of the tests are literally concerning beliefs about issues that only exist in the test. It doesn't matter, as soon as an opinion is formed it's incredibly hard to change it no matter how strong the counter evidence, and even if it's shown conclusively the initial opinion was based on false data.

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

#103

Post by SmokeyHamster » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

Slightly misleading headline. The study tested how much a lie persists in someone's mind even after they're told the truth.

The study found that facts do indeed change people's minds, just not as much as we'd like, because the initial impression sets expectations. Caldini talks about this in some of his books on persuasion.

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

#104

Post by pier25 » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

> strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding

I've thought about this too on my own strong feelings. The more I know about something, the more I understand its nuances, pros and cons, etc, the less I feel strongly about it. Now when I spot myself with a strong feeling about something I try to remind myself that I'm most likely missing something.

We see this constantly in the dev world. Younger devs feel very strongly about languages, libraries, frameworks, etc, probably because they have a shallower understanding of the thing.

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

#105

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #97

dragonwriter wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you believe that the vaccines contain mercury and aluminum and that those metals are causing problems in people who take that vaccines? That’s a lot to unpack. Yes, vaccines have very low concentration of compounds of those metals. Yes, those metals at the concentrations in vaccines can cause minor side effects, though there is no evidence of serious side effects. But, more to the point, vaccines more broadly th…

>> There is propaganda about vaccines being harmless > There may be somewhere, but it's not coming from the “medical establishment” or the government, both of which acknowledge that there are both the common minor and less common severe harms from vaccines. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html "Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism" The CDC does not know if vaccines cause autism, they only know (assuming the…

> The CDC does not know if vaccines cause autism, they only know (assuming they are telling us everything they know) that a causative relationship has not found.

No, they also no that the controlled-for-other-factors correlation that would indicate the possibility of causation has not been found outside of research that has been established as deliberately fraudulent.

And they know that there has been extensive research into the question because of the popularity of the fraudulent research cited for the opposite conclusion.

If there is a mechanism by which vaccines cause autism in some specific cases, they must also prevent autism that would otherwise manifest in other cases enough to mask the effect in aggregate.

In any case, the evidence-based rejection that vaccines cause a specific harm is not equivalent to propaganda that they are harmless.

The existence of the compensation program is an explicit acknowledgement that they are not harmless, as well as an easier route to compensation for games than exists for most drugs.

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

#106

Post by war1025 » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #99

gadders wrote: post #24

The New Yorker can't help itself, can it? Reasonably fair article, but then suddenly veers into: "When I talk to Tom and he decides he agrees with me, his opinion is also baseless, but now that the three of us concur we feel that much more smug about our views. If we all now dismiss as unconvincing any information that contradicts our opinion, you get, well, the Trump Administration." And: "(They can now count on the…

> it's used by people on the losing side of elections to start complaining about "low information voters" with the subtext being "If only everyone was as clever as me and all my friends that think the same then [thing I disagree with] would never win elections." it's pretty backed up by evidence (and honestly attending a Trump ralley), that the average voter of Trump is less educated, much more prone to misinformatio…

> It's pretty backed up by evidence (and honestly attending a Trump ralley), that the average voter of Trump is less educated, much more prone to misinformation, and simply holds a ton of trivially wrong beliefs about the state of the world.

This is just as true of your "average" Democrat. The "average" person is woefully misinformed about most things. It's probably safe to say that nearly everyone, myself and the majority of the HN crowd included, is misinformed about many things that aren't critical to our day to day life.

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

#107

Post by mistermann » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #105

mistermann wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There is propaganda about vaccines being harmless > There may be somewhere, but it's not coming from the “medical establishment” or the government, both of which acknowledge that there are both the common minor and less common severe harms from vaccines. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html "Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism" The CDC does not know if vaccines cause autism, they only know (assuming the…

> The CDC does not know if vaccines cause autism, they only know (assuming they are telling us everything they know) that a causative relationship has not found. No, they also no that the controlled-for-other-factors correlation that would indicate the possibility of causation has not been found outside of research that has been established as deliberately fraudulent. And they know that there has been extensive resea…

Let's try and unmuddy the waters here a bit....

"Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism"

Are you saying that this assertion is unequivocally known to be true? No uncertainty or possibility of future conflicting discoveries whatsoever?

> In any case, the evidence-based rejection that vaccines cause a specific harm is not equivalent to propaganda that they are harmless. The existence of the compensation program is an explicit acknowledgement that they are not harmless, as well as an easier route to compensation for games than exists for most drugs.

Scope expansion is an effective form of rhetoric (which some people classify as a form of propaganda in itself). Not saying this was intentional on your part, I tend to believe it is simply an innate/instinctual ability (System 1, in Thinking Fast and Slow parlance) of the subconscious. I am surely guilty of the same thing at times.

Also: how did you come to know what everyone working for the CDC knows?

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

#108

Post by Nasrudith » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #36

im3w1l wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Presented with evidence of something you find unpalatable you simply reject it outright purely on the basis you don't like it. I presented a case for why I think it is wrong. And I presented a case for why people have reason to push it despite it being wrong: it gives them more power. Considering peoples motivations is important, and when someone stands to gain we should be suspicious and have to go over everything…

I suppose I was a bit antagonistic in my post sorry, but if anything your observation supports the article's position. Why should facts exert only a slow, painstaking generational force on belief if people are actually rational? Surely it should have immediate effect? I really don't see what these researchers or journalists have to gain, beyond what they would gain from doing any research or journalism. I'm just not…

Why should facts exert a slow pull? In addition to any unknown constraints with neural mechanisms an overly high learning rate has been noted with neural networks as resembling schizophrenia in some ways. Plus whatvever physiological constraints limit how fast minds could change.

I suspect it effectively functions as minor anti-mindhacking measure as bizzare and dumb as it sounds. It would protect against adversarial input.

If there was no mental inertia then "false facts" which check out to all verification measures could prove quite dangerous as input which outweighs all past known could be easily exploited by bad actors to change what they "know" and exploit it from there.

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

#109

Post by Barrin92 » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #106

Barrin92 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's used by people on the losing side of elections to start complaining about "low information voters" with the subtext being "If only everyone was as clever as me and all my friends that think the same then [thing I disagree with] would never win elections." it's pretty backed up by evidence (and honestly attending a Trump ralley), that the average voter of Trump is less educated, much more prone to misinformatio…

> It's pretty backed up by evidence (and honestly attending a Trump ralley), that the average voter of Trump is less educated, much more prone to misinformation, and simply holds a ton of trivially wrong beliefs about the state of the world. This is just as true of your "average" Democrat. The "average" person is woefully misinformed about most things. It's probably safe to say that nearly everyone, myself and the ma…

It's not as true and there's actually been studies on the particular voter behaviour in 2016, and belief in 'fake news' (as in literally made up stuff) was a strong predictor of defection from the Democratic to the Republican ticket, and there's solid psychological evidence why this affects conservatives in particular[1]

It's also very trivial to see if you eyeball the size of the market for misinformation. While there are some highly partisan left-wing media in the US, and there were some facebook pages targetting say, Bernie voters it paled in the market for the Trump base, literally by a magnitude or so in revenue. Which I think is very obvious too if one looks at the size of the audiences of youtube channels attracting those audiences or people like Alex Jones.

NPR in 2016 actually did an interview with one such 'entrepreneur', who actually tried to sell fake news to virtually everyone, but had very little success with liberal audiences.[2]

[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/why-fake...

[2]https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/50...

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

#110

Post by war1025 » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #109

war1025 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's pretty backed up by evidence (and honestly attending a Trump ralley), that the average voter of Trump is less educated, much more prone to misinformation, and simply holds a ton of trivially wrong beliefs about the state of the world. This is just as true of your "average" Democrat. The "average" person is woefully misinformed about most things. It's probably safe to say that nearly everyone, myself and the ma…

It's not as true and there's actually been studies on the particular voter behaviour in 2016, and belief in 'fake news' (as in literally made up stuff) was a strong predictor of defection from the Democratic to the Republican ticket, and there's solid psychological evidence why this affects conservatives in particular[1] It's also very trivial to see if you eyeball the size of the market for misinformation. While the…

For one, the two articles you linked are from liberal media sources. Of course they are going to find fault with conservatives.

More importantly, just because conservatives are more likely to believe a certain form of fake news doesn't mean liberals are immune to being misled. All it means is that conservatives are motivated by different things than liberals, and will therefore latch on to a particular flavor of things that confirm their beliefs. Liberals love confirmation bias just as much as anyone.

Find any random person on the street and ask them to explain why they hold the views they do. You'll quickly find that opinions are based on emotion and backfilled later with plausible explanations.