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Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

newyorker.com

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

#61

Post by danaris »

rafaelvasco wrote: post #40
RoutinePlayer wrote: post #31

According to 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

Oh that's a fact right there. Take any piece of evidence or information, if it is ridiculed too much or violently opposed, and has been for ages, but no one forgot it, then it's probably true or partially true.

Yep, this "round earth" nonsense that has had people ridiculing good honest flatworlders for generations will die out any minute!

Aaaaany minute....

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

#62

Post by abetusk »

Interesting read. They're basically proposing that our anti-rational behavior came out as a type of 'hyper-socialization'. I can believe it and, if true, would point to why things like changing the Overton window [1] and other mass public perception shifts change individual perception.

I don't think it's the only way to change peoples minds and I hesitate to dive into "just employ emotional reasoning" as that seems dangerous.

From personal experience, another effective way is to change people's minds is by giving them "skin in the game".

I've tried, over the years, to convince friends of the solution to the Monty Hall [2] problem. After explaining the solution and them either not believing it or not understanding it, I then play the game with them with 100 doors and revealing 98 after the first pick. Once this game is played a couple times, they understand the solution much more readily.

My take on this is that they suddenly have a personal stake in the game, even if it's weak. There's a personal cost that takes the form as social shame or loss aversion, even for a game that's played between friends with no money involved, that gives them a stake. Once they start wanting to actively avoid losing, they're much more willing to listen to reason.

The article points out that our anti-rational behavior is at odds with survival but I would bet there's a level of abstraction below which our survival minded rationality kicks in and above which we don't have enough of a stake in the answer to use our rationality to good effect.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

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

#63

Post by ghthor »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

First of all have all these psychological studies been replicated? Part of the reason, “facts” don’t change our mind is that a lot of “facts” aren’t really facts like physics, but are rather the result of statistical games. Finally, and I think the biggest issue is that a lot of facts rely on trust, since they are practically impossible for the average person to fully verify. And I think, for a variety of reasons, tr…

Do you believe that the vaccines contain mercury and aluminum and that those metals are causing problems in people who take that vaccines? Because that's a fact they contain those metals and they hurt people. I have a daughter who went from speaking to requiring 5 years of therapy to start speaking again. I not allowed to sue about that and no one in the medical establishment would acknowledge that the only cause of my daughters sickness could have been the vaccines. The medical establishment is a joke, I'm through with giving them any trust. There is propaganda about vaccines being harmless and it needs to end.

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

#64

Post by ghthor »

zzzcpan wrote: post #22
treeman79 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust is a big part of it. Facts are closely related to statistics. It’s possible to be both true and a complete lie at the same time. Abusive people will often use “facts” to control victims. You learn to be very mistrustful after awhile.

Facts is a loaded term here. Facts cannot rely on trust, those are called authoritative opinions, not facts. And opinions about vaccination are still just opinions, not facts. If you say, for example, that it's hazardous not to vaccinate, like the article does, it's not a fact, it's a judgement and advertising judgements is the essence of propaganda, it's basically the opposite of a fact, dystopian use of the word fa…

Thank you, this is a well balanced comment and it's highly valuable to have this type of viewpoint in our world.

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

#65

Post by danaris »

willvarfar wrote: post #8
baxtr wrote: post #2

Is that actually a fact?

I don't mean to be paranoid, but do you think the article might be misinformation in some study of the collective gullibility of the HN crowd?

Well, given that it was published in the New Yorker 3 years ago, it clearly wasn't written primarily for us.

Given that it is discussing the results of actual psychological studies (that I have seen talked about in a number of other places), it is vanishingly unlikely that it is in some way intended to study anyone's gullibility.

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

#66

Post by simonh »

rbecker wrote: post #60
simonh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has suggested humans are not capable of rationality, that's an absurd exaggeration. Clearly we are. The article even points out the scientific method as a valuable procedural tool we can use to help overcome the effects of biases, and suggests a method of self-reflection that has proved in studies to help obtain useful results. The better we understand those biases the better we are able to develop new approac…

> Nobody has suggested humans are not capable of rationality, that's an absurd exaggeration. It's the title of the article.

If articles could be distilled entirely down to titles, we wouldn't have articles. The authors are clearly not saying humans are incapable of rational thought, we're just not perfectly rational and in fact rational thinking can be surprisingly difficult for us, that's all. You know that, everybody who has read the article knows that whether they agree with the article or not, so why say this?

It's exactly this sort of hit and run straw man argument the article describes as being behind a lot of fallacious thinking. Scoring a 'hit' on an opponent, no matter how absurd or irrelevant, or how much it distorts the opponent's actual position, grants an immediate dopamine shot. It feels fantastic.

That's a really crucial part of the puzzle. It's why asking participants in a debate to first state the position of their opponent in their own words, but in terms their opponent accepts is accurate, before arguing against them is such a useful tool. It eliminates retorts based on knowing misrepresentations like this, which are a serious impediment to productive discourse.

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

#67

Post by noetic_techy »

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…

Exactly. Many times following the facts can paint BOTH sides as wrong, and those who espouse "follow the facts" often only mean "follow the facts I want you to follow and discard the rest".

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

#68

Post by rbecker »

simonh wrote: post #66
rbecker wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody has suggested humans are not capable of rationality, that's an absurd exaggeration. It's the title of the article.

If articles could be distilled entirely down to titles, we wouldn't have articles. The authors are clearly not saying humans are incapable of rational thought, we're just not perfectly rational and in fact rational thinking can be surprisingly difficult for us, that's all. You know that, everybody who has read the article knows that whether they agree with the article or not, so why say this? It's exactly this sort o…

The 'often' is missing not just from the title, but the entire article. It fails to draw any attention to the weaknesses or limited applicability of the experiments, and implies they're more universal, overstating their results.

I believe this is deliberate - "humans sometimes don't change their minds on some topics when given some types of new evidence" is uncontroversial, it generates few clicks, little argument. But "facts don't change our minds" (and nothing in the article text about the limitations of that statement), gets you a flame war with one side eager to embrace science, while the other struggles with the contradiction between the article and their own experience.

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

#69

Post by simonh »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #59
simonh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you like it or not has no bearing on whether it's true. In fact that's a confirmation bias right there. Presented with evidence of something you find unpalatable you simply reject it outright purely on the basis you don't like it. Personally I'd rather know. The point isn't that evidence has no power, it's that it has dramatically less power than most people think. However there are strategies for getting us…

You have the OP's causality chain backwards. OP: I dislike the claim because I reject the claim. Your version of OP: I reject the claim because I dislike the claim.

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 the claim, along the lines that humans aren't rational at all, which isn't there in the article.

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

#70

Post by simonh »

rbecker wrote: post #68
simonh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If articles could be distilled entirely down to titles, we wouldn't have articles. The authors are clearly not saying humans are incapable of rational thought, we're just not perfectly rational and in fact rational thinking can be surprisingly difficult for us, that's all. You know that, everybody who has read the article knows that whether they agree with the article or not, so why say this? It's exactly this sort o…

The 'often' is missing not just from the title, but the entire article. It fails to draw any attention to the weaknesses or limited applicability of the experiments, and implies they're more universal, overstating their results. I believe this is deliberate - "humans sometimes don't change their minds on some topics when given some types of new evidence" is uncontroversial, it generates few clicks, little argument. B…

The article is about studies, not individuals. At the study level, they are pretty much universal. The effect is so strong that at this point demonstrating it is a routine entry level task for first year psychology students (my mother did a degree in child psychology when I was a teenager so none of this is new to me).

I'm surprised at your last statement, my experience is very much in line with the article. Presumably you think you have rational, logical evidence based reasons for many of your opinions right? So how come so many people with opposing views are completely intractable to your arguments? You must have noticed this. So either the subset of humanity that agrees with you on any given topic is all purely rational and objectively correct and all the rest are either up to no good or crazy, or theres something else going on. That's all this article is actually pointing out.

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