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Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

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

#81

Post by erichocean »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #20

I'm reminded of Tetlock and Gardner's excellent book 'Superforecasting', which was essentially a study of people who consistently score at the top of prediction markets. One key thing that these 'superforecasters' had in common was that any new information caused them to update their model of the world, but none caused them to update it very much - typical people making predictions either didn't update their model or…

> We don't necessarily know what a new fact means

We also rarely even know if a "new fact" is actually true. So many studies don't replicate that it makes sense to hold off on updating core beliefs whenever "new facts" seem unlikely or in contradiction with previously known (and reliable) facts.

SSC had a nice article (now gone) that discussed this for a scientific theory that had literally hundreds of confirming studies done for it. All wrong. The "new facts" were bullshit. So even with tons of studies, it's reasonable to be skeptical in some situations.

It's also great that, eventually, science was able to figure out the "new facts" were bullshit. Yay, science. But it also means that people aren't being irrational when they don't immediately alter their fundamental beliefs while the ink is still dry, especially "new facts" that seem in contradiction with everything else we know…

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

#82

Post by michaelmrose »

im3w1l wrote: post #11

I really dislike this narrative that facts don't change our minds and we are all irrational. The thing is, truth does exert a pull on our beliefs. It's a slow force. It may take years for people to come around to it. Sometimes it even happens on a generational scale. But we are approaching the truth. Everything in history, and everything in our daily experience tells us this. A couple of experiments where researchers…

Generational shifts are literally driven by indoctrinating children in increasingly less stupid sets of beliefs in childhood as understood by minorities of experts in each field.

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

#83

Post by syrrim »

dlkf wrote: post #57

IMO the conclusion "facts don't change our minds" is a stronger conclusion than the first two experiments show. On my reading, the first two experiments show that: 1. if I have a uniform/undefined prior (how the fuck should I know how risky/conservative firefighters are?) 2. and then I'm given an anchor 3. and then told the anchor is bunk 4. the anchor still affects me But I suspect this hinges very heavily on the fa…

Why not? There are many strange facts in the world. Some of them are even true. It is very difficult, when recalling a strange facts, to remember whether it was one of the true ones or not. So naturally, things we've heard will tend to exert a pull, even if we later found out they were wrong.

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

#84

Post by michaelmrose »

im3w1l wrote: post #45
simonh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 only a slow, painstaking generational force on belief if people are actually rational? Surely it should have immediate effect? If you look at rational as a binary, then people aren't rational. But people are a little bit rational. Sufficiently rational, to eventually find the truth. I like the parallel with machine learning. Many, many bright minds have tried to formalize our intuitions into…

A small minority of people are rational enough to forge new truths in the face of conflicting and complicated information usually in a small narrowly focused way. A much larger minority is capable of digesting and making use of the work product of the former group in a productive way again within the scope of a broader but still narrow scope.

The majority is too stupid to make up their own minds and needs to be educated at a young age to accept the work product of prior generations experts because they are just too unintelligent to evaluate it for themselves. This is literally most people.

The fact that this is unpleasant doesn't make it untrue.

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

#85

Post by santoshalper »

im3w1l wrote: post #11

I really dislike this narrative that facts don't change our minds and we are all irrational. The thing is, truth does exert a pull on our beliefs. It's a slow force. It may take years for people to come around to it. Sometimes it even happens on a generational scale. But we are approaching the truth. Everything in history, and everything in our daily experience tells us this. A couple of experiments where researchers…

And even as the facts indicate that it is true, you will continue not to believe them. As you said, you dislike the narrative - whether it is true or not never really mattered to you, you just didn't like the implications.

You are doing a remarkably effective job at demonstrating this phenomenon.

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

#86

Post by eagsalazar2 »

im3w1l wrote: post #11

I really dislike this narrative that facts don't change our minds and we are all irrational. The thing is, truth does exert a pull on our beliefs. It's a slow force. It may take years for people to come around to it. Sometimes it even happens on a generational scale. But we are approaching the truth. Everything in history, and everything in our daily experience tells us this. A couple of experiments where researchers…

I think there is a more holistic POV here that resolves the tension you are worried about which is simply to accept that the beliefs people openly espouse are not what they actually believe, there is outward cognitive dissonance but inwardly people are making sense of the world in a fairly rational way that is consistent with their own goals and needs, not with objective/mathematically consistent reality. It only seems like irrational denial of facts because you incorrectly assume (a) you understand their needs and goals and (b) what they say they believe is about a position being objectively true or false and not a model of reality that works for them. If you want to "change people's minds" what you need to do is understand their needs and goals, how the most brutal version of "the truth" does or doesn't support those needs, and then "convince people" by creating coherent world views that are both "true" and allow them psychological coherence and safety (aka, +empathy and diplomacy).

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

#87

Post by santoshalper »

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.

He literally starts out describing it as a "narrative" and the first statement he makes is that he dislikes it. It is clear that he is not interested in finding out whether it is true, he simply doesn't like what it implies and is suspicious of the messenger. The actual argument against it is weak and really just reinforces it (it takes entire generations to come around on an issue - we know dude, that's what we're talking about!)

We are all doing this shit all the time. Denying it just gives it more power. Admitting you have biases that color every interaction at least gives you a fighting chance to examine them.

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

#88

Post by michaelmrose »

simonh wrote: post #69
ARandomerDude wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

It takes generations because it takes generations to indoctrinate new generations in the truths gleaned by a small minority of experts in various fields have learned. This isn't strong a indication that people are rational. It's more like indication that societies can magnify the gains of a minority of rational individuals to improve the position of all including the majority not smart enough to have made those gains.

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

#89

Post by eagsalazar2 »

dlkf wrote: post #57

IMO the conclusion "facts don't change our minds" is a stronger conclusion than the first two experiments show. On my reading, the first two experiments show that: 1. if I have a uniform/undefined prior (how the fuck should I know how risky/conservative firefighters are?) 2. and then I'm given an anchor 3. and then told the anchor is bunk 4. the anchor still affects me But I suspect this hinges very heavily on the fa…

Specific facts are orthogonal to the actual underlying positions held, which are presented outwardly as other positions for the sake of political cover, hence the illusion of facts not changing minds. What's needed is an understanding of the actual underlying, usually hidden, positions, then present facts to disrupt those positions.

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

#90

Post by bumby »

jbotz wrote: post #17
im3w1l wrote: post #11

I really dislike this narrative that facts don't change our minds and we are all irrational. The thing is, truth does exert a pull on our beliefs. It's a slow force. It may take years for people to come around to it. Sometimes it even happens on a generational scale. But we are approaching the truth. Everything in history, and everything in our daily experience tells us this. A couple of experiments where researchers…

> I really dislike this narrative that facts don't change our minds and we are all irrational. I don't think that is the real "narrative" here, although reading this article may make it seem like that. The "narrative", or rather the modern scientific understanding which this article tries to present to a lay audience, is that real rational thinking is not our default, even though it seems to us that way. But we can t…

> Study cognitive biases to become more aware of their effects on our thinking and hopefully "immunize" our mind against some of their effects.

I’m not sure this works. In fact, Daniel Khaneman has said in the into to “Thinking: Fast and Slow” that all his study into cognitive biases has led him to believe he’s powerless to stop them in himself, and still only able to recognize them in others

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