Facts are less useful than we think

That's really interesting and not all that surprising, sadly.

Self-fulfilling prophecy. This isn't exactly news.

If everyone believed in reexamining what they knew when they got new facts, then they'd be more useful. I try to do that all the time.

The problem is knowing what is fact and what is not.

People always look for evidence to support the belief they've always had...people don't look for things which contradict their present notions.

Zoombie said:

If everyone believed in reexamining what they knew when they got new facts, then they'd be more useful. I try to do that all the time.

The problem is knowing what is fact and what is not.

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If everybody re-evaluated every belief whenever a new fact was presented, we'd never do anything.

Beliefs are basically reliance on previous learning. If we encounter a new fact contrary to our previous learning, we reject it. When it supports it, we embrace it.

I think the wording in the article is instructive: "In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds."

I think it says more about trust (or lack of trust, rather) in the news reporting services than an ability to integrate new information. News reporting is now so partisan that few people trust them to report facts.

I change my mind based on new facts all the time. Never realised this was weird behaviour.

Romantic Heretic said:

Facts don't have a lot of effect on how people think. Belief seems to have a stronger hold on our minds.

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Well...yeah. How else would homeopathy, religion and so on continue to thrive?

Roger J Carlson said:

Beliefs are basically reliance on previous learning. If we encounter a new fact contrary to our previous learning, we reject it. When it supports it, we embrace it.

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Maybe *you* do.

When teaching critical thinking is of less importance to the education process than regurgitating what's found in the textbooks, obedience to authority, lemming-like response to peer pressure, and acquiesence to the worldview of the state, is it a condemnation of the people being educated, or of the system itself when they fail to become critical thinkers?

The weeks I'm currently spending with three (now five) teenagers have been eye-opening. And frightening.

I think we should spread the rumor that it's really possible to stop traffic with your beliefs, if you just have enough faith. It would do wonders for the gene pool.

Politics has much more in common with religion than with science. To quote a great '60's philosopher, "still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

JimmyB27 said:

Well...yeah. How else would homeopathy, religion and so on continue to thrive?

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I used to think that homeopathy was similar to herbal medicine and could be of some help in curing illness. Then I found out that homeopathic "medicines" have no active ingredients, and saw the studies that showed it to be no better than placebo. I now no longer believe in homeopathy.

I recommend Ben Goldacre's Bad Science for a crash course in critical thinking and media misinformation.

Don said:

When teaching critical thinking is of less importance to the education process than regurgitating what's found in the textbooks, obedience to authority,

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I have a fascinating book with that very title...

Don said:

lemming-like response to peer pressure, and acquiesence to the worldview of the state, is it a condemnation of the people being educated, or of the system itself when they fail to become critical thinkers?

The weeks I'm currently spending with three (now five) teenagers have been eye-opening. And frightening.

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You should blog about it, or write that up somewhere!

Don said:

I think we should spread the rumor that it's really possible to stop traffic with your beliefs, if you just have enough faith. It would do wonders for the gene pool.

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Oh, no, now we're in a nature-vs-nurture debate. I really think environment has a lot more effect than genetics on most people and their beliefs. In fact, your first statement/question suggests it's a learned response as opposed to genetic.

I can see how you'd think that would lead to the nature-vs-nurture debate, ben. I was actually referring more to the general intelligence level in the gene pool. Confusing side-track, I should have left it out.

In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs.

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I didn't see any other identifying details about the study while skimming the article. Without knowing the precise nature of the "corrected facts in news stories" that were presented to the "misinformed people," this information is nigh useless.

The article seems to emphasize facts in a political context, which is (at least in the US) a deliberately confused battlefield of pseudo-science and emotional appeal.

My guess is that the "facts" were things like clinical details of the abortion process, which jarred pro-lifers and debunked their disinformation-based opposition to it. Or the debunking of "Climategate," and the presentation of other data demonstrating climate change, which jarred those who insist climate change is myth. Etc.

In which case I'm not sure we're really discovering something new about the human mind, but rather that zealots will be zealots, true believers--true believers. In other words, people who hold strong opinions on a largely emotional, irrational basis, will not be swayed by reality. Was this ever in question?

The article itself seems to be a good example of sweeping psychological generalizations based on vague references to "science."

Leah Raeder said:

I didn't see any other identifying details about the study while skimming the article. Without knowing the precise nature of the "corrected facts in news stories" that were presented to the "misinformed people," this information is nigh useless.

The article seems to emphasize facts in a political context, which is (at least in the US) a deliberately confused battlefield of pseudo-science and emotional appeal.

My guess is that the "facts" were things like clinical details of the abortion process, which jarred pro-lifers and debunked their disinformation-based opposition to it. Or the debunking of "Climategate," and the presentation of other data demonstrating climate change, which jarred those who insist climate change is myth. Etc.

In which case I'm not sure we're really discovering something new about the human mind, but rather that zealots will be zealots, true believers--true believers. In other words, people who hold strong opinions on a largely emotional, irrational basis, will not be swayed by reality. Was this ever in question?

The article itself seems to be a good example of sweeping psychological generalizations based on vague references to "science."

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Agree. Well said.

Bu also, there's the issue of trust: when a supposed fact is "corrected," do we actually believe the correction, do we trust the source of that correction? The study makes an assumption about truth and the relationship of such to a given authority.

Roger J Carlson said:

If everybody re-evaluated every belief whenever a new fact was presented, we'd never do anything.

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This assumes that there is so much that needs doing, though Roger. I can well imagine that in the case of some people at least, we overcommit and make our own lives more complicated than what is in our best interest.

But I can agree with those upthread that said this study is suspect, and the points they made to that regard. So maybe my point is moot.

Roger J Carlson said:

I think it says more about trust (or lack of trust, rather) in the news reporting services than an ability to integrate new information. News reporting is now so partisan that few people trust them to report facts.

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And Bing-o was his name-o.

Roger J Carlson said:

If everybody re-evaluated every belief whenever a new fact was presented, we'd never do anything.

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Wait, so...I should be frozen in a state of catatonia?

All right, I can d

autumnleaf said:

...

I recommend Ben Goldacre's Bad Science for a crash course in critical thinking and media misinformation.

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Here's a recent and very pertinent article by him:
Yeah well you can prove anything with science
http://www.badscience.net/2010/07/yeah-well-you-can-prove-anything-with-science/

The classic paper on the last of those strategies is from Lord in 1979: they took two groups of people, one in favour of the death penalty, the other against it, and then presented each with a piece of scientific evidence that supported their pre-existing view, and a piece that challenged it. Murder rates went up, or down, for example, after the abolition of capital punishment in a state, or comparing neighbouring states, and the results were as you might imagine. Each group found extensive methodological holes in the evidence they disagreed with, but ignored the very same holes in the evidence that reinforced their views.

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This death penalty example brings up a point about so many political hot-potatoes: people tend to decide on such issues based on MORAL views, as opposed to practical issues and "facts" such as whether it will lower crime, the costs involved, etc. If you believe it's wrong for the State to kill a captured and defenseless person, it doesn't matter whether or not crimes might be deterred by the use of capital punishment.

Roger J Carlson said:

If everybody re-evaluated every belief whenever a new fact was presented, we'd never do anything.

Beliefs are basically reliance on previous learning. If we encounter a new fact contrary to our previous learning, we reject it. When it supports it, we embrace it.

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There's some balance between inhaling and digesting every new fact that comes along and sticking to one's previous learning no matter what. And I figure I don't have to hear about everything to find out something that might be important. Anything "new and exciting" that "I really need to hear" will probably eventually filter down, make its way through several news conduits and I'll hear about it soon enough.

I don't subscribe to every science journal (or actually any of them), but I like to read some of the latest stuff every once in a while. I don't read such sites every day or not always every week, but I find it interesting to scan over these every once in a while:
http://www.science.com/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/

There are more specialized sites I like to follow more closely:
http://www.robots.net/
http://singularityhub.com/

I like these things, especially those last two rather narrow-topic "aggregation" sites, as those who find and write about the stories tend to have good knowledge about what they're talking about, as opposed to general news reporters who believe modern findings and opposing views from, say, flat-earthers, should be given equal coverage as if either could equally be true.

Everything else I need to read shows up here on P&CE.

But really, the news media are horrible at reporting things. I've hear people say, trying to use this as a criticism of science, "one day science says eggs are good for you, next they say eggs are bad for you." Yeah, that can be confusing, but that's because reporters only skim the surface to create a headline and tell a story. If you go a little deeper you'll find that science has known for many decades that egg whites are very good for you as an excellent source of protein, and egg yolks are absolutely bad for you as a source of fat and cholesterol. It's easy enough for me to hard-boil eggs, separate and eat the whites, and give the yolks to the dogs.

If you LEARN enough, you won't be confused by the news, you'll just be annoyed by it.

Ah, the existential paradox. We define ourselves by our being/actions, and others define us by what they perceive.

FINALLY!

I hope all those people who disagree with me read this.

JimmyB27 said:

Originally Posted by Roger J Carlson
Beliefs are basically reliance on previous learning. If we encounter a new fact contrary to our previous learning, we reject it. When it supports it, we embrace it.

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Maybe *you* do.

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We all do. Let me expand.

There is an evolutionary benefit to beliefs. A belief is a generalization from specifics. You touch a hot surface and you build a belief that similar surfaces will also be hot. We learn things in many ways. Some from our own experience, some from indirect experience -- say from our elders. Experiences that support our beliefs reinforce the learning and the belief becomes stronger. Those that go against our learned experience (our beliefs) should be viewed with skepticism. As I said, if we re-evaluated at every new fact, we'd be paralyzed. Our beliefs allow us to navigate the world we live in.

All I meant was that holding onto beliefs is not a silly thing. Yes, we should be open to new information that contradicts our beliefs, but beliefs themselves are useful.

Roger J Carlson said:

We all do. Let me expand.

There is an evolutionary benefit to beliefs. A belief is a generalization from specifics. You touch a hot surface and you build a belief that similar surfaces will also be hot. We learn things in many ways. Some from our own experience, some from indirect experience -- say from our elders. Experiences that support our beliefs reinforce the learning and the belief becomes stronger. Those that go against our learned experience (our beliefs) should be viewed with skepticism. As I said, if we re-evaluated at every new fact, we'd be paralyzed. Our beliefs allow us to navigate the world we live in.

All I meant was that holding onto beliefs is not a silly thing. Yes, we should be open to new information that contradicts our beliefs, but beliefs themselves are useful.

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Meh. I don't believe it.

Roger J Carlson said:

You touch a hot surface and you build a belief that similar surfaces will also be hot.

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I touch a hot surface (say, an electric hob for example) and, yes, I build a belief that similair surfaces will be hot. But the next time I have a hankering to touch a similair electric hob, I won't simply adhere to my belief that it is hot. I will slowly move my hand closer in a fact finding mission to see if it is similairly hot. If I discover the fact that this hotplate is not, in fact, hot, I will quite happily go ahead with my compulsion to touch it.
Actually, come to think of it, I don't really work in 'beliefs'. I work in probabilities. If I touch one hot plate and it burns me, that increases the probability that the next one will be similairly hot, but it doesn't rule out the next one not being hot.