Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

[Storm]

Here is a great article that delves into Cognitive Science and illustrates some of the interesting things about Reason and Cognition. The Scientists in the article have some interesting theories about why Humans developed Reason and why people think the things they do. Its a good read if you're willing to take the time. One of the quotes I like:

 

 

Steven Sloman, a professor at Brown, and Philip Fernbach, a professor at the University of Colorado, are also cognitive scientists. They, too, believe sociability is the key to how the human mind functions or, perhaps more pertinently, malfunctions. They begin their book, “The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone” (Riverhead), with a look at toilets.

Virtually everyone in the United States, and indeed throughout the developed world, is familiar with toilets. A typical flush toilet has a ceramic bowl filled with water. When the handle is depressed, or the button pushed, the water—and everything that’s been deposited in it—gets sucked into a pipe and from there into the sewage system. But how does this actually happen?

In a study conducted at Yale, graduate students were asked to rate their understanding of everyday devices, including toilets, zippers, and cylinder locks. They were then asked to write detailed, step-by-step explanations of how the devices work, and to rate their understanding again. Apparently, the effort revealed to the students their own ignorance, because their self-assessments dropped. (Toilets, it turns out, are more complicated than they appear.)

Sloman and Fernbach see this effect, which they call the “illusion of explanatory depth,” just about everywhere. People believe that they know way more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people. In the case of my toilet, someone else designed it so that I can operate it easily. This is something humans are very good at. We’ve been relying on one another’s expertise ever since we figured out how to hunt together, which was probably a key development in our evolutionary history. So well do we collaborate, Sloman and Fernbach argue, that we can hardly tell where our own understanding ends and others’ begins.

“One implication of the naturalness with which we divide cognitive labor,” they write, is that there’s “no sharp boundary between one person’s ideas and knowledge” and “those of other members” of the group.

This borderlessness, or, if you prefer, confusion, is also crucial to what we consider progress. As people invented new tools for new ways of living, they simultaneously created new realms of ignorance; if everyone had insisted on, say, mastering the principles of metalworking before picking up a knife, the Bronze Age wouldn’t have amounted to much. When it comes to new technologies, incomplete understanding is empowering.

 

Where it gets us into trouble, according to Sloman and Fernbach, is in the political domain. It’s one thing for me to flush a toilet without knowing how it operates, and another for me to favor (or oppose) an immigration ban without knowing what I’m talking about. Sloman and Fernbach cite a survey conducted in 2014, not long after Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Respondents were asked how they thought the U.S. should react, and also whether they could identify Ukraine on a map. The farther off base they were about the geography, the more likely they were to favor military intervention. (Respondents were so unsure of Ukraine’s location that the median guess was wrong by eighteen hundred miles, roughly the distance from Kiev to Madrid.)

Surveys on many other issues have yielded similarly dismaying results. “As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding,” Sloman and Fernbach write. And here our dependence on other minds reinforces the problem. If your position on, say, the Affordable Care Act is baseless and I rely on it, then my opinion is also baseless. 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.

On a quick thought, this makes total sense. I do rely on others and their understanding of the world in order to make my world better or more convenient. But, I didn't think much about how that reliance also affected my thinking and why I have the beliefs/knowledge/understanding of the things I do. And it also explains why religion is so big a part of human life.

 

Any thoughts?

[Jeff]

This is why we still have a war on drugs

[LifeCycle]

This is why we still have a war on drugs

The fact is that the War on drugs is insanely profitable. It's the only reason it exists... The government doesn't truly care WTF you put into your own body. 

[Storm]

This is why we still have a war on drugs

This is true. A lot of common beliefs are held by people simply because they have an opinion. But just like the author stated in my quote above: "If your position on, say, the Affordable Care Act is baseless and I rely on it, then my opinion is also baseless. 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." Our media creates a lot of "baseless" information and beliefs. What happens from there is simply a product of Human evolution...

[LifeCycle]

Here is a great article that delves into Cognitive Science and illustrates some of the interesting things about Reason and Cognition. The Scientists in the article have some interesting theories about why Humans developed Reason and why people think the things they do. Its a good read if you're willing to take the time. One of the quotes I like:

 

 

Steven Sloman, a professor at Brown, and Philip Fernbach, a professor at the University of Colorado, are also cognitive scientists. They, too, believe sociability is the key to how the human mind functions or, perhaps more pertinently, malfunctions. They begin their book, “The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone” (Riverhead), with a look at toilets.

Virtually everyone in the United States, and indeed throughout the developed world, is familiar with toilets. A typical flush toilet has a ceramic bowl filled with water. When the handle is depressed, or the button pushed, the water—and everything that’s been deposited in it—gets sucked into a pipe and from there into the sewage system. But how does this actually happen?

In a study conducted at Yale, graduate students were asked to rate their understanding of everyday devices, including toilets, zippers, and cylinder locks. They were then asked to write detailed, step-by-step explanations of how the devices work, and to rate their understanding again. Apparently, the effort revealed to the students their own ignorance, because their self-assessments dropped. (Toilets, it turns out, are more complicated than they appear.)

Sloman and Fernbach see this effect, which they call the “illusion of explanatory depth,” just about everywhere. People believe that they know way more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people. In the case of my toilet, someone else designed it so that I can operate it easily. This is something humans are very good at. We’ve been relying on one another’s expertise ever since we figured out how to hunt together, which was probably a key development in our evolutionary history. So well do we collaborate, Sloman and Fernbach argue, that we can hardly tell where our own understanding ends and others’ begins.

“One implication of the naturalness with which we divide cognitive labor,” they write, is that there’s “no sharp boundary between one person’s ideas and knowledge” and “those of other members” of the group.

This borderlessness, or, if you prefer, confusion, is also crucial to what we consider progress. As people invented new tools for new ways of living, they simultaneously created new realms of ignorance; if everyone had insisted on, say, mastering the principles of metalworking before picking up a knife, the Bronze Age wouldn’t have amounted to much. When it comes to new technologies, incomplete understanding is empowering.

 

Where it gets us into trouble, according to Sloman and Fernbach, is in the political domain. It’s one thing for me to flush a toilet without knowing how it operates, and another for me to favor (or oppose) an immigration ban without knowing what I’m talking about. Sloman and Fernbach cite a survey conducted in 2014, not long after Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Respondents were asked how they thought the U.S. should react, and also whether they could identify Ukraine on a map. The farther off base they were about the geography, the more likely they were to favor military intervention. (Respondents were so unsure of Ukraine’s location that the median guess was wrong by eighteen hundred miles, roughly the distance from Kiev to Madrid.)

Surveys on many other issues have yielded similarly dismaying results. “As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding,” Sloman and Fernbach write. And here our dependence on other minds reinforces the problem. If your position on, say, the Affordable Care Act is baseless and I rely on it, then my opinion is also baseless. 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.

On a quick thought, this makes total sense. I do rely on others and their understanding of the world in order to make my world better or more convenient. But, I didn't think much about how that reliance also affected my thinking and why I have the beliefs/knowledge/understanding of the things I do. And it also explains why religion is so big a part of human life.

 

Any thoughts?

 Well, lots of people simply want to belong... If the group thinks a certain way and you want to be part of it, you too, must also think that way. It's all in how you prioritize... The interesting thing about this is on a subliminal level, we may place many things above absolute truth without even knowing it but yet at the same time, believe that truth is paramount. It all makes sense when you realize that truth isn't of the utmost importance for many.... For many, there's a multitude of reasons to think the way they do... And it really could be endless.

 

Edit: This article seems to be written from the perspective that truth is paramount to all of us and disregards the social aspect of dogma. Facts just aren't going to matter to someone who doesn't care about facts.

[Storm]

 

Here is a great article that delves into Cognitive Science and illustrates some of the interesting things about Reason and Cognition. The Scientists in the article have some interesting theories about why Humans developed Reason and why people think the things they do. Its a good read if you're willing to take the time. One of the quotes I like:

 

 

Steven Sloman, a professor at Brown, and Philip Fernbach, a professor at the University of Colorado, are also cognitive scientists. They, too, believe sociability is the key to how the human mind functions or, perhaps more pertinently, malfunctions. They begin their book, “The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone” (Riverhead), with a look at toilets.

Virtually everyone in the United States, and indeed throughout the developed world, is familiar with toilets. A typical flush toilet has a ceramic bowl filled with water. When the handle is depressed, or the button pushed, the water—and everything that’s been deposited in it—gets sucked into a pipe and from there into the sewage system. But how does this actually happen?

In a study conducted at Yale, graduate students were asked to rate their understanding of everyday devices, including toilets, zippers, and cylinder locks. They were then asked to write detailed, step-by-step explanations of how the devices work, and to rate their understanding again. Apparently, the effort revealed to the students their own ignorance, because their self-assessments dropped. (Toilets, it turns out, are more complicated than they appear.)

Sloman and Fernbach see this effect, which they call the “illusion of explanatory depth,” just about everywhere. People believe that they know way more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people. In the case of my toilet, someone else designed it so that I can operate it easily. This is something humans are very good at. We’ve been relying on one another’s expertise ever since we figured out how to hunt together, which was probably a key development in our evolutionary history. So well do we collaborate, Sloman and Fernbach argue, that we can hardly tell where our own understanding ends and others’ begins.

“One implication of the naturalness with which we divide cognitive labor,” they write, is that there’s “no sharp boundary between one person’s ideas and knowledge” and “those of other members” of the group.

This borderlessness, or, if you prefer, confusion, is also crucial to what we consider progress. As people invented new tools for new ways of living, they simultaneously created new realms of ignorance; if everyone had insisted on, say, mastering the principles of metalworking before picking up a knife, the Bronze Age wouldn’t have amounted to much. When it comes to new technologies, incomplete understanding is empowering.

 

Where it gets us into trouble, according to Sloman and Fernbach, is in the political domain. It’s one thing for me to flush a toilet without knowing how it operates, and another for me to favor (or oppose) an immigration ban without knowing what I’m talking about. Sloman and Fernbach cite a survey conducted in 2014, not long after Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Respondents were asked how they thought the U.S. should react, and also whether they could identify Ukraine on a map. The farther off base they were about the geography, the more likely they were to favor military intervention. (Respondents were so unsure of Ukraine’s location that the median guess was wrong by eighteen hundred miles, roughly the distance from Kiev to Madrid.)

Surveys on many other issues have yielded similarly dismaying results. “As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding,” Sloman and Fernbach write. And here our dependence on other minds reinforces the problem. If your position on, say, the Affordable Care Act is baseless and I rely on it, then my opinion is also baseless. 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.

On a quick thought, this makes total sense. I do rely on others and their understanding of the world in order to make my world better or more convenient. But, I didn't think much about how that reliance also affected my thinking and why I have the beliefs/knowledge/understanding of the things I do. And it also explains why religion is so big a part of human life.

 

Any thoughts?

 Well, lots of people simply want to belong... If the group thinks a certain way and you want to be part of it, you too, must also think that way. It's all in how you prioritize... The interesting thing about this is on a subliminal level, we may place many things above absolute truth without even knowing it but yet at the same time, believe that truth is paramount. It all makes sense when you realize that truth isn't of the utmost importance for many.... For many, there's a multitude of reasons to think the way they do... And it really could be endless.

 

Good points. I think the whole premise may rest on the fact that the human body works to become the most efficient it can at whatever process it is doing. I think this works for the brain too and how we think. Its hard to reason and think things through all the time , so our brains simply rely on the "community" thinking that humans do in order to be efficient at that particular process. If everyone thought about stuff all the time, would we have the time to do many of the things we would otherwise do? I don't know.

[LogicalFallacy]

On a quick thought, this makes total sense. I do rely on others and their understanding of the world in order to make my world better or more convenient. But, I didn't think much about how that reliance also affected my thinking and why I have the beliefs/knowledge/understanding of the things I do. And it also explains why religion is so big a part of human life.

 

Any thoughts?

I think this concept of have x understanding and relying on others to fill that understanding out ties into what BAA is talking with Dude about in regards to multiple truths make up a whole truth.

 

For example, very few of us go out and find out for ourselves if evolution is really true. We rely on the expertise of those scientist who do study evolution to support the theory. We then rely on our schools and university teachers and professors to relay that information to us. (Sorry Texas you might be a bit behind in this regard?)

 

How many of even our non beliefs do we rely on those who have gone before and actually read the ancient Hebrew/Greek? Can we truly know they are correct?

[LifeCycle]

 

On a quick thought, this makes total sense. I do rely on others and their understanding of the world in order to make my world better or more convenient. But, I didn't think much about how that reliance also affected my thinking and why I have the beliefs/knowledge/understanding of the things I do. And it also explains why religion is so big a part of human life.

 

Any thoughts?

I think this concept of have x understanding and relying on others to fill that understanding out ties into what BAA is talking with Dude about in regards to multiple truths make up a whole truth.

 

For example, very few of us go out and find out for ourselves if evolution is really true. We rely on the expertise of those scientist who do study evolution to support the theory. We then rely on our schools and university teachers and professors to relay that information to us. (Sorry Texas you might be a bit behind in this regard?)

 

How many of even our non beliefs do we rely on those who have gone before and actually read the ancient Hebrew/Greek? Can we truly know they are correct?

 

Not enough time in the world to verify to that extent. It's really crazy how much of our knowledge is based on "hearsay" isn't it? But there's no getting around it.