Our analysis shows that the most important conservation actions across Australia are to retain and restore habitat, due to the threats posed by habitat destruction and . Instead of thinking about the argument as a battle where youre trying to win, reframe it in your mind so that you think of it as a partnership, a collaboration in which the two of you together or the group of you together are trying to figure out the right answer, she writes on theBig Thinkwebsite. Of the many forms of faulty thinking that have been identified, confirmation bias is among the best catalogued; its the subject of entire textbooks worth of experiments. Imagine, Mercier and Sperber suggest, a mouse that thinks the way we do. Weve been relying on one anothers expertise ever since we figured out how to hunt together, which was probably a key development in our evolutionary history. These short videos prompt critical thinking with middle and high school students to spark civic engagement. These groups thrive on confirmation bias and help prove the argument that Kolbert is making, that something needs to change. I have been sitting on this article for over a year. Comprehensive Youll find every aspect of the subject matter covered. Heres how the Dartmouth study framed it: People typically receive corrective informationwithin objective news reports pitting two sides of an argument against each other,which is significantly more ambiguous than receiving a correct answer from anomniscient source. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome. If you use logic against something, youre strengthening it.. And this, it could be argued, is why the system has proved so successful. When we are in the moment, we can easily forget that the goal is to connect with the other side, collaborate with them, befriend them, and integrate them into our tribe. How an unemployed blogger confirmed that Syria had used chemical weapons. Elizabeth Kolbert New Yorker Feb 2017 10 min. This is something humans are very good at. Once formed, the researchers observed dryly, impressions are remarkably perseverant.. As Julia Galef so aptly puts it: people often act like soldiers rather than scouts. The students were then asked to describe their own beliefs. When the handle is depressed, or the button pushed, the waterand everything thats been deposited in itgets sucked into a pipe and from there into the sewage system. In Kolbert's article, Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds, various studies are put into use to explain this theory. That's a really hard sell." Humans operate on different frequencies. This is what happened to my child who I did vaccinate versus my child who I didn't vaccinate.' . Gift a book. They can only be believed when they are repeated. (They can now count on their sidesort ofDonald Trump, who has said that, although he and his wife had their son, Barron, vaccinated, they refused to do so on the timetable recommended by pediatricians.). The students whod received the first packet thought that he would avoid it. It disseminates their BS. News is fake if it isn't true in light of all the known facts. As one Twitter employee wrote, Every time you retweet or quote tweet someone youre angry with, it helps them. Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. If the source of the information has well-known beliefs (say a Democrat is presenting an argumentto a Republican), the person receiving accurate information may still look at it asskewed. You take to social media and it stokes the rage. As a journalist,I see it pretty much every day. "I believe that ghosts don't exist." An inelegant phrase but it could be used. I have already pointed out that people repeat ideas to signal they are part of the same social group.