Given Truth, the Misinformed Believe Lies More 961
SharpFang writes "In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that misinformed people, particularly political partisans, rarely changed their minds when exposed to corrected facts in news stories. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger."
Old science. What does this add? (Score:3, Interesting)
Right (Score:3, Interesting)
I know this is Idle but there's been a lot of articles related to how people think lately. Myself, I'm perfectly okay with people having different viewpoints. Even outright wrong ones. Why should I care about it? So there are people that think their party is infallible and fall for the party talking points. Nothing new really and understanding it doesn't really change much. I can't really use this information beyond what I think are some common sense rules about people in general.
Diversity is part of humanity. Who's to say where the next great change will come from? Logical thinking is not the end-all be-all for human prosperity.
As a wise man once said - let them live.
Re:This study is nothing but Communist propaganda (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. To quote Jon Stewart, to Bill O'Reilly, "You're the sanest voice on this entire network. And that's a little scary sometimes."
Re:No surprise... (Score:3, Interesting)
To be honest I am surprised that on Slashdot this article hasn't resulted in a full-blown trash-the-conservatives-fest. I'm impressed actually... perhaps the group here has matured. Although I am considering that the perceived difference is due to the fact that the 10:00AM EST Slashdot is different from the 4:00PM EST Slashdot.
In any case, reading through the article I found that it was a nice conversation, but really didn't tell us much of what we don't already know: people are social animals, and love to congregate in tight, defensive groups. In politics, this often means that they adopt a wholesale party line, without either thinking about the facts involved, or considering each tenet independently (what does denying gays the right to receive the benefits of marriage have to do with a policy of financial conservatism, that at this point exists only as a hypothetical construct?).
On the other side of the political spectrum, I've repeatedly seen those who identify with the liberal ideology come up with varying excuses for restricting gun ownership, who became rather aggressive when confronted with statistics about the level of violent crime among legal firearm owners.
I'm not even going to get started on the 9/11-Truth or Vaccines-Autism movements, because they attract the deeply delusional, but extremely aggressive and assertive members of the population.
Unfortunately I think that within the last 15 years I have seen this behavior worsen significantly, as the Internet has made it possible for people to interact exclusively with those who share their delusions, no matter how inane and obscure. As such, they can keep bouncing between the various websites and forums that support their point of view until it is so firmly cemented in their consciousness, that even when faced with overwhelming facts, they absolutely refuse to accept reality.
The only way we would be able to reverse this trend, is through educating the new generation about rational skepticism and the scientific method. Unfortunately, many of the deeply deluded members of my own political party (sigh... the party I joined in order to have a say in which candidates get through the primaries) have decided that a scientific education would be immoral for the children, while the other party has decided that it would be too hard. As a result, I can only see the current divides getting deeper, and the political spectrum becoming even more polarized than it is right now.
Re:This study is nothing but Communist propaganda (Score:1, Interesting)
That's why I'm a proponent of the Comic Sans Sarcastic font, or at the very least, a sarcastimoticon, such as :|
( :| = deadpan )
Re:Old science. What does this add? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is where American politics gets weird. The party that proports to be populist is on the wrong side of public opinion for almost all the one-issue voters: guns, abortion, gay rights, creationism, etc. etc. I guess the exception was the Iraq War, but as a issue that had the poer to decide a vote, it had a shelf life of about 18 months, whereas for the right guns and abortion have been going strong for decades.
Re:Right (Score:1, Interesting)
'Ignorance is claiming Obama isn't an American because he's never shows his birth certificate even though Hawaii has repeatedly indicated they do not give out copies of such. They only give Certificates of Live Birth, similar to what other states do."
You mean to tell me they can't make an exception for the president? It would really put all of the questioning to rest if he showed it. It just seems strange to me that he won't.
This sounds correct (Score:1, Interesting)
"The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world." -- Adolf Hitler
Of course he was in the business of lies, being a master politician, lying right up to the very end, when the Germans swore they were on the verge of unleashing secret weapons that would change the course of the war. Because the Fuhrer told them so. Few people knew that in fact he had ordered everything burned and destroyed behind the retreating armies.
But on the subject of truth and lies, Hitler never started World War II, either. Britain and France had decided that Germany had to be taken down long before the actual Polish invasion. In fact Chamberlain said, in May 1939 "the fate of Poland depends on the final outcome of the war, which will depend on our ability to defeat Germany rather than to aid Poland at the beginning.". I'm not saying Hitler was a good guy. Like Napoleon before him, he was not. Nor is anyone who carelessly throws men's lives away. But like Napoleon, Hitler was manipulated into a corner and forced to yield. And, like Napoleon, he decided to fight his way out instead.
And on the side of the allies, I can understand that dealing with Hitler in 1939 was probably a much wiser decision than starting a war with Hitler in 1944. Germany was not at all ready for all out war in 1939 or 1940 and its major victories were mostly due to the complete strategic incompetence of their opponents. The famed and feared "Blitzkrieg" was not a doctrine, but invented on the fly during the French invasion. Commanders (Rommel included) regularly disobeyed orders and often entire divisions weren't where they were supposed to be. The tanks used were earlier Czech models because the German tanks had severe transmission problems. Their engines/gearboxes were incapable of dealing with the heavier armor. Had the Germans had 5 more years of uninterrupted research and production, training for their conscript, and slave labor for their factories, they would have been far tougher to defeat. Such a boost to production cannot be expected on the Allied side, because the allies only made a huge effort when they realized how quickly European nations were falling under the jack boot, and how close they were to losing.
"The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa. " -- George Orwell
Re:Because... (Score:3, Interesting)
The point is you may still think Israel was wrong but don't you want ALL the facts available? Yet just this morning I heard a recap of the events where they left out those very important facts. Rewriting history by leaving out facts is morally and ethically wrong and yet that is what the Mainstream Media do all the time.
Re:Be that as it may (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree.
The problem is that critical thinking is learned, not automatic. Shouting facts on to people's ears won't develop critical thinking, it'll just put them in a defensive position.
From what I can tell, critical thinking comes usually from the people you were raised with - parents, teachers, friends, etc.
It seems in the UK there are Critical Thinking classes offered to 16- to 18-year-olds. Although I find it to be too late for many people, it seems a step in the right direction.
I have no idea how well it works, though.
Re:This study is nothing but Communist propaganda (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess that you didn't see where they said "political partisans"?
Take a look in the mirror dude. It is the same on both sides.
My rule of thumb. Never trust anybody that has a political bumper sticker on their car or claims to be a "supporter".
To give you an example from the other side. I didn't like Obama's space policy before the election. I still don't. When I showed people his policy they said that it wasn't so. When I showed it to them on his own website they said that they are sure he wouldn't do it.
When I told the same partisan that it was a Republican president and not Kennedy that put forth not just the first but the first and second Civil Rights acts I was again called a liar. When I showed him that it was true and showed him that by percentage more Republicans supported Kennedy's Civil Rights reforms than Democrats did he went into a fit of rage!
By the way my point was that one shouldn't support or vote for parties but individuals. I was trying to show that that there are good people as well as scum in both parties.
You how ever are every bit as much of the problem as the people you dislike so much. Two sides of the same coin.
And I do not like Presidents Obama's space policy. His health care reforms are not terrible but he didn't do enough about drug costs. His energy policy is a nightmare. I do not think he is a good president.
But he was born in Hawaii and what people seem to forget is it doesn't matter if he wasn't!
You do not have to be born on US soil to be born a US citizen. If one of you parents is a US citizen you are a US citizen!
If not then any US living abroad for work, school, or military service that has a child would have issues!
That isn't the way it works so no it doesn't matter even if he wasn't born in Hawaii.
And being a Muslim doesn't mean you can not be president. Just as being Catholic, Mormon, or Jewish means you can not be a US president.
So there!
Political opinion set by how timid a kid you were. (Score:5, Interesting)
It would sound like the perfect troll: find out how timid a kid was at age 3, that tells you how conservative he'll be at 23.
As it goes, it's completely backed up by research [psychologytoday.com]. And the researchers weren't looking for that info, it just sat there in the data.
In 1969, Berkeley professors Jack and Jeanne Block embarked on a study of childhood personality, asking nursery school teachers to rate children's temperaments.
They weren't even thinking about political orientation. And why would they? They're psychology professors researching personality theory, personality development, research methodology, and stuff like that.
Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects' childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. Why? Who knows. Maybe for craps and giggles. Maybe because they had a column blank on their spreadsheet and wanted to fill it with one more metric to see if there was a link between voting and eating the erasers on the tops of pencils.
What was interesting to them was the arresting patterns they found.
As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient.
People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3.
Don't forget: the Blocks had NO IDEA what political affiliation any of the three year-olds would have when they did the survey in 1969. But go forward twenty years, and there it is. Everything that people say they want their kids to be: kids just like that became Libs. Everything that makes short-tempered parents scream and beat their kids: future applicants for a CPAC pass and an EIB golf shirt request on the Christmas list.
The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics. The article doesn't say if Professor N.S.Sherlock lit his pipe and smiled knowingly to himself upon hearing the results, but I wouldn't die of surprise if it happened.
Pure science: sometimes, the truth just hurts. Especially if you've been easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable all your life.
B.F Skinner (Score:3, Interesting)
It's my contention that most of the mundane daily rituals we humans perform, (including what we choose to read), are initially developed in the same manner.
Re:No surprise... (Score:3, Interesting)
have you EVER seen a negative comment about bush on fox ? or a positive about obama on fox ? ...
I have certainly seen negative comments about obama on msnbc
Re:Because... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet just this morning I heard a recap of the events where they left out those very important facts. Rewriting history by leaving out facts is morally and ethically wrong and yet that is what the Mainstream Media do all the time.
I'm not sure what you mean by mainstream media but I was aware of all of those facts. All too often the distinction between mainstream media and other media is a false one predicated on whether one agrees with the coverage and that's why I ask. For example, some people do not consider FOX News to be mainstream media but it's the most popular news station on television. Obviously that's absurd...
Re:This study is nothing but Communist propaganda (Score:4, Interesting)
... he's just an entertainer like any other news or talk media figure.
Then there's the case of Jon Stewart, who keeps reminding people that he's a professional comedian, and still so many people treat him as a serious journalist. The same thing happens repeatedly to his other people. No matter that they identify themselves as being from Comedy Central, their interviewees still often take them seriously.
It's all part of why the folks who do satire and parody keep saying how difficult their job is, especially when Real World people keep doing things that are even crazier than anything they'd dare write as comedy.
Re:This study is nothing but Communist propaganda (Score:5, Interesting)
In the end, the only difference between the educated and the uneducated with regards to facts is the source of their beliefs.
Absolutely nobody has time to research everything they accept as factual, which means that they have to accept on trust.
The educated ideally have a system by which that trust can operate effectively. One part is the scientific method, the other part is peer review. We delegate bullshit detection to specialists in the appropriate fields.
The problem with this is that many specialists are, these days, financed by special interest groups who want specific answers to be asserted as true whether or not they actually are. Even if this had no actual impact (it actually does but that is unimportant), it destroys the entire web of trust.
If there is no web of trust that you can feel safe in relying on, then you have no alternative but to use the method used by the uneducated, which is to opt in to the mob mentality.
This is because the human condition will not permit a void. Where there is a gap in awareness, the brain will fill it with something. Anything. The brain abhors a void far more than nature ever did.
If you can delegate awareness (be it to some system, some radio station, some religion, or some political belief), then the void is filled by that system. You don't have to know the answer as you have assigned the problem of knowing elsewhere.
In the case of the scientific method and peer review, this substitution actually works remarkably well - provided there is no failure within that system.
In the case of religion, etc, the substitution has some value in that it permits an uninformed society to function. We could never have developed civilization without such a substitution. It may not be the only reason for religion to have existed, but it is definitely a function religion served.
(Even in the early days of civilization, delegation to superstition was essential. The Hippocratic Oath was a splendid method of creating a codified standard of conduct and a method of enforcement in a society that neither understood standards nor recognized enforcement. Modern society also lacks these, but also lacks any backbone for the Hippocratic Oath, hence the abuse of medicine.)
Those who do not delegate anything and try to be totally self-reliant -- bad mistake. Those who don't end up addicts end up schizophrenic. It is a factor in why I reject utterly the popular American ideal of the self-reliant person. The people who actually achieve such an ideal do so by entering the nuthouse or the grave. Doesn't sound very ideal to me.
Re:This study is nothing but Communist propaganda (Score:3, Interesting)
That's nonsense. Power is not at all scarce. I am far more powerful than the middle class people when America was founded; yet so is the American government. Our power has grown for both, and to great effect. A powerful, centralized government has delivered a wonderfully happy and productive life to Americans. It isn't perfect, but it's way better than extremely small or extremely limited government would have been. I make that conclusion by comparing our medium-size government to small-size governments in places like Africa or Afghanistan. Three cheers for continued American moderation, medium-sized government, medium-rate taxes, and hopefully a return to moderate politics!
So basically everything you said is premised on a view of the world which, despite having tried, I just can't see. The country just isn't how you seem to think it is.
Re:This study is nothing but Communist propaganda (Score:4, Interesting)
Fascist doesn't mean ruling by corporations. The economic component to fascism is underdeveloped and relatively nonspecific - trying to reduce it to that gives you a notion of fascism that's almost empty. Fascism is more of an attempt to use nationalism and a myth of peoples to reject rationalism and use a spirit of the people to achieve greatness. It never said much about economic policy ; its only real commitment is to a strangely warped version of conservativism. Unlike the socialists who were trying to sweep across europe and throw off old oppressive social structures, fascists didn't really have a clear idea where they were going, they just had this idea of reclaiming the greatness of the roman empire.. somehow, and fighting off the socialist movements. It'd probably be best to consider fascism to be a state of mind - an ambition and delusion that desires to be shared by an entire injured society on its way "up".
Interesting study facts (Score:3, Interesting)
The study:
1. was done by professors at UC:Berkeley, an institution known for promoting left-wing points of view and squelching others.
2. was performed by a married couple; therefore it is unlikely that a serious evaluation of study shortcomings would have been performed by those guiding the study.
3. used 100 toddlers in the San Francisco Bay area. This is an incredibly small and narrow sample to draw such broad conclusions.
4. relies on the evaluations of a school teacher as to the state of mind and social attitude of a 3-year-old; no psychological professional ever did an actual review.
5. relies on 3-year-olds being in school (day care), as public school does not exist for 3-year-olds. This will taint the randomness of the sample with social and economic influences.
Re:This study is nothing but Communist propaganda (Score:3, Interesting)
This is because the human condition will not permit a void. Where there is a gap in awareness, the brain will fill it with something. Anything. The brain abhors a void far more than nature ever did.
This is no reason to resort to idiocy (or mob mentality as you call it), you can just stick a placeholder in your brain that says, "I am not sure about this point right now, if it becomes important or if I get time I will do further research." Think of knowledge as a starcraft/warcraft map, where there are parts that are black because you haven't investigated them yet. Learn to distinguish between things you've investigated briefly, things you are quite sure of, and things you really don't know about. This is what good scientists do, and it serves them well.
It is a factor in why I reject utterly the popular American ideal of the self-reliant person.
The idea of a self-reliant person (ok, everyone has their own idea, but this is one that works) is that you produce as much as you consume. We can specialize and distribute tasks to various people in a reliant network, that doesn't mean you are not self-reliant. If you are consuming more than you produce, then you are a parasite. Try to not be a parasite. Being self-reliant doesn't mean you need to go start a ranch in the middle of nowhere and grow your own corn.
Re:What's the solution? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This study is nothing but Communist propaganda (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you just making up definitions or is that Beckian? Glenn Beck has been railing against progressives so I'll guess the latter.
The definition of progressive is really simple, it just isn't anything that you think: progressives believe that society can be improved for all through organized action, including government policy.
Liberals are people who value personal liberty, the rights and well being of the individual person.
Conservatives are people who place importance on laws, tradition and hard learned lessons.
The kind of person your describing might be properly called a Statist, or even Authoritarian.
So the Iraq war for instance, killed tens of thousands of innocent people, so it's not liberal, violated national and international law, had not prospect of completing it's objectives, and was a stupid move, so it's not conservative, and it's not progressive because it destroyed a whole chunk of society, but it's surely statist.
Gun control ain't liberal, it's not conservative, but it is statist and progressive (if it really improves society).
Social action to end segregation was liberal, wasn't conservative, was anti-statist, but was still progressive.