The grand social media experiment and formal psychological studies are showing the profound human tendency to prefer existing belief systems over being accurate and correct. Most frustrating is the tendency to engage in motivated reasoning to defend a position rather than alter one’s position to best accommodate existing scientific facts. The specific mechanisms that people use to maintain their desired beliefs include: incorporating unfalsifiable elements such as moral opinions, subjective judgments, or stating that the phenomenon is not amenable to scientific investigation; dismissing evidence by attacking the messenger as being a shill; invoking conspiracies of “Big” whatever or government malfeasance; cherry picking evidence or experts; naked cynicism; or denying the role of science itself in addressing such issues. The authors of the recent paper conclude that: …in a world where beliefs and ideas are becoming more easily testable by data, unfalsifiability might be an attractive aspect to include in one’s belief systems, and how unfalsifiability may contribute to polarization, intractability, and the marginalization of science in public discourse. This seems like a reasonable concern, and may be the unanticipated dark side of the vast increase in access to information afforded by the internet. In the past simple ignorance was enough to shield one’s belief system from refutation. Up until 20 years ago, if I was engaged in a discussion with a believer in homeopathy, for example, I could state that the evidence shows homeopathy does not work, and they could state the evidence shows it does work. Unless one of us was walking around with review articles in our pocket, that would be the end of it. Today if you state an incorrect fact, it is highly likely that someone will provide one or more links to references that refute the incorrect fact, or even shove a smartphone in your face with the correct information. This encourages the development of skills that can be used to dismiss facts and the legitimacy of a specific science or science in general. Conspiracy theories, witch hunts, and sophisticated nonsense is therefore also on the rise to counter the threat that the ready availability of facts presents to belief systems. The ironic result is that access to facts may have a polarizing effect, rather than resolving differences. One possible solution is to teach critical thinking skills to help more individuals transcend this evolved tendency to dig in one’s ideological heels. This is a long and difficult process, of course, but we will continue to push that boulder up the hill.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:08:23 +0000
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