Partisanship Undermines Our Basic Reasoning Skills

http://www.alternet.org/media/most-depressing-discovery-about-brain-ever?paging=off


Part of the message is hidden for the guests. Please log in or register to see it.

Br. John wrote: People who thought WMDs were found in Iraq believed that misinformation even more strongly when they were shown a news story correcting it.

this explains a lot.

This is relevant to some current discussions. It's relevant period.

It's easier read at http://www.alternet.org/media/most-depressing-discovery-about-brain-ever?paging=off and when you get there click print for a clean black on white wide screen view.

"Say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, media literacy or reason can provide the tools and information that people need in order to make good decisions. It turns out that in the public realm, a lack of information isn’t the real problem. The hurdle is how our minds work, no matter how smart we think we are. We want to believe we’re rational, but reason turns out to be the ex post facto way we rationalize what our emotions already want to believe."

If you consider perception as an inference because what we already know influences what we perceive, and inferences are updated when they no longer explain sensory input leading prediction error to drive new learning; then perhaps when prediction error is low, what we (think we) know modifies what we perceive.... and when prediction error is high, what we perceive modifies what we (thought we) knew. So keep an open mind!!!

Is here someone else who is disgusted by that anti-educational implication saying something along the lines of "stop trying making people smarter for that'll make them stupider"? Its not that I haven't encountered close-minded people who went out of the conversation even dumber than they went in, but wouldn't I be supportive of that intentional stupidity if I didn't try anything against it? Its not a big thing to follow down that slippery slope to say that if children believe the horizon was the edge of the world, we better not tell them it isn't.

I don't know if the studies' unfalsifiable results are correct or not, but I think they should not be taken into account, if they were. The anti-intellectualistic implications are pretty evidently harmful to society.

Group-think (or what I like to call zombie-think) is a dangerous thing. People do astounding things that they would NEVER do if it wasn't being done by those around them that hold importance in their psyche. Just take the Nazi's as an example. Many of the atrocities were caused by people that could have been my family members and neighbors and, trust me, they're the epitome of middle-class America. They aren't racist, violent, and even donate to good causes but in a Nazi takeover I guarantee you that people like them would become some of the most rabid anti-Semitic war-mongers out there.

It all just goes to show that there is a very thin line between normalcy and complete insanity.

Gisteron wrote: Is here someone else who is disgusted by that anti-educational implication saying something along the lines of "stop trying making people smarter for that'll make them stupider"? Its not that I haven't encountered close-minded people who went out of the conversation even dumber than they went in, but wouldn't I be supportive of that intentional stupidity if I didn't try anything against it? Its not a big thing to follow down that slippery slope to say that if children believe the horizon was the edge of the world, we better not tell them it isn't.

I don't know if the studies' unfalsifiable results are correct or not, but I think they should not be taken into account, if they were. The anti-intellectualistic implications are pretty evidently harmful to society.

I don't see them saying not to try. They're saying that making a good argument with compelling facts is often (against all common sense) not enough. Google some articles by Dan Ariely, a professor at Duke University. He's an expert on irrationality.

So does this explain why people get so defensive when you crticize capitalism?

Or why you get defensive and make childish comments like these because people don't criticize it, and can in fact appreciate it?

Khaos wrote: Or why you get defensive and make childish comments like these because people don't criticize it, and can in fact appreciate it?

It was a serious question. I guess it might seem childish, depending on your basic reasoning skills and whether they're being undermined by a partisan belief.