Elizabeth Kolbert's Article: Why Facts Don T Change Our Minds . When most people think about the human capacity for reason, they imagine that facts enter the brain and valid conclusions come out. Why Do Our Brains Love Fake News? | KQED Next thing you know youre firing off inflammatory posts to soon-to-be-former friends. Rioters joined there on false pretenses of election fraud and wanted justice for something that had no facts to back it up. Don't try to change someone's mind, do this instead - Anecdote For all the large-scale political solutions which have been proposed to salve ethnic conflict, there are few more effective ways to promote tolerance between suspicious neighbours than to force them to eat supper together. 5, Perhaps it is not difference, but distance that breeds tribalism and hostility. The students in the high-score group said that they thought they had, in fact, done quite wellsignificantly better than the average studenteven though, as theyd just been told, they had zero grounds for believing this. Analysis | Why fact-checking doesn't change people's minds Science reveals this isn't the case. Kolbert's popular article makes a good case for the idea that if you want to change someone's mind about something, facts may not help you. Rhetorical Analysis on "Why Facts Don't Change our Minds." Original writing included in the attachment 1000-1200 words 4- works cited preferably 85-90% mark Checklist for Rhetorical Analysis Essay After you have completed your analysis, use the checklist below to evaluate how well you have done. What is the main idea or point of the article? I would argue that while arguing against this and trying to prove to the readers how bad confirmation bias is, Kolbert succumbs to it in her article. I am reminded of Abraham Lincolns quote, I dont like that man. Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds - getAbstract She asks why we stick to our guns even after new evidence is shown to prove us wrong. While these two desires often work well together, they occasionally come into conflict. 9, If you want people to adopt your beliefs, you need to act more like a scout and less like a soldier. The Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker put it this way, People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs, so one function of the mind may be to hold beliefs that bring the belief-holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples, rather than beliefs that are most likely to be true. 2. Soldiers are on the intellectual attack, looking to defeat the people who differ from them. Growing up religious, the me that exists today is completely contradictory to what the old me believed, but I allowed myself to weigh in the facts that contracted what I so dearly believed in. A helpful and/or enlightening book that is extremely well rounded, has many strengths and no shortcomings worth mentioning. It disseminates their BS. Books we rate below 5 wont be summarized. A very good read. To change social behavior, change individual minds. They want to save face and avoid looking stupid. Half the students were in favor of it and thought that it deterred crime; the other half were against it and thought that it had no effect on crime. Its no wonder, then, that today reason often seems to fail us. Discover your next favorite book with getAbstract. Its 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 Im talking about. Such a mouse, bent on confirming its belief that there are no cats around, would soon be dinner. 2023 Cond Nast. When people would like a certain idea/concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. 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. Institute for Advanced Study Are you sure you want to remove the highlight? *getAbstract is summarizing much more than books. 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. Its something thats been popping up a lot lately thanks to the divisive 2016 presidential election. When youre at Position 7, your time is better spent connecting with people who are at Positions 6 and 8, gradually pulling them in your direction. They wanted to fit in so went along with the majority group, typical of normative social influence. The students whod been told they were almost always right were, on average, no more discerning than those who had been told they were mostly wrong. Cognitive Biases and Brain Biology Help Explain Why Facts Don't Change In a new book, "The Enigma of Reason" (Harvard), the cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber take a stab at answering this question. They were presented with pairs of suicide notes. The what makes a successful firefighter study and capital punishment study have the same results, one even left the participants feeling stronger about their beliefs than before. You already agree with them in most areas of life. The more you repeat a bad idea, the more likely people are to believe it. In their groundbreaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma. In other words, you think the world would improve if people changed their minds on a few important topics. You read the news; it boils your blood. Understanding the truth of a situation is important, but so is remaining part of a tribe. Why_Facts_Dont_Change_Our_Minds - Step 1: Read the New 2. Who is the audience that Kolbert is addressing? When it comes to the issue of why facts don't change our minds, one of the key reasons has to do with confirmation bias. Apparently, the effort revealed to the students their own ignorance, because their self-assessments dropped. Such a mouse, bent on confirming its belief that there are no cats around, would soon be dinner. Of course, news isn't fake simply because you don't agree with it. Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds The Beautiful Truth Can Carbon-Dioxide Removal Save the World. It led her to Facebook groups, where other moms echoed what the midwife had said. Stay up-to-date with emerging trends in less time. Sintelly - Learning has never been so fun and easy! Some real-life examples include Elizabeth Warren and Ronald Reagan, both of whom at one point in life had facts change their minds and switched which political party they were a part of one from republican to democrat and the other the reverse. Why you think youre right even if youre wrong by Julia Galef. However, the proximity required by a meal something about handing dishes around, unfurling napkins at the same moment, even asking a stranger to pass the salt disrupts our ability to cling to the belief that the outsiders who wear unusual clothes and speak in distinctive accents deserve to be sent home or assaulted. []. What might be an alternative way to explain her conclusions? But looking back, she can't believe how easy it was to embrace beliefs that were false. Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds : r/LouderWithCrowder But how does this actually happen? The New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert reviews The Enigma of Reason by cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, former Member (198182) in the School of Social Science: If reason is designed to generate sound judgments, then its hard to conceive of a more serious design flaw than confirmation bias. Imagine, Mercier and Sperber suggest, a mouse that thinks the way we do. In the case of my toilet, someone else designed it so that I can operate it easily. The act of change introduces an odd juxtaposition of natural forces: on one . Among the many, many issues our forebears didn't worry about were the deterrent effects of capital punishment and the ideal attributes of a firefighter. Let's Begin. They dont need to wrestle with you too. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. By using it, you accept our. From my experience, 1 keep emotions out of the exchange, 2 discuss, don't attack (no ad hominem and no ad Hitlerum), 3 listen carefully and try to articulate the other position accurately, 4 show . Even when confronted with new facts, people are reluctant to change their minds because we don't like feeling wrong, confused or insecure, writes Tali Sharot, an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience and author of The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others. If you negate a frame, you have to activate the frame, because you have to know what youre negating, he says. They cite research suggesting that people experience genuine pleasurea rush of dopaminewhen processing information that supports their beliefs. Insiders take Youll have the privilege of learning from someone who knows her or his topic inside-out. So she did. Get professional help and free up your time for more important things. Nor did they have to contend with fabricated studies, or fake hide caption. Almost invariably, the positions were blind about are our own. This Article Won't Change Your Mind: The facts on why facts alone can't A helpful and/or enlightening book, in spite of its obvious shortcomings. That meanseven when presented with factsour opinion has already been determinedand wemay actually hold that view even more strongly to fight back against the new information. This week on Hidden Brain, we look at how we rely on the people we trust to shape our beliefs, and why facts aren't always enough to change our minds.