Category: reason

“Why facts don’t matter to Trump’s supporters” and “Why Bernie Sanders is Actually Winning”

August 6, 2016

Though it’s easy to pick on Donald Trump and his supporters, this cognitive bias is evident in humans in general and we see it in various situations. Below is one article and below that is an amusing video mocking Bernie Sanders supporters.

“Graves’s article examined the puzzle of why nearly one-third of U.S. parents believe that childhood vaccines cause autism, despite overwhelming medical evidence that there’s no such link. In such cases, he noted, “arguing the facts doesn’t help — in fact, it makes the situation worse.” The reason is that people tend to accept arguments that confirm their views and discount facts that challenge what they believe.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-facts-dont-matter-to-trumps-supporters/2016/08/04/924ece4a-5a78-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Two articles on why we have trouble adopting new ideas

August 2, 2016

Why bad ideas refuse to die

“They may have been disproved by science or dismissed as ridiculous, but some foolish beliefs endure. In theory they should wither away – but it’s not that simple”

“Many ideas have been brilliantly upgraded or repurposed for the modern age, and their revival seems newly compelling. Some ideas from the past, on the other hand, are just dead wrong and really should have been left to rot. When they reappear, what is rediscovered is a shambling corpse. These are zombie ideas. You can try to kill them, but they just won’t die. And their existence is a big problem for our normal assumptions about how the marketplace of ideas operates.

“The phrase “marketplace of ideas” was originally used as a way of defending free speech. Just as traders and customers are free to buy and sell wares in the market, so freedom of speech ensures that people are free to exchange ideas, test them out, and see which ones rise to the top. Just as good consumer products succeed and bad ones fail, so in the marketplace of ideas the truth will win out, and error and dishonesty will disappear.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/28/why-bad-ideas-refuse-die?mc_cid=1e136768f2&mc_eid=34e2887073

Personal beliefs versus scientific innovation: getting past a flat Earth mentality

“Almost by definition, the most important and innovative scientific findings often go against people’s existing beliefs. If research that conforms to personal beliefs is favored, then any research that is based on new ideas runs the risk of being passed over. It takes a leap to imagine a round Earth when everyone’s always believed it to be flat.”

https://theconversation.com/personal-beliefs-versus-scientific-innovation-getting-past-a-flat-earth-mentality-58842?mc_cid=1e136768f2&mc_eid=34e2887073

The limits of intellectual reason in our understanding of the natural world

July 30, 2016

“This overreliance on science and reason makes it difficult to communicate with the general public. It also blinds us to the full scope of the issues we now face, which can be fully grasped only through the emotional, cultural, ethical and spiritual perspectives on the world.”

“Finally, scientific reason seeks to explain all phenomena through words and numbers. And yet there are many experiences that defy articulation; classical pianists or professional athletes often have great difficulty verbalizing the essence of their experience when they are perfecting their craft.”

https://theconversation.com/the-limits-of-intellectual-reason-in-our-understanding-of-the-natural-world-60080?mc_cid=1e136768f2&mc_eid=34e2887073

Are GMOs safe? Yes. The case against them is full of fraud, lies, and errors.

July 17, 2016

“GMO labels won’t clear this up. They won’t tell you whether there’s Bt in your food. They’ll only give you the illusion that you’ve escaped it. That’s one lesson of the Non-GMO Project, whose voluntary labels purport to give you an “informed choice” about what’s in your food.”

“That’s the fundamental flaw in the anti-GMO movement. It only pretends to inform you. When you push past its dogmas and examine the evidence, you realize that the movement’s fixation on genetic engineering has been an enormous mistake. The principles it claims to stand for—environmental protection, public health, community agriculture—are better served by considering the facts of each case than by treating GMOs, categorically, as a proxy for all that’s wrong with the world. That’s the truth, in all its messy complexity. Too bad it won’t fit on a label.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/07/are_gmos_safe_yes_the_case_against_them_is_full_of_fraud_lies_and_errors.html?wpsrc=sh_all_tab_tw_top

Stop Saying ‘I Feel Like’

May 2, 2016

“The imperfect data that linguists have collected indicates that ‘I feel like’ became more common toward the end of the last century. In North American English, it seems to have become a synonym for “I think” or “I believe” only in the last decade or so. Languages constantly evolve, and curmudgeons like me are always taking umbrage at some new idiom. But make no mistake: “I feel like” is not a harmless tic. George Orwell put the point simply: “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” The phrase says a great deal about our muddled ideas about reason, emotion and argument — a muddle that has political consequences.

“Natasha Pangarkar, a senior at Williams College, hears “I feel like” “in the classroom on a daily basis,” she said. “When you use the phrase ‘I feel like,’ it gives you an out. You’re not stating a fact so much as giving an opinion,” she told me. “It’s an effort to make our ideas more palatable to the other person.'”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/sunday/stop-saying-i-feel-like.html

Overreacting to Terrorism?

March 29, 2016

“The basic problem is this: The human brain evolved so that we systematically misjudge risks and how to respond to them. Our visceral fear of terrorism has repeatedly led us to adopt policies that are expensive and counterproductive, such as the invasion of Iraq.”

Opinion vs facts: why do celebrities so often get it wrong?

March 6, 2016

“Celebrities often make wildly inaccurate claims and comments to millions of people. But the workings of our minds mean we’re all prone to such behaviour.”

“Without being too harsh, the Dunning-Kruger effect must be considered. Achieving high profile or celebrity status in the modern world is no indication of intelligence, and the effect shows that “low intelligence” is often accompanied by increased confidence in ones opinions and an apparent inability to accurately judge your own abilities and expertise in comparison to others. A willingness to present your poorly-thought-out conclusions as cast iron facts would be an inevitable consequence of this.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2016/feb/10/opinion-vs-facts-why-do-celebrities-so-often-get-it-wrong?mc_cid=c28053bf7b&mc_eid=34e2887073

The Man Who Studies Ignorance

March 6, 2016

“A new era of ignorance

““We live in a world of radical ignorance, and the marvel is that any kind of truth cuts through the noise,” says Proctor. Even though knowledge is ‘accessible’, it does not mean it is accessed, he warns.

““Although for most things this is trivial – like, for example, the boiling point of mercury – but for bigger questions of political and philosophical import, the knowledge people have often comes from faith or tradition, or propaganda, more than anywhere else.”

“Proctor found that ignorance spreads when firstly, many people do not understand a concept or fact and secondly, when special interest groups – like a commercial firm or a political group – then work hard to create confusion about an issue. In the case of ignorance about tobacco and climate change, a scientifically illiterate society will probably be more susceptible to the tactics used by those wishing to confuse and cloud the truth.”

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance?mc_cid=c28053bf7b&mc_eid=34e2887073

The Happiness Code: A new approach to self-improvement is taking off in Silicon Valley: cold, hard rationality.

February 21, 2016

“Our minds, cobbled together over millenniums by that lazy craftsman, evolution, are riddled with bad mental habits. We routinely procrastinate, make poor investments, waste time, fumble important decisions, avoid problems and rationalize our unproductive behaviors, like checking Facebook instead of working. These ‘‘cognitive errors’’ ripple through our lives, CFAR argues, and underpin much of our modern malaise: Because we waste time on Facebook, we end up feeling harried; when we want to eat better or get to the gym more, we don’t, but then feel frustrated and guilty.”

Addicted to the Lottery: Why People Buy False Hope and Lottery Tickets

January 18, 2016

“States spend millions on promoting the lottery. In 2011, Oregon’s ad budget was $26.6 million over a two year period; in Ohio, the state used to time advertisements for its Super Lotto game to coincide with the delivery of Social Security and government benefit checks. Poor people are the primary targets of these campaigns—a fact that has made some of my interactions with lottery players uneasy. Multiple customers have told that they spend around $3,000 each year on the lottery and never win. Each person said they continue to play ‘because it’s fun.'”

http://www.vice.com/read/addicted-to-the-lottery-why-people-buy-false-hope-and-lottery-tickets-511?utm_source=vicetwitterus