The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever - Say goodnight to the dream that education,

[BridgeTheGap]

journalism, scientific evidence, or reason can provide the tools that people need in order to make good decisions.++++++++
Yale law school professor Dan Kahan’s new research paper is called “Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government,” but for me a better title is the headline on science writer Chris Mooney’s piece about it in Grist: “Science Confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math.”

Kahan conducted some ingenious experiments about the impact of political passion on people’s ability to think clearly. His conclusion, in Mooney’s words: partisanship “can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills…. [People] who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.”

In other words, 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.

For years my go-to source for downer studies of how our hard-wiring makes democracy hopeless has been Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth.

http://admin.alternet.org/media/most-depressing-discovery-about-brain-ever?akid=10941.260941.Vfiyri&rd=1&src=newsletter897375&t=4

[RC]

1. DU is full of good examples.

[ananda]

2. In my. experience

Age affected my ability to do geometry.

[Marr]

3. I read something similar about a year ago. The researcher summed it up by saying,

'We are usually acting as lawyers, even when we think we're being logicians'. And it's true-- on several occasions since, I've caught myself dismissing evidence for things I did not want to acknowledge, and giving undue credit to claims that back up my own views. It's very interesting, and a bit sad.

However, I think it's possible to overcome a bias by using another bias as a wedge. For instance, I've had many conservatives agree with me on economic issues if I frame them as fights between hardworking, manly men in flannel and effete, entitled Harvard boys.

[hfojvt]

5. there are sadder things though

I can accept that a person will argue strongly for the things they believe in, that it takes a little bit of work to change a mind.

The sad thing is the minds that are slammed shut and cemented into the position that "there are two kinds of people in the world
1. those who agree with me
2. those who are morons and/or a$$holes"

[hfojvt]

4. I still say it was part laziness

If you give most people a problem like, say,

add the numbers 1,2,3,4,5 ....75, 76 that many people will not get the right answer. Not because they cannot add. Nor, because politics takes away their ability to add. No, what is their motivation to do all that work and arrive at the correct answer?

If I am taking a test for some experiment, what do I care if I get the answer right or get the answer wrong? The point is - to get to the correct answer requires work, requires effort. Politics, I believe, takes away the motivation to do that work.

Another part may just be stubbornness. Taking an online quiz about worldviews at some conservative site, I came to a question that asked - true or false, George W. Bush is President of the United States. I answered false just to be spitefiul. Just because I hated to admit the truth. Same thing in 2005 when I was in the hospital and they asked me "Who is President of the United States?" when I came out of surgery. I knew what the correct answer was, but I was NOT gonna say it. Instead, I said "I think it is Al Gore."

So taking some little test for a study, a person might think, "yeah, your little made up example says that gun control does not work, but I refuse to even do the work, and refuse to say it."

Try the experiment again to test my theory. PAY people $10 for correct answers and see if that MOTIVATION will prove that they CAN do the math in spite of their politics. My bet is that the percentage of correct answers goes up all across the board.

[hunter]

6. Or you could remember there's a simple way to do it...

http://betterexplained.com/articles/techniques-for-adding-the-numbers-1-to-100

I'm not much motivated by money which is probably why I'll die living on the streets under a cardboard box.

I'd much rather find or make something than buy something. I'm a hunter-gatherer by nature. Hunter is both my name and inclination.

But I do enjoy math problems and I've gathered a few tricks. Enjoying this kind of math is my motivation.



I remember figuring this one out for myself as a kid and I was disappointed to learn that Gauss had figured it out a long time ago.

[telclaven]

10. Bless you sir

I was going to do the same thing.

[BridgeTheGap]

7. While Eric Hoffer's seminal work "The True Believer" isn't

the same as this study, it still seems related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer

[PowerToThePeople]

8. We are not taught to respect science and math

We are taught to respect power, strength, and wealth from a very early age. It is brainwashing.

[BridgeTheGap]

9. Amen! n.t

[lumberjack_jeff]

11. Accepting and internalizing the views of others is easier than doing the math yourself.

You see it on the right all the time. Social Security is bankrupting us! We can't afford foreign aid! Obamacare argle-bargle-yarp!

You see it on the left occasionally too. All forms of violent crime are drastically reduced, in fact it is actually down roughly 75% in the last 20 years, but this doesn't seem to be a factor in discussions around violence related topics.

It has something to do with deference to authority or "Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?"

[GreenStormCloud]

12. Sometimes logic wins.

I used to be a creationist about 35 years ago. Eventually I learned the Evolution answered questions, even as it posed new ones, and is much more interesting.

[groovedaddy]

13. We'd be totally lost if it didn't. Teaching critical thinking skills

early on could also help.