The most depressing discovery about the brain ever

[n2doc]

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.

more

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/17/the_most_depressing_discovery_about_the_brain_ever_partner/

[gopiscrap]

1. I don't agree, I am very passionate politically and am a math whiz to boot.

[Jim Lane]

4. The Grist article goes into more detail on that aspect.

The study was set up so that a superficial glance at the numbers led to the wrong answer, while carefully doing the calculation led to the right answer.

The investigator theorized that, when people formed a quick impression that accorded with their preconceptions, they let it rest there. When the first impression displeased them, they were motivated to dig deeper, and the math whizzes were better equipped to figure out why the numbers didn't actually contradict their preferred answer.

The data showed that, not surprisingly, on both sides of the gun control debate, people were more likely to get the problem right when the numbers were set up so that the right answer was the one they wanted to believe. What's notable is that, again on both sides of the debate, the gap -- the increase in the likelihood of getting the right answer when the right answer was the one the subject wanted -- increased as people's overall level of math ability went up.

[madaboutharry]

2. I don't know if I can agree.

I didn't care about politics in high school, but algebra was a complete mystery.

[nashville_brook]

3. technocratic babble doesn't move people -- we know this

why do we keep doing it?