Studies show that most Americans reject facts when
Studies show that most Americans reject facts when they are confronted with them if those facts don’t reinforce their prejudices. Stories are a lot more effective, false or not, simplification or not.Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains
It’s one of the great assumptions underlying modern democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. This notion, carried down through the years, underlies everything from humble political pamphlets to presidential debates to the very notion of a free press. Mankind may be crooked timber, as Kant put it, uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation, but it’s an article of faith that knowledge is the best remedy. If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.
In the end, truth will out. Won’t it?
Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.
This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.
“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/
Oligarchy anyone?
NSA/CIA Military industrial complex?
= new reply since forum marked as read
and Yale. 
Since you're a stickler for science, you should note that the OP doesn't
seem to understand scientific method and thinks that simply because *
the study was done in America (without controls for other nationalities) that the
findings apply ONLY to Americans, a rather egregious error and a rather clumsy
attempt, it seems, to make the "facts" fit the agenda rather than the other way
around....I'm surprised so many DUers here are failing to notice...Perhaps it's
another confirmation of the study's conclusion. 
* This is the explanation she gives in an early post.
No other ethnic groups were used as points of comparison, so I'm afraid one can't conclude this "human tendency"
to be limited to Americans. It seems quite a few here are a tad clueless when it comes to understanding basic
principles of the scientific method.
I wouldn't want to spoil any American's five minutes of self hate, or anything. 
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[/font]You called it "bullshit", and then said.."oh wait", which indicates you gave it another thought
and decided it was true.
* Nice little staircase of shrugs you've got there. 
Yeah, whatever. 
that your reaction is not that important to ME.
as "prejudiced".
So glad you find my discourse "scintillating and 'profoujd', but before responding
to it, you might try learning how to spell and/or use spell check.
whatever.
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the study never mentions Americans, it speaks only of a "human" tendency.
this has been pointed out to her but I guess it doesn't fit her agenda.
I'm afraid it's status as a "reasonable" hypothesis is nothing but opinion
and doesn't redeem the fact that the OP's subject line is pure bullshit.
"So this is side thread for personal attacks..."
Seems somewhat petulant to ask that after replying with "Ms Science" to trivialize the post of another, (insert disingenuous rationalization here to validate that your labeling was simply accuracy and civility at its finest rather than what it really was).
However, I do realize that holding others to a higher standard is convenient...
Hey man, seems I haven't seen you around much since you got booted out of the Environment & Energy Group. I've really been missing you over there, it seems so civilized now.
Anyway, thanks for telling me my position. And here I thought I was pretty clear with, "I'll even go so far as to say that I think it is probably (i.e. a high probability) anthropogenic, but that hasn't reached the criteria for "fact" by my definition. But I'd be willing to bet money on it." I will now go and re-evaluate my position.
Yeah, that's what I do while working as a consultant in photovoltaic systems for businesses and residences, serving on a regional government sustainability group pushing for energy conservation and alternative energy sources, and volunteering for the Texas Solar Energy Society.
Gee, I just can't understand why you got kicked out of the E&E group. But it's good to see you around here continuing your cause.
As I pointed out to the OP, unless a 'control' group of OTHER ethnicities were included, it can't in any way
limit this to Americans -- She's ignoring that fact (guess it doesn't fit her narrative) and is still trying to advance
this falsehood, though anyone familiar with scientific methodology should be able to see it for what it is.
which was in 1951 - about the same time I guess.
Doesn't look like much now but it sold the hell out of Hathaway Shirts.
Bryant
could go a long way toward reducing family conflict. Maybe even between non-family as well.
Nothing is more annoying (and resentment inducing) than for some know-it-all to impart his superior knowledge (and only valid "facts"
on the unwashed and ignorant peasants around him.
Like the Great Wizard of Oz.
But I could be wrong...
It doesn't even mention "Americans", only a "human" tendency.
No other ethnicities were used as points of comparison, so I'm afraid your contention, along with the OP's
is just more knee-jerk anti-American trash talk.
