An interesting article about the misinformed

[Cartoonist]

The article is about politics, but it could be applied to religion as well.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-supporters-appear-to-be-misinformed-not-uninformed/

Because an informed citizenry is believed to be an essential element to a functioning democracy, political scientists have long been interested in what Americans know about politics. For the most part, scholars have found that many U.S. citizens don’t have basic information about politics and don’t hold consistent opinions on policy matters. More recently, scholarly interest has turned to a more nuanced understanding of what being politically informed means.

In 2000, James Kuklinski and other political scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign established an important distinction: American citizens with incorrect information can be divided into two groups, the misinformed and the uninformed. The difference between the two is stark. Uninformed citizens don’t have any information at all, while those who are misinformed have information that conflicts with the best evidence and expert opinion. As Kuklinski and his colleagues established, in the U.S., the most misinformed citizens tend to be the most confident in their views and are also the strongest partisans. These folks fill the gaps in their knowledge base by using their existing belief systems. Once these inferences are stored into memory, they become “indistinguishable from hard data,” Kuklinski and his colleagues found.

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Sounds like some DU members who post in this forum.

[Xipe Totec]

1. That gratuitous slam at the end only can only undermine your credibility. nt

[cleanhippie]

2. Perhaps a slam, but very accurate.

[rug]

5. I doubt you realize which targets are most accurately hit.

the most misinformed citizens tend to be the most confident in their views and are also the strongest partisans

[Warren Stupidity]

15. I doubt he realizes he's been wounded.

[rug]

17. I doubt you realize what's been said.

[Cartoonist]

3. Struck a nerve, eh?

Ha. You just enhanced my credibility.

[mr blur]

13. Not at all. It's not atheist credibility that's in question here. nt

[rug]

4. I haven't seen so much misinformation about religion posted as in the Religion Group.

[Cartoonist]

7. Religion is misinformation

Please point to One fact.

[rug]

8. And it keeps piling up.

As an aside, learn the difference between information and fact.

[Cartoonist]

10. Facts are real

Religious information, not so much.

[rug]

12. Facts are incomplete.

In any event, the question of misinformation concerns accuracy.

Half the shit posted in here about religion is inaccurate.

And that has not a thing to do with religious beliefs. It's basic sociology.

What compounds the error is the eagerness with which it is posted to advance an anti-religious agenda. You make no point by constructing strawmen to burn.

[Leontius]

6. Well it is mostly atheists and anti-theists that post here now,

[mr blur]

14. Why is that?

Because the theists prefer to hide away in echo chambers where nothing is ever questioned?

[rug]

18. It's more likely people prefer not to associate with obnoxious posters.

The noxiousness in here has little to do with belief or nonbelief and everything to do with behavior.

I do notice, however, a drop in posting by some antitheists in here. For some reason they prefer their own echo chamber than engaging in here.

[Rob H.]

21. They're not even hiding out in their echo chambers

I'm sure someone will be along any second to explain how that's all the fault of those mean ol' atheists, too.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. Perhaps you ought to take a look at who the current most prolific poster is in this forum?

Oh wait, never mind. See the op for why facts are irrelevant.

[rug]

19. I have noticed a significant drop in the number of cartoons posted in here.

Maybe people are starting to prefer actual facts to actual trolling.

Good to see you posting again, warren. I was starting to worry.

[Leontius]

20. It's not about the number of posts per poster it's about the number of posters.

The ratio of believers to non-believers is getting quite small as believers just give this place a pass. That is the relevant fact.

[Cartoonist]

9. I see some people don't have mirrors

And they still wouldn't see themselves if you gave 'em one.

[Cartoonist]

11. Addendum

From the article:
Furthermore, in 2010, political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler found that when misinformed citizens are told that their facts are wrong, they often cling to their opinions even more strongly with what is known as defensive processing, or the “backfire effect.”
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Otherwise known as "Can you prove God doesn't exist?"