This paper shows how hard it is to change a person’s mind even when the the belief is based on wrong information. Experience in these forums teaches the same thing.
Abstract
One of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential election was the strength and resilience of the belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Scholars have suggested that this belief was the result of a campaign of false information and innuendo from the Bush administration. We call this the information environment explanation. Using a technique of “challenge interviews” on a sample of voters who reported believing in a link between Saddam and 9/11, we propose instead a social psychological explanation for the belief in this link. We identify a number of social psychological mechanisms voters use to maintain false beliefs in the face of disconfirming information, and we show that for a subset of voters the main reason to believe in the link was that it made sense of the administration’s decision to go to war against Iraq. We call this inferred justification: for these voters, the fact of the war led to a search for a justification for it, which led them to infer the existence of ties between Iraq and 9/11
So people believe what they want to believe, and find ways of rationalising their belief by selecting and interpreting the evidence to suit?
That doesn’t need a study of polling evidence. It just needs you to spend time at the next desk to a woman who’s having an affair with a married man and believes he’d leave his wife for her if only he could be sure the wife wouldn’t stop him seeing his kids.
There is a difference between what you and I might believe from our experiences and the conclusions of a study like this where an effort has been made to be thorough. The follow-up interviews are fascinating.
I learned quite a lot from the paper’s explanation of the various strategies people use to avoid changing their mind. This is useful from the self-examination point of view and when it comes to evaluating the arguments of others–with an open mind of course!
You’re the one who brought it up. Also, I’m genuinely interested. It’s not like I have any aversion to the idea that string theory is false. It was never much more than fanciful thinking in the first place. It’s on the same level as creation “theory” right now, by which I mean it was never a scientific theory to begin with, and as far as I know, any debunking of it would be the same.
I’m amazed because I didn’t know that our technology had become advanced enough to test string theory.
EDIT: After a quick and lazy Google search, as suggested, I don’t see anything to suggest that it has.
There’s nothing to debunk – String theorists freely admit that there isn’t any empircal evidence of the theory.
You’re the one who brought it up. Also, I’m genuinely interested. It’s not like I have any aversion to the idea that string theory is false. It was never much more than fanciful thinking in the first place, and has never claimed to bea scientific theory.
I’m amazed because I didn’t know that our technology had become advanced enough to test string theory.
As far as I know, any “debunking” of it would be thus:
“Haha, you guys don’t have any evidence, ooo and look at all the holes in your hypothesis.”
“I know I don’t have any evidence, you dork, I just like playing with math. Go back to your own semi-logical philosophizing and leave me alone. Plus, there is a chance that we will be able to accurately predict the way the universe works with some of the formulas we are deriving.”
“Why don’t you do something more productive with your time?”
“What if I’m right? In any case, you aren’t exactly being productive. You’re just arguing with me.”
“Bah. You’re hopeless.”
EDIT: After a quick and lazy Google search, as suggested, I don’t see anything to suggest that it has gone beyond that.
There’s nothing to debunk – String theorists freely admit that there isn’t any empircal evidence of the theory.
One thing I’ve come to learn is that people are just wired differently. Some truly are incapable of open-minded thought. And it would be fair to say that others are so open-minded their brains fall out. Despite that risk, I prefer the open-minded approach. You betcha.
when I argue with people who have misconceptions about science I often tell the story of Kepler: he thought that god was a musician, hence celestial bodies where moving in accordance with the music. He worked hard to find the formula for this music. … and came up with a physics law which was pretty accurate at that time.
For sure the way the theory evolved was very different from String theory evolution: each formula was matched with lots of observations made by astronomers (brahe, copernicius) … But it tells a story about what is a theory (a wandering path that tries to be consistent, predictive and … yes matched by experience)
