Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds
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Started by metmike - Oct. 5, 2022, 11:50 a.m.

We've had numerous discussions here on cognitive bias and tribalism. My son Mac emailed this wonderful article on the topic to me.

Good for all of us to keep in mind, especially me!

https://jamesclear.com/why-facts-dont-change-minds


Be Kind First, Be Right Later

The brilliant Japanese writer Haruki Murakami once wrote, “Always remember that to argue, and win, is to break down the reality of the person you are arguing against. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right.”

When we are in the moment, we can easily forget that the goal is to connect with the other side, collaborate with them, befriend them, and integrate them into our tribe. We are so caught up in winning that we forget about connecting. It's easy to spend your energy labeling people rather than working with them.

The word “kind” originated from the word “kin.” When you are kind to someone it means you are treating them like family. This, I think, is a good method for actually changing someone's mind. Develop a friendship. Share a meal. Gift a book.

Be kind first, be right later.

metmike: There are numerous principles in this article that help to strengthen relationships/friendships which are less concerned with facts or evidence. In our personal lives, these are the ones which are the most important. 

Try as I might, as a scientist and continual fact checker here, I will never get past the mentality of defining truths using empirical data/facts and evidence, ESPECIALLY when they contradict DISinformation.  It's a big part of why I'm here.

If somebody makes a claim that A, B and C happened when the clear facts show that D and E actually occurred, it's against my belief system and commitment to representing the truth as moderator and scientist  to not show the proof of D and E with as much evidence as possible.

Not to WIN an argument but to represent the authentic truth........ while trying hard to be kind.

However, people go to places that tell them what they want to hear/read and believe in......reinforcing the good and bad in their belief system.

These echo chambers just feed whatever cognitive bias already exists and further divides the country. MarketForum and this moderator are ANTI echo chamber.

On the outside world, this is not the best approach to forming friendships, where politics and science and accurate facts don't matter as much.

I will often ask  a person "what political party are you from?" 

Or some other question that tips me off about their political or religious belief system.

This helps to NOT say things that could offend them and to limit opinions on topics to those that we agree on.

Regardless, after reading this article, I will try to be even more kind to those that get  fact checked to bust DISinformation HERE, especially on science and less emphatic in realms of speculation HERE.

Previous thread on cognitive bias(of several):

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/83621/


Comments
By bear - Oct. 15, 2022, 12:53 p.m.
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remember, there is a famous quote that some attribute to Nietzsche... there are no facts, only interpretations.  

By bear - Oct. 15, 2022, 1:05 p.m.
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Kant may have not stressed individual differences.  he thought all human minds work in the same fashion,  but... he gives us this notion that says... perception creates reality.  when you think you are stating facts,  all you are really doing is telling us how you view things.  

By metmike - Oct. 15, 2022, 1:45 p.m.
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bear,

Great points and I completely understand perceptions of many things based on a relative scale that corresponds to the individuals bias.........which is different for each individual.


Hot for somebody like you from Tucson, Arizona might mean 100+ deg. F.

Hot for somebody like my sister that lives in Alaska is 80+ deg. F.


Our personal experiences, learning, living environments, age and even genetics can determine how we perceive things. 

50 lbs is a very heavy object for an 80 year old woman. 

100 lbs is a light object for a 20 year old power lifter in training. 


Beauty is often seen as being in the eye of the beholder(subjective) while there are some elements that are objective.(balance in nature), 

Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, one of the major branches of philosophy. As a positive aesthetic value, it is contrasted with ugliness as its negative counterpart. Along with truth and goodness it is one of the transcendentals, which are often considered the three fundamental concepts of human understanding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty

+++++++++++++++++++++

However in science and math we have realms that can be defined in ABSOLUTE terms. 

Relatively speaking, 1,000 can be a very small number when talking about the population of a city but a huge number if describing the number of spectators at a high school football game.

500 + 500 will always = 1,000 whether its adding up a cities population or the people at a sporting event.

A hurricane is defined as having a minimum sustained wind of 74 mph for 1 minute. So a brief wind gust of 90 mph in a tropical storm is not a hurricane if the rest of that minute featured a sustained wind of  only 65 mph. 

A foot is always 12 inches regardless of measuring a person's height or measuring how far it is to the moon. 

https://www.justintools.com/unit-conversion/length.php?k1=earth-to-moon-distance&k2=feet

This allows scientists and others to communicate with well defined units of measuring that are universal and absolute.


By metmike - Oct. 15, 2022, 1:55 p.m.
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Some gifted and powerful people/entities are able to take facts, both subjective and objective and spin them into convincing sounding fake realities that cause people to align themselves with their cause or whatever position they're selling.

It usually coincides with selling messages that people want to believe.

If you don't want to believe it, you're more inclined to vet the info or do a fact check or be skeptical. 

If you want to believe it..........you just open up your mind to incorporate it as a fact to support what you think that you know............which ampliflies whatever it is that you think that you know......even if you're wrong.

Stuff that contradicts it, are likely to be rejected, also without fact checking because your mind tells you that its wrong, meaning there's no reason to fact check to see if its wrong.


https://www.justintools.com/unit-conversion/length.php?k1=earth-to-moon-distance&k2=feet


By metmike - Oct. 15, 2022, 1:58 p.m.
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Sincerely practicing the scientific method takes the relativity and subjective, cognitive bias out.


https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/88909/#88910

By 7475 - Oct. 15, 2022, 6:28 p.m.
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x

By metmike - Oct. 16, 2022, 2:10 a.m.
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Here's another item that is not relative or based on opinions and should NOT be based on perception because the ABSOLUTE numbers were proven beyond a shadow of any doubt. The legal challenges, recounts and other scrutiny all held up to support this being the most secure election in history.

Those that think otherwise are believing in something that doesn't exist because they wish it were true.


https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president


By metmike - Oct. 16, 2022, 11:49 a.m.
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                Re: Re: Tulsi Gabbard is not alone            

   https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/89678/#89728

                By metmike - Oct. 16, 2022, 9:17 a.m.            

            

One reason to post this is to provide an honest, objective viewpoint that recognizes how some people feel.

not just dwelling  on the biggest political problem in our country’s modern  history…….10s of millions of republicans that won’t believe the results of the most secure election in our history because a psychopathic moron has a cult like following and they follow him like he’s a God 

And he’s wrecking their party.

both political  parties are having a crisis right now.

a real crisis. 

Not like the fake climate crisis on this greening planet during the current climate optimum from the increase in a beneficial gas.

we live in a world filled with people that want to believe things, even really smart people that includes scientists.

they want to believe more than they want the objective truth. so they let manufactured realities define their world and close their minds to information that contradicts it.

They see and believe in things that have more evidence to contradict them instead of confirm them. 

everybody in every realm is vulnerable to this human weakness in cognitive bias. including scientists That should not be.

of all the thousands of things that I’ve learned here and am grateful for, it’s the profound understanding of how this is the most powerful driving force in society today and in most individuals that make it up.

not like knowing it previously.

seeing it in every person in a way that has been like pulling back a curtain, like the one in The Wizard of Oz that stunned the characters to reveal  how fake the Wizard was.

im not saying that people are fake, like the Great OZ was. Just the complete opposite.
They are absolutely sincere and totally committed to their beliefs and feelings.

and that is the problem. They have Religious FAITH in too many things without the empirical data or authentic facts. Trusting and wanting them to be true which shuts down the ability to learn new things, including those that contradict what they think that they know.

sabotages the ability to see other viewpoints that differ from them which is why they refuse to compromise.

Powerful ,technology has provided the gatekeepers of messages enormous power. ......millions of times more powerful than 30 years ago. They understand this fatal flaw of human nature described above and there are many communication tools that allow them to impose their belief systems, by simply telling big lies that people want to believe in.

disengaging critical thinking and skepticism or fact checking by appealing to their belief system, then attaching all sorts of DISinformation and manufactured realities to it so they see it thru an accommodating  cerebral lens with no filtering or vetting.

creating the illusion that they are revealing secrets of science, politics and the world  and the other side is hiding them because they don’t want you to know or are evil in some way.

and that they have all  the answers and solutions.
humans are social creatures that especially enjoy being part of groups that feature like minded individuals.
the ability to connect with like minded individuals who reinforce what they want to believe at echo chambers has been amplified by a billion times in the last 30 years.

in fully comprehending the extent of this, my head feels like it will explode )-: