More evidence of how badly designed the brain is. I can only add a
truism: "It’s cheap to maintain Lies and expensive to maintain Trvth."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128490874&f=1014&sc=tw
New research suggests that misinformed people rarely change their minds
when presented with the facts — and often become even more attached to
their beliefs. The finding raises questions about a key principle of a
strong democracy: that a well-informed electorate is best.
...
CONAN: And when facts are readily available, why are they not enough to
change people's minds?
Mr. NYHAN: Well, the problem is, you know, as human beings, we want to
believe, you know, the things that we already believe. And so when you
hear some information that contradicts your pre-existing views,
unfortunately, what we tend to do is think of why we believed those
things in the first place.
And, you know, so when, you know, we get these corrections, we tend to
say I'm right, and I'm going to stick with my view. And the thing that
my research, which is with Jason Reifler at Georgia State University,
found is that in some cases, that corrective information can actually
make the problem worse.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bnyhan/nyhan-reifler.pdf
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's
even remotely true."
--Homer J. Simpson
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