Arbo
10-02-2013, 01:23 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/most-depressing-brain-fin_b_3932273.html
Kahan conducted some ingenious experiments about the impact of political passion on people's ability to think clearly. His conclusion, in Mooney's words: partisanship "can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills.... [People] who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs."
In other words, say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, media literacy or reason can provide the tools and information that people need in order to make good decisions. It turns out that in the public realm, a lack of information isn't the real problem. The hurdle is how our minds work, no matter how smart we think we are. We want to believe we're rational, but reason turns out to be the ex post facto way we rationalize what our emotions already want to believe.
Interesting study, and it makes sense as this sort of 'behavior' and 'denial' is seen quite often in daily life.
It also explains how politicians keep on keeping on in their destruction of the nation and Constitution and the citizens don't rise up and stop any of it... because they are eating the partisan lines from their 'side'.
Kahan conducted some ingenious experiments about the impact of political passion on people's ability to think clearly. His conclusion, in Mooney's words: partisanship "can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills.... [People] who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs."
In other words, say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, media literacy or reason can provide the tools and information that people need in order to make good decisions. It turns out that in the public realm, a lack of information isn't the real problem. The hurdle is how our minds work, no matter how smart we think we are. We want to believe we're rational, but reason turns out to be the ex post facto way we rationalize what our emotions already want to believe.
Interesting study, and it makes sense as this sort of 'behavior' and 'denial' is seen quite often in daily life.
It also explains how politicians keep on keeping on in their destruction of the nation and Constitution and the citizens don't rise up and stop any of it... because they are eating the partisan lines from their 'side'.