First of all I was not at any point challenging the accuracy of the points in the article. I haven't fact checked them or anything but AFAIK they are completely

First of all I was not at any point challenging the accuracy of the points in the article. I haven't fact checked them or anything but AFAIK they are completely accurate. I was however challenging the importance of them. Policy decisions should absolutely be based in fact and reality. Yet they rarely are and the unintended consequences of almost every single law in every single country in the world proves it. This is why it's best to avoid policy decisions in the first place or at least minimize them and their impact. Thirdly, yes it's terrible that people believe wrong things. But here is a surprise. They always have and they always will. Who knows maybe you and I both believe wrong things. As long as these wrong facts can't harm other people it doesn't do a lot of harm. Should we try to teach them about the truth. Of course we should try. Should we punish them if they don't accept our version of the truth? No. I for example am frustrated when intelligent people still insist on seeing the world as zero sum. It is a cultural issue more than anything. As that is what we have been brought up with from countless hollywood movies with evil rich guys taking land away from the common folks and what have you. I try whenever I can to teach about this, but I know it is an uphill battle. Facts are important. But understanding the effects and importance of facts is even more important and is unfortunately not an objective task. If you're interested Russ Roberts of EconTalk had a very interesting discussion of bias within Economics, where he attempted to look critically at his own and other economists biases in analyzing empirical evidence, which is essentially what our discussion is about: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/01/roberts_and_han.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/01/roberts_and_han.htm...