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Facts don't generally change people's minds. Google "do facts convince people" and you'll see lots of stuff about this. Here's one, from scientificamerican.com
by Frondo 6y ago
Facts don't generally change people's minds.
Google "do facts convince people" and you'll see lots of stuff about this. Here's one, from scientificamerican.com...
> In a series of experiments by Dartmouth College professor Brendan Nyhan and University of Exeter professor Jason Reifler, the researchers identify a related factor they call the backfire effect “in which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.” Why? “Because it threatens their worldview or self-concept.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-convince-someone-when-facts-fail/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-convince-s...
- aantthony 6y agoYes that is a good point. The link I gave mentions that study, and says it has failed replication attempts. I think the truth is more nuanced - there are ways it can be more effective and yes sometimes counter-effective. But that doesn't mean we should just give up fact-checking entirely. I think there are several ways we can make corrective fact checking more convincing to people and am working on building a collaborative fact-checker https://verifact.io https://verifact.io to try to do that