Abandon Hope….

Every time I tell myself that Americans have gone through nutty and mean-spirited periods before, and we’ll come through this one, I encounter something that dashes my all-too-fragile hopes.

This time, it was a link sent by a colleague who is equally depressed at the seeming inability of our lawmakers to respond appropriately to facts and evidence.

According to new research by Yale Law Professor Dan Kanan, we’re pretty much doomed.

Okay, that isn’t really the title of his paper. The title is: “Motivated Numerancy and Enlightened Self-Government,” but it might as well be “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Live Here.” Kahan measured the impact of political passion on people’s ability to think clearly, and he found that partisanship can undermine even the most basic reasoning skills.

Even people who are normally very good at math, for example, can totally “flunk” a problem they would ordinarily be able to solve, because the correct answer would contradict their political beliefs.

This research is further confirmation of work done by another researcher, Brendan Nyhan, who teaches at Dartmouth. He’s the one who reached the conclusion that facts don’t matter to people who are deeply invested in an ideology; when people believe something that isn’t so, giving them facts that correct their error just makes them cling more strongly to their original belief.

Death panels, anyone?

Denial, as my grandfather used to say, isn’t just a river in Egypt.

It does appear that this unfortunate aspect of the way the human brain works is limited to beliefs in which we are emotionally invested. You think if we put valium in the drinking water, and everybody chilled out a bit, we could improve policymaking?

Just a thought….

8 Comments

  1. “This research is further confirmation of work done by another researcher, Brendan Nyhan, who teaches at Dartmouth. He’s the one who reached the conclusion that facts don’t matter to people who are deeply invested in an ideology; when people believe something that isn’t so, giving them facts that correct their error just makes them cling more strongly to their original belief.”

    I copied and pasted this paragraph because it is a perfect description of the current GOP who don’t even seem to be aware that their party original ideology is no longer the foundation of the GOP. They vote for and support the word “Republican” no matter what nonsense or ill advised and dangerous blathering they are spouting. That is why they are called “staunch Republicans” – President Lincoln must be dizzy from spinning in his grave as he sees the party he proudly represented gone from the hearts and souls of it’s current members.

  2. I hope you can access this Facebook posting; it is the ultimate example of a need for policy change and for taking control from the hands of the NRA.

    From our friends at @[479687202044787:274:DeadState]. http://www.aattp.org

  3. Dan Kanan has published other work on science literacy indicating that the more facts internalized by partisan ideologues, the more they distort those facts to fit the ideology. The guess is that this is a “tribal” reaction, in which one doesn’t want to counter the groupthink because of the need for its approval, even though as an individual the facts suggest a scenario different from the group ideology. One solution offered was to convince a few ideologues of the evidence and what it means, then have them speak with other ideologues to change the culture. This is a pretty feeble suggestion in my view. The only way to break an ideology is to have it collapse under the weight of so much evidence that if you don’t go over to the truth (the new ideology), you risk economic ruin and being out in the social cold. If it’s any consolation, this type of thing has been going on in the biomedical sciences for centuries (see a marvelous history by S. Nuland (1988) called “Doctors”.

    David Stocum

  4. I’m not that pesimistic. Soon the current political generation will retire, get bored or die off. Then my generation will have the opportunity to clean up the mess. No guarentees, but I feel better about our prospects.

  5. Republicans look at the same research and say, “See…there is no hope in trying to reason with those socialists/MB supporters. They just can’t listen to reason.”

  6. In case you couldn’t access that web site listed on Facebook; it was a cartoon stating that Iowa allowed the blind to carry guns. I Googled the information and, is it true – you betcha’. It also said that Legislators stated they are not likely to change the law.

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