Listening to Reason

I seriously considered naming this post “Liberals who won’t listen talking to conservatives that can’t hear.”  It seems that we are constantly talking past each other, busy making our own political points, while never listening to what anyone who disagrees with us says.  We gather our ammunition from wellsprings of our own choosing be it Fox News, CNN, Breitbart, The Drudge Report, or any of another thousand locations for “news and information” and then assault or fellow Facebookers with our own Constitutional interpretations.  As we feverishly disseminate our opinions we can’t help but constantly wonder to ourselves, “Why can’t they get it? It’s so obvious.”

The reason that “they” just can’t get it is a mental habit that psychologists refer to as confirmation bias. We all suffer from varying degrees of confirmation bias and if you don’t believe that you do just consider the curious case of Grayson Allen. If you think that Mr. Allen is the worst version of any human being, not just a basketball player, then you are probably a Carolina fan. If he is a young man who has made some mistakes and has been properly punished and is receiving undue notoriety and negative press then you are probably a Duke fan. If you wonder why the Pack can’t seem to throw it in the ocean in overtime I will come up with an example for you some other time.

When presented with any evidence, whatever the source, our brains tend to follow the same pattern.  If it agrees with an already held notion then it only serves to reinforce what we believed. If it disagrees with our previously held beliefs then we simply dismiss or ignore it as uninformed or unimportant.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, this seems to be a prevalent attitude amongst political followers of all stripes.

Fact vs. Truth

Many of the more liberal tree-hugging types who are concerned about global food supplies refuse to accept that there is no scientific evidence pointing to a lack of safety with genetically modified crops. “Frankenfoods” are dangerous and only time will tell when a study finally proves their long and firmly held beliefs.  My grandmother felt the same way about microwave ovens.

Millions of conservatives would rather point to the 5% of scientists that don’t believe in global warming or at least man’s contribution rather than the millions of scientists that do.  Satellite pictures of Greenland finally living up to it’s name are unconvincing because evidence clearly shows that over the course of thousands of years the earth’s temperature has fluctuated.  I was most impressed with the Congressman who brought the snowball into the House chambers to show the ridiculousness of global warming.  You can’t argue with that logic.

So how do we fix our own heads?  Well according to research by Charles Lord, the only solution is to systematically sort through the evidence and consider its value if it had produced results to the exact contrary.  This approach is the only way to overcome our own biases and it will require actual cognitive effort not just bumper sticker reasoning.  It also requires curiosity and a willingness to be proven wrong.  After all, those with the least imagination tend to be the most dogmatic.