# How facts backfire. Is fighting ignorance just a lost cause?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [September 1, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208 "2010-09-01T00:50:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/1 "2010-09-01T00:50:39Z")
This [disturbing article](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/) has made me rethink whether it’s not simply a waste of my time to attempt to combat ignorance.
> [@Boston Globe](#):
>
> Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, **researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs.** [emphasis mine] Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.
>
> This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.
I’ve gotten kind of depressed after reading this article. It seems that when it comes to politics, not only is fighting ignorance with the facts useless, it actually makes things worse.
Would I be doing more good for the world to just accept ignorance and hope it goes away on its own? For my own sanity, should I just move into an isolated shack in the wilderness without an internet connection, so I won’t feel compelled to argue with people who post things that are clearly, provably, and laughably wrong? What’s the way forward for me, and for humanity for that matter? :smack:
---
### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/2 "2010-09-01T01:12:31Z")
You can educate the ignorant. Enlightening the stupid is a lot harder.
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### Author:  [@The\_Bith\_Shuffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bith_Shuffle)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/3 "2010-09-01T01:17:27Z")
I read this before and it didn’t surprise me. While all intellectuals recognize that people dogmatically hold on to certain beliefs, they still tend to hold on to the fantasy that discourse can _rationally_ change people’s minds. If it does, it rarely does, and it probably does so most effectively when it plays strongly on people’s emotions. I’ve heard stories of “new atheist” books changing people’s minds about God, but these people were probably fishing for a conversion already, and the books just served as a sort of finishing touch.
I think beliefs can be much like tastes; ostensibly, they are based on experience and reasoning (or at least attempts to reason), but in reality they are simply dispositions people sort of, just, like, have. Here I’m not talking about issues where our passions don’t sway us this way or that (like whether the Riemann Hypothesis is true) but issues where people really have a big emotional response to the issue at hand.
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/4 "2010-09-01T01:25:03Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> You can educate the ignorant. Enlightening the stupid is a lot harder.
If only they were actually stupid. When I took biology as an undergraduate I got a real good lesson in willful ignorance. Some of my study partners were making 90% or higher on our tests that covered things like cellular life cycles, the parts of the cell, DNA, etc., etc. The class was difficult in large part because the professor made his class one of the most difficult to take. i.e. You really had to work to make an A in that class. When we got to the test that covered evolution my study partners simply refused to learn the material. I pleaded with them. “You don’t have to believe it you just have to understand the mechanisms for how it works.” “You’ve made good grades on material that is far more difficult than this!” Nope, these A students took the test covering the evolution material and ended up making a B or a C. I honestly don’t think they were stupid at all but they were certainly willfully ignorant as they were unwilling to even learn the evolution material.
Odesio
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/5 "2010-09-01T02:08:57Z")
> [@Odesio](#):
>
> > [@TriPolar](#):
> >
> > You can educate the ignorant. Enlightening the stupid is a lot harder.
>
> If only they were actually stupid. When I took biology as an undergraduate I got a real good lesson in willful ignorance. Some of my study partners were making 90% or higher on our tests that covered things like cellular life cycles, the parts of the cell, DNA, etc., etc. The class was difficult in large part because the professor made his class one of the most difficult to take. i.e. You really had to work to make an A in that class. When we got to the test that covered evolution my study partners simply refused to learn the material. I pleaded with them. “You don’t have to believe it you just have to understand the mechanisms for how it works.” “You’ve made good grades on material that is far more difficult than this!” Nope, these A students took the test covering the evolution material and ended up making a B or a C. I honestly don’t think they were stupid at all but they were certainly willfully ignorant as they were unwilling to even learn the evolution material.
>
> Odesio
Well, I always figured being willfully ignorant to be stupid a thing to do. Remember what Forrest Gump said?
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### Author:  [@dhkendall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dhkendall)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/6 "2010-09-01T02:17:16Z")
> [@Blalron](#):
>
> > [@Boston Globe](#):
> >
> > Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, **researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs.** [emphasis mine] Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.
> >
> > This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.
In other news, water is wet.
Seriously, this has been very evident for years, I figured every Doper knew this. Doesn’t make being a Doper easier, though. ☹
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### Author:  [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/7 "2010-09-01T02:21:40Z")
> [@Blalron](#):
>
> Would I be doing more good for the world to just accept ignorance and hope it goes away on its own? For my own sanity, should I just move into an isolated shack in the wilderness without an internet connection, so I won’t feel compelled to argue with people who post things that are clearly, provably, and laughably wrong?
No. Definitely no. Before long you will lose the desire to argue with them, it is true. Then, before too long, you’ll begin writing the Manifesto and lovingly crafting the bombs.
> [@](#):
>
> What’s the way forward for me, and for humanity for that matter? :smack:
Beyond indiscriminately fucking till we’re all the same IQ, I have no idea.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/8 "2010-09-01T03:19:10Z")
^
I just LOLed at **Doug** ’s reason for editing.
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/9 "2010-09-01T05:21:03Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> Well, I always figured being willfully ignorant to be stupid a thing to do. Remember what Forrest Gump said?
Doing something stupid and being stupid are two different things. Those people in my class demonstrated that they possessed the intelligence to not only grasp the material but to excel at testing save when it came to the subject of evolution. They most certainly were not stupid.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/10 "2010-09-01T05:26:26Z")
This is one large reason that we don’t live in a democracy. People who are more intelligent are, by definition, more willing to accept and react according to available information. Hence we want to entrust the reins of the nation to those few, rather than to the masses.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/11 "2010-09-01T05:27:58Z")
> [@Odesio](#):
>
> > [@TriPolar](#):
> >
> > Well, I always figured being willfully ignorant to be stupid a thing to do. Remember what Forrest Gump said?
>
> Doing something stupid and being stupid are two different things. Those people in my class demonstrated that they possessed the intelligence to not only grasp the material but to excel at testing save when it came to the subject of evolution. They most certainly were not stupid.
Were they fundamentalist Christians?
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/12 "2010-09-01T05:30:28Z")
It seems like that was always the case, people have defined their life on certain principals, if you show one is in error, then it must be enough to change their entire world view for them to consider that ‘fact’. Also mankind has a history of declaring facts only to retract them, so the track record is basally zero.
To me however facts are not truths, just man’s latest attempt to justify error.
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/13 "2010-09-01T05:47:52Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> Were they fundamentalist Christians?
I certainly got that impression though I wasn’t willing to ask as these were just people I studied with and didn’t wish to rock the boat. One of them once said “They [faculty] want to make us all into liberals and atheist” though this wasn’t directly related to the evolution portion of the class.
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### Author:  [@Don123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don123)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/14 "2010-09-01T06:29:28Z")
Well cheer up, most of the information in politics are not facts but rather subjective opinions that can neither be proved or disproved.
What is common as in AP stories, they give 1% facts, and 99% opinions. Or what you are trying to do seek out facts in a third party narrative—good luck to you.
I mean come ON! Politics and facts—you are out of your mind to even try.
And what is your standard of facts, is that metaphysical or physical? Are you using preponderance of the evidence or beyond a reasonable doubt?
Are you using truth (facts) by authority or first hand observation?
Or are you going by the average method? Example: a car accident at a corner with a signal light; the cop ask two witnesses standing together what was the color of the light. One said it was red and the other said it was green. So the cops writes down the light was yellow. Do not laugh; it is done all the time. That some where in between fact, right? Ha.
How about analogies, you know tell a true story, and relate it to your assumed fact—so the true story confirm the assumed fact? Ha that is silly but done all the time.
Or how about additions and omissions— like you would know right? You know the devil is in the details and the context. What half of the truth do you want? The other half is top secret so I cannot tell you, so just believe!
Then we can move on to definitions of words and that great game to play, where a politician makes overly broad statements and you fill in the blanks with your own words—now that makes sense to get to the truth, HA.
You could write a book on this crap, OH that is right, many have and made a study out of it called Formal Logic. They quit teaching Formal Logic in US high schools as it showed the teacher to be a dummy puking out propaganda. Accordingly ignorance is bliss. Ha ha.
Of course people love to go by their emotional intelect that never is wrong.
But when it comes down to it, if no one agrees with your facts, them baffle them with bull shit, and call names, that always gets to the truth. Some people get real good at it like Obama— so how is that changey thingy working out for you; you find a job yet?
Don
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### Author:  [@Don123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don123)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/15 "2010-09-01T06:55:57Z")
political scientists?
OH my god not that wad of mouse poop! Talk about an Oxymoron that would be it.
So these political scientist were doing an experiment—STOP right here.
Science made simple; a scientific experiment is to remove any human influence in the testing. Well put their experiment in the trash heap as politics is a completely human creation.
You have no way to tell if the person is lying, a good actor, or motivated out of greed or lust just to shut you up. That is like testing your attractive personality by paying a prostitute to give you an evaluation— for 5 bucks you are ugly but for 20 you are getting better all the time.
Oh let’s just go by what the majority says; yep, 9 out of 10 docs agree Bayer is best, that is a fair test, Bayer is the best— and they are all on Bayer’s pay role.
Don
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/16 "2010-09-01T07:12:10Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> facts are not truths
Quoted for… er…
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### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/17 "2010-09-01T07:15:49Z")
Well, I’m a firm believer in education to change the minds of ignorant people and I’m not at all convinced that this study isn’t seriously flawed. It really doesn’t affect anything.
lalalalalalalalalala, I can’t hear you!
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### Author:  [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/18 "2010-09-01T07:25:19Z")
> [@Blalron](#):
>
> I’ve gotten kind of depressed after reading this article. It seems that when it comes to politics, not only is fighting ignorance with the facts useless, it actually makes things worse.
It seems to me that this research provides yet further proof that representative democracy is an irrational, primitive approach to governance. If the vast majority of humanity succumbs to ignorance and lies without a fight, does this not mean that it should not be given a say in the political process?
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### Author:  [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/19 "2010-09-01T07:36:50Z")
I think people are missing the point of democracy - you dont have to convince the partisans, only enough people to change govt.
Everyone isnt a diehard Republican or Democrat or whatever, and there isnt a monopoly of partisans on either side. As long as enough people can be convinced to change their position, democracy beats the alternatives. And its pretty obvious this does happen at least sometimes or you’d never see government change.
Otara
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### Author:  [@footballisplayedwithyourfeet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/footballisplayedwithyourfeet)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2010, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-facts-backfire-is-fighting-ignorance-just-a-lost-cause/552208/20 "2010-09-01T09:05:00Z")
> [@Don123](#):
>
> political scientists?
>
> OH my god not that wad of mouse poop! Talk about an Oxymoron that would be it.
>
> So these political scientist were doing an experiment—STOP right here.
>
> Science made simple; a scientific experiment is to remove any human influence in the testing. Well put their experiment in the trash heap as politics is a completely human creation.
>
> You have no way to tell if the person is lying, a good actor, or motivated out of greed or lust just to shut you up. That is like testing your attractive personality by paying a prostitute to give you an evaluation— for 5 bucks you are ugly but for 20 you are getting better all the time.
>
> Oh let’s just go by what the majority says; yep, 9 out of 10 docs agree Bayer is best, that is a fair test, Bayer is the best— and they are all on Bayer’s pay role.
>
> Don
Unless you looked at the actual article there is no way to know the exact methods that were used. I haven’t looked at the article, but it is definately possible to set up an experiment that tests the effect of factual corrections.
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