Why do some discussion subjects defy persuasion?

Great Debates
1

It’s impossible to convince

  • Most Republicans that George Bush is a moron
  • Most Democrats that George Bush isn’t a moron
  • Gun-control advocates that owning guns should be legal or is a good thing
  • Anti gun-control advocates that owning guns should be illegal or is a bad thing
  • Anti-abortion people (“pro-life”) that abortion should be legal
  • Non-anti-abortion people (“pro-choice”) that abortion should be illegal
    …

We have seen on this board (and elsewhere) too many discussions on these topics that go nowhere, dragging on for hundreds of messages from each side, without convincing anyone of any point the other side is making.

What is it about these issues that makes it impossible to convince someone?

On a related note, what is it that makes otherwise-sane people hold on to ridiculous views? (of course, people from both sides of an issue think this about people on the other side). Also, what makes people discuss these issues over and over, since it is quite obvious no one ever gets convinced?

Back to the main question: what characteristics does an issue have to have to make it impossible to persuade someone with the opposite view?

Have psychologists/sociologists/philosophers studied this before? Is there any theory behind which subjects are beyond the reach of logical arguments?

Conversely, which arguments *are * within the reach of logical arguments?

It would make sense for people to spend time with the latter issues, and not waste time endlessly debating something that will not change anyone’s opinion.

One can argue, of course, that the endless debates do not go to waste, because they cause the “undecided” or “moderates” to be better informed of the positions of the two sides and help make up their minds.

However, I’m not interested about how the undecided or moderates are affected by this. I am interested in the people that are on the extremes of an issue.

  • What happens in their brain that makes them not accept clearly logical arguments from the other side? (This can be clearly witnessed if you are a moderate on an issue and you witness a debate between people on the extremes).
  • Do they know that they have just rejected a logical argument (and are thus conciously just rejecting it so as not to say to the other side “you’re right”), or does their brain get dynamically re-wired to make them oblivious to the fact that this is happening, giving them the illusion that they are making perfect sense? (By the way, even though I say “they”, I am assuming this happens to everybody, including yours truly, when we hold a strong belief on an issue)

Has research been done about people blocking out facts, just to get the conclusion they “feel” is correct?

2

Just a comment about this particular point : the fact that the people who are directly engaged in the discussion won’t change their mind doesn’t mean that other people, fence-sitters or moderates, reading the arguments or participing only to a small degree won’t be convinced by one side or the other.
Also, people can change their mind over time, and previously heard arguments can play a role in that.

3

Forget about my previous post. This time, not only I didn’t read the whole thread before responding, but not even the whole post. Sorry.

4

Multiple ‘correct’ answers to this one.

Sometimes people are immune to logic. They have formed their opinions based on faith or whim…or who knows what. Or, sometimes the discussion is very complex, with shades of grey, and folks naturally take the position that most suits their world outlook.

For instance, from your OP:

GW is a moron question. Its an simplification of reality. GW patently ISN’T a moron, i.e. he has at least normal cognative capabilities. He may do moronic things based on your political outlook, but he isn’t a moron.

Democrats by and large, unless they are just foaming at the mouth partisan hacks, don’t think GW is a moron either. They think he does moronic things.

Gun control. Here emotions take over. Not only that, the data points are conflicting. Will gun control lower gun type crimes? The data is unclear, giving people the oppurtunity to take either side as their world outlook dictates.

Abortion…here faith AND emotion rule, especially on the anti-abortion side of the house. Rational thought and logic rarely enter into the discussion which is emotionally and religiously charged.

Easy…they are human. :slight_smile: Almost no one is rational about EVERYTHING. Everyone makes decisions or holds positions from emotion occationally. Just part of human nature. The trick is to discover in yourself when its emotion and not logic thats driving your belief or position. Tough trick IMO.

Well, GENERALLY speaking there has to be some uncertainty in the position that allows people wiggle room to base their position on reguardless of which side they come down on. Evolution for instance. For me its pretty cut and dried, basically a lock up. But there is enough uncertainty (in some deluded peoples minds :D) to give them the wiggle room they need to hold their position. The ones you gave in your OP…all have shades of grey and areas of uncertainty…or are gross simplifications. Thats what allows people to hold onto seemingly ridiculous positions in the face of overwhelming evidence against them. Of course, I said generally earlier…sometimes people hold on to positions where there just isn’t any uncertainty in the face of REALLY overwhelming data. Take the Flat Earth Society or the Young Earthers for instance. :rolleyes:

I’ll leave it here as I tend to bang on in my posts. Hope this gets the ball rolling as its an intersting topic.

-XT

5

Interesting questions and I look forward to seeing some answers. Just to explain why these topics keep popping up only to get hashed over by the same people YET AGAIN, though, these threads seem to be started by people belonging to one of two groups: the new members who are unfamiliar with how their theses have been chewed to death already and the older members who have specific interests (isn’t that nicer than calling them “one trick ponies?”) and who are either incapable of understanding that they will never be able to talk enough to turn some people or simply don’t care. Once these threads start the real fight for the hearts and minds of the fencesitters begins and the same people make the same arguments because by NOT answering their opponents, even 400 posts later, they believe they cede victory–the old “whoever posts lasts wins” rule. It’s a battle of attrition that can only end when somebody else starts a new thread where the true believers can go back and forth again.

Believe it or not, we have relatively few of those compared with some boards I’ve seen. Take it either as a tribute to the high quality of Dopers or the fact that the most obnoxious true believers get themselves banned sooner or later. Usually sooner.

6

We don’t live in a black & white world.

Forgive the pat answer, but the reason great debates are Great Debates is because they usually have a good deal of strong pros and cons to the issue. Depending on the values, and sensibilities of the individual, (s)he may place much more value on certain pros and/or cons.

The worst thing you can do (and I’m as guilty of this an anyone) is to blind yourself to the validity in the arguments of the “other” side. You may never agree with their arguments because of your personal values, but you will at least be able to understand them and not write them off as people who “just don’t understand.”

7

The problem is that with certain debates it’s a matter of values rather than empirical fact. I may be able to empirically prove that a first trimester fetus is not self aware, has never been self aware, and doesn’t feel pain, but to a die hard pro-lifer this is irrelevant.

Likewise, a pro-lifer can come up with an array of cites that this same fetus has a unique DNA structure, and it has a heart beat, and show me tons of pictures that show how cute and “human looking” a fetus is and how grotestque looking an aborted fetus is. This doesn’t matter to me.

I’ve been repeatedly accused of tailoring my criteria for personhood specifically to allow for abortion. From my point of view, I’m not deviously crafting my logic so abortion is ok, my objective logical analysis brings me to the conclusion that it’s ok. Perhaps I’m deluding myself, but I don’t think so. :confused:

8

These tend to be issues where the points being debated are not based on single, simple facts and the arguments on either side don’t even line up properly to oppose each other; take the abortion issue, for example; many of the pro-life contingent are arguing on religious grounds that many of the pro-choice contingent simply do not accept, or the pro-lifers might argue that humanity begins at conception, whereas the pro-choicers might agree with this (or not), but find it irrelevant to the issue of the rights of other parties.

Debate is difficult because the two apparently opposing parties do not actually hold truly opposite views about very many specific points.

Another one would be the creation/evolution thing (which you didn’t list) - the creationists can be criticising evolution for its failure to explain the origin of the universe or life, failure to impose a moral framework, failure to deal with absolutes, while the evolution camp can be criticising creationism for its failure to present positive supporting evidence, or apply the scientific method - again, the prongs of attack don’t meet each other exactly.

9

I I may get personal for a moment, I often participate in debates more for my own benifit than for any possibility that I might convince others. Sometimes, I just want to try my views out on other people. It is a way to hone, if you will, the ideas.

As to why some people are immune to the argument of the other side of an issue, I think Blaron said it best. “The problem is that with certain debates it’s a matter of values rather than empirical fact.”

I think that in most debates you should be able to see the other side (I know that will surprise many of you coming from me ;)). When I cannot even see the point being made from the other side, I get very frustrated. I take it to mean that there is some aspect of my view that I do not understand.

10

Have you ever studied logic? It ain’t easy! It’s not impossible, and I think anyone of normal intelligence can learn to recognize a logical argument, but it doesn’t take a brain defect to prevent someone from seeing that an argument is in fact logical.

A logical argument isn’t a debate slam-dunk even when it is recognized. An argument may have perfectly valid logic but still fail to persuade someone who doesn’t understand it, doesn’t believe in the basic premises (i.e. thinks it’s valid but not sound), or simply doesn’t trust the person presenting it.

In rhetorical study, this is called a lack of stasis. If the two opposing sides can’t find some similar ground to stand on (a stasis point), they’re going to be talking past each other. Debate is unlikely to change anyone’s mind because the arguments of the other side aren’t going to seem relevant to the issue at hand.

The abortion issue is one of the clearest examples of a lack of a shared stasis point, because you can see from the names the two camps have chosen for themselves that they’re not framing the issue in the same way. You don’t normally have a debate where both sides are “pro”…at least not when the things they’re “pro” aren’t opposites!

A lot of debates that involve positions that are grounded in religious belief are going to end up with this problem. The values or rules of a particular religion aren’t going to mean much to people who don’t follow that religion. If your faith is the rock that you stand on that’s fine for you, but when it comes to some subjects it’s going to impede debate with people standing just as firmly on other rocks. And this isn’t limited to religion – a party platform can serve nicely as a rock, as could any number of belief systems.

11

If we leave out issues involving religion (e.g. abortion, creationism), then I don’t see why logic should fail to convince people. In issues involving religion, one side might say “because God says so”, and that would be the end of meaningful discussion. But, when religion is not involved, it’s impossible for one side to say “because X says so”, and so the two parties need to resort to facts and logic.

I understand that there are complex issues with so many “facts” as to render the discussion impossible to resolve. For example, there are enough “facts” about the gun-control issue for both sides to be able to use them to prove that we are safer with their solution.

But, there are even simpler issues, where almost all of the facts are right there in front of us, and yet people still don’t seem to agree.

Take for example, the issue of whether the president is intelligent or not. Let’s try to quantify this and say that a person is intelligent if they are in the 75th percentile of the population in terms of intelligence.

We have several facts about his past, transcripts, as well as current speeches and interviews he gave in person. We also have the fact that he mentioned jokingly at the commencement ceremony at some school: “see what a C student can accomplish?”, or something like that.

We also have the assertion from one side that if someone cannot answer interview questions in an intelligent manner, and cannot compose logically or grammatically sound sentences, then they must not be intelligent.
On the other side of the issue, we have the assertion that someone can be smart in one-on-one meetings but not appear to be smart in public. These two points of view don’t have to stay at the assertion level. Someone should be able to point to studies or statistics showing that, indeed, there are people who look very unintelligent in public but are in fact very intelligent. Or should be able to point to studies pointing to a correlation between “public” intelligence with actual intelligence.

In any case, what I’m trying to get to is that the facts in this case are very few, do not involve religion, and also do not involve having to make any forecasts about what might happen if X or Y happened. So, the verdict should have been unanimous.

Of course, we know that it isn’t. It seems that people who think Bush is not smart find him very unintelligent during his interviews and speeches, thus re-inforcing their view that he is not intelligent. Also, it seems that people who think Bush is not not-smart don’t view his performance at interviews or speeches as indicating that anything is wrong, and this again re-inforces their view.

So, even without religion, and even with such a simple issue, people cannot agree and, more importantly, cannot convince others of their way of seeing things.

What chance then do we have of convincing each other on more complex issues, such as taxation, gun control, etc, and religious issues such as abortion, creationism, etc. ?

In the looong term, I guess something must move people’s opinions because it’s clear that we do not hold the same beliefs they did in the middle ages, or even in 1950 (except for some of us :slight_smile: )

12

Remember that show, The X-Files?

On the wall of Agent Mulder’s office was a poster of a blurry, grey disk hovering in the sky beneath the words “I WANT TO BELIEVE”.

The answer to the OP’s question is very simple: Devotees of any ideology or dignitary can be so fanatical in their belief and loyalty that they are immune to data. The operative term for this human quality is “faith”. Faith can move mountains; it can also make the human intellect as immovable as a mountain; and once such an idea is ingrained, it cannot be erased by mere information. Experience is nothing compared to the self-inflicted fantasy we call faith, that peculiar quality of the human psyche that allows the faithful to know a priori, that they are followers of the Truth.

Part of the reason I’ve posted less and less in GD is because, simply, arguing with the faithful is to beat one’s head against the proverbial brick wall: You might make a dent, but only after enduring some severe pain.

The OP asks the question that hints at the root cause of the nature of human intransigence: Humans are, by and large, creatures of faith. As such, they cannot be reasoned with.

If you lack faith, you may find it a cold comfort that you are likely a product of higher evolution. This advanced state comes at the cost, though, of any hope that you follow a higher calling, one that gives your life meaning and purpose. You can never be sure that you are truly correct, and hence, you may lack the conviction needed to, say, send thousands of men and women to their deaths in a foreign desert so as to destroy the forces of Evil. You will never know, as the bullet pierces your heart, and you breath your last, that you died not for worthless acres of sand and base human greed and chauvinism, but for the defense of God and Country; and that your soul will be commended to the bosom of the Lord, to live on in the next world, eternally blissful, eternally loved.

13

If I may use the example you brought up, what if the studies you suggest do not exist? Certainly, we could do a study to see how many people who are intelligent (by some standard) are also not good public speakers. But if those studies do not exist then aren’t we back in the situation where we don’t have enough “facts” to make good “logic”?

And even if we do, there is this quote from Stephen J. Gould from his book “Evolution as a Fact and Theory”:

It may be that you are misusing the ideas of “facts” and “logic” to mean something other than what they are really useful for. Just because you have enough facts and logical arguments to convince you of a certain claim, does not mean that you have enough to convince me. We can both be reasonably interested in the issue and still disagree.

Oddly enough, I ran accross that quote from a website while I was trying to discuss the proposal that Bush believes in Creation Science (as one of the pieces of evidence that he is a dolt). I participated in a debate with little or no hope of convincing anyone to my point of view, but learned quite a bit along the way.

14

Yes, but they also (and Lamia put this far better than I could) need to agree on exactly what are the key points and facts in the debate, which can be quite difficult to do, even in the absence of religion; not all debates are:
I say ‘yes’, he says ‘no’

Some are more like:
I say ‘Chocolate is the best flavour’, he says ice cream is a decadent vice

15

I see what you are saying, but I feel that you are drastically oversimplifying the matter.

People do often feel what is termed cognitive dissonance when confronted with stong logic or direct observation which contradicts their feelings. The short term effect is usually to make them more defensive, however.

“Conversions” do happen, just not at a very fast pace. Someone once likened a person’s abandonment of fundamentalism or softening of a fundeamentalist approach to religion as a process like water eroding stone.

Eric Hoffer, interstingly enough, calimed that converts to a new position made the strongest activists. Or something like that. There is more, butmy time is almost up.

16

The deeper you dig your foundations, the less inclined you are to change them (as well as it being harder). Stability is favored. Only a particularly jarring cognitive dissonance can prompt dismantling and reassembly.

17

This question reminds me of an article in last month’s Discover Magazine. Here is a link to the description. I think you would need to subscribe to read it online.

http://www.discover.com/issues/apr-04/features/whose-life-would-you-save/

Basically someone is trying to study how our brains work when we are faced with moral contradictions. He puts them in a MRI machine and presents them with puzzles. Fun stuff.

One of the ideas presented is that our morals might be a physiological result of the culture we are raised in. Much the same way as the language one grows up speaking affects brain development. Because of the things we are told are Right and Wrong as children, our brains form certain pathways which get developed in a certain way, and in turn lead us to think in a certain way. The brain of someone raised by cannibals might have different pathways than mine, so eating people seems just fine to them.

18

Found It!

http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2004/articles_2004_Morality.html

19

I’ve changed my views significantly since I started participating on message boards. Debate/discussion got my mind working, I was trying to back up my arguments (confirmation bias, I know) when I literally stumbled across a website that shook my worldview. It turned out later that a lot of the information was embellished; but that didn’t matter, the effect took hold and I began to question my previously held beliefs-in a very direct and specific manner. I found that I could no longer keep these beliefs and I had to drop them intellectually; emotionally I tend to go back and forth a bit.

So, do changes happen? Yes. Why don’t some changes happen? I think it has to do with comfort and what you know to be true (or, I should say think or want to be true).

20

This is one of the best threads I’ve read in a long time.

How often can you read a thead where you have almost no instances of a person tryng to prove themselves “right” and someone else “wrong?” This is a great example of “contributing” to a debate rather than “winning” it.

Good work, all.