Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Quick hit: Persistence of Myths

I know I'm a bit late with this story, but I feel like it is interesting in light of our recent conversation about how we should go about debating with people who's opinions we actually hope to sway...
Let's say you are confronted with a commonly believed myth and you have sound evidence that disproves the myth. You think you've won, don't you? All you have to do is counter the false belief with your factual evidence and the myth will dissipate, right?
Well, the bad news is that it isn't that easy. The Washington Post reports that people will misremember myth debunking facts, truly believing 30 minutes later that the evidence they just read was in support of the belief they already held. *Sigh*
Via denialism blog and Newscat.

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