The Death of Facts

Something’s been bothering me lately. I had trouble narrowing it down. It has to do with what does and does not matter to people today.

Consider the facts. Or, instead, don’t consider them, because it seems they may not matter very much anymore.

Everyone is biased, I have many biases, nothing new there. Early writers commented on the slant of self interest. Here’s the historian Thucydides in 431 BC: “... it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy." But the expression of bias has taken a nasty turn in modern times.

Today, hearing opposing facts can make people hold even more firmly to contradictory beliefs. Facts themselves have less power to correct misinformation. Facts are less likely to get people to change their minds. The more educated people are the more likely they are to disregard facts that conflict with their beliefs.

Several factors are driving the death of facts. Any threat to self esteem, especially admitting one is mistaken, is unbearable for many these days. Facts are insipidly dry -- folks today are used to being coddled, titillated and entertained before conceding their attention. And there is so much information floating around now that absorbing any portion of it is exhausting.

None of this represents new thinking. Old studies from 2005-2006 confirmed these notions, which were described by several researchers well before then. But if the assertions are true, if what has historically been bias has been transformed into blindness, if having the facts reduces the validity of an argument, then competent decision-making and effective governance are doomed for generations to come.

Readings:

Popular media. The Boston Globe reports facts don’t matter in political debates. July 2010.  Link

Journals. Paper concerning the persistence of political misperceptions. Political Behavior, Amer. Political Science Assoc. Nyhan & Reifler. June 2010.  Link

Journals. Paper about the impact of misinformation in democracy. The Journal of Politics. Aug. 2000.  Link