Depressing but true

[undyingking]

Two roundups which between them demonstrate just how useless humans are at thinking things through.

• Does ideology trump facts? Studies say it often does
  "If the findings of some political scientists are right, attempting to correct misinformation might do nothing more than reinforce the false belief...
  "Could this response be why, despite being repeatedly refuted in the media, the percentage of Americans who believe Sen. Obama to be a Muslim continues to grow?
  "It seems to suggest that this effect might lead to problems when it comes to efforts to educate people about controversial or politically charged topics..."

And, as if to neatly support those findings:

• Green idealists fail to make grade, says study
  "According to the researchers, people who regularly recycle rubbish and save energy at home are also the most likely to take frequent long-haul flights abroad...
  "Some people even said they deserved such flights as a reward for their green efforts...
  "[O]ne respondent said: 'I recycle 100% of what I can, there's not one piece of paper goes in my bin, so that makes me feel less guilty about flying as much as I do.'"

I'm sure I'm as guilty of this sort of thing as everyone else. Systematic denial of this sort is a mechanism that humans must have evolved very early, as an important species behavioural trait: if we estimated risks and consequences accurately, we'd probably never have bothered coming down from the trees. What's interesting though is that clearly it is possible to overcome it under certain circumstances. How can that effect be spread wider?

Comments

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

AN ERROR HAS OCCURRED. INFORMATION DOES NOT FIT STEREOTYPES. ABORT/RETRY/IGNORE?

I had a look at the Indy article as we were sorting out the recycling today and it's even worse than I thought. It says "Research has shown..." [insert number of words meme here] "...according to Luan (sic) Brizendine, the author of the study." Er, no it hasn't, there was no study, Louann Brizendine is a quack and you the journalist are a lazy sod.

(Whoops, red mist descended there for a moment. I really hate this sort of pop evolutionary psychology that pours truckloads of purely cultural stuff on you while chuckling knowingly and saying there is no point trying to resist it, it is Natural and all humans have been like that since the Dawn of Time.)