December 29, 2016

Word: When facts don't convince

Michael Shermer, Scientific American - If corrective facts only make matters worse, what can we do to convince people of the error of their beliefs? From my experience, 1. keep emotions out of the exchange, 2. discuss, don't attack (no ad hominem and no ad Hitlerum), 3. listen carefully and try to articulate the other position accurately, 4. show respect, 5. acknowledge that you understand why someone might hold that opinion, and 6. try to show how changing facts does not necessarily mean changing worldviews. These strategies may not always work to change people's minds, but now that the nation has just been put through a political fact-check wringer, they may help reduce unnecessary divisiveness.

1 comment:

Greg Gerritt said...

The climate change discussion seems especially immune to facts, probably due to the 50 yeara taack on sciience beginning with the tobacco does not cause cancer bs. O realy beleive that a 50 year effort to undo scientific truths in the pursuit of profit has to be dealt with somewhere along the way if we are going to successfully go through the cflimate bottle neck.