Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds

[Aroura]

It's a lot more complicated than that.  It's easy to say, oh they just don't want to do it, lazy, stupid, etc, but the fact is it goes against basic human psychology, not just to check facts but to give them a fair hearing.  

It's basically a learned skill, like reading.  People don't chose to read, they must be taught it, though a select few may just pick it up, that isn't how most people learn to read.  If people aren't taught the skills to examine their beliefs critically at a young age, they never even have a chance.  It isn't a choice, or laziness.  It's education (or lack-there-of).

I was going to disagree with you (because in this day and age, information is easily obtainable), but you got me with this.

If people aren't taught the skills to examine their beliefs critically at a young age, they never even have a chance.

I grew up in the 70's as the epitome of a latch key kid.  My parents were divorced, and my mom worked retail at a small town drug store.  My mother is not a smart or curious woman, and I honestly learned very little from her.  What I did have was ample free (me) time and a local library across the street.  Instead of going home and watching the one or two channels of TV we had, I went to the library and allowed my mind to wander. 

I think it's possible for children to learn this themselves.  A young mind is a curious mind.  What's worse than not being taught to think critically is to be taught to NOT think critically.

Oh I agree.  Just like some people can learn to read even if no one teaches them.  But most people won't do it.  You are one of the people who would.  Yes, people can learn it on their own, even as adults.  But even those of us who learn this still have to actively push ourselves not to fall back into an echo chamber of our own pre-conceived notions.  It's why scientists use blind studies and why the scientific method is so important, because bias creeps in unknowingly based on what they think is true, even when they are honest and don't mean to.

I think that indoctrinating kids early with religion is a way people teach their kids not to reason at all.  When people are taught that some things just are and cannot be questioned, and worse, that having blind faith can be a desirable attribute, they've really harmed that child's chances of being able to question their own beliefs as adults.  It can still happen, clearly, I myself was indoctrinated young but still managed to get out of it, though it took time.  For some people, it never really takes hold. You hear on here about people who's parents raised them in religion, but they questioned early, by 8 or 9 and never really bought into it all.  

I think it's safe to say most people aren't like that, though.  The information age seems to be raising the number who can teach themselves, but most people don't seem able to do that, either.