How Facts Backfire

[finehoe]

Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=1

[cityimrov]

If this article is true, is this why so many politicians are liars?  According to this article, as soon as a politician tells the honest truth and presents the facts backing that truth - they are either ignored or chastised depending if they are a conservative or a liberal.  So the more honest the candidate, the worse they perform in the polls, the less people want to hear them, and their electability is killed.  

If that's the case then in essence, most people vote not for the best candidate but the best liar.  

[buckethead]

One man's facts are another person's preconceived notions. I would add that trustworthy sources for facts are few and far between. "Facts" are usually loaded when presented in the news.