Motivated reasoning, rationalization, and what it all means for science...

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

Since we started this new blog, I've found several articles that had potential to be posted here. In fact, there were so many great ones, I thought I'd actually have a hard time choosing! Part of why there is so much going on might be because of the political changes and increased legislative action against evolution, with the prominent lawsuits and local school board controversies. But in the end, I decided on an article that was less centered on any specific event and more on the psychology of how people receive and interpret factual evidence. The article is a little lengthy, but it's a fascinating read and I highly recommend reading the whole thing, if you can. It makes some great points throughout, even if it only mentions creationism briefly.

I kind of geeked out about this article and basically read the whole thing in one breath, but it really is relevant to the theme of our class because it addresses the endless and maddening question of why some people blatantly deny logically and scientifically presented data such as evolution or climate change. The biases these people have built their entire lives are going to be a tough—usually impossible—shell to crack. Okay, we already know that: people are loath to toss out their sacredly held lifelong beliefs in favor of a wholly contradictory theory on the same subject, regardless of the amount of scientific evidence behind it. Various research studies cited in the article actually showed that being given evidence to the contrary of their beliefs only changed the minds of a very small number of subjects.

Of course people judge the validity of evidence based on prior established beliefs. Everyone rationalizes—devout believers as much as atheists; liberals as well as conservatives; the list could go on and on. And it doesn’t come down to just matters of science or faith; we rationalize across the board, with the more deeply contentious issues being those that reflect strongly held beliefs. You may be easily convinced to go for chocolate over vanilla, but then have a scientist talk your ears off with proven facts, but refuse to accept them.
Science has fallen prey to an impervious mindset that calls into question the very legitimacy of the discipline. The article acknowledges the potential fallibility of individual scientists, but argues that the express purpose of the scientific method is to counter these kinds of personal biases: "Even if individual researchers are prone to falling in love with their own theories, the broader processes of peer review and institutionalized skepticism are designed to ensure that, eventually, the best ideas prevail."

This pattern extends well outside science alone. Mooney brings up various political and societal examples of rationalization and motivated reasoning, showing that this effect is universally observed. This is where it gets interesting—the actual capacity to rationalize and apply an impulsive and emotional, rather than reasoned and deliberative, response to contradictory information is considered to be an evolutionary defense mechanism. The article explains it in more detail, but it has to do with responding quickly to threats, not only those which cause physical harm (the original evolutionary purpose), but also those that attack the integrity of our cherished ideas. This means that, in an ironic and fascinating turn of events, the tendency to deny evolution actually sprung up from an evolutionary trait (my mind really was temporarily blown by this).

One of the most resonant takeaway messages from this whole concept has to do with using this knowledge of how humans respond to new data to tailor specific ways of communicating to different groups. The media can have a harmful role in reinforcing the views of already narrow target groups, but manipulating the way information is presented to certain groups can go a long way in increasing understanding and promoting critical thinking. Mooney recommends to “set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue." In my mind, this line of thinking immediately invoked the Clergy Letter Project and the idea that religious leaders must take the lead in educating their congregations with small steps. A familiar and local voice knows how to shape the argument, and certainly has more authority in their community than the words of the most eminent scientist with an arsenal of irrefutable facts.