Thursday, Mar 5, 2015 03:15 AM CST
Facts do not matter: The depressing science that explains vaccine trutherism
Eye-opening new research reveals we're
predisposed to ignore truths that contradict our most cherished beliefs
Troy Campbell and Justin Friesen, Scientific American
Jenny McCarthy (Credit: Reuters/Fred Prouser)
“There was a scientific study that showed vaccines cause autism.”
“Actually, the researcher in that study lost his medical license, and overwhelming research since then has shown
no link between vaccines and autism.”
“Well, regardless, it’s still my personal right as a parent to make decisions for my child.”
Does
that exchange sound familiar: a debate that starts with testable
factual statements, but then, when the truth becomes inconvenient, the
person takes a flight from facts.
As public debate rages about
issues like immunization, Obamacare, and same-sex marriage, many people
try to use science to bolster their arguments. And since it’s becoming
easier to test and establish facts—whether in physics, psychology, or
policy—many have wondered why bias and polarization have not been
defeated. When people are confronted with facts, such as the
well-established safety of immunization, why do these facts seem to have
so little effect?
Our
new research, recently published in the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
examined a slippery way by which people get away from facts that
contradict their beliefs. Of course, sometimes people just dispute the
validity of specific facts. But we find that people sometimes go one
step further and, as in the opening example, they reframe an issue in
untestable ways. This makes potential important facts and science ultimately irrelevant to the issue.
Let’s consider the issue of same-sex marriage. Facts
could be
relevant to whether it should be legal—for example, if data showed that
children raised by same-sex parents are worse off—or just as
well-off—as children raised by opposite-sex parents. But what if those
facts contradict one’s views?
We presented 174 American
participants who supported or opposed same-sex marriage with (supposed)
scientific facts that supported or disputed their position. When the
facts opposed their views, our participants—on both sides of the
issue—were more likely to state that same-sex marriage isn’t actually
about facts, it’s more a question of moral opinion. But, when the facts
were on
their side, they more often stated that their opinions were fact-based
and much less about morals. In other words, we observed something beyond
the denial of particular facts: We observed a denial of the relevance
of facts.
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In
a similar study using 117 religious participants, we had some read an
article critical of religion. Believers who were especially high (but
not low) in religiosity were more likely to turn to more untestable
“blind faith” arguments as reasons for their beliefs, than arguments
based in factual evidence, compared to those who read a neutral article.
These
experiments show that when people’s beliefs are threatened, they often
take flight to a land where facts do not matter. In scientific terms,
their beliefs become less “falsifiable” because they can no longer be
tested scientifically for verification or refutation.
For
instance, sometimes people dispute government policies based on the
argument that they don’t work. Yet, if facts suggest that the policies
do work, the same person might stay resolvedly against the argument
based on principle. We can see this on both sides of the political
spectrum, whether it’s conservatives and Obamacare or liberals and the
Iraqi surge of 2007.
One would hope that objective facts could
allow people to reach consensus more easily, but American politics are
more polarized than ever. Could this
polarization be a consequence of feeling free of facts?
While
it is difficult to objectively test that idea, we can experimentally
assess a fundamental question: When people are made to see their
important beliefs as relatively less rather than more testable, does it
increase polarization and commitment to desired beliefs? Two experiments
we conducted suggest so.
In an experiment with 179 Americans, we
reminded roughly half of participants that much of President Obama’s
policy performance was empirically testable and did not remind the other
half. Then participants rated President Obama’s performance on five
domains (e.g., job creation). Comparing opponents and supports of Obama,
we found that the reminder of testability reduced the average polarized
assessments of President Obama’s performance by about 40%.
To
test this further test the hypothesis that people strengthen their
desired beliefs, when the beliefs are free of facts, we looked at sample
103 participants that varied from highly to moderate religious. We
found that when highly (but not more moderately) religious participants
were told that God’s existence will always be untestable, they reported
stronger desirable religious beliefs afterwards (e.g. the belief God was
looking out for them), relative to when they were told that one day
science might be able to investigate God’s existence.
Together
these findings show, at least in some cases, when testable facts are
less a part of the discussion, people dig deeper into the beliefs they
wish to have— such as viewing a politician in a certain way or believing
God is constantly there to provide support. These results bear
similarities to the
many studies that find when facts are
fuzzier people tend to exaggerate desired beliefs.
So
after examining the power of untestable beliefs, what have we learned
about dealing with human psychology? We’ve learned that bias is a
disease and to fight it we need a healthy treatment of facts and
education. We find that when facts are injected into the conversation,
the symptoms of bias become less severe. But, unfortunately, we’ve also
learned that facts can only do so much. To avoid coming to undesirable
conclusions, people can fly from the facts and use other tools in their
deep
belief protecting toolbox.
With
the disease of bias, then, societal immunity is better achieved when we
encourage people to accept ambiguity, engage in critical thinking, and
reject strict ideology. This society is something the new common core
education system and at times
The Daily Show are at least in
theory attempting to help create. We will never eradicate bias—not from
others, not from ourselves, and not from society. But we can become a
people more free of ideology and less free of facts.
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