Facts (usually) Don't Change Minds: with Melanie Trecek-King
Вставка
- Опубліковано 12 жов 2024
- Facts usually won't cut it. We need to drill down to how beliefs are formed and protected.
Educator Melanie Trecek-King of Thinking is Power does a lot of writing/speaking about identity beliefs.
www.thinkingisp...
I grew up in a Southern Baptist fundamentalist household in a small rural town in northeast Arkansas. So my entire existence and identity was cemented in that strict religious tradition throughout my childhood, my adolescence, into my early twenties. Also throughout my entire life, I had an extremely passion for learning about archaeology, paleontology, anthropology, astronomy, and biology. I collected rocks, fossils, and built an absurd collection of books on history and science because I desperately wanted to learn what were the causes that created the world and the events that led our civilization to what it is today.
The more I learned, the more I realized that I was having to intentionally reject the parts of scientific knowledge that conflicted with the religious beliefs I grew up believing in.
In my mid twenties, I finally found the courage to accept the fact that religion is of human construct. Once I was able to get to that point, the world and the universe and humanity became so incredibly more beautiful and meaningful.
I can only speak for myself. This is my personal story.
What’s beautiful about science is that it’s life all around us. I was lost in biology class in high school. No amount of tutoring cracked the code. Then community college and the best teacher I ever had, taught in a manner that spoke to me. She opened up a whole new world. Science turned into my favorite subject. I thought I was stupid in high school. I blossomed in community college and I continue to love learning. After my bs degree I went on to work as an environmental radiation health and safety specialist working on a superfund clean up site. I’m 71 now and so impressed with my journey. The dumb girl from a family of 5 male siblings that were the chosen, spread my wings to shine and raise two children alone as a single parent. What a wonderful world the gift of science provided for me. 🎉
What an inspiring story. Nice job turning things around in your life. Congratulations on raising those kids too.. ☮
“It’s impossible that everything we believe is true.” What a psychological swing!!
"First ask yourself, 'why do I want to engage?'" The single most important question in the social media era.
I've been writing my diatribe responses, but I usually delete them instead of engaging. Not only do I recognize I don't know everything, but most often the person is a stranger. I don't think I've changed the mind of a single person through arguing.
@@SonovaBishvery true. Sometimes I just write a comment - then copy it and put it in a word document where I collect them all as ideas or notes for a possible book or something.
So glad she touched on tribalism. Today we can belong to so many because of social media and of course the mainstream media. When you criticise a tribe and especially its leadership, cognitive dissonance becomes an impenetrable barrier. This was crucial for our survival as a species but now has become a huge problem in modern day society imo.
the question is, why are people still being tribal.
how do we get people out of their tribes.
i am not sure how this really applies to tribalism:
"drill down to their reasoning & connect at t a fundamental level
empathy
modeling
humility
curiosity
skepticism
how sure are you that your belief is true?"
Check out the Oatmeal's video on the backfire effect and how challenging ideas that we have incorporated into our core sense of self trigger our Psychosomatic, physiological, amygdala responses.
It's learning to sit in those moments, to let that adrenaline rush through our bloodstream for the next 90 seconds or so, and to not make any rash decisions/knee jerk reactions.
But then the next step is discovery, the, *_do your own research,_* process, that Search Engine Optimization and algorithms could still deliver us the wrong information that further feeds our confirmation bias, especially in realms like Young Earth Creationism, where the apologists use jargon and terminology that will bring someone to their sites and videos first and foremost.
Most people are not going to look much further.
And that's how we end up with perpetuating tribalism instead of the rising tide of the Information Age lifting all ships
My tribe is Human, my Home is Earth
@@danielstadden1149 we need more Humanists 👍
@@danielstadden1149Saying your tribe is human is like saying your nutrition comes from food. Just as some food is bad for you( processed foods, foods high in sugar and fat, et) some human tribes are bad or just plain evil. One has to use discernment. When your cooking, your choosing the correct ingredients to bring out the flavor. Are you going to put garlic in your cake?
This is a great explanation, especially the part about thinking "you're too smart to fall for misinformation". Thank you!
One of the most valuable videos I've seen in a long, long time. Thanks for this.
can you explain why you feel this way?
Thank you for the wonderful presentation. Epistemology & Empathy are are, I agree, necessary bedfellows for engagement and growth
More of this please!
Thanks, Seth for this wonderful video. Melanie is complete right about this. We need these techniques to help us bring together with those with whom we have been fighting.
This is excellent. I will have to listen to this again later on.
I like that about asking if you're 95% confident, ask them why they aren't 100% confident? although most theists we've come to debate with would claim they're 100% confident, and that's the problem.
Mel. Im 95% sure you're the best!
The trick I use is the more I hear something I want to hear, or the more my biases are confirmed, the more suspicious I become that I might be wrong.
I want so much for the earth to be mostly spherical and everyone I know thinks it is - but...
Wow, this is brilliant. The only thing I might add is that the individual's desire to be accepted, respected, loved and admired is so strong and it is the group that we belong to that provides us with that. It is not too difficult to see why some of us can do terrible things or believe in weird things because that is what "our" group expects from us
Well said! “We can’t learn if we’re certain we’re right “.
When I discovered logical fallacies are and exist ,it opened my mind to so many things and truly humbling.
Great video and explanations of how we can correct for our own biases and try to have meaningful conversations with those we might not agree with.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us
I've heard the statement that I think is very true, you can't logically convince somebody out of something that they didn't logically convince themselves into...
that's not true though, it happens all the time.
@@Soapy-chan
"Happens all the time..." How are you quantifying your statement of all the time? I mean, do you often reason people out of their beliefs on a routine basis without appealing to emotion. Is there a study you can point to that shows how just logical reasoning will get people to change their mind about things?
Because religion, propagandist, hostage negotiators, and sales all know (and there is lots of literature to) that you never bring people on your side through logical reasoning but emotional appeal....
As the old saying goes, "you sell the sizzle, not the steak". Meaning that if you can get someone to feel good about the decision then they'll make up the reasons why it was good. And once those reasons have become core to their identity, no amount of logic is going to just get them to throw away their identity...
@@williammcfarlane6153 it's very easy, if they'd never do it, we wouldn't have all the deconverts we have. since we have deconverts of massive magnitudes, it literally happens all the time.
I became a Christian due to the way I was raised and a spiritual experience. It wasn't logic. But logic (delivered with empathy from those whom I respected) slowly tore down all of my dogma. I certainly was convinced by logic out of things I had arrived at out of emotion and tribalism. I do think, though, that logic wouldn't have worked if the logic was provided as an attack, instead of an empathetic set of questions by friends.
@@robertbrown2706
But as you highlighted... The logic would only be accepted when there was emotional safety and there was an emotional opening from you for new information that may have conflicted with your previously held beliefs.
If the person had not to work to make sure you felt safe and you weren't in a place of willingness to accept information that may conflict with what you previously held, then no amount of logic would have convinced you out of your emotional connection to the belief.
It's so frustrating for me that facts don't change minds. I accept the data on this, it's quite clear, but it was ultimately facts that *did* get me to change my mind. It took time, and it took a lot of them, but they eventually got me there. I think my frustration is probably rooted, at least in part, in that I'm much better at facts than I am at being empathetic and encouraging and meeting people where they are. Still, this seems like my problem for me to fix rather than asking the world to change for me.
Sounds like facts changed your mind on this one. So perhaps it still occurs sometimes and it might still be worth the effort of sharing the facts
@@Emiliapocalypse always worth sharing them, for sure. But I have to wildly alter my approach, which is going to be difficult.
Exceptional advice on consideration of how to develop an attitude of patient sharing and teaching to those who may differ from us in their views of life in this crazy world where proven facts continue to be habitually replaced with "true belief" or "a need for greater faith" in order to continue to belong to a specific group, tribe, nation or religion. Somehow, I have taken 83 years of life to learn that reality is much more fun and how to properly communicate with those who prefer the fantasy that promises reward for the good and a hellish revenge for the wicked who use science and critical thinking.
Wow. Impressed inside the first minute.
There is some real wisdom here. I shall use it.
A beautiful presentation, thank you, from a thinking theist!
Thank you for this.
This is a great video! And it is smart for any atheist to refocus their public engagement around the themes addressed in this analysis.
Religious believers (especially Christians and Muslims) in later modernity (where we find ourselves) are in the business of building communities around the promise of certainty of knowledge in a confusing and fast-changing world. Their 'kryptonite' is advanced critical thinking (and critical rationalism more specifically) that (1) opens up our beliefs to critical scrutiny and self-reflection, (2) accepts that our knowledge is always model-dependent and provisional, (3) and factors pragmatic considerations into deciding which beliefs (or convictions) are to be acted on. In other words, it understands knowledge as subject to evolutionary pressures. That is why most apologists are desperate to frame their atheist opponents as selling an alternative (and less secure) certainty of knowledge.
It is essential not to claim against apologists that we know categorically that there is no God. Instead, rigorous critical thinking leaves us with no satisfactory rational grounds for believing in God - given our current information environment and the analytical tools we have at our disposal right now.
It helps a lot that, in a world where (at least in constitutional democracies) they can no longer deploy outright oppression to shut their opponents up, apologists are also bound to rely on advanced critical thinking to combat other beliefs and the atheist challenge. That brutally exposes their inability to use the same standards of critical scrutiny on their own beliefs. As a result, they inevitably come through as hypocrites and dogmatists.
I don't think it is about changing minds. It is about people knowing there are differing points of view. For some people that alone is a radical notion.
Most people know there are other points of view; they just think all but their own are wrong.
@@505Hockey I know many viewpoints are wrong. Creationism, White Supremacy, Homophobia are wrong positions to have.
For me, the best way to think of science is a way of behaving that subverts my will to reality.
Helpful suggestions. Communicate, not alienate.
Belief is the death of discovery
This is where the contributions of Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin are so important.
Good points!
This is an excellent video ! Yes, why we wonder can’t the eight billion people on this planet understand we are all people!? Mel’s analysis is spot on…
I always try to be on the lookout for confirmation bias and try to have the courage to say that something seems hinkey, even when the belief is strongly adhered to by my in group. It isn't easy.
She says you can't change people's minds with facts, but I'm going to prove her wrong!!
What a powerful message. I really needed to hear this because I struggle with this very issue and sometimes I feel like I'm alone on an island of people that don't share my views and opinions on the topic of faith and religious beliefs and find myself trying really hard to not let it get to me and trying to stay humble along the way.
It's that societal pressure that keeps people trapped by bad ideas, unfortunately. We are social creatures.
She is right that people usually just remember in order to pass a test and then soon forget. I like sciences that are less about memory and more about problem solving, such as physics and chemistry. While learning biology can eventually lead to problem solving, there is a lot of up front memorization of the many systems at work. She brings up another good point in that how many beginner classes get taught is enough to bore most people out of interest to pursue any further. When a person is already interested in a subject it is easy to forget many people don't yet have that interest and you have to be a bit more creative in cultivating that interest.
In terms of facts not changing minds, we call that being irrational. Irrational people often don't know they are irrational and use a special kind of rationalization that makes them feel they are rational when they are not. I think understanding you are just as prone to irrationality as anyone else at least gives you a fighting chance to actually listen and consider the facts and reasoning provided by others rather than that wall we are all familiar with where no amount of facts and reasoning are going to get through.
Neuroscience and neuropsychology has made huge gains in understanding how the human brain works and how it develops from childhood to adulthood. We don't see the world how it really is but our brains make up stories to help us cope and survive in today's world using brain structures developed over millions of years for survival in dangerous environments. Human brains have not developed to handle and cope with the fast-paced modern world. Our brains are overloaded, and we can't keep up.
I am pretty sure that if Melanie watched a Good Liars video on UA-cam, that she would tear up.
Great talk. If I may add one point. There’s a small danger of taking this to an extreme and saying “nothing is true”. Saying “all facts are just opinions”. There are some truths in the world. Some facts do exist. Overall you’re right that there’s a bigger danger of believing only what agrees with your world view. Thanks for the video.
I like to ask myself ‘why am I wrong about this?’. Then try to argue against my own conclusions with evidence. It helps slow down my own biases.
Excellent...
Brilliant video. Great points and love the idea. Thanks for sharing 👍 😊.
What she said in the first 60 seconds is the reason I homeschool, my kid could memorize and regurgitate information for a little while, but it never stayed as a long term memory or as a truly learned concept, it was just there to help them pass an exam and then poof, gone! Once we started doing more hands on learning experiences and discussing things back and forth rather than just reading a book of facts, that all changed!!
The arrogant and ignorant spend their lives trying to prove themselves right. The wise spend their lives trying to prove themselves wrong.
Consider this:
If a child in your life went missing, this child missing would suddenly become the most important priority.
Why isn't recovering missing children the number 1 priority of government?
Thanks Melanie I really enjoyed this, and I’m wondering if you have heard about NVC as this is a great lead into it.
That is a great video, a lot to think about.
@8:00 Also ask what it would take to change their mind, your mind, to revise or replace the belief. Very nice. Thank you! I recommend Steven L. Goldman's "Science Wars" to those interested in thinking styles and how the current methods used by scientists developed-evolved. Perhaps Melanie could do a video on how authoritarians think (see Bob Altemeyer) and the work of Leor Zmigrod on ideological thinking. I'd really like one that compares/contrasts abductive thinking to deduction and induction.
My strategy is that everything i hear is wrong, and that what i think is right probably isn't.
I spend most of my time trying to prove myself wrong.
When i fail, i feel more confident, but it's only temporary, because even when you're right, it's only for a moment, and then you should be questioning again.
I ask myself, "Why am i so sure the earth isn't flat?"
The key problem is we judge ourselves with the same brain that got things wrong in the first place.
Empathy is often toxic if guided towards those who believe differently. Sympathy is better, it doesn't pretend to understand their context and doesn't arrogantly assume superiority.
Empathy should not be conflated with understanding. The fake bit is claiming to understand when you don’t.
The advantage of the human mind is that it compartmentalizes (holding isolated differences). The disadvantage of the human mind is that it compartmentalizes (perhaps refusing to observe/realize a proper distinction).
This is fantastic!
Tribalism is not dead. Ever been to a football match. I call it moronball. But at least it gives those with less intellectual firepower something to do with their time.
And the question "can I be wrong" is an important one. Yes, I can and have been wrong. But I am quick to admit it. Unlike most.
This is really useful. Thank you
This is so, so important. This information could save our society. It could save our planet. This is how we save the future.
Hate is natural, like anger or pain.
Express your rage and hate. Don't deny it.
Our cars run on hate. Fast explosions that produce smoke, noise and CHANGE
The type of videos we should have in schools
I have always sought truth over approval and have no problem letting go of those who don't. Sadly, spent most of my life believing the bible was true. That may be why deconstruction came easy once I learned it was not.
See Julia Galef's TED talk called Scout Mindset.
We don't "know" anything.
We believe things.
The more memories (aka data) that you collect on the topic, makes your beliefs more likely to be true.
Thanks!
Facts very often change minds - just not so much when people are somehow personally invested in their beliefs, be it emotionally, culturally, financially, ...
The problem with all of this is... sometimes someone says something so unbelievably stupid or malicious that it's pretty difficult to do anything but malign them for the reprobate that they are.
Also there's an element of authority here. Interrogating epistemology is great and all but people with an authoritarian mindset will dismiss you out of hand regardless, so long as they don't view you as at least of equal social standing with them.
Facts don’t care about your feelings, but your conclusions do.
I found something universal that is essential for our survival and only a tiny fraction understand, the rest scoff, deny, and simply not listen. I have tried to convince all kinds of groups over the last ten years and have come to the conclusion that we have a genetic memory of the trauma millennia ago. Deep down we know the story and do like like the conclusion. It took fifty five years of research to find out no one will even read it. Just the sheer fact of the silence and shunning is reason enough to know something big is happening. It is so bad that I have been researching psychology, which I really do not want to do, to grasp how people tick. I did find something extraordinary in that quest, Carl Jung et al., have brainwashed everyone into believing that Ancient mythology is just a fabrication for our need, when there is something undeniably universal about this world. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Biology?
6:00 "honest and empathetic conversations". Hmmm. Nice phrase. I don't know that I've ever had one. Where do you get 'em? Any conversation I've ever had about anything has always devolved into a competition, and I'm already 72.
When confronted with new information, I do not ask "should I believe it?" but instead ask "must I believe it"?
It is hard to talk to "them" when "they" shoot from tanks at your home! And it's immensely hurting when "them" is one of your close relatives...
Psychedelics changes people's minds!
I have been othered and one thing that happens is the mob doesn’t tell you why they are angry. It’s infuriating. No way to defend a point.
She’s a way better person than I am.
My concern has always been, who decides what's "misinformation" in the Internet-saturated world.
Unfortunately sometimes this devolves into negative perspectives viewed as "othering".
Simply making your argument is seen as an attack.
Social etiquette allows a good joke at someone's expense, but real arguments rarely are socially accepted. People recognize sides, take them and no real sense is made of anything more.
Great talk! I was raised in a very religious family, but embraced evolution with no God from science classes and books, and then after studying for decades, on this topic, I again believe in God as it takes significantly more faith to not believe in God and intelligent design, but also see that the vast majority of religion is complete nonsense and completely man-made, and keep my mind open to all facts and truth, as presented.
try this with kent hovnid and similar. All this is going out the window( dishonesty to typical terms of science and unwillingness to re examine if our knowledge is discrowned of unquestionable status added to refuse ligitimate processes for repeatable phenomena in science) breaks patience unless you are like paulogia.
👍
A Flat Earther or a Scientologist who stops believing will definitely lose their group. Motivated belief is extremely powerful.
We must be oware of the fact that what we believe may not be true and look for evidence that will demonstrate the truth
👏🧐
As someone who's schooled in biology and seems to be concerned with facts, I wonder if she's ever used the term 'sex assigned at birth'. I mean, how can any animal be male or female if a human isn't there to assign one of the two categories to them? New tribes can develop out of single issues, so it would appear.
It's ironic she said we all know the earth isn't flat because there are plenty of people who do think the world is flat. And that's just a fact.
What ought to be the consequences of stupidity? We are told to hold scepticism over cynicism and curiosity over judgement universalism over tribalism tolerance over animosity except we who start out willing to follow this as sound advice get shamed mocked ignored and yes at times threatened by those who do not want to live by ethical standards. I've discovered that if someone wont respect your personal space then you have to use tit for tat non tolerant strategies to return to cooperation. Bad actors get far to much kind treatment compared to good actors who get nonreciprical behavior. People who want to be good have to develop a plan B kind of consequentialism towards antisocial behavior. We really need to deep dive that problem. Be kind no matter what and empathize with ignorance up to a point yes but we really need to think about the red line and how to shift our behaviors or we will be overrun. They formulas believe me. Just cause a bad actor is ignorant of the good doesn't mean that have no formula to push past our boundaries. Think more deeply about this othering and tolerance and empathy and kindness. Where is the redline when we get taken advantage of and what level of consequence needs to be implemented?
Science is a thinking process, it starts out as a simple philosophy.
But I’m the mostest smartest persen out there.
Yeah. We are ALL flawed thinkers, flawed personal historians, and irrational primates. I am glad to be living at a point in history, and in a country as flawed as it may be, where scientific progress and values borne of the Enlightenment has helped society. And as a type one diabetic since 1986, had I been born a hundred years ago….well. Thank you science!
I suspect folks who might need this most won't watch it.
Two facts I live by: 1. Life is uncertain. 2. Humans are not rational.
Humanity has a vast immaturity, arrogance, and ignorance problem. Good luck to us all.
But what do you do when they say they’re 1,000% certain they’re right?
That's where shaming comes in.
Being made to look like a fool, usually does change minds.
11 minutes well spent
"Facts don't change minds"... If "it" can't comprehend "facts"... "It" is not a "mind"...
It’s easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled…MT
Since religion by default is an abandoment of reason, thereby making it just an alternate way of stating the ignoring of fact...
She gets into street epistemology at the end.
👋👍💙
I am a sigma male. I dont tribe,follow,lead,nor help people that refuse to roll up their sleaves and do the work. Praying,wishing,does not work.
"The part of our brain that is activated when there's a physical threat, the amygdala, is also activated when there's a threat to our core beliefs"
No it doesn't.
commenting for the algorithm