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Why Myths Persist
lottameez recommends an article in the Washington Post about recent research into the persistence of myths. In short: once a myth has been put out there (e.g., "Saddam Hussein plotted the 9/11 attacks"), denying it can paradoxically reinforce its staying power. Ignoring it doesn't work either — a claim that is unchallenged gains the ring of truth. Over time, "negation tags" fall out of memory: "Saddam didn't plan 9/11" becomes "Saddam planned 9/11." From the article: "The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths... The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious 'rules of thumb' that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency."
It took 5000 years to come to this conclusion?
Maybe this explains why religion persists in the face of logic, it was here before science.
Why not extend the slant, which wasn't present in the article, to go both ways? I can't tell you how many people I know who believe Gore won Florida and base it on the idea that major media sources verified it. You can go show them the opposite and they don't care.
What it comes down to is this, people are more inclined to believe stories which correspond to what they already believe to be true, even if the evidence against such a belief is overwhelming. It is all about change and accepting mistakes. There are too many people resistant to change and resistant to admitting mistakes.
So when informing the public about false information, one should avoid using negations?
Instead of saying "Saddam Hussein was not involved in 9/11.", you should instead say something like "It was al-qaida, who didn't particularly like Saddam Hussein, that were responsible for 9/11."
- These characters were randomly selected.
Actually, religion persists because of "common sense," which this article seems to help demonstrate. The problem is that commonly passes as "sense" is not very logically sound. Common sense is not a great tool for discovering the truth.
This is why the scientific method is so invaluable
Too bad most people are scientifically illiterate.
No you dim witted troll, he said that religion is a man made construction around faith. He also said that faith is a belief beyond proof that something more exists. He also claimed that science has had many leaps of faiths that have lead to logical foundation throughout its existence. He never said that God was a man-made construction, only that the rituals to worship and appease God might be man-made around the faith that a creator exists.
Some of you people are so intent on being snide that you don't even read the post you're responding to. (It makes you look like a real dumb ass.) I hope someone with some common sense mods you down, even if they agree with you're slashdot-populist message. Straw manning someone to ridicule them is unnecessary.
It amazes me how actually looking and trying to find out the answer is looked down upon by religious people, when just deciding that some superman in the sky sneezed everything into existence is defended so vociferously.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
The US had beaten the North Vietnamese on the battlefield in every single major engagement when they were deployed. Even after the bulk of US ground forces left and all that was left was advisors and air support. The '72 NVA offensive failed. It was only after the US stopped funding the puppet South Vietnamese regime in '75 that they collapsed.
Following your much appreciated defense of U.S. military capability*, I have to point out an important lesson that is relavent today: We may have won every battle of Vietnam, but we still lost the war. Because in a guerilla war, winning battles in the field is not as important. Being able to crush the enemy when they dare to stand and fight is meaningless when the survivors, the smart ones, will just fade in the face of the attack and blend back into the population. The same holds true in Iraq, which is why invading Falluja was both a cakewalk and a fool's errand. Our forces far outmatch the insurgents, and that hardly matters for victory. It's very frustrating for those who want military solutions for everything, who think the problem with Vietnam is that we didn't spend enough blood and treasure, but it's a lesson we'll have to learn.
* I liked the part where the OP said the U.S. only attacks when it has overwhelming force. Duh, because that's a good strategy for winning! The primary strength of our armed forces is logistics, the ability to move our forces to where they are needed, and to keep them supplied, and to take ground piece by piece by dropping shit-tons of firepower on it. It's how the North won the Civil War against superior Southern generals, it's how we kept the march across France going, and it's what our last Secretary of Defense decided to throw out the window because he thought he knew better.
The enemies of Democracy are