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Given Truth, the Misinformed Believe Lies More

Posted by samzenpus on from the don't-let-the-truth-get-in-your-way dept.

SharpFang writes "In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that misinformed people, particularly political partisans, rarely changed their minds when exposed to corrected facts in news stories. 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."

2 of 961 comments (clear)

  1. Also rather interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's something called the Kruger-Dunning effect which is kinda interesting as well Dunning-Kruger effect. The premise is the following one:

    The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which an unskilled person makes poor decisions and reaches erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes.

  2. Re:This study is nothing but Communist propaganda by Nadaka · · Score: 5, Informative

    That is a really twisted interpretation of the word "progressive".

    A progressive believes that the current system not working as well as it should, and that it must be improved from within.

    Compare to revolutionary that believes that change is needed, but the system can not be changed from within.

    Compare to a conservative who approves of the current state of government.

    A Regressive believes that recent changes have been for the worse and seeks to repeal them.

    None of these infer as to what direction they believe the change should be in. These are the meanings of these words untwisted by any personal and political agenda. Other political terms like liberal, right and left are somewhat more open to interpretation.