I've long been annoyed that the anti-gay crowd repeats the same lies long after they've been disproven. They latch onto faulty research that "proves" their point. They twist research to mean something the authors didn't discover. The list goes on. What happened to reason and rational thought?
Sharon Begley in Newsweek reports on new understanding of the mind. One researcher of this idea is psychologist Hugo Mercier of the University of Pennsylvania. Our way of thinking isn't designed to uncover the truth but to persuade others to accept our point of view. Because of this we are highly susceptible to confirmation bias -- we latch on to examples that bolster our position and are blind to counterexamples. We look much harder for flaws in a study when it undermines our position. We design our case to get emotional responses rather than use cold logic. That helps us win arguments but misleads us in determining what is true and real.
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