The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science

In Chris Mooney's article, The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science, he explains the reason why individuals don't accept specific facts or information is because the information counters what they believe. The examples that he uses to support this statement are peoples views on climate change, on post 9/11 and the correlation between vaccines and autism. All of these different examples have scientific evidence to it. People only respond to the evidence as credential if it justifies their set of beliefs, Mooney refers to this as confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when evidence or arguments agree with ones beliefs. While disconfirmation bias is when evidence or arguments disagree with ones beliefs, so they try to refute the evidence. Sometimes individuals will illustrate  facts to another and expect them to be motivated by the it, this is called "motivated reasoning. Even though this seems logical to prove facts with evidence, motivated reasoning tends to get backfired and the individual will refute what was just said because it disagrees with their beliefs. Mooney ends his article by stating if you want to convince someone of something, don't lead with facts, lead with values.

Our beliefs are something we have developed over the course of our life time. As humans, we become defensive when someone tries to skew our beliefs with facts and evidence. Our basic human survival skill is to "push threatening information away; pull friendly information forward". So when we hear information that concur with our beliefs we tend to understand it, but when it threatens our beliefs we go into the "fight or flight" mode and defend, this is referred to as, "motivated reasoning". According to Mooney confirmation bias is when we, "give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs."and disconfirmation bias is when we, "expend disapproving energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments we find uncongenial." So basically we highlight the evidence that supports our beliefs (confirmation) and discredit the facts that disapprove our beliefs (disconfirmation).  Science has to deal with situations like these in many places, one example is showing evolutionary evidence to a creationist. The creationist will have a counterargument for every fact provided in support of the Theory of Evolution, therefore giving a disconfirmation bias.

Knowledge, according to Weinberger, is the network. However, Mooney is showing that the network can not be convinced by facts or evidence if they go against other preexisting views. This may suggest that our status of knowledge isn't only dependent on facts alone, but on how facts relate to preexisting views and beliefs, this leads to a lot of bias and different opinions. In my opinion, facts are facts and individuals should consider more of an open mind even if it does go against ones views. I may try to change a persons mind regarding global warming by taking their values and start and conclude with that and in the middle explain the facts of how human waste have significant impacts and have caused an increase in global warming. If the individual still doesn't accept the facts there isn't much more to do to persuade them we just have to let them believe what they want. The problem becomes worse when they start to spread their false facts through the media and technology. Confirmation biased is worsened due to the internet because everyone is able to develop sites and even express their own beliefs on their in small pieces. One example of this is with the citizens who believe vaccines and autism are correlated, these individuals with such strong values have developed websites like Age of Autism that show false acquisitions. One of the last things that Mooney talks about are conservatives and how they are more prone to deny the facts of science. Conservatives are known for sticking to the book of the conservative lifestyle so, if they are given new information that contradicts how they've previously lived they take it to offense and deny the scientific facts that contrasts their values.