Yes, plus it would require people to admit that they were wrong.
This video, for example, explains a lot of these people’s mindset

Absolutely. Sad but true I’m afraid.

It’s an hour long, @ragingloli. :(

Survival instincts are simply applied logic that has been so ingrained through millions of years of evolution, that we don’t even need to think.

Not sure I agree with it. Logic, reason, and rationality are not really “endeavors”. They really don’t require much effort, but you do have to be able to think like that. If you are not logical, reasonable, or rational, then they trying to be those things suddenly becomes much more difficult. However, I don’t believe those things to be separate from our survival instincts. In any given situation we have a choice to make…even for survival. Fight of flight for example. And it is our logic, reason, and rationality that make that decision.

Well, since you don’t endeavor to apply reasoning, logic or rationality to your arguments, @seawulf575, you don’t know that they are more difficult than reacting on base instinct.

Nonsense. The biggest “logic and reason” guys are those alt-right fuckos. You can reason and logic your way to supporting mass murder.

People believe things despite evidence because we’re human. And we’re resistant to change because we’ve assembled our sense of “self” using stories, beliefs, and positions. We’re resistant to changing because it’s threatening to our identity.

I agree that logic doesn’t come easy for most people. The proof is everywhere, and that single fact is the basis for everything from advertising through politics. People are much more slaves to habit than subject to the dictates of logic. Politics in particular brings out the penchant for people to actually deny what is right in front of them.

As Judge Judy says, “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining!”

That last part left me hanging.

The psychologist Dan Kahneman got a Nobel Prize in economics for his work about the two ways of thinking that we have: System 1 is quick and intuitive and System 2 is more thorough but slower and requiring more energy. He wrote a book on this, Thinking Fast and Slow, Here is a brief description

@Dutchess_III
An hour well worth it, I assure you. Especially with the twist in the middle.

“Logic and reason” are just bullshit statements for trying to justify stuff. Logic is easy. “If A, then B”. Have you ever met a toddler? Toddler logic is irrefutable and absolute. It is based on the information and experience of the toddler, and by that measure is flawless. It does not take into account the fact that the toddler has not had varied enough experiences to form a larger, more comprehensive view of the world.

Control the information, the access to facts and broader ranges of thought, and you can convince anybody that their interpretation of something is logical

@Dutchess_III “Well, since you don’t endeavor to apply reasoning, logic or rationality to your arguments, @seawulf575, you don’t know that they are more difficult than reacting on base instinct.”
Wow. I answered your question honestly. I even applied logic, reason, and rationality. And you make a personal attack on me because I don’t agree with you. So please, enlighten us all…how does your answer to me fit in with logic, reason, and rationality?

Several authors on this subject have come to essentially the same conclusion: belief is emotional. Opinions are emotional. People don’t use logic to arrive at them. Rather, having arrived at them, they use logic and reason to defend them.

The smarter they are, the better able they are to defend their irrational beliefs.

Here’s one:

Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition, by Stuart A. Vyse

Here’s another:

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan

That looks fascinating @Jeruba.

One more:

Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, by Michael Shermer

And yes, they were.

I’m still waiting on my copy of “Too Much and Never Enough.”

@Dutchess_III, ^^ it was worth a read, even though it wasn’t especially well written. But are you relating it somehow to the topic of this thread? I don’t see the connection.

No connection, really. Just meandering! It was supposed to be here2 weeks ago and I’m impatient!

Good reasoning and thinking is an acquired skill that does require additional focus.

There is the idea of the ‘cognitive miser’: that the brain takes shortcuts and makes simple assumptions when thinking and decision making. And in many contexts, this leads to irrational and wrong conclusions—regardless of intelligence!

However, I don’t think this explains why people persist in holding wrong beliefs. It might partly explain how one can be lead to wrong ideas and bad arguments, but holding on to beliefs is more about ego-defence, and even group identity.

Then there’s the whole issue that a lot of self-styled rationalists and free-thinkers who claim they’re being led by facts and logic are just fooling themselves.

So are people who argue from a standpoint of emotion.

I believe most choices have nothing to do with logic or reasoning, but are goal oriented.

Really? I think most people don’t have any goals, unless by goals you simply mean immediate and self-centered wants.

@Jeruba yes, that is what I am getting at

A somewhat cynical view, isn’t it? But it has the advantage of according with experience.

From a Washington Post opinion piece today about the Barrett hearings:

Human beings have a limitless ability to rationalize their own preferences to themselves. It almost never happens that a justice says, “The position I’m taking is constitutional baloney, but it gives me the outcome I want.” (Paul Waldman, “Amy Coney Barrett thinks she can fool us,” 10/14/2020)