Rationally Speaking #19 - Brendan Nyhan on False Beliefs that Refuse to Die
Rationally Speaking Podcast
New York City Skeptics
4.6 • 787 Ratings
🗓️ 10 October 2010
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ever notice how some beliefs only seem to become stronger, even as they're repeatedly debunked? For example, the belief that Barack Obama is a Muslim, or that Bush banned all stem cell research in the country. Brendan Nyhan tells about what he's learned from his research studies and his experience maintaining Spinsanity, a watchdog blog monitoring political misinformation. Is there any hope of clearing up false beliefs if denials simply make the problem worse? Brendan does offer hope, but it won't be easy.
Brendan Nyhan is a a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan. He received a Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Duke University in May 2009. In 2011, He will join the Department of Government at Dartmouth College as an assistant professor. His research focuses on political scandal and misperceptions. He also conducts research on social networks and applied statistical methods.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education. |
| 0:22.4 | For more information, please visit us at NYCCEceptics.org. |
| 0:31.2 | Welcome to rationally speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense. I am your host, Massimo Filucci. And with me, as always, is my co-host, Julia Galev. Julia, what are we going to talk about today? |
| 0:47.9 | Well, Massimo, joining us today via Skype is political scientist Brendan Nyhan. He is the Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan, |
| 0:57.7 | and also co-founded the popular blog Spin Sanity, which ran from 2001 to 2004, |
| 1:03.2 | monitoring political misinformation. |
| 1:05.4 | Brendan's here to talk to us about his recent research on why false beliefs are so persistent. |
| 1:10.2 | Brendan, welcome. Thank you. So, |
| 1:13.4 | Brendan, is it true that we're wasting our time as skeptics because, in fact, we can't change |
| 1:19.7 | people's minds even if you give them correct information? Well, I don't want to say anyone is wasting |
| 1:25.5 | their time or I've wasted a substantial portion of my life. |
| 1:28.9 | But it's a lot harder than people think. And I guess that's one of the messages that I've tried to drive to drive home is just that there are lots of reasons to expect that these messages won't work, and we need to think harder about which |
| 1:44.6 | messages will work. |
| 1:45.9 | So can you summarize for us some of the reasons why these messages don't work, or some of the |
| 1:51.3 | evidence that you've found for these messages not working? |
| 1:54.6 | Sure. |
| 1:55.1 | Well, one of the problems is people, to at least some extent, expose themselves to information that is consistent with their |
| 2:04.9 | predispositions. So liberals are going to be more likely to read liberal blogs. Conservism |
| 2:10.7 | would be more likely to read conservative blogs or newspapers or Fox News or whatever the case may be. |
| 2:15.6 | So the first problem is people are tending to be exposed |
| 2:18.7 | information that's consistent with their beliefs, at least to some extent. And that's going to |
| 2:22.8 | limit how much information you receive that's going to contradict your predispositions, |
... |
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