Facts & Democracy Don't Mix?

The Sunday Boston Globe article "How Facts Backfire: Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains" is worth a read for those of us interested in our democratic life, though it certainly isn't encouraging news.  With today's technology offering an overwhelming amount of information (and misinformation), Joe Keohane who wrote the piece suggests that "It's never been easier for people to be wrong, and at the same time feel more certain that they're right."  I'm posting here mainly to call attention to the piece in case you missed it, but I did want to add a few quick observations.

The article summarizes several recent pieces of political science research that indicate most people, when confronted with facts that might counter their views on an issue, tend to dig in their heels and solidify their initial position rather than changing their views.  Underlying this tendency is a coping mechanism referred to as "backfire" which is a "defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance" associated with admitting you are wrong.  Interestingly, higher education levels didn't help correct this too much, but having a higher degree of overall self-confidence did. 

As I said, there are interesting ideas to consider in this article. Some that come to mind:

*Keohane talks about fact & falsehood, as if they were always clearly distinguishable.  Part of the challenge today is that there is so much information out there today; it’s not easy to discern where the truth lies.  And much of that information is not abjectly false, but “spin” that carefully packages truths to support one’s position.  In other words, the messengers as well as the receivers of the information are doing a lot of filtering

*I don’t know that people filtering political data based on their existing values is intrinsically bad; it seems to be a pretty natural and necessary mechanism for processing all of the information available today.  What I do hope we can encourage is: 1) people being thoughtful about choosing trusted sources of information—based on their values as well as the veracity of information offered by those info sources; and 2) openness to changing one’s position by listening to alternative points of view and new data when it is presented.  While it may be that some fairly well educated people interpret facts to merely reinforce their position; any truly thoughtful, well-prepared citizen must be open to true listening to alternative views and being open to changing positions at times.