08-27-2015, 09:17 PM
(08-27-2015, 05:52 PM)xxlt Wrote: So people have biases. This is not a great revelation to me. And an examiner can use obfuscation (including introducing information that taps into biases) to impact the examinees ability to answer correctly. Again, not a huge revelation. Teachers throw red herrings and obfuscating information into problems all the time.
I guess I don't know why someone would do this study, or who would publish it, or why it would make anyone say "wow." Seems kind of common sense, and as I noted above, not necessarily abominable. Most people have an ethos and it shapes their processing of information. It just isn't a big "aha" for me and I think you can argue it is a good thing. If your biases (political or otherwise) have any basis in fact then this may mitigate getting the "wrong" answer to a problem you find secondary to a larger problem. So, for example, while there is ample evidence that some government programs work you have GOP people in large numbers condemning all government programs. They don't care if 100% of them work, they don't believe in government. I think that is kind of ignorant, but respect their right to yield to a "higher" problem - government is always bad, rather than the facts that many (even up to 100%) of programs work because they see the efficacy of government programs as irrelevant - a question that doesn't matter.
I found it interesting because it shows that being a partisan can cloud rational thinking.
I'm rather thrilled by the psyche of people and what makes them tick. It's not a "gotcha" post to any certain side.
Although I'm a libertarian that rejects the R vs D paradigm, that certainly doesn't mean that I don't have my own views that are well set in stone.
