Smart people can be stubborn and would dismiss facts sometimes too
I think this makes it seem a lot more black and white than it really is. Defaulting to information that agrees with your word view is a natural human bias. We all suffer from it and it’s important to actively try and work against that
Defaulting to information that agrees with your word view is a natural human bias.
In general, perhaps, but in the face of conflicting facts?
Everyone has their own set of facts. That’s the basis for their world view. Doesn’t mean those facts are pertinent to the question at hand but upsetting their entire worldview is not something people allow easily.
And that’s human nature. We’re a social species. We belong to tribes and depend on our tribe for survival. If we could drop our worldview like a load of dirty laundry then we’d be walking away from our tribes and dying.
Ask anyone who has had profound political disagreements with their family. It’s enormously painful. While you can drop a position here or there in an election, it’s not at easy to drop your family.
Everyone has their own set of facts.
If you mean their own configuration of facts, I agree. If you mean “things they believe”, I disagree that those are “facts”.
hot takes are already incoming, so just as a reminder: Sayings like this have assumptions that are necessary to be aware of before nitpicking details.
The saying is just saying that smart people are open minded to new ideas and information and indoctrinated people are taught to be close minded. It doesn’t mean every new piece of information is immediately believed by the smart person or that smart people are immune to confirmation bias, just that they are generally open to new information supported by evidence and indoctrination teaches people to reject new information whether it is supported by evidence or not.
It is a generalization about a primary difference, not a hard and fast rule.
I’d much rather confirm whether new information is accurate before adjusting my world view. Not all new information is equal.
This is not entirely true though. Beliefs and opinions are heavily influenced by a lot of factors. Even educated people are not free from such errors. Like the backfire effect (Nyhan and Reifler (2010)): situations where people become more entrenched in their views when confronted with contradictory evidence.
Other studies have found that when presented with data, individuals with more education can sometimes be more divided in their beliefs, particularly when the topic is politically charged. For instance, some educated individuals may use their knowledge to selectively interpret data in ways that support their pre-existing views, a phenomenon known as “motivated reasoning.” Confirmation bias relates to that. This has been observed in areas like climate change, where political and ideological factors heavily influence opinions. (See for example: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704882114 )
In other words, no matter how educated or smart you are, you can still fall into ignorance and stubbornness. The key is to train your ability to think critically—especially when it comes to your own beliefs and opinions. Doing so can help you become more aware of biases and avoid common pitfalls in cognitive decision-making.
