[Wehrdo]

> 45 per cent of participants explicitly denied, at least once, that anything could change their mind on a particular topic

This is the most troubling data from the study for me. It's natural that people will hold opinions for which they don't have evidence, since we can't be experts on everything (e.g. "I trust my friend, who thinks that"), but the fact that half the population hold opinions that they would not change, given any amount of evidence, is actually somewhat terrifying.

[BeetleB]

At a very young age (I think teenage years), I learned to ask this question whenever I'm in an endless argument:

>What information will make you change your mind?

In reality, you'll either get something ridiculously hard to show, or you'll get "Nothing!" I used to think it was a good way to realize you're wasting your time in the argument.

Over the years, my view has become nuanced. Those people who say "Nothing" or something outrageous are merely saying it because they themselves don't know in the moment what it will take. In practice, people do change their minds. So I wouldn't read too much into that 45% figure - it's more of a sign they didn't have an answer when they were asked.

Now in reality, social influences usually trigger a change much more than factual reasoning. If someone is adamant about a position and won't listen to you, but then he finds that a close friend he views as having similar values shares your perspective, he is much more likely to start looking at the facts. He is also much more likely to listen to that person than you.

I strongly recommend the books Influence by Cialdini as well as various negotiation books. The first gives the science. The latter puts them into practice.

The biggest mistake pro-science people make is in declaring others' opinions as wrong, and then follow it up with all the objective evidence they have to support their position that it is wrong. In the other person, this triggers a deep human sentiment "This other person does not care about my opinion". You get much further by listening and understanding the other person's perspective, and then signalling that you understand. Once there, present your facts, but not forcefully. End it with "Based on this data, my opinion is ..." Focus on why you believe what you do without explicitly invalidating the other person's perspective (no matter how insane).

[commandlinefan]

I can't find the exact quote, but something Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) wrote once always stuck with me: "I've never seen anybody change their behavior due to a well-reasoned argument. I have seen people change their behavior to avoid ridicule."

[hodgesrm]

It's perhaps useful to look at the positions of scientists themselves. First, there's not a clear boundary between scientific and non-scientific inquiry. Isaac Newton spent a considerable amount of time investigating alchemy among other subjects. He also held views well outside the mainstream on religion. [0]

Second, scientists can be just as obstinate as anyone. There is abundant evidence of scientists failing to modify their views in response to new ideas and data. Plate tectonics comes lightly to mind--many of those who opposed it never changed their minds. It prevailed in part because the opposition retired or died. [1]

If scientists themselves can be so resistant to rational inquiry, why do we uphold this as an ideal for ordinary citizens?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-continent...

[YorkshireSeason]

In what sense is alchemy (in the way Newton understood it) not science?

It was a reasonable hypothesis at the time that you can make gold from other material. Indeed with particle accelerators you can do this [1, 2, 3]. Newton's methods were not powerful enough to achieve this, but this research hypothesis got refined, leading to chemistry as we know it today.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals

[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-l...

[3] https://glintpay.com/gold/modern-day-alchemy-making-gold-ato...

[hodgesrm]

That's a fair question which is why I also included Newton's work on religion, which was apparently something of an obsession.

My answer is that humans--even really extraordinary ones like Isaac Newton--don't divide knowledge into scientific and non-scientific spheres.

Moreover, commonly used analytic tools like inductive reasoning that are helpful in science don't answer questions like what happens when we die in a very satisfactory way. Even in much more mundane questions humans tend to see patterns where they don't exist. [0] It's still an open question which types of problems are properly the domain of science.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion

[tom_]

> the fact that half the population hold opinions that they would not change, given any amount of evidence, is actually somewhat terrifying

What would change your mind on this?

[Wehrdo]

If you want a serious answer to "What would it take to not be terrified of this fact?", I suppose it would be: Evidence indicating that populations are better served by ignoring reasoning and obtaining their beliefs through some other means, be it faith or authority.

In fairness, that opinion is not unprecedented in history.

[lostcolony]

New data suggesting that a larger percentage would be willing to change their mind given reasonable evidence?

I know you're trying to be snarky, but come on.

[PavlovsCat]

Changing one's mind about that would mean to no longer find that terrifying, not it no longer being being the case.

[SolaceQuantum]

I think this is actually a reasonable point- there are nuances for which there is no imagined amount of evidence to sway some opinions. For example, I highly doubt many scientific studies that suggested benefits to high amounts of lack of response to scientific studies on opinion in the population is a good thing would actually make you less terrified.

[matwood]

It's an ego thing. Being wrong is hard. I have found it can be even harder for 'smart' people to be wrong because so much of their self worth is built around being smart and thus right much of the time.

[turc1656]

I think that what the people who indicate this really mean is that they refuse to change their minds as long as a decent portion of the population also refuses to change their viewpoint as well. Because then it is still validated to a certain degree. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, had a great blog post about this topic. His post was on the issue of global warming and he said basically that his position on global warming is that since he doesn't know enough about the science to say with any level of certainty himself whether the claims of global warming are true and there is a social/political cost in terms of credibility/image for saying you don't believe it, then he will always say he is a believer and agrees with the mainstream opinion, regardless of what he actually thinks or if he simply doesn't know where he stands. If 99% of the world came to agree on the topic of global warming, I doubt most of these people who claim they will never change their mind would still hold the same belief. For example, are there still flat-Earthers? Yes, but they are a rounding error to 0 at this point.