The Parallel Lives

James Harvey Robinson, a noted historian at Columbia University in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wrote the following.   

      “We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship.”

     In recent days, I came across two articles, both written in the same year, 2017, that share the same title, “Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds.”

     Elizabeth Kolbert’s article appeared in the “New Yorker” magazine on February 19, 2017, and James Clear’s article appeared on his website, “James Clear.com,” on a day in 2017.

     Kolbert is a science journalist, who won the Pulitzer Prize in General Non-Fiction, in 2015. 

      In her article, she mentions six scientific studies conducted by university  psychologists at Stanford, Yale, Brown, Colorado University, and in Lyon, France, plus three books, “The Enigma of Reason,” The Knowledge Illusion,” and Denying to the Grave.”

     Kolbert points out that the first books’ authors above, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, insist that human beings’ ability to reason evolved on the savannas of Africa, “to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.” 

     Mercer and Sperber write, “Reason is an adaptation to the hyper-social niche humans have evolved for themselves.” Human beings learned to reason, in order to cooperate, to kill food.

     The difficulty with this reasoning ability—intended to get along with others—is that it leads to “confirmation bias,” that “tendency to embrace information that supports certain beliefs and to reject information that contradicts them.” If an idea fits into our mind’s view, we accept it. 

     Steve Sloman, at Brown University, and Philip Fernbach, at Colorado University, identified a second fault with reasoning, the “illusion of explanatory depth.” 

     They write, “People believe that they know way more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people.” “We’ve been relying on one another’s expertise ever since we figured out how to hunt together, a development in our evolutionary history.”

     “Strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding. Our dependence on other’s minds reinforces the problem.” “Sociability is key to how the human mind functions.”  

     Sloman and Fernbach suggest that if people would “work through the implications of policy proposals, they would realize how clueless they are, and would then modify their views.”

     James Clear, the second author mentioned above, steers wide of scientific literature and psychological studies, and instead gives his readers thoughtful clarity and profound advice. 

     Clear asks the same question, “Why facts don’t change our minds?” Like Kolbert outlined above, Clear believes that sociability is key. He writes,

    “Truth and accuracy are not the only things that matter. Humans also seem to have a deep desire to belong. We want to fit in, to bond with others, and earn others’ approval.

     “We don’t always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they make us look good to the people we care about.

     “Facts don’t change our minds. Friendship does. Be kind first. Be right later.”

     How to kill off bad ideas? Clear says to refuse to repeat them. “Silence is death for an idea.”

     Clear quotes the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who wrote, “Remember that to argue and win, is to break down the reality of the other person. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right.” Clear points out that “kind” and “kin” originated from the same root word. 

     Clear suggests that thoughtful people should act as scouts, rather than soldiers. He writes,

     “Soldiers are on the intellectual attack, looking to defeat the people who differ from them. Victory is the operative emotion. Scouts are like intellectual explorers, slowly trying to map the terrain with others. Curiosity is their driving force.” 

     Elizabeth Kolbert and James Clear agreed that our minds will change within a kind and caring group context, inside a tribe or a community, and not by presenting facts, proof, or documents.