思考与写作newyorker.com
为什么事实改变不了我们的想法
Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds
2017 — 2024，它一次次回到首页
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导读
这篇《纽约客》文章探讨了为什么事实和证据往往无法改变人们的固有信念，介绍了相关心理学研究，并从进化角度提出人类推理能力可能更多用于赢得争论而非追求真理。文章多年来反复引发讨论，触及认知偏差、信念更新等根本问题。
为什么经久不衰：它触及一个永恒的人性难题——为什么理性说服如此困难，每次重读都能引发对自身思维盲区的反思。
HN 评论精选
质疑文章的进化论论证逻辑，认为'存在即有适应功能'的推理不成立
文章说'我们和这种特征都存活下来，证明它必有适应性功能'——不，这证明不了任何东西。一个特征能在群体中延续有很多原因：它是中性的、与其他有利特征相关联、出现时间太短还没被淘汰，或者确实有适应功能。另外，说狩猎和制作工具时'清晰推理没什么优势'、在山洞里'赢得争论收益很大'？拜托，猎捕那些会杀死你的猛兽时推理能力没优势？我提出一个更简单的解释：我们的大脑其实是'只写不读'的，只是容量太大，我们总能继续往里写，所以没察觉。
bambax查看英文原文
> The fact that both we and it survive proves that it must have some adaptive function No, no, no, absolutely not, no, it doesn't. No. A feature can maintain itself in a population for a number of reasons: - it's neutral or not detrimental enough to drive affected individuals to extinction (ie, to get them killed before they have a chance to reproduce) - it's linked to some other trait that provides actual benefits - it's so recent it didn't leave time to be selected against - or, yes, it actually has some adaptive function. But just because a feature is found does NOT "prove" anything in and of itself. > Living in small bands of hunter-gatherers, our ancestors were primarily concerned with their social standing, and with making sure that they weren’t the ones risking their lives on the hunt while others loafed around in the cave. There was little advantage in reasoning clearly, while much was to be gained from winning arguments. Excuse me, what?? There's little advantage in reasoning clearly while hunting prey and making tools and building traps to catch huge mean animals that can and will kill you if you do anything wrong? And there's much to be gained from "winning arguments" in a cave, while pondering about one's social standing?? Come on. * * * I suggest a more simple and straightforward explanation for the limitations of "reason": our brain is, in fact, write only. We usually don't notice it because it also has a huge capacity and so we can always write more, it never gets full. But to one given named item corresponds a unique value, that cannot be overwritten. If you want to store a new value you have to create a new name to store it with. To "overwrite" something you can create lookup tables of sort, that tell you that the old value is in fact "wrong" and that said item should be associated with another, newer item. But this is costly, and so is avoided whenever possible (because the first rule of life is to be lazy, ie to conserve resources).
信念顽固源于维持现状和自我叙事的生存便利，而非缺乏理性
事实改变不了我们，是因为我们构建世界观的方式就是为了让自己能舒服地继续生活。我们都需要相信自己是'好人'，这避免了意识到自己错了之后必须改变行为的生存焦虑。这也是我们留在失败的感情、有毒的朋友和讨厌的工作里的原因——维持现状更容易，只有事情变得极糟时我们才会改变。反过来，当舆论翻转、改变观点变得有利时，我们又会很快改口，因为随大流比逆流而行轻松。
Mikeb85查看英文原文
Facts don't change our minds because we make up our world views and beliefs in a way that's expedient for us to happily continue about our lives. For instance, we all NEED to believe we're the 'good' guys. Whether the 'we' is our religion, our job, our state, political stance, etc... This prevents existential angst from realizing we're in the wrong, and then needing to change our behaviour which would disrupt our everyday lives. This is also the reason why we stay in failed relationships, keep toxic friends, jobs we hate, etc... It's easier and more conducive to our survival instincts to keep the status quo, whatever it is. Only when things get extremely bad do we ever change. On the flip side, let's say popular opinion about a particular topic flips. When it becomes expedient to change our opinion, then we're very quick to do so. When keeping an archaic opinion begins to cause friction in our everyday lives, we change to the prevailing opinion because again, staying with the tribe is easier than going against it. But of course, realizing all of this would be to reduce human existence to base survival instincts, which would also ruin our self-narrative. So we think we're all special, enlightened, unique and think for ourselves no matter how much the evidence points to the fact that we all devolve into holding the same popular opinions.
标题夸大其词，人确实会改变想法，放弃说服才是真正的危险
近年来流行一种说法：人们不会改变想法、不会回应证据、遇到反证反而更固执。这让我很恼火——如果这话字面上为真，那没人会被说服，可现实中我们确实会改变想法。这篇文章的标题就是典型：'为什么事实改变不了我们的想法'——像'永远'一样？文章内容根本撑不起这个标题。这种论调给了人们放弃的借口——不去和错误的人交流。真正的教训恰恰相反：批判性思维需要学习和练习，改变想法很难，但并非不可能。
tunesmith查看英文原文
We have this weird fetish these last few years with asserting in broad language that people don't change their minds, don't respond to evidence, dig their heels in further when presented with evidence that contradicts their preconceived opinions, etc. It's all over pop psychology and the headlines. Bugs the heck out of me, because if the language they use is literally true, then no one would ever be convinced to change their minds ever. And yet, we do. It's true that perhaps some or many people never change their minds, or that all people might be apt to behave that way when they're not focusing their attention, but that's wildly different language then the headlines use. This article is obviously guilty as well - "Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds". Like, ever? The content of the article doesn't back up the headline, but the headline is what people remember. Even some of the content is probably guilty. In the Stanford capital punishment study, is it really true that each and every individual in the study responded as they describe? Because that's how the article is written. And the problem is it gives people more excuse to give up - to not engage with someone who is wrong, or to dismiss someone who is right (that they think is wrong). Because, studies! The real lesson is the opposite - that we have to study and learn critical thinking, and practice, as a discipline, changing our minds when the evidence or reasoning warrants it. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's impossible, and in fact the ability to do so is part of what makes us an evolved species - or more generally, our ability to surpass our instincts and evolved traits. Show me some experiments that demonstrate what conditions need to be in place, in order for people to change their minds after they've proven to be resistant. (Hint: psychological safety and lack of time pressure.) That's what'll be valuable. I'm tired of all these other studies that just say we don't.
信念惯性是合理且有益的，轻易被改变想法的世界反而危险
我认为信念有惯性是件好事。你大脑中多年形成的思维模式和神经连接，怎么可能读一篇文章就瞬间改变？想想进化论刚提出时，难道指望所有人立刻转变信念？而且很多所谓的'事实'其实是糟糕的研究——看看心理学、社会科学、营养学正在进行的可重复性危机。改变想法本就该是一个漫长而复杂的过程。一个人们的想法轻易被'事实'改变的世界，将是一个追逐潮流的世界。
the_greyd查看英文原文
I say that's a good thing. It's a good thing that beliefs have inertia, and it makes sense. Think of the years of patterns of thinking and neural connections that have formed in your brain. Are you expected to read something and change that in an instant? Imagine when Darwin's Theory of Evolution came out, assuming it had perfect evidence for it, do we expect everybody to instantly change their beliefs? And sometimes what we say facts are poor research, see ongoing replication crisis in psychology, social science, nutrition etc. The time it takes to change a mind is a long complicated process which is justified. A world where people's minds are easily changed by facts would be a world of fads.
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