Read an article by a Wisconsin blogger/lawyer, Steven Bauer, To Speak the Truth. The title of the post is "Irrational Persistence of Belief", and it focuses on the "given" that some people really don't change their minds. Perhaps all of us refuse to change our minds, to some varying degree.
Psychologists now are researching things, like what areas of the brain are stimulated by photographic evidence, what areas of the brain are stimulated by logic, and what areas are stimulated by mathematical evidence.
I was researching this a while ago, before Basel Action Network re-published the "80% Exports" quotation (see yesterday's blog). The question is, do they believe it despite the studies by UNEP, ASU, ISRI, WR3A, the UN, and their own Kenyan researcher? Do they republish it without citation because they really care? Or is this repeated, discredited statistic still showing up for $ome Other Rea$on? What are the roots of persistent irrational belief?
