Why Evidence Can’t Change Your Mind
and why there’s little you can do about it
Four centuries ago some science guy pissed off the Roman Catholic Church.
Galileo Galilei felt that evidence proving the sun, not the earth, is at the center of our solar system was too compelling to ignore anymore. So he published a book about it. And we all know what happened next.
The Catholic Church rejected every piece of evidence that proved Galileo right. They banned his book, convicted him of heresy, and Galileo was forced to live the rest of his days on house arrest.
Many of us don’t know that Galileo’s trial had wider consequences. It halted the progress of cosmology in other Catholic countries.
Today, we know that Galileo was right and the Church was wrong. You might judge the Church as an organization of ignorant assholes. But in their shoes, there’s a reasonable chance you would have done the same. Imagine the many Galileo-like situations you’ve been in and you act like the Church — ignore all evidence proving you wrong, and lose your shit.
Well, you’re not crazy. You’re human.
You’re experiencing belief perseverance (a cognitive bias that makes you cling to your beliefs when exposed to evidence proving them wrong). Flat earthers, conspiracy theorists, and religious bigots are extreme examples of belief perseverance in action.
Belief perseverance, left unchecked, causes many problems. But to understand how it does this, it’s useful to know what drives the behavior in the first place.
What drives belief perseverance?
To know what drives belief perseverance let’s go back hundreds of thousands of years ago when our ancestors were hunter-gatherers.
As hunter-gatherers, our ancestors were constantly exposed to dangers. This made it important not to have to use energy for every decision. Since energy is limited, they needed to preserve it for more important situations: like hunting or fighting off predators. Failure to do this could mean death.
So to make quick and reliable decisions without expending too much energy, they depended on mental shortcuts (called cognitive biases today). They based their decisions on these mental shortcuts.
The problem now is we humans have turned evolution on its head.
Evolution is a slow process. Organisms evolve and natural selection happens as their environment changes with time. But we humans have changed our environment so much and so quickly that our biology has had insufficient time to adapt. So, even though our environment is unrecognizable from theirs, we still depend on the mental shortcuts used by our ancestors.
In summary: we’re hunter-gatherers in suits, ties, and bikinis.
Putting this in mind, having strong beliefs was useful for our ancestors. If quick decisions are necessary to survive, it’s important to be certain, and not have to analyze every situation.
The problem is some things that were useful for our ancestors cause problems for us.
Now let’s talk about a few problems belief perseverance causes
1. Difficult relationships:
Think of the insufferable dude who always argues ad hominem, and becomes socially isolated as a result.
Or the lady who wrongly believes she’s ugly and no one will ever date her. Your attempt to change her mind by showing her evidence she’s wrong is futile. She sees every compliment as dishonest and makes zero attempts to put herself out there. And of course, her dating life is a mess.
2. Stunted growth:
You can’t grow if you don’t let go of your self-limiting beliefs.
What you believe, whether helpful or not, determines your actions. If you believe you’re not good enough, you’ll usually act in ways that prove you right. This makes it important to be able to change unhelpful beliefs for helpful ones. Belief perseverance, left unchecked, prevents this.
An example can be the professional who believes he can’t go any further professionally, so he’s unconcerned with improvement, and this belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
3. Wrong decision making:
Imagine the retiree who rejects strong evidence proving that the movement of the stock market is out of his control. And as a result, lost all his pension lump. This is belief perseverance in action.
But what can you do about it?
Well…there’s good and bad news.
Bad news: you can’t completely get rid of the effect of belief perseverance. Remember it’s ingrained in your psychology.
Good news: you can lessen its negative effect, through a few lifestyle changes.
1. Practise CBT
If you get one thing out of this article it should be this.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is considered one of the best forms of therapy. It’s based on the practice of regularly questioning your beliefs, and upgrading the unhelpful ones with helpful ones.
If you're interested, you can start here: CBT.
2. Go cold turkey on the news
Some argue that misinformation is the real reason contradictory evidence makes people hold onto their beliefs more strongly. And the news is a master at misinformation, among many other vices. So avoid it like a plague.
Replace the news with more healthy information. Books, documentaries, basically content that takes long hours of research or years of expertise to create. And of course, anything I publish 😉.
Finally…
3. Seek novel experiences (and information)
Travel to places with different cultures from yours. Notice how you’re mostly wrong about others.
Make friends with those whose worldview differ from yours. Take the time to listen and connect with them without judgment. You’ll realize the difference in worldviews doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong.
Finally, read books (or other information) that will expose you to a more realistic view of the world.
You’re wrong about almost everything, and it’s not a bad thing. Growth requires accepting this and opening your mind to learning.
So:
- Never stop being a student,
- Make a habit of regularly questioning your beliefs.
- Finally, be happy to change and upgrade them in light of new information.
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