In "I know the truth", JEFFREY KLUGER believes people have often been easily fooled by untrue statements or beliefs such as President Obama was born in Kenya or HIV is a government invention to remove unpleasant minority groups. JEFFREY added that among those nonsense facts were those as to the Islamic Cultural Center planned for Park Place in Lower Manhattan at which researchers, R. Kelly Garret and Erik Nisbet from Ohio state University have conducted a study to determine how sticky were those assertions and what it might take to disabuse people from them. For the study, 750 people who knew about the topic were selected to read rebuttals of rumors from two different news papers. Among them, 28% rejected the rumors and 35% acknowledged that the new information had some merit. As conclusions, the reseachers found out that people beliefs could be easily manipulate with pictures and quotes, but the most disturbing facts was that only one third of the subjects were willing to reverse their beliefs. JEFFREY KLUGER concludes by saying that it was up to people to make up their mind as to facts.
From a body of studies, it s been shown that when people face facts that contradict their beliefs, they often respond by cleaving to their biases even more tightly. I believe that the way they behave comes from the habit they have developped ever since they were younger. According to Plato in "The Allegory of the cave",people refuse to embrace the truth and are willing to maintain their opinion regardless the true facts. He presents a group of prisoners who had lived in an obscure cave all their life. They were motionless and could only face a wall at what was projected shadows of people, materials and animals. All their lives, those shadows were for the prisoners the representation of reality until one of them went outside the cave and discovered that everything he stood for was unreal. When he returned in the cave, he was threatened to share the truth with the other prisoners because they were unwilling to accept it. Socrates concluded by saying that when the truth is presented, it will be difficult to accept it, and those who found it are most likely to face troubles.
From a body of studies, it s been shown that when people face facts that contradict their beliefs, they often respond by cleaving to their biases even more tightly. I believe that the way they behave comes from the habit they have developped ever since they were younger. According to Plato in "The Allegory of the cave",people refuse to embrace the truth and are willing to maintain their opinion regardless the true facts. He presents a group of prisoners who had lived in an obscure cave all their life. They were motionless and could only face a wall at what was projected shadows of people, materials and animals. All their lives, those shadows were for the prisoners the representation of reality until one of them went outside the cave and discovered that everything he stood for was unreal. When he returned in the cave, he was threatened to share the truth with the other prisoners because they were unwilling to accept it. Socrates concluded by saying that when the truth is presented, it will be difficult to accept it, and those who found it are most likely to face troubles.
Another fact I would like to point out is that people often reject facts that contradict their beliefs because it is not easy to accept the truth. What would you say if someone told you that the man you thought were your father is not? Of course, you wouldnt believe him because it would mean a lot more than the fact that you do not know your real father.
Rumors will always be part of the society. While others are unwilling to embrace the truth, we should think carefully of the facts that are presented and be open minded as to them.
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