Cobb: Are we moving toward a fact-free future?

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 together and the bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

It turns out that about 50 percent of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology got the answer wrong. The proportion reached as high as 90 percent at other unnamed universities. Okay, now that you’ve had time to reflect on the answer, you’ll realize that your instinct was probably to answer 10 cents. But, of course, that’s wrong. And, all you have to do is some elementary math to realize it’s wrong, and then arrive at the correct answer: The ball costs 5 cents.

What’s in operation here are two systems of interpreting the world, one associative and one logical, often referred to in psychology as System 1 and System 2, respectively. System 1 picks up the numbers $1.10 and $1 and makes an incorrect leap that the ball costs 10 cents. System 2 does the math and then corrects the error. It’s something that happens every day in our lives. But, in this case what is at stake is regarded by most people as so trivial that even very smart ones fail to engage System 2 to check their answer. If, instead of being faced with a trivial problem that has no impact on your life, you were considering which house to buy, you would probably be engaging System 2 on a regular basis. You would be trying to determine if you were getting a fair price by, for example, checking home values nearby, comparing square footage and evaluating features such as a swimming pool or finished basement.

And, this brings me to my topic. Issues such as climate change and peak oil seem so abstract to most people that they do not see them as pressing issues that require a thorough analysis and immediate action. This is true because the effects are not immediately impinging on them or, at least, they unable to connect what effects there are to themselves. And, the usual fact-filled analysis that is often thrown at them therefore doesn’t interest them much. As it turns out, information that is new, but not consistent with one’s current belief system, is normally discarded by most people. Typically, only some exceptional concrete change of circumstances will cause people to open their belief systems to contradictory information.

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2 Comments on "Cobb: Are we moving toward a fact-free future?"

BillT on Thu, 21st Jun 2012 2:37 am 



Intelligence does not come from education, it comes from thinking…logic. The idea that a piece of paper from some propaganda factory will guarantee you a good life is gone for good, if it ever existed at all. Go in debt to the banksters and indenture your life if you want, but unless you are going to be a doctor, engineer, or scientist, college is not needed. You can learn all you need for books and the internet.

gates outcast on Thu, 21st Jun 2012 10:14 pm 



The age of magical thinking is in full force. Both right and left wings will look for evidence that supports their world view. A mixture of religion and as Kunstler would say the dream of getting something for nothing rules our land. Evidence based information is demonic and asking questions is dangerous.