Linus - I'm glad you posted this. Its always been my contention that presenting people with facts does no good because people believe what they believe based on other varied factors. I believe we have to teach people how to think, not what to think.
It is hard to budge an entrenched belief. Many people base their beliefs on tradition (what their family taught them), religion, perception, prejudices, biases, emotions, "stories" they heard, something a friend said and so on. Presenting a fact does little to budge the embedded belief or perception.
Calling someone ignorant due to their religious beliefs (because they believe in creationism over evolution, for instance) is not going to change anything or make people abandon their faith because someone is is pointing out scientific facts. I get annoyed with people who mock a person of faith because they assume this means ignorance of science or facts.
I believe change is rooted in teaching people how to assess, analyze and question received information. How to think independently and logically, how to know the difference between an opinion, a fact, and emotional manipulation.
I think it is important to teach people how to think, not what to think, and how to find credible information. If a person believes everyting they read online then it is not because they are ignorant or stupid it is because they have not been taught how to differentiate between a credible source and a non credible source; betweem a fact and an opinion. They don't know where to go to verify the information they are recieving. All of these skills are teachable and learnable.
Unfortunately, American schools tend to teach fact bites not critical thinking. We teach children what to think, not how to assess the myriads of information so that they can make a judgement on what is credible and what it not.
Melissa
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