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The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science | Mother Jones

Details of why people who believe things that go against the majority of proof cannot be persuaded by arguments based on facts.

That undercuts the standard notion that the way to persuade people is via evidence and argument. In fact, head-on attempts to persuade can sometimes trigger a backfire effect, where people not only fail to change their minds when confronted with the facts—they may hold their wrong views more tenaciously than ever.