A story about the dangers of induction and assumption: We learned, then forgot, the cure for scurvy several times. How was that knowledge continuously discovered, forgotten, then rediscovered, then reforgotten - for hundreds of years? 🧵 This all comes from here, by @baconmeteor, who I asked for permission to paraphrase for a lecture years ago: idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_… - I highly recommend reading the whole thing. What follows is a very brief and incomplete summary.

Most persuasion (shifting a belief, attitude, or value) is convincing another brain to commit to a potentially expensive, time-consuming, and globally disruptive accommodation effort while it struggles to avoid all that via assimilation. 1/11 Assimilation and Accommodation: As Piaget first described, these are the two systems that led to all dual-process models of cognition AND learning AND pedagogy AND scientific progress AND persuasion AND social change. 2/11

The Introspection Illusion: We are always confabulating a plausible narrative of why we think the things we think, feel the things we feel, and do the things we do, despite the fact the antecedents of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are often impossible to know for sure. The Interactionist Model: We use two systems during argumentation, one for production and one for evaluation. Since we evolved to depend on group deliberation, the production module is more concerned with reputation management via rationalization and justification.

Assimilation and Accommodation: As Piaget first described, these are the two systems that lead to all dual-process models of cognition AND learning AND pedagogy AND scientific progress AND persuasion AND social change. 1/10 Assimilation is disambiguating novel information by fitting it into an existing model so that it can be interpreted as confirmation of the model’s accuracy. 2/10

Here's something you should know about yourself. When choosing between two options, your decision is heavily influenced by whether you are asking yourself: "which is better" or "which is worse." 1/9 In research by Shafir, scientists asked subjects which of these two vacation spots they'd PREFER: one with average weather, beaches, hotels, warm water and decent nightlife -- or one with great weather, beaches, and hotels, but cold water and no nightlife. Most chose the latter.

Here's something you should know about yourself. When given options, you tend to pick the one that is easiest to justify, not the one that is "best." Seems bad, but this is good when we all do it within groups, but terrible when done in isolation. Allow me to explain. 1/25 Justification is the primary output of your reasoning system, a collection of "mental modules" that come online when you feel motivated to explain yourself to yourself or others – not to be confused with REASON, the philosophical concept of human intellect and rationality. 2/25

Polls show 2/3 of Republicans believe the insurrection was a false flag operation, which is psychologically no different than believing the Earth is flat or that highly evolved dinosaurs who survived the asteroid now control world governments from a secret base on the moon. 1/10 Humans are motivated reasoners, and all conspiracy theories begin with a motivation stronger than the pursuit of accuracy (often a fear of authority or sense of powerlessness), in this case, the motivation is to assuage cognitive dissonance in service of reputation management. 2/

Psychological research is pretty clear on this: Reason ain’t logic. We feel first and reason second. Reasoning is literally coming up with reasons for the things you feel for the sake of justifying to others your feelings and the behavior (or plans to behave) they generate. Coronavirus: you feel X or Y about masks, then you go looking in your head for reasons to justify that feeling, then you produce an argument for your position, and if challenged, you search for information, preferably from people who agree with you, and make another argument.

Psychology and neuroscience agree, the research on this is clear. The more intelligent you are, and the more educated, the better you become at rationaling and justifying your existing beliefs and attitudes, regardless of their accuracy or harmfulness. There is evidence to suggest this is because we are social animals first and individual reasoners second, a system built on top of another system, biologically via evolution. Why does that matter?

Lions love catnip. They will do all the things a house cat does when near it. Eleven million years ago, they shared a common ancestor from which evolution passed down a brain that now contains a menagerie of shared responses and drives. Big or small, cats do what cats do. 1/18 Natural selection tinkered with the felines separately over the years, with different results, otherwise you'd see more people walking pumas in the park. 2/18

“That confirms my suspicions.” -- everyone's reaction to the impeachment hearings. For many, this has been touted as yet more evidence we are living in some sort of post-truth era, despite the fact that this is how humans have reasoned since before we painted on cave walls. 1/5 We have always been motivated reasoners, and as primates we are highly motivated to avoid social costs, so while reasoning the pursuit of belonging goals will always take priority over accuracy goals if accepting counterevidence threatens our reputations among trusted peers. 2/5

Positions vs intentions: Before you attempt to change someone’s mind, ask yourself why you want to do that. Why do you want to persuade them?When you think you know, share your intentions up front. 1/10 If you don’t do that, people will assume your intentions. Whatever they assume will become your “actual” position in their minds, and you run the risk of not having the conversation you intended.

The mechanisms of motivated reasoning will ALWAYS be with us. But social media is a new environment with no natural predators where the bestiary of biased thinking can proliferate. Confirmation/disconfirmation bias are invasive species, and the ecosystem is out of balance. 1/8 The persuasiveness and pervasiveness of fake news, alternative facts, filter bubbles, and in-group/myside bias isn't new. Some of the oldest research in psychology quantified all these tendencies in the 1950s: "They Saw a Game" by Hastorf and Cantril demonstrated this well. 2/8