I've seen many, many people make dumb decision after dumb decision despite having all the facts because of emotions.
I'm not really sure what you're asking here, especially since you put believe in quotes.
Facts are - by definition - things that are true, indisputable, regardless of whether you believe them or not. As such, a refusal to believe facts makes one wrong - at least about that particular thing.
If a person insists on being wrong about a particular thing, in the face of facts proving such wrongness, it is probable that that person is:
- wrong about other things
- unable or unwilling to reason correctly (at least in certain circumstances)
Even in your example you said that it is probable that the person is wrong about other things or unable or unwilling to reason correctly if they insist on being wrong about a particular thing. However, facts are only defined by the present state of knowledge one possesses. In other words, facts can change to conjecture with the introduction of new evidence. How do you know someone who refuses to believe what you think is a fact is not just more enlightened than you?
What you are alluding to here are not facts, they are hypotheses, guesses, theories, conjecture...
I wrote this comment. That is a fact. It will never change, regardless of any evidence you may speculate. It will be a fact until the heat death of the universe.
Anybody who refuses to believe this fact is not more enlightened than me, they are someone who does not understand what a fact is.
To extend Moynihan - everybody is entitled to their own opinions, hypotheses, guesses, theories, conjecture, etc. But they are not entitled to their own facts.
Facts should be believed because they are - by by definition and in practice - necessary to avoiding failure. Those things that cause failure are factual components of reality. If you don't believe in them, how can you hope to avoid them? Those things that lead to success are factual components of reality. If you don't believe in them, how can you hope to understand them? Etc., ad infinitum for all things.
In order to even evaluate your argument (aside from just addressing it's logical flaws which are independent of facts), then, I must first bother to believe something about facts (maybe what you claim, maybe the opposite.)
Belief and spreading are two different things.
So... why believe in facts at all? The answer to this will generally include some intellectual elitism, driving away the group I describe in the first paragraph even further. People might use words such as correct and right, but those words already impose a value judgement to begin with, only further begging the question.