How telling people the facts may not cause them to change what they believe

Re:How telling people the facts may not cause them to change... by Salvatore on Sunday July 11, 2010 @08:16PM (#1506418)

"The unstated premise is that rule by elites may be preferable to rule by the people if science should someday discover that average people will be irredeemably swayed by their prejudices and will not make their political decisions based on their intellects."

I disagreed. In my opinion, the argument of the paper suggests nothing of the kind. While your idea is interesting, I believe it delves too far between the lines and looks for some deeper meaning. The Boston Globe is not challenging our form of government. They're merely commenting on the research that suggests people are hard headed, generally speaking.

While your paragraphs about the US Constitution and system of Checks and Balances are spot on, they have nothing to do with the article in question.

This is simply my humble opinion.

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Re:How telling people the facts may not cause them to change... by not_the_same on Sunday July 11, 2010 @11:08PM (#1506669)

I agree that the article is not implying a preference for "rule by elites", especially in light of this statement:

  And if you harbor the notion...that the solution is more education
  and a higher level of political sophistication in voters overall,
  well, that’s a start, but not the solution. A 2006 study...showed
  that politically sophisticated thinkers were even less open to new
  information than less sophisticated types. These people may be factually
  right about 90 percent of things, but their confidence makes it nearly
  impossible to correct the 10 percent on which they’re totally wrong.

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