The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620)
I cannot tell you how many people I know who think like this. They are so hopeless. Doesn’t matter how much evidence you can muster for your argument, they simply reject it.
- Not credible.
- He’s lying.
- He’s making it up.
- Not a good source of information.
- Just some guy’s opinion.
- Who is he anyway?
- Not a good witness.
- Not enough witnesses.
- Witnesses were biased.
- You can’t trust anything from that source – they lie too much.
- It’s just some reporter – who is he and what does he know?
- Who are his sources? why won’t he name his sources?
- They are faking the evidence.
- They fabricated that evidence.
- Not a good source.
- But he’s just one guy. One guy’s opinion.
- Where did you read this? Show me your source. State your sources.
The overwhelming majority of people are completely closed-minded. They make up their minds pretty quickly about something, probably based on what the government or media said, and then they just stick with that through thick and through thin no matter what new evidence comes up. In addition, people really don’t want to know the truth. Instead, they want to prove that their argument is correct.
My father’s famous one was, “State your sources!” Of course, it’s usually impossible to go drag out the book or whatever source you got your info from, so that’s really a phony and dirty argument. Anyway, sometimes we would find a source, and then he would always immediately dismiss it. So he didn’t really want to see our sources after all, you see? He was just using that as a dirty argument to discredit our side, destroy our position and win the debate. We could have shown him 10,000 sources, and it wouldn’t have made a difference.
Therefore it was irrational for him to ask us to show him our sources. If your mind’s made up, why are you asking for the evidence from the other side? Yet people do this all the time. Most arguments are between two people whose minds are already completely made up. If that’s the case, then why debate? What’s the point?
When say 80% of your society is closed-minded, you have a real problem for democracy and for all sorts of things. This implies a population that is either brainwashed or easily brainwashed. What that statistic shows us is that this is a population that is easy to manipulate and lie to because they are trusting and gullible.
Closed-mindedness is a real problem, always has been, always will be. As it was in 1620, so it is today. Human nature doesn’t really change.
