Wikipedia Just Nailed the RW'ers Mental Disorder

[FarLeftFist]

On their homepage. Todays featured article: Confirmation bias-

-Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions, independently of whether they are true. As a result, people gather new evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way. The biases appear in particular for emotionally significant issues and for established beliefs. Biased search, interpretation and/or recall have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a stronger weighting for data encountered early in an arbitrary series) and illusory correlation (in which people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations). Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Hence they can lead to disastrous decisions, especially in organizational, military and political contexts.

Main page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
LINK; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

[virgogal]

1. This would apply to any belief IMHO.

[uppityperson]

2. People are emotional beings, they make up their mind emotionally then look for info to back up

what they've decided is right.

[Warpy]

3. The more irrational the belief, the stronger people will cling to it

You can change an opinion but you can't change a belief. People will cling to them until they've been completely buried by adverse events that contradict that belief and then maybe a few of them will manage to discard it.

We are seeing that happen right now, though, as the belief in prosperity theology is being challenged by the current economic disaster.

[NoNothing]

4. Ironically

You seem eager to extrapolate this as evidence of your own thesis...

:o

[FirstTimeVoterAt37]

5. Sadly, it's not just wingnuts

Reading through it, I was going "Yep, done that... yep, done that... yeah, done that too..."

Well, at least I can admit it, I s'pose. Hopefully that gives me a leg up.

[Bitwit1234]

6. I think CONservatives don't care about facts

when they see a statement that they think puts their point of view forward they jump on it.

My nephew and his outrageous brothers and fathers republican views, one reason I deactivated my Facebook page, posted about Bo having the airplane JUST FOR HIM. Instead of realizing that Michelle "the Pill you can't hope to swallow" Malkin is a lying ass republican right wing blowhard and he repeated the message. He didn't wait to see that since the airport the Obama's were flying into was too small for Air Force One they used two smaller planes to accommodate all the people they had to take with them and Bo ended up on the second plane. I have seen Bush taking Ms Beasley on the helicopter. But no one mentioned that "maybe" the ride was just for her because she didn't like cars. why is it no matter what Obama does the right wing hate is ratcheted up to the roof. I think my brother in law and his brood are all nuts but that is beside the point. I think they are racist. they have to be to hate Obama and for no reason.

[Lucian]

7. Everyone has some sort of confirmation bias.

Whether you're liberal, conservative, religious, atheist...everyone has it, to some degree.

[slackmaster]

8. Confirmation bias applies to everyone, not just RWers

Unrec for FarLeftFist's profound lack of insight.

:nuke: