A burst of bad news rarely brings an established dogma crashing down.

Evidence

While it would be a digression to plunge into the bramble thickets of formal epistemology in a book about the crisis, there was at least one major flaw in all these prognostications that needs to be taken into account here. Social psychology, the history and philosophy of science, and the sociology of knowledge all combine to instruct us that people don’t generally behave like that. Only the most ersatz Popperian believer in the awesome power of local falsificationism would begin to presume that some finite observation would immediately impel people to cast their most cherished beliefs into doubt and reconsider long-held ideas that anchor much of their worldview. Such conversions have been known to happen, but they have been few and far between. Predominantly, the long history of schooling, socialization, and past experience induces a stubborn inertia into cognitive processes. More commonly, people react to potential disconfirmation of strongly held views by adjusting their own understandings of the doctrine in question to accommodate the contrary evidence; this has been discussed in the social psychology literature under the rubric of “cognitive dissonance,” and in the philosophy literature as Duhem’s Thesis. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 94 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 45 Zach Schonfeld, “Public Opinion Relatively Unchanged After Jan. 6 Hearings: Poll,” Hill, August 9, 2022; Jennifer Agiesta, “CNN Poll: January 6 Hearings Haven’t Changed Opinions Much, But Most Agree Trump Acted Unethically,” CNN Politics, July 26, 2022; “National: Jan. 6 Hearings Have No Impact on Opinion,” Monmouth University Poll, August 9, 2022, https://www. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 1145 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Disconfirming evidence rarely topples deeply held doctrines and worldviews. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 94; Factual hearings rarely shift entrenched public opinion — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a…, 1145; Bad news alone cannot bring an entrenched dogma crashing down — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 95

Related

• Bad news alone cannot bring an entrenched dogma crashing down (similarity 0.86)
• Disconfirming evidence rarely topples deeply held doctrines and worldviews. (similarity 0.82)
• Factual hearings rarely shift entrenched public opinion (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Disconfirming evidence rarely topples deeply held doctrines and worldviews. #corroborates (0.95) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 94
• Factual hearings rarely shift entrenched public opinion #corroborates (0.90) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 1145