Even committed purveyors of false claims eventually yield to evidence
Evidence
I like to think that nobody is completely immune to evidence, at least in the long-run. After he vacated his post, Sean Spicer eventually admitted to regretting having made these false claims, and even joked about them at the 2017 Emmys, saying: ‘This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys, period – both in person and around the globe.’ Of course, such confessions are too little too late; illusory truth has set in after countless repetition, and much of the damage has already been done. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 110
Categorization
- CANDY: Spicer recycling his own crowd-size falsehood as an Emmy joke is a light anecdote about motivated reasoning’s afterlife.
- XREF: connects to: Even disconfirmation evidence often fails to break a person’s confirmation bias — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 94; Belief perseverance persists even when evidence establishing it is shown false — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2586; People often resist or reverse belief updating rather than tracking evidence — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 104 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Even the most partisan reasoners eventually change beliefs under repeated corrective evidence
#corroborates(0.95) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 110 - Belief perseverance persists even when evidence establishing it is shown false
#contradicts(0.82) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2586 - Even disconfirmation evidence often fails to break a person’s confirmation bias
#contradicts(0.80) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 94 - People often resist or reverse belief updating rather than tracking evidence
#contradicts(0.80) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 104 - Conspiracists reinterpret disconfirming evidence as planted by the conspirators.
#contradicts(0.72) — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 95