Even direct evidence of failure cannot shake committed believers’ convictions.

Evidence

So diviners with pendulums, dowsers who claim to detect water veins, magnets or buried gold, fortune tellers and people who are convinced that they can read minds, heal or communicate with animals will apply. In the preliminary discussion the form of the examination is specified together; then the great day of the test comes, and in the consequence the sobering realization that the asserted abilities cannot withstand an examination with scientific standards. The candidates usually react at first with astonishment, irritation, shock. They honestly believed in these powers. Some are still stubbornly convinced of their effectiveness on the spot, others initially go home disillusioned. But the very next day the world looks quite different again. They find reasons why the test didn’t work that particular day, explain that the skeptical attitude of the examiners was a negative influence, or that their ability fundamentally defies any verification. After only a few hours, almost all of them are again unswervingly convinced of the effectiveness of their psychic abilities. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 130

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the backfire effect and cognitive-dissonance literature (Festinger’s When Prophecy Fails). — connects to: Disconfirming evidence rarely topples deeply held doctrines and worldviews. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 94
• ADDENDUM: Relevant as a companion to the sacrifice chapter’s account of how believers rationalize failed ritual expectations.