Reply To: GM food
The most extreme opponents of genetically modified foods know the least about science but believe they know the most, researchers have found.
The finding has echoes of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the observation from social psychology that incompetence prevents the incompetent from recognising their incompetence.
Also involved two other traits of behaviour
The first is “active information avoidance”, where people reject information that would help them understand the world because it clashes with their existing beliefs.
The second is the “backfire effect”, which describes how people can become entrenched in their original positions after rejecting new information.
“This is often used to explain why many Americans refuse to believe in evolution and why so many Americans feel that vaccination is harmful to children,” O’Dwyer said. “It also figures into the debates on global warming and makes correcting erroneous beliefs highly challenging.”
But is there now a lesson for ourselves in politics
“Extremists think they understand this stuff already, so they are not going to be very receptive to education. You first need to get them to appreciate the gaps in their knowledge.”
How would socialists accomplish this?