On Facts and Judgment

We've all fallen victim to the phenomenon Nicholas Kristof describes - cherry-picking only evidence that supports what we already believe. He mentions this in the context of last night's debate between Clinton and Obama (where if you like Obama, you thought he did great, and vice versa), but the same tendency seems to apply when evaluating where we stand on Iraq. Making a real judgment is so difficult because there is too much information, and so we start to filter for data that jives with what we've already decided. Kristof describes several different experiments that starkly highlight this behavior, including:

Another challenge is the biased way in which we gather information. We seek out information that reinforces our prejudices. One study presented listeners with static-filled recordings of speeches that they believed they were judging on persuasive power. Listeners could push a button to tweak the signal, reducing the static to make it easier to understand. When smokers heard a speech connecting tobacco with cancer, they didn’t try to improve the clarity to hear it more easily. But they pushed the button to get a clearer version of a speech saying that there was no link between smoking and cancer. Nonsmokers were the exact opposite.

All in all, it's pretty scary stuff in terms of making independent judgments. Probably best just not to read articles like that.