scientific insight?

There was an article a couple of weeks ago in one paper, and then it was recycled to another paper recently.  It talked about how political scientists have "discovered" that even when you give people clear, definitive and indisputable factual information, and even if it comes from a reliable, unbiased source -- if the information does not agree with what a person already believes, then, most likely, the information will be discounted and the person will go on believing whatever he or she is comfortable believing.

If you believe that Obama is a socialist, if you believe that your wife is cheating on you, if you believe that chewing a handful of iron filings will cure your diabetes, often nothing, no matter how scientifically proven, will change that belief.  You will select and focus on information that you feel supports that belief.

This was like the "discovery" a few years ago by economists that people do not always make the most rational economic decisions, and (much) more often than not, they will make economic choices that are not in their best interest.  For decades economics were based upon the idea that the "economic person" was rational, and that given all of the necessary information, most people would make the rational decision.  For decades they wondered why their models never worked well at making predictions.  The team that documented this irrationality won a Nobel Prize or something.

As a psychologists, who deals every day with people who make major decisions that affect their lives, in romance, money, work, schooling, interpersonal interactions, drinking, eating, sex and sleeping, all I can say in response to these major "discoveries" is:

DUH!!

Also, remember what Woody Allen called people who think that everyone is after them----

perceptive.