Conservatives Innoculated Against Facts

I always suspected it, but it’s now a proven fact (for those who care about reality-based news). Conservatives are not convinced by facts. In fact, they cling to their lies even harder when confronted by facts. Wow. That does explain a lot.

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration’s prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation — the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration’s claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

Amazing. HuffPo covers the study HERE. The WaPo article HERE.