How Minds Change

Two of the ideas you’ll keep

The Clif summary of How Minds Change pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first two.

1. Facts rarely change minds because of what NYU neuroscientist Pascal Wallisch termed **SURFPAD**: when there is **S**ubstantial **U**ncertainty in what we perceive, our **R**amified (branching) or **F**orked **P**riors and **A**ssumptions rush in to fill the gaps, and the predictable result is **D**isagreement. Two people can see the same ambiguous evidence and reach opposite, sincerely-felt conclusions.
2. The **backfire effect**, the fear that contradicting people entrenches them, has largely failed to replicate. Minds do change with new evidence; they just change slowly, and only when people don't feel their identity or group belonging is under attack.

The other 5 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.

What’s inside: 8 chapters

The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.

1. The Dress, and Why We Never See Reality Directly
2. The Death of the Backfire Effect
3. Leaving Westboro: Belonging Before Belief
4. Deep Canvassing: The Los Angeles Experiment
5. Street Epistemology and the Question That Unlocks Doubt
6. How Neurons Change Their Minds
7. The Technique: Talking Across a Divide
8. Persuasion, Ethics, and the Changing Society