Tuesday 9 September 2008

How to be sure that your beliefs are not just a load of bull

In his film, Al Gore quoted Upton Sinclair: "You can't make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it." That's true, but we need to remember people who work for lobby groups and charities have salaries, too, and that wages are not the only things we value. A deeper, broader version of Sinclair's maxim would be, "You can't make somebody understand something if their existing world view depends upon them not understanding it."
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