Are scientists much less liable to motivated reasoning?

Enlarge / Do these folks look liable to motivated reasoning? (credit score: Getty Photographs)

A brand new research lays out a little bit of a conundrum in its opening paragraphs. It notes that scientific progress will depend on the flexibility to replace what concepts are thought of acceptable in mild of latest proof. However science itself has produced no scarcity of proof that persons are horrible at updating their beliefs and undergo from points like affirmation bias and motivated reasoning. Since scientists are, actually, folks, the issues with updating beliefs ought to severely restrict science’s potential to progress.

And there is some indication that it does. Max Planck, for instance, wrote that “A brand new scientific reality doesn’t triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the sunshine, however somewhat as a result of its opponents ultimately die and a brand new technology grows up.”

However a brand new research suggests it isn’t as a lot of an issue because it is likely to be. Benefiting from a deliberate replication research, some scientists polled their friends earlier than and after the outcomes of the replication research got here out. And most scientists appeared to replace their beliefs with out a lot hassle.