In recent years, as I have paid closer attention to how our individual biases influence the way we think about everything from climate change to gun control, I have periodically been overcome with a sense of futility. I blame Dan Kahan for this. His research at Yale, along with the pioneering work of Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and his long-time collaborator Amos Tversky, have revealed the limitations of the rational mind. I am not the only one in my profession who has wondered if journalism can penetrate confirmation bias. The findings of social scientists and cognitive researchers has also led Andrew Revkin of the New York Times to call himself a "recovering journalist." His "denial," he wrote several years ago,
lay in my longstanding presumption, like that of many scientists and journalists, that better communication of information will tend to change people’s perceptions, priorities and behavior.
If our evolutionary brain ...
