Session : 22-Jan-13

We started off our discussion by conceptualizing points on human behavior that make them defy facts while clinging on to their beliefs. People generally are very hard to convince based on facts alone which contradict their beliefs that they had held on to religiously before the new facts came into light. The example was cited regarding the seekers who had predicted that the world would come to an end. But finally when it did not happen as was predicted, instead of treating it as a fallacy, they attributed the new schedule of things as an act of God but still remained attached to their beliefs even though there was an overwhelming array of facts against it. We ended our discussion with the idea that to convince people, we need to first try to see how well we can attach the new ideas to their beliefs and try to motivate them to change their beliefs, rather than attack them with facts in which case we are bound to fail.