I disagree on this - I have a more optimistic view of the ability for people to change how they think.
You're right that a core belief tied into someone's identity is not going to be changed by new evidence, unless you can get people to value trying to figure out what's true and updating on evidence itself (rather than having an 'answer' already and just using motivated reasoning to come up with arguments that support their 'answer'). This is hard.
I know I've personally gone from someone who made these kind of bad reasoning mistakes - the smarter you are the more insidious they can be because you're better at being a clever arguer and coming up with plausible sounding reasons while ignoring or rationalizing contradicting evidence. I've worked hard to get better at it (and I still am, it's an ongoing process). Yes, this is only a sample size of one, but I think it's possible.
I have an optimistic view of the capacity for a person to learn how to think better, while simultaneously having a pessimistic view of the general public's current ability to think rationally. This may seem like a conflict, but really it just means that I think it's possible for us to be a lot better than we are, while recognizing it's a bigger project than just stating the specific evidence available for any specific argument.
People have to be willing to consider why they believe what they believe, and be honest about the potential to change their mind based on new information that contradicts what they believe to be true.
I think that's the goal we have to work toward first.
> unless you can get people to value trying to figure out what's true and updating on evidence itself
What evidence could you give to disprove the belief that abortion is murder? The belief is not a claim about evidence; it's a claim about priorities, as the GP said. Or, if you like, about what actions count as belonging to what categories.
A more interesting question is why is abortion consistently used as a tribal issue in US politics.
Of course there is an underlying difference of opinion, and of course it matters to those on both sides.
But it matters because the media have done an exceptionally good job of herding people into different camps - by focusing on a small and standardised collection of divisive issues and amplifying the rhetoric around them.
Does someone benefit from these divisions, and from the loss of civility and civic cohesion they create, and perhaps also from the implied promotion of violent oppositional defiant subjectivity over rational argument that powers them?
> A more interesting question is why is abortion consistently used as a tribal issue in US politics.
I think a factor here is that the US pushes the boundaries of what it really takes to have a free country with a diverse population more than other countries do.
Other countries--or at least other developed countries--have a more homogeneous population than the US has, and also do not have the same tradition of skepticism about and distrust of government that the US has. Also other countries do not have quite the same Constitutional provision for the free exercise of religion that the US has.
A less homogeneous population means there is a wider range of traditions that people are brought up with. That creates a lack of common ground about a lot of things. For example, I'm not aware of any other developed country that has a significant population of young earth creationists.
A tradition of skepticism about and distrust of government means that people are less willing to accept a legal rule that conflicts with their personal convictions, and more willing to complain about it publicly (or indeed to take even more drastic action). Note that this applies to both sides of the abortion debate: to extreme pro-lifers who feel that any abortion at all is wrong, and to extreme pro-choicers who feel that any restriction on abortion at all is wrong. Current US law and jurisprudence is actually not close to either of those extremes, so both extremes have plenty of reason, in their view, to complain.
The Constitutional protection of free exercise of religion means that "personal convictions", if they are backed by a religious tradition, carry a lot more weight. This is most obvious in the US on the anti-abortion side of the debate.
> Does someone benefit from these divisions
I think someone taking political advantage of divisions within the population can happen in any country, but it might well be true that the US, for the reasons I described above, presents more opportunities for it to happen.
You're right that a core belief tied into someone's identity is not going to be changed by new evidence, unless you can get people to value trying to figure out what's true and updating on evidence itself (rather than having an 'answer' already and just using motivated reasoning to come up with arguments that support their 'answer'). This is hard.
I know I've personally gone from someone who made these kind of bad reasoning mistakes - the smarter you are the more insidious they can be because you're better at being a clever arguer and coming up with plausible sounding reasons while ignoring or rationalizing contradicting evidence. I've worked hard to get better at it (and I still am, it's an ongoing process). Yes, this is only a sample size of one, but I think it's possible.
I have an optimistic view of the capacity for a person to learn how to think better, while simultaneously having a pessimistic view of the general public's current ability to think rationally. This may seem like a conflict, but really it just means that I think it's possible for us to be a lot better than we are, while recognizing it's a bigger project than just stating the specific evidence available for any specific argument.
People have to be willing to consider why they believe what they believe, and be honest about the potential to change their mind based on new information that contradicts what they believe to be true.
I think that's the goal we have to work toward first.