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You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you

This is a comic about the backfire effect.



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Inspiration

This comic was inspired by this three-part series on the backfire effect from the You Are Not So Smart Podcast.

If you want to learn more about the backfire effect and other related behaviors (confirmation bias, deductive reasoning, etc), I highly recommend listening to the whole thing:
Podcast Part 1 - Podcast Part 2 - Podcast Part 3

I would also like to thank my wonderful girlfriend Theresea for calling my attention to the backfire effect in the first place. The past year has been rough for a lot of people, and she pointed me in a direction that could actually help people. Theresea: you're amazing, I love you, thank you.

USC Creativity and Brain Institute

Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence
By Sarah Gimbel and Sam Harris.

Other fun reading

Reddit - Change My View
Wikipedia's list of common misconceptions


Sources

You Are Not So Smart
Website Podcast

USC Creativity and Brain institute
https://dornsife.usc.edu/bci/

Wooden teeth
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6875436
http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-man-the-myth/the-trouble-with-teeth/
http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/did-george-washington-have-wooden-teeth

Slave teeth
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/upshot/george-washingtons-weakness-his-teeth.html?_r=0
http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/george-washingtons...
http://www.snopes.com/george-washington-wooden-teeth/

Napoleon
https://books.google.com/books...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/forget-napoleon-height-rules/

Thomas Crapper
http://www.snopes.com/business/names/crapper.asp
http://content.time.com/...

Houseflies
https://web.archive.org/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housefly#Life_cycle

Exploding in a vacuum
http://www.webcitation.org...
http://www.abc.net.au/science/...

Jesus's birthday https://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/biblical...
ttp://www.livescience.com/42976-when-was-jesus-born.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_of_birth_of_Jesus

The Pledge of Allegiance
http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy
http://boingboing.net/2016/09/10/a-socialist-wrote-the-pledge-o.html

Roe v. Wade
http://www.heraldcourier.com/news/roe-v-wade-approved-by-republican-appointees/article_4fa2fb82-d738-5a11-95b6-650037c19451.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade#Supreme_Court_decision
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h2603.html

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