Try being in their shoes: you set up an experiment to prove the earth is not flat and is indeed round, you run the experiment and at the end you realise your experiment fail and would prove the earth is flat. Would you changwe your point of view ? I know I wouldn't, I would immediately assume I am an idiot and messed up the experiment, because I am so much convinced it is round, it would be much more realistic to assume I messed up.

[–] thesporkeffect@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If I do it 10 times and each time the result is 'flat', and 99.99% of scientists in the field say it's flat, at that point I would do some self evaluation to see why I was so hell bent on being wrong

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 8 points 8 months ago

If I'm grifting people into giving me money to prove it's flat I'll keep doubling down until that teat runs dry.

[–] Baphomet_The_Blasphemer@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

This. This is exactly it. Commonly referred to as cognitive dissonance where when presented with evidence differing from that of one's beliefs, they will discard said evidence as faulty and will double down going deeper into their wrongfully held beliefs. Cognitive dissonance can be overcome but it is very difficult to do so, especially if you aren't willing to entertain the idea that your beliefs might be wrong.