These scientific studies are one reason I find the atheist enlightenmentals and their irrational belief in reason as a logical basis for ordering society to be so amusingly ironic:
Saying that correcting misinformation does little more than reinforce a false believe is a pretty controversial proposal, but the claim is based on a number of studies that examine the effect of political or ideological bias on fact correction. In the studies, volunteers were shown news items or political adverts that contained misinformation, followed by a correction. For example, a study by John Bullock of Yale showed volunteers a political ad created by NARAL that linked Justice John Roberts to a violent anti-abortion group, followed by news that the ad had been withdrawn. Interestingly, Democratic participants had a worse opinion of Roberts after being shown the ad, even after they were told it was false.
Over half (56 percent) of Democratic subjects disapproved of Roberts before the misinformation. That rose to 80 percent afterward, but even after correcting the misinformation, 72 percent of Democratic subjects still had a negative opinion. Republican volunteers, on the other hand, only showed a small increase in disapproval after watching the misinformation (11 percent vs 14 peercent).
Along those lines, a pair of political scientists, Brendan Nyhan of Duke and Jason Reifler of Georgia State, have shown a similar effect, this time concerning misinformation surrounding the presence of WMDs in Iraq, tax cuts, or stem cell research. Participants were shown news reports that contained inaccuracies, followed by a correction. The news reports were not real, but were presented to the volunteers as coming from either the New York Times or Fox News. Again, the findings suggest that facts that contradicted political ideology were simply not taken in; if anything, challenging misbelief with fact checking has the counterintuitive effect of reinforcing that misbelief.
Of course, one has to consider the source. The idea that the news media is a reliable source of facts is in itself a very questionable assumption. Given the vast panoply of inaccuracies reported by both the New York Times and Fox News, a refusal to accept their reporting as fact is a logically defensible position. I further note that these material reductionists often staunchly cling to a belief in the supreme importance of “equality”, a manifestly non-existent immaterial object.
Also, declaring a belief in Obama’s Muslim faith to be an example of being misinformed is pretty poor example. There is, after all, considerable reason to doubt the media attempts to define his faith for him, especially considering that the man has publicly referred to “my Muslim faith”. Perhaps it was, as George Stephanopolis helpfully suggested, a misstatement. And perhaps it wasn’t.