Paul Robinson — Not so intelligent

Anonymous sources. Real, or …...

The distinct lack of concern about the disclosure of a source allegedly so stunningly valuable that their information is restricted to just four people, is extraordinary. There can be only two explanations:

• People in Washington don’t give a damn about protecting the CIA’s sources, no matter how valuable they are, and are quite happy to throw them under the bus if it gives them some political advantage. That includes both the people who leak such stories to the press, the press itself, and also the wider political establishment, which doesn’t seem to be too upset by such stuff. That in turn would suggest that these people are utterly untrustworthy, so we should take what they say with the largest pinch of salt; or
• People aren’t concerned by the ‘leak’ for the simple reason that the source ‘deep in the Russian government’ doesn’t actually exist. The story is straightforward BS, pure and simple.

Personally, I tend toward option b.

Count me in.

Irrussianality
Not so intelligent
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

RT — People unlikely to change their mind, even when facts contradict their views - study

The research from the University of Iowa is based on previous studies indicating that people are particularly likely to stick to their original viewpoint when they’ve had to write their beliefs down– a phenomenon known as the ‘explanation effect’, which also affects future actions.
In the study, Tom Gruca, a professor of marketing at the Tippie College of Business, tried to find evidence of something called ‘confirmation bias’ – the tendency to give preference to existing information or beliefs, rather than considering alternative possibilities. He says equity analysts working on financial markets are particularly prone to this bias, with those who issue written forecasts being especially vulnerable to falling into the trap, despite having access to new data to influence them.…

Hypo-rationality?

According to Gruca, “This study shows that when all traders in a market have the same bias — in this case, confirmation bias — market prices are not efficient and do not reflect all of the information available.

“However, if some traders are not biased, then market prices efficiently reflect new, relevant information,” Gruca writes.

RT
People unlikely to change their mind, even when facts contradict their views - study