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

