Should we have a more studied approach to avoiding idea resistance?

Idea Resistance… Confirmation Bias… Hypothesis Myopia… Whatever we call it, it’s such an easy disease to contract. It’s a massive epidemic. There was a time when everyone had it. We all absolutely knew the Earth was flat, and the Sun, Moon, visible planets and stars all revolved around the Earth fixed in the 7 concentric domes of the Heavens, with God and Heaven itself residing in the outer dome. We all knew this to be true. Of course, it was utter bunk, but believing that bunk prevented, for a very long time, anyone opening their eyes and observing that the facts that we can see do not fit the flat-earth, geocentric hypothesis.

Fortunately, as science has grown in understanding and grown more widely understood, hypothesis myopia has been on the retreat. But there are a large and currently growing crowd of people who are determined not to let go of it. For various religious, economoic and political reasons, they are carrying on a war on science. They prefer to live outside the fact-based community because the facts simply don’t fit their comfortable biases.

In his TED Talk medical doctor and researcher Peter Attia, MD discusses his own idea resistance and what eventually broke its hold on him. What self talk and studied ways of looking at questions can we develop to make sure confirmation bias does not blind us to truth that’s right before our eyes to see?