This led me down a bit of a rabbit hole. Related to this is what is sometimes known as the "Backfire Effect" which is the idea that a person's belief in something untrue will only be strengthened when presented with evidence to the contrary.
I had thought this was well established by experimental psychology, but now that I am looking into it it seems like the evidence is not nearly as strong as I thought and the effect may be very small or nonexistent.
Faulting Semmelweiss for being a nutjob (as he was) doesn't excuse the doctors who refused to look at the evidence.
That's your intellectual test: How do you react when a crazy, unpopular person says something sensible? When the safe thing to do is to just dismiss it?
I interpret the article to say the "myth" is exactly true. It may also be true that Semmelweis could have done a better job communicating his findings and persuading others. But that doesn't take away from the truth of the basic story.
> Innovation takes more than having ideas and expecting others to immediately accept them.
This absolves the people who said, "Eh, he's just a nut" (as he was). Instead of calmly asking if he had something there, however badly he communicated it.
The idea is not responsible for the person who holds it.
He performed experiments and showed that his washing regime dropped the maternal mortality rate at his ward from 12.3% to 1.27%. That's a 90% reduction in deaths!
>This absolves the people who said, "Eh, he's just a nut" (as he was). Instead of calmly asking if he had something there, however badly he communicated it.
Why shouldn't they receive their absolution? No one has time to evaluate every idea they come across. As a matter of practicality, one has to put poorly communicated ideas or those for which the data collection is sloppy or otherwise badly done lower on their priority list.
People's lives would've been saved if Semmelweis had been taken more seriously, but how many other advancements would have suffered if everyone followed up on every poorly thought out and represented idea and didn't prioritize?
This is not so much about prioritization but outright dismissal and comfortably not questioning the status quo.
Reminds of many surgeons refusal to use checklists a while ago despite showing general improvement in outcomes. Nobody wants to admit they could have done better, change their routine and think they don't need help as they're already really good. [1]
Wrong. Dead wrong. That's judging people's ideas by how pleasant they sound, rather than what they say.
When you say "evaluate every idea" you ignore the fact that that's what a scientist does: he or she should be trained enough to know when, "Oh, that's interesting!" or "Yeah, I guess I can ignore that." is the right answer. Their judgement of which is which is a good way to evaluate them.
You said, "As a matter of practicality, one has to put poorly communicated ideas or those for which the data collection is sloppy or otherwise badly done lower on their priority list."
"poorly communicated" is perfectly well characterized by "how pleasant [it] sounds"
You try again. Maybe you don't like the characterization but it's fair.
I had thought this was well established by experimental psychology, but now that I am looking into it it seems like the evidence is not nearly as strong as I thought and the effect may be very small or nonexistent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance#Backfire_e...