We are a lot less likely to check references when someone tells us what we want to hear.
“You can burn 60% more calories in a day by eating a bowl of fruit in the morning”.
Not true. But we’re willing to try it because it is convenient and fruit is amazing.
But as soon as someone threatens our paradigm with a new idea, we push back. We reject it outright, not risking the chance of an inconvenient truth.
Don’t show me the science, I don’t want to know. Save your compelling arguments for someone else.
Before we reject a new idea merely because it’s inconvenient for us, we should pause to ask ourselves what we’ll miss out on if we’re wrong.
If there’s something there, we can always look at the science for ourselves.
At worst, we’ll discover we were right all along and reinforce our beliefs.
Or maybe we’ll discover something better, and decide that the inconvenience of making a change is a small price to pay for improvement.
The Daily Nugget 