Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government (2013)

Clever and informed people simply have better tools to defend their biases. Auto-gaslighted high-intelligence individuals are more common (in my experience) than not.

Intelligence is no defence against delusion, in fact its the other way around.

I was really hoping to find a reference to Jaynes' "Probability Theory: The Logic of Science" at the end of the paper, but alas it wasn't there. Chapter 5 is probably the most relevant part (feel free to read just the text, and ignore or skim the mathematical equations):

http://www-biba.inrialpes.fr/Jaynes/cc05e.pdf

"...it might be thought (and for some it is an article of faith in democracy) that open discussion of public issues would tend to bring about a general consensus on them. On the contrary , we observe repeatedly that when some controversial issue has been discussed vigorously for a few years, society becomes polarized in to opposite extreme camps; it is almost impossible to find anyone who retains a moderate view.

New information given simultaneously to different people may cause a convergence of views; but it may equally well cause a divergence. This divergence phenomenon is observed also in relatively well controlled psychological experiments. Some have concluded that people reason in a basically irrational way; prejudices seem to be strengthened by new information which ought to have the opposite effect. Kahneman & Tversky (1972) draw the opposite conclusion from such psychological tests, and consider them an argument against Bayesian methods. But now, in view of the above ESP example, we wonder whether probability theory might also account for this divergence and indicate that people may be, after all, thinking in a reasonably rational, Bayesian way (i.e., in a way consistent with their prior information and prior beliefs)."

"...verbally, they have reasoned as follows:

A: "Mr. N is a fine fellow, doing a notable public service. I had thought the drug to be safe from other evidence, but he would not knowingly misrepresent the facts; therefore hearing his report leads me to change my mind and think that the drug is unsafe after all. My belief in safety is lowered by 20.0 db, so I will not buy any more."

B: "Mr. N is an erratic fellow, inclined to accept adverse evidence too quickly. I was already convinced that the drug is unsafe; but even if it is safe he might be carried away into saying otherwise. So hearing his claim does strengthen my opinion, but only by 5.3 db. I would never under any circumstances use the drug."

C: "Mr. N is an unscrupulous rascal, who does everything in his power to stir up trouble by sensational publicity. The drug is probably safe, but he would almost certainly claim it is unsafe whatever the facts. So hearing his claim has practically no effect (only 0.005 db) on m y confidence that the drug is safe. I will continue to buy it and use it."

The opinions of Mr. A and Mr. B converge in about the way we conjectured in (5-20) because both are willing to trust Mr. N's veracity to some extent. But Mr. A and Mr. C diverge because their prior probabilities of deception are entirely different. So one cause of divergence is, not merely that prior probabilities of deception are large, but that they are greatly different for different people."