Keynes once said, he changed his mind.
My own observation is that this is rarely the case with people.
Instead of changing their minds about some principle that is failing, folks are more inclined to do one of a few things:
- brood
- reread their scriptures
- deny the truth of the facts which contradict them
- open the timescale in hopes that some new fact will intrude.
One thing they will not do: try to rethink their big ideas.
Of course, this is hard for anyone to do so as one's whole outlook and personality can seem to depend on the fixed compass of one's beliefs.
Humans are, to a great extent, creatures of faith and not of reason. As someone once said, the failed ideas of one generation only disappear when the generation which believed them itself dies off.
Just discovered a study that confirms the same thing: doubt is louder than certainty. Instead of changing their minds, people respond to uncomfortable facts by asserting their position with more vehemence: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/10/12/0956797610385953.abstract
In a way that I think is related, we also tend to be tribal rather than humanist, as recent conversations about the Israel and Palestine dialogue tend to reveal.
So perhaps in this spirit, and showing due humility, Fox News might amend its little ditty to "tribal and prejudiced". Not because they are specially so, although many might think it is true: but because they are human.
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