The XX Factor: What women really think.

"Big Fat Résumés"

If Sarah Palin turns out to be the next Ronald Reagan, then it will be up to us (with our BIG FAT RÉSUMÉS) to define the new mode of anti-intellectualism in America. One starting point would be a study mentioned in this week's Washington Post. Two political scientists gave volunteers who described themselves as "conservative" a list of Bush's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. To some of the volunteers they provided a thorough, neutral refutation—the 2004 Duelfer report that concluded Iraq had no WMDs. Now here's the amazing result: The ones who received the refutation were vastly more likely to believe the Bush view than the other group. In other words, the mere presence of "expert" refutation—i.e., an opposing view from people with BIG FAT RÉSUMÉS, as Sarah Palin calls them, made the conservatives less likely to believe the truth and stick to their guns. The researchers call this the "backfire effect" and say it shows up mostly with conservatives. Sending corrections to obvious mistruths, one of them concluded, is only likely to backfire. The very act of arguing against those corrections seems to make conservatives believe them more strongly and reinforces their view that anything from those people with BFR has to be wrong.