The Willfully Blind And The Closed Minded In History And In Science

Have you ever been exasperated with people who refuse to accept a "radical" belief, no matter how much evidence is presented? This site shows that such people are common, and that their rigidity often leads to disaster.

The stories below include people who followed ideologies like horses with blinkers on, and people who refused to see obvious threats to their well being until it was too late. I try to organize similar mistakes together. Perhaps by viewing the natural tendency of human beings to make mistakes in their world views, we can learn what to avoid in forming our own.

• Part 1 - Unheeded Warnings - and Military Disasters

  • Pearl Harbor - We had warnings, why were we caught unprepared? - Click Here
  • Britain's Blindness - Falling for Hitler's Promises - Click Here
  • The Blindness Of The Jews - They wouldn't believe Hitler would destroy them - Click Here
  • Stalin’s Blindness - He didn't believe Hitler would invade Russia - Click Here
  • Israel’s Blindness - Ignoring many warnings, they were taken by surprise by the Arab attack in 1973 - Click Here
  • When Major Nidal Hasan killed and seriously wounded American Soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas - Click Here
  • Some Conclusions - Why the disbelievers can be so wrong - Click Here

• Part 2 -Unheeded Warnings and Terrorist Attacks

  • The US Embassy Bombings of 1998 - Despite repeated pleas for a more secure embassy in Kenya by the Kenyan Ambassador, the State Department dismissed the warner as "obsessed with security" - Click Here

• Part 3 - Medical Mistakes

  • Tobacco - It Seemed So Glamorous - Click Here
  • Its all in your head - or is it - She had MS, but everyone told her she was crazy - Click Here
  • The Mystery of the Burning Tongues - Psychiatrists had a field day with this one, but it was not psychiatric. - Click Here
  • The need for a framework before seeing diseases - The data was in front of their noses, but they did not piece it together - Click Here
  • Today's Fringe Diseases - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - Is it Hypochondria? Or not? - Click Here
  • He found the reason for ulcers, but The only way to convince the experts was to make himself sick - Click Here

• Part 4 - Believers

  • They Were Strong Critics of America, but fell hard for the Communist Utopia - Click Here