Audiobellum I do believe that even perfectly rational people can end up believing things that are false. If "garbage ,in garbage out" is true for computers [..], then it's also true for humans as well [..]
And this is even exploited to rouse people, or to calm them. Even to present them with an alternative reality. Social media algorithms play a big role here. They can spread fake news, but could also be used to spot and eliminate them.
Audiobellum [..] somethings it feels like it's more advantage to make the emotional argument than the logical one.
Motivated reasoning. If messaging lacks accuracy, then that can be a sign of a distracting or biassed argument. Motivating people to add accuracy (aka more cognitive effort) can reduces the bias.
Evolutionary principles were part of my study (geoscience, pre-history), and at that time, quite frequently, scientologists and the likes had their booths in pedestrian area of the city. One can learn a few things from those, I mean, how to lure people into believing :-)
Must carry on with my stuff, a lot to do today. And we're straying again ...