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304 Conversion

Sideways view Top-down view

center

Centrality

periphery

Beliefs
Figure 9.2. rokeach’s concept of a center-periphery structure. one or more core
beliefs subsume less general or less comprehensive but therefore also more specific
beliefs.

affect beliefs of intermediate centrality. only if the onslaught of contradictory
information continues for some time can the change propagate to the center
and affect core beliefs. rokeach’s center-periphery principle is discussed fur-
ther in Chapter 10.
A similar theory of resistance to change was proposed by the philosopher
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imre Lakatos. in a critique of the idea that scientists reject theories when
they are falsified by observations, Lakatos pointed out that for a fundamental
scientific law or principle to make contact with data, the scientist usually has
to add auxiliary assumptions. A famous historical example is the attempt by
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the 16th-century italian physicist Galileo Galilei to convince his contempo-
raries of a variety of astronomical phenomena, including that the heavenly
bodies have shadows, spots and other imperfections, by inviting them to look
through his telescope. They remained unconvinced. some even refused to
look, because Galileo’s claims presupposed that the telescope shows an accu-
rate view of the heavens, and they saw no reason to believe this assumption.
it seemed more plausible to them that the incomprehensible, unfamiliar and
weird contraption produced a distorted view. Lakatos called the set of auxil-
iary assumptions associated with a set of core principles the protective belt. “it
is this protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses which has to bear the brunt of
tests and get adjusted and re-adjusted, or even completely replaced” to defend
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the core principles. The auxiliary beliefs are necessary for the core principles
to generate predictions about specific situations, but a given set of core prin-
ciples can be paired with different auxiliary assumptions, so the impact of any
contradictory information can be absorbed through changes in the protective
belt.