Six years after the Brexit referendum in Great Britain, 54 percent of all adult Britons believe that leaving the European Union has not been good for the country.

This was the result of a survey by the opinion research institute YouGov in June this year.

But if you ask the British how they would vote today, the result is the same narrow result as six years ago: in favor of leaving.

Rainer Hank

Freelance author in the business section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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The result is disturbing.

Why don't bad experiences change our behavior?

Are good arguments worthless?

That would be the wrong conclusion when I think of my ear, nose and throat doctor.

He reported on a particularly clever patient who steadfastly resisted a corona vaccination and, to reassure his refusal, buried himself for nights on end reading complex scientific studies.

The Flat Earth Society

Our vaccine refuser can correct some stereotypes about irrational behavior.

For example, the assumption that such people don't care about “the science”, are unattainable for arguments and constantly make some crude claims.

The opposite is true.

I'm afraid this anti-vaccinationist has more arguments (and studies) against vaccination than I have for it.

Of course, I stand by my opinion that it is good and right that I have just been vaccinated against Covid for the fourth time.

Of course, I cannot rule out that I am simply chasing after the majority and behaving in a particularly loyal manner to the state and Lauterbach.

For example, the Flat Earth Society, founded in 1958, still maintains the view that the earth is flat.

In an exchange of blows with their protagonists, I would probably suffer a nasty defeat.

Again, why do people stubbornly cling to their beliefs?

And what has to happen for views to change?

In these times of self-isolating ideological camps, every inch of knowledge gain is valuable.

There is much to suggest that belonging to a group is more important to us humans (presumably phylogenetically mediated) than the truth.

It's not just the misfits who represent particularly radical views, but rather groups that commit their members to loyalty and reward them with warmth and freedom from fear.

In the circle of like-minded people, some become radicalized, while the doubters are singled out - the AfD offers a lot of illustrative material for this.

The behavioral economists have invented the term "confirmation bias" for this, exaggeratedly translated as confirmation addiction.

When asked why people believe in God, they usually do not come up with subtle proofs of God from the history of theology, but say that faith gives them stability in a community,

where everyone else believes in God.

Reason is always there to justify a belief.