Wikipedia says:
Petrov later indicated the influences in this decision included: that he was informed a U.S. strike would be all-out, so five missiles seemed an illogical start,[1] that the launch detection system was new and, in his view, not yet wholly trustworthy, and that ground radars failed to pick up corroborative evidence, even after minutes of delay.
Apparently there was a bit of reasoning that went into ignoring what seemed to be a strike, so it wasn't flinching away dramatically. I suppose the point is that while flinching away is bad, you also can be overly impulsive, and history gives us examples of both. This, of course, does not say we should not continue to advocate against flinching away.
There's a natural cluster of "flinching away from the evidence because it makes you uncomfortable", and that cluster does not include what Petrov did.
I'm looking for historical examples of "flinching away," so I can illustrate the concept to others and talk about motivated cognition and leaving a line of retreat and so on.
The ideal example would be one of motivated skepticism with grave consequences. Like, a military commander who shied away from believing certain reports because they implied something huge and scary was about to happen, and then the huge and scary thing happened and caused great damage. Something like that.
What examples can you think of?