The head of the IMF was supposed to be Smith College's commencement speaker, but withdrew because of faculty and student protests.  A few professors (although none in the economics department) wrote to the IMF chief asking her to cancel.  The Smith Alumnae Quarterly asked several people, including myself, to write a 400 word article on the surrounding issues of diversity of thought and protest.  Below is a draft of my article.  I hope it's of interest and I would be grateful for any suggestions for improvement:

When you’re looking for a guest speaker for an important event exclude anyone who advocates sacrificing children to the demon Moloch.  I’m all for freedom of speech, but poisonous crazy weeds can destroy an intellectual garden.  Unfortunately, because of confirmation bias, when we encounter an objectively reasonable political belief that we disagree with, that belief often feels dangerous and absurd. 

Humans don’t naturally search for truth; rather we seek to confirm our pre-existing beliefs.  We tend to remember evidence supporting our positions, but conveniently forget conflicting data.  Consequently, the opinions of political opponents can falsely seem ridiculous because they cut against all of the relevant facts stored in our brains.  

Closed intellectual ecosystems containing homogenous political beliefs, such as the Smith College bubble, provide fertile grounds for confirmation bias.  When almost everyone shares the same political opinions, nonconformists will tend to shut up (or transfer) to avoid paying the social cost of dissent.  The majority will therefore never encounter people who challenge their beliefs and so most people can comfortably categorize political opponents as dangerous others. 

Having a high IQ can also worsen confirmation bias.  Being smart makes it easy to rationalize away uncomfortable truths.  And many of us among the academically gifted derive a huge amount of self-worth from thinking that WE ARE RIGHT.

You know that confirmation bias corrupts your thinking if you dismiss the opinions of experts on topics you don’t really understand.  For example, pretend that although you know a little bit about economics from watching MSNBC and reading New York Times editorials, you have never done the graduate level work in mathematics and statistics necessary to properly evaluate what the IMF does.  If you still decided that the head of the IMF is unfit to speak with the people you are paid a lot of money to educate, then confirmation bias comfortably feeds on your brain.

Fight confirmation bias by asking of your most cherished beliefs, “What evidence would convince me that I’m wrong?”  Here is an exercise for readers devoted to social justice:   Feminists demonized then-Harvard president Larry Summers for suggesting that genetics might partly explain the relative lack of women in science.  We are going to learn a lot more about the genetic basis of intelligence over the next decade.  What evidence would convince you that Summers was correct?  (Summers, of course, went on to apologize profusely for his heresy, doing everything short of sacrificing his own children to show repentance.)