Self Deception

I found an excellent essay by Arnold Kling at TCS Daily. The URL is http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010407A
Kling discusses the common human trait of selectively finding evidence which supports one's views, and avoiding contrary evidence--
I am going to suggest that democratic politics is a very poor information-processing mechanism. The great mass of people form their political beliefs with little regard for facts or logic. However, the elites also have a strategy for avoiding truth. Elites form their political beliefs dogmatically, using their cleverness to organize facts to fit preconceived prejudices. The masses' strategy for avoiding truth is to make a low investment in understanding; the elites' strategy is to make a large investment in selectively choosing which facts and arguments to emphasize or ignore.

There is an excellent follow-up essay by Gagdad Bob athttp://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/01/truth-and-how-to-avoid-it.html#links