Research School Network: When the facts change … I change my mind – what do you do?


When the facts change

… I change my mind – what do you do?

by Shotton Hall Research School
on the

If evidence hasn’t changed your mind about something important, then you’re probably more evidence garnished than evidence-based’. Yet changing our mind is often seen as a weakness – how can we make it easier, asks Tom Martell.


As a student, I keenly read Richard Dawkins books – I spent many happy nights fascinated by the wonders of nature that I have since enjoyed sharing with my students, including the absurdity of fig wasps. One of the recurring themes across Dawkins’ books is the celebration of changing your view in light of new evidence.

One example that has stayed with me is his recounting of a tale about the Golgi apparatus – a sort of postal service inside cells that delivers things to where they are needed. Dawkins recounts a story about an elder statesman in Oxford’s zoology department where he had been an undergraduate.

For years he had passionately believed, and taught, that the Golgi Apparatus (a microscopic feature of the interior of cells) was not real... Every Monday afternoon it was the custom for the whole department to listen to a research talk by a visiting lecturer. One Monday, the visitor was an American cell biologist who presented completely convincing evidence that the Golgi Apparatus was real. At the end of the lecture, the old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said - with passion - 'My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.'

Richard Dawkins

I still find this story inspiring and prefer it to the quip from the physicist Max Plank that that science progresses one funeral at a time’.[1] Unfortunately, there is some empirical evidence that Plank’s view is correct, but it does not have to be that way.



Rob Coe and Stuart Kime highlight the need to celebrate changing our mind in their manifesto for evidence-based education, while introducing the glorious phrase evidence garnished’.

A key test for anyone who wants to describe themselves as evidence-based is to be able list all the things they once believed (ideally passionately) which they subsequently learned were at odds with research evidence, and have since changed their minds about. If evidence hasn’t changed your mind about something important then you are probably more evidence garnished than evidence-based.

Shifting our culture to one of celebrating changing our mind, rather than the toxic culture of seeing it as back-tracking or making a U‑turn would be immensely positive. Therefore, this blog is the first in an occasional series about changing course in response to evidence.

To begin the celebrations, I want to highlight some existing work. A masterful introduction to this theme is Daisy Christodoulou’s book Seven Myths About Education’ where she forcefully tackles pervasive myths and how she changed her own view. Tom Sherrington’s book The Learning Rainforest’ also does humbly describes how his own thinking has evolved.

Some excellent blogs include:

1. Mark Enser describing how he changed his mind about rote learning’.
2. Jo Facer describing how she changed how she marked.
3. Andy Byers describing how he ditched things that didn’t matter.

What have you changed your mind about in response to evidence? Or are you more evidence garnished’? 

Get in touch if you want to share how you changed your mind based on evidence.

@ShottonResearch


[1] The full quote is actually a little more subtle. A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

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