You Are What You Eat

While doing this "dig" into the great debate, I have noticed some interesting and somewhat disquieting things about myself. I find myself being swayed toward the side I read the most. If I read a lot of articles from the evolution side, I find myself tending toward that side and if I read a lot of articles from the ID side, I start to head that way. The tendency is not overwhelming but it is definitely a pull. What I conclude from this is that a) you tend to believe what you read as opposed to seeing on TV or someone telling you about and b) the more you immerse yourself in one opinion, the more likely you'll end up believing that side. This is disquieting because I was hoping to come to an objective, unbiased opinion (as much as that is humanly possible). What I have been trying to do now is to make a conscious effort to take small "bites" of each side. I try to switch back and forth in my reading and try only to read a little bit at a time. Also, I try to think about things in between readings. This seems to have helped.
The other thing that I have noticed is that I am resistant to anything that is not my current belief. Any time I come across something that contradicts what I think is true, my immediate reaction is to think of excuses or try to rationalize it away. This is not something that is not a good thing when you are trying to keep an open mind. I would conclude that changing your opinion is a difficult thing to do. I'm hoping that being aware of these tendencies will allow me to take them into consideration and be more rational in my conclusions. I read a quotation somewhere that said that we create our own reality. It's a wonder that any two people can come to the same conclusion since we all have our individual baggage that colours our perspective.