People believe the things that they want to be true

The prosecutor of the Charles Manson murders, who also wrote the best-selling book Helter Skelter, has written a thick tome about the Kennedy assassination. What’s interesting about the assassination is that so many people believe there has to be more to it than just one lone gunman. This, despite exhaustive investigations by all kinds of official bodies over the past 40+ years. It illustrates how people tend to believe the things that they want to be true, things that satisfy particular desires or emotional needs, regardless whether their beliefs fit the available evidence.

(Interestingly, President Kennedy’s 90th birthday is this month.)

Reference: Edward Wyatt, Who Killed Kennedy? One Man’s Answer, NY Times, May 14, 2007.

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