Do you think of yourself as open-minded?

Both liberals and conservatives, they found, were similarly adamant about avoiding contrary opinions... two-thirds of those surveyed passed on a chance to pocket money if, in exchange, they took some time to just look at counterarguments, never mind seriously entertain them.

But researchers... have also found a reason for hope, a personality trait that seemed to war with biased judgment: They called it science curiosity.

Science curiosity is different from science knowledge. Science-curious folk always chose to look at new evidence, whether it aligned with their beliefs or not. Less science-curious adults became more resistant to contrary evidence and more politically polarized as they gained subject matter knowledge.