@article{175511,
  author = {Dillon Plunkett and Lara Buchak and Tania Lombrozo},
  title = {When and why people think beliefs are {\textquotedblleft}debunked{\textquotedblright} by scientific explanations of their origins.},
  abstract = {<p>How do scientific explanations for beliefs affect people{\textquoteright}s confidence that those beliefs are true? For example, do people think neuroscience-based explanations for belief in God support or challenge God{\textquoteright}s existence? In five experiments, we find that people tend to think explanations for beliefs corroborate those beliefs if the explanations invoke normally-functioning mechanisms, but not if they invoke abnormal functioning (where {\textquotedblleft}normality{\textquotedblright} is a matter of proper functioning). This emerges across a variety of kinds of scientific explanations and beliefs (religious, moral, and scientific). We also find evidence that these effects can interact with people{\textquoteright}s prior beliefs to produce motivated judgments.</p>
},
  year = {2020},
  journal = {Mind and Language},
  volume = {35},
  pages = {3-28},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12238},
  language = {eng},
}