We are likely to regard the people who disagree with us as being fools, hypocrites, and otherwise morally deficient. We may consider the people who agree with us as wise, noble, and courageous. When this happens, our ability to objectively evaluate the issues becomes corrupted. We feel obligated to disagree with their points regardless of the quality of their arguments. We have locked into a belief and made it difficult to correct notions that may be wrong.
Polarization can result in a total breakdown of responsible thinking.
Believing other people We often have to rely on the authority of others to provide us with knowledge that we can't determine easily for ourselves, but far too often we put too much confidence in what we are told. There are lots of principles that can be learned to help us analyze situations in a way that improves understanding and avoids mistakes. While it is useful to learn much of the knowledge acquired by science, perhaps the most important things we can learn about science are the methods scientists use to distinguish what is true from what is not. These methods will vary from one field to another, and often scientists themselves don't know as much as they should about proper scientific methods. Arguing The purpose of argument ought to be to get at the truth.