How to manage conflict of belief is, I submit, a problem that every society must somehow solve. Upon the solution chosen depends, not only social peace and cohesion, but also the structure of our most important industry: the reality industry. That industry is charged with producing true statements about the external world. Its mission is to tell us

The more central the belief is to our thinking, the harder it is to give up. These core beliefs anchor our understanding. We use them to make sense of events, to inquire, and to arrive at judgments about other ideas. And so we are much more likely to explain away any anomalies rather than revise our beliefs in the face of them.