Why political disagreements over how the world works may be easier to solve than those over goals.

Politics is all about disagreement – disagreement over what government should be trying to achieve, but also about how the world works and how that affects the pursuit of shared goals. But what makes disagreements over beliefs different from disagreements over goals? In a new study, Alexander V. Hirsch writes that beliefs may be able to be changed when new information is introduced, and so disagreements driven by differing beliefs should result in more policy experimentation compared to disagreement driven by differing goals.