One of my true guilty pleasures is the “Raw Dog” comedy channel on SiriusXM radio. It’s guilty because paying for radio in my car just seems like such an extravagance these days, and pleasure because the uncensored rants of great stand up comedians makes me laugh out loud.

Often I really need the laugh.

So I was a bit thunderstruck the other day when I heard a classic bit of comedic stand up from Dennis Miller. Dennis Miller? The SNL “Weekend Update” alum who made “Ouch Babe” sound ultra-cool as a retort? The guy who skewered George H.W. Bush more than a pig at a Hawaiian Luau on his late-night talk shows? The guy who now is a second tier radio talkshow mouthpiece, whose big claim to fame seems to be that he gets a regular spot to vent with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News Channel?

That Dennis Miller?

Yeah, that one actually. Because once upon a time, Dennis Miller did scathing stand-up comedy on the state of our condition that didn’t sound like just another Anti-Obama screed. Once upon a time, he used obscure socio-cultural references to make a point other than to screw up the enjoyment of a NFL Monday night match-up.

So what happened to that guy?

I don’t know, but reading the new issue of WIRED, I may have come across a clue. The theme of the January 2010 magazine is about failing, or as the cool kids like to describe it, Epic Fail! There is an article about “The Neuroscience of Screwing Up.” And in it is an amazing read on how scientists make discoveries of new facts everyday and yet often discard them as failures, because they weren’t the facts they were looking to prove.

In the midst of the article, this paragraph appears:

“The reason we’re so resistant to anomalous information–the real reason researchers automatically assume that every unexpected result is a stupid mistake–is rooted in the way the human brain works. Over the past five decades, psychologists have dismantled the myth of objectivity. The fact is, we carefully edit our reality, searching for evidence we already believe.”

Pardon my language here, but holy crapasaurus, Batman.

In simpler terms, we believe what we believe because our brain screens out the stuff that would prove it wrong? This would explain so many things in life. Think a little harder about this. You and I both know that people believe what they want to believe, that is pretty much a given.

But this research suggests that people believe what they believe because they have to. Their brain actively looks for “facts” to support the already held belief.

As a guy who often interacts with the general public by answering phone calls and emails, this is not really a surprise–but it hit me like a ton of bricks to see it in print. We edit our reality to find support for that which we already believe. This one little fact explains so much about life and in particular for me, the difficulty of maintaining any sense of objectivity in being a journalist.

Most journalists are skeptical people by nature. It’s just what the profession attracts to its ranks. Journalists try to question the appearance of anything, and try to keep an open mind so that their own opinion doesn’t color their work. There is no such thing as a journalist (or for that matter a person) who is unbiased. Everyone carries the baggage of their own experiences, which in turn leads to some degree of bias in their thinking.

Journalists (hopefully) work a little harder than most to overcome this built-in filter and be more objective about that which they cover. More and more of late, this idea of objectivity has come under fire because people seem to be embracing a new form of journalism that actually embraces a particular point of view–placing reporting with a little bit of an agenda, right next to commentary with a whole lot of agenda. (See the aforementioned Fox News Channel for this in action.)

I’m not necessarily saying this kind of journalism-with-a-point-of-view is all bad. But it makes the water far more murky for those of us trying to stick to the old fashioned way of actually going after the truth of the matter, regardless of whose cause or politics it might support.

Which brings us back around to Mr. Miller.

Still a funny, and razor sharp mind, which is apparent after an admittedly brief listen to his current radio work on his merchandise-for-sale-laden website at DennisMillerRadio.com But it’s clear that Dennis is now firmly entrenched right of the center, holding the label of libertarian, because he is more liberal on certain social issues than the mainstream conservative movement in America. So as you might imagine, it’s now the Democratic president that is turning on the spit at that Luau.

Miller has said in interviews that the events of September 11, 2001 moved him into the Republican camp, and that’s understandable enough. The 9/11 attacks changed so much in this nation, that now closing in on almost a decade later, it is easy to forget how that happened.

(That said, it doesn’t quite explain how Miller ended up this past Monday night as sports commentator again, but this time as the host of the “Slammy Awards” on WWE’s “Raw”. That’s right kids, we’re talking about professional wrestling here.)

Thus we would have to believe that if the scientists are right, the seeds of the reality that Dennis–and for that matter all of us–chooses to live in, might just be only what our own minds allow us to believe.

Ouch babe, indeed.

(Cue Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs Robinson” to begin playing in your mind now. It helps.)