Word Choice – Term for Interpreting Evidence to Reach Desired Conclusion

Xenophobia

The irrational sensation of fear experienced about a person or a group of persons as well as situations that are perceived as strange or foreign. It is the fear of anything that is beyond one’s comfort zone.

This article would help explain a lot more on Xenophobia and also explains that this word would fit into your context.

In my family (rural Australia) we have always used the term "jack-a-dandy". I can trace this back to a usage in 19th C London (sorry, reference escapes me - not my family, though.) It was an article on children's games. One boy complained that another had cast a jack-a-dandy in his eye with a mirror or similar. The trail stops there. I tracked down an earlier (?) English saying to the effect that, on a day when sun and rain alternated rapidly, "Jack-a-dandy is beating his wife with his golden stick". In Germany, in the same circumstances, it is the devil who is beating his wife. My Jamaican sister-in-law reports a similar saying in Jamaica.

Reference added:

Jack-a-dandy -- Wiktionary

(noun) 2. (New Zealand) A small patch of light reflected from a shiny surface onto another surface such as a wall or ceiling.