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Thursday, August 22, 2002 |
Why do smart people believe weird things?
It's easy to look at lots of weird beliefs -- crop circles, bigfoot, the influence of the position of planets on daily life, snake handling, etc., etc., -- and figure that only stupid people believe this stuff. Often, that's the case. But why do smart people believe weird things? And haven't we all known smart people who talk about nonsense like Mercury in retrograde?
Michael Shermer is editor and publisher of the fine magazine Skeptic, and writes a column for Scientific American. In this column, he addresses this question. The short answer is really great: "Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for nonsmart reasons. "
Rarely do any of us sit down before a table of facts, weigh them pro and con, and choose the most logical and rational explanation, regardless of what we previously believed. Most of us, most of the time, come to our beliefs for a variety of reasons having little to do with empirical evidence and logical reasoning. Rather, such variables as genetic predisposition, parental predilection, sibling influence, peer pressure, educational experience and life impressions all shape the personality preferences that, in conjunction with numerous social and cultural influences, lead us to our beliefs. We then sort through the body of data and select those that most confirm what we already believe, and ignore or rationalize away those that do not.
This phenomenon, called the confirmation bias, helps to explain the findings published in the National Science Foundation's biennial report (April 2002) on the state of science understanding: 30 percent of adult Americans believe that UFOs are space vehicles from other civilizations; 60 percent believe in ESP; 40 percent think that astrology is scientific; 32 percent believe in lucky numbers; 70 percent accept magnetic therapy as scientific; and 88 percent accept alternative medicine.
A very interesting piece; highly recommended.
10:18:07 PM Permalink
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Georgia School Board Requires Balance of Evolution and Bible. Georgia's second-largest school district adopted a policy last night that requires teachers to give a "balanced education" about the origin of life. By Kate Zernike. [New York Times: Science]
This crowd just doesn't stop. Besides the fact that the government has no business teaching religion in schools, there's just the whole instanity of the thing. So what do we believe? The evidence of the universe around us? Or some bunch of books that was written by a bunch of nomadic primitives over 3,000 years ago? The price of liberty, and sanity, is eternal vigilance.
10:11:04 PM Permalink
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Giants 3, Mets 1
Fun time at the Giants game last night; for the first time I sat on the club level, between home & first. Very niceseats, I think I prefer them to the lower level. Giants won 3 to 1; they turned 3 double-plays. The Mets pitcher also pitched well, limiting our boys to 5 hits, but you can't win a game when your offense doesn't score any runs.
I've been meaning to link to some of my old pal King Kaufman's pieces in Salon. He's turned into a really great writer, particularly about baseball, but also about other sports. I loved his 30 More Memorable Moments piece and his one about taking the baseball owners at their word, but he's always worth reading, and always funny. Plus, he threw one of the most fun weddings I've ever been to.
9:23:43 AM Permalink
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The Supreme Court Shouldn't Care What you Think
Excellent piece in Slate about how the Consitution shouldn't be interpreted in the light of opinion polls. Though I agreed with the court's ruling a couple months ago about the death penalty and retarded people, they came up with it for the wrong reason. The Constitution should be the rock on which the country's foundation exists; it is difficult to amend precisely so that in times of difficulty we don't arbitrarily change our system of government, or deprive others of rights.
9:11:10 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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