Why GLPers believe weird things - Rarely does anyone weigh facts before deciding what to believe

Smart People Believe Weird Things

Rarely does anyone weigh facts before deciding what to believe

By Michael Shermer

In April 1999, when I was on a lecture tour for my book Why People Believe Weird Things, the psychologist Robert Sternberg attended my presentation at Yale University. His response to the lecture was both enlightening and troubling. It is certainly entertaining to hear about other people's weird beliefs, Sternberg reflected, because we are confident that we would never be so foolish. But why do smart people fall for such things? Sternberg's challenge led to a second edition of my book, with a new chapter expounding on my answer to his question: 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.

Education by itself is no paranormal prophylactic. Although belief in ESP decreased from 65 percent among high school graduates to 60 percent among college graduates, and belief in magnetic therapy dropped from 71 percent among high school graduates to 55 percent among college graduates, that still leaves more than half fully endorsing such claims! And for embracing alternative medicine, the percentages actually increase, from 89 percent for high school grads to 92 percent for college grads.

We can glean a deeper cause of this problem in another statistic: 70 percent of Americans still do not understand the scientific process, defined in the study as comprehending probability, the experimental method and hypothesis testing. One solution is more and better science education, as indicated by the fact that 53 percent of Americans with a high level of science education (nine or more high school and college science/math courses) understand the scientific process, compared with 38 percent of those with a middle-level science education (six to eight such courses) and 17 percent with a low level (five or fewer courses).

The key here is teaching how science works, not just what science has discovered. We recently published an article in Skeptic (Vol. 9, No. 3) revealing the results of a study that found no correlation between science knowledge (facts about the world) and paranormal beliefs. The authors, W. Richard Walker, Steven J. Hoekstra and Rodney J. Vogl, concluded: "Students that scored well on these [science knowledge] tests were no more or less skeptical of pseudoscientific claims than students that scored very poorly. Apparently, the students were not able to apply their scientific knowledge to evaluate these pseudoscientific claims. We suggest that this inability stems in part from the way that science is traditionally presented to students: Students are taught what to think but not how to think."

To attenuate these paranormal belief statistics, we need to teach that science is not a database of unconnected factoids but a set of methods designed to describe and interpret phenomena, past or present, aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation.

For those lacking a fundamental comprehension of how science works, the siren song of pseudoscience becomes too alluring to resist, no matter how smart you are.



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Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com) and author of In Darwin's Shadow and Why People Believe Weird Things, just reissued.

While we're on the subject....

After a careful examination of all the facts, having weighed those facts, both pro and con, and after having choosen the most logical and rational explanation......

What is your position on the existance, or non-existance, of the Jewish "god", and what is your view on Jewish claims that this "god" somehow "chose" these people as his very own, and then decided to grant them lawful title over vast swaths of land in the Middle East?

Let's review your best fact based argument on this matter, for our mutual education and enlightenment.


Why does the Christian god speak to Pat Robertson and George Bush, yet all the Muslims hear Allah? Why doesn't Allah talk to Pat Robertson, when he clearly needs it? Why do almost all religions claim that said religion is proven (via personal experience or science) and all others are false? Critical thinking shows that people know much less than they think they know.

Christians, Muslims and Jews believe in one God...the Creator. There is only one God and he is known by many names. The Arabic word Allah is the most common divine
name in the Islamic scriptures and has unique sanctity
not just for Muslims but also for Arabic-speaking
Jews and Christians, who have used “Allah” for
God from time immemorial. For Muslims, Allah is
the most inclusive of God’s names, embracing all
his other names and attributes. In accordance with
conventional Arabic usage, Allah can be applied only
to the Creator and cannot be assigned to any other
being, angelic, human, animate or inanimate, real or
imaginary.

[link to www.nawawi.org]

The original discussion was about fact based rationality.

So let's see some of that.

Not this cut and paste cosmic crappolla.

What is the fact based, rational explanation for the existance, or nonexistance, of the so-called jewish "god", and the jewish claims that this alleged "god" granted them title to vast areas of land in the Middle East?

Lets see some facts, and some rational argument in support of your apparent belief.

Not this worthless cut and paste bullshit.

First you have to phrase your question correctly. As I said before, Jews believe in God not "god" or "Jewish god".
I don't think anyone should "prove" that God exists. Either you are a believer or a non-believer.

This article explains why there are so many educated liberals. What they believe is bankrupt and illogical with no merit whatsoever but still they endorse their
cause.

:liberals:

Smart People Believe Weird Things

Rarely does anyone weigh facts before deciding what to believe

By Michael Shermer

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