06 Mar '07 23:16>
Reading the Thermodynamics thread, I thought I'd mention Michael Shermer's book "Why People Believe Weird Things". Anyone else read it? Thoughts?
Weird beliefs are given as things like Intelligent Design, Young Earth Creationism, UFO Abductions, Holocaust denial, Witch crazes
The book does not explicitly list all the reasons in one place but I'll list a few (fairly obvious ones) here:
Culture & Upbringing - if you are raised in a predominantly evangelical state and taken to the local church from an early age etc etc, then evangelical teachings are likely to be accepted as fact.
Comfort - Loosing a loved one tends to bring great sorrow. It is comforting to believe that they continue in some ethereal realm or that we can still communicate with their spirit.
Simplicity - Its hard to imagine what it would be like to not exist (partly because it would not be 'like' anything. It's much easier to imagine your 'self' continuing after death.
Control - Early civilizations did not understand how the weather worked and so were unable to predict it. Inventing a God who controlled the weather and who could be appeased gave an illusion of control.
Immediate Gratification - You can phone a 'psychic' and hear what makes you feel good right now, or you can expend significant effort to sort out your real problems.
Pattern Matching - "I saw a black cat walk in front of me and then I tripped over so black cats must cause bad luck". "I was just thinking of my friend when they phoned me so we must have a telepathic link"
Morality and Meaning - Religions provide you with a ready-made moral code with tangible rewards and punishments for followers and deviants. Secular moral codes have less obvious justifications.
And lots of other reasons. Anyone else care to suggest a few?
The current edition has an extra chapter on why smart people believe weird things. It conclude that they believe them for exactly the same reasons as everybody else. Being smart just enables them to better defend beliefs they arrived at for the same non-smart reasons as everyone else. I'm thinking of the likes of DJ2Becker here who, although supposedly studying Physics & Chemistry at University level seems to have a pathological blind spot when it comes to the 2nd law of thermodynamics and will make fundamental logical errors in order to argue that it poses a problem for the theory of evolution. Anyone got any other suggestions why intelligent, educated people still believe weird things?
--- Penguin.
Weird beliefs are given as things like Intelligent Design, Young Earth Creationism, UFO Abductions, Holocaust denial, Witch crazes
The book does not explicitly list all the reasons in one place but I'll list a few (fairly obvious ones) here:
Culture & Upbringing - if you are raised in a predominantly evangelical state and taken to the local church from an early age etc etc, then evangelical teachings are likely to be accepted as fact.
Comfort - Loosing a loved one tends to bring great sorrow. It is comforting to believe that they continue in some ethereal realm or that we can still communicate with their spirit.
Simplicity - Its hard to imagine what it would be like to not exist (partly because it would not be 'like' anything. It's much easier to imagine your 'self' continuing after death.
Control - Early civilizations did not understand how the weather worked and so were unable to predict it. Inventing a God who controlled the weather and who could be appeased gave an illusion of control.
Immediate Gratification - You can phone a 'psychic' and hear what makes you feel good right now, or you can expend significant effort to sort out your real problems.
Pattern Matching - "I saw a black cat walk in front of me and then I tripped over so black cats must cause bad luck". "I was just thinking of my friend when they phoned me so we must have a telepathic link"
Morality and Meaning - Religions provide you with a ready-made moral code with tangible rewards and punishments for followers and deviants. Secular moral codes have less obvious justifications.
And lots of other reasons. Anyone else care to suggest a few?
The current edition has an extra chapter on why smart people believe weird things. It conclude that they believe them for exactly the same reasons as everybody else. Being smart just enables them to better defend beliefs they arrived at for the same non-smart reasons as everyone else. I'm thinking of the likes of DJ2Becker here who, although supposedly studying Physics & Chemistry at University level seems to have a pathological blind spot when it comes to the 2nd law of thermodynamics and will make fundamental logical errors in order to argue that it poses a problem for the theory of evolution. Anyone got any other suggestions why intelligent, educated people still believe weird things?
--- Penguin.