If you are of the lot who is stubbornly trying to improve critical thinking
skills around the world and feels a bit frustrated by the wave of nonsense that
regularly hits the airwaves, you are not alone. If you insist in thinking that
all you need to do is to explain things just a little bit better and people will
see the light, you are committing what is known as the “rationalistic fallacy.”
It is probably true that better knowledge and understanding of science
improves one's ability to grasp the real world; if that were not the case the
entire education system should be thrown out, a step that only a minority of
right wingers is prepared to take in the US at this moment. But it is also
undeniably true that explaining science to many people does not make them any
less true believers in pseudoscience.
For example, John Moore reports in an article in The Science Teacher (May
2000) that subjects were surveyed for their beliefs in the paranormal, UFOs and
astrology before taking a course which dissected the evidential bases for all
these pseudosciences. While skepticism had marginally increased toward the end
of the course, credulity had returned with a vengeance only a year after the
test!
It seems to me that we should try to understand what causes the rationalistic
fallacy if we hope to make any progress in fighting the rampant irrationalism
that manifests itself in countless forms. It might save us a lot of misdirected
efforts and a trip or two to the psychotherapist when the depression hits.
The first thing to realize is that many people who believe in all sorts of
weird things are not stupid; at least, not in the generally accepted sense of
the term. Sure, if we define intelligence as the ability to grasp the real
world, then anybody who does not understand quantum mechanics is an idiot. But
remember the immortal words of physicist Richard Feynman: “If you think you
understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”
No, the fact is that many people who believe in pseudoscience live successful
lives. Some are college graduates. They can understand very well the reality of
everyday life; sometimes they even successfully make complex decisions such as
investing their money or planning a career. The answer must therefore lie
elsewhere.
I think the problem is in what we mean by “understanding reality.” Thomas
Henry Huxley, the 19th century scientist known as “Darwin’s bulldog,” was very
successful in lecturing to the general public, to an extent that neither Richard
Dawkins nor Stephen Gould can dream of today. Huxley’s fundamental philosophy
was that science is common sense writ large. Since most people are equipped with
both an innate curiosity and a moderate dose of common sense, if we explain
things appealing to their already existing mental tools they will understand.
Indeed, this is the philosophy behind most science documentaries.
The problem is that most modern science is not a matter of common sense at
all! On the contrary, from physics to cosmology, from evolutionary to molecular
biology, our current scientific understanding of the world is extremely
counter-intuitive. The reason for this is that science’s realm of investigation
now literally spans the whole of creation, from the beginning of time until now
(roughly 20 billion years) and from the subatomic level to the largest
aggregates of galaxies. Let us remember that in Huxley’s time most scientists
thought the earth was a few million years old, the existence of galaxies was yet
to be discovered, and nobody had the foggiest idea of what an atom or a gene
was.
Evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker suggest an explanation for
this state of affairs. According to the standard Darwinian theory, our brains
are at least in part the result of natural selection to improve our fitness; but
the question is: to what kind of environment? Obviously, the one that we have
inhabited for most of our evolutionary existence: forests and savannahs, where
“reality” meant being able to procure food and mates while carefully avoiding
predators. Is it any wonder, then, that we simply can’t understand quantum
mechanics?
If we add to this mix the fact that people still want answers to the
fundamental questions of life (probably an annoying byproduct of being
self-aware), it doesn’t take much to understand why evolution and the Big Bang
are discarded in favor of all-powerful and all-good imaginary friends who watch
over every detail of our lives (especially the sexual scenes). Even the
much-touted fact that Europeans accept evolution and are less religiously
fundamentalist than Americans has, I would argue, a far less flattering
explanation than it is usually assumed. It is not that Europeans are smarter or
know more science (this is demonstrably not so); rather, it is probably that
through history they have had their fill of religious wars and witch hunts and
they are putting their current trust in another category of priests, the
scientists (at least until these, too, screw things up in some major way).
So, what do we do about it? Unfortunately, identifying the causes doesn’t
necessarily cure the disease. We are in no position to reshape the human brain
to bring it up to speed with the current human environment. We can, however, get
more familiar with the large literature on human cognitive neuro-sciences;
getting to know how the brain works has to be the first step toward designing
better tools and arguments to educate people.
We can also be more understanding when we do confront an irrational position,
and not dismiss our interlocutor as a simpleton (at least, not too quickly).
Demonstrating sympathy and reaching out to the “right brain” may be a better way
to get to the left one. But that is subject matter for another column.
