Belief

Posted on February 28, 2014 by The Science-Minded Citizen
Tiffany Education

The Chittenden Memorial Window at Yale University

By Fran Evanisko
(in collaboration with his local Brights Community Cluster)

To my dad, the old days were either better or worse than the present, depending on the point he was trying to make.  If he wanted me to appreciate all of the good things I had, he would emphasize how bad things were during the depression.  If he wanted me to feel bad about the degradation of values, he would reflect on the community he shared with his neighbors at the homestead.  He would reminisce on how he and his friends would swim and fish in the now polluted river.  The lesson is that most anything may be either true or false, if the meaning or relevance of words can be changed to suit our purposes.

For instance, there is some debate as to whether Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy. I guess if you are looking for tax-exempt status for Buddhist activities on religious grounds, you would argue that it is a religion. On the other hand if you wanted to distance your Buddhist worldview from the fundamental western religions view, you might argue that it is a philosophy.

There has long been a debate over the relationship between science and religion. Is religion a science, or is science a religion?  Arguments are made for both views.  Both science and religion seek to explain the world using evidence and reason, and both, at times, require leaps of faith.  But, the way evidence and reason are used in religion and science is very different, and so is the meaning of “belief”.

We use “belief” in many ways:  to express a desire (I believe I’ll have another piece of cake.); to express and expectation (I believe it’s going to rain); to express a value (I believe in the sanctity of marriage, or I believe in equal rights for all); to express an intention (I believe I’ll take the day off).  These are rather casual ways we use the word belief.

More relevant to what I am talking about here are statements like:  I believe the earth is round, or I believe the earth orbits the sun.  These express the acceptance of some claim as true.  I accept it to be true that the earth orbits the sun.

Pythagoras and Aristotle

Aristotle (far left) and Pythagoras (far right) depicted in Raphael’s “The School of Athens”

An important distinction between religion and science regarding belief is that religion emphasizes what is believed, while science focuses on why things are believed.  Sometimes two individuals may agree on what they believe, but one can hold the belief religiously and the other scientifically.  The Greek philosopher Pythagoras held that the earth was round.  Later on, so did Aristotle.  However, Pythagoras’ belief was religiously held, based not on observed evidence, but based on his religious doctrine regarding the harmony of the universe.  Aristotle’s belief in a round earth was based on several observations, including the recognition that the shadow of the earth on the moon during a lunar eclipse is always round.  He also recognized that different stars are visible in the north than in the south.  This is inconsistent with a flat earth.  Pythagoras’ believed in a round earth religiously, Aristotle’s belief was a scientific hypothesis grounded in observable facts.

Other times, two people can hold divergent beliefs, but they both may be scientific in nature.  In Ptolemy’s view that the sun and the other planets orbit the earth and Copernicus’ held that the planets, including the earth orbit the sun.  Both are scientific theories, since they are grounded in careful celestial observations, and both can predict the positions of the celestial bodies.  Ptolemy’s model is more complicated requiring the assumption that the planets at times circled back on themselves as they orbited the earth.  Copernicus’s model is simpler.  The debate between these two views continued into the middle ages.  When, finally, Galileo turned his telescope toward Jupiter and Saturn, and saw that both of these planets had moons orbiting them, this laid a serious blow to the idea that everything in the heavens orbited the earth.  Both the earth centered and the sun centered views of our planetary system are scientific theories, but eventually the weight of evidence led to the acceptance of the Copernican theory by reasoned people.

There is a difference between how disagreements about beliefs are resolved within religion, and how disagreements are resolved within science.  Often disagreements about religious beliefs result in expulsions, sectarian splits, or even violence. The Inquisition forced Galileo to recant under the threat of excommunication.

Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition, by Cristiano Banti (1857)

Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition, by Cristiano Banti (1857)

There are also emotional and contentious disagreements within the scientific community that lead to factions, however, quite often disputes are resolved rather quickly.  A recent example is the theory of plate tectonics which relates the movement of continental plates over the surface of the earth.  The hypothesis was proposed in 1912 and was roundly ridiculed by almost all geologists.  As late as the 1950s, the idea was not widely accepted as true.  However, the discovery of mid-ocean ridges in the 1950s provided convincing evidence of sea floor spreading, leading to general acceptance of the theory within ten years.  This conversion resulted from compelling evidence, without resorting to coercion or threats of expulsion or violence.

Our beliefs direct our actions, and the more confident we are in our beliefs, the more comfortable we are in our actions.  Doubt, on the other hand, inhibits our actions and causes anxiety.  Our effort to fix belief is driven more by a desire to overcome the anxiety caused by doubt than it is to find truth.  Often, when people reach the state of being confident in their belief, they suspend the search for truth; they take a more defensive stand toward their belief.  Efforts to fix belief are either grounded in emotional appeals to tradition, authority, and social or familial pressure, or to more objective intellectual appeals to evidence.  Emotional appeals can be very effective and require less energy and effort, and in the end may be more compelling than a more objective intellectual approach.

At the personal level, the truth of what we believe is not particularly relevant.  As long as we are by ourselves, or in community with only those who share all of our beliefs we can be comfortable about our actions, and force anyone who may lose faith out of the community.  It is in our associations with others, who don’t share our beliefs, that we need concern ourselves with the notion of truth, if we hope to come to common understanding.  In a more integrated world, where we cannot and may not wish to avoid involvement with people holding diverse beliefs, we need to strive for common understanding, peaceably.  More objective, evidence-based means of fixing belief are more conducive to this end than are emotionally based appeals.

Several years ago, while driving, I happened on to a radio show where the host was interviewing a young boy, who sounded to be about 10 years old.  The boy complained that his teacher was teaching him things he didn’t believe.  I accept that it is a parent’s prerogative to instill any belief system they choose in their children; still, I think this child’s situation is unfortunate.   So, what should parents teach children?    I taught mine that there is nothing in the world you have to believe, and that anyone who tries to frighten you into believing something  has nothing of value to offer.

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3 New Books Brights Might Like

Posted on February 14, 2014 by A Rational Woman

bright girl readingI’ve made a point lately of seeking out signs of religious belief or its lack in the main characters of books I read. More and more I’m noticing signs of characters (and one would think their authors) coming out on the Bright side. At least in the sort of literary novels (and memoirs of literary novelists) I tend to favor.

While I certainly don’t read only books by freethinkers, I do raise a polite cheer for writers who are both imaginative and rational.

Here, then, are three examples of fine books that work their storytelling magic without resorting to actual magic:

1. Coincidence by J.W. Ironmonger

Author J.W. Ironmonger, born and raised in East Africa, lives in England. This novel is a fresh take on the issue of chance versus fate.

Here’s the first note I took:

‘I don’t believe any more.’

‘You don’t believe in the work of the mission?’

Luke looked miserable. ‘I don’t believe in God.’

For a third time the African exploded into a great gale of laughter. He pounded his big hand like a paddle on Luke’s back. ‘My friend, my friend, my friend,’ he said in between snorts of hilarity, ‘nobody believes in God any more.’

And then here’s an exchange that takes place 20 years later:

‘Why did you change the place from a mission to a rescue centre?’

‘It seemed like an important thing to do,’ Luke says. He leans back in the chair. ‘Some of the kids coming down from Sudan were Muslims. Some had no religion. It occurred to me one day that we were part of the problem. We were making this into a religious conflict simply by helping to sustain the ridiculous social convention that every child is born with a set of beliefs and that every child has to stay loyal to those beliefs until the day they die. All the missions in Africa – they all share part of the blame.’

‘And was it . . . a religious conflict?’ Thomas asks.

‘In part. One man with a set of mumbo-­jumbo beliefs decided that God had spoken to him, so anyone who disagreed could be shot, or have bits of their body hacked off.’

I enjoyed Coincidence so much that I also read Ironmonger’s previous novel, a much odder book, The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder. About a man who shuts himself away for three decades and attempts to record every one of his memories, it’s wonderfully quirky and original.

2. Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart has written three critically acclaimed (and really funny and engaging) novels: Absurdistan, Super Sad True Love Story, and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. Little Failure is his sweetly revealing memoir. Here is an example of his forthright and vulnerable writing:

I used to be more forthcoming with my father, and, consequently, I used to hate him. Now I know just how much pain I can inflict, and do inflict, with each book I publish that does not extol the State of Israel, with each National Public Radio pronouncement that does not bind me in covenant with his famous God.

My mother, her ambition stifled, channeled away by history and language, has given birth to my own. The only difference is: I have no God, no family myth, to cling to, no mythmaking abilities beyond the lies I tell on the page.

3. You Disappear by Christian Jungersen

Christian Jungersen, a Danish award-winning and bestselling male novelist, writes here from the first person female point of view. The book tackles, with flair, a variety of issues related to free will. Jungersen challenges readers to determine how much change a person must undergo before his spouse notices that he isn’t “himself.” Indeed, how sick do you have to be to be excused from a crime when your orbitofrontal region has been compromised? Do sudden large, but positive, changes in a personality also signal biological brain defects?

Here is the humanistic excerpt I noted:

“Because there exists another form of happiness—when the level of activity in your left frontal lobe exceeds that in your right. This form of happiness doesn’t run dry. On the contrary, you can train it so that it keeps increasing your entire life.”

“So how exactly do you obtain this form of happiness?”

“You get it by doing good deeds, meditating regularly, and dedicating your life to something meaningful. These are all things that neuroscientists have measured and verified.”

“So you meditate and you’re happy.”

“That’s what I do. And I help Ian, and I help my kids. And yes, I’m happy. That’s what’s so brilliant about atheism, I think: it points the way to a worldview that’s infinitely richer and more beautiful than what you’ll find in any religious book. And it points out the most ethical approach to boot.”

Copyright (2014) by Susan K. Perry, author of Kylie’s Heel

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This Will Solve the Middle East Crisis

Posted on January 15, 2014 by A Rational Woman

medieval warriorIn a recent op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, Daniel Sokatch and David N. Myers wrote

Israel has been beset by a pair of controversies relating to its Arab minority: first, the proposal over whether to resettle Bedouin Arabs against their will in state-sponsored towns, and second, the renewed call by Israel’s foreign minister to “transfer” Arab residents of northern Israel to a new state of Palestine should one be established.

I have no intention of discussing all the rights and wrongs (far too many of the latter) on all sides of the Israeli/Palestinian debate. Though I did get a degree in Middle Eastern Studies a long time ago, I wouldn’t claim to have special insight into that part of the world. But I’ve been there, I know a few people there, and it’s in the news constantly, so I can’t help but think about it a lot.

As the American daughter of an American Jewish mother who can readily trace my roots to the shtetls of Eastern Europe, from which my Orthodox Jewish grandparents emigrated early in the 20th century or I might not ever have been born, I am entitled to Israeli citizenship. This always-open offer is not made to Palestinians who’d like to come back to their homes, nor to non-Jewish refugees from any state, in any condition of need.

All Jews in the world are eligible, under Israel’s 1950 Law of Return, to be fast-tracked to Israeli citizenship. . . .  Palestinian Arabs and Druze born in Israel are citizens by birth. But residents of East Jerusalem, . . . are not. They are conditional residents.

Thus, here is my solution to one part of the complex Middle East imbroglio:  I hereby offer my potential Israeli citizenship to someone who needs it a lot more than I do.

I’m very happy to have been born in the United States, which is not a theocracy. I believe that those who would take away this too-rare freedom will not prevail, including those right-wing Christians who don’t comprehend the genius with which this nation was founded. (I’m sorry the land was taken by force from the natives who lived here first. I don’t know how to apologize for that wrong except to help ensure we’ve seen the last of such imperialist bullying.)

Israel was set up to fulfill an old Zionist dream, among other reasons. It’s maintained in part by those who continue to take orders from an ancient and imaginary deity. I’m not going to engage in debating the viability or righteousness of a land where Holocaust survivors went, when other viable options didn’t appear to exist. Plenty of blame over that may be apportioned to a number of nations.

The very idea that I, or my children, or their children, would be accepted as citizens in another nation because our ancestors believed in a Jewish god, or followed the traditional rituals regardless of what they believed, strikes me as lunacy. I thereby give up my unearned right to take the place of a needier non-Jewish refugee, whether Arab or African or any other ethnicity, nationality, or race.

As Sokatch and Myers wrote in their op-ed

Rights of residence and freedom in personal status issues should be the same for all citizens, whether they are Jewish according to religious law, Jewish only by citizenship or non-Jewish.

Let the conversation begin.

Perhaps a means test? As space allows, allow to apply for citizenship those with the greatest need, as well as those who have demonstrated the most compassion and cooperativeness with others. But who their ancestors deemed worthy of worship? In the long term, that’s a counter-productive—and downright silly—notion.

[NOTE: As always, the opinions expressed here are my own and are not necessarily representative of Brights in general.]

Copyright (c) 2014 by Susan K. Perry, author of Kylie’s Heel

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Those Famous 5 Stages of Grief: Hogwash?

Posted on December 14, 2013 by A Rational Woman

griefLoss —if we’ve been paying attention and are older than 12—is a recurrent theme in all our lives. You don’t have to identify as a Bright to have dealt with grief or to realize you will face grieving someday.

I’d often read about the so-called five stages of grief, first espoused by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross more than 40 years ago. But when I recently read a little deeper, I found that the psychology of loss and grieving may have been shortchanged by the way this single theory gained such widespread  popular media acceptance.

In a nutshell, Kubler-Ross and her proponents posited that every person grieving a serious loss goes through the following five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance.

What I’d particularly wondered about was whether we modern humans, in fact we Brights, could grieve in our own idiosyncratic ways, without necessarily needing professional help and without being concerned that we were doing something wrong.

The Truth about Grief: The Myth of its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss, by Ruth Davis Konigsberg, tackles heavy-duty misconceptions in an encouraging way. It’s a science-based yet sensitive and thought-provoking look at how society constructs attitudes about loss, and how such attitudes may not be the most helpful for everyone.

Konigsberg explains that not everyone heals from horrific loss the same way, that most people recover with or without counseling about equally well, and that it’s possible for some to accept their losses and move on in only half a year. Not that everyone can or will, but it’s good to know that you needn’t necessarily suffer both wrenching loss and many years of unremitting misery when someone you love dies.

DID YOU KNOW:

  • Talking about your loss isn’t always necessary or best for healing.
  • So-called “complicated grief” that goes on for years isn’t very common.
  • Resilience in the face of very disruptive events is common and doesn’t mean there is a lack of feelings or that anything pathological is going on.

Konigsberg also explores the way grief professionals make money from the commercialization of grief. Many of them turn to this field after experiencing a major loss of their own, but, she writes, “Using personal experience or anecdote instead of research to guide treatment has been a big problem with applied thanatology all along.”

Perhaps the best counselor (whether friend or professional) for a Bright would be someone with a similar life view, that is, one who won’t try to comfort you with the false hope that you’ll meet your lost loved one in another life.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Susan K. Perry, author of Kylie’s Heel

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Who Needs Friends?

Posted on November 15, 2013 by A Rational Woman

women friendsWhen I recently interviewed Mary Trunk regarding her delightful film about women who are both mothers and artists, I began thinking about the role of female friends in women’s lives. Especially in my own life.

Here’s a piece of that longer interview with Mary Trunk:

Q: Mary, I was almost envious (okay, I was envious) of the close lifelong friendship between two of the women in your film, Caren and Kristina. I’ve never had anything like that (not counting my husband). And yet, even though they were so much a part of one another’s lives, it seems that during the trials of early motherhood, even they felt they couldn’t completely “get” one another anymore. . . . Is this, then, a demonstration of the essential loneliness most of us experience?

Here is Mary Trunk’s response:

It seems to me that friendships between women (and maybe men as well) can be disrupted so much when one or the other marries and then has kids. Heck, remember when your best girlfriend got a boyfriend in high school? You never saw her after that. I think in Caren and Kristina’s case they found it so difficult because they were so in sync about everything. They still live only a few blocks from each other. Being pregnant together and planning to have home births put them on a road of expectation that is bound to fail.

And in their case it didn’t fail completely. Who they are as parents is very different than either of them expected. The family unit also becomes top priority, and friendships can’t help but be put on the back burner. Add in the intensity and high energy of babies, toddlers and children, and you can’t help but feel estranged from your friends. When a friend chooses a partner and has children we see a side of them that we may have overlooked or that may not have been as visible.

Kristina said that she couldn’t think when she was around her children but she was more than willing to take a break from them when she needed it. Caren couldn’t leave Olive at all for the first few years of her life. When Kristina needed escape, Caren wasn’t able or willing to go there with her. And when Caren wanted to bitch about being a mother or anything else, Kristina didn’t want to hear it. At least not while she had two little kids around. All of that is to say that they are not alone.

I too have had issues with friendships. Being friends with people who have no children also has its challenges. So yes, there is this loneliness we just have to get used to. It does get better as the children grow. What is wonderful about the women I filmed is that they have such an amazing and trusting foundation in their friendship that they were able to ride through this and believe that they could. I think it taught them both that their friendship is strong and they can get through these bumpy and lonely roads. And that is something to envy, for sure.

Only a handful of the females with whom I’ve ever been good friends are still in my life, and I wouldn’t claim those relationships are as deeply intimate as I would like. I never see myself reflected in all those heartwarming novels that center on a group of close women friends over time. And I know it’s my own fault.

I remember a distinct thought I had when I was a very young teen: I decided it wasn’t worth the effort to hide my real self in order to have more friends. Unfortunately, I now realize, my real self was kind of snotty. My peers believed I thought I was superior to them. Mostly I was shy and really didn’t know how to “play well with others.” But, indeed, I had also learned from my father a habit of being critical of others (as well as of myself).

I tend to think, even today as I write this, that I’m only being realistic and rational in my evaluations. Yet I have also learned that friendships don’t need, nor can they bear, too much realism.

Your thoughts?

Copyright (c) 2013 by Susan K. Perry, author of the novel Kylie’s Heel

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Whose Afterlife Matters?

Posted on October 16, 2013 by A Rational Woman

afterlife tunnelTry this thought experiment:

Suppose you knew that, although you yourself would live a normal life span, the earth would be completely destroyed thirty days after your death in a collision with a giant asteroid. How would this knowledge affect your attitudes during the remainder of your life?

That’s what the author of a new book suggests we do. Death and the Afterlife (Oxford) by Samuel Scheffler is based on the Berkeley Tanner Lectures and includes commentaries by four additional thinkers. Scheffler uses a variety of philosophical arguments to make his main point, which is that it’s not only our own lives and experiences that make life meaningful to us.

“Few of us,” writes Scheffler about the thought experiment quoted above, “would be likely to say: ‘So what? Since it won’t happen until thirty days after my death, and since it won’t hasten my death, it isn’t of any importance to me. I won’t be around to experience it, and so it doesn’t matter to me in the slightest.’”

In fact, he suggests, a lot of what keeps us busy now, activities that mean something to us, would become less important to us in such a situation, in a way that confronting our own deaths wouldn’t cause. He also discusses how other scenarios would affect us, such as if infertility because universal, so no more generations would be born.

NOVELISTS’ VERSIONS

Another way to conceptualize such profound questions is to read T.C. Boyle’s short story entitled “Chicxulub” (now collected in his new book, Stories II). As the protagonist and his wife anxiously await word about their missing daughter, he muses (brilliantly) about Chicxulub, the huge asteroid or comet that probably knocked out the dinosaurs.

The thing that disturbs me about Chicxulub . . .  is the deeper implication that we, and all our works and worries and attachments, are so utterly inconsequential. Death cancels our individuality, we know that, yes, but ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, and the kind goes on, human life and culture succeed us. That, in the absence of God, is what allows us to accept the death of the individual. But when you throw Chicxulub into the mix—or the next Chicxulub, the Chicxulub that could come howling down to obliterate all and everything even as your eyes skim the lines of this page—where does that leave us?

What I find personally stunning is to compare how many words it takes to lay out a hard-to-refute philosophical argument (as in Scheffler’s book) versus how fast it is to slam readers in the gut with an experience they can relate to instantly: imagining the death of their child.

I tried to do this too, obviously in a much less gifted way than Boyle managed, in my novel Kylie’s Heel. Here’s what the protagonist thinks when something terrible seems to have happened to her only child:

At least now I no longer need to worry about my son or the fate of the world. When you have a child, you yearn for the world to thrive, but now all the looming catastrophes have lost their power to terrify. Fire, ice, fallout. The outcome of the game no longer matters to me.

Does that seem selfish to you? Other thoughts? From previous comments my posts here have gotten, I expect transhumanists and cryogenics fans may see this differently. Meanwhile, Death & the Afterlife would make a terrific book for reading groups (though maybe only in my dreams?).

  • Death & the Afterlife is also available as an ebook.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Susan K. Perry. Follow me on Twitter @bunnyape

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Does Literary Fiction Help You Read Minds?

Posted on October 14, 2013 by The Science-Minded Citizen

Article by Dan Arel

I read a lot. However, I mostly focus on history, politics or science. I rarely break out a good piece of literary fiction. Though, after reading this recent study from the New School for Social Research, in which they studied the correlation between what people read and how well they read faces….

In the study, recently published in the journal Science, the team of Emanuele Castano and David Comer Kidd studied how people reacted to social cues, such as measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence by comparing those who read literary fiction from authors such as Chekhov and Alice Munro versus those who read popular fiction (such as Danielle Steel).

LibraryThe subjects were split into three groups: Group A was given excerpts from award-winning literary fiction (Don DeLillo, Wendell Berry, etc.); Group B was given best sellers (like Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl,” a Rosamunde Pilcher romance or a Robert Heinlein science fiction tale); and Group C would read nothing at all. Then, each group was given a computerized test to see how its members judged participant’s emotions, expectations or beliefs.

Group A did incredibly well at measuring a variety of social cues, while groups B and C both scored about the same, and did significantly less well. It is rather outstanding that in the short 5-10 min time-span each group was given to read their assigned readings that the researchers were able to see a difference in the participant’s ability to judge social cues.

I found this study very interesting on a personal level because I tend to read academic-level non-fiction and feel I learn a great deal, but I realize I’m missing out on a whole greater level of learning and education. I was one who would tend to write off fiction as unimportant and for entertainment value only. This study forces me to rethink my entire view on fiction. While I will not likely gain much social knowledge from reading the Twilight series, I know I can gain a host of social knowledge by reading some of the worlds literary greats.

However, I would love to see some follow up studies; while this is more than enough reason to sit down with some great fiction I have avoided, I would like to know more from this study. How long do these effects last? If I spend three months reading a handful of the best that fiction has to offer, will I have a lifetime of social knowledge?

So sit back, open up your favorite award-winning fiction, and start reading peoples minds. Be one step ahead in social situations. (Actual mind reading abilities may vary).

Want to be a part of further research on this study? Visit this site for more info.

Source:

  • Kidd, David C., and Emanuele Castano. “Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind.” Science Magazine, 3 Oct. 2013. [URL]
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The Know It All Effect

Posted on September 27, 2013 by The Science-Minded Citizen

Article by Dan Arel

  • Book PictureDo people who claim to have a strong understanding of science challenge their views?
  • Do people who claim religious affiliation read scientific studies that oppose their worldview?

S. Mo Jang of the University of Michigan set out to answer such questions. He recently published findings in Science Communication.

In his paper, “Seeking Congruency or Incongruency Online? Examining Selective Exposure to Four Controversial Science Issues,” Jang looked at which science-related news stories people chose to read online: either news that is consistent with their views, or news that challenged them.

The Study

238 adults from the United States took part in this study. Each participant was then asked their feelings on a six-point scale (1=strong disagree, 6=strongly agree) on the following subjects:

Stem cell research
Evolution
Genetically Modified Foods (GM)
Climate change

The questions were worded in ways such as “I think humans evolved from earlier species of animals”. The participants were also surveyed for other factors such as political affiliation (28 percent Republican, 30 percent Democrat, 42 percent independent), religiosity (how religious they saw themselves), attention to science stories from mass media outlets, and then their perceived scientific knowledge versus their actual scientific knowledge (this was done via a simple true/false test).

Each participant was then given time to explore a “science news” site that displayed 12 different articles on the subjects mentioned above (the participants did not know this was a fake news site). Three articles were used for each subject: one article that validated (or affirmed the subject), one that opposed it, and lastly one neutral article.

What were the findings?

The findings are surprising in some ways. The general thought would be that confirmation bias would win out in the end. That was wrong, however.

34.6% of articles read were consistent with the participant’s views.
23.6% were neutral to the participant’s views.
48.1% were oppositional to the participant’s views.

This study showed that over half the participants looked at views outside of their comfort zone. Furthermore, those who thought they knew a lot about a specific scientific subject were less likely to read an oppositional article than someone who actually did understand a specific scientific subject.

When it came to religion, those who claimed religious beliefs and did not follow mass media science coverage were far more likely to avoid any article that was oppositional to their views. However, if their mass media outlet viewing was high, they were actually more likely to seek out oppositional sources. Interesting, however, is that neither finding regarding the religious was as pronounced as that for those with a perceived scientific knowledge.

So what does this mean?

Here’s what I think: Non-scientists who read and study science, especially through news and media, need to do a better job reading about opposing views.

If you are anti-genetically-modified foods, you need to seek out “pro”-genetically-modified food studies. If you accept global warming, you should understand the opposition and read any findings published that would challenge your view.

One must attempt to overcome the “know it all” effect and realize that anyone – even yourself – can be wrong about something you “know” is so right.

It has been said that the best way to oppose something is to understand it better than its proponents. One should have the ability to argue their opposition’s side of the matter better than the opposition. The true path to knowledge comes from understanding a subject on both is merit and its faults (if only even perceived faults by the opposition).

This same reasoning can be applied outside of science as well, in everyday life. To truly understand why you may be against someone’s worldview or even political ideology, correctly understand what it is they oppose. Your perceived knowledge is not enough, and an air of arrogance can do you much more harm than good. It is a great disservice to oneself to assume you know it all.

Citations:

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6 Irrational Things I Hate

Posted on September 22, 2013 by A Rational Woman

AngerIt isn’t just me, is it? Don’t we all deplore certain types of people, people who persist in believing and acting in ways we find loathsome?

When I encounter certain irrational behaviors, my irritation risks rising into exasperation. So it’s time to vent.

Following are some of the triggers that derail my equanimity and compel me to find solutions. Can you relate?

1. People who give up on democracy. Some people have the idea that not taking part in the democratic process is somehow a good thing. A former neighbor of mine believed that staying out of the process entirely would speed along the “revolution” when the “people” would take over from the corporations, or was it the government? Such an attitude is too much like that of the religious folks who delight, on some level, in the large-scale tragedies of others, believing such chaos will soon herald the end of the (present) world and bring on a better (imaginary) one. When encountering such an attitude, I explain why I find it irrational and dysfunctional.

2. People who don’t discriminate in how they use their free time. They watch or read anything that is put in front of them. They don’t get that this passive ingesting of whatever some big company promotes (on the front table at the bookstore, on the front page of online booksellers, hyped by newspapers and viewing guides) is stealing their valuable time for someone else’s profit. Those who dismiss all critics might take a few minutes to discover one with whom they often agree. Why do I care? Because less able-to-be-pushy books and other arts and entertainments are easily loss in the process. I do what I can to point folks toward online sites that help people use their entertainment time wisely.

3. Idolizing household spotlessness. I despise the obsessive fear, inculcated in women (mostly) through the generations, that a little grime must be eradicated NOW. Not that I want to live in a pigsty where I can’t find anything and vermin lurk under every sheet of strewn paper. But the idea that cleanliness is next to godliness has wasted too many hours of too many precious lives. All the men, women, and children in a family ought to participate in keeping the environment they share habitable and healthful. Dirt is not sin, and cleanliness isn’t virtue. This is a hard one to change minds about, so I usually try to get family members to see through the eyes of those who see differently.

4. The overuse of excuses and exceptions. Once, when I was trying to lose weight, a friend mentioned to me that I was making “so many exceptions.” She was right, and since then I’ve noticed how common this fallacious thinking is. Someone will say they are “trying” to eat healthfully, but when you raise an eyebrow at their frozen pizza or other package with an ingredient list longer than anyone’s patience, they merely say, every time, “But I only eat this once in a while. And only a little.” And then they proceed to take their overflowing handful of medications. Or, if young, they say, “But I had broccoli yesterday,” or “I was stressed.” I wonder how an aging population can support an even older population that relies on such excuses. I’m always telling people what my old friend told me, and since it helped me, perhaps it will help others.

5. The whole idea of being offended. It’s not that words don’t hurt. They can and often do. But I don’t live in one of those “honor” societies where a wrong look may result in a challenge to a duel (or some modern but no less crazy equivalent). Only when someone specifically threatens me, do I feel fear. Feeling offended is weird: Either the offender is correct in his or her statement, in which case you might do well to learn from it. Or the offender is spouting nonsense, in which case, you may as well ignore it except in the rare circumstance you must respond to protect your reputation. But taking offense for its own sake, to feel dissed or demeaned when such wasn’t even intended, is a waste of your psychic energy. (Still, I never use outdated words that we now know are experienced as slurs. Why be just plain mean?) When someone wonders if they offended me, I always explain my stance of interpreting most words as being well meant.

6. Simplistic addiction and recovery memoirs and essays in which, due to a blindingly perfect yet simple-minded epiphany, everything turns out swell for the writer, forevermore. If you’ve been around a while, you know that changing personality and deeply learned behavior isn’t that simple. While we’re at it, I also hate the sort of sayings you read all the time on Facebook and Twitter in which you’re advised that all you need do is this or that and everything will be tidy and nice in your life. It’s possible that if you took one of the best of those sayings, became truly mindful about making it part of your life, good things would follow. Or maybe not.

  • Whew. I feel better. Now it’s your turn. Dare to share what you hate and loathe and despise, and how you take positive action in the world to counter such behaviors. Feel free to comment in list form if that’s easier.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Susan K. Perry

Follow me on Twitter @bunnyape

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Oh, Go Upgrade Yourself

Posted on August 27, 2013 by A Rational Woman

Pig OfficeA new computer operating system upgrade had been widely advertised for some months, though the reviews that were coming out were equivocal. Stephen keeps up with computer technology, and I skim the tech section in a couple of newspapers, more to prolong breakfast than because I fully understand what I’m reading.  Still, I ventured, “Looks like they’re saying we don’t need this upgrade.”

“That’s what I already concluded,” he said.  “When I had that memory leak before, I thought this program would solve it, but it’s fine now that I . . . .” Not that his sentence trailed off, just my focus.

Our computers were indeed finally working perfectly after recent networking and high-speed internet access complications had caused us both to lose work time for many days.  Now we could actually work and stop fiddling with the machinery.

Right after the new software appeared, we were shopping for groceries at the local warehouse store. While I loaded the huge cart with necessities, Stephen meandered over to the computer aisle and was nearly overcome with techno lust.

“Seeing it makes me want it,” he said to me on the checkout line. But this was no dollar-ninety-eight-chocolate-chip cookie.  Rather it would cost several hundred dollars. And he’d just bought an expensive new scanning program. I reminded him of what he’d said the day before. I recalled to him how each and every upgrade took many hours of fiddling with both our computers and how that would interfere with the book he was so intensely engaged in writing, not to mention my own efforts to concentrate on my writing. I babbled about how this was like a vow of fidelity he was about to break just because he’d seen some alluring bimbo.

He managed to restrain himself that day. I was almost proud of him.  That was at least a few hundred dollars we wouldn’t waste.

THE NEXT DAY

Alas, the very next day, right after breakfast, he announced he was going out to buy it.  Caught by surprise, I closed my study door in his face, loudly.  He said, “Wait, let’s talk about this.”

I opened the door, furious. “You’re an adult. Do what you want. You said we don’t need this. This is an obsessive-compulsive thing. Just DON’T YOU TOUCH MY COMPUTER OR INTERFERE WITH MY WORK!” Slam.

He bought the program, then settled in and began fighting with it. The next day, as soon I finished breakfast and headed for my computer–this would be the morning I’d focus and get several important bits of work done, and make calls to doctors, and respond to some important e-mail messages–I found Stephen ensconced at my desk. And there he stayed for the entire rest of my best morning work hours. For the next three days. In between running out to buy further upgrades to other programs so that this upgrade would be less buggy. Especially on my computer.

I fumed.  I folded the clean laundry and put in a fresh load. I emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it (his job). I tidied the living room. I took out the recycling and the trash. I tried to read.  I sputtered and puttered and walked back and forth in front of my invaded workspace.

Hours later, days later, I was still frustrated, but I was beginning to realize it was time to do some reframing. Stephen was obviously obsessed and not in control of himself.  It was rude and bullying during my morning work time. And yet, he wasn’t doing it with ill will toward me specifically. We’d been through this before. Computer upgrades were the one (sober) time that he lost his ability to think rationally. “I’ll just get this set up and then we’ll be back to normal.”  You simply could not stop him until he got the thing working or was ready to give up (almost never).

When we were in the car later to pick up some dinner, I let him have it. I know my voice raised a couple notches. I used the word “selfish,” and this time he didn’t get mad back. He heard me and apologized profusely and eventually I’d said what I needed to say and heard what I needed to hear.

He eventually got the program working, and he’s thrilled with it. Then he asked me politely if he could do one more thing to my computer, and what would be the most convenient time for me.  Now my computer (and I) felt less invaded.

What helped me to get over my annoyance was remembering that this is who he is. He gets laser beam focused on a task and forgets to be civil. It has nothing to do with how he feels about me. It would have been a big mistake to imagine he loves me less because he loves computer upgrades more. We’re talking catnip here. One midlife equivalent of sexual conquest. Mastery of man over machine, alpha primate over a powerful and recalcitrant enemy. Being nice to wifey takes a back seat when it comes to such essential struggles.

Why take it personally?

Copyright (c) 2013 by Susan K. Perry

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