Why do people believe in bullshit?

[salinen]

I worked for many years in the field of Archeology. I've read much about early peoples. And I can't tell you how many people, after I told them what I did for a living, explained to me all about prehistory. From Vikings and Chinese occupations of the Americas, to Alien visitations. Almost no one wanted to know the incredible real facts about ancient man. I had all this information from years of work and study, and they wanted me to hear what they think, not even caring to ask any questions.

I like to watch Documentaries on history. So I go to the Netflix site and cue up some potential goodies. While I'm doing this I see more documentaries related to this same type of bullshit conjectural science, than real learned studies on the subject.

What the hell is going on? Why do people prefer fairy tale to reality? Why aren't people interested in real science? Why do people hold on to their own speculations so tightly? I can't tell how many times my own speculations were totally wrong after reading the science. It's exciting to be wrong.

Anyone else notice this phenomenon?

[johnnie]

1. Not only science but history too

The other day at work people were talking about the word "God" being on the US money and I told them it wasn't until later that it appeared. I had to print out something from the fed reserve website to show them that it was in 1863 that it first appeared and some of them said "Well that is still a long time!" Yeah, about a hundred years after the founding of the country. But they still wanted to have their own version of history to be happy with.

[PassingFair]

80. And that was only on some coins...

It didn't start to appear on paper money until 1957...

an effort to combat the godless commies!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust

[johnnie]

81. And the only reason it first appeared

..was because everyone was finding God during the Civil war.

[Poll_Blind]

2. Salinen, Reality™ is pretty damned stark. A key coping mechanism of the human mind is...

...fantasy. Otherwise, presented with realities which we may simply not be able to emotionally or intellectually (or even spiritually) grasp, we could fall into a deep depression. Organisms in a deep depression are statistically less likely to be healthy, reproduce and rear their young to adulthood.

It has not always been this way, however. I believe that natural selection has weeded out most of those stark-reality viewers and left us with a mix individuals who are able to semi-realistically view our position in reality and those who lean more toward reality-optional individuals. But even for the most hardcore objectivity still must feather their nest with a little bullshit, if only to keep sane.

I would like to pass on this excellent article about this subject, entitled The Total Perspective Vortex from DamnedInteresting.com.

It is damned interesting!

PB

[salinen]

13. Hey thanks

I'll check that out.

[bemildred]

29. "Such euphemisms illustrate one major function of language, which is to keep reality at bay."

– John Carey "Eyewitness to History" Introduction

Well said.

[Capn Sunshine]

3. not only science and history but politics too

look at this site, the BS "answers" overwhelm all rational speech.

[stray cat]

4. 9-11 conspiracies?

[JackRiddler]

7. Yes, why do people believe in the Official Conspiracy Theory of the 9/11 events?

[Catshrink]

15. Reminds me of an Escher drawing.

Maybe it's metaphor for US anti-terrorism policy.

[salinen]

14. Yes

I'm an architect and I can understand how jets full of jet fuel could bring those towers down.

[Eddie Haskell]

30. I'm an engineer

and let's not go there.

[KansasVoter]

33. Jesus, are you serious? And there are doctors who believe in miracles also.

[U4ikLefty]

63. And "archaeologists / architects" who believe in miracles as well.

Guess Jesus is only asking engineers today?

[Eddie Haskell]

91. WTF?

I meant let's not take this thread to the dungeon.

[Subdivisions]

56. No jet full of fuel hit WTC 7. Now what?

Also, what happened to the cores (described as "massive core columns" in the video below) of WTC 1 and 2?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3135892053682639810#



All the way down. Both buildings. If the trusses attached to the outer colums and inner columns broke their support brackets, resulting in a pancaking, what happened to the inner cores?

[salinen]

76. Interesting

Most buildings have "massive core columns". They need it because the elevators and stairs are essentially free spans. Modern building materials and modern furnishings are fire resistive. So they will not combust during normal fires. But if the temperature get high enough, watch out. They will explode.

So, I can see how the towers fell from the jet impacts + the high heat from the jet fuel. But, the building could have also been rigged. I'm agnostic about that.

The best way to bring down a building with explosives is to set charges at the tops and bottoms of main columns with opposing forces. Basically rotating the columns.

[Goldstein1984]

5. Recommended Reading...

"On Bullshit" by H.G. Frankfurt

[social_critic]

6. Do you believe the Exodus described in the Bible?

I was wondering if you believe in the Exodus (Moses and his guys running away from Egypt). I read it didn't happen.

[JackRiddler]

8. Because the've been dipped in a variety of mythologies, religious and secular, since birth?

[salinen]

17. Yup

they been programmed from the start (birth) to believe. I dislike that word "believe".

[Little Star]

9. Science is not the only bs people like to believe.......

But I must admit that scientists could become much better at story telling to get their word out. A lot of people have been screaming that science is boring for a mighty long time. I think it might be time for scientists to take a look into presenting their knowledge in a way that average people find interesting and maybe even entertaining. jmho

[JackRiddler]

12. You're kidding right?

Many scientists -- but even worse are science writers -- have done their best to pander to some LCD version of what the public wants.

Latest example was NASA presenting the discovery of arsenic-eating bacteria as an astrobiological surprise.

[Codeine]

52. "Story telling"

:puke: If people are fucking idiots who get bored that easily then fuck them.

[lfairban]

10. Politics and Science

Someone once said, "It is one of the great tragedies of our time that the people who really know how to run the country are driving taxi cabs and cutting hair."

I believe it was George Burns.

The concept applies to science as well as politics. People commonly overestimate their own knowledge and expertise. Call it intellectual masturbation.

I know a guy who thought people came from Mars. Black people may have evolved from apes, but white people came from Mars.

I always thought that being knowledgeable and intelligent would make me respected and listened to. That was when I was young and naive.

[bhikkhu]

70. The Downing Effect applies there

"The propensity to predictably misjudge one's own intelligence was first noted by C.L. Downing who conducted the first cross-cultural studies on perceived intelligence. His studies also evidenced that the ability to accurately estimate others' intelligence was proportional to one's own intelligence. This means that the lower the IQ of an individual, the less capable they are of appreciating and accurately appraising others' intelligence. Therefore individuals with a lower IQ are more likely to rate themselves as more intelligent than those around them. Conversely, people with a higher IQ, while better at appraising others' intelligence overall, are still likely to rate people of similar intelligence as themselves as having higher IQs."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority

[Uzybone]

11. most minds are closed tight

even the so called enlightened cling to superstition and preconceived notions all the time.

[Ozymanithrax]

16. Silk Road was a series on the history channel in the 90's

that was probably the most incredible and beautiful bit of history I've ever seen on TV. Connections was another of those really great bits of history.

Unfortunately, today I find more aliens, prophesy, and fantasy bible history than good documentaries.

[Caliman73]

20. I remember that.

When the History Channel first appeared it was still dubious, but they actually showed history programs. Now it's all about the Bible, Bigfoot, Aliens, Truckers, and Swamp people.WTF kind of history is that?

[pitohui]

25. people watch teevee for entertainment

i don't see what's so hard to understand abt that

[obxhead]

18. People, or should I say sheeple, would rather have life and

its mysteries be a lie that fits into a pretty little box than hear the truth with any kind of unpleasantness.

[Nay]

19. A scientist whose work I read a while back likened the human being

to the opossum. He said that the opossum had met its intellectual match in the automobile in that the possum was just never going to be smart enough to navigate across a busy road and live, except by sheer luck. Mentally it is not able to learn to avoid cars. Humans have built a society that, for most people, is beyond their mental and emotional capacity to evaluate and understand, so they depend on the stories they are told.

Needless to say, there are lots of 'storytellers' out there who are gunning for these people's money, and they know how to pervert the system and peoples' vulnerabilities to the max. Thus our situation now.

[cilla4progress]

66. That's really good,

and quite plausible. Thanks!

[Speck Tater]

21. Science is open to change, so scientists have to be comfortable with uncertainty.

Average folks can't tolerate any uncertainty in their lives. They need to believe they have certainty about everything from the politics, their creation myths and what happens to them after they die. To admit they don't know is just too uncomfortable.

At the opposite extreme are the true believers in fundamentalist scientism who have to believe that science has all the answers and gives them the certainty the so deeply need.

It is only the rare few who can tolerate uncertainty and who can admit to themselves that there are things they just don't know; it is only these rare few who are responsible for the advancement of knowledge throughout human history. For the rest their fear of uncertainty leads them to fall prey to "easy answers" and false certainty.

[salinen]

45. What you have written

is exactly what I think. Most people are so uncomfortable about not knowing, that they'll grasp at the most comforting answer. No wonder myth is so addictive to them.

[Odin2005]

22. Don't forget the insinuations that the Egyptians were too stupid to build the pyramids.

Or crazy BS about the Sphinx.

[salinen]

46. There is so much written

how the Eqyptians built the pyramids, and when you ask the insinuators, they say they never read on the subject.

[pansypoo53219]

23. truthiness

and belief is cozy.

[HipChick]

24. Reality does not sell..fairy tales do..

[eShirl]

26. It's a pheomenon upon which people like P. T. Barnum have made fortunes.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

27. There Is A Scientific Concept That Says, "Nature Hates A Vacuum"

Whenever a vacuum occurs in nature, nature makes every effort to fill it. Following that same concept, the human mind hates a vacuum too. If there's something a person doesn't know, that person will "create" something to fill the vacuum. Humans hate to not know things, and when they don't know something, they'll do anything possible to keep from feeling like they don't know (like conjuring up an answer out of nothingness).

It's a phenomenon that has always amazed me as well, but I think that as people get older, they tend to hold onto their "answers" even tighter. Just to take one example, whenever you discuss the JFK assassination with my dad, he will tell you that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that's all there is to it. If you try to show him evidence to the contrary, he won't even listen. Won't even CONSIDER it. I often wonder what he has against simply HEARING the evidence suggesting that maybe he's wrong. If I hear something and it doesn't change my mind, my belief gets stronger, but at least I heard it and know what the argument is. He won't even listen to the opposing argument. Now, I'll be the first one to tell you that I have no idea what happened that day. I have a BELIEF as to what I THINK might have happened, based on the evidence that I've heard, but I'm not dead certain like so many people are. And if someone came to me and said, "I have some new evidence that might change your mind," I'd not only listen, I'd be excited to hear it.

Another example: my cousin was talking to his mother (my Aunt) about the Bayeux Tapestry. People were taught for years that the Bayeux Tapestry was knitted by William the Conqueror's wife, and that's what my Aunt believes. My cousin, however, being extremely knowledgable about history, informed her that now historians believe and have actually proven that it was done by several different people years after William the Conqueror's wife died. Her response to him was, "I know that what you're saying to me is true, because you know about these things, but that's not what I was taught in school, and that's not what I have believed for my entire life, so I CHOOSE NOT TO BELIEVE IT."

Unbelievable.

[Eddie Haskell]

28. Why do you assume people believe bullshit?

Perhaps they find it entertaining.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

31. I was raised Catholic

8 years Catholic school.

I'll take a crack at this based on my own observations. The intellectually uninquisitive are the lifeline of the Catholic church. There was a Pew Study going around recently that showed Athiests are more educated about religion than those of faith, regardless of their religious beliefs.

Pew Research Center
http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/

Draw your own conclusions, but I didn't need to see the results of this study to verify a judgement I made many years ago.

Religion permeates and intellectually starves society (period)

[pansypoo53219]

69. boy

that explains the bible belt.

[KansasVoter]

32. What does "Alien visitations" mean??

[salinen]

47. I guess they mean

folks from other planets.

[asdjrocky]

34. Two words-

History Channel.

[SoCalDem]

35. Real sicence is "hard" , and usually requires people to THINK

Fairy Tales are fun and easy to listen to....and attention spans are shorter these days.. People like their "facts" all shined up and simplified..

[Lucian]

36. Sweet. Another Archaeologist here.

:)

I don't understand why people believe in BS when it comes to the human past. I hear people tell me UFOs made the pyramids, that the Nazca lines were made to communicate with aliens, that aliens were ancient gods. Saying aliens built the grandest monuments of the ancient world devalues the knowledge and achievements of ancient man, and it angers me.

Edit: While on a dig this summer, whenever we found pottery sherds, we would say the aliens planted them there. It was amusing.

[social_critic]

40. What about those alien looking heads on Easter Island?

Those stone heads sure look like aliens. Besides, how did the natives get to eat if they spent all the time carving heads? That island sure looks bare.

[Lucian]

44. The moai were there for a religious purposes...

over alien purposes. They represent deceased ancestors.

The island became overpopulated, and thus resources were running thin, and that's why there's little on the island now.

[social_critic]

57. Maybe they were religious aliens

Just kidding. You took it well.

[salinen]

48. And there is much more written

by real scientists, than these von Danken types, and somehow, they never find the time to read any.

[Lucian]

53. Exactly.

[Azathoth]

94. Are you telling me, sir, that Indiana Jones *lied* to me?!

If we can't get condensed history lessons from mediocre movie sequels, how are we expected to get them at all?

[treestar]

37. Documentaries are entertainment

Real science takes work.

[Bluenorthwest]

38. You have a very different point of view than I do.

I meet loads of people who find my line of work intriguing, and first off, that is a great thing, not a bad thing. They usually have not met anyone who does what I do, so often they wind up doing most of the talking and they always lead the conversation. They have to take advantage of the moment. It is part of the price of having an unusual job. I consider it a huge compliment, and I just don't care if they want to listen to me, in fact, I'd rather listen to them, because there is a greater chance of me learning from their misunderstandings than of them learning from me in a short exchange. Do that make sense?
Also, you might enjoy this:http://www.archaeologychannel.org/content/TACfestival.shtml

[social_critic]

41. Don't you think the Deluge is kinda weird?

I've been scratching my head, how did all those animals get out of the ark back to their respective continents? It had to be on flying saucers, my friend.

[bhikkhu]

72. An interesting thing about that -

when I was a kid in Catholic school what bothered me was where all that water came from...until in high school reading Genesis where "the waters of heaven" were divided by "the firmament", and then the deluge being the "opening of the firmament". This demonstrated that the writers of both stories held a consistent cosmology, but if one discards the cosmology (where the heavens are made of water, kept out by a shell-like firmament), then one must discount the writers of the bible, admit that they understood the world very poorly, and that they invented unlikely explanations for stories that may or may not have happened.

[salinen]

49. Well

what do you do?

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

42. I find your op confusing. Are you talking about interest in science or history!

[salinen]

50. actually

both. There is junk science and junk history. Both seem to be very popular. And that's o.k. for entertainment. But many cannot distinguish, and I think that's sad.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

61. Ahh got it

[La Lioness Priyanka]

43. Dupe

[jpak]

51. Science is Booorrring....and Bigfoot is the money

yup

[salinen]

54. I hate Bigfoot

he gets all the chicks.

[PurityOfEssence]

71. Hey, ya know what they say: size of hands, feet...

Just sayin'...

[Subdivisions]

55. Please be more specific. If you're going to make such a comment, examples

of what you're describing would be helpful.

[Lucian]

62. I knew what the OP was talking about and I didn't need examples.

Turn on any alien or UFO show on tv. You'll know what the OP is talking about.

[immoderate]

79. Ever seen Nostradamus on the "History" Channel?

--imm

[Jeffersons Ghost]

58. K&R great point N/T

[The Backlash Cometh]

59. Yep.

It seems the only control we have as Americans, is the decision to select who our "authorities" are. Some of us are lucky and learn about critical thinking, making that decision a little more refined.

[kickysnana]

60. Lets see,

Because there are theories that are put forth as hard facts, such as whether or not we have Neanderthal DNA or not. I try to read less readers digest and more scholarly reports and I was told there was none but this year they said well yes there is.

Try to put forth an alternate theory in any mainstream science class.

Archeologists take a set of bones in Africa hundreds of thousands of years apart from a set of bones in Australia and try to make a time line with nothing in between. Next year they will find another set of bones and totally throw out the previous time-line.

Don't get me started on peer reviewed literature involving disease and treatment. Just read this week that taking regular calcium for your bones could be very bad for your heart. How bad? How much? Everyone or just the 20 people you tested? Before you say that isn't archeology please clarify for me about syphilis time line being in the old world and the new as forensic archeologists state that holes in ancient South American bones prove that it existed in the New World before the European incursions of the 14-1500's.

Then again there are the creationists. At least they are always wrong. You are only wrong about half the time but we cannnot take you as seriously as you take yourselves, at least not right now but we are listening to you.

:shrug:

[ZombieHorde]

64. Your OP reads like an atheist rant about religion. nt

[former9thward]

65. If you have been in the field of archeology you would know

that archeology has changed drastically over the years. New information has been discovered which changes completely many of the accepted theories about ancient man. You seem to think that what is "the science" in 2010 will always be the same. It won't be and many of the things we believe right now and accept as "the science" will be considered "bullshit" in 50 years. Look in all the fields at what was accepted science in any field in 1910. Much is now considered "bullshit".

[salinen]

77. aliens helping the egyptians

will always be bullshit.

[RegieRocker]

67. Perception skews things and science has been extremely

tainted by it. Quantum theory comes to mind. Inevitably people make their own reality. To me it's all tainted with a little BS.

[Odin2005]

74. I HATE QUANTUM QUACKERY!!!

Nearly all of it is derived almost entirely from popularizations based on the philosophical interpretation of PM called the Copenhagen Interpretation, so named because it was popularized by Niels Bohr and infused with his philosophical prejudices. it is all complete nonsense.

[RegieRocker]

75. Go to this link. You need to get caught up with todays

science on the matter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics

[bhikkhu]

68. Read Sagan's "Demon-Haunted World"

The first part of the book is about exactly the question you ask - why so many bright and active minds direct themselves toward bullshit pseudoscience rather than the real world we live in...I don't recall that he came up with an exact reason, but the book was one reason I went back to college.

[Odin2005]

73. People are inherently irrational, rationality is only an overlay on an irrational core.

[Motown_Johnny]

78. Some people are capable of believing what they want to be true

while others believe what they have evidence to support to be true.


It is just that simple. Their brains/minds work differently.

[spanone]

82. we are a screwy species

[sakabatou]

83. I bet the history channel had something to do with it

[WilliamPitt]

84. Because it sustains the mythologies by which they sleep at night.

Explode a lie to someone and they'll thank you.

Cut down a myth they need to sustain themselves and you'll have made an enemy for life.

There is a difference. A big one.

[Taverner]

85. For some folks, they feel safer in the delusion that everything they do is part of a grand plan

And that the plan is both just and munificent

[WinkyDink]

86. "many times my own speculations were totally wrong after reading the science." So you condescend to

those who are you, pre-studies?

BTW: "Science" is always revising its "facts", esp. regarding ancient human migration.

[MilesColtrane]

87. People have always believed in bullshit, but it seems...

that more of them than ever believe it these days.

Children aren't taught how to reason logically.

I went through 12 years of public schools and 4 years of a state college without having been required to take one class in basic logic or debate and how to spot fallacies in an argument.

The scientific method was only briefly touched upon and almost none of my instructors used the Socratic method of teaching which forces you to question others beliefs and to defend your own.

And, this was way before teaching to tests really became most of what public schools are all about, as they are now.

[AngryAmish]

88. Because they want to

Where are you writing this? A community of like minded people. We confirm each others prejudices and when one dissents then all sorts of bad motives are attributed to the person and they are eventually cast out. This is not an indictment of this place. It is actually a description of how our minds work.

A staggering amount of "science" and research is so poorly designed and so few people have an appropriate statistical background (and Nick Taleb says everyone thinks in a Gaussian world, which is correct) it is actually surprising that any progress is actually made.

[B Calm]

89. What do you think about that new Ark they're building in Kentucky?

[longship]

90. Skeptics Guide to the Universe is a solution.

Note that I did *not* say it's *the* solution.

But, SGU is consistently the *best* skeptical--read that science--podcast on the Net.

SGU - The Skeptics Guide to the Universe

It's funny, informative, and they take on all comers. Highly recommended.

[Forkboy]

92. Depending on how that shit comes prepared, we all buy it at one time or another.

It's just that some acquire a taste for it.

[Prometheus Bound]

93. Re Asian colonizers of the Americas.

Was the New World Settled Twice?
by Andrew Lawler on 14 June 2010, 4:02 PM

Were the primary ancestors of today's Native Americans really the first people to set foot in the New World? Genetic evidence suggests so, but ancient skeletons tell a different story. Now, the most detailed analysis yet of ancient American skulls concludes that there were two distinct waves of colonizers from Asia, suggesting that another group got here first.

A team of paloeanthropologists compared the skulls of several dozen Paleoamericans, which date back to the early days of migration 11,000 years ago, with those of more than 300 Amerindians, which date to 1000 years ago. The Paleoamerican remains came from four sites in South and Central America, and the researchers also compared them with more than 500 skulls from East Asia. In all, the team found clear differences in the shapes and sizes of the Paleoamerican and Amerindian samples. That suggests that more than one group of individuals migrated to the Americas from Asia, the team reports online today in PLoS ONE. And due to the age of the skeletons, the researchers say, this other group of individuals arrived before the primary ancestors of today's Native Americans.

More: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/06/was-the-new-world-settled-twice.html?ref=hp