Please do not misunderstand this post - I am all for working from facts, and sticking to them as closely as possible. Nearly every post on this thread brings new information to light. However, the silent majority of viewers of the vigorous exchanges on this thread (109,748 views vs. 517 posts at the last count) may be amused to see from p. 35 of the forthcoming Sept. 2002 issue of Scientific American that simply providing more facts and/or repeating old facts generally (and not just on this thread) does little to change mind-sets which are already established. Here are some extracts:
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……… Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart 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 biennial report (April 2002) on the state of science understanding:
30% of adult Americans believe that UFOs are space vehicles from other civilizations
60% believe in ESP
40% believe astrology is scientific
32% believe in lucky numbers
70% accept magnetic therapy as scientific, and
88% accept alternative medicine.
Education by itself by itself is no paranormal prophylactic. Although belief in ESP decreased from 65% among high school graduates to 60% among college graduates, and belief in magnetic therapy dropped from 71% among high school graduates to 55% among college graduates, that still leaves more than half fully endorsing such claims! ……….
……… We can glean a deeper cause of this problem in another statistic: 70% of Americans still do not understand the scientific process, defined as comprehending probability, the experimental method and hypothesis testing. ……………….(only) 53% of Americans with a high level of science education (nine or more high school and college science/math courses) understand the scientific process, ……… a study that found no correlation between science knowledge (facts about the world) and paranormal beliefs. ……..
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Seems like getting together over some beers might be more effective than piling up the facts in changing minds. Politicians kiss the baby and otherwise press the flesh. And I have probably fallen into the same trap by imagining that I might affect existing mind-sets by presenting the above facts.
