Our Brains EASILY Can Deceive Us

 

"Black And White"

The USA is ideologically divided into mainly polar opposites presently and tends to look at the other political party through "black-and-white" opinions: the "Other" is evil and my party is the savior of the world. What is the truth? Where are you looking to find it? What is your thought process in understanding reality? This blog offers a science-based approach to answering these most important questions. If you disagree, please present a better tool, considering the following: 

• The naked human brain's perception of reality is flawed.
• Outside of mathematics and logic, human knowledge is uncertain, thus, we have to turn to what is most probable.
• The Scientific Method is the best humans have to determine what is probable. There is objective evidence of unrivaled historical human progress utilizing its processes to support this claim.

The Dangers Of Lack Of Scientific Knowledge

The human brain is finite and subject to many biases. If one rejects or hasn't been exposed to science and science-based thinking, one is open to negative thoughts and actions. Following are two recent articles that are examples of this relationship:

"Public attitudes that are in opposition to scientific consensus can be disastrous and include rejection of vaccines and opposition to climate change mitigation policies. Five studies examine the interrelationships between opposition to expert consensus on controversial scientific issues, how much people actually know about these issues, and how much they think they know. Across seven critical issues that enjoy substantial scientific consensus, as well as attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines and mitigation measures like mask-wearing and social distancing, results indicate that those with the highest levels of opposition have the lowest levels of objective knowledge but the highest levels of subjective knowledge. Implications for scientists, policymakers, and science communicators are discussed."  (link)

"In many of these cases, it is specifically scientific knowledge that is being questioned by conspiracy theorists. While scientists question scientific knowledge all the time, their standards for proof are obviously much higher. When internet celebrities hear that their pet theory has been considered and dismissed by the prevailing researchers, the conspiracist celebrity has to position their beliefs as being under attack by the establishment. This ends up providing the celebrity and their followers with cohesion and an enemy to rally around. It also gives them a sense of purpose, meaning, and identity. " (link)

Only Science (Knowledge) Improves Science (Knowledge)

"So today we're going to look at examples of this in action: cases where sound science had been accepted, and then new data and new discoveries upended work that had been considered solid yesterday, and thus improved our knowledge of the world. Some look at this constant improvement as proof that the very scientific method itself is hopelessly flawed, with the view that if science was wrong yesterday then it's wrong today, therefore anything coming from the scientific method is by definition untrustworthy, and that we should turn instead to intuition, to the metaphysical, to the spiritual. Well, that perspective is half right. They are right in observing that much of what we know now is likely to be improved, but they are wrong in believing that it's best to leave that path and go instead in the opposite direction."

Anti-Science/Magical Thinkers like to point to science's "mistakes" to discredit it. First of all, most of such are not really "mistakes" but additions to prior knowledge. Second, what other epistemology is more likely to determine what is true? Click on the link below for examples of these "mistakes:"

The Day Science Was Overthrown

Why Is There Still Religion And Medical Quackery?

The major religions of today began when written communication was rudimentary and well before modern science evolved. It was a period of ignorance and superstition:

The Growth of Knowledge

- - - - - - -

INTELLIGENCE: the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

KNOWLEDGE: facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education.

SCIENCE: knowledge about the natural world that is based on facts learned through experiments and observation.

UNDERSTANDING: the capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination.

IGNORANCE: lack of knowledge or information.

SUPERSTITION: a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation.

QUACKERY: dishonest practices and claims to have special knowledge and skill in some field, typically medicine.

RELIGION: many definitions, but usually includes belief in spiritual beings/the supernatural/a God.

A Look At Progress

"Progress often feels like it only happens when no one is looking. Because it's one step forward two steps back, it's easy to get fixated on the backsteps and feel like no progress is happening at all. The irony is that by focusing on the backsteps, we stand to catalyze change."

I would disagree with the "one step forward two steps back" meme. The math works out to steady REgression. How about "two steps forward one step back?" Anyway, click on the link below for a "glass-half-full" way of looking at human progress:

The Backstep Paradox

Science Enlightens The Darkness

The Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries with global influences and effects. It included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state (Wikipedia.com). It helped combat the excesses of the church, establish science as a source of knowledge, and defend human rights against tyranny. It also gave us modern schooling, medicine, republics, representative democracy, and much more (Historyhit.com).
- - - - - - -
The fruits of the Enlightenment are the main cultural forces in the USA against the Republican Party and conservative Christianity today. THEY HAVE TO WIN!!!

I Have A Dream

This phrase is famously attached to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech delivered on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (link). I can't think of a more powerful speech of unity and love. However, in reality, the USA is very far from achieving the speech's ideals. This link points to the extreme fragmentation of political opinion in the USA preventing significant agreement regarding how to achieve societal well-being.

MY "dream" of unity and love involves achieving a consensus agreement on what is "Truth" and how to best understand it and apply it to the benefit of society as a whole. The vast majority of USA society is religious, uses alternatives to medicine, believes in conspiracy theories, and otherwise believes in various pseudosciences (false knowledge). All of these beliefs/practices are harmful (peruse this blog for support for this fact). The ONLY alternative to this false knowledge problem is agreeing to only accept claims based on good objective evidence. Ideally, this would negate the role of traditional political parties (many Founding Fathers were leery of political parties due to factionalization of voters (link)). If one requires a name for the political movement I am presenting, how about the Sci Party?

A Psychological Tool For Success?

"It’s much easier to make decisions that offer immediate satisfaction, rather than decisions that offer satisfaction decades from now.

"Why is that?

"After years of studying what separates high performers from everyone else, I’ve found that one reason is that many people feel emotionally disconnected from the person they will become in 20 to 40 years. They think of their future self as another person — a stranger or, at best, a distant relative.

"This might explain why a lot of people don’t save enough for retirement, make poor ethical decisions, or indulge in unhealthy behaviors, even though they are aware of the long-term consequences.

"So how do you create a bond with your future self so that you’re more likely to do things that will boost your chances of achieving happiness, health, and financial success later on in life?"

Click on the link below for the answer:

The power of "seeing" your future self

The USA Is In An Epistemological Crisis

Ontology is the branch of philosophy regarding the nature of reality. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy regarding knowledge and information: how to obtain it, its limits, and its validity. The main way we obtain knowledge about reality is indirect through sources we trust, as there is too much of it for us as individuals to obtain most of it directly. 

There is a crisis over how we are obtaining knowledge and information cultivated by the current conservative movement. It boils down to who do you trust in obtaining your knowledge about reality. Think of the difference in the mindset of a criminal defense lawyer, who is not focused on truth but on supporting the client, and a scientist, who is focused on truth and objective evidence. It is the difference between magical and science-based thinking.

The link below contains a podcast by Chris Hayes on the subject:

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/why-is-this-happening/e/76498027?autoplay=true

Does Science Justify Itself?

KNOWLEDGE philosophically is commonly taken to mean JUSTIFIED, true belief (link). A conflict persists over whether science depends on its justification on philosophy or is independent of such. The following article delves into the matter. Anyone who knows me knows that I support the latter. After reading this, I will let you decide. However, if you disagree with me, please refute this from the article: "- - - philosophy itself has no way of justifying its tenets."

Click on the link below:

Science is a product of science!

Levels Of Certainty And Christianity

Different types of knowledge have differing levels of certainty, and there is a hierarchy of such. From the highest to lowest (link):

• Mathematics and Philosophical Logic
• Experimental Science
• Observational Science
• Historical Knowledge
• Philosophical and Theological Argument (Inference to the Best Explanation)

Christian apologists are functioning at the lowest level of certainty, but, one would never know it when exposed to them. Ironically, they are generally more certain than science-based thinkers, who are uncertain but do know that they have the best tools to understand objective reality. 

Inference to the Best Explanation is a kind of abductive reasoning in which one chooses the best hypothesis or theory that best explains the available data. We use this form of reasoning in our everyday activities and in legal trials. The problem for Christian apologists is that scientific and historical investigation, the higher levels of certainty, lead to rejection of all claims for a God. Another factor to consider is that claims for a God are extraordinary, which require extraordinary evidence (link).

A Look At Knowledge

"Hank talks about some philosophy stuff, like a few of the key concepts philosophers use when discussing belief and knowledge, such as what defines an assertion and a proposition, and that belief is a kind of propositional attitude. Hank also discusses forms of justification and the traditional definition of knowledge, which Edmund Gettier just totally messed with, using his Gettier cases."

The Meaning of Knowledge

Science And Knowledge

There is subjective knowledge, the knowledge we have within ourselves through our senses. Then, there is objective, empirical knowledge observable by others and is, therefore, able to be verified by others. The latter is science in the broadest terms. Many findings of science are counter-intuitive, and difficult to accept because the human brain has flaws, such as confirmation bias, hyperactive agency detection, false memories, the placebo effect, religious experiences, and the misinterpreting of medical spontaneous remissions. One of the hardest finding to accept by the religious is that all religion/belief in God is probably a by-product of our evolution, environment, and the development of our brain. Why do I say this: science has either falsified all claims for a God that are falsifiable, or the claims are not falsifiable (link).

Following are some links that educate on the topic:

 “We don’t need a scientifically based or a strong philosophical underpinning to validate science.  All we need to know is that the method works: that it produces results that all scientists could in principle replicate (if they can’t the results are discarded), and it produces—apologies to Jane Austen—truths universally acknowledged.  It also produces progress.  It cures diseases, flies us to the moon, improves our crops.  No other “way of knowing” does that—certainly not religion, Brown’s favorite hobbyhorse. And yes, the practice of science rests implicitly on the value that it’s good to find out what is true and real, but does Brown disagree with that?  In the end, the method is validated by its results and needs no a priori justification.  After all, the methods of science weren’t devised before science was practiced—we simply learned from experience that if we wanted to find truth, we had to go about it in a certain way.” (link)

“A little reflection shows that there are several other ways of knowledge besides the one provided by science. None of these are in any meaningful sense ‘better’ or ‘going beyond’ science, thereby not yielding any comfort to the purveyors of woo. Each has its proper domain of application, and of course, there are plenty of areas of overlap and interaction.” (link)

 “The important point, which we both recognize, is that pure intuition, revelation, and unchallenged dogma are not ways of finding out things, other than about the subjective nature of the person who experiences them.” (link)

·               " - - - humanity has developed its approach to knowledge over time. Initially, much of our knowledge was superstitious and mythical. Mythology provided explanations. A philosophical approach, based on logic and reason, developed in Greece and Italy from about the sixth century BCE. Today, modern science has its feet firmly placed on evidence. Scientific ideas are, must be, tested against reality.

·                "To assert today that we should revert to a pre-scientific era, that theology or philosophy should trump scientific knowledge, is to claim that mythology/logic/reason is more reliable than evidence.

·                "Of course logic and reason are important – and they can contribute to knowledge. They can provide a synthesis, an overview, and intuitions to the researcher. But they are not a substitute for evidence. In the end our reason and logic must conform to the evidence, not displace it.

·                "It’s not surprising that philosophy/logic has limitations. It is after all just a refinement of common sense by reason. Philosophical/logical principles arise from intuitions and may not properly represent reality. Quantum mechanics is an obvious example.

·                "Logical distortions for ideological reasons are inherent in the process. In science, the requirement of evidential input counters this subjectivity." (link)

I Am An Apistevist

Yes, I came across this term recently and I am definitely one of them.  HT Aron Ra

A person who does not use faith to know things-especially in the religious sense

I would just leave it at before the hyphen.  The question is, "Why would anyone accept ANY claim on faith (Belief without evidence)?"

Supernatural: What Is It And How Do You Know It Is Real?

I, and many other atheists, have said that all arguments for a god or the supernatural are arguments from ignorance.  Why do we say this?  Because, all we really know is within what most people call nature.  The concept of supernatural is a vestige of humanity's ignorant and superstitious pre-scientific past.  There is no method to test for it or to verify that there is such a thing.  At the bottom, there is reality:  there is the reality we know through scientific methods and there is the reality that is presently unknown.  Nothing is added to knowledge by believing in any supernatural force or being.

Other Ways Of Knowing?

Whenever I get into a discussion with a philosopher or religious apologist, the subject of "Ways of Knowing" other than through scientific methods usually rears its head.  Following are three links, with highlights from such, that I believe shed more light than heat on the subject: