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The problem is that people are very good at avoiding sources of contrasting opinion. What we need to do is force people outside of their comfort zone. Imagine i
by twiceaday 15y ago
The problem is that people are very good at avoiding sources of contrasting opinion. What we need to do is force people outside of their comfort zone. Imagine if somebody rich paid for 24/7 ads on popular networks that do nothing but teach science and demystify common beliefs.
- rbanffy 15y ago> Imagine if somebody rich paid for 24/7 ads on popular networks that do nothing but teach science and demystify common beliefs. That's one more reason to get rich - to save mankind from itself. Yet, I think that, even in our skepticism, we must keep our minds open and don't forget that we must impose high standards on ourselves too. It's not enough to say homeopathy is a farce and faith cures are a joke when the more accurate statement would be that both illustrate how placebos work. Our brains are not capable of producing perfect reasoning all the time: reasoning evolved to help us elude predators. We could have ended up very inconspicuous, with better muscles, claws and teeth or being extremely allergenic - all popular ways to deal with other animals. And, for the record, I'm all in for homeopathy and faith cures - they may help remove some undesirable genetic traits from the gene pool. OTOH, the populations presenting such traits can evolve to have better immune systems. Life has a way to perpetuate itself.
- substack 15y ago> And, for the record, I'm all in for homeopathy and faith > cures - they may help remove some undesirable genetic > traits from the gene pool. OTOH, the populations presenting > such traits can evolve to have better immune systems. Life > has a way to perpetuate itself. Susceptibility to harmful ideologies really doesn't work like that. Being raised within a religion or cultural practice is an amazingly better predictor for continuing that belief in the next generation than what genes were passed along. Faith cures and placebos operate at the level of belief and culture, not the gene level. Further, look no further than the anti-vaccination movement to see how harmful medical ideas can put the general population at a greater risk for entirely preventable diseases.
- rbanffy 15y agoSorry. I was half joking. I'd much rather educate people than negligently allow them to self-select themselves out of the gene pool.
- substack 15y agoPart of my point was that "self-selecting out the gene pool" does nothing to dispel harmful beliefs. That is a culture and education problem.