The Ethics of Belief

[Pyrrho]

They ought to be careful about their beliefs, rather than accepting beliefs on shoddy 'evidence.'

But they will not accept Clifford's definition of "shoddy."  Witness Randy and his absurd "minimal facts" horseshit.

Yes, a lot of people are going to reason poorly, no matter what Clifford and I say.  But we are not so much attempting to describe what people do, but rather what they ought to do.

If we cannot even convince people that having evidence is important, what do you think the chances are people are going to even try to take a reasonable look at evidence?

Basically, rejecting the idea that evidence is important for forming beliefs leads to people believing all sorts of nonsense, much of which has a significant impact on others.  When people reject, on principle, the idea that evidence is important, the situation for convincing them of anything with evidence is pretty hopeless.

I find it quite disconcerting that so many people are so against the main point of Clifford's essay.  He is arguing that people should not believe things for no good reason.  And people argue against that.