The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science

[Brian37]

Dawkins also explains this in "The God Delusion", as "the moth mistaking the light bulb for moonlight." Humans simply did not evolve to understand that their perceptions are notoriously flawed and most of the time wrong.

[Tonus]

We don't all hang on the same kind of demonstrably wrong beliefs to the same degree. Some of us are susceptible to corrections of biases in many areas.

It is arguable that even of those who hold a particular belief that actually is demonstratably well founded, a significant portion do so not out of reasoned analysis of the soundness of the foundation, but rather out of a fortuitious biase.

Just because you are right, it doesn't mean you are clever and incisive rather than simply fortuiously biased.

I agree. I do think it brings up interesting questions. I became an atheist in part because I tried very hard to make religious belief fit logically into the world around me. I'd like to think that I did so with such sincerity and even-handedness that the outcome was the only possible one, even though it was not the one I intended to reach. But maybe a part of me wanted to ditch religion, for some reason I cannot fathom? Hard to say. I know myself a lot better than I did five or ten years ago, but that's still just scratching the surface, as far as I am concerned.

[Brian37]

Gap filling with flawed perceptions is evolutionary. The antelope on the African plane does not always have time to assess if the swaying grass is wind or a lion stalking them. We often, far too often fill in gaps with flawed perceptions because that placebo can create safety in numbers in a group dynamic. The Ancient Egyptians were successful for 3,000 years because of their false belief that the sun was a thinking being.

Placebos do work in evolution, because evolution is only about reproduction, not fact finding.

[Rahul]

I agree. I do think it brings up interesting questions. I became an atheist in part because I tried very hard to make religious belief fit logically into the world around me. I'd like to think that I did so with such sincerity and even-handedness that the outcome was the only possible one, even though it was not the one I intended to reach. But maybe a part of me wanted to ditch religion, for some reason I cannot fathom? Hard to say. I know myself a lot better than I did five or ten years ago, but that's still just scratching the surface, as far as I am concerned.

I deconverted the same way, Tonus. I was raised Southern Baptist with the belief that you can't fall from grace after you were saved. I got into an argument about it with another Protestant from another denomination that believed you could.

So I wanted to make sure I wouldn't go to hell and started trying to reason everything out.

Surprise! Atheism. Who would have thunk it?

Not me. Probably the most shocking conclusion I could have come to.