An exploration of the psychology behind belief, superstition, and confirmation bias. Why smart people believe stupid things.
The Belief Engine
Why do people believe in ghosts, abductions, conspiracies, and psychics? Is it because they are stupid? Is it because they are uneducated?
The evidence suggests otherwise. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, believed in fairies. Isaac Newton was obsessed with alchemy. Smart people are just as prone to "weird" beliefs as anyone else - sometimes even more so, because they are better at rationalizing those beliefs.
Dr. Michael Shermer, founder of Skeptic magazine, argues that our brains are "belief engines". We evolved to find patterns in noise.
Patternicity: Finding Meaning in the Noise
Imagine you are a hominid on the savannah of Africa three million years ago. You hear a rustle in the grass. Is it the wind, or is it a lion?
If you assume it's a lion but it's just the wind, you have made a
Type I Error (False Positive). You run away, you look a bit silly, but you survive.
If you assume it's the wind but it's actually a lion, you have made a
Type II Error (False Negative). You are lunch. You do not pass on your genes.
Natural selection favored the paranoia. We are the descendants of the primates who saw faces in the clouds, agency in the lightning, and patterns where none existed. We are hardwired to connect the dots, even when the dots are random.
Agenticity: The Ghost in the Machine
Not only do we find patterns, but we also tend to infuse those patterns with agency. We believe that someone or something is
behind the pattern.
When the volcano erupts, we assume a god is angry. When the economy crashes, we assume a conspiracy is at work. It is cognitively difficult for us to accept that sometimes, things just happen. Randomness feels unsatisfying to the human brain. We crave a narrator.
The Confirmation Bias Loop
Once a belief is formed, the brain protects it. This is called
Confirmation Bias.
We seek out information that confirms what we already believe and ignore information that contradicts it. If you believe your horoscope works, you will remember the one time it predicted your promotion and accept it as proof. You will forget the 300 times it was vague nonsense.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool." - Richard Feynman
How to Break the Spell
Understanding
why we believe is the first step to liberation. When you feel a strong conviction, ask yourself:
Am I seeing a pattern because it's real, or because my brain hates randomness?
Am I looking for evidence to prove I'm right, or am I looking for the truth?
What would it take to change my mind? (If the answer is "nothing", you are not thinking rationally; you are preaching).
Science is the only tool we have developed to systematically correct for these biases. It forces us to test our patterns against reality. It is the check and balance on our inner belief engine.
