Basically, there’s what people want. Then come the justifications. Some of the justifications attain the airy heights of near genius.

I’m not inspired by the thought that so many people, everywhere and at all times, have embraced so many unwarranted beliefs. It makes me wonder whether humankind will ever break out of this tendency. Maybe most of us never will.

One tempting thought is that we are only speaking of ignorant, uneducated people, when we look at unwarranted beliefs, but that’s simply untrue. Some very smart people believe some incredible unsupported ideas. Dare I even mention homeopathy again, given the passion with which so many well-spoken people promote it?  Also consider fundamentalists of all stripes (not just fundamentalist Christians). They include some highly capable people who are successful in demanding careers. They don’t always veer off the path of rationality.

Therefore, many smart people carry around some dumb ideas.

But it’s far more unusual to find people who have embraced the scientific method to fall prey to ideas as wacky as “fan death” (or angels or ESP or the fear of the number 13). The scientific method is the best way we know of weeding out unwarrented beliefs. But learning the scientific method takes discipline, a commodity not common enough in this instant-gratification, television-permeated ADD world in whch we live.

In “Smart People Believe Weird Things,” Michel Shermer elaborates this idea that the scientific method is the foundation for curing all of us (including all of us otherwise intelligent people) of our tendency to take on untenable beliefs. Why do we get fooled so often? Beware the great power of the confirmation bias. Here’s Shermer’s money quote:

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for nonsmart reasons.

Rarely do any of us sit down before a table of facts, weigh them pro and con, and choose the most logical and rational explanation, regardless of what we previously believed. Most of us, most of the time, come to our beliefs for a variety of reasons having little to do with empirical evidence and logical reasoning. Rather, such variables as genetic predisposition, parental predilection, sibling influence, peer pressure, educational experience and life impressions all shape the personality preferences that, in conjunction with numerous social and cultural influences, lead us to our beliefs. We then sort through the body of data and select those that most confirm what we already believe, and ignore or rationalize away those that do not.

For more on the confirmation bias, see here and here.