The Profound Limitations of Knowledge 1433154536, 9781433154539

Table of contents :
The Profound Limitations of Knowledge
Praise for Works by Fred Leavitt
Contents
List of Figures
1 Introduction
Notes
2 Beliefs
Decisions about Beliefs
Origins of Beliefs: I
Persistence of Beliefs
Other People Have Weird Beliefs
Examples of False Belief Perseverance
Reasons for Belief Perseverance
Group Differences in Belief Perseverance
Origins of Beliefs: II
Notes
3 Philosophy
Radical Skepticism
The Burden of Proof
Several Assumptions Underlie Almost All Claims to Knowledge
Notes
4 Certainty, Likelihood, and Probability
Notes
5 The Four Supposed Pillars of Knowledge
6 Pillar 1: A Priori Knowledge
The Case for Innate Knowledge
All the Above Is Irrelevant
Notes
7 Pillar 2: Religious Faith
The Origins of Religious Faith
Why Are There So Many Religions?
Religious Faith Is Beneficial
Faith (of Others) Is Very Beneficial to Some
Religious Leaders Have God’s Cell Phone Number
Maybe They Had a Bad Connection
Other People Also Get Messages from God
So, Maybe Not So Beneficial
The Persistence of Religious Faith
Points to Ponder
Faith Is Antithetical to Truth
Notes
8 Leavitt Lied
9 Pillar 3: Reasoning
Human Reasoning Is Imperfect
Evolution and Reasoning: I
Evolution and Reasoning: II
Culture Influences Reasoning Style
Metaphors Influence Reasoning
Examples of (Considerably) Less than Optimal Reasoning
Inductive Arguments
Counter-Induction
Inductive Inferences Are Ambiguous
Formal Logic—Deductive Arguments
Conclusions Often Come First
We’ll Never Know If Our Tools of Reasoning Lead to Valid Conclusions
Anything Can Be Proved
Quantum Logic
Reason Doesn’t Tell About the World
Recap
Notes
10 Reason and Science in Opposition
The Rules of Logic Are Empirical and Fallible
Notes
11 Pillar 4: Empiricism
Imperfect Processing
Research on Perception
Empiricists Fight Back—Unsuccessfully
Our Low Fidelity Memories
Deception
Motives to Deceive
Means
Opportunity
Drugs
Electrical Stimulation of the Brain
Natural Selection
FakeApp
Secret Experiments
“Knowledge” That Comes From Other Sources
Individuals
Corporate
Governmental and Political
The Media
The Internet
Historical
Censorship
Self-Deception
How Honest Are You With Yourself?
Science
Scientists May Unconsciously Bias Results or Commit Deliberate Fraud
Not Just Fraud
Honest Science
The Basic Observations May Be Wrong
Miniscule Changes in Initial Conditions May Produce Huge Changes in Ultimate Observations
The Data May Have Been Analyzed Incorrectly
The Data May Not Be Replicable
Observations Reported in Scientific Publications May Differ Considerably From Observations Over the Same Material That Go Unpublished
Inferences: Part I
Hard Sciences
Quantum Mechanics
The Single- and Double-Slit Experiment
Unstable Elements and Watched Pots
Pigeonholes and Pigeons
Quantum Eraser
Delayed-Choice
Interpretations
The Most Profound Discovery in the History of Science
Many Worlds
Beyond Quantum Mechanics
Notes
12 Reason and Science in Almost One Voice
Notes
13 Inferences Part II
Mathematics, Science, and Everyday Life
Notes
14 Recapitulation
Note
15 Reasons for Resistance
Resistance Is Futile
A Priorists
Non-deductivists
Pragmatists
Transcendentalists
Vindicationists
Conjecturalists
Notes
16 Conclusions
Solipsism
There Is No God—Maybe
Afterlife—Not Out of the Question
On the Positive Side
A Question You’ll Probably Never be Able to Answer: Are Things Pretty Much What They Seem?
Worldviews of Prominent Physicists and Philosophers
Convincing Travelogue
How Should I Conduct My Life?
Keep on Trucking
Notes
17 Epilogue
Notes
Appendix 1: Beliefs About the Future by Experts
Appendix 2: History Myths
Appendix 3: Scientific Facts and Theories That Were Once Believed but Are Now Considered False
Index
Back Matter

Citation preview

THE PROFOUND LIMITATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

FRED LEAVITT

The Profound Limitations of Knowledge

HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Heresy, Crossroads, and Intersections Paolo Palmieri General Editor Vol. 7

The History and Philosophy of Science series is part of the Peter Lang Humanities list. Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production.

PETER LANG

New York  Bern  Berlin Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw

Fred Leavitt

The Profound Limitations of Knowledge

PETER LANG

New York  Bern  Berlin Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Leavitt, Fred, author. Title: The profound limitations of knowledge / Fred Leavitt. Description: 1 [edition]. | New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2018. Series: History and philosophy of science: heresy, crossroads, and intersections; Volume 7 ISSN 2376-6336 (print) | ISSN 2376-6344 (online) Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018026069 | ISBN 978-1-4331-5453-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4331-5464-5 (ebook pdf) | ISBN 978-1-4331-5465-2 (epub) ISBN 978-1-4331-5466-9 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: Knowledge, Theory of. Classification: LCC BD201 .L43 2018 | DDC 121/.2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018026069 DOI 10.3726/b14274

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

© 2018 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006 www.peterlang.com All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

Praise for Works by Fred Leavitt

On Improving Medical Outcomes (with daughter Jessica) “This highly readable book aims at making patients smarter on a highly relevant range of health issues, including placebo effects, therapy outcomes, and the art of diagnostic thinking. A great resource for bolstering patient-doctor interaction.” —Gerd Gigerenzer, Director, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin

“This is an excellent book addressing a wide array of important psychological factors that can make medical science work or fail when applied to real-life patients. The intricacies of patient-doctor communication, expectations, errors and biases, misinterpretations, conflicts of interest, marketing, and placebos, to name only a few of the major players, often get ignored by both medical textbooks and medical practice, despite their pivotal influence on patient outcomes. The authors make a most welcome contribution towards a better understanding of this very complex field.” —John P.A. Ioannidis, M.D., DSc, Stanford University

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Comments on The Real Drug Abusers “By juxtaposing the many ills of the war on drugs with the corruption of the medical-pharmaceutical establishment, Leavitt expertly diagnoses our systemic national pathology concerning drugs-both illegal and legal.” —Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director, Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation

“Fred Leavitt’s compendium of who the human drug guinea pigs have been and are— and the reasons why—is both absorbing and horrifying. Most significantly, his book comprises information that will be useful to anyone who has ever taken or is tempted to take so much as an aspirin.” —Barry Gifford, novelist and screen writer

“The Real Drug Abusers is a devastating presentation of the propaganda and deceit that define the pharmaceutical industry. This book presents a fascinating glimpse of the academic, economic, and medical abuses that are associated with legal drugs.” —Alexander Shulgin, American biochemist, author, and discoverer of many psychedelic drugs including MDMA (ecstasy)

“Fred Leavitt’s well-documented, beautifully written, angry book describes the sexism, racism, hypocrisy, and deceit that pervade the illegal drug fields. I was astounded to read about the abuse and misuse in the legal drug industry.” —Delvin Williams, former all-pro running back for the San Francisco 49ers

“This is one of the most important contributions to the field of drug research of the last decade. It is authoritative in its rendering of the complexities of drug-interaction effects, yet written in a straightforward and available style.” —Troy Duster, University of California, Berkeley

“…The Real Drug Abusers is fantastic. Congratulations for writing it with such passion and intelligence. The organization is excellent and compelling and your references are a terrific resource.” —Leonore Tiefer, Ph.D.

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Comments on Drugs and Behavior “This is a valuable book. It should be available in Drug and Alcohol units and it should be read by medicos, nurses, social workers, psychologists and others working in the drug and alcohol field.” —Drug & Alcohol Review

“This is an unusual book. It is written with remarkable simplicity and clarity. There are veins of philosophy and the conscientious reappraisal of dogma that thread their way through the chapters. There is something in this book for everyone. I find it to be one of the very few scientific treatises that can be read recreationally.” —National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences Journal

“In every section down-to-earth analogies are used, and there is a periodic injection of special interest often related to little known applications relevant to clinical psychiatry. The result is stimulating and it must be difficult to read this book without finding a new field worthy of personal pursuit. In presentation and documentation this work represents the best in medical publishing tradition. It can be regarded as a classic likely to remain usefully in the forefront of attention of psychiatrists, psychologists and pharmacologists for a considerable time.” —British Journal of Psychiatry

“This is a fascinating book with a wealth of interesting and useful information. It brings to life the pharmacology of psychoactive drugs in a way that is meaningful to every practicing physician, regardless of style or type of practice. It also is the sort of book that should be on everyone’s reading list of basic texts and standard reference works.” —Journal of the American Medical Association

Comments on Evaluating Scientific Research “This book provides for students not only a thorough introduction into the tool of science, its methodology, but also a critical and highly erudite reflection on the business of science. Leavitt goes one step further than the average methodology book.” —Prof. Dr. M. N. Verbaten, Department of Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Utrecht University

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“Fred Leavitt’s book offers a refreshing, never boring view of methods and principles of psychological research. Students who heed Leavitt’s message will not fall prey to false claims and will recognize substandard studies when they encounter them. This book provides an excellent foundation for the beginning researcher.” —Irving Zucker, Professor, University of California, Berkeley, Departments of Psychology and Integrative Biology

Comments on The Deep Uncertainty of Existence “Fred Leavitt’s special brilliance is convincing us that our ‘betters’ are not that smart after all. Leavitt bulldozes various philosophical constructs, then merrily guides us through the wreckage—without ever condescending to the reader. He gradually convinces us that we are as clever as he is, and that is quite clever indeed.” —Glynn Washington, host of the PBS show, Snap Judgment

To Di, Jess, Mel, Ian, Jeff, Tia, and Eli With love, Fred

Contents

List of Figures xv 1. Introduction 1 2. Beliefs 5 Decisions about Beliefs 6 Origins of Beliefs: I 7 Persistence of Beliefs 8 Other People Have Weird Beliefs 8 Examples of False Belief Perseverance 9 Reasons for Belief Perseverance 10 Group Differences in Belief Perseverance 14 Origins of Beliefs: II 22 3. Philosophy 25 Radical Skepticism 26 The Burden of Proof 28 Several Assumptions Underlie Almost All Claims to Knowledge 29 4. Certainty, Likelihood, and Probability

33

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5. The Four Supposed Pillars of Knowledge

39

6. Pillar 1: A Priori Knowledge The Case for Innate Knowledge All the Above Is Irrelevant

41 41 43

7. Pillar 2: Religious Faith The Origins of Religious Faith Why Are There So Many Religions? Religious Faith Is Beneficial Faith (of Others) Is Very Beneficial to Some Religious Leaders Have God’s Cell Phone Number Maybe They Had a Bad Connection Other People Also Get Messages from God So, Maybe Not So Beneficial The Persistence of Religious Faith Points to Ponder Faith Is Antithetical to Truth

45 46 47 49 51 52 54 55 56 58 60 62

8. Leavitt Lied

65

9. Pillar 3: Reasoning 67 Human Reasoning Is Imperfect 67 Evolution and Reasoning: I 70 Evolution and Reasoning: II 71 Culture Influences Reasoning Style 73 Metaphors Influence Reasoning 74 Examples of (Considerably) Less than Optimal Reasoning 75 Inductive Arguments 79 Counter-Induction 82 Inductive Inferences Are Ambiguous 83 Formal Logic—Deductive Arguments 83 Conclusions Often Come First 87 We’ll Never Know If Our Tools of Reasoning Lead to Valid Conclusions 88 Anything Can be Proved 89 Quantum Logic 89 Reason Doesn’t Tell About the World 90 Recap 90 10. Reason and Science in Opposition The Rules of Logic Are Empirical and Fallible

95 99

co n t e n ts  | xiii

11. Pillar 4: Empiricism 101 Imperfect Processing 101 Research on Perception 102 Empiricists Fight Back—Unsuccessfully 106 Our Low Fidelity Memories 107 Deception 111 Motives to Deceive 112 Means 113 Opportunity 114 Drugs 114 Electrical Stimulation of the Brain 114 Natural Selection 115 FakeApps 117 Secret Experiments 118 “Knowledge” That Comes From Other Sources 118 Individuals 118 Corporate 122 Governmental and Political 125 The Media 128 The Internet 130 Historical 131 Censorship 134 Self-Deception 135 How Honest Are You With Yourself? 136 Science 137 Scientists May Unconsciously Bias Results or Commit Deliberate Fraud 137 Not Just Fraud 141 Honest Science 143 The Basic Observations May Be Wrong 143 Miniscule Changes in Initial Conditions May Produce Huge Changes in Ultimate Observations 143 The Data May Have Been Analyzed Incorrectly 146 The Data May Not Be Replicable 148 Observations Reported in Scientific Publications May Differ Considerably From Observations Over the Same Material That Go Unpublished 150 Inferences: Part I 152 Hard Sciences 153 Quantum Mechanics 153 The Single- and Double-Slit Experiment 156 Unstable Elements and Watched Pots 156

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Pigeonholes and Pigeons 157 Quantum Eraser 157 Delayed-Choice 157 Interpretations 158 The Most Profound Discovery in the History of Science 161 Many Worlds 161 Beyond Quantum Mechanics 163 12. Reason and Science in Almost One Voice

173

13. Inferences Part II Mathematics, Science, and Everyday Life

175 175

14. Recapitulation 179 15. Reasons for Resistance 183 Resistance Is Futile 186 A Priorists 188 Non-deductivists 188 Pragmatists 189 Transcendentalists 189 Vindicationists 189 Conjecturalists 190 16. Conclusions 193 Solipsism 193 There Is No God—Maybe 195 Afterlife—Not Out of the Question 196 On the Positive Side 201 Question You’ll Probably Never be Able to Answer: Are Things Pretty Much What They Seem? 201 Worldviews of Prominent Physicists and Philosophers 202 Convincing Travelogue 202 How Should I Conduct My Life? 202 Keep on Trucking 203 17. Epilogue 205 Appendix 1: Beliefs About the Future by Experts Appendix 2: History Myths Appendix 3: Scientific Facts and Theories That Were Once Believed but Are Now Considered False

207 209

Index

213

211

Figures

Figure 2.1: Old woman/young woman Figure 3.1: Earth compared with other planets Figure 3.2: Jupiter and other planets compared with sun Figure 3.3: Sun compared with Arcturus Figure 3.4: Arcturus compared with Betelguese and Antares Figure 11.1: Visual spectrum Figure 11.2: I love Paris Figure 11.3: Railroad tracks: The thick horizontal bars are the same length Figure 11.4: Building with parallel lines: The horizontal lines are parallel to each other Figure 11.5: Muller-Lyer illusion: The two horizontal lines are the same length

6 30 30 31 31 103 104 105 105 106

chapter one

Introduction

I trained as a scientist (PhD in psychopharmacology) but soon became disillusioned by drug research. Too many articles in top-notch journals were either methodologically unsound or fraudulent. So I studied research methodology and, to my dismay, learned that conclusions from other areas of science were also often untrustworthy. Of course, untrustworthy information is not restricted to scientific material. Long before Donald Trump began ranting about “fake news,” I had realized that the media and government spokespeople could not be trusted. Eventually, I came to the depressing conclusion that the amount of information stored in my little brain was probably matched or exceeded by the amount of stored misinformation. Even when we (think we) know about some area, our estimates about magnitudes may be far off the mark and depend largely on whether we watch Fox News, CNN, or neither. In the early 2000s, Ranney and colleagues asked volunteers to estimate various socially relevant values.1 See how you do. The results are given in footnote 3.2 (The numbers have changed since then, but the relevant point is that people’s estimates are substantially inaccurate. That has probably not changed.) The examples are trivial considering where this book leads, but they’re still worth thinking about.

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• Estimate the current number of legal abortions, per 1,000,000 live births in the U.S.

• Estimate the number of legal abortions performed, per 1,000,000 fertile U.S. women (aged 15–44) for a single year. • For the past few years in the U.S., how many executions do you think were carried out compared to the number of murders committed? • Estimate the current, average SAT I percentile (from 1% as low to 99% as high) of undergraduates admitted to U.C. Berkeley from high school. • How many Americans in 1,000 are currently locked up? • What is the current annual U.S. legal immigration rate? • What is the average garbage production per day per U.S. resident?

It’s a long way from poor data collection or even outright fraud to the bizarre subject matter of this book. Readers may agree that many alleged facts are inaccurate while questioning the sanity of anyone who jumps from there to the conclusion that nothing can be known. Yet that’s where the trail ineluctably dragged me. For a preview of what follows, consider the following hypothetical experiment. You have developed a new lie detector test. Convinced that it is infallible, you recruit 1,000 people to try to beat it. You give them a series of questions and ask them to tell one or more lies among their answers. Your device detects every lie and never calls a truthful response a lie. But then comes subject 1,001. Asked a question, he answers “yes” and your device indicates that he’s telling the truth. But when asked the same question immediately afterwards in a slightly different form, he says “yes” again. Much to your dismay, the device again registers truthfulness. The man swears that he really believes what he said. He submits to a psychiatric evaluation and is found free of any major disorder. He is not delusional. You test him again. Same results. Here are the two questions: Do you anticipate with near certainty the occurrence of thousands of events: the sun will rise, the alarm will ring, food will have a certain taste, and friends and enemies will behave in predictable ways? Do you agree with the philosophical position called radical skepticism that you can never know anything about the past, present, or future with even the slightest probability that it’s true? Albert Camus wrote that human beings spend their lives trying to convince themselves that their existence is not absurd. What could be more absurd than to be certain of two important beliefs that contradict each other?

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I am a real life model for subject 1,001, and my contradictory beliefs make me lonely. I long for company. That’s my motivation for writing this book. Read through it and you too will have to confront absurdity.3 There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.—Cicero

In an earlier book I wrote that knowledge seems to arise from four different sources. I called them the four pillars and showed that all are defective. But Descartes’ famous “cogito, ergo sum,” “I think, therefore I am,” represents a fifth pillar that does support knowledge—the knowledge that, if an individual is self-aware, the individual must exist. People usually have some awareness about their own body states. A person might lie and say she has a headache when she doesn’t, but she will surely know whether or not she has a headache. So, some self-awareness is a form of real knowledge. That doesn’t change the basic arguments for skepticism. The fifth pillar covers such a small territory that it’s too feeble to support a doll house. The effectiveness of most persuasive messages depends on building audience trust. The narrator claims to have cured hundreds of patients or done scientific experiments or received revelations directly from God. Many books cite testimonials on the back cover. I read Leavitt’s book and, within 6 days: lost 40 pounds.

earned $200,000. learned Mandarin Chinese. My approach is different. I present no case histories or descriptions of private bull sessions with God. I cite many scientific studies but only as non-crucial supplements. In fact, in Chapter 11 I argue that scientific studies cannot be trusted. Readers who wish to prove me wrong will have no basis for accusing me of lying, making up data, or misinterpreting facts. My arguments stand or fall on their merits, fortunately not on my character or intelligence. Only one thing is certain—that is, nothing is certain. If this statement is true, it is also false.—Ancient paradox Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.—Will Durant

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Notes 1. Garcia de Osuna, J. et al. (2004) Qualitative and quantitative effects of surprise: (Mis)estimates, rationales, and feedback-induced preference changes while considering abortion. In Forbus, K. et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 422–7). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; Munnich, E. et al. (2005) The longevities of policy-shifts and memories due to single feedback numbers. In Bara, L. et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty-seventh Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1553–8). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 2. Results: The median estimate was 10,000 abortions per million live births—more than 30 times lower than the actual value, 335,000. The median estimate was also 10,000 abortions per million fertile women; the actual number was 20,000. The median estimate was one execution per 50 murders; the actual rate was roughly one per 250. The median estimate was the 85th percentile; the true value was the 94th percentile. The median estimate was 450; the true value was 7. The median estimate was 460 per 1,000 residents; the true value was 3. The median estimate was 25 lbs.; the true value was 4.5 lbs. 3. In fact, I’m not alone. Many eminent scientists have taken even more bizarre positions. See the discussion of quantum physics starting on p. 160.

chapter two

Beliefs

A bumper sticker reads “We’re born. We grow old. We die.” Philosophers ask what else there is, and some people think they know. Devout Christians believe that the best part of existence begins after the death of their material bodies. Others, suspecting that everything ends with the last heartbeat, try to enjoy their brief moments on earth to the fullest. Their beliefs, all beliefs, are conditioned by environment. People from different backgrounds differ in preferences for food, mates, music, literature, and football teams. Even perceptions depend heavily on personal history. How else can we explain why people with normal vision may view the same drawing and report different images, as in the famous young woman/old woman illusion of Figure 2.1. If the evidence for religious beliefs were trustworthy, preferences would be independent of time and place of upbringing. They are, of course, not. More atheists live in Azerbaijan than Atlanta, more Baptists in Biloxi than Bombay, more Catholics in Cincinnati than Calcutta, more Jews in Jerusalem than Jakarta, and more Muslims in Malaysia than Mississippi. The boring demographic details reflect the obvious fact that people living within a broad general region are exposed to the same newspapers, TV shows, songs, films, games, and books. For the same reason, football fans from Cincinnati are more likely than Chicagoans to root for the Bengals whereas Chicago residents prefer the Bears. A noteworthy difference between religious and football beliefs is that Bengal fans do not claim that their team’s playbook is the only true one or that Chicago fans worship false idols.

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Figure 2.1: Old woman/young woman

Decisions about Beliefs We make countless decisions daily, although some are so inconsequential that they barely reach the level of consciousness. Some people make the first decision before opening their eyes. Should I get up now or stay in bed another ten minutes? Then, still half asleep, Which socks? Eggs or cereal? Do I start on the front page or turn right to the sports section? Although trivial and requiring minimal brain energy, the choices must be made—we have no choice. Some momentous decisions may require days or years of agonizing internal debate: Should I accept the job offer? Ask her to marry me? Take him off life support? Yet, even those are dwarfed in importance by one decision—that of an overall worldview. Everybody forms one, even agnostics, although their decision is to claim ignorance. Worldview encompasses beliefs ranging from the existence of God to proper administration of justice to whether the Beatles were the greatest rock group of all

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time. Context is crucial. A cluster of precious gems aimlessly strung together may not comprise a handsome necklace, and a succession of pleasurable events does not ensure happiness. New brides and prostitutes view identical sex acts differently, and lavish meals are not relished equally by restaurant critics and people awaiting imminent execution. If you lost your one true love, would you suffer? The question isn’t trivial. Not everyone would suffer from the loss of something precious. Both Job and Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss believed that all happened because of divine plan, so they faced grievous hardships with equanimity. They survived because of their beliefs. Whether a person is optimist or pessimist, happy or sad, pacifist or killer, surely depends on his or her views on the nature of humans and their place in the universe. Our opinions on issues as wide-ranging as abortion, the death penalty, drug use, and politics are affected; and with them, choice of friends, heroes, lovers, and types of diversion. Beliefs determine whether a person spends Sundays speaking in tongues, or refuses medicine for a dying baby, or bombs abortion clinics. William James and John Dewey argued that a belief is true only if it is useful to hold that belief. That’s strange. If we could choose what to believe, lie detectors would be useless. The axe murderer could decide that he was playing Scrabble at the time. Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.—Francis Bacon Man is what he believes.—Anton Chekkov

Origins of Beliefs: I Some beliefs are formed despite the flimsiest of evidence. People watch a televised trial and become certain which party is lying. They hear an interview and assume they have direct access to the respondent’s inner thoughts. They buy a lottery ticket and make vacation plans. He sees her breasts jutting out underneath a flimsy top and becomes convinced he’s found a lifetime soul mate. Young children do not make such mistakes. They use the best evidence available to them, the words of their parents or other caretakers. Adults too should generally trust authorities. I believe that the earth is round and smaller than the twinkly things that light up the night sky—not because I was clever enough to deduce those facts on my own, but because others told me so. Authorities have also convinced me that enormous reptiles once roamed the earth and Saudi Arabia gets hot. But the public and private beliefs of many authority figures do not always correspond, as when prominent athletes and movie stars hawk products or politicians speak. Even sincere educated guesses may be far off the mark. See Appendix 1 for a few predictions and proclamations by experts.1

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One result of blind trust in authorities is that everybody develops false beliefs. Children hear about a fairy who exchanges money for teeth and a fat man laden with presents who slides down chimneys, and they believe. Many, probably most, also incorporate their parents’ religious and philosophical convictions. As they grow older—often within a few years of being disabused of the reality of Santa Claus but before learning the multiplication table—they become certain about what happens after we die and which one particular bible, of more than 1,000 available around the world, speaks the literal truth. From then on, they expend little more cerebral energy on developing and evaluating the religious and philosophical convictions that are at the core of their being than on “Eggs or cereal?”

Persistence of Beliefs The baffling problem is not how beliefs originate but why so many persist in the face of powerful evidence that they are wrong. Belief perseverance deserves to rank among the fundamental laws of nature.  —F.C.S. Schiller2

Information is weighted more strongly when it appears early in a series. People formed a more positive impression of someone described as “intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious” than when given the same words in reverse order.3 Jones had participants watch one of two videotapes of a woman taking an intelligence test. In each video, the woman answered the same number of questions correctly and got the same number wrong. But when most of her correct answers came in the beginning and most wrong near the end, she was judged more intelligent than when she got the most correct at the end.4 In New York City elections, the candidate listed first on the ballot was elected more than 70% of the time.5 Religious and philosophical beliefs, typically formed early in life, are especially hard to change. Ideas that require people to reorganize their picture of the world provoke hostility. —James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science

Other People Have Weird Beliefs Do you believe that Jesus turned water into wine, walked on water, and rose from the dead? Did God turn Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt? Do you stick pins into dolls of your enemy? Are you convinced that pairs of each of the millions of animal

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species assembled and sailed peacefully in an ark? Will you be reincarnated? If you are a man who dies a martyr, will seventy-two virgins welcome you to paradise? If you answered “No” to at least one of the questions—and has anyone ever lived who would give “Yeses” across the board—how do you account for the “Yeses?” Are they lying? Ignorant savages? Psychotic? Stupid? Delusional? Undoubtedly each category is represented, but there must be a more inclusive explanation. Psychologists have made some progress in understanding how false beliefs are maintained. One reason is that people frequently ignore or even actively avoid information that would challenge any of their long-held and cherished beliefs. Francis Bacon said, “The human understanding, when it has once adopted an opinion … draws all things else to support and agree with it. Though there may be (more) instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects or despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects.” When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.—Henny Youngman

Examples of False Belief Perseverance Nissani and Hoefler-Nissani gave subjects with Ph.D. degrees in science an instructional manual that included a deliberately incorrect formula for determining the volume of a sphere. They then gave the subjects a sphere and asked them to determine its volume: first by using the formula and then by filling the sphere with water, transferring the water to a box, and directly measuring the volume of the water in the box. They repeated the comparison between the two volume measurements a second time with a larger sphere. All but one of the 19 scientists clung to the spurious formula despite their direct observations.6 Belief perseverance often affects courtroom decisions. Mock trial settings show that damaging testimony may convince a jury to convict—even if it is later shown, beyond any doubt, that the testimony was false.7 The 2016 U.S. Presidential election and its aftermath provide many examples of false belief perseverance. Chicago Tribune reporter Eric Zorn listed several persistent false beliefs held by many Americans.8

• In 2010, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 31% of Republicans

believed that President Barack Obama had been born outside the United States. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, a 2017 Economist/YouGov poll showed that 42% still believed so. • Donald Trump charged that millions of people had voted illegally in the election. Although no evidence was produced supporting the allegation, 46% of respondents said they thought it was definitely or probably true.

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• The number of people without medical insurance fell to historic lows under the Affordable Care Act. Still, 31% of respondents said it had increased.

• Katharine Hayhoe called climate change deniers dismissives, “because a dis-

missive person will dismiss any evidence, any arguments with which they’re presented, because dismissing the reality of climate change and the necessity for action is such a core part of their identity that it’s almost like asking them to cut off an arm.”9 • Jeremiah Bohr used data from four national surveys conducted when several U.S. regions experienced temperatures at least five degrees Fahrenheit above or below the average temperature for the previous three decades. The temperature anomalies increased polarization of beliefs. During very cold or very warm periods, Democrats were more likely, Republicans less likely, to attribute global warming to human activity.10 • Seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. Yet a March 2017 CBS News poll found that only 40% of respondents agreed. Respondents’ beliefs reflected their party affiliation: 67% of Democrats but only 13% of Republicans believed that Russia meddled in the election.11 I once taught a course called Altered States of Consciousness. Most of the students believed in the existence of states in which the normal laws of physics don’t apply. My co-teacher, also a believer, arranged for the class to meet a man reputed to have special powers. He put on a great show. He seemed to read people’s minds, and he accurately guessed the owners of various objects. We had an entertaining evening. The following day I told the class that I had read several manuals describing his tricks. The man was a skilled magician, but he had no supernatural powers. I admitted that one of his tricks had baffled me. When asked to indicate their conclusions, 17 of the 18 students argued that my inability to explain the one trick showed that the man really had special powers. (My colleague didn’t commit himself.)

Reasons for Belief Perseverance 1. We often need to believe we can do something to do it successfully, and the overconfident are seen as more competent and gain higher social status.12 Jadrian Wooten and Ben Smith looked at Twitter accounts for sports prognosticators; confidence was much more important than accuracy in generating followers.13 Feltz reported a significant correlation between self-confidence and success in sports performance.14

b e l i ef s  | 11

A widely held stereotype is that men are better than women in mathematics. Girls rate their abilities markedly lower than boys even when there is no observable difference between the two. Lara Perez-Felkner wrote that “…those confidence levels influence the math and science courses students choose later in high school. It influences whether they choose colleges that are strong in certain science majors. It also influences the majors they intend to pursue and the majors they actually declare and continue on with in degrees and potential careers.”15 Another stereotype is that Asians are better in math than people of other races. So Shih and colleagues recruited Asian women and asked some to identify their gender on a form before taking a math test. The reason was to prime them to think of gender. They reminded other volunteers, selected at random, about their Asian heritage. Some received no priming. Then all were given a math test. Of the three groups, Asian-primed participants performed best and female-primed participants performed worst.16 2. Placebos, substances without specific activity for the condition being treated, are sometimes called sugar pills but can involve any form of sham treatment. Typically in drug studies, 30% and often more of patients who receive placebos improve—but only if the patients believe in them. Kevin Foster and Hanna Kokko argued that superstitious behavior—the incorrect belief in a cause/effect relationship—may sometimes be beneficial. For instance, the usually false belief that rustling grass signified a predator nearby might have caused a prehistoric human to flee upon hearing rustling. But “if a group of lions is coming there’s a huge benefit to not being around.” All animals must balance the cost of being right with the cost of being wrong. As long as the cost of believing a superstition is less than the cost of missing a real association, superstitious beliefs will persist.17 False beliefs can also harm. Bruce Grierson summarized several studies headed by Ellen Langer showing that widely accepted but possibly false beliefs can have serious negative impacts.18 For example, most people probably expect various mental and physical skills to decline sharply as they pass from middle- to old-age. So, in 1981 Langer assessed eight men in their 70s on measures of dexterity, grip strength, flexibility, hearing, vision, memory, and cognition. Although in good health, the men’s appearance and behavior seemed to reflect their ages. They did poorly on the measures, some were arthritically stooped, and two walked with canes. Langer drove them to a converted monastery designed to conjure the year 1959. Perry Como sang on a vintage radio, Ed Sullivan appeared on a black-andwhite TV, and the books and magazines were 1959-appropriate. From the time

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the men walked through the doors and throughout their five day stay, they were treated as if they were younger. They had to carry their belongings upstairs themselves. They were told to “make a psychological attempt to be the person they were 22 years ago.” Each day, as they discussed sports ( Johnny Unitas and Wilt Chamberlain) or “current” events (the first U.S. satellite launch) or dissected an old movie they had just watched, they spoke about the events in the present tense. There were no mirrors and no photos except portraits of their much younger selves. At the end of their stay, the formerly creaky seniors organized a spontaneous touch-football game. Upon retest, they outperformed a control group that had come earlier to the monastery but without imagining themselves back into the skin of their younger selves. They were suppler, showed greater manual dexterity, and sat taller. Even their sight improved. Independent judges said they looked younger. Alia Crum and Langer measured several physiological health variables in 84 female hotel room attendants who had the false belief that they rarely exercised. Then some were told that cleaning hotel rooms is good exercise that satisfies the Surgeon General’s recommendations for an active lifestyle. Others were not given this information. Although their behaviors did not change over the next four weeks, the informed group perceived themselves to be getting significantly more exercise than before. And, compared with the control group, they showed a decrease in weight, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index.19 Crum and colleagues had participants drink a 380-calorie milkshake. Some were told that it was a 620-calorie “indulgent” shake and others that it was a 140-calorie “sensible” shake. Their feelings of satiety were consistent with what they believed they were consuming rather than what they had actually consumed, and those who drank with an indulgence mindset had a dramatically steeper decline in the “hunger hormone” ghrelin than those with the mindset of sensibility.20 Andrew Wakefield authored a study suggesting that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines often cause autism. The paper was eventually retracted and Wakefield’s medical license revoked. A book he wrote was debunked. Nevertheless, the belief that he had created was resistant to change. The U.S. experienced a record 667 measles cases from 27 states in 2014—the greatest number of cases since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the disease eradicated in 2000. Phadke and colleagues concluded that vaccine refusals were to blame.21 Attempts to change behaviors caused by false beliefs often fail. Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler showed people information designed to debunk the myth that the flu vaccine can cause flu. It worked—belief in the myth was significantly reduced. But the correction also reduced intent to vaccinate among respondents with initially high levels of concern about side effects. Similarly, debunking myths

b e l i ef s  | 13

about the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine reduced some false beliefs but also reduced intentions to vaccinate. In related work, Nyhan and Reifler had subjects read mock news articles that included a misleading claim from a politician followed by a correction. The corrections frequently failed to reduce, and in several instances increased, misperceptions.22 Swire-Thompson and her colleagues also did a vaccine study. They showed adults one of two statements: “Vaccines cause autism” or “Donald Trump said that vaccines cause autism.” Trump supporters were much more likely to believe the second statement than the first. Afterward, all participants were told the results of a large-scale study that debunked the supposed vaccine-autism link. The study convinced them that claims of a link were untrue. But when retested a week later, their previous belief in the misinformation had returned. Swire-Thompson wrote, “People are likely to think that familiar information is true. So any time you retract it, you run the risk of making it more familiar, which makes that retraction actually less effective, ironically, over the long term.”23 Read more at https://phys.org/ news/2017-02-sources-affect-voters.html#jCp. 3. People who become aware that they have mutually incompatible beliefs typically experience discomfort that can be relieved only by changing one or more of them. But changing beliefs affects self-image as a person who generally has correct ones. Furthermore, beliefs interact with each other to form a complex web. Like tinted glasses, they affect the color of the entire landscape. The tendency to prefer beliefs that cohere well can lead to bias. Michael Huemer found that most people who believe that capital punishment deters crime dispute that innocent people are frequently convicted; and most people who disagree that capital punishment deters crime believe that many innocents are convicted. That is, even though the two beliefs are logically independent, most people believe either both positions that support capital punishment or both positions that undermine it.24 W. V. Quine wrote, “When a set of beliefs is inconsistent, at least one of the beliefs must be rejected as false; but a question may remain open as to which to reject. Evidence must then be assessed, with a view to rejecting the least firmly supported of the conflicting beliefs. But even that belief will have had some supporting evidence, however shaky; so in rejecting it we may have to reject also some tenuous belief that had helped to support it.” Quine also wrote that “…any statement can be held true, come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system.”25 Some beliefs are central to conceptions of who we are, how we should behave, and what happens when we die. Imagine the emotional turmoil in an adult

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disabused of the belief that the two people who nurtured him from infancy are his biological parents; or the normal-looking young married woman who, unable to get pregnant, takes a physical and finds out that she is a genetic male. For a case study, see https://www.urotoday.com/volume-4-2011/vol-4-issue-3/48836-androgen-in sensitivity-syndrome-case-report-with-review-of-the-literature.html Some beliefs imply many others. For example, belief in infallibility of the Pope implies that abortion is wrong, assisted suicide is wrong, and sex outside marriage is wrong. Giving up on a central belief—one related to religion, country of birth, race, gender, occupation, life partner, and so forth—involves a much greater cognitive overhaul than changing a peripheral one. It may require an entire reevaluation of life, which at least partially explains why so many people are hostile to the theory of evolution; acceptance would require renunciation of years of Sunday school lessons. So, although 98% of scientists connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science say they believe humans evolved over time, many Americans disagree. According to a Pew Research Center Study, 34% of U.S. adults believe that humans have always existed in their present form and only 33% believe that humans and other living things evolved solely due to natural processes; 25% say that evolution was guided by a supreme being.26 If a fact comes in that doesn’t fit into your frame, you’ll either not notice it, or ignore it, or ridicule it, or be puzzled by it—or attack it if it’s threatening.—George Lakoff27

Westen and colleagues studied 15 Democrats and 15 Republicans during the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. The subjects read fabricated evidence, some favorable and some unfavorable, about candidates George Bush and John Kerry. Even though the evidence was presented equally, subjects twisted evidence against their candidate to make it favorable and evidence favorable to the opposing candidate to make it unfavorable. Their reasoning was associated with changes in several brain areas.28 Kuklinski and Quirk gave volunteers a set of facts about federal welfare programs, then asked for their opinions about two welfare policy issues. Many started the sessions holding highly inaccurate beliefs, and the least informed were most confident in their answers. They tended to maintain their original opinions even after being presented with contradictory facts.29

Group Differences in Belief Perseverance Swire-Thompson and her colleagues had participants consider various statements, some unattributed and some attributed to Donald Trump, some true and some false. When false statements were attributed to Trump, self-identified Republicans

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gave the statements, on average, a belief score of about six on a scale of 0-10. When the same statements were unattributed, the belief score fell to about 4.5 out of 10. When true statements were attributed to Trump, the average belief score given by self-identified Democrats was about six out of 10. Democrats gave the same unattributed statements an average belief score of about seven out of 10.30 Dan Kahan and colleagues called participants individualistic if they embraced new technology, authority, and free enterprise; and communitarian if they distrusted authority, commerce, and industry. Both groups read a study about global warming and were told that the solution is to regulate industrial pollution. Far more individualistics than communitarians were climate change deniers. But when nuclear power was offered as the solution, individualistics acknowledged that global warming is a serious problem and communitarians were less likely to acknowledge climate danger.31 Polarization increased with scientific literacy. The researchers wrote, “As ordinary members of the public learn more about science and develop a greater facility with numerical information, they become more skillful in seeking out and making sense of—or if necessary explaining away—empirical evidence relating to their groups’ positions on climate change and other issues.” John Ehrenreich cited frequently replicated findings: conservatives place a higher value than liberals on deference to tradition and authority. Thus, they have greater faith that what the president says must be true, even when facts seem to indicate otherwise.32 Conservatives are more likely than liberals to value stability, conformity, and order, and they have more difficulty tolerating novelty, ambiguity, and uncertainty. They are more sensitive to information suggesting the possibility of danger than to information suggesting benefits. So, they experience greater anxiety about social change and tend to believe tales of the dangers posed by immigrants. Their greater adherence to traditional sources of morality informs their belief that gay marriage is a threat to the traditional family. 4. People tend to look for evidence that supports their beliefs and remember it better than disconfirming evidence—which they fail to seek, forget, or ignore. See the Henny Youngman quote above. Others, not so humorously, say when confronted with unpleasant information, “I refuse to believe that…” The effect is strongest for emotionally charged issues and deeply entrenched beliefs. In his book Miracles, C.S. Lewis wrote that he knows only one person who has seen a ghost, and that person doesn’t believe in ghosts. His point was that if a person’s worldview does not allow for the existence of ghosts, then even seeing a ghost won’t convince the person of their existence.

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The Atlantic Magazine cited a study in which volunteers listened to very staticky speeches. Some were about smoking—either linking it to cancer or disputing the link—and some were attacks on Christianity. The subjects could press a button that reduced the static for a few seconds. Most smokers tuned in to the speech that suggested cigarettes might not cause cancer, whereas nonsmokers were more likely to press the button for the antismoking speech. The more-frequent churchgoers let the anti-Christian speech dissolve into static whereas the less religious typically gave the button a few presses.33 Selective memory can maintain beliefs. Believers and disbelievers in extrasensory perception (ESP) were each shown descriptions of ESP experiments. Half of each group were told that the experimental results supported the existence of ESP, and half were told they did not. In a subsequent test, believers who had read the non-supportive evidence remembered significantly less information than subjects in the other groups, and some of them incorrectly remembered the results as supporting ESP.34 Sanitioso and colleagues persuaded some subjects that introversion is more desirable than extraversion. Then the subjects were asked to generate autobiographical memories. They generated more introverted memories than did other subjects persuaded that extraversion is more desirable.35 Suppose I tried to convince you that Poseidon is Lord of the sea who, when sufficiently angered, strikes the ground with his trident to cause shipwrecks. Suppose I cited several water-related disasters as proof. My evidence would not be convincing. Just because certain observations are expected given a particular hypothesis, and they occur, does not prove the hypothesis. In fact, as discussed on pp. 181–183, any set of observations is compatible with an infinite number of alternative hypotheses. Yet people are reluctant to give up on cherished beliefs, so they tend to take non-discriminative data as confirmation. For most important issues, both sides can produce supportive reasons. Truth seekers should consider the counterarguments. Yet people tend to restrict their media coverage of issues to newspapers, magazines, and television shows that support their viewpoint; and they choose likeminded friends. Politically liberal people are more likely to read the New York Times as their information source, whereas political conservatives turn on Fox News. So, although both sides can call forth good reasons to defend their positions, they fail to realize that the other side also has good—and maybe even better—ones. At a later time, if the belief is questioned, the justifications are readily remembered but the counterarguments are not. Valdis Krebs analyzed book sales on Amazon.com. He found that, as a rule, people who buy conservative books buy only conservative books and people on the left buy only left-leaning books.36

b e l i ef s  | 17

Even though some vaccinated babies have developed autism, some people treated by faith healers have been healed, and some politicians are honest, the evidence is insufficient for making broad generalizations. But unfortunately, anecdotal arguments—arguments based on several uncontrolled cases or even a single case—can be powerful tools for creating and maintaining beliefs. And for controversial beliefs, anecdotes on both sides can usually be found. Jonathan Baron asked college students to list arguments concerning the topic “Are abortions carried out in the first day of pregnancy morally wrong?” Then they were given lists made by hypothetical other students and asked to evaluate the thinking of these students. Most subjects evaluated arguments as better when the arguments were all on one side than when both sides were presented, even when the student disagreed with the conclusion of the hypothetical subject. Subjects who favored onesidedness also tended to make one-sided arguments themselves. Baron suggested three possible reasons for the findings. First, people may confuse good thinking with expertise, and considering the other side may imply that expertise is lacking. Second, organized religions and certain other institutions promote the idea that seeing two sides is confusing. A third possibility is that people overextend the idea that commitment is a virtue.37 5. Beliefs can generate evidence. The cliché, “Seeing is believing,” can be turned on its head: “Believing is seeing.” Sports fans can probably recall several instances when the blind referee or umpire made a wretched call against their team. They might acknowledge that their friends, who favored the opposing team, thought the calls perfectly reasonable. In 1903, physicist Andre Blondlot announced his discovery of a new kind of ray that he called an N-ray. By 1906, at least 40 people including several eminent scientists had reported observing N-rays, and more than 300 scientific papers had described their properties. Then Blondlot gave a public demonstration. He placed a prism in the middle of several lenses and, with the room darkened (because N-rays are affected by light), he manipulated an apparatus to turn the prism. As the apparatus was moved, Blondlot’s assistant reported changes in the readings. But when the lights came back on, the audience saw physicist R.W. Wood in the front row with the prism in his hand. He had secretly removed it early in the demonstration. Yet the observers’ preconceptions had helped them “see” the nonexistent N-rays. Ellen Langer and Robert Abelson asked therapists to watch a video of a person being interviewed, who was labeled either “patient” or “job applicant,” and then evaluate the person. The therapists found the interviewee labeled “patient” significantly more disturbed.38

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6. We evaluate evidence more stringently if it conflicts with prior beliefs or is threatening. For example, smokers were less persuaded than nonsmokers by the Surgeon General’s report about the health risks of smoking. Ziva Kunda asked four groups of subjects—men and women, half of whom were heavy caffeine consumers and half light consumers—to read an article claiming that heavy caffeine use poses serious health dangers for women. The women heavy consumers, the only ones threatened by the article, were less convinced than any of the other groups.39 Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.—John Kenneth Galbraith

Kuhn gave subjects evidence inconsistent with a theory they favored. The subjects “either failed to acknowledge discrepant evidence or attended to it in a selective, distorting manner. Identical evidence was interpreted one way in relation to a favored theory and another way in relation to a theory that was not favored.”40 Conflicting evidence often strengthens prior beliefs. Psychologist Charles Lord and his colleagues gave fictitious reports to subjects who either favored or opposed capital punishment. Some reports indicated that capital punishment deters murder, others that it does not. Some reports compared murder rates in states with and without capital punishment; others considered data from states before and after the introduction of capital punishment. Each subject was given one report from each category. Subjects were more convinced by the report that agreed with their initial opinion and found more flaws in the other one. At the end, subjects in both groups tended to feel more certain of their prior convictions.41 Greitemeyer asked volunteers to indicate whether they believed that violent video games increase aggression. Then they were given two opposing summaries of fictitious studies on the effects of violent video play. Believers evaluated the study showing an effect more favorably than a study showing no effect, and skeptics evaluated in the opposite direction. Both believers and skeptics reported that they had become more convinced that their initial view was correct.42 Craig Anderson and his colleagues gave one group of subjects evidence that good firefighters are risk-takers and another group evidence that good firefighters take few risks. Subjects were then told that the evidence was totally made up. Nevertheless, they tended to believe what they were first told.43 The several studies point to an important conclusion: Increased knowledge does not necessarily increase consensus. People with different values draw different inferences from the same evidence. The information frequently drives beliefs to greater extremes.

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A syllogism is a logical argument in which a conclusion is inferred from two or more premises. A syllogism is valid if the conclusion always follows from the premises. (One or both premises may be false in a valid syllogism, in which case the conclusion may be true or false. But if all the premises are true, then a valid syllogism must lead to a true conclusion—at least, so goes the party line. But see p. 84 for dissenting opinions.) Evans and colleagues presented subjects with syllogisms of the form:44 No cigarettes are inexpensive. Some addictive things are inexpensive. Therefore, some addictive things are not cigarettes.

and: No addictive things are inexpensive. Some cigarettes are inexpensive. Therefore, some cigarettes are not addictive.

Both syllogisms are valid, but the first conclusion is plausible and the second is not. Subjects nearly always judged syllogisms with a plausible conclusion as valid; and judged most valid syllogisms with false conclusions invalid. In other words, an argument is likely to be accepted if it leads to a conclusion with which the reader agrees; and likely considered invalid if it leads to an unacceptable conclusion. 7. The universe is vast, possibly infinite, and cannot be fathomed by our tiny brains. But we’re built to try. So, the discovery of a possible relationship between variables that had seemed unrelated is hailed as discovery of THE relationship between them. The discovery of a possible cause for events of previously unknown origin is hailed as discovery of THE cause. We seek and find patterns even when there are none. We see a man in the moon, faces on Mars, and an entire nativity scene on a piece of toast. As noted above, superstitious behaviors may be maintained because the cost of seeing an erroneous pattern is small compared with the cost of failing to see a dangerous one. So, pattern-recognition systems tend to err on the side of caution, even more so when people believe that they are not in control of a situation. Whitson and Galinsky used various tricks to induce feelings of insecurity among groups of volunteers. The manipulations increased the likelihood that they would see false images, make links between unrelated events, create conspiracy theories, and accept superstitious rituals.45

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Stephen Gould wrote that “…the human mind operates primarily as a machine for recognizing patterns.” He added…”since we tend to misread any clumping within random sequences as a meaningful pattern with deterministic causes, our forecasts about the future of complex systems usually rest upon false extrapolations from causes proposed as explanations for truly random results.”46 The Draw-a-Person test is widely used by psychotherapists but based on a false belief in patterns such as that people who draw human faces with large eyes tend to be paranoid. Chapman and Chapman showed subjects a series of drawings that were randomly paired with a description of the personality characteristics of the individual who supposedly produced them. The subjects then estimated the correlations, in actuality zero, between various physical features and personality characteristics. Most subjects reported that people who drew large eyes are paranoid, and people who drew large genitals are concerned about their sexuality. Clinicians tend to believe in the same illusory correlations despite research showing otherwise.47 Consider a hypothetical example. You’re captured by terrorists who require you to play a game. They display 20 cards from an ordinary deck and indicate whether each card is good or bad. Then they turn over two more cards and ask you to classify them. If you misclassify either card, they’ll pull all your teeth. If you guess correctly, they’ll set you free along with a voucher good for a 20% discount at any Denny’s restaurant. Table 2.1 classifies the first 20 cards, with AS = ace of spades, KD = king of diamonds, and so forth. The next two cards are the 9C and 10C. You are asked where to put them. Would your future include edentation or a bargain meal? Table 2.1: Are the cards good or bad? Good

Bad

AS

KH

AC

8H

2S

AD

3C

2D

2C

6H

4S

4D

10C

5H

7C

10D

JS

JD

QC

QD

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If the above results had occurred naturally, without a smirking, no-account author behind the scene, the pattern would have seemed obvious. Black cards are good, red cards are bad. You would put both cards in the left column. But there are other possibilities—to be precise, an infinite number of them. For example, cards spelled with an “i” (any five, six, eight, nine, or king plus any diamond) are bad and all others are good. (So, 6C is bad and 7C is good.) Or, cards spelled with fewer letters than cards in the adjacent column are good and all others are bad. So, 6C is good, 7C bad. If you think the above contrived, that’s probably because our intellects can comprehend only the simplest of patterns. Addition and subtraction seem hopelessly complex to 2-year olds, and even the smartest dog can’t learn to parse a sentence. Nothing is so alien to the human mind as the idea of randomness.—John Cohen

I attended college in the Bible Belt of southwestern United States and took an ethics course taught by a Methodist minister. Many of his lectures were devoted to praise of the New Testament. I objected and became, in the strongest sense, the devil’s advocate. One day I related a famous incident wherein a theologian had said to Thomas Huxley that a philosopher is like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there. Huxley admired the metaphor, then added that the theologian would have found the cat. A perfect riposte. I laughed. Nobody joined in. My classmates and the teacher all agreed that it would have been better to find the cat, nonexistent though it was. I’ve told that story to friends and enjoyed their looks of astonishment. We felt superior to those unenlightened folks. We were mistaken. Everybody clings to irrational, unjustified beliefs. They make the world comprehensible, so they are rarely challenged. Reevaluation might lead to the realization that they are false. Prior actions based on false beliefs might be seen retroactively to have harmed loved ones. Apostasy is difficult, tantamount to acknowledging having blundered or been duped into accepting crucial elements of our existence that are not so. American schoolchildren are taught that savages from foreign countries sometimes torture their enemies, and that torture of prisoners of war is not the American way. So, many Americans refused to give credence to rumors that U.S. armed forces had engaged in repeated acts of torture toward detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. But the evidence eventually became overwhelming. The more important a belief, the more desperately it is clung to despite disconfirming evidence. Overall worldviews are especially resistant to change. Readers of books that challenge their fundamental beliefs should receive citations for bravery.

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Origins of Beliefs: II Beliefs originate from four fundamental sources. After several more introductory remarks, I discuss each source and end with a shocking conclusion. To provide inspiration for myself while writing this enormously unsettling material, I posted the story The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen over my work desk. Andersen’s emperor paraded before his subjects in what they were told were new clothes. They all remarked on the splendor of his apparel until a little boy said what was indisputable but had been unspeakable: the emperor was naked. Andersen’s message was that wishful thinking distorts reality and should be resisted. Like the little boy I wonder why others are silent. Like him, I do nothing more than state the obvious.

Notes 1. Because of space limitations, Appendices 1, 2, and 3 are much shorter than they could be. 2. In Beveridge, W. (1950) The Art of Scientific Investigation (p. 106). New York, NY: Norton. 3. Asch, S. (1946) Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41: 258–90. 4. Jones, E. (1968) Pattern of performance and ability attribution: An unexpected primacy effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10: 317–40. 5. Koppell, J. & Steen, J. (2004) The effects of ballot position on election outcomes. Journal of Politics, 66: 267–81. 6. Nissani, M. & Hoefler-Nissani, D. (1992) Experimental studies of belief-dependence of observations and of resistance to conceptual change. Cognition and Instruction, 9: 97–111. DOI:10.1207/s1532690xci0902_1 7. Loftus, E. (1975) Reconstructing memory: The incredible eyewitness. Jurimetrics Journal, 15: 188–93. 8. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-polling-ignorance-facts-trumpzorn-perspec-0106-md-20170105-column.html. 9. NPR, May 9, 2017. Interview of Katharine Hayhoe by Emily Atkin. 10. Bohr, J. (2017) Is it hot in here or is it just me? Temperature anomalies and political polarization over global warming in the American public. Climatic Change, DOI: 10.1007/ s10584-017-1934-z. 11. http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/326255-poll-voters-split-on-whether-rus sia-meddled-in-election. 12. Anderson, C. et al. (2012) A status-enhancement account of overconfidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103: 718–35. 13. Smith, B., & Wooten, J. (2013) Pundits: The confidence trick: Better confident than right? Significance, 10: 15–18.

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14. Feltz, D. (2007) Self-confidence and sports performance. In D. Smith & M. Bar-Eli (Eds.), Essential Readings in Sport and Exercise Psychology (pp. 278–94). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 15. Perez-Felkner, L. et al. (2017) How mathematics ability beliefs shape secondary and postsecondary course and degree field choices. Frontiers in Psychology, 8. DOI: 10.3389/ fpsyg.2017.00386. 16. Shih, M. et al. (1999) Stereotype susceptibility: Identity salience and shifts in quantitative performance. Psychological Science, 10: 80–83. 17. Foster, K. & Kokko, H. (2009) The evolution of superstitious and superstition-like behavior. Proceeding of the Royal Society B. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0981. 18. Grierson, B. (2014) What if age is nothing but a mind-set? https://www.nytimes. com/2014/10/26/magazine/what-if-age-is-nothing-but-a-mind-set.html. 19. Crum, A. & Langer, E. (2007) Mind-set matters: Exercise and the placebo effect. Psychological Science, 18: 165–71. 20. Crum, A. et al. (2011) Mind over milkshakes: Mindsets, not just nutrients, determine ghrelin response. Health Psychology, 30: 424-9. 21. Phadke, V. et al. (2016) Association between vaccine refusal and vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States: A review of measles and pertussis. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2016.1353. 22. Nyhan, B. & Reifler, J. (2015) Does correcting myths about the flu vaccine work? An experimental evaluation of the effects of corrective information. Vaccine, 33: 459–64; Nyhan, B. et al. (2014) Effective messages in vaccine promotion: A randomized trial. Pediatrics, 133: 2013-365. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2013-2365d. 23. Swire-Thompson, B. et al. (2017) Processing political misinformation—comprehending the Trump phenomenon. DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160802 Royal Society Open Science, rsos.royalsocietypublishing.or … /10.1098/rsos.160802. 24. Huemer, M. (2017) Why people are irrational about politics. http://www.owl232.net/irra tionality.htm. 25. Quine, W. (1951) Two dogmas of empiricism. The Philosophical Review, 60: 20–43. 26. http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/chapter-4-social-and-political-attitudes/. 27. https://www.marketplace.org/2017/04/18/economy/make-me-smart-kai-and-molly/ transcript-blog-trump-george-lakoff. 28. Westen, D. et al. (2006) Neural bases of motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional constraints on partisan political judgment in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18: 1947–58. 29. Kuklinski, J. & Quirk, P. (2000) Reconsidering the rational public: Cognition, heuristics, and mass opinion. In Lupia, A. et al. (Eds.), Elements of Reason: Understanding and Expanding the Limits of Political Rationality. London: Cambridge University Press. 30. Swire, B. et al. (2017) Processing political misinformation: Comprehending the Trump phenomenon. Royal Society Open Science, 4. DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160802. 31. Kahan, D. (2007) Culture and identity-protective cognition: Explaining the white male effect in risk perception. Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 101. http://digitalcommons.law. yale.edu/fss_papers/101.

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32. Ehrenreich, J. (2017) Why are conservatives more susceptible to believing lies? http://www. slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/11/why_conservatives_are_more_ susceptible_to_believing_in_lies.html. 33. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/this-article-wont-change-yourmind/519093/. 34. Russell, D. & Jones, W. (1980) When superstition fails: Reactions to disconfirmation of paranormal beliefs. Personality Social Psych Bull, 6: 83–8. 35. Sanitioso, R. & Niedenthal, P. (2006) Motivated self-perception and perceived ease in recall of autobiographical memories. Self and Identity, 5: 73–84. 36. https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21729730-rarely-do-they-succeedmany-writers-try-span-americas-political-divide. 37. Baron, J. (1995) Myside bias in thinking about abortion. Thinking and Reasoning, 1: 221–35. 38. Langer, E. & Abelson, R. (1974) A patient by any other name …: Clinician group difference in labeling bias. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42: 4–9. 39. Kunda, Z. (1990) The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108: 480-98. 40. Kuhn, D. (1989) Children and adults as intuitive scientists. Psychological Review, 96: 674–89. 41. Lord, C. (1979) Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37: 2098–109. 42. Greitemeyer, T. (2014) I am right, you are wrong: How biased assimilation increases the perceived gap between believers and skeptics of violent video game effects. http://journals. plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0093440. 43. Anderson, C. et al. (1980) The perseverance of social theories: The role of explanation in the persistence of discredited information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39: 1037–49. 44. Evans, J. et al. (1983) On the conflict between logic and belief in syllogistic reasoning. Memory and Cognition, 11: 295–306. 45. Whitson, J. & Galinsky, A. (2008) Lacking control increases illusory pattern perception. Science, 322: 115-17. DOI: 10.1126/science.1159845. 46. Gould, S. (1999) Questioning the Millennium. New York, NY: Harmony Books. 47. Chapman, L. & Chapman, J. (1969) Illusory correlation as an obstacle to the use of valid psychodiagnostic signs. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 74: 271–80.

chapter three

Philosophy

The study of philosophy can be defined as a critical inquiry into life, death, and the meaning of human existence. What could be more important! Yet serious philosophy books are rarely found at the top of best seller lists, and students in university philosophy courses don’t have to fight for the last seat in the classroom. Philosophy is to the real world as masturbation is to sex.—Karl Marx Philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.—Richard Feynman Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.—Ambrose Bierce

One reason for the lack of attention, as discussed above and below, is that unexamined and even incorrect beliefs may confer benefits. The belief that life has meaning promotes happiness—even if life has no meaning. Whether or not the universe is ruled by a loving God, faith in a higher power helps millions get through each day. In the event of tragedy, faith consoles. To envisage a recently deceased loved one in a better place, to anticipate a heavenly reunion someday, is analgesic. Pick up a book on how to cook seafood or make home repairs or solve algebra problems and, if you’re smart and read conscientiously, you will probably acquire a new skill. Not so if you read philosophy, and that’s a second reason why it generates

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so little interest. You will receive no definitive answers other than the author’s assurance that you are gaining wisdom. You will read compelling arguments of brilliant philosophers that conclusively prove that the compelling arguments of their brilliant contemporaries and predecessors were wrong. Not surprisingly, many people consider philosophy little more than sterile divertissement, just a sophisticated form of crossword puzzle. A third reason follows from the previous one: Many fields of human endeavor impact all society. Masterworks from the creative arts and science can electrify and transform. But philosophers, though they dance to ever more esoteric tunes, always return to the starting points: free-will/determinism, cha-cha-cha, knowledge of the external world, cha-cha-cha, the existence of God, cha-cha-cha. Philosophical debates have no apparent resolutions. The fourth and most important reason explains the previous two: There can be no better answers to the major philosophical problems than were given centuries ago. Plato and Pyrrho, both of whom lived before the birth of Christ, and Sextus Empiricus, who died in the third century A.D., showed that philosophical exploration meets impenetrable boundaries. But present-day philosophers keep trying to circumvent the barriers.

Radical Skepticism Plato wrote that we are like people in a cave with our backs to the entrance, facing a blank wall. The shadows of outside objects are all we know. Pyrrho and Sextus were even more emphatically skeptical; they concluded that trustworthy knowledge is beyond human capability. Their position is called radical skepticism. This book attempts to persuade readers of an astounding and extremely unsettling truth: Radical skepticism is the correct worldview. Even devout cynics believe some things more than others. They trust analytic chemistry more than weather forecasting. They know that the outcome of a single toss of a fair coin is uncertain but would gladly bet against heads turning up one hundred times in a row—and be sure of chicanery if it did. Radical skeptics, however, see no difference between analytic chemistry, weather forecasting, and Ouija boards, and they sneer at the cynics for being far too trusting. Some skeptics say that knowledge of God is impossible, some that we can never know other minds. Some are skeptical of rationality, some of perceptions. The most radical of them deny the possibility of any form of knowledge—except for the indisputable conclusion that we can’t know anything. They contend that a coin is no more likely to turn up heads than become a Rembrandt painting or Tucson, Arizona.

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Philosophers debate questions of morality, esthetics, and the proper criteria for evaluating scientific theories. Albert Camus thought they waste their time. Camus opened his Myth of Sisyphus with the sentence: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” To radical skeptics, Camus was naïve and all the problems including suicide are trivial. They reserve judgment about the certainty of death or that someone named Camus ever existed. Friedrich Nietzsche contended that philosophers must preach by example. Yet philosophers preach rationality and then ignore their most indisputable conclusions. They are intellectual frauds. Lawyers and politicians also frequently subvert valid arguments, but only philosophers are shameless about it. In being so, they undermine the claim that rationality plays a role in the struggle for wisdom. The guilty include many famous philosophers. For example: Tis evident, that so extravagant a Doubt as that which Scepticism may seem to recommend, by destroying every Thing, really affects nothing, and was never intended to be understood seriously, but was meant as a mere Philosophical Amusement.—David Hume Scepticism, while logically impeccable, is psychologically impossible, and there is an element of frivolous insincerity in any philosophy which pretends to accept it.  —Bertrand Russell

Stephen Toulmin offered advice on responding to skeptical arguments. “We may remain in philosophical shock, and contemplate them with a mere theoretical perplexity. We may try to think up even more ingenious logical devices, to circumvent them, and re-establish the validity of knowledge and arguments in other fields of experience. We may (like hard-nosed scientists) make them an excuse for ignoring philosophy entirely; or we may use them (like the storywriter Borges) as vehicles of literary fantasy. But one crucial thing we cannot do. We cannot take them at their face value, or accept their conclusions as having any serious practical relevance to our other purposes and affairs.” Toulmin’s position is cowardly and unacceptable—yet an accurate blueprint of my own schizophrenic existence. When my meager talents turn to philosophy, the road always leads to radical skepticism. Still, I expect the sun to rise tomorrow; and the seeds planted in my garden to turn into corn or zucchini; and the letters I type on the keyboard to display on the monitor. When sick, I visit my doctor and follow her instructions. I set the alarm clock each night, go to work, and know that the Cubs won’t win the World Series. (I wrote the last line in a previous book. Since then the Cubs won the World Series.) There are precedents for discounting the conclusions of rational thought. Phobics may know they are being irrational but still refuse to ride in an airplane or touch a plastic snake. Religious convictions may cause starving people to reject

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nutritious foods such as pork, shellfish, beef, or insects. Many people have fallen in love with others who, their rational minds tell them, are unmitigated disasters. So, what is the take home message from this book? There are only three possibilities, and the last two require a profound overhaul of worldview. Acceptance of either would leave us with no guidelines for behaving one way rather than another. The world would be completely unpredictable. I grant the implication—this book is an attempt to encourage others to help figure out what to do.

• My reasoning is flawed. One or more errors invalidate the conclusions. My PhD is not in philosophy and my knowledge of the literature is limited, so there may be some important omissions. But I’m convinced that there are no serious errors of reasoning. • Radical skepticism is correct. • We must give up on reasoning as a path to the truth. He who knows best knows how little he knows.—Thomas Jefferson The more I read, the more I meditate; and the more I acquire, the more I am able to affirm that I know nothing.—Voltaire

The Burden of Proof Although many philosophers agree with Bertrand Russell that skepticism is logically impeccable, they follow his lead and add that it is unworthy of serious consideration. On the other hand, the burden of proof should lie with whoever claims knowledge, not on skeptics to disprove the claims. Nobody has disproved the existence of ghosts or a twin planet to earth on the opposite side of the sun, but that doesn’t prove their existence. Similarly, even if arguments for skepticism were deficient, knowledge claims would be unjustified without positive evidence. As is shown in several places in this book, an infinite number of alternatives always exist to even the most persuasive inferences. The butler did not always do it, even when all available evidence points in his direction. Given the meagerness of our data amidst the vastness of time and space, the explanations we accept may represent nothing more than failure of the imagination. G.E. Moore argued that the radical skeptical position should be quashed at birth. He wrote that, if a seemingly sound argument leads to an implausible conclusion, the argument may not be sound after all. As an example, he gave the argument that he doesn’t know if his hands and body really exist. His refutation takes the following form: It’s intuitively obvious that my hands exist. The fact that

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they exist is much more obvious than the truth of any of the premises used in the argument that they don’t exist, so it makes more sense to believe that my hands exist than to accept the reasoning in the skeptical argument. Moore encouraged readers to search for errors in either the premises or the argument form. I agree, so every step leading to my outrageous conclusion should be carefully evaluated. I followed his advice, read and reread, diligently and deliberately, and am convinced—there are no serious flaws. (An observation that weakens Moore’s position is that 60 to 80% of individuals who have a limb amputated experience phantom sensations in the amputated limb. They have the sensation that the amputated limb is still attached. Phantom sensations may also occur in other body parts.)

Several Assumptions Underlie Almost All Claims to Knowledge Several assumptions underlie almost all claims to knowledge: (a) We can generally trust our senses. (b) We can generally trust our reasoning abilities. (c) There are laws of nature, i.e., certain unwavering regularities. (d) We can learn those laws. (e) The future will resemble the past. The assumptions should be recognized as such: statements accepted as true without proof. Chapters 9 and 11 show why to reject assumptions (a) and (b). Assumption (c) is probably satisfied. Life is full of regularities, and regularities— patterns—indicate that something lawful is going on. Trillions of my past predictions have been confirmed. I’ve eaten every day of my life and never been seriously poisoned (except on a few occasions when I’ve been the cook). My car usually starts, night reliably follows day, the seasons change on schedule, and children mature into adults. Even if my memories are all wrong, the faulty memories themselves show regularities; and whatever their origin, regularities imply laws. But assumption (d) cannot be justified. Although deep, eternal laws must exist, we don’t now, and never will, know any of them. The claim is sometimes made that great writers such as Shakespeare reveal universal truths. Okay, name one. A minor problem is that context must always be considered. Water boils at 100 degrees centigrade, but only at sea level. Drug effects depend on the physiological characteristics and experiential histories of recipients. Evolution by natural selection gave rise to humans, but not on Jupiter. To begin to appreciate the more serious problem, consider: The nearest star to our sun is about 24

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trillion miles away. Our Milky Way galaxy has billions of stars and some are thousands of times larger than the sun. As many as 100 million places in the Milky Way galaxy alone might support life above the microbial level.1 In 1999 the Hubble Space Telescope estimated that there were 125 billion galaxies. A German super-computer simulation estimated 500 billion with the nearest about 10,200,000,000,000,000,000 miles away. A recent study suggested that there are 300 sextillion stars (3 followed by 23 zeros).2 The speed of light is somewhat over 186,000 miles per second, so light travels from the earth to the moon in about 1.3 seconds. Yet a light beam would take about 14 billion years to travel from one end to the other of the known universe. Some people may conceive effortlessly of a universe infinite in size and duration, and they may with equal ease imagine a universe with boundaries. Both possibilities strike me as wildly improbable, yet I can’t even conceive of a third alternative. With that in mind, only the leap from our infinitesimally tiny part of the universe to claims about eternal and universal laws seems preposterous. How can anyone look at the following images and continue to believe that earthlings have discovered universal laws?

Figure 3.1: Earth compared with other planets

Figure 3.2: Jupiter and other planets compared with sun

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Figure 3.3: Sun compared with Arcturus

Figure 3.4: Arcturus compared with Betelguese and Antares

The last assumption is also without merit. Lacking any proof that the future will resemble the past, there is no basis for using past observations to justify future expectations. And proof is beyond reach. David Hume wrote, “All inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past… If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future, since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance.”

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In other words, attempts at justifying induction rely on the very thing they are trying to prove. C. D. Broad called inductive reasoning—generalizing from observations—the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy. Bertrand Russell agreed: “That Hume’s problem of induction remained unsolved two centuries later is a scandal for philosophy.”3 And justifications of deduction fare no better. See p. 83. So, as readers will see, all reasoning as well as all empirical information is suspect. The inability to justify assumptions (d) and (e) is the theme of this book and the human condition. For any set of data, there is not just one possible law, one unique explanation, which fits. There is an infinite number. See discussion starting on p. 176.

Notes 1. Irwin, L. et al. (2014) Assessing the possibility of biological complexity on other worlds, with an estimate of the occurrence of complex life in the Milky Way Galaxy. Challenges, 5: 159. DOI: 10.3390/challe5010159. 2. Van Dokkum, P. & Conroy, C. (2010) A substantial population of low-mass stars in luminous elliptical galaxies. Nature, 468: 940–2. 3. Other philosophers have also been scandalized. Kant thought it a scandal that we accept the existence of things outside ourselves with no proof. Martin Heidegger responded, “The scandal of philosophy is not that the proof is yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again.” John Searle was scandalized that philosophers have made so little progress on the problem of free will.

chapter four

Certainty, Likelihood, and Probability

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.—Voltaire1 Inquiry is fatal to certainty.—Will Durant2

Science fiction writer/chemist Isaac Asimov offered a rebuttal of radical skepticism.3 He argued that right and wrong are not absolute, that some things are more right than others. He gave an example of two grade school students asked to spell “sugar.” According to Asimov, “shuger” would be more right than “pqzzf.” He noted that Newton’s theories of motion and gravitation were very close to right; they would have been absolutely right if the speed of light were infinite, that is, if light took zero seconds rather than 0.0000000033 seconds to travel a meter. Einstein’s theory corrects for the speed of light, so it replaced Newton’s. Newton’s theory was wrong as all scientific theories are ultimately wrong, but only minutely. And when Einstein’s theory is inevitably overthrown, the correction will be even smaller. Asimov conceded that scientists can never be absolutely certain. Still, he claimed that routine accuracy of more than 99% is achieved in many disciplines; and that, although specific predictions may turn out false, we can be certain about many broad classes of events. For example, the air we breathe is comprised of about 20% oxygen. Molecules move randomly, so all the oxygen molecules in a room could conceivably migrate to the ceiling and leave the occupants in a suffocating

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atmosphere. But it’s highly improbable that even a single living creature in the entire history of our planet ever suffocated in that manner. Many people consider themselves highly skeptical. They distrust politicians, television commercials, and claims of innocence from athletes accused of using steroids. Popular use of the term “skeptical” connotes worldliness and lack of gullibility. If we weren’t at least moderately skeptical, we’d have closets overflowing with shampoos, laundry detergents, and lite beer, each superior to the rest. Still, most “skeptics” should be sued for misappropriating the term. They aren’t skeptical in the philosophical sense, in the sense that Asimov was criticizing, because they don’t take their (non)belief to its logical extreme. Some open-minded readers may be unconvinced by Asimov’s position and willing to acknowledge the possibility that the world is very different from how it appears. Having acknowledged, they recite the cliché “Nothing is certain but death and taxes” and blithely move on. My goal is to end blitheness. Although the above cliché refers only to future events—people must pay taxes and inevitably die—lack of certainty applies equally to the past and present. The following chapters will show that the only certainty is that certainty is never justified. But if you concede the point, you’re on the road to radical skepticism. Even your own origin will be in doubt. So, struggling to keep a straight face, perhaps you’ll acknowledge that “The infinitesimal possibility exists that I was the sole survivor of an explosion that destroyed my home planet Krypton; that my loving father placed me in an escape rocket and sent it to the planet Earth; and when I’m mature enough (in Krypton years) to handle the responsibility, my amnesia will be reversed and my amazing though latent super powers will be revealed to me.” If you’re still straight-faced, consider this. To accurately compute the probability of dangerous molecular movements, scientists assume many certainties. That is, they invoke much prior knowledge. Otherwise, probability calculations would be impossible. In the words of C.I. Lewis: “Unless something is certain, nothing else is even probable.” And again, “the immediate premises are, very likely, themselves only probable, and perhaps in turn based upon premises only probable. Unless this backward-leading chain comes to rest finally in certainty, no probability-judgment can be valid at all.”4 In other words, we assess probability by using evidence that itself has a probability relative to further evidence. Without some certainty to rest on, probability cannot be assessed. In calculating the probability of getting two sixes on a roll of dice, it is assumed among many other things that (a) the dice are fair; (b) the roll is fair; (c) the numbers that come up on the two die are independent of each other; (d) the probability of a six coming up on one die is 1/6; and (e) the probability of two independent events occurring simultaneously is the product of their independent probabilities. If any of the assumptions are wrong, so is the final probability.

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Hans Reichenbach disagreed with Lewis.5 He claimed that probabilities can be computed without any underlying certainty. The two men carried on a lengthy debate, both public and private, that continued until Reichenbach’s death in 1953. Neither man ever convinced the other and, even today, philosophers disagree about who was right. Nevertheless, even if Reichenbach was right and some probabilities can be computed, the most important ones cannot. Imagine the following hypothetical discussion: Logician:

The probability of ever finding a bald-headed man with hair is zero. You (in training to be a lawyer): Here comes a bald-headed man. He’s got hair on his face, chest, arms, legs, genitals, and even coming out of his nose and ears. Logician: True, but when I said hair I meant specifically and exclusively hair on the head. You, undeterred: Okay, but when I look at his scalp through a powerful magnifying glass, I see several tiny hairs. Logician: I’ll define my terms more carefully. Totally baldheaded men have no hair at all on their heads. Partially baldheaded men have microscopic hairs. I restrict the discussion to totally bald-headed men. You, creatively: Here’s a totally bald-headed man. I’ll give him a toupee. Logician: More refinement is needed. The probability of ever finding a totally bald-headed man with his own hair (not reattached from an earlier, more hair-prosperous time) is zero. You: Okay, I agree. But who cares?

Call a totally bald-headed, nontoupeed, hairy man Case 1. If we accept the conventional laws of reasoning, Case 1 is a logical impossibility. It is self-contradictory. The probability of ever finding such a man is zero. Now consider two more cases. Case 2: Case 3:

What is the probability of tossing a fair coin two times and having it come up heads twice? What is the probability of tossing a fair coin 1,000 times and having it come up heads each time?

Although the likelihood of occurrence of Case 3 is vanishingly small, the likelihood is not zero. Thus, it is more like Case 2 than Case 1. Exact probabilities can be computed for both (although, as just discussed, they can’t be trusted; there is no underlying certainty). Now one final case: Case 4: What is the probability that you were the sole survivor of an explosion that destroyed your home planet Krypton? How likely is it that your loving father placed you in an escape rocket and sent it to the planet Earth; and that, when you’re mature enough (in Krypton years) to handle the responsibility, your amnesia will be reversed and your amazing though latent super powers will be revealed to you.

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Case 4 differs from Cases 2 and 3 in that its probability can’t be computed. Nevertheless, it has more in common with them than with the logically impossible (probability of zero) Case 1. The probability of Case 4 might be infinitesimally small—or it might not be—but it is not zero. Any logically possible event has a greater than zero chance of occurring. How much greater? There is no formula for computing. Not even Pat Robertson or the Pope knows. On pages 132–134 I conclude with an alternative account to the traditional one about the fate of President John Kennedy. You may consider it entirely frivolous. Even if you are a conspiracy theorist who believes there was more than one assassin, you are probably certain that Kennedy was assassinated. Although you might be willing to (grudgingly, with great reluctance) concede the (extremely remote) possibility that he’s alive and well, in fact you have no idea what the odds are. What is the probability that your next door neighbor or close friend, the one you’ve had over for dinner, who has baby sat your children, who was maid of honor/best man at your wedding, is a serial killer? Al Qaeda terrorist? Participant in a witness protection program? Of the other gender from what you think? CIA spy? Polygamist? Embezzler? You may say zero, but people just like you have been stunned to find out otherwise. The best spies do not look like Sean Connery in his prime, bench press 500 pounds, and drink double martinis, shaken, not stirred. Their friends would swear they couldn’t do anything requiring brains or skill or guts. Then, even if they get caught, allowances are made. But ossifer, I dint know this here place wuz jes fer soldiers. I thot it might be mighty fine fer huntin. Hope I dint inconvenience no-one.

Following are a few statistics and other matters of note: Since 1982, 54% of mass shootings in the U.S. were committed by white men, many of whom had been abused as children. Most shared several other characteristics: They enjoyed setting fires and hurting animals, were fascinated by guns, had a sadistic streak, and lacked compassion. Mike Aamodt explored a database that, as of September 4, 2016, contained information on 4,743 serial killers.6 The typical psychological profile was similar to that of the mass shooters. But many of both groups did not fit the profile; and many who fit have led pretty normal lives. Homicide archivist Thomas Hargrove estimated that two thousand serial killers are at large in the U.S.7 The key takeaway is that psychologists can’t predict who will go on to become a mass murderer—and that includes you and your nextdoor neighbor. Following are four descriptions of men who were mass murderers:8 Harold Shipman was a successful professional (a general practitioner working for the National Health Service). He was considered a pillar of the local community, won a professional award for a children’s asthma clinic, and was interviewed

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by Granada Television’s World in Action. Dennis Nilsen was an ex-soldier turned civil servant and trade unionist who had no previous criminal record when arrested. Vlado Taneski was a career journalist. Russell Williams was a successful and respected career Royal Canadian Air Force Colonel. Before they were exposed, it’s likely that their neighbors would have said, “I grant the possibility that he’s a serial killer but the probability is infinitesimally low.” Gene Abel estimated that between 1% and 5% of our population molest children.9 Charles Montaldo wrote that pedophiles can be anyone—old or young, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, non-professional or professional, and of any race. Most are neighbors, teachers, coaches, members of the clergy, music instructors, babysitters, and family members.10 Ernie Allen said, “There are 400,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, and an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 of them are missing. They’re supposed to be registered, but we don’t know where they’re living.”11 The Espionage Database Project tabulates data on all American citizens who are known, from publicly available sources, to have betrayed their country. The project identified 150 cases of citizens who committed espionage against the United States since the beginning of the Cold War in the late 1940s. Most were men, married, white, heterosexual, and born in the U.S. Nothing about them seemed extraordinary.12 Marquet International, Ltd. studied more than 2,000 major embezzlement cases over a recent five year period. Most embezzlers were trusted employees who had worked for the organization for years. Two-thirds were women, and only 4% had a criminal history.13 Given the preceding, what makes you immune from the possibility that your colleague/classmate/best friend/cousin has committed or is about to commit some dastardly crime? What gives you the right to say that JFK, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is not alive and well? More to the point, what gives you the right to say that there is only a shadow of a doubt that he is alive and well? To be certain that something is true, we must be equally certain that other things—in fact, an infinite number of other things—are false. If Kennedy was assassinated, then he didn’t cut a deal with Oswald or anyone else. Martians didn’t abduct him or inhabit his body. He didn’t have a sex change operation or develop the ability to make himself invisible. So, read the following chapters to appreciate that certainty, and thus even probability, is beyond our grasp. You might even accept the skeptical argument in its strongest form: EVERYTHING we think we know is probably false, since our assumptions are selected from an infinite pool of alternatives. One more takeaway: Stay away from Kryptonite.

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Notes 1. www.quotationspage.com/quote/33103.html. 2. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/will_durant_154365. 3. Asimov, I. (1989) The relativity of wrong. The Skeptical Inquirer, 14: 35–44. 4. Lewis, C. (1952) The given element in empirical knowledge. Philosophical Review, 61: 168–75; Lewis, C. (1929) Mind and the World Order: An Outline of a Theory of Knowledge. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 5. Reichenbach, H. (1952) Are phenomenal reports absolutely certain? The Philosophical Review, 61: 147–59. 6. Aamodt, M. G. (2016, September 4) Serial killer statistics. http://maamodt.asp.radford. edu/serial killer information center/projectdescription.htm. 7. Wilkinson, A. (2017) The serial-killer detector. The New Yorker, November 27. 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer. 9. Abel, G. (2012) CNN Specials Transcript #454-Thieves of Childhood. 10. Montaldo, C. https://www.thoughtco.com/profile-of-pedophile-and-common-character istics-973203. 11. Allen, E. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jessicas-law-eyes-sex-offenders/. 12. http://www.wrc.noaa.gov/wrso/security_guide/numbers.htm. 13. http://www.mlrpc.com/articles/twice-as-many-women-are-embezzlers-as-men/.

chapter five

The Four Supposed Pillars of Knowledge

Four separate pillars help us to (seemingly) understand the world. That is, everything we (think we) know comes from one of only four sources. (A fifth but trivial source, awareness of bodily states and mood, was discussed above.) Immanuel Kant proposed one source. He argued that some knowledge is innate. Instinct theorists and people who believe that psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia are inherited diseases are, at least to some extent, Kantians. Studies within the past two decades show that newborn babies know and can do a great deal. Kant would have been pleased. Religious faith is a second pillar. People of faith are told who created the world, when He did it (in some religions, to the day and almost always by a He), and what happens when we die. They are taught when and how to pray, how to dress, what not to eat and drink, which books to read, movies to watch, music to listen to, and the appropriate circumstances and positions for having sex. Reason is a third pillar. We use our reasoning abilities to figure things out. Whereas mindless animals experience only an endless succession of random stimuli, humans discern patterns. We use mathematics and logic to advance from simple observations to complex deductions. The fourth pillar is sensory data. We interact with the world through the five classical senses (vision, hearing, taste, and smell, and touch). The naïve view is that we observe, and then we know. Seeing is believing. Ha!

chapter six

Pillar 1: A Priori Knowledge

John Locke had maintained that the minds of newborns are like blank slates. In his view, all our ideas and everything we know comes from our interactions with the world. Gottfried Leibniz disagreed. He said that people are born with certain innate ideas. Empirical evidence is not needed to know that 1 + 1 = 2 or to recognize that various statements from logic, metaphysics, and morals are true. Immanuel Kant, born 20 years after Locke’s death in 1704, also disagreed. Kant claimed that certain beliefs, such as “God exists” and “Every event has a cause,” precede experience. Recent sophisticated experiments have shown that even six-month old babies act as though they understand connections between causes and effects.

The Case for Innate Knowledge In Don Marquis’s Tales of Archy and Mehitabel, Archy the cockroach pities humans because they are born ignorant and must struggle to learn the ways of the world. Archy says that insects are born knowing all they need to know. Archy would have approved of Kant. Jack London’s short story To Build a Fire is another fictionalized account that emphasizes the value of innate knowledge. The protagonist, accompanied by his dog, sets out in freezing weather to visit his friends. Trusting in his ability to protect himself from the cold with fire, he tries three times to build one.

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But all are soon extinguished and he freezes to death. The dog eventually trots off toward shelter. The dog’s innate knowledge saved it whereas the man’s confidence in information gained from others, along with his logic and reason, doomed him. Noam Chomsky argued that human environments are extremely variable. So, humans must be born with a universal innate grammar that enables babies and very young children to rapidly learn complex languages. There are structural differences between Germanic, Romance, Oriental, and Arabic languages, but children adapt to whatever environments they are born into. Chomsky wrote, “It’s perfectly obvious that there is some genetic factor that distinguishes humans from other animals and that it is language-specific.”1 The term self-transcendence refers to spiritual feelings independent of traditional religion. Self-transcendent people tend to see everything, including themselves, as part of one great totality. Geneticist Dean Hamer administered a test that measures self-transcendence, and he also sequenced DNA samples from 1,000 subjects. One variation of one gene showed a statistically significant correlation with high scores on the self-transcendence test. From this he concluded that a tendency toward religious faith is innate.2 Biologist Edward Wilson also argued that religious beliefs are innate. He wrote, “The predisposition to religious belief is … in all probability an ineradicable part of human nature.”3 If our minds at birth were clean slates, every neuron in a network would have the same probability of connecting to every other neuron, depending on specific individual experiences. But Markram and Perin, working with rats, found that clusters of neurons in the neocortex connected in highly predictable and constrained ways. Their data suggest that the basic features are similar for all animals belonging to the same species; and that they are building blocks that contain a kind of innate knowledge.4 Neuropsychologist Michael Persinger might consider himself a Kantian. Persinger patented a helmet that, when placed on the head, delivers pulses of electromagnetic radiation to the brain’s temporal lobes. Subjects sitting in a soundproofed chamber and stimulated in these areas experienced powerful mystical visions, so Persinger inferred that mystical knowledge is stored in the temporal lobes. Many of the approximately 1,000 people he stimulated reported being in contact with and directly perceiving individuals such as Elijah, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Mohammed, UFOs, and the Sky Spirit.5 Journalists dubbed his device “The God Machine.” But, among other problems, the variety of envisioned “Gods” strongly suggests that the experience is a product of the subjects’ cultures and prior beliefs, not a glimpse of ultimate reality. Other seemingly direct pipelines to knowledge include powerful drugs, chanting, and meditation. They may be intense, but trustworthy they are not. Hold

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hands with someone you love while listening to soft music and gazing into a misty moonlit night. Let your mind float dreamily. You may experience the overpowering feeling that all God’s creatures are part of a cosmic whole. You may sneer at the sterile rationalism that pales before your newfound wisdom. But then read about Auschwitz or Hiroshima or Syria or Darfur. Step onto the killing fields of Cambodia, see the street children in Brazil, take a trip to Baghdad, or visit the site where New York’s twin towers once stood.

All the Above Is Irrelevant All the above is irrelevant to the issue of radical skepticism. Skeptics question the correctness of beliefs, not their origins. As will be discussed later, the postulated innate belief that God exists is incorrect; and many quantum physicists dispute that every event has a cause. Newly hatched ducklings are Kantians. They “know” that the first moving object they see will be their mother, so they follow it. They imprint. But when nasty biologists came along and substituted objects like shiny balls or shoes, the ducklings followed those too. Their a priori “knowledge” was incorrect. One example Kant gave was that people have an inborn understanding of three-dimensional space. But scientists have since shown that the rules of Euclidean geometry, upon which the understanding is based, is wrong.

Notes 1. Chomsky, N. (1986) Knowledge of Language, Its Nature, Origin and Use. New York, NY: Praeger. 2. Hamer, D. (2005) The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired Into Our Genes. New York, NY: Anchor Books. 3. Wilson, E. (1979) On Human Nature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 4. Markram, H. & Perin, R. (2011) Neural Circuits. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2011.00006; Perin, R. et al. (2011) A commentary on a synaptic organizing principle for cortical neuronal groups. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108: 5419–24. 5. Persinger, M. et al. (2010) The electromagnetic induction of mystical and altered states within the laboratory. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, 1: 808–30.

chapter seven

Pillar 2: Religious Faith

Certain types of faith, such as in one’s own abilities or a loved one’s good intentions, require evidence. The faith depends on observations (sensory data) and reason, two of the other (apparent) pillars of knowledge. Religious faith, by contrast, does not seem to require supporting evidence. But see below. Belief in a supreme being who can do anything and therefore can be invoked to explain anything is a—shall I say it—godsend. Referring specifically to religious faith, Bertrand Russell wrote, “When there is evidence, no one speaks of faith. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.” Faith is belief by decree. Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks, without knowledge, of things without parallel.—Ambrose Bierce

The faithful know the truth. Their bible, pastor, rabbi, imam, or personal mystical experience tells them so. Faith is not merely belief in the absence of evidence—it is belief despite evidence, it’s the antithesis of evidence, as when creationists discount overwhelming evidence for the theory of evolution. In other cases, evidence is superfluous—according to legend, all that’s needed to convert an atheist is a foxhole. That’s peculiar, as people normally seek evidence whether serving on juries, investing in stocks, or choosing nectarines. If new evidence supplants

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the old, they typically discard or amend their beliefs. If they bet on a wrong horse, literally or figuratively, they revise betting criteria. Few twenty-first century people still believe that the earth is flat (okay, maybe some Republican senators), bad air causes malaria, or burning materials release phlogiston. But unfortunately, as discussed above, many beliefs are highly resistant to change.

The Origins of Religious Faith Humans are born with active brains. Within days after birth, helpless infants recognize the caretakers who provide food, warmth, and shelter. Just a few hours after birth, infants imitate adults’ smiles, frowns, and other expressions. Given a choice, babies gaze longer at a picture of their mother’s face than at the face of a female stranger. They turn their heads toward a pad containing their own mother’s milk but not toward pads containing milk from other mothers. Even fetuses recognize their mother’s voice. In one study, 60 fetuses were played a two minute audiotape of either their mother or another woman reading a poem.1 The fetuses’ heart rates accelerated to their mother’s voice and decelerated to that of the stranger. Given their total dependence on caretakers, infants are primed to trust them. It isn’t surprising that when parents and other relatives, peers, community leaders, and humble servants of the church claim to know the truth, infants and young children accede. Obedience helps them learn social norms and avoid potential dangers. On the basis of various psychological tests he ran on children, Pascal Boyer wrote, “If you look at three- to five-year-olds, when they do something naughty, they have an intuition that everyone knows they’ve been naughty, regardless of whether they have seen or heard what they’ve done. It’s a false belief, but it’s good preparation for belief in an entity that is moral and knows everything. The idea of invisible agents watching you is highly attention-grabbing.”2 Richard Dawkins wrote, “Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival…. But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility.” The gullibility continues into adulthood and makes people susceptible to the assertions of people in positions of authority.3 Gervais and colleagues asked readers to imagine waking up hungry in a strange environment, surrounded by strange people, flora, and fauna. Suppose lots of people are eating small brown nuts from a local bush. They look healthy and strong. Others, gathering mushrooms, look to be struggling. Faced with the question of what to do in your new environment, should you gather nuts or mushrooms? Gervais et al. created the scenario to emphasize the enormous dependence of humans upon

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each other for information. Survival would be difficult if we were unable to tap into accumulated cultural knowledge about finding food, making shelters, cooking, and producing tools. We are more likely to trust older, skilled, prestigious, and successful models; in many communities, they are the religious leaders.4 Gervais et al. observed that most successful religions have three characteristics. They are potentially actionable, emotionally evocative, and plausible. A potentially actionable belief is one that can influence subsequent actions. For example, a belief that illnesses occur randomly does not lead to useful actions, so is not easy to maintain. Believing that illnesses are caused by the jealously of others can lead to inferences about who might be causing a particular illness and how such illnesses can be avoided. Religions with rituals that evoke strong reactions such as disgust, fear, and awe are most likely to be effective; as are those that offer plausible representations about how the world works. In addition to the three major characteristics, most successful religions are designed to inspire awe, fear, reverence, joy, trust, and/or security. They offer predictability and a sense of control. (Do X and good things will befall you, do Y and you will suffer.) The control is beyond normal cause and effect, so the religion provides something that can’t be obtained through other methods. Many religions introduce concepts like karma and justice in an afterlife that will correct current injustices. They inspire by informing adherents that there is a purpose to life. They typically have a strong narrative about their origin, in many cases involving heroic figures. Their messages are somewhat flexible, so they can be appropriate to specific factors in the religion’s environment. Thus, there are religions of abundance, religions of scarcity, and religions that recognize a cycle of scarcity and abundance.

Why Are There So Many Religions? There have been as many as 100,000 different faiths since the dawn of humankind. More than two billion Christians accept Jesus as their savior, although the many Christian denominations—the World Christian Database carries data on 9,000—disagree on key points. More than one billion Muslims follow the teachings of Muhammad, and almost one billion Hindus pray to many gods. Buddhists, Confucians, Baha’is, Jains, Shintoists, and Sikhs together total about 500,000,000 and have widely divergent beliefs. So do about 100,000,000 Mormons, Jews, Scientologists, Christian Scientists, and the spunky Jehovah’s Witnesses who ring your doorbell with free copies of Watchtower and Awake.5 Eric Dietrich posited that religiosity is an evolutionary adaption that helps keep groups and tribes together. Natural selection produces lots of variation within a given

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type of adaption, for example, a huge variety of feathers. Specific details don’t matter. The same is true of language. All peoples speak a language. The constraints are loose, so languages vary widely in their sounds, structures, and compositional meanings. What matters is that the sounds have meanings and follow a grammar of some sort. Religiosity, like language, is an evolutionary adaptation that can be accomplished in a huge variety of ways. And that’s why there are so many religions.6 Scriptures. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.—Ambrose Bierce If triangles had a God, he would have three sides.—Montesquieu I am waiting for them to prove that God is really American.—Lawrence Ferlinghetti One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.—Robert Heinlein The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Valerie Tarico invited readers to try to match various beliefs with respected mainstream American religions that support the beliefs. Give it a try. The answers are on page 63.7 Key: 1-Evangelical or “Bible Believing” Christianity, 2-Catholic Christianity, 3-Judaism, 4-Islam, 5-Scientology, 6-Mormonism 7-Christian Science 8-Jehovah’s Witness 1. The foreskin of a holy one may lie safeguarded in reliquaries made of gold and crystal and inlayed with gems—or it may have ascended into the heavens all by itself. 2. A race of giants once roamed the earth, the result of women and demi-gods interbreeding. 3. Evil spirits can take control of pigs. 4. A talking donkey scolded a prophet. 5. A righteous man can control his wife’s access to eternal paradise. 6. Brown skin is a punishment for disobeying God. 7. A prophet once traveled between two cities on a miniature flying horse with the face of a woman and the tail of a peacock. 8. The Holy One forbids a cat or dog receiving a blood transfusion and forbids blood meal being used as garden fertilizer. 9. Sacred underwear protects believers from spiritual contamination and, according to some adherents, from fire and speeding bullets

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10. When certain rites are performed beforehand, bread turns into human flesh after it is swallowed. 11. Invisible supernatural beings reveal themselves in mundane objects like oozing paint or cooking food. 12. In the end times, the Holy One’s chosen people will be gathered together in Jackson County, Missouri. 13. Believers can drink poison or get bit by snakes without being harmed. 14. Sprinkling water on a newborn, if done correctly, can keep the baby from eons of suffering should he or she die prematurely. 15. Waving a chicken over your head can take away your sins. 16. A holy one climbed a mountain and could see the whole earth from the mountain peak. 17. Putting a dirty milk glass and a plate from a roast beef sandwich in the same dishwasher can contaminate your soul. 18. There will be an afterlife in which exactly 144,000 people get to live eternally in Paradise. 19. Each human being contains many alien spirits that were trapped in volcanos by hydrogen bombs. 20. A supernatural being cares tremendously what you do with your penis. Tarico wrote, “Each of these beliefs is remarkable in its own way. But the composite goes beyond remarkable to revealing. What it reveals is an underlying belief that is something like this: The process that produced this world and human life is best unveiled not by the scientific method but by the musings of iron age herdsmen (1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8) or science fiction writers (5), or con artists (6) whose theories are best judged by examining only assertions that cannot be falsified.”

Religious Faith Is Beneficial Benjamin Franklin stated that “religion will be a powerful regulator of our actions, give us peace and tranquility within our minds, and render us benevolent, useful and beneficial to others.” Dostoyevsky wrote, “If God does not exist, then everything is permissible.” As indicated above, religiosity is an evolutionary adaptation, probably for keeping groups together. Religions attract adherents for many of the same reasons that other social groupings do. People meet future friends, spouses, and business associates at church socials. By accepting the traditional beliefs of their community, they become part of a team. Regular church attendance is associated with

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increased sense of well-being and improved survival rates. (The primary mediator is the friendships formed.)8 Paul Connelly wrote that “For most individuals their religion is part of their heritage, i.e., it is one of the social groupings that they are born into and in which they spend most of their formative years. It serves as the gateway to affiliation, whereby individuals come together as an ‘us’ to find solidarity among the many ‘thems’ out there.”9 Congregations form powerful voting blocs. It’s unlikely that, in the foreseeable future in the U.S., an avowed atheist will be elected to an important national office. A 2016 Pew Research Center survey found that being an atheist is a huge political liability; about 50% of American adults say they would be less likely to vote for a hypothetical presidential candidate who does not believe in God. About half of U.S. adults said it is very important (27%) or somewhat important (24%) to have someone in the White House who shares their religious perspective.10 A 2014 Pew Research Center survey asked Americans to rate groups from zero (as cold and negative as possible) to 100 (the warmest, most positive possible rating). They gave atheists an average rating of 41, comparable to the rating they gave Muslims (40) and far colder than the average given to Jews (63), Catholics (62) and evangelical Christians (61). Forty-five percent said that belief in God is necessary to have good values.11 Blaise Pascal argued that faith makes practical sense. He wrote that, if God exists, believers will be rewarded while disbelievers suffer eternal damnation. If He doesn’t exist, belief and disbelief won’t matter. (See below for rebuttal.) Marvin Harris also claimed that religious faith makes practical sense. Harris asserted that, despite appearances to the contrary, no religions decrease the potential for the nutritional wellbeing of their followers. People often require a manufactured “divine intervention” to get them to act in their best interests. For example, the Hindu religion bans killing cows, which is the only reason why cows are not routinely killed for their meat. The ban benefits Hindus, because cows are much more valuable to them for plowing fields and providing milk. Harris wrote, “Westerners think that Indians would rather starve than eat their cows. What they don’t understand is that they will starve if they do eat their cows.” Jews and Muslims don’t eat pork. A common explanation is that pigs are impure and unclean; a more realistic one is that pigs are not adapted for arid habitats. Lacking sweat glands, they need external sources of moisture to control their body temperature, which is why they wallow in mud. They would be prohibitively expensive to maintain in the hot Middle East. Wealthy people might have been tempted to raise a few pigs as luxury food for special occasions. In the long run, that would have endangered precious resources. So it was better to have people believe that God decreed, “Thou shalt, under no circumstance, raise pigs.”12

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Faith benefits at both ends of the happiness spectrum. It gives hope to people in foxholes, or starving, or enslaved—if not for this world, then for the next. Bishop George Berkeley wrote, “I can easily overlook any present momentary sorrow when I reflect that it is in my power to be happy a thousand years hence.” At the other end, successful people, cognizant of the fact that fame, power, wealth, and health are subject to fortune’s whims, may believe that God will be touched by their thankful prayers and shield them from any downturns. Faith enables people to achieve feats that would otherwise be beyond their capabilities. Imagine having to walk across a long, foot-wide plank suspended between the rooftops of two tall buildings, with no net down below. The terrifying task would likely end in death. Yet walking would be effortless if the plank lay on the ground. A hypnotist or evangelist who convinced you that the plank was on the ground might save your life. Your unjustified faith might save your life. Extreme realists—people who assess their skills and the state of the world with relative accuracy—are depression-prone. Many psychotherapists encourage such people to construct illusions, i.e., to find faith in something. They rationalize that illusions foster optimism and happiness. Unquestioning faith comforts and consoles. Faith in an omniscient, omnipotent creator, or in any illusion that softens our harsh world, imparts courage and the strength to persevere. This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief.—Adolf Hitler

Faith (of Others) Is Very Beneficial to Some The founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, said “Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.” Most religious leaders are charismatic figures whose opulent lifestyles depend on encouraging others to keep the faith. Hank Hanegraaff, a popular Christian writer and radio host, wrote about contemporary revivalism. He documented contradictions, false experiences, and constant deceptions that enriched many revivalist leaders.13 Carol Brooks compiled a list of people who became extremely wealthy by persuading their congregants to give them money. Most preached the prosperity doctrine, the idea that wealth is a sign of God’s favor and donations will result in wealth being returned many times over. For detailed descriptions of how they made and used their millions, see the website http:// www.inplainsite.org/html/tele-evangelist_lifestyles.html.

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Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.—Napoleon Bonaparte If God existed as an all-powerful being, He would not need the money that faithful believers donate to their churches.—Donald Morgan

In 2015, John Oliver, host of TV’s Last Week Tonight reported on a seven month correspondence he had with televangelist Robert Tilton. Oliver mailed $20 to Tilton along with a request to be added to his mailing list. He soon received a letter thanking him for the donation along with the words, “I believe that God has supernaturally brought us together.” Soon after, Oliver received an envelope with a $1 bill enclosed and a message: “Send it back to me with your best Prove God tithes or offering.” Oliver sent the $1 back with the recommended additional $37 offering. A month later, he received three packets of colored oil that he was to pour on letters and send them back to Tilton accompanied with more money. He did. Sometime later, he received pieces of fabric and, following instructions, mailed them back to Tilton with more money. Then he received a letter with a $1 bill inside, requesting that he place it in his Bible overnight and send it back the next day with $49. In return, he’d receive a $1 bill that had been blessed. Oliver said, “I received another oil packet, more prayer cloths, and even—and this is true—an outline of his foot which I was asked to trace my foot on and mail back to him with more money. So, as of tonight, I’ve sent him $319 and received 26 letters—that’s almost one a week. And again, this is all hilarious until you imagine these letters being sent to someone who cannot afford what he’s asking for.”14 Televangelists, rabbis, priests, and mullahs are not the only ones who benefit from the faith of others. Karl Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. Opium reduces both physical and emotional pain. Opium induces pleasant dreams. The rich and powerful can rest more comfortably when the downtrodden dream that acceptance of their terrible existence is a small price to pay for eternal salvation. Nineteen percent of respondents in a 2005 survey said that tragedies such as the Asian tsunami, which killed 300,000 people, bolstered their belief.15 Eskimo: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? Priest: No, not if you did not know. Eskimo: Then why did you tell me?—Annie Dillard

Religious Leaders Have God’s Cell Phone Number In the 1980s, Pat Robertson claimed that God told him, “I want you to run for president of the United States.” In 2004, God told him that President Bush would easily win re-election against John Kerry. In Robertson’s words, “I really believe

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I’m hearing from the Lord it’s going to be like a blowout election in 2004.” God also told Robertson that he should buy a television station for his ministry. Robertson considered buying the cheapest transmitter available, but God said, “Pat, I want you to have an RCA transmitter.” According to Robertson, God inflicted a massive stroke on Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon because He disliked Sharon’s foreign and domestic policies. He called the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks that killed about 3,000 people divine retribution against America for its tolerance of gays, feminists, and the ACLU. Jerry Falwell had a similar explanation for the 9/11 attacks, excusing God for what some might have considered a rash action: “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say: you helped this happen.” In October, 2003 on the television show Crossfire, Falwell lauded God’s strategic abilities. Falwell said He arranged for President Clinton to be elected and re-elected so that Americans would beg for somebody else. He also said, “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.” But, strange as it may seem, God miscalculated. He underestimated America’s depth of perversity and had to administer an additional dollop of tough love. So, in the words of wealthy televangelist John Hagee (NPR interview in 2006): “All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.” And, “Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” Catholic priest Gerhard Wagner agreed. He called hurricane Katrina divine retribution for New Orleans gay-friendly ways. Hurricanes in 2017 devastated large parts of Houston and Florida. There were several deaths, and thousands of people were displaced. Once again, religious leaders were there to give comfort and condolences. Pastor Keith Swanson said that hurricane Irma (Florida) would be diverted if the Supreme Court outlawed abortion and same sex marriage. Radio preacher Rick Wiles attributed hurricane Harvey to Houston’s concern for protecting the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender people. In 1987, evangelist Oral Roberts announced to his television audience that God had told him that he must raise $8 million within the next 12 months or he would die. (His flock—flock, a term used to refer to both a church congregation and a group of sheep—raised the money.) Barbara Rose’s Internet site (https://

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borntoinspire.com/2017/07/02/divine-guidance-private-consultation/) offers “Answers from God.” “If … you need pure Divine Truth that flows through Barbara from God/Source/Higher Self—by whatever name you personally use—then you will … feel and experience the surge of pure Divine energy and truth while on the phone. The tuition for this special service is $400 US for a one hour private session payable via fully secure Pay Pal.” It’s curious to think that god’s powers are so limited that he can make his will known only through others—even more curious that he picks people like Robertson, Roberts, and Falwell. Couldn’t he write the Ten Commandments in the sky for everyone to see? Or whisper in everybody’s ear? Maybe we just haven’t appreciated his great sense of irony.

Maybe They Had a Bad Connection Every profession has its share of hypocrites and criminals, but religious leaders— the ones who instill moral codes in their followers—should not compete with pornographers and snake oil salesmen for the moral vacuum award. The eighth commandment says “You shall not steal.” According to a Forbes Magazine website, financial fraud in churches is rampant. A 2013 study projected ecclesiastical crime to be $37 billion worldwide (nearly 6% of the total $594 billion given to churches). Losses due to mismanagement of funds totaled $8 billion. In contrast, the total spent on mission work to introduce Christianity to more people throughout the world is $32 billion. There are pressures to keep findings of fraud private. The article cited a report that estimated that as much as 95% of fraud within churches goes undetected or unreported. The website http://signposts02. wordpress.com/2013/01/21/an-overview-of-religious-financial-fraud/ has written about extensive fraud in religious institutions. The sixth commandment says “You shall not murder.” Jerry Falwell must have thought he was exempt. He said, “You’ve got to kill the terrorists. And I’m for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord.” Another exemptee, Pat Robertson, told TV viewers that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was turning his country into a launching pad for communist infiltration. So, Robertson said, “If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it.” The sixth commandment obviously doesn’t apply to God himself. The web site http://www.evilbible.com/Murder.htm lists several murders approved by or for him. The website http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/04/drunkwith-blood-gods-killings-in-bible.html#sthash.ohSOJDcU.dpuf tallies biblical

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events such as the flood of Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the slaughter of heathens by the Machabees to estimate 25 million people killed by god. The website ClergyGoneWild.com tracks crimes committed by members of the clergy. It lists the following categories: Sex Abuse, Thefts, Violence, Drug Abuse, Cults & Religiholics, Bigotry. As of July 12, 2017, it listed the following under sex abuse: Child Abuse (843 Articles) Internet Solicitation (35 Articles) Other (190 Articles) Public Sex (21 Articles) Solicitation (34 Articles)

In 2014, the Vatican released statistics on how it has disciplined priests accused of raping and molesting children: 848 priests were defrocked and another 2,572 given lesser sanctions over the previous decade.16 There is no reason to suspect that the number is substantially different from that of clergy from other religious traditions. If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane. —Robert Green Ingersoll I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.—Mahatma Gandhi

Other People Also Get Messages from God • Deanna Laney believed that god ordered her to kill her children. Laney

said that she saw Aaron with a spear, then throwing a rock, then squeezing a frog. She believed god was suggesting she should either stab, stone, or strangle her children. In an interview with the prosecution psychiatrist, she tearfully recounted the savage attacks and the torture that followed. “I didn’t want to kill my kids….I felt like I had no choice. Because God told me to do that, and I was taught you obey God.” • Jennifer Cisowski maintained that voices told her to test her faith in god. She repeatedly slammed her 8-month-old infant son to the ground and down a flight of stairs. She said she believed he would rise from the dead if her faith were strong enough.

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• Andrea Yates made breakfast for her five children and then methodically

drowned each one in the family’s guest bathroom. Shortly before the murders, her doctor had taken her off her medication. She soon began receiving communications from God telling her to kill the children to protect them. • Lashuan Harris stripped the clothing from her three young boys and dropped them one by one over the railing on Pier 7 to drown in San Francisco Bay. Her psychiatrist testified that Harris believed God had told her to put her boys into the Bay; she thought she was sending them to heaven. • Paul Durant admitted in court that he beat Karen Durrell to death with a mallet. Following his arrest, Durant wrote to a newspaper from his prison cell, saying that he had been driven to kill and eat Durrell by messages delivered to him by God via his television.

So, Maybe Not So Beneficial Probably many people believe that the world would be plunged into chaos without some version of the Ten Commandments to provide a moral compass. But obedience to the commandments depends much more on criminal law than religious faith. I have posed the following question to thousands of students, many of them regular churchgoers, in dozens of classes: “If you could be invisible for a day and commit any crime you wanted with no danger of being caught, would you commit a crime?” Virtually every student raised her or his hand. Pascal’s argument that faith makes practical sense was described above. But he didn’t consider all the alternatives. God may not be all-loving. She may be indifferent to humans or incapable of interfering with their lives. She may be malevolent. He may like spunky people who defy Him, may detest yes people. That is all beside the point: whether or not Pascal’s wager is wise, having a reason for a belief does not make the belief true. Beneficial illusions are still illusions. Furthermore, given the thousands of different religions that have been practiced since antiquity, a small minority at most could possibly hold accurate beliefs. Whatever your religious beliefs, the vast majority of people on this planet think you are wrong. Many Americans accept that the Red Sea parted for Moses and angels sing in heaven, but they scoff at the idea of Zeus hurling thunderbolts or dances bringing rain. Would Pascal advise them to bet across the board? Under Pascal’s conditions, incorrect beliefs incur no penalty. But consider a modification in which, if a loving God rules the universe, believers and nonbelievers fare equally well. But if Satan is top dog, nonbelievers are unaffected while believers suffer an excruciatingly painful death. Would you believe? The question

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is not just irrelevant, it’s silly. If beliefs could be shaped that easily, the human condition would be one of delirious happiness. We’d have no concerns about war, pestilence, famine, or global warming, and we could eliminate the concept of God. He is, after all, only a middleman who rewards loyal subjects with eternal happiness. Why not just believe that eternal happiness is our birthright. As mentioned above, religion can make people feel part of a team. But the downside is that religion divides people. Nonadherents may be treated with suspicion and seen as enemies of God, lacking in morality and not to be trusted. Inquisitions, crusades, pogroms, and jihads have been conducted in the name of religion. Only 0.07% of U.S. prisoners identified themselves as atheists. A largescale study by Abel and Harlow revealed that 93% of sex offenders describe themselves as religious.17 A study by Gregory Paul contradicts the belief that religion provides the moral foundations for a healthy society. Instead, it contributes to social problems.18 Paul used interview data collected over several years on 23,000 people in 38 nations. The data analyzed rates of religious belief and practice. Among the developed democracies, belief in God, attendance at religious services, Bible literalism, prayer rates, and acceptance of evolution varied greatly. Paul also used data from the UN Development Programme to assess such issues as societal health, homicide rates, youth suicide, sexually transmitted disease (STD), teen pregnancy, and rates of abortion. He concluded that rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate positively with rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion. The most theistic democracy, the U.S., is by almost all measures the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies. In his 2010 book Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, sociologist Phil Zuckerman presented additional evidence that the least religious societies tend to be the most peaceful, prosperous, and equitable. Within the U.S., strong religious beliefs and denial of evolution are similarly positively correlated with rates of societal dysfunction. The strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and Midwest have markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital, and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms. Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!—Kurt Vonnegut

Leaders of the Christian right and their followers believe the words of a history text that has been a high volume seller since 1989. The book, America’s Providential History, is used in home schooling, private and public schools, religious schools, political seminars, discussion groups, colleges, and seminaries. It celebrates

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unrestricted capitalism while denouncing income tax as idolatry and property tax as theft and calling for the abolishment of inheritance taxes. The authors wrote: “The secular or socialist has a limited resource mentality and views the world as a pie (there is only so much) that needs to be cut up so that everyone can get a piece. In contrast, the Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God’s earth. The resources are waiting to be tapped.” Many on the Christian right believe that the complete destruction of the world will precede the son of God’s return. And, upon His return, the righteous will enter heaven. Such reasoning leads to lack of concern about destruction of the environment. With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. —Steven Weinberg

The Persistence of Religious Faith Reasons were given above for the persistence of beliefs. Religious beliefs are especially resistant to challenge. Being disabused of the belief that Venice is the capitol of Italy might embarrass but probably not cause serious discomfort; being disillusioned about deeply held religious beliefs can be devastating. Most religious people are saved from devastation by Bible stories, catechisms, and other lobotomizing techniques. So, although children eventually outgrow their beliefs in Santa and the tooth fairy, maturity is, as often as not, associated with increased religious fervor. Boyer argued that “some form of religious thinking seems to be the path of least resistance for our cognitive systems. By contrast, disbelief is generally the result of deliberate, effortful work against our natural cognitive dispositions—hardly the easiest ideology to propagate.”19 Many religions are based on a powerful and unique event that occurred many generations ago. No current adherents experienced that event directly. Why then, Paul Connelly asked, do some religions last for centuries based on essentially hearsay evidence?20 He wrote that the original event can be reenacted or new experiences created. Examples are rituals with psychoactive drugs, rigorous ascetic disciplines, meditation, penitence, exposure to the majesty of a Gothic cathedral, and mass prayers. Dramatically interesting experiences can be retold in memorable ways. Most religions encourage believers to show their fealty by displays of public prayer, painful rites of passage, or even martyrdom. These further ratchet up belief. The Old Testament recounts an argument between God and Satan. The devil claimed that Job was a good man only because God had blessed him with a loving

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family and material wealth. So God, ever the Fair Minded Sportsman, granted Satan permission to torment Job. Satan took away Job’s livestock and servants and caused the deaths of his ten children, then afflicted him with horrible skin sores. Job continued to bless God in his prayers until the cumulative misfortunes finally wore him down and he cursed the day he was born. His friend Elihu cheered him up by explaining that God inflicts pain so that the sufferer can fully appreciate His love and forgiveness when he has recovered. Job acknowledged His unlimited power. God, notoriously susceptible to flattery, gave back Job’s health and property and blessed him with new children. In syllogistic form: God often tests people’s faith. People who pass the test will be rewarded in the end. Therefore, no matter how bleak things may seem, it pays to keep the faith.

Individuals may have occasional crises of doubt, as did the apostle who became known as “Doubting Thomas.” The death of a loved one may cause people to question how God could be so cruel. Their spiritual advisors, that is, the ones who divvy up the proceeds from collection plates, recount the warm, fuzzy story of Job. What a deterrent to disbelief. The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were wicked, so God destroyed their cities. But first He sent two angels to Lot, commanding him and his family to flee. The angels said to Lot, “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee.” Lot and his wife and daughters hastened away, but Lot’s wife disobeyed the angels and looked back. God, pissed off at such a horrible betrayal, turned her into a pillar of salt. The message is, “Never question authority.” Believers are occasionally exposed to the thoughts of doubt-provoking heathens. They are reassured by the Creation story, a particularly insidious neuron destroyer. According to Jewish, Islamic, and Christian religions, Adam and Eve were the first humans and lived a blissful existence in the Garden of Eden. But one day Satan, in the form of a serpent, approached Eve and convinced her to eat from the forbidden tree of knowledge (forbidden, because God wanted to keep them ignorant). Eve gave some of the fruit to Adam, and he ate too. God found out, though not immediately—further evidence that even the omniscient are occasionally caught napping—and His blood pressure soared. He banished the miscreants from the garden and told Eve that she would be punished by having to endure painful childbirths. Also, she would be second to Adam instead of being his equal. As for Adam, he would have to toil and sweat just to survive. The moral is clear: The more sensible-seeming the heathen, the stronger must be the resistance. Knowledge is the devil’s work. Rationality is evil. Apostasy is treason. Believers dare not resolve the crisis by seeking meaningful evidence. They must dismiss

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enigmas and anomalies by recognizing that the Lord works in mysterious ways (although every preacher in every tiny church all over the world seems to know precisely what He wants).

Points to Ponder The first humans roamed the earth about 100,000 years ago. Why did god wait about 98,000 years before sending his messenger ( Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha)? The ancient Egyptians worshiped over 2,000 gods. The ancient Greeks believed that the heavens teemed with gods, and many of them were malicious. Has new evidence emerged to justify the notion of one exclusively benevolent being? Historian Lord Acton wrote that “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He referred to politicians, but wouldn’t his warning apply to an omniscient, omnipotent being? The Old Testament paints a decidedly unflattering picture of God’s character. Consider the biblical stories of Job, discussed above, and Abraham. In the Hebrew Bible, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah and doesn’t even deign to give a reason. What a sadist! The biblical god is superior to us in both strength and ability to create special effects, so if he existed and we knew what he wanted (directly, not via some powerseeking evangelist claiming a pipeline), it would behoove us to obey. Slaves do not fare well who displease their masters. But he’s not a good role model. Willie Nelson sang, “Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.” Humanitarian mamas won’t let them grow up to be god either. People of deep faith are called god-fearing. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 1:7). Ponder that. Fear of an all-loving being seems misplaced, even ungrateful. Loving children of loving parents aren’t called parent-fearing. Yet many true believers worship a god whose level of tolerance is far below the standards of most mothers. Even a supreme being may have occasional lapses of attention. He must get excruciatingly bored from watching day after uneventful day as televangelists eke out their ascetic lives and priests instruct altar boys. Oops, bad examples. The point is that he may not know what his creations will do at every moment throughout eternity, and his small gaps in knowledge may become chasms of ignorance. He might miss a trivial insult that triggers a murderous rampage or a bacterium that initiates a deadly plague. On the other hand, if he is always aware, always having us perform precisely as choreographed, it’s hard to see how we can be faulted for bad behavior. Who deserves the blame, he or Attila? He or Hitler or Saddam? If an engineer built an automaton that tortured and killed people, we would consider

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the engineer to be either incompetent or evil. Should worshippers hold God to a lower standard? No sensory data support the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, beneficent god. If there were, faith would be superfluous. There never will nor can be unambiguous data. Even if a Being appeared with powers beyond human comprehension, the existence of others with still greater powers would remain a possibility. Even if you could be transported by a time machine to December of the year 1 BC, and personally witness the crucifixion of Christ, and hang around until Easter and be first to greet the resurrected Jesus, that would not prove the existence of an all-powerful, loving God. Nobody, not even Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, or Bill Graham, could know the Being’s reasons for creating humans and intervening in our affairs. The gulf between us and the creator of the universe would certainly be greater than that between us and pigs. A pig with deep faith might attribute omniscience, omnipotence, and beneficence to the farmer who feeds it—right up until Christmas morning. Imagine a science fiction scenario in which extraterrestrial beings land on earth and assemble the leaders of all the world’s religions. Eager to know which is correct, they give each leader two days to make his or her case. What evidence would they give? “God told me so.” “It says so in the bible.” “On Easter Sunday I bought a bushel of potatoes, and one of them was the spitting image of the Virgin Mary.” Would a Christian’s tale of the son of God rising from the dead play better than the Hindu story that each soul undergoes many reincarnations until it is united with the Universal soul? Or a Mormon representative’s account of how the angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith and told him where a book inscribed on gold plates was buried? Would Jehovah’s witnesses be most persuasive—they believe that death is the end for all nonbelievers, but post-death Witnesses will live on a new, improved earth with an elite ruling class of 144,000? Or the Jewish fable that God told Abraham (70 years old and childless) that his descendants, like the stars, would be too many to count? And what if the competition is open to the views of the Gnostics, who believe that the material world was created by an evil being. Or those of African Bantus who believe that a being called Bumba vomited out the entire universe. God’s promise to Abraham raises the issue of sex. Many religious leaders argue that sex (at least for others) should be indulged in only for the purpose of procreation. Masturbation, abortion, homosexuality, condoms, and premarital, oral, and anal sex, are all sins. But if procreation is the sole purpose—if god wanted to produce 7,000,000,000 of us—why didn’t he do it all at once? With no birth canal to navigate through, human heads and therefore brain sizes could have been much larger. Oh well, that might have reduced the number of worshippers.

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Maybe Christians and Muslims would expect the large numbers of devotees to count in their favor, but large numbers do not constitute proof. After all, millions of people (although not as many as his opponent) thought that Donald Trump would make a good president. Furthermore, no religion attracts a majority of the world’s people. ET would end up shaking her three heads in dismay. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.—Stephen Roberts I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.—Friedrich Nietzsche

One more question: If creatures as wise as ET would not be convinced, why let the likes of Pat Robertson convince you? Steven Landsburg might maintain that the entire preceding discussion was unnecessary.21 He made the provocative argument that few adults believe without doubt that God exists or there is an afterlife. Among the reasons he gave: People who believe in a God who knows all and dispenses rewards and punishments should behave better than irreligious people, but there is no evidence that they do so. Also, people who believed in a blissful afterlife would be eager to get started. They might not commit suicide, but they wouldn’t watch their diets, might take up skydiving, wouldn’t bother getting colorectal cancer screening tests, and might wear a Kansas City Chiefs cap at an Oakland Raiders game. There is no evidence that they differ from nonbelievers in those ways. The Pope frequently says that God is benign and benevolent and has infinite power, but he stands behind bullet-proof glass when he speaks. Landsburg acknowledged that some rare individuals, such as suicide-bombers, probably believe that their actions will earn them eternal happiness. He noted that we typically call such people demented. Others, such as many church leaders (see above), derive great benefits from falsely proclaiming belief.

Faith Is Antithetical to Truth Jerry Coyne asserted that, although religion and science compete to find truths about the universe, they are incompatible.22 They operate in ways that are intrinsically opposed. Science “has an exquisitely refined series of methods honed over 500 years to find out what’s real and what’s false; religion doesn’t have a methodology to weed out falsehoods.” Believers must unquestioningly accept certain fundamental truths in order to be religious. Their parents have learned THE TRUTH from their parents and

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passed it on to their children. After instilling the initial beliefs, strong social forces encourage the children to maintain them. But parents and other teachers are fallible. Even if their motives were beyond question, their sources might have erred. Even if bibles were inspired by miracles, they were transcribed by fallible humans. Coyne’s book begins with an anecdote. He gave a lecture on evolution and afterwards was approached by an attendee. The person agreed that the scientific evidence was very convincing—“but I still don’t believe it.” (See discussion of belief perseverance starting on p. 8.) Some authorities earn the right to their assertions by testing hypotheses with observations and controlled experiments. Astronomers spend years learning how to interpret stellar data, and archeologists do the same for fossils. But although theologians may be experts in interpreting a bible, they don’t know any more than laypeople whether any particular bible tells the truth—or whether there is a supreme being or life continues after death. How exactly does one learn about life after death? Some communities have complete social consensus about such esoterica, but consensus has no bearing on truth. Any deeply religious people who have read this far are probably angry, confused, and already working on refutations. Agnostics and atheists might be applauding. They are in for a surprise. The remaining two pillars, no less than faith, are constructed with substandard materials that cannot support their own weight.

Notes 1. Kisilevsky, B. et al. (2003) Effects of experience on fetal voice recognition. Psychological Science, 14: 220–4. 2. Boyer P. (2001) Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York, NY: Basic Books. 3. Dawkins, R. (2006) The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 4. Gervais, W. et al. (2011) The cultural transmission of faith: Why natural intuitions and memory biases are necessary, but insufficient, to explain religious belief. Religion, 41: 389– 410. 5. And every one of them is certain that theirs is the one true religion. 6. Dietrich, E. (2015) Why are there so many religions? https://www.psychologytoday.com/ blog/excellent-beauty/201504/why-are-there-so-many-religions. 7. (1) 2; (2) 1, 6; (3) 1; (4) 1, 3; (5) 6; (6) 6; (7) 4; (8) 7; (9) 6; (10) 2; (11) 2; (12) 6; (13) 1; (14) 2; (15) 3; (16) 1, 2; (17) 3; (18) 8; (19) 5; (20) 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8; Tarico, V. (2012) The 20 weirdest religious beliefs. http://www.alternet.org/belief/20-weirdest-religious-beliefs. 8. Kim, J. et al. (2015) Religious affiliation, religious service attendance, and mortality. Journal of Religion and Health, 54: 2052–72.

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9. Connelly, Paul (2002) The persistence of religion. http://www.darc.org/connelly/religion3. html. 10. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/01/10-facts-about-atheists/. 11. http://www.pewforum.org/2014/07/16/how-americans-feel-about-religious-groups/. 12. Harris, M. (1998) Good to Eat. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. 13. Hanegraaff, H. (2001) Counterfeit Revival. Nashville, TN: Word Publishing. 14. https://www.inquisitr.com/2345157/robert-tilton-inspires-john-oliver-to-found-ourlady-of-perpetual-exemption/ 15. http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/God-under-a-microscope/2005/03/01/ 1109546864819.html. 16. (2014) Vatican released comprehensive statistics on how it has disciplined priests accused of raping and molesting children. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/06/vat ican-figures-disciplined-priests-sex-abuse. 17. Abel, G. & Harlow, N. (2001) The Stop Child Molestation Book: What Ordinary People Can Do in Their Everyday Lives to Save Three Million Children. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris. 18. Paul, G. (2005) Cross-national correlations of quantifiable societal health with popular religiosity and secularism in the prosperous democracies. Journal of Religion and Society, 7: 1–17. 19. Boyer, P. (2008) Being human: Religion: Bound to believe? Nature, 455:1038–39. 20. Paul Connelly, P. (2002) Why do religions persist? http://www.darc.org/connelly/religion3. html. 21. Landsburg, S. (2009) The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 22. Coyne, J. (2015) Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible. New York, NY: Viking Press.

chapter eight

Leavitt Lied

I never posted the Hans Christian Andersen story The Emperor’s New Clothes over my desk. You can’t believe everything you read.

chapter nine

Pillar 3: Reasoning

What sets humans apart from other animals is neither our senses nor our other physical abilities. Our specialty, humanity’s crowning achievement, is ability to reason. Many philosophers believed that knowledge can never be attained with certainty through what our senses tell us. In their view, the only path to certain knowledge is through reason. But reasoning abilities are greatly overrated (which presents a paradox, since this entire book attempts to persuade through reasoning).

Human Reasoning Is Imperfect If reason were so powerful, people would more often be persuaded to change their views. Yet illustrious philosophers have written carefully reasoned arguments about what people can know, and illustrious others have rebutted them. So, many or all were wrong. Did they fail to understand the laws of reason? Did Plato screw up? Descartes? Wittgenstein? Then the laws must be difficult to follow. Every year, brilliant lawyers argue before the United States Supreme Court. Every year the nine justices, chosen in large part because of their exceptional powers of reasoning, listen attentively. But whenever the dust settles on arguments concerning gun control, abortion, first amendment rights, and so forth, the votes of most judges are highly predictable. Brilliant Samuel Alito draws one conclusion,

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brilliant Ruth Bader Ginsburg draws the opposite, and brilliant Clarence Thomas is mute. Andrew Martin and colleagues developed an equation based on six factors to predict how each of the justices would vote in every case argued before them in 2002. The equation predicted 75% of the decisions correctly, which suggests that the carefully reasoned arguments carried less weight than the justices’ preexisting biases.1 Decisions, even about vital matters, often depend on seemingly extraneous variables. Danziger and colleagues collected data on 1,112 judicial rulings over a 10-month period by eight judges who presided over parole boards in Israel. The judges took two daily food breaks that broke up the day’s deliberations into three distinct decision sessions. The percentage of favorable rulings dropped gradually from about 65% to nearly zero within each decision session and returned abruptly to about 65% after a break.2 Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.—Ambrose Bierce3

Hayek pointed out that, for any apparatus to fully understand something, it must be more complex than the thing explained. So, to fully understand human reasoning, a human mind would have to be more complex than itself. That sounds tricky.4 Skeptic philosopher Agrippa, who probably lived a few hundred years after Socrates, is credited with what has come to be known as Agrippa’s Trilemma. The Trilemma contends that reasoning never leads to sound conclusions, because all reasoning must commit at least one of three fallacies:

• Infinite regress: The claim that a statement is true needs evidence to support

it. But the evidence must also be supported, and on and on, ad infinitum. • An uncertain assumption: Foundationalists claim that certain beliefs are self-evident and can thus be used as starting points for complex arguments. Some foundationalists look to mathematics and logic: “2+2=4”; “If X is true, then X cannot be false.” Others argue that self-evident beliefs come from direct sensory experience: “That cat is black.” But as discussed throughout this book, certainty is never attained in mathematical or logical reasoning or sensory data). Internal feeling is another candidate: A person who claims to have a headache may be lying, but it is hard to see how he or she could be mistaken. Nevertheless, neither that nor any of the other candidates leads to the enormous number of complex, detailed beliefs that are part of everyone’s worldview. Furthermore, if everyone gets to choose their own basic beliefs, many mutually incompatible ones will emerge.

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• Circular reasoning: Coherentists assert that statements can be valid if they

fit into a coherent system of other known facts or beliefs. But coherentism is circular: A explains B, B explains C, and C explains A. Circular arguments are invalid.

On some laboratory tasks, nonhuman animals behave consistently irrationally, but humans are no better. For example, in a common task, subjects must choose between two sources of reward. Pressing lever 1 might give reward 70% of the time and lever 2 30% of the time. The rational strategy would be to always choose 1, which would lead to reward 70% of the time. But rats, pigeons, and humans typically match their responses to the percentages. So they choose 1 on 70% of the occasions and 2 on 30%. As a result they are rewarded (0.7 × 0.7) + (0.3 × 0.3) = 58% of the time.5 On some tasks, human reasoning is poorer than that of pigeons. A famous mathematical problem is called the Monty Hall dilemma. Game show contestants are shown three doors. Behind one is a new car and behind the others are far less attractive prizes. The host knows what’s behind the doors. Say the contestant chooses door 1. The host then opens one of the other two doors, say door 3, which inevitably reveals an unattractive prize. The host then asks if the contestant wants to stick with her original pick or swap to door 2. What should she do? The problem was presented in Marilyn vos Savant’s “Ask Marilyn” column in Parade magazine, and she correctly responded that the contestant should switch. But approximately 10,000 readers, including nearly 1,000 with PhDs, wrote to the magazine, and most claimed that her answer was wrong. Here’s how to look at it. Initially, the contestant has a one in three chance of picking the right door. If she picks door 1 and does not switch, her chance of success remains one in three. The chance that the car is behind one of the other two doors is two in three. If the car is behind door 2, the host always opens door 3; and if the car is behind door 3, the host always opens door 2. That means that the door the host does not open has a two in three chance of hiding the car. She ought to switch. Hebranson and Schroder gave a comparable task to pigeons.6 The birds had to peck for food at one of three lit keys. At the first peck, all three keys switched off and then two came back on including the bird’s first choice. One of the unpecked keys was deactivated. If the pigeon pecked the correct key of the remaining two, it earned some grain. On the first day of testing, the pigeons switched on just a third of the trials. But after about a month of training, they switched from their initial choice almost every time.

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Evolution and Reasoning: I Humans, like all animals, compete with each other for limited resources. Human competition is often subtle, with outcomes decided more by brainpower than brute strength. Two tempting conclusions are that (a) natural selection exerted intense pressure on our reasoning abilities until, today, they have reached near perfection; and (b) our current reasoning strategies generally lead to correct beliefs. The conclusions would be a good example of the fallibility of reasoning. Stich explained why natural selection usually results in considerably less than optimal reasoning abilities.7 An abbreviated version of his comments, which also apply to the trustworthiness of sensory systems, is given below. 1. Genes that generate truths and avoid falsehoods may be physiologically expensive. Genes that do a poorer but still acceptable job may be selected because they are cheaper. Stich gave an analogy: the more money paid to a private detective, the more information the detective will discover; but a point of diminishing returns is reached, so most clients settle for less than maximum information. 2. Belief in something false may have different import from disbelief in something true. Avoiding a healthy food in the mistaken belief that it is poisonous is less serious than eating a poisonous food in the mistaken belief that it is edible. As a rule, believing on weak evidence that danger is present has survival value and is favored by natural selection. But such a belief system produces more errors than a strategy of demanding incontrovertible evidence. 3. Natural selection has limited options. The bodies of animals might be improved if constructed out of space age alloys, but they are not. The raw materials for improving our brains may not be available. 4. A single gene often affects two or more distinct traits. Its overall effects may be positive, but it may lead to some negative effects. For example, the same genes that make a person of reproductive age attractive to potential mates may make the person more susceptible to diseases of old age. The genes that influence reasoning ability may be less than optimal because they have other functions. 5. Even if natural selection had optimized reasoning abilities, truth would not be the inevitable outcome. Natural selection acts on characteristics that affect reproductive potential, which does not always require having an accurate view of the world. In fact, self-deception often enhances reproductive potential. Biologist Robert Trivers wrote:

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If deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray—by the subtle signs of self-knowledge—the deception being practised. The best way to convince people of what you are saying is to believe it yourself. The conventional view that natural selection favors nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naive view of mental evolution.8

Von Hippel and Trivers discussed several advantages of self-deception. When people deceive consciously, they must suppress true information while promulgating false information. Maintaining two types of content simultaneously in memory may lead to detectable cues such as pausing and simplified sentence structure. Self-deception may also enable people to display more confidence than warranted, which has many social advantages and may minimize retribution if the deception is discovered.9 See pp. 70–71 and 135–137 for further discussion of self-deception. Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.—Fyodor Dostoyevsky10

Donald Hoffman extended Stich’s argument.11 He said that our perceptual world is nothing like the world of reality. Evolution is about fitness, how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction. Evolution by natural selection ensures that an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Hoffman gave an example: An organism tuned to fitness might see both small and large quantities of some resource as red, to indicate low fitness, and intermediate quantities as green, to indicate high fitness. It sees no distinction between small and large reds—only red or green. Hoffman said, “If I see something that I think of as a snake, I don’t pick it up. If I see a train, I don’t step in front of it. I’ve evolved these symbols to keep me alive, so I take them seriously. But it’s a logical flaw to think that if I take it seriously, I also have to take it literally.”

Evolution and Reasoning: II Mercier and Sperber also considered reasoning from an evolutionary perspective.12 The many examples in this chapter show that reasoning does not reliably lead to better decisions. So they infer that it was not shaped for that purpose—or to enable us to solve abstract, logical problems or draw conclusions from unfamiliar data. Instead, natural selection shaped reasoning to help win arguments—to persuade others to see the facts in a particular way. Mercier and Sperber call their idea the

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argumentative theory of reasoning. People systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or actions. Our ancestors lived in small bands, and some repeatedly went on dangerous missions, e.g., hunting large predators, while others stayed back in safety. Mercier and Sperber argued that our ancestors who persuaded others to let them stay back were most likely to survive to become our ancestors. There was little advantage in reasoning clearly, while much was to be gained from winning arguments. The argumentative theory gains support from the phenomenon of confirmation bias. When people reason about an issue about which they must make a decision, they don’t typically challenge themselves by considering the other side. They ignore counterarguments. David Perkins conducted several studies examining people’s reasoning about a range of issues, including questions such as “Would a nuclear disarmament treaty reduce the likelihood of world war?” and “Would a bottle deposit law in the state of Massachusetts reduce litter?”13 The reasoning tended to be very one-sided. Most people adopted one or the other stance and hardly addressed possible counterarguments. One sample consisted of student lawyers. Most student lawyers are bright, dedicated learners, and good reasoning is central to their work. Lawyers must consider not only the side of the case they are defending but the other side as well, to anticipate the opposition arguments. But neither the student lawyers nor other participants paid much attention to the other side. People with higher IQs were no more likely than people with lower IQs to attend to the other side. Jonathan Baron’s similar finding was described on p. 17.14 He asked college students to make notes about the morality of early abortion, as if they were preparing for a class discussion. They also evaluated notes made by hypothetical students preparing for the same discussion. Most students evaluated the hypothetical subject’s set of arguments as stronger when the arguments were all on one side than when both sides were presented, even when the subject was on the opposite side of the issue from themselves. Students who favored one-sidedness also tended to make one-sided arguments. Confirmation bias shows up in many different ways. As described on p. 16, people frequently test their hypotheses by searching for favorable evidence only. They look for the expected consequences if their hypotheses are true, rather than for consequences that would falsify. Their memories are often selective. For example, believers and disbelievers in extrasensory perception were each shown descriptions of ESP experiments. Half of each group were told that the results supported the existence of ESP, and half were told they did not. In a subsequent test, most subjects recalled the material accurately. But believers who had read the nonsupportive evidence remembered less; and some of them remembered the results as supporting ESP.15

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Mercier and Sperber consider confirmation bias a feature of reasoning, not a flaw. It is built into reasoning—to win arguments, not to find the truth. When you’re trying to convince someone, you don’t want to find arguments for the other side, you want to find arguments for your side only. And that’s what the confirmation bias helps you do.

Culture Influences Reasoning Style In the 1930s, Alexander Luria and colleagues examined reasoning styles of four groups of peasants in Central Asia who were at different degrees of modernization. Luria considered two possibilities:16

• If logical reasoning is a universal property of the human mind and impervi-

ous to historical changes, then no differences in logical reasoning would be observed among the groups. • If cognitive structures are changed by changes in socio-economic and educational conditions, greater exposure to modernization would lead to more reliance on formal logic. Luria presented simple syllogisms to the four groups and found marked variation in logical reasoning. Villagers living traditional lives had great difficulty with problems that did not conform to their everyday experience. Some refused to engage in the logical reasoning task on the grounds that the contents of the problems were unfamiliar, making the problem in principle unanswerable. For example, one problem was, “In the far north all bears are white. Novaya Zemyla is in the far north. What color are the bears there?” One villager responded, “But I don’t know what kind of bears are there. I have not been there and I don’t know.” Richard Nisbett and colleagues gave further evidence that people who grow up in different cultures think differently.17 They studied volunteers in the United States, Japan, China, and Korea and reported that Easterners pay greater attention to contexts and relationships. They rely more on experience-based knowledge than abstract logic and are more tolerant of contradictions. Westerners are more analytic. They tend to detach objects from their context, avoid contradictions, and rely more heavily on formal logic. For example, the Japanese subjects generally began by setting the scene, saying for example, “There was a pond” or “The water was green.” Americans were more likely to say, “There was a trout swimming to the right.” Presented with a syllogism such as, “All animals with fur hibernate. Rabbits have fur. Therefore rabbits hibernate,” Americans were more likely to accept the argument’s validity whereas Asians more frequently judged such syllogisms as invalid because the conclusions were false—not all animals with fur hibernate.

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East Asians and Americans responded differently to contradiction. Presented with weak arguments contrary to their own beliefs, most Americans strongly criticized the arguments, which satisfied them that they had resolved the conflict. Asians were more likely to modify their own position, acknowledging that even the weaker arguments had some merit. For example, some subjects read strong arguments in favor of financing a research project on adoption and others read both strong arguments in support and weaker arguments in opposition. Both Asians and Americans in the first group expressed strong support for the project. But in the second group, Asians responded to the weaker opposing arguments by decreasing their support whereas Americans increased support. Most Americans tried to resolve contradictions. Most Chinese accepted contradictions. Nisbett wrote that both experimental evidence and ethnographic accounts of everyday life in traditional societies show that their low solution rates do not indicate an absence of logical reasoning ability. Rather they indicate an unwillingness to play the game of logic.

Metaphors Influence Reasoning Thibodeau and Boroditsky conducted several studies to see whether different metaphors about crime would affect reasoning.18 They first asked some subjects to tell what they would want done if a virus was infecting their city. All suggested investigating its source and implementing social reforms and prevention measures to decrease its spread. They wanted to know where the virus was coming from, whether the city could develop a vaccine, and how the virus was spreading. They suggested educational campaigns to inform residents how to avoid or deal with the virus and encourage them to follow better hygiene practices. Other subjects were asked how they would deal with a wild beast preying on the city. They universally suggested capturing and then killing or caging the beast. They wanted to organize a hunting party or hire animal control specialists to track it down. Then Thibodeau and Boroditsky gave new subjects a survey that included a short paragraph about increased crime in the fictional city of Addison and asked them to propose a solution. Some read that crime was a beast preying on Addison, and some read that it was a virus infecting Addison. The rest of the report contained identical crime statistics for the two conditions. Sure enough, when crime was framed as a virus, participants proposed investigating the root causes and treating the problem by enacting social reform with emphasis on eradicating poverty and improving education. When crime was framed as a beast, participants proposed catching and jailing criminals and enacting harsher enforcement laws.

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When subjects were asked to identify the most influential aspect of the crime report, they cited the crime statistics (which were the same in both conditions). Four variants of the study further showed that metaphors can influence how people reason.

Examples of (Considerably) Less than Optimal Reasoning Kunda reviewed a large scientific literature to support her thesis that “People motivated to arrive at a particular conclusion attempt to be rational and to construct a justification of their desired conclusion….For example, people who want to believe that they will be academically successful may recall more of their past academic successes than of their failures. They may also use their world knowledge to construct new theories about how their particular personality traits may predispose them to academic success.”19 So convenient a thing is it to be a rational creature, since it enables us to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to.—Ben Franklin20

Much of everyday reasoning leads to incorrect conclusions, and normal people often behave irrationally and unwisely. Car manufacturers know that advertisements with attractive actors and actresses in the foreground may override reason in persuading potential customers. If black turns up several times in a row on a Las Vegas roulette wheel, unsophisticated bettors often place their chips on red on the grounds that red is overdue. Their faulty reasoning is common enough to have been given a name: the gambler’s fallacy. The website Wikipedia has a huge list of logical fallacies. Keith Stanovich described a problem developed by computer scientist Hector Levesque:21 Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person? A) Yes B) No C) Cannot be determined

More than 80% of people tested chose C. But the correct answer is A. Anne may be either married or unmarried. If she is married, the answer is A: she would be the married person who is looking at an unmarried person (George). If she is

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not married, the answer is still A: in this case, Jack is the married person, and he is looking at Anne, the unmarried person. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

Many people give the first response that comes to mind—10 cents. But the correct answer is 5 cents. IQ is no guarantee against this error. Large numbers of highly select university students at Princeton, MIT, and Harvard got it wrong. The specific words used in presenting a problem can have a large effect on responses. These so-called framing effects are further evidence that humans often reason illogically. In an early study, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky presented a hypothetical scenario to subjects22: Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of a disease that is expected to kill 600 people. A program to combat the disease has been proposed. Some subjects are asked to choose between two options: A: If this program is adopted, 200 people will be saved. B: If this program is adopted, there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved.

Other subjects are given two different options: C: If this program is adopted, 400 people will die. D: If this program is adopted, there is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die.

The frequently replicated finding is that most subjects choose A over B but most choose D over C. The relevant point is that options A and C are equivalent, as are options B and D. Following are three additional examples of poor reasoning due to framing:

• Reyna and colleagues gave 30 problems of the Tversky and Kahneman type

to both college students and 36 intelligence agents recruited from an anonymous federal agency. Framing effects were greater for the agents—that is, they were more likely to treat equivalent outcomes differently, based on superficial wording—and they also expressed more confidence in their decisions.23 • Beef described as “75% lean” was given higher ratings than beef described as “25% fat.”24 • More people support an economic policy if the employment rate is emphasized rather than the associated unemployment rates.25

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Subjects were asked to respond to the following hypothetical scenario: A trolley is speeding toward five workmen who will not see the trolley in time to leap out of harm’s way. You are standing nearby. You have time to flip a switch to divert the trolley onto a different track, where only one workman is stationed. Should you flip the switch, thus killing one workman and saving the lives of the five workmen on the other track? The utilitarian position is that the switch should be flipped, since saving more of the workers would amount to the greatest good. Most people say that the switch should be flipped. But reasoning is affected by framing. Costa and colleagues randomly assigned bilinguals to read and respond to the scenario and similar ones using either their native or foreign language. The study was conducted in the U.S., France, and Korea and with American, French, and Korean subjects. In each location, more subjects said that the switch should be flipped when asked in their foreign than their native language. The researchers speculated that people were less influenced by emotional aspects of the scenarios when reading scenarios in their foreign language.26 Following are two more of the seemingly inexhaustible variety of reasoning errors.

• If a person prefers X if A is true and also prefers X if A is false, then the

truth or falsity of A should have no bearing on the person’s preference for X. That seems rational, but the point of this section is to show that people are often irrational. Shafir and Tversky asked students whether they would buy a ticket for a Hawaii vacation in three different situations: They had passed a big test, they had failed the test, or they didn’t yet know whether they had passed or failed. Most said they would buy the ticket if they had passed and even more said they would buy it if they had failed. But a substantial percentage said they wouldn’t buy a ticket until they found out whether they had passed or failed.27 • Dan Ariely had MBA students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management write down the last two digits of their social security number, then asked them how much they would pay for a fancy bottle of wine. People with numbers in the top half of the range were willing to pay on average $19.95 for a bottle, while those in the bottom half were willing to pay only $11.62 for the same bottle.28 The various demonstrations show that people are often irrational. West and colleagues rubbed it in.29 They showed that superior intelligence often increases vulnerability to cognitive errors. They asked undergraduates to solve problems such as “A lake has a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the

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patch to cover half the lake?” They also collected students’ scores on three measures of “cognitive sophistication.” For the lake problem, many people divided the final answer by half, which leads to an incorrect answer of 24 days. The correct answer is 47 days. Students who scored well on the measures of cognitive sophistication were slightly more vulnerable to giving an incorrect answer. Decisions based on careful reasoning often result in poorer outcomes than those guided by intuition. Wilson and Schooler asked subjects to choose between art posters, brands of jam, and university courses.30 Some subjects were asked to think carefully about their choices and others to make snap decisions. The results were unambiguous—the “thinking” subjects were more likely to either change their minds later on or be dissatisfied with their choices. Jean Piaget showed that young children invariably think illogically in some situations. In one demonstration, he placed two short, fat glasses with equal amounts of liquid in them in front of a child. Then, while the child watched, he poured from one short, fat glass into a tall, thin one. The child stated that the tall thin glass held more water than the remaining short, fat one. In another test, he placed marbles into two parallel lines of the same length. Then he spread out the marbles in one line, making it longer than the other; and then asked “Is there the same number or a different number in both lines of marbles?” Young children answered that the longer line had more marbles.31 Gruber and Voneche gave several other examples of illogical thinking in young children.32 Piaget believed that most people eventually outgrow such thinking. A 2006 study suggests otherwise. Wansink and van Ittersum asked both college students and bartenders to pour a shot of alcohol (1.5 ounces) into glasses. Both sets of subjects poured more into short, wide glasses than into tall, slender ones. Despite an average of six years of experience, bartenders poured 20.5% more into the short, wide glasses.33 In any case, confidence in our logical abilities does not rest on a stronger foundation than the child’s. How can we be so arrogant as to assume that 21st century adult Homo sapiens has reached the pinnacle of logical thinking! Recall the example from p. 51 about having to walk across a long, narrow plank suspended between two tall buildings. It would be a hazardous feat except to people who believed that the plank lay on the ground. Reasoning that led to the truth would be fatal. The natural selection of plank-walkers would not favor great thinkers. Reason itself is fallible, and this fallibility must find a place in our logic.—Nicola Abbagnano34 Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.—Morris Kline35

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Inductive Arguments Inductive arguments are those in which a conclusion is inferred from two or more premises. The strengths of inductive arguments vary, but even the strongest never lead to certainty. Conclusions become more or less probable based upon the evidence given, but there are no guarantees. A sound inductive argument with true premises may still lead to a false conclusion. Mathematicians often search for patterns in numerical relationships and then reason inductively that the pattern holds for all numbers. Their challenge is to prove the assumption, which requires deductive reasoning. Fermat’s last theorem is a famous example. Consider the equation xn + yn = zn. If x = 3, y = 4, and n = 2, then z = 5. That is, 32 + 42 = 52. In 1637, French lawyer Pierre de Fermat conjectured that for all n greater than 2, and x and y not equal to zero, there is no z that satisfies the equation xn + yn = zn. . Fermat said he had proven the conjecture but couldn’t fit the proof in the margin of the magazine he was reading or later reconstruct it. In 1993, Andrew Wile presented a deductive proof that was accepted as correct and published in 1995. Following are four more examples of inductive reasoning in mathematics. The first leads to a true conclusion, the next three to false ones.

• Consider the numbers 5, 15, 35, 45, 65, 95. Every number ends in 5 and is

divisible by 5. An inductive inference is that every number that ends in 5 is divisible by 5. The inference is correct. • Consider the numbers 7, 17, 37, 47, 67, 97. Every number ends in 7 and is a prime. An inductive inference is that every number that ends in 7 is a prime. The inference is false. For example, 27 is divisible by 3 and 9. • Consider the expression n2 – n + 41. For every value of n shown below, and all the values in between, the result is a prime number. 12 - 1 + 41 = 41, a prime number 22 - 2 + 41 = 43, a prime number 32 -3 + 41 = 47, a prime number 102 - 10 + 41 = 131, a prime number 122 - 12 + 41 = 173, a prime number 402 - 40 + 41 = 1,601, a prime number But an inductive inference that the pattern holds for all values of n would be incorrect: 412 - 41 + 41 is not a prime.

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• Except for the number 2, all prime numbers are odd: 3, 5, 7, 11, 13… They

fall into two classes: those that are one more than a multiple of 4, such as 5 and 13; and those that are one less, such as 3 and 11. For numbers up to at least a trillion, there are always more in the one less category than the one more. For example, up to the number 20 the one less primes are 3, 7, 11, and 19; and the one more are 5, 13, and 17. An inductive inference is that one lesses always outnumber one mores. Yet when numbers get enormously large, there are more primes in the one more category.

Following are three nonmathematical examples in which an inductive inference may be incorrect:

• He is 50. He is articulate and healthy. He drives a nice car. Therefore, at some point in his life he probably worked for a living. It’s possible that somewhere on earth lives a bright middle-aged Kuwaiti emir or Rockefeller or Rothschild, with hands never soiled by work, who drives a different luxury car every day.

• Prosecutors show that the defendant: (a) hated the murder victim; (b) was

seen with the victim shortly before the murder occurred; (c) left fingerprints on the murder weapon; and (d) confessed to the murder. They draw the irresistible inference that the defendant was the murderer. Mystery writers routinely contrive scenarios in which a detective analyzes equally compelling evidence and derives an unforeseen and startling conclusion. The defendant, for reasons known only to him, may have only pretended to hate the victim; the person seen with the victim may have been disguised to look like the defendant; the fingerprints expert may have erred or lied; the weapon found at the scene may have been a clever replica of the murder weapon; the defendant may have confessed to protect another; or creatures from a distant galaxy may have taken over his mind and forced a confession. The possibilities, both straightforward and fanciful, are limitless—and a conclusion cannot be supported if any premise in the chain of reasoning is false.

• You see a small furry creature and hear it meow. You conclude that it’s a cat.

Maybe, but you might be viewing a remarkably life-like cat robot. Maybe somebody, unbeknownst to you, slipped a powerful hallucinogenic drug into your orange juice. Or maybe those mischievous creatures from the distant galaxy are just having fun with you.

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If you refuse to concede the possibility of such scenarios, your reasons for doing so will require other premises. As noted below, to prove any premise true requires additional premises. All inferences rest on premises that are assumed true only because they suit the disposition of the inferrer. The process of proving premises never ends. Most scientific and everyday reasoning is inductive. Our senses reveal the immediate present, and we use inductive logic to generalize. But even if our senses were infallible, generalizations require the assumption that what has not been observed is similar to what has been observed, for example, that the future will resemble the past. As philosopher David Hume noted, that assumption cannot come from experience. It’s just a wish. See syllogism 5, p. 86. Bertrand Russell made Hume’s concern vivid by invoking a chicken, fed by a man every day of its life and eventually learning to expect the daily feedings, yet in the end having its neck wrung by the very man who had been feeding it. Russell added that, although instincts cause us to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, we are in no better position to judge than was the chicken. Russell concluded that there is no rational basis for induction.36 Suppose you claim that X is true because “X follows from Y, and I know that Y is true.” A disbeliever would demand that you prove the truth of Y. You might say “Y follows from Z, and I know that Z is true.” But eventually, you would have to either use X to justify your belief in a new premise or recognize the infinite regress. This only somewhat irrelevant sentence illustrates the point that nunca se sabe lo que podría venir después. Despite Hume and Russell, many political and sports pundits have fashioned lucrative careers out of foretelling. Their television and newspaper audiences believe that these “experts” are tremendously insightful. Philip Tetlock showed otherwise.37 Over a period of 20 years, Tetlock asked 284 of them—people who appear on television, get quoted in newspaper articles, advise governments and businesses, and participate in punditry roundtables—to assess the probabilities that certain events would occur within the following few years. For such issues as political freedom, economic growth, repression, and recession, he asked them to rate the probabilities of three alternative outcomes: there would be more of it, less of it, or no change. He asked them about areas of the world in which they specialized and also about areas in which they had no special expertise. Would there be a nonviolent end to apartheid in South Africa? Would Gorbachev be ousted in a coup? Would the United States go to war in the Persian Gulf? By the end of the study in 2003, the experts had made 82,361 forecasts. And performed worse than if they had simply assigned an equal probability to all three

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outcomes—if they had given each possible future a 33% chance of occurring. Forecasters with the biggest news media profiles were especially bad. Prakash Loungani at the International Monetary Fund analyzed the accuracy of economic forecasters. He said, “The record of failure to predict recessions is virtually unblemished.” His analysis revealed that economists had failed to predict 148 of the past 150 recessions.38 Hall of Fame baseball player Yogi Berra was less arrogant than the pundits. He said, “It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future.”39 Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.—James Harvey Robinson40

Counter-Induction One way to appreciate the concerns of skeptics is to consider counter-induction. Counter-inductivists use the same evidence as inductivists but draw strikingly different conclusions. To the counter-inductivist, sequences of events in nature are used up like playing cards drawn from a deck and not replaced. Suppose, for example, that a card is randomly drawn from an ordinary deck and then set aside. The probability that the next card drawn will be the same color is reduced. If, by some stroke of luck, twenty black cards in a row were picked, the odds on the next card would be heavily weighted toward red. This approach was ridiculed by Mellor:41 Counter-inductivists aren’t just odd: they’re mad. Imagine one. He won’t eat bread: he thinks it would poison him, because it’s never poisoned anyone before. He would eat cyanide, which he also expects to freeze in the oven and bake in the fridge; but not by swallowing it. He won’t use any language people have so far understood, or breathe air, or drink water. And throughout his (brief ) life he consistently defends his wholesale counter-inductivism by predicting that as it’s almost never worked yet, it will now. And so it could. He could be right. He could outlive us all. But he won’t; and we know he won’t.

Gower agreed that Mellor’s sentiments seem eminently reasonable, then indicated how a counter-inductivist might respond:42 Inductivists aren’t just odd: they’re mad. Imagine one. She eats bread: she thinks it won’t poison her, because it’s hardly ever poisoned anyone before. She won’t eat cyanide, which she also expects to bake in the oven and freeze in the fridge. She uses a language people have so far understood; she breathes air; she drinks water. And for the remainder of her (brief ) life she constantly defends her wholesale inductivism by

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predicting that as it has almost always worked so far, it will now. And so it could. She could be right. She could outlive us all. But she won’t; and we know she won’t.

Inductive Inferences Are Ambiguous If Hume destroyed the illusion that induction can be rationally justified, Nelson Goodman put a stake through the dead.43 For Hume, inductive inferences were straightforward. “The sun will rise in the east tomorrow because that’s what it’s always done.” But Goodman showed that an infinite number of inductive inferences can be drawn from any body of data. For example, in a world in which all emeralds ever observed have been green, the obvious inductive inference is that all are green. So Goodman coined a word, ‘grue.’ Grue refers to objects that are green before a certain specified date and blue from that date on. Then, prior to that date, all evidence supporting the induction “All emeralds are green” equally supports “All emeralds are grue.” Nobody has formulated an acceptable reason for inferring to the first rather than the second. Or to “All emeralds are grellow or gravender.” If grue emeralds seem silly, how about butterpillars? Someone with no knowledge of caterpillars or butterflies might have a difficult time accepting that those creatures that have spent their entire lives crawling will after a certain date have metamorphosed into beautiful fliers.

Formal Logic—Deductive Arguments The above paragraphs show that both informal reasoning and inductive reasoning are imperfect. Logicians try to do better. They contend that if certain universal principles are followed based on rules of logic, probability theory, decision theory, and so forth, any derived conclusions must be correct—with iron-clad certainty. Or maybe not. Formal logic was invented in Greece and integrated into a system of thought by Aristotle. For him, logic was a system for advancing knowledge. Yet, as Donald Simanek noted, nearly every conclusion he made about physical science was wrong.44 William Alston noted that “… anything that would count as showing that deduction is reliable would have to involve deductive inference and so would assume the reliability of deduction.”45 As far back as 1895, Lewis Carroll of Alice in Wonderland fame argued that every deductive inference presupposes the principle that deductive inferences are truth-preserving. Complicating matters even more, logicians have proposed many principles of reasoning, and several are incompatible with each other. Gottlob Frege “…made brilliant use

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of his logical insights when developing his philosophical programmes concerning mathematics and language… Unfortunately, the system Frege eventually developed was inconsistent.”46 There is tension between teachers of Aristotelian (traditional) logic and modern symbolic logic. Edward Simmons wrote that they are radically distinct disciplines.47 Bertrand Russell called traditional logic “as definitely antiquated as Ptolemaic astronomy.”48 And “…the Aristotelian doctrines with which we have been concerned in this chapter are wholly false, with the exception of the formal theory of the syllogism, which is unimportant.” In contrast, Jacques Maritain wrote that many traditional logicians reject much of modern logic as mistaken and not logic at all.49 Jøsang wrote that, in standard logic, propositions are considered either true or false. But as I’ve argued, nobody can determine truth or falsehood with certainty. Several alternative logics that take uncertainty and ignorance into consideration have been successfully applied to practical problems.50 Aristotle described three fundamental laws of thought that play an important role even today with writers about logic: The law of identity: A thing is identical with itself. The law of noncontradiction: No statement is both true and false. The law of excluded middle: Every proposition is either true or false.

The laws may seem obvious, but each has been challenged. Nicolai Vasiliev rejected the laws of noncontradiction and excluded middle. Robert Anton Wilson developed a classification system in which propositions can be assigned one of seven values: true, false, indeterminate, meaningless, self-referential, game rule, or strange loop. Alfred Korzybski rejected the principle of identity and used three or more truth values in his systems of logic. The next section deals with syllogisms. Consider a famous example: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Statements assumed true are called premises. In the argument above, “All men are mortal” and “Socrates is a man” are premises. As long as they are true, that particular argument form always leads to true conclusions—at least, according to instructors of introductory philosophy classes. So, we must accept Socrates’ mortality. But if either premise is false or the argument form invalid, the conclusion should be rejected as unproven. Although invalid arguments may lead to true conclusions, they are not guaranteed to do so. The conclusions can’t be trusted. Consider:

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All men are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore, Socrates is a man.

That argument has true premises and a true conclusion but is nonetheless invalid. Just substitute “women” for “men” in the first premise. The conclusion, “Socrates is a woman” would, of course, be false. Other arguments of the same form may or may not lead to true conclusions. Logicians call an argument deductively valid if its conclusion cannot possibly be false when the premises are true. A deductively valid argument that also has true premises is called sound. Argument (a) below is valid and (b) is invalid. Neither one is sound. a. I am holding one adult elephant in my left hand and one adult elephant in my right hand. Therefore, I am holding a total of two adult elephants in my hands. b. I have one penny in my left hand and one penny in my right hand. Therefore, I have a total of three pennies in both hands. (The argument is invalid no matter how many pennies I’m holding.)

The next argument is valid. Is it sound? Philosopher G.E. Moore wrote that a seemingly sound argument that leads to an implausible conclusion may not be sound after all. So, waddya think? The thesis of this book is that certain or even probable knowledge is unattainable. Careful reasoning will detect no flaws in the arguments given. Therefore, either the thesis is sound or reasoning cannot be trusted.

Please take a short quiz. Determine which of arguments 1–6 are valid. Quiz 1. No sophisticated logicians make errors of reasoning. Some humans make errors of reasoning. Therefore, some sophisticated logicians are not human. 2. Some intellectually precocious children are sickly. Some intellectually precocious children can solve complex logic problems. Therefore, some sickly children can solve complex logic problems. 3. No sophisticated logicians are fools. No fools are professional violinists. Therefore, no sophisticated logicians are professional violinists. 4. My theory predicts that the liquid will turn brown when heated. I heated the liquid and it turned brown. Therefore, my theory is true.

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5. We cannot know anything except through experience. Nobody has ever experienced the future. Therefore, nobody can know anything about the future. 6. Naive realism (the belief that the theories of science give a literally true account of the way the world is) leads to physics. Physics, if true, shows that naive realism is false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false. Therefore it is false. (Bertrand Russell wrote this syllogism.) According to traditional logic, arguments 1-4 are invalid and 5 and 6 are both valid. Over the years, virtually none of my college students who tried the quiz got all of them right. Very few got only one wrong. The arguments’ difficulty despite their brevity shows how limited are our abilities.51 Lengthier chains of reasoning may be impossible to evaluate even by people who know the rules—like trying to multiply two 5-digit numbers in one’s head. Consider a well-known “proof ” that 2=1. Let a = x Then a+a = a+x and 2a = a+x and 2a-2x = a+x-2x and 2(a-x) = a+x-2x and 2(a-x) = a-x Divide both sides by a-x. The result is that 2 = 1. People “know” that 2 does not equal 1, so they might be motivated to look for a flaw in the argument. They’ll be sure there is one. If they are mathematically sophisticated and diligent, they’ll note that the first step says that a = x. So, a – x = 0. Then the last step is dividing by zero, which is not permissible. The syllogism below is valid. Johnson-Laird asserted that failure to recognize the true conclusion probably contributed to the Chernobyl catastrophic nuclear disaster.52 If the test is to continue, then the turbine must be rotating fast enough. The turbine is not rotating fast enough. Therefore the test is not to continue.

Professional mathematicians often disagree on whether a proof is valid. Inglis and colleagues asked 109 mathematicians to judge a purported proof in undergraduate calculus.53 There was substantial disagreement among them. Most participants who judged the proof valid did not change their minds when told why other mathematicians had judged it invalid. A wrong answer that seems plausible may never be challenged. Following is a problem that I’ve given to hundreds of students. Very few got it right, though many were sure they had done so.

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There are two train stations, A and B. Trains leave both stations every hour on the hour, and the trip in each direction takes six hours. The tracks are next to each other, so passengers can see the trains coming from the opposite direction. If they watch, how many trains will they see during their journey? See footnote54 for the answer.

Clearly, the rules of logic and good reasoning are difficult to apply. Yet a far more serious problem looms. My students assumed that anyone who applies the rules properly will get the correct answers. They may have been mistaken. The principles of logic and metaphysics are true simply because we never allow them to be anything else.—A.J. Ayer55

Conclusions Often Come First Even if two disputants each reason flawlessly, they might never come to agreement if they start from different premises. But premises come from observations, perceptions, and values, all of which are subjective and subject to distortion. All the arguments below are valid. Adam:

My preacher conveys the word of God. My preacher says abortion is wrong. Therefore, abortion is wrong. Beth: Women have the right to control what happens inside their bodies. A developing fetus affects a woman’s body. Therefore, a woman has a right to abort a developing fetus. Clint: The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives citizens the right to bear arms. I am a U.S. citizen. Therefore, I have the right to bear arms. Derek: The availability of guns to private citizens causes thousands of injuries and deaths each year. The government has a duty to protect its citizens. Therefore, the government has a duty to enforce gun control. Ellen: No behavior between consenting adults is immoral. Homosexual sex typically involves behavior between consenting adults. Therefore, typical homosexual sex is not immoral. Falwell: Sex is immoral unless the goal of the participants is procreation.56 Homosexual sex does not lead to procreation. Therefore, homosexual sex is immoral. God’s helpers: The Bible speaks the literal truth. Scientists claim that the Bible does not speak the literal truth. Therefore, the scientists are wrong. Heathen: Our senses and reasoning abilities are reliable sources of information. Our senses and reasoning abilities show that the Bible does not speak the literal truth. Therefore, the Bible does not speak the literal truth.

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Logic: an instrument used for bolstering a prejudice.—Elbert Hubbard57

To summarize, sound arguments require true premises and proper reasoning. But proving the truth of a premise requires a new argument with new premises. Proving the truth of those premises requires others, and so on ad infinitum. All arguments ultimately depend on premises assumed true only because they make a convenient stopping point. Can you think of a single premise that everybody would accept? Me neither. The stopping point is always arbitrary and always a matter of faith. Scientists, devil worshippers, and people who claim to have been abducted by aliens are on a par.

We’ll Never Know If Our Tools of Reasoning Lead to Valid Conclusions Although students occasionally disputed my answers to exam questions about facts and concepts, logic questions were exempt from criticism. I’d show where they had incorrectly applied a rule for evaluating syllogisms, and that would end the matter. Nobody ever asked, “Who made up the rules?” Philosopher Peter Winch asked.58 He concluded, “The criteria of logic are not a direct gift from God but arise out of and are only intelligible in the context of ways of living and modes of social life.” Take quiz syllogism number 1 above. It has the form, “No A is B. Some C is B. Therefore, some A is not C.” As noted, no syllogism of that form, even if it has true premises, guarantees a true conclusion. For example: No mice weigh more than 100 pounds. Some mammals weigh more than 100 pounds. Therefore, some mice are not mammals. A form that even occasionally gives incorrect answers can’t be trusted. It is invalid. Syllogism 5, and all syllogisms of the same form, are valid. If they have true premises, their conclusions must follow. There are, (according to teachers of introductory logic) no exceptions. But it would be more accurate to say that no exceptions are known. Some people would probably be unable to think of a faulty conclusion derived from a syllogism like number 1. Maybe the rest of us just aren’t smart enough to think of exceptions to number 5. At some deep level of abstract reasoning, maybe 1 is valid and 5 invalid. What we call validity is nothing more than inability to think of counter examples. W.V. Quine argued that we trust the rules because they match experience.60 In all my prior experiences, one apple plus one apple has equaled two apples. If all cats are mammals, and all mammals breathe air, then (to the best of my reasoning abilities) all cats breathe air. Quine wrote, “… no statement is immune from revision. Revision of even the logical law of the excluded middle has been proposed as a means of simplifying quantum mechanics; and what is the difference in principle between such a shift and the shift whereby Kepler superseded Ptolemy, or Einstein Newton, or Darwin

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Aristotle?” Quine wrote that all propositions that express any form of knowledge are ultimately judged by sense experience. In mathematics, no less than in physics, the notion of truth is pragmatic. Rules are accepted if they help us cope with the world. Nelson Goodman also argued that empirical evidence can affect the acceptability of logical proofs: “A rule [of deductive inference] is amended if it yields an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend. The agreement between adjusted rules and inferences is the only justification needed for either.”61 Stich disagreed with Goodman.62 He responded that people often accept both rules of inference and specific inferences from those rules, even though logicians consider them wrong on both counts. The important take-away message from the disagreement is that there are no rules that, however assiduously followed, will inevitably lead to truth.

Anything Can Be Proved If the law of the excluded middle is violated—if we allow something to be both X and not X—then anything at all can be proved. For example, start with sentence (A) “Today is Tuesday and today is not Tuesday,” and prove that (B) “Every conclusion in this book is completely accurate and must be accepted without question.” 1. If (A) is accepted as true, then “Today is Tuesday” is true; and so is the following sentence: (C) Either “Today is Tuesday” or “Every conclusion in this book is completely accurate and must be accepted without question.” 2. But, according to (A), “Today is not Tuesday.” It follows that “Today is Tuesday” must be false. 3. If “Today is Tuesday” is false, then (C) is true only if “Every conclusion in this book is completely accurate and must be accepted without question.” Oh well, we knew that anyway.

Quantum Logic Quantum physicists successfully describe and explain a wide range of phenomena (see p. 155), both within and outside of laboratories. Yet ordinary logic fails when applied to quantum phenomena. Does this mean that the physicists’ relevant inferences are illogical? Certainly not. They take it to indicate the need for a new logic better suited to quantum mechanics. J. Lukasiewicz argued against the law of the excluded middle and founded 3-value logic.63 Many quantum physicists follow his

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lead. Lukasiewicz pointed out that insisting that things be either tall or not tall, blue or not blue, and old or not old divides the world too simply. In ordinary logic, a train either is or is not moving northward out of the Oakland station at 5 miles per hour. But quantum physicists do not accept that a given electron must either have or not have a certain momentum at a particular place. In an often repeated experiment, a beam of light is shined through a filter that absorbs all but horizontally polarized light. A second filter, placed behind the first, absorbs all but vertically polarized light. Any pair of crossed polarizers blocks all light from passing through, so the pair is opaque. But a third filter can be placed between the other two. If the third filter absorbs light polarized at any but a 45 degree angle to the vertical, an amazing thing happens. Light shines through. Herbert,64 discussing the experiment, illustrated the situation with an analogy: Suppose we pass animals through a gate which lets through only horses and rejects cows. Next we pass these horses through a second gate which lets through only black animals and rejects white ones. Only animals which are both horses AND black can pass both gates. To our surprise, approximately half of such animals turn out to be cows! David Finkelstein (quoted in Herbert, p. 21) concluded: Einstein threw out the classical concept of time; Bohr throws out the classic concept of truth…Our classical ideas of logic are simply wrong in a basic practical way.

Reason Doesn’t Tell About the World Consider yet another syllogism: All A is B. Some C is not B. Therefore, some C is not A. The reasoning is valid, but unless you know what A, B, and C represent, you have not increased your knowledge of the world. Some mathematicians deliberately explore premises with no apparent real world connections, and their work often turns out to have practical implications. But in one important respect, logical conclusions from syllogistic reasoning are always uninformative. The conclusions rearrange information but present nothing that wasn’t already available in the original premises. All reasoning either manipulates abstractions without connecting them to the real world or assumes prior knowledge. In either case, reasoning cannot be the foundation of real world knowledge. In short, any reasoned argument must have premises that came from somewhere. So, knowledge of the world can’t begin with reasoning.

Recap In what resembles a Buddhist koan, I use reason to show that reason does not produce knowledge. First, reasoners must start with premises which can be known

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to be true only by referring to other premises, and on and on ad infinitum. In the words of Bertrand Russell, “Since proofs need premises, it is impossible to prove anything unless some things are accepted without proof.” Second, the rules of reasoning are hard to apply, and logicians disagree about what they should be. Adults from Eastern and Western cultures reason differently, and children reason differently from adults. Third, hundreds of experiments show that people often, and with some tasks typically, behave irrationally. Fourth, evolutionary considerations strongly suggest that reasoning abilities evolved to promote survival and reproduction, not truth; they are not optimal for producing knowledge. Fifth, reason tells nothing about the world. Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it. Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality.—Albert Einstein65 The supreme triumph of reason is to cast doubt upon its own validity.—Miguel de Unamuno66 Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.—Blaise Pascal67

Notes 1. Martin, A. et al. (2004) Competing approaches to predicting Supreme Court decision making. Perspective on Politics, 2:761–7. Note: The researchers also obtained predictions from 83 legal experts including law professors and other legal luminaries. The equation outperformed them, which suggests that even experts are less knowledgeable than generally assumed. (Of course, this book intends to show that experts, like everyone else, have no knowledge.) 2. Danziger, S. et al. (2011) Extraneous factors in judicial decisions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 108: 6889–6892. 3. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ambrose_bierce_108092. 4. Hayek, F. (1955) The Counter-Revolution of Science. New York, NY: Free Press of Glencoe. 5. Gallistel, C. (1990) The Organization of Learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 6. Herbranson, W. & Schroeder, J. (2010) Are birds smarter than mathematicians? Pigeons (Columba livia) perform optimally on a version of the Monty Hall Dilemma. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 124: 1–13. 7. Stich, S. (1990) The Fragmentation of Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 8. Trivers, R. (in preface to Dawkins, R.) (1976) The Selfish Gene. 9. Von Hippel, W. & Trivers, R. (2011) The evolution and psychology of self-deception. Behavior Brain Sciences, 34: 1–56a.

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10. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/lying_to_ourselves_is_more_deeply_ingrained_ than/180504.html. 11. Waugh, R. (2016) Everything you see is an illusion, scientist warns – and reality is MUCH weirder. http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/25/everything-you-see-is-an-illusion-scientistwarns-and-reality-is-much-weirder-5838949/. 12. Mercier, H. & Sperber, D. (2011) Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34: 57–111. 13. Perkins, D. & Tishman, S. (1998) Dispositional aspects of intelligence. https://pdfs.seman ticscholar.org/3042/60726a7d398698c8721b26f8f66f5a4a8a34.pdf 14. Baron, J. (1995) Myside bias in thinking about abortion. Thinking and Reasoning, 1: 221–35. 15. Russell, D. & Jones, W. (1980) When superstition fails: Reactions to disconfirmation of paranormal beliefs. Personality Social Psych Bulletin, 6: 83–8. 16. Luria, A. (1931) Psychological expedition to Central Asia. Science, 74: 383–4. 17. Nisbett, R. et al. (2001) Culture and systems of thought: Holistic vs. analytic cognition. Psych Review, 108: 291–310. 18. Thibodeau, P. & Boroditsky, L. (2011) Metaphors we think with: The role of metaphor in reasoning. PLoS ONE, 6(2): e16782. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016782. 19. Kunda, Z. (1990) The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108: 480–98. 20. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/46392-so-convenient-a-thing-to-be-a-reasonablecreature-since. 21. Stanovich, K. (2015) Rational and irrational thought: The thinking that IQ tests miss. Scientific American, January 1, 34–9. 22. Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1981) The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211: 453–8. 23. Reyna, V. (2014) Developmental reversals in risky decision-making: Intelligence agents show larger decision biases than college students. Psychological Science, 25: 76–84. 24. Levin, I. & Gaeth, G. (1988) How consumers are affected by the framing of attribute information before and after consuming the product. Journal of Consumer Research, 15: 374–8. 25. Gächter, S. et al. (2009) Are experimental economists prone to framing effects? A natural field experiment. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 70: 443–6. 26. Costa, A. et al. (2014) Your morals depend on language. PLoS ONE, 9(4): e94842. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0094842. 27. Shafir, E. & Tversky, A. (1992) Thinking through uncertainty: Nonconsequential reasoning and choice. Cognitive Psychology, 24: 449–74. 28. Ariely, D. (2008) Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. New York, NY: Harper Collins. 29. West, R. et al. (2012) Cognitive sophistication does not attenuate the bias blind spot. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103: 506–13. 30. Wilson, T. & Schooler, J. (1991) Thinking too much: Introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60: 181–92. 31. Piaget, J. (1965) The Child’s Conception of Number. New York, NY: W.W. Norton Company. 32.Gruber, H. & Voneche, J. (1977) The Essential Piaget. New York, NY: Basic Books.

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33. Wansink, B. & van Ittersum, K. (2006) Shape of glass and amount of alcohol poured: Comparative study of effect of practice and concentration. BMJ (online). DOI: 10.1136/ bmj.331.7531.1512. 34. quotationsbook.com/quote/33599/. 35. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/38653-logic-is-the-art-of-going-wrong-withconfidence. 36. Russell, B. (1948) Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. London: George Allen and Unwin. 37. Tetlock, P. (2005) Expert Political Opinion, How Good Is It? How Can We Know? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 38. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/sep/02/economic-forecasting-flawedscience-data. 39. https://blogs.oracle.com/datamining/the-meaning-of-probability 40. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/james_harvey_robinson_190775 41. Mellor, D. (1998) The Warrant of Induction: An Inaugural Lecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 42. Gower, B. (1990) Mellor on inductive skepticism. Philosophical Quarterly, 40: 233–40. 43. Goodman, N. (1973) Fact, Fiction and Forecast. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. 44. Simanek, D. (2008) Uses and misuses of logic. https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/logic.htm. 45. Alston, W. (1993) The Reliability of Sense Perception. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 46. King, P. & Shapiro, S. (1995) The history of logic. In The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (pp. 496–500). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 47. Simmons, E. (1961) The Scientific Art of Logic: An Introduction to the Principles of Formal and Informal Logic. Milwaukee, WI: Bruce Publishing Co. 48. Russell, B. (1945) A History of Western Philosophy. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 49. Maritain, J. (2014) A Preface to Metaphysics, 2nd edition. Charleston, SC: Nabu Press. 50. Jøsang, A. (2001) A logic for uncertain probabilities. International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems, 9, June. 51. You probably skipped quickly past syllogisms 5 and 6. Think about that. Both syllogisms are valid—don’t the very disturbing conclusions warrant serious thought? 52. Johnson-Laird, P. (1999) Deductive reasoning. Annual Review of Psychology, 50: 109-35. 53. Inglis, M. et al. (2013) On mathematicians’ different standards when evaluating elementary proofs. Topics in Cognitive Science, 5: 270–82. 54. They will see 13. Suppose a train leaves A at 5:00AM and arrives at B at 11:00AM. That’s seven trains. They will also see six trains that left B from 11:00PM to 4:00AM. 55. http://sqapo.com/ayer.htm. 56. Does that imply that postmenopausal women who have sex are immoral? 57. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/logic-an_instrument_used_for_bolstering_a/166145.html. 58. Winch, P. (1958) The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 60. Quine, W. (1953) From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 61. Goodman, N. (1965) Fact, Fiction and Forecast. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. 62. Stich, S. (1990) The Fragmentation of Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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63. Lukasiewicz, J. (1970) On three-valued logic. In Borkowski, L. (Ed.), Selected Works by Jan Lukasiewicz. Amsterdam: North-Holland. 64. Herbert, N. (1985) Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics. New York, NY: Anchor Press. 65. Einstein, Albert (1988) Ideas and Opinions. New York, NY: Bonanza Books. 66. https://everything2.com/title/A+Blather+of+Paradoxes 67. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/reason-s_last_step_is_the_recognition_that_ there/169413.html

chapter ten

Reason and Science in Opposition

Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason and demands the production of objective fact. —H.L. Mencken1

The common sense view is that reason complements our senses to make the world comprehensible. But common sense often does not apply. Philosophers have recognized that we perceive only appearances and have no way of evaluating their correspondence with the real world. Thus, rationalists argue, reason is necessary to organize and interpret our sensory worlds. Without certain beliefs that precede experience, such as “Every event has a cause,” existence would consist of constant meaningless, undifferentiated, sensations that signify nothing. Rationalists claim that we know a great deal independently of our senses. For example, we accept mathematical and logical truths such as “All squares are rectangles” and “5 + 5 = 10” because of our conceptual abilities, not because of sensory information. But the previous chapter showed that rationality does not lead to certain knowledge about the external world. Furthermore, rationalists have been mistaken about seemingly obvious conclusions, as when some Middle Ages rationalists used reason to “prove” that vacuums could not possibly exist. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men. He apparently did not think it necessary to verify this conclusion by examining any mouths. Mathematics is rationality in its purest form, but even the best mathematicians have on occasion claimed to have proved something that later turned out to be false.

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…the concept of a universally accepted, infallible body of reasoning—the majestic mathematics of the 1800s and the pride of man—is a grand illusion.—Morris Kline, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty

So the last hope for certain (or even probable) knowledge seems to be empiricism— the belief that all knowledge derives from the traditional five senses plus possible others. Empiricists argue that a person born colorblind can have no meaningful knowledge of color; and, generalizing, that nobody can know about anything without experience of that thing. So scientists, the most sophisticated empiricists, debate with philosophers about whether empiricism or rationality takes precedence. Even great scientists sometimes defer to reason. Isaac Newton refused to believe that the earth could be much older than 6,000 years on the strength of the reasoning that led Archbishop Usher to place the date of creation at 4,004 BC. Francis Bacon was a brilliant man who made important contributions to law, literature, philosophy, and science. He challenged the authority of Aristotle, who had used logical deduction to explain various aspects of nature. Bacon insisted that investigations should begin with observations. Yet Bacon also challenged Galileo’s claim to have seen four moons around Jupiter. Bacon’s strategy was to use pure reason. Seven bodies in space were already known, and he argued that there must be exactly seven. There are seven windows given to animals in the domicile of the head, through which the air is admitted to the tabernacle of the body, to enlighten, to warm and to nourish it. What are these parts of the microcosmos: Two nostrils, two eyes, two ears and a mouth. So in the heavens, as in a macrocosmos, there are two favourable stars, two unpropitious, two luminaries, and Mercury undecided and indifferent. From this and many other similarities in nature, such as the seven metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number of planets is necessarily seven.

Astronomer Francesco Sizi used similar wording in attempting to refute Galileo. Bacon and Sizi were neither stupid nor irrational. Newton-Smith noted that Bacon’s web of belief included the ideas that God created a harmonious universe and that harmony involves a mirroring of man and cosmos.2 It follows that facts about men can be reasons for hypotheses about the cosmos. Seven windows of the head give reason for inferring seven planets. A point to note is that rationally derived conclusions may vary with the intellectual background and values of the reasoner. The Aristotle/Sizi/Bacon examples suggest that philosophers are naïve and empiricists win the day. But Galileo showed that pure reason can sometimes be enough for understanding physical phenomena. Aristotle had claimed that heavy bodies fall faster than light ones. Galileo imagined a heavy cannon ball and light musket ball attached together to form a compound object. If Aristotle was right,

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the compound object must fall faster than the cannon ball alone. But it must also fall slower, since the light part will be a drag on the heavy part. Galileo’s reasoning showed that all bodies fall at the same speed (at least in a vacuum). Karl Popper argued that theories must make testable predictions to be considered part of science. Yet even consistently correct predictions do not ensure the correctness of a theory. In fact, many philosophers claim that the entire scientific quest for truth faces an insurmountable barrier. To appreciate the problem, imagine that your friend claims that low doses of cyanide are healthful. You ask him to prove it, and he agrees to do an experiment. When the local chemist refuses to sell him cyanide, he uses the cyanide ion derivative cyanocobalamin and predicts that rats with cyanocobalamin-supplemented diets will live longer than rats without supplementation. Months later, he happily reports that a double-blind experiment has upheld his prediction. What’s more, he just obtained a vial of pure cyanide and spread some on a delicious-looking sourdough roll. He offers you the first bite. Should you accept? Before answering, consider two syllogisms. 1. Theory T predicts that, under carefully specified conditions, outcome O will occur. I arrange for the conditions, and O occurs. Therefore, I have proven theory T. In symbols: If T, then O. O. Therefore, T. 2. Theory T predicts that, under carefully specified conditions, outcome O will occur. I arrange for the conditions but fail to obtain the predicted outcome. Therefore, theory T is false. In symbols: If T, then O. Not O. Therefore, not T. The second syllogism, and all syllogisms of that form, is valid. If the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true. (At least, so goes the party line. But see p. 83.) The first syllogism, and all of that form, is invalid and counterexamples are easy to imagine. For example, a prediction from the hypothesis “Unicorns run around at night in Golden Gate Park” (U) is that animal droppings will be found in the park (D). That leads to a syllogism of the same form as the first one. In symbols: If U, then D. D. Therefore, U. But even though animal droppings are found, don’t count on seeing a unicorn. A key feature that distinguishes science from other endeavors is that scientific hypotheses and theories can be tested. Yet the invalid confirmatory syllogism form is the basis of virtually all tests. Your friend’s generous offer is of the invalid form: If low doses of cyanide are healthy, then rats with cyanocobalamin-supplemented diets will live longer than rats without supplementation. Rats with cyanocobalamin supplemented diets do live longer than rats without supplementation. Therefore, low doses of cyanide are healthy.

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Jacqueline McLaughlin wrote that science is typically taught as a litany of terms and facts. “…[T]eachers have created the huge misconception that science is absolute and not open to challenge.”3 She had attended a science fair to judge the works of bright middle school students who had followed textbook procedures: formulate a question, develop a hypothesis, design an experiment, determine the variables, present and analyze results, and interpret the results. The students did well except for the last step. Most students concluded that “My hypothesis is correct because I have proved that…” She told them that in science nothing can be explained with 100% confidence. (As will be seen, the actual confidence level should be 0%.) The misconceptions about proof extend well beyond middle school. Here is an example from the scientific literature in which a correct prediction provided minimal support for a hypothesis. Sapolsky posited that many people know that frogs fertilize their eggs externally. The male releases sperm as the female lays eggs and, in some species, females collect the eggs in their mouths until the eggs are ready to hatch. Sapolsky theorized that some women therefore believe that they can become pregnant by taking things in their mouths. Then, according to him, they are likely to become compulsive eaters if they wish to get pregnant and anorexic if they wish not to. They should also be more likely than others to interpret ambiguous ink blots (the Rorschach test) as animals like frogs. So Sapolsky predicted that a higher proportion of Rorschach frog responders than nonresponders would have eating disorders. He tested 31 frog responders and 31 controls, and his prediction was confirmed: 19 in the first group, only 5 in the second, had eating disorders.4 Some years afterward, Lykken asked 20 of his colleagues who were unaware of the study to indicate whether they believed Sapolsky’s theory. Then he asked them to read a summary of the findings and to reassess their beliefs. Lykken reported that, before reading, they thought it was a ridiculous idea. Afterwards? They thought it was a ridiculous idea.5 Following are a few more examples of scientific beliefs that generated accurate predictions but were ultimately shown to be incorrect:

• As

early as 700 BC, the Chinese accurately predicted solar and lunar eclipses. Yet they explained solar eclipses by postulating that a celestial dragon devours the sun; and lunar eclipses by the dragon attacking the moon. In the Chinese language, the term for eclipse was “shi” which also means “to eat.” • In about AD 150 Ptolemy postulated that the earth is stationary and at the center of the universe. Yet he accurately predicted the movements of the planets.

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• Scientists

once believed that a substance called phlogiston is contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. Although eventually discredited, the theory yielded many accurate predictions which led to important findings: Joseph Black isolated and identified carbon dioxide, Daniel Rutherford isolated and identified nitrogen, Carl Wilhelm Scheele produced and identified oxygen, Joseph Priestley isolated and identified at least eight other gases and laid the foundations for the discovery of photosynthesis, and Henry Cavendish isolated and identified hydrogen. • Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation was extremely successful in describing the trajectories of objects falling to earth and movements of the planets and other celestial bodies orbiting in space. Newton correctly predicted the existence, mass, and position of the previously unknown planet Neptune. But Einstein’s theories differ from Newton’s and do better. • General relativity theory conflicts with quantum mechanics. Both theories generate extremely accurate predictions but can’t both be right. • Dennis Overbye wrote in the Feb 11, 2016 New York Times that scientists had heard and recorded the sound of two black holes colliding a billion light-years away. This, he wrote, fulfilled the last prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and was “a ringing confirmation of the nature of black holes.” The title of his article, “Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory,” shows that he conflated correct predictions with theory confirmation.

The Rules of Logic Are Empirical and Fallible Some philosophers, notably Quine, take the position that empirical data take precedence over logic, because the principles of reasoning come from experience. Once again compare the two argument forms: 1. If T, then O. Not O. Therefore, not T. 2. If T, then O. O. Therefore, T. Why do logicians say that (1) is valid and (2) invalid? They substitute meaningful terms for T and O and try to think of counterexamples. Succeed and they call the argument valid, fail and they call it invalid. But a more powerful mind might draw different conclusions. As noted above, Quine wrote that the rules of logic are empirical and fallible and do not deserve special status among truth seekers. In fact, some logical arguments bear a close resemblance to psychologists’ descriptions of classical conditioning. When Ivan Pavlov first rang a bell, his

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hungry dogs didn’t respond. But after he had repeatedly rung the bell and always presented food immediately afterwards, the dogs began salivating at the sound of the bell. They had learned the following: If B (bell), then F (food). B. Therefore, F. A different kind of learning is called operant conditioning. Whenever an animal makes a response such as pressing a bar, it receives a reward such as food. The animal learns: If B (bar press), then F (food). B. Therefore, F. To dogs, rats, and logicians, the sequence B, then F may seem invariable and even universal. But some galactic experimenter may be having fun.

Notes 1. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/science-at_bottom-is_really_anti-intellectual-it/13546. html. 2. Newton-Smith, W. (1989) Relativism and the possibility of interpretation. In Hollis, M. & Lukes, S. (Eds.), Rationality and Relativism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 3. McLaughlin, J. (2006) A gentle reminder that a hypothesis is never proven correct, nor is a theory ever proven to be true. http://www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=52402. 4. Sapolsky, A. (1964) An effort at studying Rorschach content symbolism: The frog response. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 28: 469–72. 5. Lykken, D. (1968) Statistical significance in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 70: 151–9.

chapter eleven

Pillar 4: Empiricism

Imperfect Processing Consider another syllogism: Tia is taller than Eli. Eli is taller than Rosie. Therefore, Tia is taller than Rosie. If Tia, Eli, and Rosie are fictional individuals, then the syllogism tells nothing about the world. If they are real, then the two premises—Tia is taller than Eli and Eli is taller than Rosie—are based on some sort of observation. All reasoning starts with premises that are either abstract and lead to abstract conclusions; or concrete and based on observation. All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.—Leonardo da Vinci1

Empiricists believe that everything we know comes through observations and inferences deduced from them. Our sensory systems are limited in several ways (see below), but they are our contacts with the world, the portals through which knowledge enters. Empiricism seems hard to dispute. Denial is an affront to common sense. In the 17th century, George Berkeley issued a denial. He said that only thoughts are real and matter does not exist. Samuel Johnson answered by kicking a large stone and saying, “I refute him thus.” Johnson’s response is often cited as an effective rebuttal. Not hardly.

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Empiricism takes many forms. I “know” that:

• cats exist, because I’ve seen them with my own eyes. • my friend’s name is Martin, because he told me so. • India exists, even though I’ve never been there. But I learned about it from

several sources including history class, newspapers, TV, and books. • the planet Neptune exists. I’ve never been there either but learned about it from several sources, primarily science texts. • the U.S. has the best health care system in the world, from several political speeches. • the U.S. has an inefficient and inadequate health care system, from several political speeches. • X is the most effective drug in the world for whatever ails me, as sincerely vouched for by the manufacturer’s extremely attractive representative. • Y is the most effective drug in the world for whatever ails me, as sincerely vouched for by a different manufacturer’s extremely attractive representative. Despite the many sources, most of our “knowledge” comes from observations that are second- or third- or tenth-hand. Few people have walked on the moon or seen the chromosomes of a fruit fly, and nobody I know attended the signing of the Magna Carta. Plato denied that there can be any trustworthy knowledge based upon the world of sights and sounds. For him, the only objects of knowledge are certain abstract entities not perceptible by the senses. Friedrich Nietzsche and Immanuel Kant expressed similar views. Nietzsche wrote that we can get no closer to reality than our own sense experience and have no way of evaluating its correspondence with the real world. Kant distinguished between noumena and phenomena. External reality is comprised of noumena, but we perceive only appearances (phenomena). The three great philosophers all concluded that all knowledge comes filtered through our mental faculties. Observations can’t distinguish truth from illusion or tell about underlying reality. Mental institutions are crammed with people who hear voices, speak with long-dead relatives, and commune with God. Psychiatrists say they hallucinate. “Normal” people don’t have such visions, but that doesn’t prove the others wrong.

Research on Perception An ancient Indian parable tells the story of six blind men who describe an elephant. The first man touches the elephant’s side and says that an elephant is like a wall. The second touches a tusk and says that an elephant is like a spear. The third touches the trunk and says that an elephant is like a snake. For the fourth it’s a knee and “like

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a tree.” For the fifth, an ear and “like a fan,” and for the sixth, the tail and “like a rope.” Each blind man has apprehended only a tiny portion of reality. But the parable doesn’t go far enough. The smug narrator, despite being sighted, observed incompletely. He could not have described the elephant with details obvious to its family, or to lions or fleas. Humans see only a tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Honeybees and various other animals might consider even normally sighted humans blind, or at least seriously visually impaired. See Figure 11.1.

Figure 11.1: Visual spectrum

It’s not just vision. Bats hear sounds far beyond the human range, moths smell pheromones in incredibly minute concentrations, and the taste receptors of supposedly nondiscriminating pigs put human palates to shame. Other animals

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sense stimuli of which we are unaware. Bees see ultraviolet light, some bird species respond to magnetic fluctuations, sawfish detect electrical voltages, and other fish detect tiny vibrations in water. Furthermore, even completely sane people experience occasional sensory distortions. Did you ever think you heard the phone ring or your baby cry and then realize you were mistaken? It happens. In his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, neurologist Oliver Sacks devoted a chapter to an intelligent man with healthy eyes whose behavior justified the title. The man also greeted fire hydrants and parking meters as though they were children. The condition, called prosopagnosia (face blindness), was once thought to be exceedingly rare but is now believed to affect up to 2% of the population. Such people are unable to tell strangers’ faces apart and, in severe cases, cannot recognize their own face. Our visual systems are constructed so that the images focused on our retinas are upside down. Our brains turn the images right-side up. George Stratten experimented by wearing goggles that inverted everything he saw.2 His retinal images were right-side up and his world appeared upside down. At first he found it difficult, but within a few days his brain adapted to the inverted world and he was even able to ride a bicycle. Visual stimuli are typically routed to the thalamus and from there to the visual cortex. The cortex interprets the information and sends impulses to the next structure in the chain, the amygdala. The amygdala releases the appropriate neurotransmitters and hormones. But if the visual stimulus indicates imminent danger, the thalamus bypasses the cortex and sends the signal straight to the amygdala. The individual may then experience a powerful emotion without knowing why. Read out loud the sentence in the triangle shown in Figure 11.2.

Figure 11.2: I love Paris

Did you catch the second “the?” Many people don’t. People with injuries to neural pathways connecting portions of the retina to certain parts of the brain become functionally blind. They deny being able to see, and all conventional measures of visual functioning support their claim. If a pear

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is held in front of them, they will claim to see nothing and the pupils of their eyes won’t move or change in size. But if asked to guess which type of fruit has just been presented, they will say (while insisting that it’s only a wild guess) “pear.” The phenomenon has been reported often enough that it has been given a name, blindsight. There have also been cases of deafhearing—people who lose the conscious experience of sound but remain capable of making responses based on noises. Humans are subject to a wide variety of perceptual illusions. A book can show only visual examples—see Figures 11.3–11.5 and http://www.michaelbach.de/ ot/ for many more—but illusions have been identified for every known sensory modality.

Figure 11.3: Railroad tracks: The thick horizontal bars are the same length

Figure 11.4: Building with parallel lines: The horizontal lines are parallel to each other

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Figure 11.5: Muller-Lyer illusion: The two horizontal lines are the same length

Hemispatial neglect is a neuropsychological condition in which, after one hemisphere of the brain is damaged, the victim becomes unable to process and perceive stimuli on one side of the body. Patients might fail to eat food on one side of a plate even while saying they are hungry. If asked to draw a clock, they might draw one half of the clock face with numbers and leave the other half distorted or blank. They might only shave or apply make-up to the non-neglected side. They frequently collide with objects on the neglected side. Certain traits are perceived as going together even when the data do not show any association between them. They are called illusory correlations. See p. 20. Some things have to be believed to be seen.—Ralph Hodgson3

Empiricists Fight Back—Unsuccessfully Empiricists don’t insist that we see the world with total accuracy. They acknowledge the occurrence of errors such as hallucinations and sensory illusions, but they say that hallucinations are rare even among demented and intoxicated people; and illusions play a trivial role in daily life. Their conclusion is that sensory data are generally accurate. Descartes claimed that God, who is good, wouldn’t let us be deceived on such a large scale as skeptical doubts suggest. Philosophers Gilbert Ryle and John Austin were encouraged by the evidence that sensory systems make occasional errors. They argued that our ability to detect illusions is evidence for the general trustworthiness of the senses. That is, from the fact that imperfections are occasionally but infrequently detected, they made the strange inferences that imperfections are rare and perceptions are typically accurate. Adultery is also occasionally but infrequently detected—should we use that as evidence that adultery is rare?

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Ryle and Austin asserted that inaccurate perceptual mechanisms are constantly eliminated by natural selection. But the view that long-term survival would be impossible without accurate mechanisms for representing the world is incorrect. See the discussion on p. 70 on evolution of reasoning abilities. Ryle and Austin were brilliant philosophers. Their argument supports the conclusion that human reasoning is fraught with pitfalls. Reliable estimation of the frequency of illusions, delusions, and hallucinations is impossible. You may be experiencing one this very moment and not know it. Abraham Lincoln was wrong—all the people can be fooled all the time. Furthermore, even if our sensory apparatus rivaled Superman’s, complete with X-ray vision, we’d still face insurmountable obstacles to certain knowledge. First, the fidelity of human memory is, to put it charitably, considerably less than high. Nietzsche summed up the second obstacle in an epigram, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” That is, an infinite number of conflicting interpretations are compatible with any given perception. Maybe it’s churlish to point out yet another problem with empiricism but, strictly speaking, it’s self-refuting—empiricism is the claim that all knowledge is gained through the senses—a claim about knowledge that is not gained through the senses. We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. —Anais Nin4

Our Low Fidelity Memories Memory says, “I did that.” Pride replies, “I could not have done that.” Eventually, memory yields.—Nietzsche5

Our perceptions are influenced by context. Elizabeth Loftus showed subjects a videotape of an automobile accident, then asked some subjects “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” She asked others “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” Afterwards, the subjects estimated the speeds of the cars. The ones who had heard “smashed into” estimated higher speeds than the “hit” subjects. Furthermore, even if our perceptions of events are completely accurate, our memories of the events might not be. In a second study, Loftus assigned participants to one of three groups. They all viewed the accident film and were then asked either “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” or “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” or nothing at all about the speed. They returned one week later and, without watching the film again, answered a series of questions. The critical question was, “Did

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you see any broken glass?” (The film did not show broken glass.) More than twice as many subjects in the “smashed” group as in either of the other groups reported that they had seen broken glass.6 False memories can easily be implanted. Loftus asked volunteers who had visited Disneyland as children, “Remember that wonderful day when Bugs Bunny hugged you at Disneyland?” Many remembered in detail—but the event never happened. Bugs Bunny is not a Disney character. Loftus had volunteers carry out or only imagine doing several common tasks like flipping a coin and unusual ones like crushing a Hershey’s kiss with a dental floss container. Later, 15% insisted they had performed some of the actions they’d only imagined. When Loftus was 14, her mother drowned. She had no recollection of viewing the death scene and had always thought that her aunt had discovered the body. Thirty years later, an uncle told her that Loftus herself had found the body. Over the next several days, details came flooding back—her terror, the police cars, and the stretcher with the white blanket tucked around her mother’s body. Several days later, her brother told her that the uncle was wrong. The aunt had discovered the body. Several relatives confirmed it. Loftus’ research sparked interest in the possibility that some people are in prison because the faulty memory of eyewitnesses had led to wrongful convictions. By 2015, the Innocence Project, using DNA analysis, led to the exoneration of 350 people.7 Roediger and DeSoto showed that very confident people are often less accurate than less confident ones.8 Loftus wrote, “The one take home message that I have tried to convey in my writings, and classes, and in my TED talk is this: Just because someone tells you something with a lot of confidence and detail and emotion, it doesn’t mean it actually happened. The past is unpredictable.—Russian proverb

While interviewing people about a video they had watched, Daniel Gurney and colleagues performed misleading hand gestures to suggest inaccurate information about details in the video.9 For example, the interviewer stroked his chin to suggest that someone had a beard, although the man in the video did not have one. The interviewees who saw chin stroking were much more likely than those who did not to recall seeing a beard. When questioned a few days after the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, most people recalled exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. But when questioned again 2.5 years later, about half of them gave different answers. On both occasions they were certain that their memories were accurate. Below are two reports from the same person.10

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January, 1986: I was in my religion class and some people walked in and started talking about the explosion. I didn’t know any details except that it had exploded and the school teacher’s students had all been watching, which I thought was so sad. Then after class I went to my room and watched the TV program talking about it and I got all the details from that. September, 1988: When I first heard about the explosion I was sitting in my freshman dorm room with my roommate and we were watching TV. It came on a news flash and we were both totally shocked. I was really upset and went upstairs to talk to a friend of mine and then I called my parents.

Jean Piaget wrote of an incident from his early childhood.11 “I was sitting in my pram, which my nurse was pushing in the Champs Elysees, when a man tried to kidnap me. I was held in by the strap fastened around me while my nurse bravely tried to stand between me and the thief. She received various scratches, and I can still see vaguely those on her face. Then a crowd gathered, a policeman with a short cloak and a white baton came up, and the man took to his heels. I can still see the whole scene and can even place it near the tube station.” Piaget’s vivid memory, which persisted into his early adulthood, was of an event that never happened. The nurse wrote to his parents years later saying that she wanted to confess her past sins and return the watch she’d been given as a reward for saving the baby’s life. She had made up the entire incident. Even people with extraordinary memories are susceptible to developing false ones. Lawrence Patihis and colleagues divided volunteers into two groups: those with ordinary memory and those with highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM). HSAM subjects had excelled on a quiz that asked questions such as “On what date did an Iraqi journalist hurl two shoes at President Bush?” and “What public event occurred on Oct. 11, 2002?” Twenty subjects qualified for the HSAM group while 38 went into the ordinary-memory category. Both groups were then tested for their ability to resist developing false memories during a series of exercises designed to implant them. For example, the investigators casually mentioned the footage that had been captured of United Flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The footage does not exist, but about 1 in 5 people in both groups “remembered” seeing it when asked later.12 People in both groups made errors when shown photographs and fed lures intended to make them think they’d seen details that hadn’t been there. Patihis concluded that “perhaps no one is immune to memory distortion.” When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.— Mark Twain13

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Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels said: “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” Experimental evidence supports his assertion. Hasher and colleagues had college students look at a list of sixty plausible statements concerning matters about which they were unlikely to know anything. Some items were true and some false. Two weeks later the students received a second list, and two weeks after that a third. Twenty statements appeared on all three lists, and the other forty items were unique to each list. Participants graded their belief in the truth of each statement. During each session they showed about the same level of confidence in the truth of the non-repeated statements, but they became increasingly confident from the first to the second and second to third sessions in the truth of the repeated statements.14 Fazio and colleagues showed participants various statements.15 Some were true, e.g., “A prune is a dried plum,” and some were similar but false, e.g., “A date is a dried plum.” The participants rated how interesting each statement was and their confidence in its truth. After a break ranging from a few minutes to several weeks, they rated some new statements and some that they had seen in the first phase. They tended to rate items they had seen before as more likely to be true, whether or not they were true. Familiarity was the sole reason. Pluviano and colleagues asked participants to fill out a questionnaire about their beliefs in the link between vaccines and autism, vaccine side effects, and vaccination intention, then randomly assigned them to one of four experimental conditions.16 They

• received a booklet contrasting popular erroneous beliefs about vaccination with established evidence intended at decreasing the acceptance of those beliefs.

• viewed a series of tables comparing the potential problems caused by measles,

mumps, and rubella with the potential side effects caused by the MMR vaccine. Each table showed the chance of various outcomes for people who do and do not get vaccinated. • were presented with pictures of unvaccinated children with measles, mumps, and rubella, along with the description of the symptoms of each disease and a brief warning about the importance of vaccinating one’s own child. • read two unrelated fact sheets containing tips to help prevent medical errors and get safer healthcare. Then the participants again answered questions about their vaccine beliefs and, after a 7-day delay, answered again. The results were disheartening. Beliefs of the third group didn’t change much, but both the first and second groups developed even stronger beliefs in the vaccine/autism link and in vaccine side effects. A likely reason, following from the Hasher study just described, is that simply repeating a statement makes it more believable.

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Chan and colleagues meta-analyzed a large number of studies that investigated messages to counter beliefs based on misinformation. The analysis showed that misinformation often persisted despite debunking. Encouraging audiences to think of reasons why the initial information was incorrect often helps them realize that they’ve been misinformed, but the misinformation often persists.17 For the really bizarre, consider Nobel Prize winning physicist Stephen Hawking’s comments at a lecture he gave. Hawking said that particles that fall into a black hole “can’t just emerge when the black hole disappears…If determinism breaks down, we can’t be sure of our past history either. The history books and our memories could just be illusions. It is the past that tells us who we are. Without it, we lose our identity.”18 Each of us is the accumulation of our memories.—A.L. McGinnis19

Deception When we rely on others for our knowledge, we run the risk that they may try to deceive us. Many examples are given below. If they seem repetitious and excessive, please appreciate that no single example of deception by individuals or organizations will shock anyone who keeps up with current events. In fact, the following is only a tiny sample of what could have been included. Taken collectively, they indicate that most people are repeatedly deceived about many things that matter to them. Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deception.—Machiavelli20 Folks everywhere—the shrewd, the simple, the powerful and the weak—have been taken in by hoaxes and scams since the beginning of recorded time.—Carl Sifakis, Hoaxes and Scams

By the time they reach adolescence, most people realize that TV commercials and ads in newspapers and magazines often distort the truth. Our world of used car salesmen, pyramid schemes, and politicians gives good reason for generalized suspicion. We are constantly fed inaccurate and misleading information. The stage magician seems to saw the pretty woman in half, Richard Nixon says “I am not a crook,” Bill Clinton says “I did not have sex with that woman,” the Secretary of Defense claims there are weapons of mass destruction in Baghdad, Pat Robertson proclaims himself a man of God.

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Those are petty deceptions. We are almost certainly deceived on a much larger scale, and a veil of unknown but substantial thickness shields us from knowledge imparted by others. Philosophers and science fiction writers often imagine scenarios in which people are perpetually fooled. Paranoid schizophrenics may live in such a world (or, possibly, everyone but a few paranoid schizophrenics). Rene Descartes conjectured an evil and powerful demon devoted to deceiving humankind and rendering wrong everything we think we know. For his notion to be taken seriously, three conditions must be satisfied. In normal criminal investigations, prosecutors attempt to establish who had the motive, means, and opportunity to carry out the crime. The same strategy applies here.

Motives to Deceive Any human motive could serve as backdrop for a large-scale deceit: love, hate, greed, jealousy. Many people lie for money, as Bernie Madoff did for years to bilk investors out of billions of dollars. Some lie as a means of aggrandizing themselves, as President Donald Trump did when he falsely claimed, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that his inauguration crowd was bigger than President Barack Obama’s first one. Some lie to protect or enhance their image, as hundreds of athletes have done by denying taking performance enhancing drugs. According to a Scientific American report, 90% of people looking for a date online lie in their profile.21 Sissela Bok wrote, “Lying is so easy compared to other ways of gaining power. It’s much easier to lie in order to get somebody’s money or wealth than to hit them over the head or rob a bank.”22 Curiosity is sufficient motivation for many scientists. They bring Descartes’ demon to life for millions of laboratory animals each year. For example, biologist Roger Sperry removed the eyes of frogs, rotated them 180 degrees, and placed them back in their sockets. The nerve fibers regenerated and the frogs regained their sight. But when Sperry dangled a fly upwards and to the right, the frogs invariably struck downwards and to the left (which reinforces the view that even seemingly direct perceptions are fallible and can be manipulated by others). Other researchers have raised cats in total darkness and given monkeys powerful mind-altering drugs. PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) has literature citing hundreds of other examples. During the 1992 U.S. presidential election campaign, George Bush declared that he would do anything to remain president. Isn’t it within the realm of possibility that some future president really would do anything? A dictator could conceivably do frog-like experiments on humans, and the victims would not necessarily be

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aware. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad gassed many of their own citizens. Had it served their purposes, they surely wouldn’t have hesitated to use mind-altering substances. Had the Nazis won the war, they would have had no compunction about feeding powerful drugs to entire populations. But a motive isn’t really necessary. Descartes’ demon would not have to be perverse or even alive. Suppose, for example, that some element permanently in the atmosphere distorts human perceptions.

Means Individuals perverse enough to do terrible things would not have to be allpowerful—just powerful enough—and that includes many people. The likely existence of non-terrestrial intelligent life increases the possibilities. One apparent problem with such a paranoid view is that any perpetrator(s) would have to apply immense effort with extraordinary skill. It’s one thing to cover up an adulterous relationship or lie to Congress, quite another to create an entire universe of illusions. However, people with special talents often attempt to use those talents to their fullest. Zoo keepers and biology laboratory workers have created elaborate artificial worlds for their subjects and take pride in the correctness of tiny details. Below are a few illustrative examples of people who acted out obsessions. (They may not be true, but they have been detailed in books by reputable authors and publishers. If they are fabrications, they illustrate another of my points.)

• Mathematician Carl Gauss tried to solve a problem while his wife was sick. The doctor came to tell him she was dying. Never looking up, Gauss said “Tell her to wait a moment till I’m through.” • Swami Maujgiri Maharaj stood continuously for more than 17 years between 1955 and 1973. He slept leaning against a pole. • In the 1980s, Melissa Saunders lived for 516 days in a 6 foot by 7 foot shack at the top of a pole. • In 1982, N. Ravi balanced on one foot for 34 hours. • In 1986, Ken Own lay on a bed of nails for 300 hours including 132 hours and 30 minutes without a break. • From 1921 to 1954, Simon Rodia built the Watts Towers. He used salvaged steel rods, bed frames, and cement for the framework; and glass bottle fragments, ceramic tiles, and seashells for the thick coral-like surface. The central tower is 107 feet high.

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• Actress Colleen Moore enlisted the help of more than 700 professionals, including surgical instrument lighting specialists, Beverly Hills jewelers, and Chinese jade craftsmen, to build an astonishing miniature world. It took nine years and nearly $500,000 in 1930s dollars to complete the 11-room castle. Housed in Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, the 9-foot square aluminum two-story structure weighs about a ton and contains more than 2,000 miniatures. The appliances are functional.

Opportunity Some deception tactics require sophisticated technology. Others do not. Below are some possibilities.

Drugs At a dose of about 50 to 100 micrograms, LSD profoundly distorts perceptions and cognition. The small spice tins sold in supermarkets hold about 28 million micrograms, so a spice tin could hold enough LSD for 280,000 100-microgram trips. LSD was first synthesized in 1938. By 1953, the CIA had authorized a project to perfect mind-control drugs for possible wartime use. Chemists developed quinuclidinyl benzilate, which causes symptoms such as disorientation, auditory and visual hallucinations, and maniacal behavior that usually lasts about three days but in some sensitive people can persist for six weeks. Those discoveries came before the modern era of psychopharmacology. Today, computers help chemists synthesize new drugs that act on highly specific parts of the brain. Articles published in reputable scientific journals describe new drugs far more powerful than LSD. Who knows about classified research in government laboratories!23

Electrical Stimulation of the Brain More than half a century ago, neurophysiologist Jose Delgado implanted electrodes into a bull’s brain. Delgado passed an electric current through the hypothalamus, and the bull charged him. When it got within a few feet, he stimulated a different area and the bull stopped in its tracks. Today, graduate students in physiology, psychology, and various other fields routinely implant electrodes and cause animals to start or stop eating, drinking, copulating, sleeping, waking, nest building, nursing, and fighting. The animals can be controlled from a distance.

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Natural Selection In a 1940 book, H.B. Cott drew parallels between Darwinian evolution and international arms races. Cott wrote: Before asserting that the deceptive appearance of a grasshopper or butterfly is unnecessarily detailed, we must first ascertain what are the powers of perception and discrimination of the insects’ natural enemies. Not to do so is like asserting that the armour of a battle cruiser is too heavy, or the range of her guns too great, without inquiring into the nature and effectiveness of the enemy’s armament. Just as greater speed in the pursued has developed in relation to aggressive weapons, so the perfection of concealing devices has evolved in response to increased powers of perception.

Evolutionary arms races are costly, and the biochemical machinery used to locate prey or avoid predators is unavailable for mating or resisting disease. The cost of avoiding predation is sometimes too high. If a prey species greatly outnumbers its predators, only a small percentage of the prey fall victim and the survivors never evolve countermeasures. For example, bolas spiders dangle on strands from overhangs and produce an odor that mimics the odor of female moths. Male moths are attracted, and the bolas spider swings a second strand like a lasso. If the spider misses, the moth typically flies back within range. Male moths that didn’t respond to the odor of females would not leave any descendants. Niko Tinbergen noted that black headed gulls always carry empty egg shells out of their nests and drop them some distance away. Tinbergen conducted several experiments which showed that nests containing empty eggshells are more likely to be attacked by predators. The farther away the eggshell was carried, the safer were the remaining unhatched eggs still in the nest. Tinbergen’s work earned him a Nobel Prize, and many current scientists follow his lead. They assume that if all animals of a species engage in a certain behavior, the behavior must have an important function for members of that species. But Richard Dawkins showed that the matter is not so simple. He wrote that when scientists see an animal performing behavior pattern A in situation P, their reaction is to ask: “In what way is behavior pattern A good for the animal in situation P?” That might be the wrong question. Some other animal or plant may be manipulating the animal for its own purposes.24 Parasites must move from one host to another. Many of them do so by manipulating the behavior of their hosts. Below are examples:

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• Certain flukes have a snail as a host. To reach the next stage of their life

cycle they must pass from inside the snail to a bird. For this to happen, a bird must eat the snail. The flukes burrow up into the snail’s tentacles and are visible through its skin, pulsating conspicuously. Snails normally avoid light and therefore do not approach the tops of plants. But infected snails actively seek light. They crawl to the open tops of the plants, making them more likely to be seen by birds. Birds are attracted by the tentacles, eat them, and send the flukes to their next stage. The snail behavior benefits the flukes, not the snails. A scientist who asks: “In what way does its light-seeking behavior benefit the snail?” will not find a correct answer. A fluke is manipulating the snail from behind the scenes. • Adult hairworms breed in water and get their young inside of grasshoppers. The hairworms pump the insects with chemicals that cause the grasshoppers to leap into water and drown. When the grasshopper hits the water, the worm emerges from its rear end and swims off to find a mate. • A fungus in tropical forests manipulates the behaviors of an ant species.25 Infected ants leave their nest and search for a tree in an area with a temperature and humidity level most suitable for fungal growth. Then they bite on a leaf and die. Most ants bite on the north side of the leaf, about 25 centimeters above ground, in an environment with 94 to 95% humidity and temperatures between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius. This accuracy is vital to the fungus; researchers moved some infected ants to nearby locations and left others where they had died. Fruiting bodies grew from the heads of ants that hadn’t been moved but not from the heads of the moved ones. • Bacteria within our bodies outnumber our own cells about 100-fold. They release molecules into the gut that influence our dietary choices.26 The gut links with the immune, endocrine, and nervous systems, so the signals may influence many physiologic and behavioral responses. The results are not always aligned with our own needs. • Parasites do not have to live inside their hosts. Cuckoos lay eggs in the nests of their hosts. The newly hatched cuckoo pushes the host’s eggs out of the nest and induces the host to feed it. • Toxoplasma gondii is a microscopic protozoan that causes a disease called toxoplasmosis. Cats, the primary host, transmit the parasite through their feces. Rats that pick up the parasite through soil contaminated with cat feces become fearless near cats and are likely to be eaten by a cat, which starts the cycle all over again. T. gondii makes chimpanzees more attracted to the smell of leopards, their main predators. Chimps normally are repelled by the scent of a leopard, but infected chimps readily investigated the smell of leopard urine.

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Humans can get infected if they eat undercooked, infected meat, or ingest water, soil, or anything else contaminated with cat feces (which can easily occur from changing a cat litter box); or through transmission from a pregnant woman to her unborn baby. Beluga whales in the arctic may become infected and pose a health risk to Inuit people who eat them. Some researchers estimate that more than 30 % of the entire human population is infected and has some behaviors manipulated by the parasite. Schizophrenics are more likely than non-schizophrenics to have toxoplasmosis. Infected married women are more likely than noninfected to have affairs. They become more outgoing and trusting. Infected men tend to be more aggressive, introverted, and wary of others. Infected humans of both genders tend to have slower reaction times.27 Toxoplasma gondii is one parasite. It seems plausible that undiscovered others also affect human behavior.

• In one series of tests, researchers found that more than 40% of humans were

infected with the ATCV-1 virus.28 Infected people had slower visual motor speed and visual processing. Mice infected with ATCV-1 were poorer at solving mazes. • The influenza virus makes people more sociable.29 People given a flu vaccine were more likely to spend time in bars and at parties in the 48 hours after being exposed than the 48 hours before. The flu virus benefits if its infected host comes into contact with as many potential future hosts as possible before symptoms start and they become bedridden. Neurophysiologists can manipulate the behavior of animals by passing current through implanted electrodes. Dawkins asked, “If the brain is vulnerable to such manipulation, should not natural selection, working on other animals, have perfected the power to manipulate?” Our eyes, ears, and noses open into deep parts of our brains, predisposing the brains to be manipulated. Dawkins wrote, “Natural selection would surely favor animals that succeed in manipulating the nervous systems of other animals.”

FakeApp In recent years an extremely powerful and frightening method for deceiving large numbers of people has been developed. FakeApp, which can be downloaded for free, allows users to manipulate digital media. For example, they can take a picture of a face and put it on a different body. It takes only a little skill to combine fake images with fake, realistic, audio. So, FakeApp has been used to put celebrities into pornographic films. From there it’s a short step to smearing politicians or framing

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people for crimes or even having a world leader declaring war on another country. FakeApp gives ample reason for doubting what we see with our own eyes.

Secret Experiments Robert Root-Bernstein claimed that 90% of scientists who ever lived are alive today, 90% of the scientific literature has been written by scientists now alive, and more than 90% of research money for science has been spent in the last generation. Since 1660, when the Royal Society was founded in England, the total size of science has increased about a millionfold and the technology for facilitating scientific discovery has increased exponentially. An implication of these figures is that for every major discovery made in 1665, about a million should be made each current year. Yet the number of major discoveries per century has remained fairly constant. Root-Bernstein concluded that scientists today aren’t being trained properly.30 A more provocative conclusion is that revolutionary discoveries are being made at the 17th century pace and the vast majority of citizens are kept perpetually ignorant. Imagine a scientist who discovered that a readily available chemical, taken in the right dose, reverses aging. Going public would be disastrous, because few would die while births would continue until all habitable space was used up. Other discoveries might be even more sinister. Psychologists estimate that Einstein’s IQ was about 180. According to the probability distribution of the normal curve, an intelligence of his magnitude occurs only once in ten million births. Extremely rare. On the other hand, the population of the earth is seven billion. Probably about 700 people with Einsteinian IQs are alive today. Strange that we haven’t heard of them. Could we all be part of a sophisticated worldwide deception experiment? Maybe the Nazis did win the war.

“Knowledge” That Comes From Other Sources Any form of information that comes from other sources may be incorrect because of unintentional error, misguided theory, or deliberate deception. The next sections deal with deception.

Individuals So much of what we “know” comes from what others have told us, and people occasionally lie. Have you ever distorted the truth to parents, siblings, friends, lovers, teachers, employers, or customers? Of course you have, and others have

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deceived you. We can never be certain of the feelings of others. In fact, the word “certain” can justifiably be changed to the phrase “even mildly confident.” Did I say that people occasionally lie? Let me amend that. Polygraph expert Leonard Saxe said, “Lying has long been a part of everyday life. We couldn’t get through the day without being deceptive.”31 Almost 90% of college students admitted to having lied to a romantic part32 ner. Feldman and colleagues asked college students, strangers to each other, to talk for 10 minutes.33 Some were given no special instructions, others were told to try to make themselves appear likable, and others to appear competent. They were unaware that the session was being videotaped. Afterwards, they watched the video and identified all lies they had told. Sixty percent admitted to having told at least one, and they averaged an admitted 2.92. They were surprised at the results. Dan Ariely and colleagues performed several experiments to study cheating. They looked at insurance claims, employment histories, and treatment records of doctors and dentists, and concluded that almost everybody cheats.34 They gave volunteers several math problems and said that payment would be based on the number solved. When time expired, the volunteers were told to first drop their answer sheets into a shredder and then report the number of correct responses. But the sheets weren’t really shredded. On average, the volunteers reported having solved 50% more than they had actually solved. DePaulo and colleagues asked people to keep a diary of all the lies they told.35 Most admitted to lying once or twice a day and in about 20% of their social exchanges lasting 10 or more minutes. Each week they deceived about 30% of those with whom they interacted one-on-one. Trivial comments such as “I’m fine” were not counted. DePaulo reported that most people have, at some point, told one or more “serious lies” such as hiding an affair from a spouse or making false claims on an application form. Children start lying between ages two and five. “Mommy said I could.” “I didn’t break it, he did.” Lee and his colleagues asked kids to guess the identity of toys hidden from their view, based on audio clues.36 At first, the clues related to the toys, such as a meow for a cat and a bark for a dog, and the children answered appropriately. But after a few trials, Lee presented sounds that were completely independent of the toys. For example, classical music was paired with a toy car. At that point Lee left the room on the pretext of taking a phone call (he lied to them), and asked the child not to peek. Returning, Lee asked for the answer and also asked, “Did you peek?” Hidden cameras revealed that most had. Thirty percent of two-year-olds who had peeked lied about it. Among three-year-old peekers, 50% lied, and among eight-year olds, about 80%. Older kids lied more and were better liars. The children had no reasonable way of guessing the toy from

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the irrelevant audio clue, but most three- and four-year-olds gave the right answer, which of course showed that they had lied. Seven and eight-year-olds typically either deliberately gave a wrong answer or tried to make their answer seem like a reasoned guess. During the 2016 Republican primaries and the national election, Donald Trump told many easily verifiable lies. Yet his deceits only strengthened his approval ratings. Jeremy Smith introduced the concept of “blue lies” to try to explain what happened.37 Blue lies are told on behalf of a group and pull some people together while driving others away. Evans and Lee found that children become more likely to endorse and tell blue lies as they grow older.38 Many were willing to lie about rule breaking in the selecting of a school chess team, 11-year-olds more than seven-year-olds. The liars did not stand to benefit directly; they were doing it for their school. Smith called most of Trump’s lies blue lies. We humans divide ourselves into competitive groups, and competition often leads to socially sanctioned deceit. Intelligence agencies lie in the interests of national security, and spies are lauded as heroes. Smith quoted political scientist George Edwards: “People condone lying against enemy nations, and since many people now see those on the other side of American politics as enemies, they may feel that lies are appropriate means of warfare.” Maybe so, but widespread lying is just one more barrier to the hope of gaining knowledge. Yaling Yang and her colleagues compared brain scans of 12 adults with a history of repeated lying, 16 who met the criteria for antisocial personality disorder but were not frequent liars, and 21 who were neither antisocial nor had a lying habit. The liars had at least 20% more neural fibers by volume in their prefrontal cortices, suggesting that habitual liars have greater connectivity within their brains. This may make lying easier for them because they can think up lies more readily than others, or it might be the result of repeated lying.39 The vast majority of big lies—deep betrayals of trust—occur between people in intimate relationships.40 According to the book The Day America Told the Truth, based on a survey given to 2,000 people in 50 locations, 86% lie regularly to parents, 75% to friends, 73% to siblings, and a mere 69% to spouses.41 All governments lie.—I.F. Stone42

By the time you swear you’re his, Shivering and sighing. And he vows his passion is, Infinite, undying.

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Lady make note of this— One of you is lying.—Dorothy Parker

Jones and Sigall convinced survey participants that they were connected to an infallible lie detector.43 Their responses were compared with those from a control group who were asked the same questions but not attached to the device. The responses were considerably different for the two groups. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz had the insight that Google searches reveal more about people than do conventional methods like surveys.44 “People tell Google things that they don’t tell to possibly anybody else.” So he tracked frequencies of searches and concluded, for example, that many gay men still lie about their sexuality. According to surveys, only 2% to 3% of men are gay. But about 5% of male porn searches are for gay-male porn, which suggests that 5% of searchers are either bisexual or gay. Facebook pages, unlike Google searches, are typically open to many people. On Facebook, the top descriptors to complete the phrase “My husband is …” are “the best,” “my best friend,” “amazing,” “the greatest” and “so cute.” On Google, one of the top five ways to complete that phrase is also “amazing.” But the other four are “a jerk,” “annoying,” “gay” and “mean.” Fiction was invented the day Jonah arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.—Gabriel García Márquez45

The poet E.A. Robinson understood our inability to know the true feelings of others. Richard Cory (by E.A. Robinson) Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him; He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, “Good morning” and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich—yes, richer than a king, And admirably schooled in every grace; In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place.

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So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

The wretched widow grieving at her loved one’s grave may actually be rejoicing at her inheritance or thinking of an ice cream sundae. There is no way to find out. You can ask her, but she may lie. Torture her, probe her brain with electrodes, it makes no difference. There are no infallible methods. You cannot apprehend her sensations. Even two brains hooked together and exposed to identical stimuli would not experience identical feelings; otherwise, a snail could be made to feel sublime love. The worst is still to come. You may believe that, although you can never be sure of another’s emotions, you can make intelligent guesses about them. But to do that, you must have some way of knowing when your guess is correct. That is impossible.

Corporate Both large corporations and smaller companies have knowingly deceived the public by promoting hazardous products, selling outdated and contaminated foodstuffs, and illegally disposing of waste products that pollute water and air. The book Trust Us, We’re Experts, gives a bookful of examples.46 In dollars lost, injuries, and bodies, corporate crime inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined. In 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission received 3,923 tips reporting corruption, bribes, and other white-collar crimes. White-collar crime costs the United States more than $300 billion annually.47 ExxonMobil misled the public about the risks posed by climate change. Oreskes and Supran wrote that “Available documents show a discrepancy between what ExxonMobil’s scientists and executives discussed about climate change privately and in academic circles and what it presented to the general public.”48 The company’s internal communications consistently acknowledged that global warming is real, human-caused, serious, and solvable. But, “In contrast, ExxonMobil’s advertorials in the New York Times overwhelmingly emphasized only the uncertainties, promoting a narrative inconsistent with the views of most climate scientists, including ExxonMobil’s own.” Drug companies are major fraudsters. Some companies award research funds on condition that results cannot be published without their approval. Then they suppress unsatisfactory results. Boots pharmaceutical manufactures Synthroid, the first synthetic thyroid drug. By the 1990s, Synthroid had captured 84% of the U.S. market for drugs to control hypothyroidism. Then three much cheaper generics began making inroads into sales, so Boots awarded a $250,000 grant to researchers to compare Synthroid with the rivals. Boots expected Synthroid to

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come out on top, but all four drugs were essentially interchangeable. Boots cited the contract forbidding publication of the findings without Boots’s approval. And Boots refused to approve. Happily for the many people who need hypothyroid medication, the researchers braved legal threats and reported their findings to the Wall Street Journal.49 Fortunately, Americans have the FDA to protect us. Ha, ha, that’s a joke. Charles Seife obtained FDA documents under the Freedom of Information Act.50 He wrote, “Reading the FDA’s inspection files feels almost like watching a highlights reel from a Scientists Gone Wild video. It’s a seemingly endless stream of lurid vignettes—Faked X-ray reports. Forged retinal scans. Phony lab tests. Secretly amputated limbs. All done in the name of science when researchers thought that nobody was watching. When the FDA finds scientific fraud or misconduct, the agency doesn’t notify the public, the medical establishment, or even the scientific community that the results of a medical experiment are not to be trusted. On the contrary. For more than a decade, the FDA has shown a pattern of burying the details of misconduct. As a result, nobody ever finds out which data are bogus, which experiments are tainted, and which drugs might be on the market under false pretenses.” Seife wrote, “My students and I looked at FDA documents relating to roughly 600 clinical trials in which one of the researchers running the trial failed an FDA inspection. In only roughly 100 cases were we able to figure out which study, which drug, and which pharmaceutical company were involved. For the other 500, the FDA was successfully able to shield the drugmaker (and the study sponsor) from public exposure.” Seife continued, “It’s not just the public that’s in the dark. It’s researchers, too. And your doctor. My students and I were able to track down some 78 scientific publications resulting from a tainted study—a clinical trial in which FDA inspectors found significant problems with the conduct of the trial, up to and including fraud. In only three cases did we find any hint in the peer-reviewed literature of problems found by the FDA inspection. The other publications were not retracted, corrected, or highlighted in any way.” A 2011 analysis found that more than 6,500 patients had received treatments in studies later retracted for fraud. When researchers counted all of the volunteers in trials that drew on that research, the figure was 400,000.51 Elizabeth Holmes started a company called Theranos in 2003. She claimed to have developed a technology that would permit early disease detection by making blood testing more user-friendly. Her “Edison” machines, named after the famed inventor, were called revolutionary by her and also by many media outlets. She told investors that the Edison could conduct the full range of laboratory tests from just a few drops of blood pricked from a finger. She falsely claimed that Edison devices were deployed by the Defense Department in the battlefield in Afghanistan and

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on medevac helicopters. Investors, including many prominent and seemingly knowledgeable individuals, flocked to Theranos.52 But Theranos was actually conducting the vast majority of the tests in Walgreens stores on commercial analyzers manufactured by other companies. Her lab ran about 890,000 tests a year; and at least some of the 890,000 patients must have received erroneous results that affected health decisions made with their doctors. The SEC began investigating Theranos after a 2015 Wall Street Journal report that the Edison handled just a small fraction of the tests sold to consumers. Inspectors found that the Edison machines often failed to meet the company’s own accuracy requirements. In May, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud charges against Ms. Holmes and the company. She told federal health regulators that the company voided and revised two years of results from its Edison devices, issued tens of thousands of corrected reports to doctors and patients, and threw out all Edison test results from 2014 and 2015. Car manufacturers don’t do too well either. In 2015, Volkswagen admitted that it had installed defeat devices in as many as 11 million diesel cars sold worldwide between 2008 and 2015. The devices made cars appear to be complying with environmental standards when they were actually emitting pollutants much higher than the applicable European limit. As a result, people throughout Europe were exposed to excess fumes. Scientists estimated that 1,200 people will lose as much as a decade of their life because of emissions generated between 2008 and 2015 by affected cars.53 Stephen Barrett said, “We don’t know if other manufacturers have these defeat devices, but there is already evidence that many other vehicles in practice emit more than the applicable test-stand limit value. It seems unlikely that Volkswagen is the only company with issues with excess emissions.”54 According to Bob Sorokanich, independent investigations have found that nearly every diesel-powered vehicle emits far more in real-world driving than in government-designed testing scenarios. He wrote about Opel, Chevy Traverse, GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave, Mercedes, Fiat Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Peugeot, and Citroën Renault.55 Two deterrents are meant to keep corporate crime in check: certainty of punishment if caught, and severity of punishment. But Tillman and Pontelljune doubt the effectiveness of either.56 They compare the relatively small fines as akin to someone who robs a 7-Eleven, takes $1,000, and after being caught settles for a $25 fine and no admission of wrongdoing. Moreover, corporate crime is substantially under-prosecuted and few high-level executives are ever imprisoned. Their lawyers offer up a low-level employee to go to jail in exchange for a promise from prosecutors not to touch the executives. Of course they’ll do it again. Many Wall Street firms charged with securities fraud in a 15-year period were repeat offenders. Keefe noted that prosecutors have unilateral power in deciding who should be charged and tried, who should be allowed to plead, and who should be let go.57 If they charge somebody, they want to be reasonably sure of getting a conviction.

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Taking a case against an executive of a large corporation entails serious risk. It means having to oppose highly paid, experienced lawyers, and with the very difficult task of establishing criminal culpability beyond a reasonable doubt. If they lose a big case they might become symbols of prosecutorial overreach. So, they often settle for imposing a fine and a promise by the executive not to do it again. The promise is worthless—see the previous paragraph. For several examples of corporate fraud investigations covering the short time period, January through April, 2017, see footnote58. The bottom line is that any “knowledge” we gain from corporate brochures and pronouncements, or through middlemen like our doctors who read scientific reports, stands a good chance of being wrong.

Governmental and Political Machiavelli gave advice to would-be rulers. He wrote in The Prince: “Everyone admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep his word, and to behave with integrity rather than cunning. Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have considered keeping their word of little account, and have known how to beguile men’s minds by shrewdness and cunning. In the end these princes have overcome those who have relied on keeping their word.” Stephen Knott wrote that the founding fathers of the United States practiced frequent deceptions, and the American Revolution would probably have failed without them.59 George Washington used his personal funds to pay for clandestine operations that were essential to winning the war. He withheld information from the Continental Congress. For the 1781 Yorktown campaign he wrote, “pains [were] taken to deceive our own army.” Thomas Jefferson authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, ostensibly an effort to discover new species of flora and fauna but primarily an intelligence operation. James Madison conducted covert operations designed to secure parts of Florida by inciting “spontaneous” uprisings in Spanish-held territory. He provided misleading accounts to Congress and to foreign governments of his administration’s actions. James Monroe lied to Congress about military activities in the then territory of Florida. James Polk lied about the incidents leading the United States to engage in war with Mexico. In more recent times, every president going back at least to Franklin Roosevelt and the Manhattan project has either kept matters of grave importance hidden or successfully deceived most of the population on them. Following are a few examples:

• The Manhattan Project was a U.S. program begun shortly before the U.S. entered World War II. Its objective was to develop nuclear weapons. It employed more than 130,000 people at several production and research sites. The objective was kept secret from the vast majority of Americans including most of the project workers.

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• Dwight Eisenhower denied that U.S. spy planes were flying over the Soviet

Union. They were. One was shot down, provoking an international incident. 1961, 1,400 American-trained Cuban exiles began the “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Cuba. One week earlier, John Kennedy had said that “…there will not be, under any conditions, an intervention in Cuba by the United States Armed Forces.” • Lyndon Johnson campaigned actively for peace in late 1968. According to the Congressional Record, 147,786 tons of bombs were dropped over Laos during the first 10 months of 1968. During the peace initiative in November and December, 91,831 tons were dropped. • Concerning Richard Nixon, William Zinsser noted, “It is a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon, ‘launder’ became a dirty word.” • Ronald Reagan denied lying. Reagan said, “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.” • George Bush misrepresented scientific findings to justify various administration policies. Sixty-two scientists including 20 Nobel laureates, 19 recipients of the National Medal of Science, and advisors to the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations signed a statement highly critical of the administration’s distortions.60 In 2008, Bush’s press secretary Scott McClellan published a book in which he confessed to regularly and routinely, but unknowingly, passing on lies to the media, following the instructions of his superiors. The media reported the lies as facts. • Donald Trump has set a probably unbreakable record for number of lies told in office. Time Magazine reported that in his first 347 days in office he made 1,950 false or misleading claims.61 Then he picked up the pace—according to the May 18th Washington Post, by 466 days he had made 3,001 false or misleading claims.

• In

Despite the above, the United States is perhaps the most open society ever known. Yet, U.S. government agencies have systematically deceived and mistreated thousands of citizens. For example, William Albertson was a leading figure in the Communist Party. In 1964, his friends found a secret informant’s report to the FBI in Albertson’s handwriting, signed “Bill.” He swore he hadn’t written it, but the party expelled and ostracized him. He lost his job. Twelve years later, an internal FBI memorandum mistakenly made public detailed how the department’s counterintelligence division had planted a fake report. The government paid $170,000 to Albertson’s widow.62

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Lies and deceptions have been perpetrated on a much larger scale. Starting in the 1930s and continuing for four decades, 399 African American men with syphilis were led to believe they were being given excellent medical treatment when in fact they were deliberately not treated; penicillin, effective against syphilis, was withheld so scientists could study the course of the disease. The farce was supported by government agencies.63 Government officials lied to justify the internment of thousands of Japanese American citizens during World War II. High government officials knowingly presented the Supreme Court with false records that misled the Court and resulted in decisions that deprived the petitioners of their rights to fair hearings. State agencies have lied about when polls would close in hopes of suppressing the votes of minorities; and about unemployment rates, to improve the incumbent’s prospects in an upcoming election.64 Some government lies are not easily rebutted. Examples include lies about matters on which the government has special access, e.g., executive branch lies about certain national security and intelligence topics. Whether one views Bradley Manning, the source of the massive WikiLeaks trove of state secrets, as a hero or a traitor, there is no denying that he revealed important information that had been kept from the American public. For example:

• Out

of 109,000 Iraqi deaths logged in a six year period, 66,081 were unarmed civilians. • U.S. Soldiers committed horrific acts of torture on Iraqi prisoners, and despite hundreds of filed complaints, authorities never investigated. • U.S. defense contractor DynCorp was involved in child trafficking. In March, 2013 Director of National Intelligence James Clapper denied that the National Security Agency was collecting any type of data on millions of Americans. About three months later, Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing that the NSA was conducting sweeping domestic and international communications dragnets. Virtually every U.S. telephone company made customers’ phone records available to NSA. Of course, fraud goes in both directions. Both individuals and corporations commit fraud against the government. The Department of Justice obtained more than $4.7 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government in fiscal year 2016.65 One final note: as of November 18, 2017 Wikipedia devotes 58 pages to the category “Politicians convicted of mail and wire fraud.”

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The Media In a 1978 speech, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “The press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary.” That was then. With deception, lies, and suppression of information coming from all directions, independent members of the media are sorely needed to provide checks on the claims of politicians, corporate executives, and others. But four types of problems limit the extent to which media reports can be trusted. First, members of the media often have limited access to the events they cover, and many policies are conceived and implemented behind closed doors. Media blackouts and limited access to conflict zones are common. The U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan detained journalists without charge for long periods. In February, 2017, journalists from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, and CNN were blocked from attending a media briefing at the White House. New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse tweeted, “It is dangerous for democracy and for holding politicians accountable when a White House excludes tough-minded journalists who criticize them.” In June, 2017, reporters were told they could no longer film interviews with senators in Capitol hallways. Members of the media often promise confidentiality to sources who provide important information but risk retaliation if exposed. In a study of more than 2,400 cases of fraud in 114 countries, about 40% of all detected fraud cases were uncovered by whistle-blowers.66 So, legal efforts to compel journalists to reveal confidential sources is a second concern. Without a federal shield law, journalists facing a federal subpoena confront the prospect of jail. Police reporter Brian Karem spent two weeks in jail after he refused to disclose a confidential source. Judith Miller was jailed for more than two months for refusing to appear before a grand jury investigating a government leak involving CIA operative Valerie Plame. Josh Wolf was jailed for 226 days after he refused to hand over video footage of a protest in San Francisco. President Trump said that then FBI director James Comey “should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information.” The U.S. Justice Department has also sought to imprison government employees for leaking classified information to the media.67 A third problem is that some media personnel are lazy, have limited resources to do proper investigative work, or are on tight deadlines. The public relations departments of vendors of various commercial products step in. Schwitzer surveyed editors and reporters and found that 90% of ideas for health articles had originated with a public relations person.68 The PR departments produce and distribute press kits including entire scripts. Their dramatic, slick video news releases (VNRs) are more compelling than the reporters’ best efforts. TV stations save a fortune by airing

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VNRs instead of sending reporters into the field, and they pass the videos along to viewers without acknowledging their source. The videos are frequently nothing more than lengthy commercials or political propaganda masquerading as news. The Center for Media and Democracy reported that 77 local stations that collectively reach more than half of the U.S. population had slipped corporate sponsored VNRs into their regular news programming. In each case, the stations actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. See http://www. sourcewatch.org/index.php/Video_news_releases for examples. Ray Moynihan and colleagues analyzed more than 200 stories on new drugs that had been published in newspapers or presented on television. Most overstated benefits and did not mention risks. Forty percent of the reports that quoted an expert failed to mention that the expert had financial ties to the drug’s manufacturer.69 The Journal of the American Medical Association used a VNR in which Dr. Lee Cohen promoted a study for which he was lead author. The study concluded that pregnant women risk relapsing into depression if they stop taking antidepressants. Cohen never mentioned that he had been a longtime consultant to three antidepressant makers, a paid speaker for seven of them, and had his research work funded by four drug makers.70 John Stauber said, “Half of everything in the news actually originates from a PR firm. If you’re a lazy journalist, editor, or news director, it’s easy to simply regurgitate the dozens of press releases and stories that come in every day for free from PR firms.”71 Members of the media as much as other people are motivated by opportunities for power, prestige, and money. So, the fourth reason for being wary of media reports is that some journalists have succumbed to temptation and committed fraud. They have described heart-wrenching events and personal sagas that never happened. For descriptions of a few high-profile cases, see https://longreads. com/2014/01/22/famous-cases-of-journalistic-fraud-a-reading-list/. A somewhat separate problem is media bias. Media executives, like executives in other businesses, are concerned with profits. Much of their income comes from advertising, so they tread very carefully when considering stories that might offend the advertisers. An internal review by BuzzFeed found three instances when editors deleted posts after an advertiser or employees from the company’s business side complained about their content.72 In a poll of 250 daily newspaper editors, 93% of respondents answered that an advertiser had threatened to withdraw advertising because of the content of news stories; 55% reported pressure from within their newspaper to write or tailor news stories to please advertisers; 37% admitted to having caved in to the pressures; and 89% said that advertisers had followed through on their threats.73

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Editors are reluctant to be critical of local politicians who control licensing and enact laws that affect the media. They encourage controversy to give the impression of open debate, but only within a narrow range of opinion. They do not report on news that falls outside that range. Between January and August 2014, no representatives for organized labor made an appearance on any of the high-profile Sunday morning talk shows despite episodes that covered topics such as labor rights and jobs. Over that same period, current or former corporate CEOs made 12 appearances.74 The framing of issues in newspapers depends in part on the paper’s location and political ideology. Fryberg and colleagues studied arguments supporting and opposing an anti-immigration bill from three weeks of newspaper articles in two Arizona newspapers (one Conservative, one Liberal) and five national newspapers (three Conservative, two Liberal).75 Both location and political ideology influenced the framing. The national more than Arizona newspapers framed arguments supporting the bill in terms of threats to economic and public safety; and they framed arguments against the bill in terms of civil rights issues. Conservative newspapers were more likely than Liberal newspapers to frame the bill in terms of economic and public safety threats, but they did not differ in mentions of civil rights issues.

The Internet According to a 2016 survey by Pew Research Center, 62% of U.S. adults get news on social media, and 18% do so often. That’s unfortunate, because Internet sites have been constructed whose sole mission is to publish and foster the spread of fake news. Ordway wrote that fabricated stories posing as serious journalism have become a means for some writers to make money and influence public opinion. As a result, much of the public is seriously misinformed about important issues.76 The Pew Research Center survey suggests that 23% of U.S. adults have shared fake news, knowingly or unknowingly, with friends and others—even when they knew the news is false. And, as discussed on p. 110, mere repetition of statements increases their believability. Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer, was murdered in 2016. Rod Wheeler investigated the murder and, in July, 2017, claimed that Fox News fabricated quotes implicating Rich in the WikiLeaks scandal; and Fox coordinated with the Donald Trump administration as it worked on the story.77 Fox removed the story from its website a week after it was published, saying that “it was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all of our reporting.”

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Hunt and Gentzkow presented evidence that social media was an important source of news in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.78 Fourteen percent of Americans called social media their most important source of election news. Of the known false news stories that appeared in the three months before the election, those favoring Trump were shared a total of 30 million times on Facebook, and those favoring Clinton were shared eight million times. The average American saw and remembered 0.92 pro-Trump fake news stories and 0.23 pro-Clinton fake news stories, with just over half of those who recalled seeing fake news stories believing them. Wikipedia lists fake news sites at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ fake_news_websites. The list is long.

Historical What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine? I learned our government must be strong. It’s always right and never wrong…. That’s what I learned in school.—Song by Tom Paxton, 1963 History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.—Winston Churchill79

History is a discipline that combines reason, empiricism, and faith. Most people probably trust history books. But even when supported by impressive documentation, chronicles of historical events may be inaccurate. Mathematics textbooks are largely value-free. History textbooks are not. In director Akira Kurosawa’s classic 1950 film Rashomon, a murder is described in four plausible but mutually contradictory ways by its four witnesses. The Rashomon effect applies to history texts. Writers choose which of a virtually limitless set of facts to include or exclude and thus, to a significant extent, determine what is considered important. They typically emphasize the facts that conform to their political, ideological, or moral beliefs and ignore contrary facts. U.S., Japanese, German, Russian, and French history books give very different accounts of World War II. There are many conflicting accounts of the causes and consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Disraeli wrote that “all great events have been distorted, most of the important causes concealed, some of the principal characters never appear, and all who figure are so misunderstood and misrepresented that the result is a complete mystification.” Voltaire, more succinctly, called histories “fables that have been agreed upon.”

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Dana Lindaman and Kyle Ward wrote History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History.80 One of their examples compared portrayals of the Spanish-American War in the schoolbooks of Spain, Cuba, and the Philippines. Most U.S. history textbooks claim that the sinking of the American battleship Maine precipitated the war, and that the U.S. victory was welcomed by Cubans and Filipinos liberated from Spanish rule. A standard Philippines textbook presents a different picture: “The Filipinos, who expected the Americans to champion their freedom, instead were betrayed and reluctantly fell into the hands of American imperialists.” The text asserts: “Although the Maine had been blown up by American spies in order to provoke the war, the public was not informed of the truth.” Specific expressions can subtly influence readers. Romanowski cited a text that uses the term “bargain hunters” to describe individuals who profited from the Japanese American internment during World War II. He wrote, “In our culture, the expression ‘bargain hunter’ conveys a positive image…The term justifies economic gain by any means instead of addressing the ethical issues regarding the exploitation of the victims…. Furthermore, the textbook…downplays the issue that Japanese Americans were treated unjustly, and that the U.S. government denied constitutional rights to a group of its citizens without due process.” He contrasted the textbook with one that uses the term “human vultures” to describe those who took advantage of the Japanese American plight. “This constructs a different impression. The term creates an image of individuals preying upon victims and striking ‘with cunning and cruelty.’”81 George Mason University’s History News Network asked readers to vote for the least credible history book in print. David Barton’s Jefferson’s Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed about Thomas Jefferson won the dubious honor with 650 votes. With 641 votes, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States came in a close second. Christian nationalist Barton’s book became a bestseller until the publishers ceased publication because “basic truths just were not there.” Zinn was an impassioned defender of left-wing causes. He argued that historians emphasize the doings of the rich and powerful—political and military leaders and industrial barons—while ignoring the life-and-death struggles of ordinary people. His book sold over two million copies. Except that they covered many of the same events, their successful sales records, and the animus they received, it’s hard to imagine two more different books. History is a set of lies agreed upon.—Napoleon82

You may or may not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of President John F. Kennedy, but you’re probably certain that Oswald was at

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least somewhat involved. And that, whoever the perpetrator, Kennedy is dead. But even the most obvious inferences can be challenged by an infinite number of alternatives. The butler did not always do it, even when all available evidence points in his direction. The scenario below explains the events in Dallas as adequately as does your version. Do you assign it a zero probability? On what grounds? October 28, 1963 “Mr. President, there’s a message for you. I think you should read it.” President John F. Kennedy rose from his rocking chair, athletic frame contorted by the persistent pain in his back. He took the letter from his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, and slowly read. Hi Lieutenant, It’s been a long time. You’ve sure done well since our navy days. Hey, remember when you called me the most unprincipled man you’d ever known. Wait till you see how right you were. You’ve irritated certain powerful business interests, and they offered me a boatload of money to get you out of office by next month. Naturally, I accepted. I have a staff of exceptionally well-trained assassins. The peasants think you’re well-protected, but you know as well as anybody that any security can be breached. Remember the incident with the keys. You were always impressed with my efficiency (admit it, you loved having me on your staff ), and I’ve got an amazing arsenal at my disposal. I’m writing because I always liked you. You have style and charm and Jackie looks great in a bathing suit. So I’d rather not hurt you. But you must leave office. Resignation is not an option, but there is a way. If you accept, we’ll use plastic surgery to give you a brand new face even handsomer than the present one. (Incidentally, your medical care stinks. One of my doctor friends says he can cure your back problems in no time.) You’d be able to use your money however you want, within certain limits of course. You could sip martinis on tropical beaches while the world grieves at your martyrdom. Who knows, with my new wealth, maybe I’d join you. We could continue our chess series. I’ve gotten much better. If you refuse my generous offer, my sponsors are prepared to use far more drastic measures and you wouldn’t be their only target. The list includes Jackie, Rose, Bobby, Ted, John-John, Caroline, and the rest of the clan. So, I know you’ll appreciate that you’ve got to accept. Just put an ad in the Post in the personals section. Have it read “Howie, I love it. John.” Then I’ll contact you.  

Best wishes, Ensign HCW

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The President reread the letter, then started laughing. “Pierre,” he said at last, “call up the classified department at the Post. And you’d better start looking for a new job.”83

Appendix 2 lists several enduring myths about history.

Censorship Some deception involves acts of omission rather than commission. Project Censored (http://projectcensored.org/) is a media research group based at Sonoma State University that tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, each year Project Censored compiles a list of 25 socially significant news stories that have been overlooked, under-reported, or self-censored by the major national news media. According to the group, a story covered by Project Censored should contain information that the general population has a right to know but to which it has limited access. It should be timely, ongoing, have implications for a significant number of U.S. residents, and be backed with solid verifiable documentation. People who are unaware of the stories covered by Project Censored are likely to have their “knowledge” of important issues highly skewed. Following are five of a great many possible examples from Project Censored’s 2016 list:

• In

2015, Special Operations Forces deployed in 147 of the world’s 195 recognized nations, an increase of 80% since 2010. Every day, America’s most elite troops carry out missions in 80 to 90 nations. • In 2011, more than 1.5 million U.S. families—including three million children—lived on as little as two dollars per person per day. • The Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton, wrote, “Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness…. The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming.” • Five years after the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the nuclear power plant at Fukushima, the plant continues to release large quantities of radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean. • The world is experiencing a global refugee crisis (60 million worldwide according to a June 2015 report, 11.5 million of them Syrian). This has been covered in the media, but what hasn’t been covered is the exploitation of refugees, particularly those displaced in Syria. The World Bank is enticing

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Western companies to launch new investments in Jordan in order to profit from the labor of stranded Syrian refugees. A World Bank press release touted “the creation of special economic zones or SEZs.” But the development of SEZs is likely to change refugee camps from temporary responses to a crisis to much more permanent settlements. The SEZ proposals are less about Syrian needs and more about keeping Syrian refugees out of Europe by creating (barely) sustainable conditions within the camps, which would then make claims to asylum much harder to recognize.

Self-Deception As discussed above, we should not be confident that we know what another person is thinking. Far more disconcerting, we don’t know ourselves very well. Freud famously compared the mind to an iceberg, with 9/10ths of it hidden below the surface, i.e., unconscious. Although his ideas were largely untestable, psychologists have since shown that many of our decisions and behaviors are deeply influenced by unconscious thought. Psychologists Shelly Taylor and Jonathon Brown claimed that positive self-deception is both normal and beneficial. They argued that most people view themselves in unrealistically positive terms, believe they have more control over their environment than they actually do, and have unjustifiably positive expectations about the future.84 No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.—Christian Bovee85

• Ninety-four percent of university professors said they are better than their

colleagues at their jobs.86 • In ratings of leadership, 70% of students put themselves above the median. In ability to get on well with others, 85% put themselves above the median and 25% rated themselves in the top 1%.87 • Over a period of several years, virtually every state education department released standardized test scores showing that their children are reading, writing and calculating above the national average.88 • Only one adult out of 661 said that he/she is more biased than the average person. There are consequences. Irene Scopelliti wrote, “The extent to which one is blind to her own bias has important consequences for the quality of decision-making. People more prone to think they are less biased than others are less accurate at evaluating their abilities relative to the abilities

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of others, they listen less to others’ advice, and are less likely to learn from training that would help them make less biased judgments.” • Most doctors report that drug advertising has minimal influence on their prescribing habits. They are either fooling themselves or lying. Heavily promoted drugs are prescribed most, even if there is no scientific support for their superior effectiveness.90 • Most doctors who attended all-expense-paid trips to symposia to promote drugs claimed that their prescribing habits would be unaffected. But after the symposia they prescribed the promoted drugs more frequently.91 • College students were given an answer key to an intelligence test and, not surprisingly, scored higher than a control group. They later predicted that they would score higher on a second test even if not given the answers. They had deceived themselves that their strong performance was a reflection of their ability.92 • People have better memories of their own good than bad behavior. They do not show this bias when recalling the behaviors of others.93 • The American Revolution Center reported that 89% of polled adults believed they could pass a basic test on the American Revolution; 83% failed the test.94 • People are likely to deceive themselves into believing that they acted for other reasons. For example, North and colleagues played French and German music on separate days in a supermarket.95 They used either accordions (French) or an oompah band (German) to prime notions of “Frenchness” or “Germanness.” On French music days, French wines outsold Germans by five bottles to one; on German music days, German wines outsold French by two bottles to one. Only one of forty-four customers who answered questions at the checkout counter mentioned music as affecting their wine buying. When asked specifically if they thought that the music affected their choice, 86% said that it hadn’t. • Korean moviegoers were exposed to a subliminal video of people getting full chest tattoos of Korean leader Kim Jong-il. During the following month, more than 25,000 Koreans had their entire chests tattooed with Kim Jongil’s image.96

How Honest Are You With Yourself? Answer on a seven-point scale, with 1 being “not true,” 4 being “somewhat true,” and 7 being “very true.”

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1. My first impressions are always right. 2. I don’t care to know what other people really think of me. 3. Once I’ve made up my mind, other people can seldom change my opinion. 4. I am fully in control of my own fate. 5. I never regret my decisions. 6. I am a completely rational person. 7. I am very confident of my judgments. —ANSWER KEY: For each question, give yourself one point for answering 6 or 7. The higher your score, the more self-deceptive you tend to be. —SOURCE: Del Paulhus, University of British Columbia, cited at https://www. wellbeing.com.au/mind-spirit/mind/The-truth-about-lying-to-yourself.html Our capacity for self-deception has no known limits.—Michael Novak97

Science Our ancestors lived in a world of unpredictable famine, flood, plague, and sabertoothed tiger. To explain such events, the more clever and imaginative among them constructed rich cosmologies of gods, demons, and other supernatural forces. Later in our history, a few smart individuals noticed that some phenomena occur in recurring patterns. These primitive scientists measured, experimented, theorized, and began to make the world comprehensible. Their intellectual descendants made science the preferred method for advancing knowledge. Shakespeare, Dosteovsky, Freud, and others may have probed deeper into the human condition, but science dramatically changed how people live. The scientific method is the most powerful ever developed for studying the properties of the world. Science is the antidote to unconstrained philosophizing. It is direct exploration of reality—empiricism in its most sophisticated form using only rational, objective methods. It is our best hope for producing reliable knowledge. Yet there are reasons to be wary about reports from scientific studies. They have not been deception-free. In fact, both mediocre and eminent scientists have perpetrated frauds.

Scientists May Unconsciously Bias Results or Commit Deliberate Fraud Editors and reviewers of scientific journals virtually never see the raw data that provide the foundation for articles; in an unknown but probably substantial number of instances, the data or computations on them are inaccurate. When Keith Wolins requested data from 37 authors of published studies, only seven complied. Three of the seven data sets had substantial errors.98 Robert Rosenthal found an error

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rate in published data of about 1%, with more than 70% of the errors favoring the researcher’s hypothesis.99 David Soergel wrote that “the opportunities for both subtle and profound errors in software and data management are boundless, yet they remain surprisingly underappreciated. I estimate that any reported scientific result could very well be wrong if data have passed through a computer, and that these errors may remain largely undetected.”100 Throughout history, many eminent scientists are known or strongly suspected to have fudged data or engaged in other scientific misconduct. Galileo Galilei, the founder of the modern scientific method, wrote about experiments that were so difficult to duplicate that colleagues doubted he had done them. Johannes Kepler fabricated data on planetary observations to support his controversial claim that the planets follow elliptical orbits. Isaac Newton probably adjusted his calculations of the velocity of sound and of the procession of the equinoxes to make them correlate more closely with his theories. Many statisticians believe that Gregor Mendel, who founded the science of genetics, falsified his data to more closely match his theory. Louis Pasteur demonstrated and took credit for what was supposed to be a new approach to vaccine production. In reality he used an idea taken from Henri Toussaint. In the 1930s and 1940s, Nobel Prize winner Robert Millikan was the most famous U.S. scientist. Millikan’s own notebooks reveal that he discarded data that didn’t fit his hypotheses. The problem of scientific fraud is not restricted to a few rogues. In their book Betrayers of the Truth, reporters William Broad and Nicholas Wade documented many cases of fraud and then suggested that three factors influence its frequency of occurrence: the potential rewards, the personal ethics of scientists, and the perceived chances of getting caught.101 The rewards are, in many cases, substantial. Several researchers are paid by drug manufacturers and gross more than one million dollars a year. Scientists need funding for their research, and reputations matter. Reputation depends to a great extent on the publication of high-profile scientific papers. Broad and Wade argued that scientists’ ethics are probably similar to those of other members of society. Access to laboratories and data is restricted, so the only people close enough to suspect misconduct are likely to be friends of or collaborators with the perpetrator. They have no power or inclination to investigate. So, the chance of getting caught is minuscule. Most frauds have been uncovered by accident. Adding to the problem is that whistleblowers are rarely applauded and often find their careers stalled. Anesthesiologist Yoshitaka Fujii made up a total of 172 fictitious research papers between 1993 and 2011.102 Harvard physician John Darsee published nearly 100 papers over a two year period, most based on forged data. One paper had 28 errors, one had 39, and 12 had at least 10, yet they had passed the scrutiny

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of reviewers and editors.103 Broad and Wade speculated that for each case of major fraud uncovered (substantially more than one per year for the last 50 years), about 100,000 major and minor ones go undetected. Fanelli meta-analyzed surveys of researchers on various questionable behaviors. About 2% of respondents admitted to either making up or altering data to improve the outcome of a study.104 As people are reluctant to admit they’ve committed a wrong doing, the 2% figure is probably very conservative. About 34% admitted to failing to present data that contradicted their previous research or dropping data points from analyses based on a gut feeling that they were inaccurate. Fourteen percent said they knew someone who had fabricated, falsified, or altered data, and 72% said they knew someone who had taken part in other questionable research practices. Fanelli inferred that nearly 1 in 10 researchers has introduced false data into the scientific record. In 1976, there were fewer than ten fraud retractions for every million published scientific studies. In 2007, there were 96 per million. The journal Nature reported in 2011 that, while the number of articles had increased 44% over the past decade, retractions had increased tenfold. The year 2016 was the second consecutive year marked by more than 650 retractions.105 Ferric Fang and colleagues found that only 21.3% of retractions were due to error; 67.4% were due to misconduct, including fraud or suspected fraud.106 They attributed the increase to pressure to do something newsworthy and to an increase in deception in overall society that science may be mirroring. Among their several examples were a study that wrongly linked childhood vaccines to autism, nine separate studies on cancer treatment conducted at Duke University, and work by a cloning expert who was eventually convicted of embezzlement and illegally buying human eggs for research. Despite the increased number of published retractions, there should probably be far more. RetractionWatch catalogues papers that have been withdrawn from the scientific literature. More than 800,000 scientific articles were published in 2015, and only 684 were retracted. Given that 2% of scientists admitted to either making up or altering data, it seems likely that the vast majority of dishonest papers have gone undetected. Philip Fulford edited the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, and he wrote in 1988, “Fraud now seems to be endemic in many scientific disciplines and in most countries. Recent cases have attracted media attention, but these are probably only the tip of the iceberg.”107 In the ensuing years, the iceberg has metastasized. Carl Zimmer quoted Ferric Fang, editor of the journal Infection and Immunity, as saying that there is “a dysfunctional scientific climate.” Arturo Casadevall, editor of the journal mBio, said that there are “perverse incentives that lead scientists to cut corners and commit acts of misconduct.”108

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The Office of Research Integrity oversees and directs Public Health Service research integrity activities on behalf of the Secretary of Health and Human Services with the exception of the activities of the Food and Drug Administration. For the period January, 2014 through July, 2017, ORI listed 29 names of people who currently have an imposed administrative action against them. It does not include the names of individuals whose administrative actions periods have expired. In 2006, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility distributed a survey to 5,918 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists in order to examine the state of science at the FDA.109 The results are chilling.

• 18% answered “yes” to the statement “I have been asked, for non-scientific

reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or my conclusions in an FDA scientific document.” • 61% knew of cases in which “Department of Health and Human Services or FDA political appointees have inappropriately injected themselves into FDA determinations or actions.” • 60% knew of cases “where commercial interests have inappropriately induced or attempted to induce the reversal, withdrawal or modification of FDA determinations or actions.” • 20% said they “have been asked explicitly by FDA decision makers to provide incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information to the public, regulated industry, media, or elected/senior government officials.” • 26% feel that FDA decision makers implicitly expect them to “provide incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading information.” • 40% said they could not publicly express “concerns about public health without fear of retaliation.” • 36% did not feel they could do so even inside the confines of the agency. • 47% think that the “FDA routinely provides complete and accurate information to the public.” Bouter and colleagues surveyed attendees of international research integrity conferences, asking them to rank 60 research misbehaviors according to their perceptions of the frequency of occurrence of each one, their preventability, and their impact on truth.110 Although fraud is considered the most serious crime, the rankings suggest that selective reporting, selective citing, and flaws in quality assurance and mentoring are the major problems of modern research. Respondents were concerned that many scientists cut corners and engage in sloppy science, probably hoping to get spectacular results that will be easy to publish in a high-impact journal and attract many citations. In fact, Smaldino and Mcelreath used evolutionary theory to show that sloppiness is a winning survival strategy in modern science. See below.

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Not Just Fraud Personal biases influence experimental outcomes, as can be inferred from inspecting scientists’ collected works. In areas of controversy, unbiased researchers might be expected to find both confirmatory and disconfirmatory evidence for a particular position. More typically, the most productive scientists report results exclusively on one side of the controversy. Pastore reported an almost perfect relationship between scientists’ advocacy of conservative philosophies and research that emphasized hereditary influences on behavior; and liberal philosophies and emphasis on environmental factors.111 He wrote, “This inner relationship suggests that it would be as reasonable to classify the nature-nurture controversy as sociological in nature as to classify it as scientific in nature.” Similarly, biographical data of psychologists accurately predicted how they had interpreted studies on racial differences in IQ scores. Gould documented many instances of both unintentional and intentional bias perpetrated by leading psychologists in the intelligence testing field.112 Lewis and colleagues published an article 30 years later in which they concluded that almost every detail of Gould’s analysis is wrong.113 For many and probably the majority of research projects in social science and medicine, the goal is to show that some variable has an effect. So, researchers might administer a drug to one group of subjects and different doses or different drugs to other groups; or they might frame a problem differently to different groups. Their typical goal is for the groups to diverge. Otherwise, the research will probably not be published. See pp. 151. So, many researchers focus only on data that support their claims. For example, Spiro described a study on a drug for peptic ulcers: At the end of two weeks, the ulcer crater had healed in more than half the patients given the active drug and in only a third of patients taking placebos; that one observation point encouraged the researchers to (dishonestly) claim that the drug speeded the healing of peptic ulcer. But at every other period of assessment, the drug and the placebo proved equally effective.114 University administrators typically evaluate faculty by focusing on the quantity rather than quality of their published research. Promotions are contingent on extensive publication. Someone with a Ph.D. degree but few publications is unlikely to land or keep a tenure track university position and might have to forgo a career in science. The never-ending pressure drives many scientists to submit papers for publication before fully checking for errors and possible alternative explanations of their data. Delay might allow someone else to publish the same results. David Spiegelhalter, speaking in 2017 ahead of his president’s address to the Royal Statistical Society, said that the incentives to get positive results are greater than the incentives to advance knowledge, and penalties for poor and even fraudulent work are rare and generally light.115 He noted that institutions sometimes overlook misconduct by faculty who bring in substantial funding, and

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some even protect faculty who are caught red-handed. As indicated above, cheating in science is not rare. One reason is that statistically significant results make publication much easier, and a small alteration of data is sometimes enough to convert nonsignificant to significant results. Spiegelhalter said that pressure to publish even mediocre work is partly to blame for dragging down the reliability of published scientific findings. “The sheer quantity of scientific research published must mean the quality has gone down. There should just be less published.” Similarly, Smaldino and Mcelreath concluded that the powerful incentives to publish encourage, reward, and propagate poor research methods and abuse of statistical procedures. They termed the process the natural selection of bad science to indicate that it requires no conscious strategizing nor cheating on the part of researchers. Instead, it arises from the positive selection of methods and habits that lead to publication. “As long as things like publication quantity, and publishing flashy results in fancy journals are incentivized, and people who can do that are rewarded…they’ll be successful, and pass on their successful methods to others.”116 University scientists typically fund their research by competing for grants. Government sponsorship has declined steeply in recent years, so scientists increasingly turn to industry sources. That sets up clear conflicts of interest, and conclusions from industry-sponsored research typically favors the sponsors. New drugs are protected by patent, so drug companies prefer having them turn out superior to older ones. In studies comparing new with old drugs, 43% funded by a drug company and only 13% funded from other sources favored the new.117 Furthermore, “In no case was a therapeutic agent manufactured by the sponsoring company found to be inferior to an alternative product manufactured by another company.” Bero and colleagues examined 192 published results of trials comparing one cholesterol-lowering statin drug to another or to a nonstatin drug.118 The reported results favored the funding company’s drug about twenty times more often than the comparison company’s drug. The interpretation of results favored the funding company’s drug about thirty-five times more often than the comparison company’s drug. Schrag wrote:119 Most of the major figures in drug research serve as consultants to drug firms and, at the same time, to NIMH and the Food and Drug Administration, which licenses the drugs. They review each other’s grant proposals, sit on the same committees, work on the same studies, write for each other’s journals. NIMH employees collaborate with drug-company consultants in mental health research; NIMH consultants appear before FDA review committees on behalf of drug companies; editors of journals heavily supported by drug-company advertising serve on “impartial” FDA committees reviewing the safety and efficacy of medication produced by their advertisers.

Most people are more likely to come across press releases about research articles than to read the original articles. Sumner and colleagues found that at least a third

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of press releases contained stronger advice, causal statements, or human claims than found in the peer-reviewed journal article on which they were based.120 The media want to make science news exciting. That means no qualifiers, no mention of risks or side effects, no “maybe this will be useful in a few years,” “this worked fairly well with rats but hasn’t been tried with people yet.” The first paper to present sensational news seizes the readership, so science writers report incomplete works and studies presented at scientific conventions; these have frequently not been reviewed for methodological soundness and may never be published. But science writers report about them as though they are well established. Reporters and editors, concerned about readability, may omit or compromise crucial information. Science is tremendously specialized, yet many newspapers have only one reporter to cover all the sciences.

Honest Science For people who want to understand the natural world, a career in science is an obvious choice. Falsifying data impedes progress, so in all likelihood the vast majority of scientists are honest. But problems with science go far deeper than just bias and fraud. Many scrupulously honest scientists use methods that many of their colleagues disparage; and inferences never come remotely close to exhausting the possibilities. Physics is the most sophisticated and powerful of all the sciences. The two main theories of modern physics, quantum theory and relativity, have both been tested to an incredible degree of accuracy—but they are incompatible with one another. For additional problems, read on.

The Basic Observations May Be Wrong Scientists, no less than laypeople, are vulnerable to distorting effects of observations. They are subject to perceptual and other illusions. See pp. 17 on N-rays.

Miniscule Changes in Initial Conditions May Produce Huge Changes in Ultimate Observations A slight variation in the axioms at the foundation of a theory can result in huge changes at the frontier.—Stanley Gudder121

Two prominent characters in the 2005 movie Crash are a police detective played by actor Don Cheadle and his street criminal brother. Several older films also contrast

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sibling pairs, making such contrasts almost a Hollywood cliché. They show that small variations in genetics or early environment may produce enormous differences in final character. Isaac Newton said that if he could know the position and motion of every particle in the universe at any one moment, he could predict the future of the universe into the infinite future. Other scientists until relatively recently assumed that they could make accurate long-term predictions of any physical system if they knew the starting conditions well enough. They thought that small initial differences in procedures, purity of materials, or composition of subjects had at most a trivial effect on outcomes. They hoped to shrink the uncertainty in the final prediction by measuring the initial conditions to greater and greater accuracy. But unavoidable minuscule variations in initial conditions can lead to extremely discrepant long-term outcomes. Reasons for initial differences include such factors as background noise and less than infinitely precise instrumentation. Borwein and Rose suggested that readers think of a game of billiards. “No matter how consistent you are with the first shot (the break), the smallest of differences in the speed and angle with which you strike the white ball will cause the pack of billiards to scatter in wildly different directions every time.”122 The uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics (see p. 158) prohibits perfect accuracy, so conditions at any one moment can never be perfectly known. Mathematician Henri Poincaré was a forerunner of chaos theory. In a 1903 essay, Science and Method, he wrote, “…it may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena. A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter. Prediction becomes impossible.” In 1961, meteorologist Edward Lorenz set up a computer with several equations for modeling air currents. One day he wanted to see a particular sequence again and, to save time, started in the middle of the sequence instead of the beginning. He entered the number off his printout and let it run. To his great surprise, the second run produced a much different sequence than the original. He eventually realized that, although the computer’s memory stored the numbers to six decimal places, he had printed out only three decimal places. He had truncated the number .506127 to .506. A difference of one part in a thousand had led to a very different final result. Lorenz’s work became known as the butterfly effect, because the difference in the starting points of his two sequences is comparable to the change in atmosphere produced by a butterfly flapping its wings. The picturesque inference is that, whether or not a butterfly flaps its wings in one side of the world can determine whether or not a storm arises one year later on the other side. Chaos theory can be applied to the growth of populations, weather systems, behavior of water boiling

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on a stove, migratory patterns of birds, and the spread of vegetation across a continent. Chaos is everywhere. Following are two examples. Douglas Wahlsten and colleagues tried to standardize various tests used to measure mouse behaviors.123 In Portland, Albany, and Edmonton, Canada, they tested animals of exactly the same age (to the day) on the same date at the same local time. The animals had been weaned at the same age, and all their mothers had been weighed at the same time. The mice were all kept in the same kind of cage, with the same brand and thickness of sawdust bedding, which was changed on the same day of the week. All were handled at the same time by human hands sheathed in the same kind of surgical glove. They were fed the same food, kept under the same kind of lighting, all at the same temperature. Their tails were marked for identification only with a Sharpie pen. Then the scientists tested eight different strains of mice with six standardized behavioral tests. (A strain is a population of mice that has been maintained by successive brother to sister matings over many generations.) For some of the tests, the results were quite similar within strains and laboratories, which indicates that the researchers were careful and competent. But for some tests, the same strain performed radically differently from laboratory to laboratory. One test measures the effects of cocaine on a mouse’s activity level. In the Portland lab, cocaine-treated mice increased their activity by an average of 667 centimeters of movement per fifteen minutes. In Albany, the average increase was 701 centimeters. In Edmonton, the same strain increased by an average of more than 5,000 centimeters. Sapolsky wrote, “Imagine, for comparison, that a set of identical triplet boys were all training for the Olympics. On a given day, the three brothers compete together; all have the same night’s rest, all have the same breakfast, all feel fine. The first brother clears eighteen feet on the pole vault; the second clears eighteen feet, one inch; and the third brother launches himself 140 feet into the air.”124 Widdison wrote that the sinking of a ship of Cuban immigrants led to America invading Iraq.125 Readers may disagree with his conclusions, but that only further illustrates the Rashomon effect in historical accounts. Here is Widdison’s lightly edited version: On November 21, 1999, a boat carrying a dozen Cuban immigrants trying to get to Miami sank. Two of the passengers were a young boy named Elian Gonzalez and his mother, Elizabeth. Elian survived the sinking, but his mother did not. He was rescued by fishermen, brought to Miami, and taken in by relatives. His father still lived in Cuba and wanted him back, and the law clearly gives parental rights to the father. But the usually simple custody issue was complicated by 50 years of Cuban-American relations. The large Cuban-American population in Miami has extremely negative feelings toward the Castro government in Cuba. To

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them (including Elian’s relatives), sending the child back to Cuba was unthinkable. The U.S. Government ordered that Elian be returned to his father. Elian’s American relatives refused. The situation became volatile with potential for violence. The Border Patrol sent in an armed team to storm the house and take Elian back by force. No one was hurt, but armed government agents storming a home to seize a child played very badly in the media. The incident gave then-President Clinton a serious political black eye among Cuban-Americans, a group largely concentrated in Florida. It was an election year and Clinton’s vice-President, Al Gore, was running to replace him. Clinton’s political troubles ended up being passed on to his would-be successor. The 2000 election was very close, and Florida’s votes decided the election. Al Gore lost the state by an incredibly thin margin, resulting in the election of George W. Bush. Had the Elian Gonzalez incident never happened, Al Gore would probably have been President. Less than a year into Bush’s first term, the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists. Both Republicans and Democrats agree that Gore would have responded differently to the attacks. He might still have attacked Afghanistan but almost certainly would not have invaded Iraq. So, had Elian’s boat not sank, or had his mother survived, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, 4,500 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis would still be alive, several hundred billions of dollars would not have been spent, and ISIS would likely not exist. Clearly, seemingly unrelated events separated by both time and place can have profound effects on long range, complex human behaviors. Don Cheadle and his brother could have easily switched roles.

The Data May Have Been Analyzed Incorrectly The next few criticisms apply primarily to medical and behavioral research. The reason is that living organisms are variable, so chance factors can play an important role. As the previous section showed, identical procedures may not give identical results. A major problem is data analysis. Reviewers of manuscripts submitted for publication often do not evaluate either arithmetic computations or statistical procedures. Most journals have strict space limitations, so authors cannot provide enough information to enable reviewers to check the accuracy of tables, computations, and results. McGuigan found statistical errors in 40% of articles in the British Journal of Psychiatry.126 In the official journal of the American Heart Association, Glantz wrote: Approximately half the articles published in medical journals that use statistical

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methods use them incorrectly.127 David Spiegelhalter, president of the Royal Statistical Society, said that a sloppy attitude towards statistics has led to exaggerated and unjustified claims becoming commonplace in science. He drew parallels between concerns around the reliability of published scientific research and the rise of fake news and “alternative facts” in politics.128 Whereas a competent chemist can mix hydrogen and oxygen in the proper proportions and synthesize water every time, the most that a pharmacologist testing a new drug or a clinical psychologist evaluating a new type of therapy can generally hope for is that the treated and untreated groups differ on average. Differences are typically evaluated with statistics. The standard procedure is called null hypothesis significance testing. The null hypothesis is that the two groups don’t differ, i.e., the treatment did not have an effect. The researcher’s goal is to show that the null hypothesis is incorrect. Many eminent scientists disapprove of the procedure, asserting that the strategy is so misguided as to produce uninterpretable data. For example:

• W.

Rozeboom: …despite the awesome pre-eminence this method has attained in our experimental journals and textbooks of applied statistics, it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of rational inference, and is seldom if ever appropriate to the aims of scientific research. • J. Nunnally: If rejection of the null hypothesis were the real intention in psychological experiments, there usually would be no need to gather data. • P. Meehl, upon receiving an American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientist Award: I believe that the almost universal reliance on merely refuting the null hypothesis as the standard method for corroborating substantive theories… is a terrible mistake, basically unsound, poor scientific strategy, and one of the worst things that ever happened in the history of psychology. Suppose a scientist predicts that a coin will be biased toward heads. If he flips the coin 1,000 times and gets 527 hits, the probability that the greater number of heads occurred by chance alone is only 4.6%, i.e., p = .046. If he gets 526 heads, the probability is p = .053. The standard cut-off point in most scientific publications is p less than .05, so the first result would be statistically significant and the second would not. If publication depended on showing statistical significance, the second scientist would be sorely tempted to mis-score one flip. Krawczyk analyzed results from more than 5,000 papers published in five high-ranked journals in experimental psychology. He found that some authors round the p values down more than up. He wrote that there are “too many just significant” values.129

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Treatment A is virtually never exactly as effective as treatment B. Not to 50 decimal places. So, given enough data, some difference is almost certain to show up. Although tossing a fair coin should result in an approximately equal number of heads and tails, a slight nick or smudge might create a tiny advantage for one side over the other. If the coin is tossed a billion times, the result is likely to be statistically significant—but absolutely unimportant. In a typical brain analysis using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), about 130,000 voxels are investigated. (A voxel is the smallest unit of three-dimensional space in a computer image.) Some voxel clusters will almost surely be statistically significant just by chance. (If one million people toss a fair coin ten times, someone is almost sure to get ten heads.) Bennett and colleagues showed the absurdity of the approach of many neuroscientists by using an fMRI session with a dead salmon.130 They showed the salmon a series of photographs of humans in social situations, and the salmon had to determine what emotion the individual was experiencing. There were statistically significant active voxel clusters in the salmon’s brain cavity and spinal column. Suppose that treatment A is compared with placebo and the results are statistically significant. Then treatment B is compared with placebo and the results are not statistically significant. That would not justify concluding that A differs significantly from B. Maybe A versus placebo just reached significance and B versus placebo just missed. Then A and B might be virtually identical. The proper way to test whether A and B are significantly different is to compare them directly. Nieuwenhuis and colleagues reviewed neuroscience articles in five top-ranking journals and found that 78 used the correct procedure and 79 the incorrect one.131 Nuijten worked with a program called Statcheck that scans articles for statistical results, redoes the calculations, and checks that the numbers match.132 Statcheck identified 16,695 articles published in eight major psychology journals from 1985 to 2013 that used null hypothesis significance testing. Half of those contained at least one potential error. One in eight contained an error serious enough that it may have affected the conclusion.

The Data May Not Be Replicable Although obesity often leads to diabetes, and cigarette smokers have shorter life expectancies than nonsmokers, not all obese people become diabetic and some smokers are centenarians. The average man is taller than the average woman, but many women tower over many men. This variability has consequences, especially for biomedical scientists. It makes replication crucial for inspiring confidence that reported phenomena are real rather than artifacts of unusual properties of the

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original subjects or experimental procedures. Hersen and Barlow called replication “the heart of any science.”133 But successful replications are unlikely to be published; editors want new, original material. Failed replications often fare no better, because editors are reluctant to publish papers that are critical of work the journal published previously or of scientists who referee for the journal or are on its editorial board. The cliché “publish or perish” accurately describes hiring and promotion policies at most universities around the world. Scientists are expected to be productive, and the primary criterion is publication of original research in respected journals. So they have little incentive to do replications, and a chance positive finding may be accepted by the scientific community for a long time. Hubbard and Vetter analyzed 18 business journals covering the years 19701991.134 Replications constituted less than 10% of empirical work in the accounting, economics, and finance areas, and 5% or less in management and marketing areas. When such work was undertaken, and even though many disconfirming studies are not published, the results usually conflicted with existing findings. In the two major forecasting journals, 35.3% of replications provided full support for the findings of the initial study, 45.1% provided partial support, and 19.6% provided no support.135 C. Glenn Begley was head of global cancer research at Amgen, and he and Lee Ellis identified 53 important publications in top journals from reputable labs. Hoping to build on them for drug development, they had their team try to reproduce the findings.136 They were unable to replicate 47 of them. Prinz and colleagues also tried to validate several exciting published articles.137 They wrote that their studies “…have often resulted in disillusionment when key data could not be reproduced. Talking to scientists, both in academia and in industry, there seems to be a general impression that many results that are published are hard to reproduce.” They queried scientists who had worked within their company during the previous four years on projects in oncology, women’s health, and cardiovascular diseases. Of 67 separate projects, the findings of their scientists were completely in line with the relevant published data in only 20-25% of the cases. In almost two-thirds of the projects, there were inconsistencies between published data and in-house data that either considerably prolonged the duration of the target validation process or, in most cases, resulted in termination of the projects. John Ioannidis and colleagues used a variety of methods to evaluate the trustworthiness of biomedical data.138 In a 2005 paper, Ioannidis reported that one out of every three highly cited studies published in influential medical journals was either refuted or seriously weakened by subsequent research. Of 49 of the most widely-cited studies published between 1990 and 2003 in the world’s most prestigious medical journals, later research contradicted 16% and considerably weakened an additional

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16%. In a follow-up article, Ioannidis argued that the vast majority of published research claims are incorrect. The studies are too small and have too much flexibility in designs and definitions. Financial interests influence reported results; and intense competition to publish first on hot topics skews research priorities. Ioannidis’s team found 37 clinical trials that had been reanalyzed, and they compared the reanalyses with the originals. In 13 cases (35%), the conclusions were at odds with those of the original authors. Moreover, only five of the reanalyses were by an entirely different set of authors, which means that the relooks were not neutral.139 Brian Nosek organized a multi-collaborator effort to test the validity of 100 psychology experiments published in 2008 in three high-ranking psychology journals. Nearly two-thirds did not replicate.140 Tajika and colleagues looked at 83 highly cited studies that claimed to feature effective psychiatric treatments. Sixteen were contradicted by replications, 11 replications yielded substantially smaller effects than the original, and 40 were never replicated.141 In a 2016 poll of 1,500 scientists, 70% reported that they had failed to reproduce at least one other scientist’s experiment; and 50% had failed to reproduce one of their own.142 The percentages for different disciplines were as follows: (percentages in parentheses represent failure to reproduce own results) chemistry: 90% (60%) biology: 80% (60%) physics and engineering: 70% (50%) medicine: 70% (60%) earth and environment science: 60% (40%)

Observations Reported in Scientific Publications May Differ Considerably From Observations Over the Same Material That Go Unpublished Funding agencies award money to applicants with goals compatible with their own. Funders of medical research want to show that their products are safe and effective. Therefore, much more money is available for research on drugs than on non-patentable vitamins; and much more is available to show the benefits rather than adverse effects of drugs. A well-documented reason for non-publication is that the funding company’s product was ineffective or harmful. Walton surveyed studies of aspartame (Nutrasweet®) to see if funding source was related to study outcome. The Nutrasweet® industry had funded 74 studies, and 100% of them attested to aspartame’s safety; of the 92 independently funded studies, 92% identified a health problem. A bibliography supplied by the Nutrasweet® Company included many studies of questionable validity and relevance, with multiple instances of the same study being cited up to six times.143

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There is an even more insidious problem. Imagine a researcher who claims to know magic words that enable people to fly. If she gives a successful demonstration, magazines and scientific journals will fight for rights to her story. If her demonstration fails, nobody will be interested. In more realistic areas of interest, it makes sense to publish and publicize positive results and pay less attention to negative ones. But a consequence of this practice makes many scientific conclusions questionable. If a treatment is ineffectual, most researchers who test it won’t see an effect and may not submit their results for publication; if they do submit, reviewers and editors may not be interested. So, few people will learn about the failures, and other researchers might try the same study. Someone might get positive results purely by chance. (If enough people flip a coin ten times, someone will get 10 heads.) So, while the negative results remain unknown, the chance positive results will be published and add to the misinformation that already fills our heads. In the 1980s, 16 published studies indicated that a combination of two drugs increased survival time in certain cancer patients. John Simes tracked down the unpublished studies on the drugs (possible because the National Cancer Institute had records of all the research the NCI had funded). When he combined the results from all methodologically sound studies, the apparent advantage of the drug combination disappeared.144 Franco and colleagues investigated the fate of 221 sociological studies conducted between 2002 and 2012. (The proposals for all of them had undergone rigorous peer review.) Of 93 studies that had obtained strong results, 56 had been published. Forty of 86 of those with mixed results had been published, but only 10 of 49 that had not reached statistical significance. Thirty-one of the 49 had not even been written up.145 The bias against publishing negative results has another consequence. As discussed above, scientists must publish to enhance their reputations, retain their jobs, and get promoted. But null hypothesis significance testing permits only dichotomous decisions (results either are or are not statistically significant). So, a researcher who gets results that just miss statistical significance has tremendous temptation to cheat. Sometimes, falsifying the score of even a single subject is sufficient. As discussed above, the spate of recent scandals make clear that many scientists have succumbed to temptation. As a result of the problems noted above, plus several others, many beliefs that endured in science for a long time were eventually shown to be wrong. Samuel Arbesman applied the concept of half-life, the time required for half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate, to the dissolution of facts.146 He cited a study on the decay in the truth of clinical knowledge about cirrhosis and hepatitis. The researchers gave a pile of fifty-year old articles to a panel

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of experts and asked them which were still regarded as true and which had been refuted or were no longer considered interesting. They found that the half-life of truth was 45 years. That is, half of what physicians thought they knew about liver diseases was wrong or obsolete 45 years later. Some medical schools tell students that, within a few years, half of what they’ve been taught will be wrong—they just don’t know which half. Appendix 3 gives a few examples. For many more, just Google “science overturned facts.”

Inferences: Part I Data, once collected, must still be interpreted. Imagine a study in which people receive a treatment and experience an improvement in their condition. Many lay people would conclude that the treatment was effective, but there would be several plausible alternatives. Three obvious ones are that the condition treated would have changed naturally with the passage of time—think of the common cold; the treatment had no specific effects and acted only by modifying the recipient’s expectations; and the posttreatment change occurred by chance. Scientific researchers in medicine and related fields maximize the probability that their interpretation is correct by eliminating as many plausible alternatives as possible. So they typically use many subjects and randomly assign some to a control group. They treat experimental and control subjects exactly the same except for the treatment itself. Then, any subsequent differences between the groups can reasonably be attributed to the treatment. To prevent bias, researchers do not let subjects know which group they are in; nor do they themselves know until after the data have been collected. The procedure, called the double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT), is the most rigorous design available to medical researchers. It is the evidentiary gold standard. But the RCT does not yield unambiguous results. In fact, there are often powerful plausible alternatives to the interpretation of an RTC. As discussed above, the lure of money and fame has persuaded many scientists to distort their findings. Many studies are double blind in name only. Both researchers and subjects can observe clinical improvement and side effects and thus correctly guess which group the subjects are in. Furthermore, when Schulz quizzed 400 researchers after promising them anonymity, more than half admitted opening unsealed envelopes containing the group assignments, or cracking codes meant to hide the identity of the groups, or searching for a master list of codes, or holding sealed envelopes up to the light.147

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Hard Sciences To serious skeptics, variability of subjects, conflicts of interest, fraud, and methodological errors are almost irrelevant. They would distrust scientific knowledge even if all scientists were highly competent and scrupulously honest. For, no matter how flawlessly a research project is conducted, speculations concerning its meaning are always tentative and probably wrong. New theories constantly replace old ones and inviolable laws are superseded. (Arrhenius received a Nobel Prize for developing the electrolytic theory of dissociation. Debye received a Nobel Prize for showing that Arrhenius’ theory is deficient. J. J. Thomson received a Nobel Prize for showing that electrons behave like particles. Twenty years later his son, G. P. Thomson, received a Nobel Prize for showing that electrons behave like waves.) Historian and philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend claimed that no important scientific theory has ever been consistent with all relevant facts. Philosopher Thomas Kuhn observed that at least five criteria apply to scientists’ assessment of theories. The criteria are imprecise, and scientists disagree about which are most important and how they can be applied to individual cases:148

• A theory’s consequences should agree with existing information. • A theory’s consequences should extend beyond the data for which it was

developed to explain. • A theory should be consistent both internally and with other accepted theories. • A theory should bring order to otherwise isolated phenomena. • A theory should inspire research and uncovering of previously unrecognized relationships. Albert Michelson, America’s first Nobel Prize winner, wrote in 1902: “The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted on consequences of new discoveries is remote.” Bright students were advised not to study physics as there were no great discoveries to be made. The Prussian patent office closed down even while a man named Einstein worked in a Zurich patent office and did a little theorizing on the side.

Quantum Mechanics The possible outcomes of some scientific studies, such as double-blinds to evaluate whether a treatment is effective, can be anticipated in advance. The answer will be yes or no. Other scientists try to answer their research questions by developing

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and testing several hypotheses until they find one that fits and seems to explain the data. Some lucky and observant scientists encounter completely unanticipated findings that require revision of accepted doctrine. Examples are studies that overthrew the belief that neurons can produce only a single type of neurotransmitter; that new neurons cannot be created in adult mammalian brains; and that the inert gases never bond with other elements. A fourth category of results, those from quantum mechanics (QM), calls into question the very notion of objective reality. Although discussions of the bizarre quantum world have enlivened many cocktail parties, the incredible implications are largely ignored except by theoretical physicists and philosophers. Yet they require reevaluation of historic events, relationships, morality, goals, the aftermath of death, and whether there are exceptions to the rule that red wine should never be drunk with fish. Old Newtonian physics claimed that things have an objective reality separate from our perception of them. Quantum physics, and particularly Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, reveal that, as our perception of an object changes, the object itself literally changes.—Marianne Williamson149

Chaos theory shows that, even if the universe were completely deterministic, miniscule differences in starting positions would often lead to enormous discrepancies in final output. See pp. 144–146. Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, discussed below, shows that the starting position can never be known with complete accuracy. Consider syllogism 6 from p. 86: Naive realism (the belief that the theories of science give a literally true account of the way the world is) leads to physics. Physics, if true, shows that naive realism is false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false. Therefore it is false. How exactly should someone deal with the conclusion that naïve realism is false? The author of the syllogism, Bertrand Russell, had early twentieth century developments in physics in mind. Of all the sciences, physics has had the greatest success. Many and probably most physicists are reductionists— they believe that the features of the world we see can ultimately be explained by (reduced to) the movements and interactions of elementary particles such as electrons and photons. For example, botanist Robert Brown looked through a microscope at a drop of water that contained tiny pollen grains, and he noticed that the grains moved continuously in a seemingly random way. Almost 80 years later, Albert Einstein explained the puzzling Brownian motion by assuming that the pollen grains were continuously colliding with the water molecules. Einstein claimed that it was possible to calculate the average deflection of the particles and, from that, the sizes of molecules and atoms. Three years later, experimental results confirmed Einstein’s theory.

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Einstein’s theorizing helped provide the foundation for quantum mechanics, which has achieved unparalleled success in experimental tests. It has accounted in a quantitative way for atomic phenomena with numerical precision never before achieved in any field of science. For example, the theoretical prediction for a quantity known as Dirac’s number is 1.00115965246; the value obtained by experiment is 1.00115965221. Such accuracy holds for an extremely wide range of phenomena. The results of quantum physics are reliable, easily demonstrated in laboratories, and underlie much modern technology. About 35% of the U.S. gross national product is based on inventions made possible by quantum mechanics; these include semiconductors in computer chips, lasers in compact-disc players, magnetic resonance imaging in hospitals, and much more. Quantum mechanics led to the development of, or great advances in, particle physics, chemistry, cosmology, evolutionary biology, and molecular biology. Nobel Prize winner Murray Gell-Mann wrote, “All of modern physics is governed by that magnificent and thoroughly confusing discipline called quantum mechanics….It has survived all tests and there is no reason to believe that there is any flaw in it.” Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman wrote, “If your model contradicts quantum mechanics, abandon it!” As noted above, reductionism implies that results found at any level are relevant to all other levels. Thus, the results of QM are relevant to understanding the macroscopic world. And the results of QM call much “knowledge” into question. More than that, they undermine the notion of objective reality. I am not a physicist, and my summaries of a few QM phenomena come from several popular accounts. They are included because of the reasonable assumption that the world we experience is comprised of the smaller elements of the quantum world. That quantum world is bizarre beyond most people’s imaginations. Readers who find some of the following difficult should take heart from quotes by eminent physicists. Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.—Niels Bohr150 I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. —Richard Feynman151 …the system of delusions of an exceedingly intelligent paranoic.—Albert Einstein152 Of all the theories proposed in the 20th century, the silliest is quantum theory… The only thing quantum theory has going for it is that it is unquestionably correct. —Michio Kaku153

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The Single- and Double-Slit Experiment Imagine a concrete wall with a hole drilled through it and a large target directly behind. Shoot a few thousand bullets at the wall. Most will be stopped, and the small percentage that get through the hole will cluster within a small area on the target. Drill a second hole near the first and shoot a few thousand more bullets. The result will be two clusters. When any type of macroscopic particle, whether bullets, rocks, or spitballs, is aimed at the holes, the ones that get through will cluster within two small areas. Next, project a beam of light consisting of radiation of a single wavelength or a very small range of wavelengths onto a wall with a small slit in the center and a screen of photographic film behind it. The intensity of the light on the screen will be greatest directly behind the slit and, just like the pattern for bullets, will drop off with increasing distance from the slit. Then make a second slit and repeat the experiment. The screen will initially show piles of individual tiny hits, just as with bullets. But when enough light has hit the screen, something startling will emerge. Instead of two clusters of light, a pattern of bands of alternating light and dark regions will be seen—an interference pattern, which does not occur with particles like bullets but is characteristic of waves like ripples of water interfering with each other on the surface of a pond. If the source of light in the two slit set-up is reduced in intensity, the interference pattern cannot be seen immediately. Yet if the photographic film is left in place for several days, the pattern develops. The light intensity can be made so weak that only a single photon (the indivisible unit of light) goes through at a time. Because photons cannot be divided, they should be forced to go through only one of the two slits. So each photon should encounter no interference, and the final pattern should be like the one for bullets. That’s not what happens. They show an interference pattern, and some areas on the film that photons hit regularly when one slit is open are never touched in the two slit set-up. The same result occurs when other elementary particles such as electrons or atoms are used. Related experiments emphasize and deepen the puzzle. For example, a detection device can be inserted between the slits and the film. Even though both slits are open, the device will record one hit at a time and show the clustering effect, consistent with a particle rather than a wave phenomenon. Somehow, observing the photons changes their nature.

Unstable Elements and Watched Pots Radioactive elements are unstable, which means that individual nuclei within a sample of the element occasionally shoot off an elementary particle. The particle is inside the nucleus at one instant and outside an instant later where it can be registered by a detector. But there is no intermediate state. No physical process connects the two states of being. In addition, in the quantum world, the phrase “A

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watched pot never boils” has real meaning. An unstable nucleus that is continuously watched does not decay. So, according to Nobelist Ilya Prigone, “Whatever we call reality, it is revealed to us only through an active construction in which we participate.”154 John Wheeler was an eminent physicist who introduced the concept of wormholes, coined the term “black hole,” pioneered the theory of nuclear fission with Niels Bohr, and introduced the scattering matrix used in quantum mechanics. To Wheeler, we are shapers and creators living in a participatory universe. He wrote that our observations contribute to the creation of physical reality.155

Pigeonholes and Pigeons The pigeonhole principle seems obvious and trivial: If three pigeons are put into two pigeonholes, at least two pigeons will occupy one of the holes. More generally, whenever more than n objects are placed in n boxes, at least one box must contain at least two objects. Completely obvious—but obvious does not apply in the quantum realm. Particles can be in two places at once until somebody looks, at which time they acquire a specific position. Yakir Aharonov and colleagues considered what would happen if a researcher independently measured the locations of any two of three particles. Depending on the method of measurement, two of the particles might end up in the same box. A different measurement on any two of the three particles and they’d end in different boxes. So, in some situations, there may be more particles than boxes but no more than one particle in any box.156

Quantum Eraser Kwiat and colleagues described a “quantum eraser” effect.157 They set up a standard two-slit experiment with polarizing filters in front of each slit for their detection device. Photons going through one slit were polarized in one direction and photons going through the other slit in a different direction. The set-up allowed the researchers to tell which slit each proton had passed through. There was no interference pattern (as is true when any detection device is used). Then Chiao and Garrison placed a third filter between the slits and the film. The new filter erased the information about which photon had gone through which slit. Amazingly, the interference pattern reappeared; the photons had somehow undone the past and changed their movements.

Delayed-Choice John Wheeler offered a more dramatic example of how a present observation can affect a past behavior. He asked what would happen if a researcher waited until after the photons had passed the two slits before deciding how to observe them. Wheeler imagined a quasar—a remote galaxy—separated from Earth by two other

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large galaxies. The two galaxies act like a pair of slits; photons emitted from the quasar can take a path past one galaxy, the other, or both. Wheeler’s thought experiment had astronomers directing a telescope toward one of the two intervening galaxies, equivalent to closing one slit. They would see photons deflected by the observed galaxy. The photons, having traveled for billions of years, would have taken one definite route, behaving like particles. But by carefully arranging deflecting mirrors, the astronomers could duplicate the two-slit situation; and then the wavelike, interference pattern would appear. So, by deciding which method of measurement to use today, the astronomers would control whether the photons took both possible routes to Earth or just one. Today’s observations would decide the path the photons took billions of years ago. Wheeler’s idea has been demonstrated on a small scale by several scientific teams. The basic strategy is to send photons toward a double slit. With a detection device in place, the photons seem to go through only one slit, which creates a particle pattern on a screen at the back wall. With no detection device, the photons seem to go through both slits, so an interference pattern is produced. Behind the screen are two additional detection devices. One is trained on the left slit only, the other on the right slit only. If they are allowed to detect, a particle pattern is produced. The experimenter can keep the screen in place or remove it after the photon has passed through the slit(s) but before it reaches the screen. It seems that the photon’s “choice” to be particle or wave occurs before it reaches the screen. But if the experimenter keeps the screen in place, an interference pattern is produced. If the screen is removed so a detector detects which slit(s) the photon went through, a particle pattern is produced. The choice of how to measure the particle determines how the particle behaved at a time in the past.

Interpretations Nobel Prize winner Werner Heisenberg is best known for his uncertainty principle—the idea that certain properties of a system cannot be known simultaneously with unlimited precision. He wrote an equation that says, essentially, that the uncertainty of the position of a particle times the uncertainty about the momentum of the particle equals a constant. So, the more precisely one property is measured, the more error there is in the measurement of the second. Moreover, if position is measured first and then momentum, the results are likely to be different from a momentum-first and then position measurement. Heisenberg initially believed that measurement difficulties accounted for the inability to simultaneously determine complementary properties such as position and momentum. According to this interpretation, measuring the position of an electron changes its momentum and measuring momentum changes its position. Nobelist

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Neils Bohr had a different interpretation, and he eventually converted Heisenberg. Whereas probably virtually everybody believes that baseballs and flowers exist independently of whether anyone observes them, Bohr believed that quantum particles do not have definite properties until those properties are measured; the properties literally come into being only at the time of the measurement. Until then they don’t exist in a single state but in all their possible states at once. He called this superposition. Max Born wrote, “At every instant a grain of sand has a definite position and velocity. This is not the case with an electron.” According to Bohr, matter starts to exist only at the moment the observer learns about its existence. Bohr’s interpretation (called the Copenhagen interpretation, or CI) undermined certain basic assumptions of science. He argued that nature is essentially random, and that the same causes do not always lead to the same effects. Kant had written, “Causality is the basis of all scientific work. Causality is the condition that renders science possible.” But Heisenberg eventually concluded, “The law of causality is no longer applied in quantum theory.” And, “In the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the objective reality has evaporated, and quantum mechanics does not represent particles, but rather, our knowledge, our observations, or our consciousness of particles.” Davies and Gribbin stated that “This fundamental limitation represents a breakdown of determinism in nature. It means that identical electrons in identical experiments may do different things.”158 Physicist Anton Zeilinger said of the Copenhagen interpretation, “It works, is useful to understand our experiments, and makes no unnecessary assumptions.”159 A philosopher once said, “It is necessary for the very existence of science that the same conditions always produce the same results.” Well, they don’t!”—Richard Feynman160

The fundamental quantum mechanics equation, developed by Nobelist Erwin Schrödinger, implies that particles that emerge from a common source sometimes become entangled in such a way that they instantly communicate. Their properties are always tightly related. For example, a neutral pion will (if unwatched) eventually decay into two photons that speed off in opposite directions with opposite spin. If photon 1 has spin up along the x-axis, then photon 2 always has spin down along the x-axis. Nobody disputed the basic result. What divided Einstein and Bohr was the explanation. Bohr argued that the particles instantly communicate, no matter the distance between them. In his interpretation, electrons and other elementary particles, until measured, do not have definite spins. When an attribute is measured in one member of an entangled pair, the attribute of the entangled partner becomes fixed. I do not like [quantum mechanics], and I am sorry I ever had anything to do with it. —Erwin Schrödinger161

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Locality is the principle that an event that happens at one place can’t instantaneously affect an event someplace else. Virtually all scientists, and everybody else, accept this principle. Einstein wrote, “If this axiom were to be completely abolished… the postulation of laws which can be checked in the accepted sense would become impossible.” Einstein also believed that electrons have spin, location, and other real properties even when they are not being measured. Bohr disagreed, saying that observations shape reality. In his interpretation, electrons and other elementary particles are in superpositions of possible states; until measured, they do not have definite spins. Einstein could not accept the profound implications of the Copenhagen interpretation. His friend, physicist Abraham Pais, related a conversation: “I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it.” In Einstein’s view, if the Copenhagen interpretation proved correct, the answer to his question would be “No.” Einstein and Bohr had a famous series of debates during which Einstein presented several challenges to CI in the form of thought experiments. Bohr answered all of them. In 1935, with the help of colleagues Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, Einstein proposed what he thought would be a conclusive demonstration that one of two things is true:162 He was certain that the second was the true one. 1. Measuring one part A of a quantum system allows instantaneous predictions about a property of another part B, no matter how great the distance between A and B or 2. QM is incomplete in the sense that it cannot account for some real property of B. EPR went roughly as follows. Shoot off two entangled particles. Then (thought EPR), a detector that measured the position of particle A would know the position of particle B without measuring B. But QM denies that B has properties before those properties are measured, so such an outcome would indicate that QM is incomplete. Also, the position of A could be measured with one detector and the momentum of B measured with a second detector. Thus, the experimenter would know both the position and momentum of B—knowledge specifically forbidden by QM. Bohr predicted a different outcome: A would somehow communicate with B after A, but before B, was measured. In his view, what is real about B depends on which measurement is performed on A; measurement of A’s position instantaneously—no matter the distance between them—fixes B’s position and forces it

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into a state of ill-defined momentum. EPR denied the possibility, because it would violate the principle of locality. Einstein refused to accept such “spooky action at a distance.” He argued that both particles must have some hidden property that produces the correlation between them. He used an analogy: if a pair of left- and right-handed gloves is put into separate boxes, a person who opens one box and sees a right-handed glove immediately knows that the glove in the other box is left-handed. Communication between the gloves is not necessary. Einstein said that if quantum mechanics is right, then the world is crazy. Well, Einstein was right. The world is crazy.—Daniel Greenberger163 God does not play at dice with the universe.—Einstein164 Einstein, stop telling God what to do!—Bohr165

The Most Profound Discovery in the History of Science For many years, there was no way to test the competing beliefs. But in 1964, John Bell published a paper proving that non-locality is a necessary condition to arrive at the predictions of QM.166 Starting in 1981, Bell’s ideas have been tested experimentally many times with different types of elementary particles.167 The results have always shown the same thing: Knowing what happened at measurement A somehow changes the probability of the result at measurement B. Entangled particles remain in instantaneous touch with each other, no matter how wide the gap between them. Experiments suggest that, even if they were light years apart, two entangled particles would link to each other instantaneously. The experiments support CI. Einstein was wrong. Physicist Henry Stapp called Bell’s theorem the most profound discovery in the history of science. Box 11.1 (on page 162) describes a proof of Bell’s inequalities.

Many Worlds CI and Einstein’s realism are not the only approaches to quantum phenomena. A popular alternative to which many physicists subscribe was proposed by Hugh Everett III. He argued that whenever a measurement forces a particle to make a choice, the entire universe splits into two separate universes; the particle goes one way in one universe and the other way in the other.168 Proponent David Deutsch wrote that “…our universe is only a tiny facet of a larger multiverse, a highly structured continuum containing many universes.” He added, “Everything in our universe—including you and me, every atom and every galaxy—has counterparts in these other universes.”169 I disagree. (Fools rush in…)170

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Box 11.1: Bell’s Inequalities Elementary particles have various attributes such as their directions of spin along different axes. Call three of the attributes A1, A2, and A3. Now imagine a detector that has three buttons: D1, D2, and D3. If D1 is pressed, the detector measures A1 and either flashes (Y, A1 is present) or doesn’t flash (N, A1 is not present). Pressing D2 produces either a Y or N depending on whether A2 is present. Pressing D3 measures the presence or absence of A3. Two detectors can be set up with a source between them that shoots out pairs of electrons in opposite directions. As long as the same button is pushed on each detector, both always give the same result, i.e., either both flash or neither flashes. That shows that the electrons emerge from the source with the same attributes. They are entangled. As there are three possible buttons to push on each detector, there are 3 x 3 = 9 possible combinations of detector measurements. If, as Einstein believed, electrons have attributes before being measured, they could be any of 8 types: YYN (flashes if D1 or D2 is pushed, does not flash if D3 is pushed); YNN, YNY, NYY, NYN, NNY, YYY, or NNN. Suppose that the paired electrons are YYN and the detector buttons are pressed randomly and simultaneously. The grid below indicates when the two detectors would agree (A) and disagree (D). For example, if 1 were pushed on detector 1 and 3 on detector 2, they would disagree. If 2 were pushed on both, they would agree.

Button of Detector 2

Button of Detector 1 1

2

3

1

A

A

D

2

A

A

D

3

D

D

A

There are five As and four Ds, so the detectors should agree very close to 5/9ths of the time. They should also agree 5/9ths of the time if the electrons are YNY, YNN, NYY, NYN, or NNY. If the electrons are either YYY or NNN, the detectors should always agree. So, if the experiment is done many times with all possible combinations, the detectors should agree at least 5/9ths or about 55.5% of the time. That’s exactly what would happen with balls or other large objects. Tests of Bell’s inequalities use essentially the same set-up but with photons, electrons, or other elementary particles. And the results are different. Over a long series of trials—this has been shown repeatedly—the two detectors agree only 50% of the time.1 So, the particles could not have had fixed attributes before they were measured. The CI explanation is that as soon as one particle is measured, it instantaneously changes the other. The principle of locality is violated, and the particles somehow instantaneously communicate with each other.

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Most quantum physicists are confident that the same results would be achieved no matter how far apart the two detectors are. Nicolas Gisin and colleagues sent pairs of photons in opposite directions to villages in Geneva nearly 7 miles apart.2 At the ends of their paths, the photons had to make random choices between alternative, equally possible routes. The independent decisions by the paired photons always matched, even though no signal of any kind was transmitted between them. Pan and colleagues produced entangled photons on a satellite orbiting 300 miles above Earth and then beamed the particles to two different ground-based labs 750 miles apart; the particles maintained their linkage.3 Abner Shimony and John Clauser wrote, “The conclusions from Bell’s theorem are philosophically startling; either one must totally abandon the realistic philosophy of most working scientists or dramatically revise our concept of spacetime.4 Templeton Prize winning physicist Bernard d’Espagnat wrote, “The world we perceive is merely a shadow of the ultimate reality and some of our most engrained notions about space and causality should be reconsidered. 5 Anyone who takes quantum mechanics seriously will have reached the same conclusion.” And again, “The outcome confirmed that entanglement-at-a-distance does physically exist, in the sense that it has physically verifiable (and verified) consequences. Which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that some of our most engrained notions about space and causality should be reconsidered.” An alternative explanation to CI is that the particles travel faster than the speed of light, but that possibility is expressly forbidden by the otherwise extremely successful theory of relativity. Or, maybe the results are caused by wormholes or an unknown dimension. Or, there is no objective reality. Wow, take a few minutes to think about the last two paragraphs. And the next three.

Note 1. My description of a test of Bell’s inequalities is based on an excellent article by Gary Felder at www.felderbooks.com/papers/bell.html. Felder also explains how to derive the 50% prediction from QM. 2. Tittel, W. et al (1998) Experimental demonstration of quantum-correlations over more than 10 kilometers. Physical Review A, 57: 3229–32. 3. Yin, J. et al. (2017) Satellite-based entanglement distribution over 1200 kilometers Science, 356: 1140–4. 4. Shimony, A. & Clauser, J. (1978) Bell’s theorem: experimental tests and implications. Rep. Prog. Phys., 41: 1881–1927. 5. D’Espagnat, B. (2009) Quantum weirdness: What we call ‘reality’ is just a state of mind. https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/mar/17/templeton-quantum-entan glement.

Beyond Quantum Mechanics Several developments in science outside of QM are also unsettling for any commonsense view of reality. When Einstein proposed that space and time were

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unified into a single four dimensional structure called space-time, he startled the scientific community. Less well known is that in 1921 physicist Theodor Kaluza postulated a fifth dimension that unifies gravity and electromagnetism. A modern version of his theory postulates eleven dimensions, and physicists called string theorists have proposed a universe of 26 dimensions—although most string theorists are willing to make do with a mere ten. The visible universe is made of protons, neutrons, and electrons bundled together into atoms. Many physicists believe that only about 4% of the universe is made of this kind of matter. The other 96% does not consist of anything that our senses can detect even with the most powerful equipment. This “dark matter” does not interact with electricity or magnetism but appears to have gravitational effects on galaxies. Space also has “dark energy,” which is far more abundant than all the rest of the energy in the universe. Dark energy drives things apart, including space itself. As a consequence, the universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate.

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39. Yang, Y. et al. (2005) Prefrontal white matter in pathological liars. British Journal of Psychiatry, 187: 320–25. 40. DePaulo, B. et al. (1996) Lying in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7: 979–95. 41. Patterson, J. & Kim, P. (1991) The Day America Told the Truth: What People Really Believe about Everything That Really Matters. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 42. https://allgovernmentslie.com/. 43. Jones, E. & Sigall, H. (1971) The bogus pipeline: A new paradigm for measuring affect and attitude. Psychological Bulletin, 76: 349–64. 44. Stephens-Davidowitz, S. (2017) Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us about Who We Really Are. New York, NY: Dey Street Books. 45. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/34353-fiction-was-invented-the-day-jonah-arrivedhome-and-told. 46. Rampton, S. & Stauber, J. (2001) Trust Us, We’re Experts. New York, NY: Tarcher/Putnam. 47. White-collar crime: An overview. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/white-collar_crime. 48. Supran, G. & Oreskes, N. (2017) Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications (1977–2014). Environmental Research Letters, 12(8). 49. UCSF thyroid study pulled from journal/drugmaker-sponsor didn’t like results (1996). http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/UCSF-Thyroid-Study-Pulled-From-Journal2984817.php. 50. Seife, C. (2015) Are your medications safe? http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_ science/science/2015/02/fda_inspections_fraud_fabrication_and_scientific_misconduct_are_hidden_from.html; http://ahrp.org/fda-conceals-collaborates-in-serious-re search-misconduct-fraud-deception-adverse-events/. 51. Oransky, I. et al. (2016) Why scientific fraud hurts people. https://www.statnews. com/2016/03/18/scientific-fraud/March 18. 52. Robinson, M. & Spalding, R. Blood, fraud and money led to Theranos CEO’s fall from grace.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-14/theranos-ceo-holmesaccused-of-fraud-by-sec-jeraxw6a 53. Chu, J. (2017) Study: Volkswagen’s excess emissions will lead to 1,200 premature deaths in Europe. http://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature-deaths-europe-0303. March 3. 54. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/03/03/volkswagen-emissions-scandal-willkill-hundreds-people-study/ Volkswagen emissions scandal: Britons dying due to toxic fumes travelling across North Sea from Germany. 55. Sorokanich, B. (2016) The facts behind every major automaker emissions cheating scandal since VW. http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a29293/vehicle-emis sions-testing-scandal-cheating/. May 25. 56. Tillman, R. & Pontelljune, H. (2016) Corporate fraud demands criminal time. NY Times, June 29. 57. Keefe, P. (2017) Limited liability. The New Yorker, July 31. 58. Examples of corporate fraud investigations—fiscal year 2017. https://www.irs.gov/uac/ examples-of-corporate-fraud-investigations-fiscal-year-2017.

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59. Knott, S. (2016). Espionage, kidnapping, and the dark art of spycraft is as American as George Washington. Foreign Policy, February 15. 60. Union of Concerned Scientists (2004) Restoring scientific integrity in policy making. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/general/news/2004/02/19/530/restoring-scien tific-integrity-in-policy-making/. 61. Time Magazine, January 15, 2018, p. 4. 62. Lewis, A. (1989) ABROAD AT HOME; Rule of Law? NY Times, October 26. 63. Gray, F. (1998) The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The Real Story and Beyond. Montgomery, AL: NewSouth Books. 64. Norton, H. (2015) The government’s lies and the constitution. http://www.repository.law. indiana.edu/ilj/vol91/iss1/6. 65. Justice Department recovers over $4.7 billion from false claims act cases in fiscal year 2016. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-recovers-over-47-billion-false-claimsact-cases-fiscal-year-2016 66. Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Global Fraud Study 2016. Summary available online as of 8/1/2017 at http://www.acfe.com/rttn2016/about/executive-summary.aspx#. 67. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/21/trump-threat-reporters-pressfreedom. 68. Schwitzer, G. (1992) The magical medical media tour. JAMA, 267: 1969–71. 69. Moynihan, R. et al. (2000) Coverage by the news media of the benefits and risks of medications. NEJM, 342: 1645–51. 70. Farsetta, D. (2006) Medical journal’s spin doctors promote controversial studies. https:// www.prwatch.org/spin/2006/09/5177/medical-journals-spin-doctors-promote-contro versial-studies. 71. Stauber, J. (1999) WAR ON TRUTH: The secret battle for the American mind. The Sun, March. 72. Stack, L. (2015) BuzzFeed says posts were deleted because of advertising pressure. https:// www.nytimes.com/2015/04/20/business/media/buzzfeed-says-posts-were-deletedbecause-of-advertising-pressure.html. 73. Soley, L. & Craig, R. (2013) Advertising pressures on newspapers: A survey. Journal of Advertising, 21:1–10. 74. Hart, P. (2014) Labor almost invisible on TV talk: Sunday chat shows skip worker representatives. http://fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/labor-almost-invisible-on-tv-talk/. 75. Fryberg, S. (2012) How the media frames the immigration debate: The critical role of location and politics. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 12: 96–112. 76. Ordway, D. (2017) Fake news and the spread of misinformation. https://journalistsre source.org/studies/society/internet/fake-news-conspiracy-theories-journalism-research. 77. Bondarenko, V. (2017) Lawsuit claims Fox News and Trump supporter created fake story about killing of DNC staffer Seth Rich. http://www.businessinsider.com/rod-wheelerseth-rich-murder-fox-news-lawsuit-2017-8. 78. Hunt, A. & Gentzkow, M. (2017) Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, No. 23089. 79. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/winston_churchill_161247.

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80. Lindaman, D. & Ward, K. (2006) History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History. New York, NY: The New Press. 81. Romanowski, M. Problems of bias in history textbooks. http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/ default/files/publications/se/6003/600310.html (accessed July 30, 2017). 82. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/napoleon_bonaparte_161968. 83. John (November 9, 1963) Washington Post. 84. Taylor, S. & Brown, J. (1988) Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103: 193–210. 85. http://quotationsbook.com/quote/10216/. 86. Cross, P. (1977) Not can but will college teaching be improved. New Directions for Higher Education, 17: 1–15. 87. Alicke, M. & Govorun, O. (2005) The better-than-average effect. In Alicke, M. et al. (Eds.), The Self in Social Judgment. Studies in Self and Identity (pp. 85-106). New York, NY: Psychology Press. 88. Fiske, E. Standardized test scores: voodoo statistics? http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/17/ us/standardized-test-scores-voodoo-statistics.html. 89. Scopelliti, I. et al. (2015) Bias blind spot: Structure, measurement, and consequences. Management Science, 61: 2468–86. 90. Avorn, J. et al. (1982) Scientific versus commercial sources of influence on the prescribing behavior of physicians. American Journal of Medicine, 73: 4–8. 91. Orlowski, J. & Wateska, L. (1992) The effects of pharmaceutical firm enticements on physician prescribing patterns. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Chest, 102: 270–73. 92. Chance, Z. et al. (2011) Temporal view of the costs and benefits of self-deception. PNAS 2011, 108(Supplement 3): 15655–59. 93. D’Argembeau, A. & Van der Linden, M. (2008) Remembering pride and shame: Self-en hancement and the phenomenology of autobiographical memory. Memory, 16: 538–47. 94. http://www.frontiertraveler.com/pennsylvania/americans-dont-know-their-revolution ary-history/ 95. North, A. et al. (1997) In-store music affects product choice. Nature, 390: 132. 96. Although the other examples all come from peer-reviewed research, this last one never happened. As noted previously, you can’t believe everything you read. 97. https://quotefancy.com/quote/1346805/Michael-Novak-Our-capacity-for-self-decep tion-has-no-known-limits 98. Wolins, K. (1962) Responsibility for raw data. American Psychologist, 17: 657–8. 99. Rosenthal, R. (1966) Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research. New York, NY: AppletonCentury-Crofts. 100. Soergel, D. (2014) Rampant software errors may undermine scientific results. https:// f1000research.com/articles/3-303/v1. 101. Broad, W. & Wade, N. (1982) Betrayers of the Truth. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 102. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshitaka_Fujii. 103. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Darsee. 104. Fanelli, D. (2009). How many scientists fabricate and falsify research? A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data. PLoS ONE, 4(5), e5738.

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105. https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/47813/title/Top-10-Retrac tions-of-2016/. 106. Fang, F. et al. (2012). Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. PNAS, 109(42), 17028–33. 107. Fulford, P. (1988) Fraud and plagiarism. In the COPE Report. http://www.bmj.com/misc/ cope/tex6.shtml. 108. Zimmer, C. (2012) A sharp rise in retractions prompts calls for reform. http://www. nytimes.com/2012/04/17/science/rise-in-scientific-journal-retractions-prompts-calls-forreform.html. 109. Survey: FDA Scientists (2006) http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-de mocracy/promoting-scientific-integrity/summary-of-the-fda-scientist.html#.WhTd1Lp Fz4g. 110. Bouter, L. et al. (2016) Ranking major and minor research misbehaviors: Results from a survey among participants of four World Conferences on Research Integrity. Research Integrity and Peer Review, 1: 17. 111. Pastore, N. (1949) The Nature-Nurture Controversy. New York, NY: King’s Crown Press. 112. Gould, S. (1981) The Mismeasure of Man. New York, NY: W.W. Norton. 113. Lewis, J. et al. (2011) The mismeasure of science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on skulls and bias. PLoS Biol, 9: e1001071+, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001071, PMC 3110184. 114. Spiro, H. (1997) Clinical reflections on the placebo phenomenon. In Harrington, A. (Ed.), The Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 115. Devlin, H. (2017) ‘Exaggerations’ threaten public trust in science, says leading statistician. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/28/exaggerations-threaten-public-trust-inscience-leading-statistician-david-spiegelhalter, June 28. 116. Smaldino, P. & Mcelreath, R. (2016) The natural selection of bad science. Royal Society Open Science, 3, 160384. 117. Davidson, R. (1986) Source of funding and outcome of clinical trials. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 1: 155–8. 118. Bero, L. et al. (2007) Factors associated with findings of published trials of drug–drug comparisons: Why some statins appear more efficacious than others. https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pmed.0040184. 119. Schrag, P. (1978) Mind Control. New York, NY: Pantheon. 120. Sumner, P. et al. (2016) Exaggerations and caveats in press releases and health-related science news. PLoS ONE 11, 12: e0168217. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article? id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0168217#pone.0168217.ref020. 121. https://sites.google.com/site/dynamicsythesism/. 122. Borwein, J. & Rose, M. (2012) Explainer: What is chaos theory? http://theconversation. com/explainer-what-is-chaos-theory-10620, November 18. 123. Wahlsten, D. et al. (2003) Different data from different labs: Lessons from studies of gene-environment interaction. Journal of Neurobiology, 54: 283–311. 124. Sapolsky, R. (2000) Genetic hyping. The Sciences, 40, March/April. 125. Widdison, G. (2016) https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-best-real-life-example-of-thebutterfly-effect, February 17.

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126. McGuigan, S. (1995) The use of statistics in the British Journal of Psychology. British Journal of Psychiatry, 167: 683–8. 127. Glantz, S. (1980) Biostatistics: how to detect, correct and prevent errors in the medical literature. Circulation, 61: 1–7. 128. Devlin, H. (2017) Exaggerations’ threaten public trust in science, says leading statistician. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/28/exaggerations-threaten-public-trustin-science-leading-statistician-david-spiegelhalter. 129. Krawczyk, M. (2015) The search for significance: A few peculiarities in the distribution of p values in experimental psychology literature. PLoS One, 10(6): e0127872. Published online 2015 Jun 10. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0127872. 130. Bennett, C. et al. (2012) Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic salmon: an argument for multiple comparisons correction. In Smith, A. & Moulin, C. (Eds.), Neuropsychology, 5: 391–4. London: Sage Publications. 131. Nieuwenhuis, S. et al. (2011) Erroneous analyses of interactions in neuroscience: A problem of significance. Nature Neuroscience, 14: 1105–7. 132. Nuijten, M. (2016) The prevalence of statistical reporting errors in psychology (1985–2013). Behavior Research Methods, 48: 1205–26. 133. Hersen, M. & Barlow, D. (1976) Single Case Experimental Designs: Strategies for Studying Behavior Change. New York, NY: Pergamon. 134. Hubbard, R. & Vetter, D. (1996) An empirical comparison of published replication research in accounting, economics, finance, management, and marketing. Journal of Business Research, 35: 153–64. 135. Evanschitzky, H. & Armstrong, J. (2010) Replications of forecasting research. International Journal of Forecasting, 26: 4–8. 136. Begley, G. & Ellis, L. (2012) Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research. Nature, 483: 531–3. 137. Prinz, F. et al. (2011) Believe it or not: How much can we rely on published data on potential drug targets? Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 10: 712. DOI: 10.1038/nrd3439-c1. 138. Ioannidis, J. (2005) Contradicted and initially stronger effects in highly cited clinical research. JAMA, 294: 218–28; Ioannidis, J. (2005) Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med, 2: e124. 139. Ebrahim, S. et al. (2014) Reanalyses of randomized clinical trial data. JAMA, 312:1024–32. DOI:10.1001/jama.2014.9646. 140. Nosek, B. et al. Open Science Collaboration (2015) Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349 (6251): aac4716. PMID 26315443. doi:10.1126/science.aac4716. 141. Tajika, A. et al. (2015) Replication and contradiction of highly cited research papers in psychiatry: 10-year follow-up. British Journal of Psychiatry, 207: 357–62. 142. Baker, M. (2016) 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility. Nature, 533: 452–54. 143. Warner, M. (2006) The lowdown on sweet? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/busi ness/yourmoney/the-lowdown-on-sweet.html. 144. Simes, J. (1986) Publication bias: the case for an international registry of clinical trials. J Clinical Oncology, 4: 1529–41. 145. Franco, A. et al. (2014) Publication bias in the social sciences: Unlocking the file drawer. Science, 345: 1502–5.

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1 46. Arbesman, S. (2015) Ted talk. January 27. 147. Schulz, K. (1995) Empirical evidence of bias. Dimensions of methodological quality associated with estimates of treatment effects in controlled trials. JAMA, 273: 408–12. 148. Kuhn, T. (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 149. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/marianne_williamson_635445. 150. https://www.eng.famu.fsu.edu/~dommelen/quantum/style_a/botline.html. 151. physics.sharif.edu/~quantummechanics/. 152. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/manjit-kumar/quantum/. 153. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/it_is_often_stated_that_of_all_the_theories/216520. html. 154. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ilya_Prigogine. 155. Cosmic Search Vol. 1 No. 4. (2004) http://www.bigear.org/vol1no4/wheeler.htm. 156. Aharonov, Y. et al. (2016) Quantum violation of the pigeonhole principle and the nature of quantum correlations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.1522411112. 157. Kwiat, P. et al. (2004) Three proposed “quantum erasers” Physical Review, 49: 61–8. 158. Davies, P. & Gribbin, J. (2007) The Matter Myth: Dramatic Discoveries that Challenge Our Understanding of Physical Reality. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. 159. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation. 160. Feynman, R. (1965) The Character of Physical Law. New York, NY: Modern Library. 161. www.fysik.su.se/~aasal/QuantumHistory.pdf. 162. Einstein, A. et al. (1935) Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete? Physical Review, 47: 777–80. 163. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/quantum-mechanics. 164. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2669-god-does-not-play-dice-with-the-universe 165. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/niels_bohr_380430 166. Bell, J. (1964) On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. Physics, 1: 195-200. 167. Aspect, A. et al. (1982) Experimental realization of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm Gedankenexperiment: A new violation of Bell’s inequalities. Physical Review Letters, 49: 91–4; Aspect, A. (1982) Experimental test of Bell’s inequalities using time-varying analyzers. Physical Review Letters, 49: 1804–7; Ansmann, M. (2009) Violation of Bell’s inequality in Josephson phase qubits. Nature, 461: 504–6. 168. Byrne, P. (2007) The many worlds of Hugh Everett. Scientific American, December. 169. Deutsch, D. (1998) David Deutsch’s many worlds. Frontiers Magazine, December. 170. The proliferation of universes would be far greater than proponents imply, since each choice point gives rise to not two but an infinite number of alternatives. A coin is not restricted to landing heads or tails; it might end up balanced on its edge, rolling down a sewer, snapped up in midair by a bird, etc. A teenager may consider opening a telephone directory to make a prank call; the alternatives are not merely between making and not making the call, but the particular page and name to which the directory is opened. Then the prankster may or may not dial correctly. Each possible number dialed would be a new alternative. Furthermore, unless solipsism is a feature of the many worlds hypothesis, alternative universes are constantly created for every living person and maybe even every living creature.

chapter t welve

Reason and Science in Almost One Voice

Philosophers like Bertrand Russell who analyze the foundations of knowledge have considered the belief that only the self exists and is real, a position called solipsism. Russell rejected solipsism but only on esthetic grounds. Many of the leading interpreters of quantum mechanics are borderline solipsists. They believe that the process of measurement creates reality (elementary particles have no properties until measured), and a conscious observer is required for measurement to occur. In syllogistic form: Measurement creates reality. A conscious observer is required for measurement to occur. Therefore, there is no reality independent of a conscious observer.

Theoretical physicist John Wheeler, whose delayed choice thought experiment was discussed in the previous chapter, called reality a participatory phenomenon. He described a game of 20 questions he had played. In the standard version, one player leaves the room while the rest of the group selects a person, place, or thing. The player is then called back to try to guess the chosen object by asking no more than 20 questions that can be answered only by yes or no. When it was Wheeler’s turn, the other participants secretly changed the rules. “There had been a plot not to agree on an object to be guessed, but that each person, when asked, must give

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a truthful answer concerning some real object that was in his mind, and which was consistent with all the answers that had gone before.” With one question left, Wheeler guessed: “Is it a cloud?” The answer was “Yes!” The important point is this: Had the questions been asked in a different order, the answer would almost surely have been different. The answer “cloud” was brought into existence only by the last question. Wheeler believes there is a parallel in QM in that an electron’s properties are unreal until somebody observes it. “Not until you start asking a question, do you get something,” he said. Wheeler asserted that, if the prediction from his thought experiment were confirmed, it would indicate that method of measurement can change history. As noted in chapter 11, several experimental tests have confirmed the prediction and suggest that similar results occur on a cosmic scale. Observations not only disturb what has to be measured, they produce it…We compel the electron to assume a definite position…We ourselves produce the result of the experiment.—Pascual Jordan1

Of course, if there is no reality prior to the observer, then the observer’s beliefs must create that reality. It seems as though faith gets put back into the equation.2

Notes 1. http://quantumenigma.com/nutshell/notable-quotes-on-quantum-physics/. 2. It is interesting to note that Jesus, who has inspired faith in so many, was crucified. Socrates, the epitome of a man of reason, was forced to drink poison hemlock. Galileo, the great empiricist, was forced under threat of torture to recant his conclusions.

chapter thirteen

Inferences: Part II

A more immediate concern than any of the preceding applies to virtually all of science as well as to everyday life. The conclusions drawn from many types of data can be reduced to syllogisms of the following form: Theory T predicts that, under carefully specified conditions, outcome O will occur. A researcher arranges for the conditions, and the predicted outcome O does occur. Therefore, theory T is correct.

Such syllogisms are invalid. That is, even if they have true premises, their conclusions may be false. That means that the most basic scientific process, developing and then testing hypotheses, can never lead to certainty.

Mathematics, Science, and Everyday Life Try solving the problems of Box 13.1. See footnote for the answers.1

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Box 13.1: Ridiculous Problems Ridiculous Problem 1: Fill in the blanks. 1 2 _ _ _. Ridiculous Problem 2: Additional information is provided. 1 2 3 4 5 _ _ _. Ridiculous Problem 3: A car has crashed into a tree. Explain what happened. Ridiculous Problem 4: A car has crashed into a tree. There is an oil slick on the road and skid marks from the car. Explain what happened.

Back in high school, my fellow physics students and I dropped rocks from different heights and measured their times to hit the ground. We then constructed a table, like Table 13.1. Our teacher then showed that the equation T = √D/16 (Time in seconds = the square root of distance in feet divided by 16) fit the data—not perfectly, because some error is unavoidable—but quite closely. He assigned us to drop additional rocks from new distances to see if the equation generated correct answers. We did and it did. Even without the equation, a bright lay observer could have made fairly accurate predictions. More than 150 years ago, Thomas Huxley noted that “The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. It is simply the mode at which all phenomena are reasoned about, rendered precise and exact.” But using the equation reveals a devastating weakness of science and a therefore equally devastating weakness of empiricism and the normal working of the human mind: Although it fits the data, the equation is not unique. In fact an infinite number of others also fit, yielding an infinite number of mathematically correct predictions of time for distances not yet tried. The proof is too complex for my limited abilities, but I can give two examples. Table13.1: What is the missing number? X

Y

1

2.0000

2

3.0000

3

4.0000

4

?

5

6.0000

6

7.0000

In Table 13.1, the equation Y = X + 1 fits the data perfectly and leads to the obvious prediction that the missing value is 5.0000. But two of the infinite number of other equations that also fit the data of Table 13.1 are:

i n f e r en c e s  | 177

Y = X5 – 17X4 + 107X3 – 307X2 +576X 180

and Y = X7 – 1582X4 + 14651X3 – 49322X2 +101772X 32,760

When X = 4, the three equations give Y values of 5.0000, 5.0667, and 5.0974, respectively. The differences may seem trivial, and in any case show that increases in X are associated with increases in Y. So, look at Table13.2. Table 13.2: What is the missing number? X

Y

1

2

2

3

3

?

4

5

Again, the obvious solution is that Y = X + 1 and the missing Y= 4. But another equation that fits the data is: Y = 55X4 – 382X3 + 749X2 – 374X 24

Solving when X = 3 gives a Y value of - 10. And an equation can be found to give any other Y value desired. The only reason for preferring the predictions of Y = X + 1 to those of any other equation is that the human brain prefers simplicity. This is not just about equations, mathematics, or science. It applies to every relationship, every event—every phenomenon of daily life. The more we learn, the more readily we detect flaws in initially plausible explanations for phenomena. Eventually, our minds harden and all but one of the few alternatives that we considered is thoroughly discredited. But inability to imagine other alternatives indicates only a failure of imagination. The alternatives are there—an infinite number of them. For any prediction or explanation about anything, there are an infinite number of valid alternatives.

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Notes 1. Answers to problems of Box 13.1. The obvious answer, 3, 4, 5, is not the only possible one. Here are some others: 4 8 16 (double each preceding number) 3 5 8 (add the two preceding numbers) 3 6 12 (add all the preceding numbers) 1 2 1 (repeating sequence) 3 2 1 (symmetry) 1 8 8 (12188 is the zip code of Waterford, NY ) Joe Willie Namath (Hall of Fame quarterback’s uniform number was 12) Buckle my shoe (start of nursery rhyme) 2. Again there is an obvious answer: 6 7 8. Appropriate alternatives are harder to find but, just as in problem 1, there are an infinite number of possibilities. 3. As in the first two problems, the limited data cannot support any definite conclusion. There are an infinite number of possibilities. 4. The additional information would (seemingly) eliminate many initially plausible explanations. But if nothing can be known with certainty, then nothing can be eliminated with certainty. The number of remaining alternatives would once again be infinite. Eliminating implausible explanations gets us no closer to the correct one. That would be so even if the additional information included a newly fallen boulder on the road; an open bottle of alcohol on the floor; a suicide note at the driver’s home; a blown out tire; another car crashed just down the road; bullet holes in the body…

chapter fourteen

Recapitulation

In the past, you have sometimes believed erroneously. Some of your current beliefs—maybe all of them—may be incorrect. You have no criteria for distinguishing between currently correct and erroneous beliefs. Babies enter the world prepackaged with bits of knowledge, but the knowledge is not necessarily correct. Religious faith is hope masquerading as knowledge—an insane hope that the ancient past, the present, and the post-death worlds have been accurately portrayed in a book (one of more than 1,000 such books, all with different portrayals) written more than 2,000 years ago by a primitive people and subsequently interpreted by a slew of money- and power-grabbing demagogues. There are good reasons not to rely on reason to provide useful information about the world:

• Although an argument such as 2 elephants + 2 elephants = 4 elephants is

(as far as we know) valid, it says nothing about whether elephants even exist. Equally valid arguments are that 2 unicorns + 2 unicorns = 4 unicorns; and 2 BRDX:&G# + 2 BRDX:&G# = 4 BRDX:&G#. • Syllogisms allow for the rearrangement of information but don’t provide new knowledge.

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• Logical arguments begin with premises—statements assumed to be true— and skeptics demand proof of their truth.

• Skeptics also demand proof that the premises have been properly combined

to yield the conclusion. • Push back far enough and all logical “proofs” reduce to matters of faith. Finding an unequivocally sound argument would be as surprising as finding a unicorn. Our senses may give an accurate picture of the world. They may not. We’ll never know. Scientific exploration represents empiricism at its most hopeful. Many and probably the vast majority of scientists believe that the universe is deterministic (at least for everything but humans) and all events have causes. They accept the principle of locality. (Objects that are apart in space cannot directly influence each other.) They conceive of their job as learning about, understanding, and explaining objective reality; and they probably all agree that we are much closer to that goal than were our forefathers of 1,000 years ago. The results from several scientific disciplines and especially quantum mechanics challenge those beliefs. Although there is no single scientific method, most investigations begin with one or more observations. But as discussed on pp. 106–107, observations may be distorted—by some aspect of nature or by deliberate deception. Distortion is also introduced by selective publication of research findings. Scientists and nonscientists alike often make invalid inferences from their observations. A scientist may postulate, “If my hypothesis is true, then if I arrange conditions just so, I should observe result X.” But even if X is observed, there will always be not one but an infinite number of alternative possibilities. So, scientific hypotheses and theories can never be proven. Scientists love trying to solve problems. Their answers, although often surprising, usually fall within a limited range of possibilities and fit into existing knowledge frameworks. For example, when trying to understand where memories are stored, neuroscientists are likely to explore various areas of the brain. They might find that other body organs contribute to memory storage, but they go no farther afield than the individual body. However, if our memories are influenced by quantum mechanics, they are just as likely to be found in a cookie jar in a basement apartment in downtown Minneapolis. Although all of the methods of knowing are problematic, a distinction (of questionable importance) can be made between them. Reason and empiricism may not lead to genuine knowledge, but they are the best we can do. Religious faith, on the other hand, is often held in opposition to reason and empiricism.

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As long as wishing that X is true is not equivalent to X being true, religious faith should be dismissed as even a potential way of knowing. I leave the final word to Albert Einstein. “Once you can accept the universe as being something expanding into an infinite nothing which is something, wearing stripes with plaid is easy.”1

Note 1. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/16479-once-you-can-accept-the-universe-as-matterexpanding-into.

chapter fifteen

Reasons for Resistance

This chapter presents several reasons, primarily psychological, for clinging to the belief that we know a great deal about the world—and responses (in italics) to those reasons. Next come summaries of some Herculean attempts to salvage the belief. 1. Skepticism is a preposterous affront to common sense. Are you really no more likely to waken uneventfully tomorrow than next to a talking pumpkin or two-headed Finn in a loincloth? No wonder the commonsense view toward skepticism is one of disdain. Sensible people conclude that the reasoning process leading to skepticism must be flawed. Flaws can be subtle, and time and intellectual energy are precious, so reasonable people shouldn’t waste time worrying about ridiculous assertions. For more than 2,000 years, the greatest human intellects have sought for flaws in the skeptics’ position. They have found none. So, either there are no flaws or our pride-andjoy intellects are stone-age tools. To put it differently, we must give up on the possibility of either knowledge or reason. The taken-for-granted technology of today would have seemed preposterous to Plato and even our grandparents. Descriptions of automobiles, airplanes, space travel, computers, penicillin, telephones, and refrigerators might have been dismissed as drivel. And the

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pace of technological advances quickens. The gadgetry featured on today’s Star Trek episode is tomorrow’s Radio Shack special. Today’s “knowledge” will illuminate tomorrow’s textbooks on primitive mythology. Here is an inductive argument no less believable than most: All major scientific theories have been supplanted within 200 years. (The scientific community has always eventually concluded that the theories were wrong.) The future will resemble the past. Therefore, all of today’s theories will meet the same fate.1 2. Certain skeptical arguments have been refuted, such as the one that we can know nothing at all. (To know that we can know nothing is to know something.) Defenders of the faith have beaten up on such straw men, so that casual readers of philosophy may have the false impression that the skeptic has lost. But the arguments of Hume and others have not been refuted. Furthermore, though it’s true that to know that we can know nothing is to know something, that’s a pretty meager knowledge base. Only one thing is certain—that is, nothing is certain. If this statement is true, it is also false.—Ancient paradox

3. Hume contended that humans are psychologically constructed to believe in induction. Hume could not justify predicting the consequences of any of his actions, but he did not eat poison or jump off a tall building, and he lived to old age. Other philosophers have ignored their reasoned conclusions everywhere but in classrooms and published papers. (Perhaps it’s just as well that most of them are cloistered in academic institutions.) Granted, we are psychologically constructed to believe in induction—but that only explains, doesn’t justify. We are (maybe) constructed to grow old and die, but we try to fight those fates. If the belief in induction is wrong, we should fight it too. Our most important thoughts are those which contradict our emotions.—Paul Valery2

4. Although the arguments for radical skepticism are intellectually powerful, they can’t be too compelling even to me—every moment of my existence disputes them. I plant seeds in my garden and expect them to turn into vegetables. I type letters on the keyboard, fully expecting them to print out as typed and that someday somebody will read them. I visit my doctor

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when sick and take whatever medicine she prescribes. I turn on the TV and settle back to watch. In short, I act as though my world is predictable. See previous. 5. The arguments may be simple and compelling, but they were available to the most brilliant people who ever lived (if they ever lived)—Aristotle, Einstein, Shakespeare, and Madame Curie, to name a few. None of them became skeptics. Why should you be the first on your block? See previous. 6. Religion and science, the most unlikely of bedfellows, unite in opposition. Religious leaders oppose all challenges to dogma. Scientists, as philosopher Paul Feyerabend noted, are equally dogmatic except to data, theories, and methodologies conflicting with their own. Science, no less than religion, is a matter of faith. Skepticism challenges both religion and science; not surprisingly, it is opposed by both. 7. Almost all scientists except those strange quantum physicists assume that a deep reality underlies appearances; universal laws await discovery; and the universe is deterministic. Lay persons implicitly assume the same beliefs, which radical skeptics disavow. People resist changing toothpastes and breakfast cereals, let alone religions. Belief in a real, nonrandom universe is most fundamental of all—and seems critical for continued existence. Obsessive-compulsive psychotics believe that their bizarre rituals are critical for continued existence. They resist treatment. Paranoid schizophrenics are notoriously treatment-resistant. They constantly defend against a myriad of (their psychiatrists assume) imaginary dangers. So-called normal people outnumber obsessive-compulsives and paranoids, but reality isn’t decided by majority vote. 8. Taking skepticism seriously forces confrontation with meaninglessness and danger. If knowledge is illusion, all courses of action are equally justified. The skeptic should eat cyanide as eagerly as bread. All values, expectations, everything that gives life meaning, are on a par. The implications of adopting skepticism are profound and far-reaching. If nothing is certain, then nothing is certainly denied. Whereas knowledge claimants insist on the correctness of one particular world view and deny alternatives, skeptics are receptive to extraordinary worlds of possibility. The feelings of meaninglessness may be temporary, caused by eliminating

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comforting but false gods. Refusal to confront dangers head on rarely eliminates danger; consider the fates of cattle in slaughter houses and Jews in Nazi Germany. 9. True disbelievers are unsure about the existence of other minds. In fact, they are unsure about all external reality. Their imagination might create all. So they should find better things to do than try to convince nonexistent others of the validity of their beliefs. If solipsism is the correct philosophical position, and there is no external world, I’m writing to myself. I’m a unicorn testifying to the nonexistence of unicorns. Bergen Evans wrote that, to the naïve, skepticism often seems malicious perversity.3 Then he quoted Edward Topsell: “Only some secret enemy in the inward degenerate nature of man could lead anyone to doubt the existence of the unicorn.” The skeptic is agnostic about most things. That is, s/he doesn’t categorically deny the existence of an external world—but does insist that there is no convincing evidence for it, and our beliefs are contaminated by conditioning and wishful thinking. Dreams on occasion seem incredibly real, and the imagination that generates dreams may be just as active during so-called waking. The entire universe may be a product of that same vivid imagination. Given the possibility of an external world, the skeptic need not feel hypocritical about addressing arguments to others. On the other hand, if there is only one mind, then that belongs to the reader. You. Even if you don’t remember doing so (you’ve forgotten some vivid dreams, too), you’re the one who refused to sit in the back of the bus, breathed life to War and Peace, and oversaw a death camp.

Resistance Is Futile Given the many and varied reasons for resisting radical skepticism, it’s not surprising that philosophers have waged a many-centuries assault against it. Rene Descartes was a 17th century assailant. First he constructed many powerful arguments for skepticism. He wrote that, to gain knowledge through experience, people would have to know they weren’t dreaming when they had the experience. But we can’t distinguish dreaming from wakefulness. Any evidence for believing we were not dreaming could itself be the result of a dream. He concluded that we can never be sure about sensory experiences because they might be the result of dreaming and thus might be false. Then he tried to show that some knowledge is possible. He deduced his own existence with the famous “Cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am.) But the proof is unsatisfactory, because the conclusion (I am) is contained in the premise (I think.) He could just as easily have said “I wink (stink, own a skating rink),

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therefore I am.” In any case, it doesn’t bode well for knowledge seekers that the best that a brilliant believer could come up with is that he exists. Descartes’ other proofs are also unconvincing. The essence of his argument for the existence of God is that God, by definition, is the sum of all perfections. Existence is itself a perfection, so God must exist. That’s pathetic, and I doubt that Descartes really believed his defective proof. I once asked an attorney friend if, trying to make the best of a bad case, he had ever knowingly resorted to flawed arguments. He confided that on several desperate occasions he had. He added that they had frequently succeeded. His strategy was to obfuscate, to be lengthy and convoluted. In the 13th century, theologian/philosopher St. Augustine, another genius, presented five arguments to demonstrate the existence of God. One valid one would have sufficed. St. Augustine was probably aware of the inadequacy of each, so he played desperate lawyer and tried to overwhelm with numbers. The lesson to be learned is that success or failure of arguments may have little to do with their validity. Descartes died in 1650. In the ensuing years, people have walked on the moon, plumbed the depths of the ocean, sequenced the human genome, and studied individual nerve cells in intact organisms. If Descartes were transported to the 21st century, he would be dazzled by those achievements. He’d marvel at cars, airplanes, TV sets, computers, and myriad other appurtenances of daily life. But he’d probably be unimpressed by modern attempts to refute skepticism. Arguments for skepticism have an analog in Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. In 1931, mathematician and logician Gödel proved that all complex formal systems are either inconsistent (contain errors) or incomplete. Incompleteness means that clear-cut statements within the system cannot be proved or disproved. A proof might be constructed by developing new rules and axioms, but that would create a larger system with new unprovable statements. In every sufficiently complex system, consistency and completeness are mutually exclusive. They all have at least one proposition that says, in effect, “This proposition is unprovable.” If the proposition is true, the system is incomplete—it contains a proposition that it cannot prove. If the proposition is false, then it is provable and the system is inconsistent. Moreover, there is no method for figuring out which statements are unprovable or incorrect. Gödel’s proofs show that logic is a flawed tool for guiding abstract reasoning, and they set fundamental limits not just on mathematical, but on all logical systems. The proofs strengthen the arguments for radical skepticism (though the arguments are strong enough without ever invoking Gödel). John Watkins categorized and exposed flaws in the various modern refutation attempts. He noted that several philosophers wrote vigorous anti-skeptical treatises and then, on the last few pages of their books, undid their arguments by acknowledging that rejection of skepticism is unwarranted. Watkin’s book is

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brilliant until it reaches his own flawed refutation. Much of the next section owes to him.4 My responses to each challenge are in italics.

A Priorists Immanuel Kant claimed that Hume’s writings aroused him from a dogmatic slumber. A major product of his arousal, the dense, slumber-inducing Critique of Pure Reason, has become a landmark in western thought. Schopenhauer wrote that all men are children until they understand Kant; and Durant suggested that, to be a philosopher, one must first be a Kantian. Hume had challenged the concept of causality. He wrote that, although one event regularly precedes another, it’s possible that the first does not cause the second. Even invariant co-occurrences of events do not establish a causal link. Kant tried to refute Hume’s conclusion but succeeded only in undermining the view of John Locke. Locke had claimed that minds at birth are like blank slates, to be “written” on by experiences. Kant insisted that the slate has properties, which is why experiences affect different people differently. One universal property is the readiness to impute causes to events. Human minds, according to Kant, have the notion of causality prior to experience. They have other prior knowledge as well. The existence of a priori knowledge does not refute Hume. Existence and correctness are separate issues. Kant did not establish the correctness of a priori knowledge. See chapter 6 for further discussion.

Non-deductivists Hume wrote that inductive reasoning cannot be justified. He noted that, although people have frequently experienced objects falling to the ground, they have never experienced that objects will always fall. They might say that objects fall because of the law of gravitation, but they have never experienced such a law. They have experienced only that things fall. Non-deductivists “refute” Hume by asserting that some inductions are forced upon us by nature and are thus conclusive. The meaning of “forced upon us” is that we can’t choose any other path. Strawson conceded that there is no valid reason for choosing between induction and counter-induction, but he added, “Is an ‘arbitrary choice’ then really open to me? Is it? ( Just try to make it.)” According to Strawson, forced-upon beliefs cannot be logically invalid—they are valid by definition.5

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Situations can be designed so that everyone in a particular environment has a particular false belief. Watkins sarcastically wrote that non-deductivists counter skepticism by insisting that valid inductive inferences exist but have a nature that cannot be divulged.

Pragmatists Pragmatists assert that the pretense of knowledge enhances life. Conceding that skepticism is irrefutable, they argue that belief systems should be evaluated for utility more than accuracy. The pragmatist strategy requires that they know how to achieve various ends and how to measure utilities—that they know a lot. Counter-induction-pragmatists would adopt much different belief systems. Still, because they concede that skepticism is irrefutable, I consider pragmatists partial (although unwilling) allies.

Transcendentalists The transcendental refutation of skepticism takes the following form: Knowledge of the future is possible only if the principle of induction is true. Knowledge of the future is possible. So the principle of induction is true. Can you sense the desperation of knowledge-claimants? Skeptics demand proof that non-illusory knowledge of the future is possible. They don’t accept it as a given; without acceptance, the transcendental argument collapses.

Vindicationists Vindicationists claim that induction is the best way to attempt to gain knowledge of the future. Reichenbach wrote, “The man who makes inductive inferences may be compared to a fisherman who casts a net into an unknown part of the ocean— he does not know whether he will catch fish, but he knows that if he wants to catch fish he has to cast his net. Every inductive prediction is like casting a net into the ocean of the happenings of nature; we do not know whether we shall have a good catch, but we try, at least, and try by the help of the best means available.”6 Clendinnen wrote, “Induction is to be justified by establishing that it may succeed while any alternative method is an irrational way of trying to make correct predictions.”7 The assertion that other methods are irrational does not prove or even give the slightest bit of evidence for the validity of induction. And, as always, the counter-inductionist lurks in the background.

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Conjecturalists Karl Popper urged scientists to submit their conjectures (hypotheses) to severe experimental hurdles and to evaluate them by number of hurdles passed without refutation.8 At the same time, he emphasized that the record of past performance provides no guide to future happenings. For that, inductive reasoning is required. In his words, “The observations we have made so far provide us with information about past and present facts, not about future facts. The conclusions of valid deductive arguments have no content not present in their premises. If observation and deduction are our only resources, we cannot draw any conclusions—even probabilistic ones—about the future.” Watkins wrote that it would be rational for scientists to choose the best corroborated conjectures, the ones which have withstood the most severe criticisms, since they have nothing else to go on. Salmon disagreed, arguing that a coin flip would be just as rational; for without the principle of induction, previous corroboration has no bearing on future performance.9 Watkins was persuaded by Salmon’s rebuttal. He courageously wrote (p. 341), “Game, set and match to Salmon.” Then, bloodied but unvanquished, Watkins started a new game. Suppose that, over a course of 1,000 trials, conjecture 1 has been corroborated 1,000 times while conjecture 2 has led to consistently incorrect predictions. Suppose that results are now collected from an additional 2,000 trials. Unless outcomes change dramatically, the total number of successes over the entire 3,000 trials will be greater for conjecture 1 than conjecture 2. Watkins argued that predicting a large change in outcomes makes a stronger claim about the future than predicting no change. It requires stronger assumptions. The rational person should “commit a lesser hostage to fortune” by choosing the conjecture with the weaker assumptions. Unless he accepts the principle of induction, Watkins has no reason for claiming that a large change is less likely than a small one, that one assumption is weaker than another, or that weak assumptions are preferable.

Notes 1. In March, 2014, Epoch Times published an articles entitled “9 scientists who dispute Einstein’s theory of gravity.” https://www.theepochtimes.com/9-scientists-who-disputethe-theory-of-gravity_589863.html. 2. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/194962-our-most-important-thoughts-are-thosethat-contradict-our-emotions 3. Evans, B. (1946) The Natural History of Nonsense. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., pp. 258–75.

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4. Watkins, J. (1984) Science and Scepticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 5. Strawson, P. (1958) On justifying induction. Philosophical Studies, 9: 20–1. 6. Reichenbach, H. (1951) The Rise of Scientific Philosophy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 7. Clendinnen, F. (1982) Rational expectation and simplicity. In McGlaughlin, R. (Ed.), What? Where? When? Why? Holland: Reidel.

chapter sixteen

Conclusions

From the moment of birth we learn methods of coping with and making sense of the world. The methods that work are retained and built upon, and the less effective are discarded. Countless experiences let us feel that we’ve tamed the world and made it less threatening than it otherwise would have been. If anarchy reigned we would, like the biblical ass between two bales of hay, starve, paralyzed by indecision. And we’d have not two, but an infinite number of options. So, I eat bread rather than cyanide—not because of any trustworthy evidence that one is more likely than the other to promote health—but because I must choose between them. To eat the cyanide, or nothing, or to alternate between them, would be to commit to a different worldview, also without merit. Our worldview is shaped not by concern for the truth, but from the need to convince ourselves that we have answers.

Solipsism Solipsism is the belief that one mind created the entire universe. Mine. (Read ‘my’ and ‘I’ in what follows as referring to you, reader.) My every waking moment is filled with sensations and perceptions of an apparent external world, but the sensations and perceptions are generated only within me. There is no external world.

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If solipsism is the correct philosophy, I am Einstein, Shakespeare, Willie Mays, Hitler, Queen Victoria, RinTinTin, and a pastrami sandwich. Although radical skepticism is not synonymous with solipsism, the two are no less than cousins. Teachers of scientific methodology prescribe Occam’s razor, a principle attributed to English logician William of Ockham: Phenomena should be explained with as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that do not change the observable predictions from the explanation. Given that, choose between A and B below. A. You live in an infinitely large, varied, and timeless universe that includes more than 100 elements, hundreds of elementary particles, at least eight million species of animals, billions upon billions of stars, and more than seven billion other brains very much like yours. Each different glimpse of that universe is associated with a different brain state. B. There is no external universe. Your mind (not your brain—you don’t have a physical brain) generates everything.

If you choose A, think about old William of O. B seems so much more in keeping with proper scientific methodology. A staple of many introductory philosophy courses and textbooks is the brainin-a-vat scenario. Students are told to imagine that they are actually disembodied brains suspended in vats of life-sustaining liquid hooked up to supercomputers that perfectly simulate experiences of the outside world. Such brains would give and receive identical impulses to brains in a skull. So, you cannot know whether your brain is in a skull or a vat. The crucial feature of the brain-in-a-vat scenario is that perceptions and feelings due entirely to activity within the brain may be incorrectly attributed to features of the external environment. What I call remembering yesterday’s pain is nothing more than having a certain distinctive type of experience now, an experience that I surely could have even if there had been no such pain yesterday.—B. Mates1

There are precedents for such misattributions: Approximately 60 to 80% of individuals who have had a limb amputated experience the sensation that the limb is still attached to the body and moving appropriately with other body parts. So, rejection of the vat scenario is on esthetic grounds only. Moreover, recent research increases its plausibility.2 Computer scientists and cognitive neuroscientists put volunteers in an MRI scanner, showed them drawings of 10 different objects, and asked the volunteers to think about the objects. Each object activated many brain locations. For instance, thinking about swinging a hammer activated the motor area whereas thinking what a hammer is used for and its shape activated other

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areas. The researchers were able, from the characteristic activation patterns, to accurately determine which of the 10 drawings a participant was viewing. The field of neuroscience has progressed with staggering rapidity during the past 50 years. Scientists within the next decade will likely be able to stimulate as well as record from appropriate brain areas, which will evoke thinking about specific objects. Then they’ll stimulate to simulate other experiences. Maybe they’ve already done so. Maybe you were an early conscript. Don’t worry, they probably provisioned your vat well. Solipsism is unappealing both emotionally (obviously) and intellectually. The intellectual problems are manifold. First, as creator of the universe I might be expected to have some awareness of my abilities. Why have I deceived myself all this time into thinking there is an external world? Why was it necessary to endow that nonexistent world with so much detail? And why do I have total amnesia for all I’ve done? Second, why do I feel that my creation operates independently of me and my wishes? If I’m responsible for everything from kangaroos to distant galaxies, why do my powers seem so limited? Why can’t I dunk a basketball? Finally, why have I experienced so much anger, anxiety, sadness, and unfulfilled dreams? If I am the creator, maybe I should conjure up a good therapist.

There Is No God—Maybe There is no God. The same limitations that prevent you from having certain knowledge, without which there can be only limited power, prevent anybody else from achieving it. (The news from the mythical godfront isn’t all bad. As a consolation, rest assured that there’s no omnipotent devil.) Further proof against His existence is the obvious observation that no omnipotent and all-loving being would have created such a cruel world. Theologians have constructed many patently absurd arguments to explain how an all-loving creator could allow disease, hatred, war, death of a child, suffering, humiliation, torture, and condemnation to eternal torment of most people who ever lived merely because they were raised in an environment where his bible was unknown. It makes no sense. There can be no Creator, simply because his grief at the fate of his creation would be inconceivable and unendurable.—Elias Canetti3

The concept of God is so vague that mystics say “God is within each of us, He is in everything,” and their followers don’t even blink. But if he is in everything, then he was in Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan, Papa Doc, and Saddam Hussein. He can’t be all good. On the other hand, if he’s not in you and me, then he can’t be all-knowing.

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How could he know our every thought? Christians and Jews assume they know what God looks like, since He created them in His image. That, if they thought about it, would create yet another problem. Throughout the animal and plant kingdoms, biological structures have functions. What would be the function of God’s mouth? Digestive tract? Urogenital system? It seems reasonable to assume that his would be subject to the same problems as that of every human man. Given his age, his prostate gland would have enlarged to at least the size of Texas. He wouldn’t be able to watch a movie without getting up at least twice to use the bathroom. (If true, we would at least have an explanation for his grumpiness.) Although there’s no omnipotent god, some being(s) with superhuman but not total powers may exist. They may be using us for their own purposes. We might be subjects in an experiment. They might regard us as pets or harvest some byproduct of human life. Maybe they compete to shape us to specific beliefs. Each year, U.S. college students bring their trained rats or pigeons to a common venue for the animal Olympics—the winners are the ones who’ve shaped their animals to do the most complex tricks. The rats and pigeons, presumably, are unaware of their roles. Maybe we’re in the Homo sapiens Olympics. The Zeus shapers once dominated but currently fare badly against the Jesus and Muhammad entries. Maybe the shapers will someday make their presence known. We might not be pleased. If any of those wild conjectures is true, nothing can be done. We might as well accept our fates. The fly can’t win against the little boy who pulls off its wings. To be fair, my disproof of God’s existence must come with a disclaimer. It is based on logical analysis, and we all know by now that logic cannot be trusted. How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?—Woody Allen

Afterlife—Not Out of the Question What happens when we die? Are we thrust into oblivion? Reincarnated? Assigned to heaven, hell, or limbo? If so, do we have bodies? In what state? Do we revert to the time in our lives when we experienced maximum vigor, or are we as we were at the moment before death? Christians are certain that there is an afterlife, and they cite the biblical examples of Christ and his resuscitated pal Lazarus of Bethany. But the Christian bible was written about 2,000 years ago by fallible men and, as indicated in Chapter 7, many other bibles tell different stories. There is no direct evidence for life after death. Many reports have been given of near death experiences, but nobody has

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risen from the dead—unless, of course, we count zombies. And being a zombie seems like an abysmal way to have to spend eternity. Nobody who talks about life after death has experienced it. Okay, maybe Shirley MacLaine. Surveys show that most Americans believe in an afterlife, but probably few have considered any specifics beyond the expectation of reuniting with departed loved ones. My friends who look forward to an afterlife in heaven don’t expect to see my sad face there. Truth is, I have little incentive to go. Among the minor concerns is that my wife and I often disagree about the most comfortable thermostat setting for our house, yet the heavenly climate control person would have to please not just us but also Eskimos and Saudi Arabians. I suppose that He could issue comfortable thermal underwear for everyone to insulate themselves as needed or, alternatively, Saint Peter could restrict entrance to southern Baptists. I have no ear for music, so harp-playing is out of the question—and unless death improves my voice exponentially, no self-respecting heavenly chorus would allow me within a hundred cubits. It is impossible to experience one’s death objectively and still carry a tune.—Woody Allen4 Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.—Mark Twain5 In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.—Friedrich Nietzsche6 Of the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.—Mark Twain7

Although terrifyingly easy to think of an eternity of unrelieved torment, imagining how continuous pleasure would be provided is much harder. Will time pass? Will there be discrete experiences throughout alternating days and nights or an eternity of identical bliss? If never-changing, even heaven might eventually lose its luster. Singing in a choir or floating under a halo—24/7 for eternity—is not my idea of ecstasy. On the other hand, if heaven changes constantly, perpetual bliss is improbable. Our greatest rewards in the current life occur during activities such as eating, which requires that we’re first hungry; and experiencing orgasm, which requires buildup of tension. I do not believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.— Woody Allen8

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Every atheist I know (assuming that solipsism is not the case and the people I call atheists really exist) believes that death is the end—they don’t anticipate an afterlife, probably because religious people attribute dual roles to God: Creator of the universe and CEO of heaven and hell. But, hypothetically, a godless universe could be populated with immortal souls. Atheists have reasons for their beliefs. They know that brain activity correlates with thoughts, feelings, and overt behavior. Neuroscientists have used various sophisticated techniques to show that different brain areas become active when a person does math problems, watches a sad, funny, or scary movie, is happy, angry, or depressed, and so forth. Diminished consciousness is a common symptom of neurological impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease or following certain strokes or brain tumors. None of those examples is a great revelation. Philosopher Alexander Bain wrote in 1873, “For every act of memory, every exercise of bodily aptitude, every habit, recollection, train of ideas, there is a specific neural grouping, or co-ordination, of sensations and movement, by virtue of specific growths in cell junctions.” Similarly, Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick argued that we are “nothing but a pack of neurons.”9 In 1971, Finland became the first nation to adopt brain death, defined as a complete and irreversible cessation of brain activity, as the definition of legal death. Many other countries have followed suit on the presumption that a permanent cessation of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. It would seem to follow that permanent cessation indicates oblivion. But the relationship between brain activity and cognitive processes is less obvious than it might seem, which has implications for inferences about a possible afterlife. For example, deep anesthesia stops brain electrical activity nearly completely—patients have a flat EEG—yet some anesthetized surgical patients recall their surroundings and events related to the surgery. Awareness during general anesthesia is rare and usually occurs just before the anesthetic completely takes effect or as the patient emerges from anesthesia. But it occasionally occurs during deep anesthesia. Aristotle taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.—Will Cuppy10

In humans, there is a small positive correlation between brain weight and intellectual capacity.11 The average weight for an adult male is about 1,200 grams, but one highly gifted person had a brain weight around 1,017 grams while a severely retarded person had one of the highest recorded human brain weights, about 2,850 grams. Intellectual French writer Anatole France had a brain just two-thirds the normal size. Hydrocephaly is an abnormal buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain. The fluid, under considerable pressure, may compress and damage the brain. Survivors are usually seriously handicapped, but not all of them. Neurologist

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John Lorber worked with hydrocephalics, and although most were severely retarded, more than a few had above normal intelligence. One young man with virtually no brain—less than 1 millimeter of cerebral tissue covering the top of his spinal column—was an honors student in mathematics at Sheffield University in England. Lorber described others with such small cerebral hemispheres that they had ‘no detectable brain.’ Yet some scored higher than 120 on IQ tests. In 1980, Roger Lewin published an article in the prestigious journal Science about Lorber’s studies that he (undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek) entitled “Is your brain really necessary?.”12 In 1987, Ahad Israfil, aged 14, was accidentally shot in the head. The injury destroyed virtually the entire right side of his cerebrum, and the void was filled in with silicone. Yet, upon regaining consciousness after a five-hour operation, he attempted to speak. He has recovered most of his faculties and graduated from a university with an honors degree.13 The word “birdbrain” is a pejorative, implying that somebody has a tiny, poorly functioning brain. Birds’ brains are tiny. But parrots, despite having brains about the size of a walnut and about one thousandth the size of a whale’s, display considerable cognitive capabilities. Parrots can learn human words and use them to communicate with humans. Pigeons, with even smaller brains, can discriminate cubist from impressionistic styles of painting; crows can make useful tools and pass on their skills to their offspring. Some bird species can understand each other’s intentions, use tools more efficiently than chimpanzees, and have an understanding of cause and effect comparable to that of a three-year-old child. Bees have brains the size of a grass seed. Yet foraging bees visit flowers at multiple locations and typically find a route that keeps flying to a minimum. That is, bees solve a problem, finding the most efficient route for travelling to several locations within a short time period, which has intrigued mathematicians and keeps computers busy for days. Even plants may have some level of awareness. Plant roots shift direction to avoid obstacles. Some plants release chemicals that attract predators of the animals that feed on them. The plants can differentiate between members of the same species and others, altering their root growth in response to the identity of the neighboring plant. Falik and colleagues subjected pea plants to drought conditions.14 The plants relayed information to neighboring pea plants through their roots. This caused the neighbors to close their stomata—the pores that allow their leaves to breathe—in order to keep in as much moisture as possible. This helped them withstand the drought conditions when they occurred. Nearby plants with roots that had no physical contact with the drought sufferers did not shut their stomata.

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Berries of the barberry plant usually contain one or two seeds.15 If a parasitic fly infects a berry with two seeds, the developing larva often feeds on both. If the plant aborts an infested seed, the larva in that seed will die and the second seed may be saved. Meyer and colleagues found that a fruit with two seeds aborts an infected seed in 75% of cases, whereas a fruit containing only one seed aborts the infected seed in only 5% of cases. A fruit with only one infected seed that aborted it would lose the entire fruit. The researchers suggested that this complex behavior indicates that the plant can differentiate between conditions and anticipate future risks. Appel and Cocroft played a recording of caterpillar feeding vibrations to one group of plants and exposed another group to only silence.16 When caterpillars were later placed on both groups, the plants previously exposed to feeding vibrations produced more mustard oils, a chemical that repels many caterpillars. Plants exposed to other vibratory sounds, including those from the wind and nonthreatening insects, did not increase their chemical defenses. That is, the plants learned to distinguish feeding vibrations from other sources of vibration. Plants adjust how much starch they consume to prevent starvation at night. Mechanisms in the leaf measure the plant’s starch store to estimate how much they need to use until dawn arrives. If the starch store is used too fast, plants starve and stop growing during the night. If the store is used too slowly, some is wasted.17 In any case, if solipsism is correct or we are victims of intentional deception or unintentional misperceiving, the apparent relationship between brain activity and cognitive processes is meaningless. Otherwise, the relationship must be explained. The relationship is the famous mind–body problem, and it has stumped philosophers for centuries. How do conscious experiences arise out of a lump of gray matter? How does a person’s desire cause specific neurons to fire and muscles to contract in exactly the right manner? How do thoughts cause actions and unconscious fantasies cause psychosomatic illnesses such as asthma and ulcers? There are several ingenious explanations. None are satisfactory. Dualists argue that reality consists of two fundamentally different parts, whereas monists claim that all reality is of one kind. Idealistic monists argue that everything is mental, and materialistic monists argue that everything is physical. Epiphenomenalists state that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain but do not affect physical events. Interactionists argue that interaction between physical and mental events occurs, but they cannot explain how. None of the philosophical positions explains how the brain transforms tiny packets of chemicals into the entire panoply of human emotions and experience. Given that some of the greatest minds (again, assuming they exist and not including parrots) have been unable to resolve the mind-body problem, how can

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anyone state with confidence what happens after brain death? On that issue, agnosticism is the only honest position. We won’t know till we’re dead. Furthermore, it is very likely that nobody has even imagined the correct answer. After all, the possibilities are infinite. Theoretical physicist Henry Stapp worked with some of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics. Stapp accepts the Copenhagen interpretation, and he argued that belief in the soul—a personality independent of the brain that can survive beyond death—is not unscientific. He wrote: “Strong doubts about personality survival based solely on the belief that postmortem survival is incompatible with the laws of physics are unfounded.”18

On the Positive Side Baby elephants in India are tied to a wooden pole that they try to but cannot break. Soon, conditioned into believing they can’t break it, they stop trying. Thus, mature, powerful elephants remain shackled to small, easily breakable poles. People who accept the arguments of this book can begin testing and possibly throwing off their shackles.

A Question You’ll Probably Never be Able to Answer: Are Things Pretty Much What They Seem? Maybe, but there is no basis for knowing. We can never be certain—or even mildly confident—about almost everything. Keep the results of quantum mechanics in mind. Pop psychologists and New Agers have embraced QM, because it is mysterious with no simple explanations. So they’ve twisted it to pretend that it supports their far-fetched ideas. I won’t do that, but it’s worth noting that of the many different interpretations of QM, all but the version called naïve realism agree that ultimate reality is very different from how most of us think it is—probably inconceivably different. Most of the leading figures in QM discount naïve realism. So, if things are pretty much what they seem, we must trust the repeatedly verified results of QM. And QM shows that things are not pretty much what they seem.

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Worldviews of Prominent Physicists and Philosophers One or more modern quantum physicists believe in each of the options below.

• There is no deep reality. • Reality is created by observation. • Reality is an undivided wholeness. • Reality consists of a steadily increasing number of parallel universes. • The world obeys a non-human kind of reasoning. • The world is made of ordinary objects. • Consciousness creates reality. • The world is twofold, consisting of potentials and actualities At a conference of quantum physicists plus a few philosophers and mathematicians, 64% of 33 respondents to a questionnaire declared that Einstein’s interpretation of QM was wrong. None said he was correct. A few suggested he might turn out to be right someday, and others said “we’ll just have to wait and see.” Twenty-seven percent said Bohr was wrong, 30% said he was correct or ultimately would be, and 30% voted for waiting and seeing. Forty-two percent said the Copenhagen interpretation was their favorite; no other choice came close.19 

Convincing Travelogue Call everything that comprises your present reality point A. Let your imagination run wild to conceive of a radically different reality, one that can include time machines, chit chats with creatures from distant worlds, and every kind of superpower imaginable. Call it point B. Could a Shakespeare and an Einstein collaborate on a convincing travelogue to get you thinking that B is possible? I believe so—and therefore take seriously the distinct possibility that B is in my future.

How Should I Conduct My Life? When trying to think of precepts for living, a different form of skepticism applies. I can’t even imagine a single, preeminent principle. Honest seekers would test their most cherished principles by carrying them to their logical extremes. For obvious reasons, I’m scared to do that.

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1. Pick a principle, e.g., “Honesty is the most important policy;” or “Love thy neighbor.” 2. Can you create a scenario whereby you are willing to give up the principle? (If not, take an enema daily for 12 years.) 3. Whatever the original principle, you could do more to achieve a universe enhanced with respect to it. You don’t, because you have other interests. Each candidate for overarching principle is in conflict with others; depending on the specific circumstances, any of several principles may take precedence. I can’t conceive of a preeminent principle.

Keep on Trucking Despite what philosophers say, philosophy books do not make good instruction manuals on how to live. This book is no exception. But it does provide a few takehome messages.

• You should gain a better understanding of the boundaries of knowledge. • If anyone claims to have colloquies with God or tells you what will happen

when you die, dismiss the person as delusional, a liar, or a figment of your imagination. • Appreciate that zero knowledge equals infinite possibilities. If nothing is known, nothing is barred. • Explore the implications. The question isn’t whether my reasoning is correct—the question is what to do next. For want of better options, keep doing what you’ve been doing—but take chances. Beliefs go a long way. Think of the elephant chained to its flimsy wooden stake.

Notes 1. Mates, B. (1981) Skeptical Essays. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2. Shinkareva, S. et al. (2008) Using fMRI brain activation to identify cognitive states associated with perception of tools and dwellings. PLoS One, 3(1): e1394. DOI: 10.1371/journal. pone.0001394. 3. https://www.idlehearts.com/2176249/there-can-be-no-creator-simply-because-his-griefat-the-fate. 4. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/woody_allen_136687. 5. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/mark_twain_137881. 6. https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/szmds/in_heaven_all_the_interesting_ people_are_missing/.

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7. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/of_the_delights_of_this_world_man_cares_most_ for/11514.htm 8. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/468366-i-do-not-believe-in-an-afterlife-althoughi-am. 9. Crick, F. (1994) Taking an inward look: A scientific search for the soul. Telicom, October. 10. www.lifesayingsquotes.com/quote/aristotle-taught-brain-exists-merely-162/. 11. So, maybe we should all be worried. According to Kathleen McAuliffe, writing in the January 20, 2011 issue of Discover Magazine, the brains of humans have been shrinking over the last 30,000 years. In that time, the volume of the average human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc. and that of the female brain by about the same proportion. 12. Lewin, R. (1980) Is your brain really necessary? Science, 210: 1232. 13. http://mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/stf/ahad-israfil-survives-freak-shooting/. 14. Falik, O. et al. (2011) Rumor has it…: Relay communication of stress cues in plants. PLoS One, 6(11): e23625. Epub 2011. 15. Meyer, K. et al. (2014) Adaptive and selective seed abortion reveals complex conditional decision making in plants. The American Naturalist, 183: 376–83. 16. Appel, H. & Cocroft, R. (2014) Plants respond to leaf vibrations caused by insect herbivore chewing. Oecologia, 175: 1257–66. 17. Scialdone, A. et al. (2013) Arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night. eLife, 2: e00669. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.00669. 18. Stapp, H. (2017) Compatibility of contemporary physical theory with personality survival. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255612057_compatibility_of_contemporary_ physical_theory_with_personality_survival. 19. Schlosshauer, M. et al. (2013) A snapshot of foundational attitudes toward quantum mechanics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 44: 222–30.

chapter seventeen

Epilogue

Readers who have reached this point are probably willing to accept that the world is far more mysterious and unknowable than they had previously realized. They may not be card carrying radical skeptics but are convinced that histories and current events are often distorted to suit the chronicler’s agenda, religions are for-profit (of a few) enterprises, science is far from infallible, there are no universally accepted standards for proper reasoning, and even if there were, pure reason does not inform about the world. Although the state of affairs may depress glass half-emptyers, half-fullers can view things differently. They live in a world of infinite possibility. Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.— Arthur Schopenhauer1 An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.—Oscar Wilde2 Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.— Mark Twain3 There is no certainty; there is only adventure.—Roberto Assagioli4 My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.—J. B. S. Haldane5

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Notes 1. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/arthur_schopenhauer_133402 2. https://forum.thefreedictionary.com/postst24535_An-idea-that-is-not-dangerous-is-un worthy-of-being-called-an-idea-at-all-.aspx 3. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/mark_twain_137926 4. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/roberto_assagioli_387779 5. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane

Appendix 1: Beliefs About the Future by Experts

• Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?—H. M. Warner, founder of Warner

Brothers Studios. • It will be gone by June.—Variety Magazine, giving a prediction on the future of rock-and-roll in 1955. • Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, had two interesting predictions, the second uttered only a short time before the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics revolutionized physics: X-rays will prove to be a hoax. There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement. A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.—New York Times, • 1936. • There will never be a bigger plane built.—A Boeing engineer, shortly after the company had built a twin engine plane that held 10 people. • There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable.—Albert Einstein in 1932. • Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.— President of the Stevens Institute of Technology Henry Morton’s thoughts on Edison’s lightbulb.

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• The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.—The

president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Company in 1903. • Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.—movie producer Darryl Zanuck in 1946. • Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.—Dr. Dionysius Lardner, an 1823 professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy. • There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.—Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).  • I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.—Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 • The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.—IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier didn’t actually have a large enough market for mass production. • Children just aren’t interested in Witches and Wizards anymore.—Anonymous publishing executive in a note to JK Rowling when she tried to get them to publish the Harry Potter series. • No, it will make war impossible.—Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the machine gun. He said this when asked if the machine gun would make war more or less terrible. • We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.—Simon Newcomb, astronomer, in 1888. • I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.—Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com and inventor of Ethernet • This “telephone” has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.—Western Union internal memo, 1876.

Appendix 2: History Myths

These enduring myths about American history were taken on 10/1/17 from http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/smart-living/the-28-most-enduring-mythsin-american-history/ss-AArT3lo?ocid=spartanntp#image=1 George Washington did not have wooden teeth. He had dentures made out of metal and ivory. Baseball was not born in Cooperstown, New York, and Abner Doubleday did not invent it. Doubleday wasn’t even a fan. Baseball was the brainchild of New Yorker Alexander Joy Cartwright, a volunteer firefighter and bank clerk. Christopher Columbus did not discover the United States. Even if Native Americans aren’t counted, Columbus was still 500 years too late. Norse explorer Leif Erikson landed on these shores during the 10th century. Witches were not burned at the stake at Salem. Between February, 1692 and May, 1693, nearly 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft including the elderly, homeless, and a 4-year-old girl. Most were jailed, 19 were hanged, and a 71-year-old man was crushed with heavy stones. But nobody got burned. Not one. Cowboys did not wear cowboy hats. The most popular headgear among 19th century gunslingers was a bowler, sometimes called a derby. The Declaration of Independence was not signed on July 4th. The Continental Congress voted for independence and drafted the declaration on the 2nd of July. A revision was approved on the 4th and the final document wasn’t signed until August 2nd.

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The 1929 Wall Street crash did not cause massive suicides by jumping from tall buildings. There were two. Thomas Edison did not invent the electric light bulb. The vast majority of his 1,093 patents weren’t his own inventions. He found real inventors and stole their ideas. Edison got the patent for the light bulb in 1880, but Warren de la Rue, a British astronomer and chemist, had created the first light bulb forty years earlier. Abraham Lincoln was not completely against slavery. In an 1862 letter to a prominent newspaper editor, he wrote: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.” The Founding Fathers were not all Christians. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were deists (they believed in God but not one with holy books and commandments written in stone). George Washington was an Episcopalian, though not a strong enough believer to summon a pastor on his deathbed. John Adams, a Unitarian, claimed that “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” The 250 or more Americans who died at the Alamo weren’t fighting for freedom. Just the opposite. Texas was still technically part of Mexico after its War of Independence from Spain, but slavery was banned from Mexico in 1829. Texans wanted to keep their slaves, and General Santa Anna was opposed. So they holed up in the Alamo in San Antonio. The Puritans did not come to the New World seeking religious freedom. In 1593, Protestant Separatists emigrated to Holland from England for the chance to practice their religious preferences without interference. But they became concerned that Holland allowed too much religious freedom, giving free reign to Judaism, Catholicism, and atheism. So they jumped on the Mayflower and went looking for a new world. The “Wild West” was not particularly violent. Between 1859 and 1900, there were about 1.5 gun-related murders per year in the Wild West. The infamous 1881 shootout at the OK Corral had a body count of three. George Washington was not our first President. During the American Revolution, several presidents were elected by the Continental Congress, the first being Peyton Randolph, who created the Continental Army. Thomas Mifflin, who was president between 1783 and 1784, oversaw the ratification of the Treaty of Paris. John Hancock was the president between 1785 and 1786. George Washington was our first president to be elected by the people, but technically speaking, he was our 15th president.

Appendix 3: Scientific Facts and Theories That Were Once Believed but Are Now Considered False

Most diamonds are formed from compressed coal. Diamonds are compressed and heated 90 miles below the surface of the Earth. Coal is found about 2 miles below the Earth’s surface. Dinosaurs died off because of a volcano. Most scientists now believe that an asteroid impact killed them off. There is a lot of genetic difference between the races. There are larger genetic differences between Africans than there are between Africans and Eurasians. There are only nine planets in the entire universe. There are billions and billions of planets. Neanderthals were not smart. Neanderthals had advanced tools and were skilled hunters and socializers. Neanderthals didn’t exist at the same time as humans. Archaeologists found and dated some old human skeletons which proved that Neanderthals and humans co-existed for thousands of years.

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Neanderthals didn’t have sex with humans. Researchers sequenced the Neanderthal genome in 2010. They determined that most humans living outside of Africa have about 1-4% Neanderthal DNA. Complex organisms like humans have more genes than simple organisms like amoebas. Humans have around 19,000-20,000 genes. A tiny moss plant has around 32,000 genes. The universe is slowing down. Until the late 1990s, scientists thought that gravity must be slowing down the expansion of the universe. They now believe that the universe is flying apart ever faster. Stomach ulcers are caused by stress. Most stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria. Black holes don’t exist near young stars. The Hubble telescope found evidence of a massive black hole in the center of our own galaxy. The tongue has specific taste zones. All zones of the tongue can sense all flavors. Oh yes, both radioactive material and cigarettes were once considered healthy.

Index

A

B

Abbagnano, Nicola, 78 Afterlife, 49, 62, 196 Agrippa’s trilemma, 68 Infinite regress, 68, 81 Uncertain assumption, 68 Circular reasoning, 69 Albertson, William, 126 Anything can be proved, 89 A priori “knowledge, 41–43, 188 A priorists, 188 Arbesman, Samuel, 151 Archy the cockroach, 41 Ariely, Dan, 77, 119 Aristotelian (traditional) logic, 84 Assumptions underlying claims to knowledge, 29 ATCV-1 virus, 117 Ayer, A.J., 87 Asimov, I., 33–34

Bacon, Francis, 9, 96 Baron, Jonathan, 72 Beliefs, 2, 3, 5–22 Aging, 11–12 Conflicting evidence, 18 False, benefits, 11 False, harm, 11 Group differences in belief perseverance, 14–15 Inconsistent, 13 Origins, 7, 22, 46 Persistence of, 8, 58–59 Weird, 8–9, 48–49 Believing is seeing, 17 Bell, John, 161–162 Bell’s inequalities, 161–162 Bierce, Ambrose, 25, 45, 48, 68 Blind men, elephant, 102–103 Blindsight, 105

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Blondlot, Andre, 17 Bohr, Neils, 90, 155, 157, 159–161, 202 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 52 Boyer, Pascal, 46, 58 Brain death, 198, 201 Brain-in-a-vat, 194 Brain weight/intelligence, 198–199 Birdbrain, 199 Broad, C. D., 32 Brooks, Carol, 51 Burden of proof, 28 Butterfly effect, 144

C Camus, Albert, 2, 27 Canetti, Elias, 195 Causality, 159, 163, 188 Censorship, 134 Cheating, 119 Chaos theory, 144–146, 154 and war with Iraq, 145–146 Chekkov, Anton, 7 Chomsky, Noam, 42 Churches, crimes, 54–55 Cicero, 3 Cohen, John, 21 Coherentists, 69 Communitarians, 15 Confirmation bias, Conjecturalists, 190 Connelly, Paul, 50, 58 Conservatives, 15, 16 Copenhagen interpretation, 159–160, 202 Counter-induction, 82–83 Coyne, Jerry, 62–63 Cyanide, healthful, 97–98

D Dark matter, 164 Dawkins, Richard, 46, 116–117

Da Vinci, Leonardo, 101 Debunking misinformation, 12–13, 111 Deception, 51, 70–71, 111–141 Corporate, 122–125 ExxonMobil, 122 FDA, 123, 140, 142 Synthroid, 122–123 Volkswagen, 124 Deterrents, 124–125 Governmental and political, 125–127 African American men with syphilis, 127 Founding fathers, 125 Internment of Japanese American citizens, 127 Manhattan Project, 125 Suppressing votes of minorities, 127 Means, 112, 113–114 Motives, 112–113 Opportunity, 112, 114–118 Self-deception, 70–71, 135–137 Delayed-choice, 157–158 Dietrich, Eric, 47–48 Descartes, Rene, 3, 106, 112–113, 186–187 Cogito, ergo sum, 3, 186 Evil demon, 112–113 Deutsch, David, 161 Dewey, John, 7 Dillard, Annie, 52 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 49, 71 Double-blind randomized controlled trial, 152–153 Dualists, 200 Durant, Will, 3, 33, 188

E Eating disorders, interpretation of ambiguous ink blots, 98 Einstein, Albert, 33, 88, 91, 99, 118, 153–155, 159–161, 181, 202 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 48 Empiricism, 96, 101, chapter 11, 176, 180

i n d e x  | 215

Epiphenomenalists, 200 EPR thought experiment, 160–161 Estimates of socially relevant values, 1–2, 4 Euclidean geometry, 43 Everett III, Hugh, 161 Evolution, 14, 29, 45, 47–49, 57, 62, 70–73, 91, 115, 140, 142 Reasoning, 70–73 Reality versus fitness, 71 Expectation effects, 31, 135 Extreme realists, 51

F FakeApp, 117–118 Falwell, Jerry, 53, 54, 60 Ferlinghetti, Lawrence, 48 Fermat’s last theorem, 79 Feyerabend, Paul, 153 Feynman, Richard, 25, 155, 159 Finkelstein, David, 90 Foundationalists, 68 Franklin, Ben, 49, 75, 210 Fraud investigations, 125 Frog responders, 98 Funding source, publication bias, 150

G Galbraith, John Kenneth, 18 Gandhi, Mahatma, 55 García Márquez, Gabriel, 121 Gell-Mann, Murray, 155 Gervais, W., 46–47 Gleick, James, 8 God Proof of nonexistence, 195–196 Sex of, 196 God helmet, 42 Gödel, Kurt, 187 Goodman, Nelson, 83, 89

Google searches, 121 Greenberger, Daniel, 161

H Hagee, John, 53 Half-life, scientific “truths,” 151–152 Hamer, Dean, 42 Harris, Marvin, 50 Heinlein, Robert, 48 Heisenberg Werner, 154, 158–159 Hitler, Adolf, 51 Hodgson, Ralph, 106 Hoffman, Donald, 71 Hydrocephaly, 198–199 Hubbard, Elbert, 88 Hume, David, 27, 31, 32, 81, 83, 184, 188 Huxley, Thomas, 21

I Illusory correlations, 20 Individualistics, 15 Inductive reasoning, 32, 79, 188, 190 Ambiguity, 83 Infallible lie detector, 2, 121 Infinite regress, 68, 81 Influenza virus, 117 Ingersoll, Robert, 55 Internet, fake news, 130–131 Inverted goggles, 104 Ioannidis, John, 149–150

J James, William, 7 Jefferson, Thomas, 28, 125 Jordan, Pascual, 174 Judicial rulings, 68

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K Kaku, Michio, 155 Kaluza, Theodor, 164 Kant, Immanuel, 32–43, 102, 159, 188 A priori knowledge, 32–43 Noumena and phenomena, 102 Kline, Morris, 78, 96 Knott, Stephen, 125 Kuhn, Thomas, 153

L Lakoff, George, 14 Landsburg, Steven, 62 Law of identity, 84 of noncontradiction, 84 of excluded middle, 84, 88, 89 Leibniz, Gottfried, 41 Lewis, C.S., 15, 34–35 Liberals, 15 Locality, 160–161, 180 Locke, John, 41, 188 Loftus, Elizabeth, 107–108 London, Jack, 41–42 Lorber, John, 199 Loungani, Prakash, 82 Luria, Alexander, 73 Lying, Blue, 120 Children, 119–120 U.S. government officials, 127

M Machiavelli, 111, 125 Many worlds, 161 Martin, Andrew, 68 Marx, Karl, 25, 52 McGinnis, A.L., 111

McLaughlin, Jacqueline, 98 Media, 16, 82, 117, 123, 126, 128–131 Memories, 16, 29, 72, 107–111 False, 108 Mencken, H.L., 95 Messages from God, 52–56 Michelson, Albert, 153 Mind–body problem, 200 Monists, 200 Monty Hall dilemma, 69 Montesquieu, 48 Moore, Colleen, 114 Moore, G.E., 28–29, 85 Morgan, Donald, 52

N Naive realism, 86, 154, 201 Natural selection, 29, 46–48, 70–71, 78, 107, 115, 117, 142 Newton, Isaac, 33, 96, 99, 138, 144, 154 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 27, 62, 102, 107, 197 Nin, Anais, 107 Nisbett, Richard, 73–74 Non-deductivists, 188–189 Nosek, Brian, 150 Noumena and phenomena, 102 N-rays, 17 Null hypothesis significance testing, 147–148, 152

O One-sided vs two-sided arguments, 17, 72 Oliver, John, 52

P Parasites, 115–116 Parker, Dorothy, 121

i n d e x  | 217

Pascal, Blaise, 50, 56, 91 Patihis, Lawrence, 109 Paul, Gregory, 57 Perceptions Illusions, 105–107, 143 Influenced by context, 107 Persinger, Michael, 42 Piaget, Jean, 78, 109 Pillars of knowledge, 39, 45 Plato, 26, 102 Popper, Karl, 97, 190 Pragmatists, 189 Predictions of experts, 81–82, Appendix 1 Prigone, Ilya, 157 Publication bias, 151 Pyrrho, 26

Q Quantum eraser, 157 Quantum mechanics, 88, 89, 99, 153–161 Quine, W.V., 13, 88–89, 99

P Participatory universe, 157, 173 Persinger, Michael, 42 Pigeonhole principle, 157

R Radical skepticism, 2, 26–28, 33, 34, 43, 184, 186, 187, 194 Rashomon effect, 131, 145 Rationalists, 95 Reasoning, Aristotle’s three fundamental laws of thought, 84 Argumentative theory, 71–72 Circular, 69 Conclusions may come first, 87

Contradictions, 51, 73, 74 Cultural differences, 73–74 Deductive, 79, 83–87 Evolution, 70–73 Framing, 76–77, 130 Humans compared to pigeons, 69 Inductive, 32, 79–83 Irrationality, 21, 27, 69, 75, 91 Metaphors, 74–75 Quantum logic, 89 Science in opposition, Chapter 10 Syllogisms, 19, 59, 73, 81, 84–86, 88, 90, 97, 101, 154, 173, 175, 179 Supreme Court, Reichenbach, H., 35, 189 Religious faith, Benefits, 50, 51–52, 62 Characteristics, successful religions, 47 Evolutionary adaptation, 48, 49 Origins, 46–47 Persistence of belief in, 58–60 Science, incompatible, 62 Why so many religions, 47–48 Replication, 148–150 Roberts, Oral, 53 Robertson, Pat, 36, 52–54, 111 Robinson, E.A., 121–122 Robinson, James Harvey, 82 Root-Bernstein, Robert, 118 Rose, Barbara, 53–54 Russell, Bertrand, 27, 28, 32, 45, 81, 84, 86, 91, 154, 173

S Sacks, Oliver, 104 Saint Augustine, 187 Saxe, Leonard, Schiller, F.C.S., 8 Schrödinger, Erwin, 159 Science, Accurate predictions despite incorrect explanations, 98–99

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the pr ofound limitations of knowledge

Eminent scientists, deception, 137–138 Fraud, 138–140 Invalid confirmatory syllogism, 97 Natural selection of bad science, 142 Office of Research Integrity, 140 Retractions, 139 Secret experiments, 118 Self-deception, 70–71, 135–137 Self-transcendence, 42 Seife, Charles, 123 Sextus Empiricus, 26 Sifakis, Carl, 111 Single- and double-slit experiment, 156 Solipsism, 170, 173, 186, 193–195, 198, 200 Spiegelhalter, David, 141–142 Standardized behavioral tests with mice, 145 Stapp, Henry, 161, 201 Statistical errors, 146–148 Stephens-Davidowitz, Seth, 121 Stereotypes, mathematics, 11 Stich, Stephen, 70–71, 89 String theory, 164 Stone, I.F., 120 Superstitious behavior, 11, 19 Court decisions, 67–68 Syllogisms, 19, 73, 84–85, 88, 97, 175, 179

T Tarico, Valerie, 48–49 Televangelists, 52–53, 60 Tetlock, Philip, 81 Theranos, 123–124 Tilton, Robert, 52 Tinbergen, Niko, 115 Toulmin, Stephen, 27 Toxoplasma gondii, 116–117 Transcendentalists,189 Trivers, Robert, 70–71 Twain, Mark,109, 198, 205

U Unamuno, Miguel de, 91 Uncertainty principle, 144, 154

V Vaccines, autism false link, 12, 13, 110, 139 Valery, Paul, 184 Vindicationists, 189 Voltaire, 7, 29, 33, 131 Vonnegut, Kurt, 57

W Wahlsten, Douglas, 145 Watched pots, 156–157 Watkins, John, 187, 189, 190 Weinberg, Steven, 58 Wheeler, John, 157–158, 173–174 Wilson, Edward, 42 Winch, Peter, 88 Worldviews of prominent physicists and philosophers, 202

Y Youngman, Henny, 9, 15

Z Zeilinger, Anton, 159

HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Heresy, Crossroads, and Intersections Paolo Palmieri, General Editor This series invites book proposals that include innovative strategies for pursuing history and philosophy of science. Especially welcome are scholarly works using non-analytic philosophical perspectives to successfully bring to bear on our understanding of how scientific practices are related to the humanities and the social sciences. The series also welcomes exploration of the sciences in relation to gender, culture, society, and the intellectual and social contexts that illuminate the places, the structures of origination, and the patterns of development over generations. Approaches may include focused analyses of thinkers from unorthodox perspectives that can shed new light on the history and philosophy of science, such as Montaigne, Bruno, Galileo, Newton, Pascal, Emerson, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Jung, Freud. Proposals aimed at probing the philosophical intersections between the sciences and other societal practices that can be configured as heretic are also encouraged. These might include the emergence of the psychoanalytic movements in the twentieth century, how the fine arts have impinged on the historical processes that gave rise to the sciences over the last few centuries, how in turn the intellectual frameworks inaugurated by the sciences have been imported into the avantgarde movements that paralleled the advent of industrialized societies, and finally how contemporary scientific domains of knowledge reverberate in ‘deviant’ social and artistic practices. For additional information about this series or for the submission of manuscripts, please contact: Peter Lang Publishing Acquisitions Department 29 Broadway, 18th floor New York, NY 10006 To order other books in this series, please contact our Customer Service Department: 800-770-LANG (within the U.S.) 212-647-7706 (outside the U.S.) 212-647-7707 FAX Or browse online by series at: www.peterlang.com

The Profound Limitations of Knowledge explores the limitations of knowledge and argues that neither reasoning nor direct or indirect observations can be trusted. We cannot even assign probabilities to claims of what we can know. Furthermore, for any set of data, there are an infinite number of possible interpretations. Evidence suggests that we live in a participatory universe—that is, our observations shape reality.

Fred Leavitt received a Ph.D. in psychopharmacology from the University of Michigan. He did postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley and served on the faculty at California State University, East Bay for forty-three years. He gives occasional talks to medical doctors for their continuing medical education requirements.

www.peterlang.com

HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Heresy, Crossroads, and Intersections