My son pointed out the following image to me.
Doesn't that perfectly describe your experience arguing with creationists, intelligent design proponents, crystal healers, holocaust deniers, global warming deniers, and 9/11-truthers?
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Fractal Wrongness
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7 comments:
No. You're lumping together different kinds of falsehoods, and it doesn't look convincing.
Creationists and intelligent design proponents are religious nuts. Crystal healers are frauds or gullible. Holocaust deniers and 911-truthers are conspiracy theorists. Global warming deniers are partly conspiracy theorists, partly gullible sectants; on the other hand, global warning enthusiasts are just as often gullible sectants, although they're rarely conspiracy theorists.
Of all these, global warming deniers are most likely to have reasonable beliefs in their worldview outside the problem domain, followed perhaps by the milder faction of intelligent designers.
But what all these groups share is that, when you probe more deeply into their beliefs, you uncover layer after layer of more incorrect (or at least, unsubstantiated) beliefs.
At least, that's been my experience.
I had a hard time with Anatoly's "sectants" (sect members?). Loan words gone amok?
The common theme is confirmation bias combined with a desire for a secretive and exclusive truth. There is also a bias structure based on defining ingroup and outgroup (liberal pinkos versus fascist conservatives, etc.; Manichean?) that seems multiresolutional in that it applies across politics, philosophy, science, economics and sociology.
I used to think objectivity was possible, but now I mostly think that recognizing one's one biases is, eh, "approachable."
"sectants" is an errant back-formation from Russian сектанты. I should have said sect members or sectarians, yeah.
I think it's mostly conspiracy theorists who share your theme of confirmation bias and a desire for a secretive and exclusive truth. Do crystal healers care about being secretive and exclusive - that is, do they find any special satisfaction in that? Hell no, they're New Age nuts, they want everyone to believe and share the beautiful energy. What about creationists? Sure, they like to feel victimised - who doesn't these days - but they care about their broad popular support in the US very much.
I don't know, I just feel that all these things are pretty different, and some of them have plenty of adherents who aren't intellectually rotten to the core, so to speak. The interesting question, to me, is mostly "is it possible to be honest (counting refusal to wilfully ignore evidence as part of honestly) and to believe X?". I don't think it's possible in case of Holocaust deniers and 911-truthers, for instance. Global warming deniers - well, that's very different, it's kind of an edge case.
Does this poster come in post-card format?
Speaking of cranks (I'm not sure where else to post this), what about those 9/11 nuts given an opportunity to speak by the UW debate society tonight? We shouldn't be giving them even a smidgen of perceived legitimacy.
You didn't mention UFO believers. Although, I suppose that is a much more complex group with many shades of belief and disbelief. And well, it is an immensely ancient and huge universe...
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