Comments on: The danger of belief.

By: CelticBear

CelticBear — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 20:44:44 +0000

@tim
thanks for the comment; I’ll check the site out!

By: CelticBear

CelticBear — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 20:39:27 +0000

@kevin
are you kidding?? Your comment reveals a lot. Skepticism has absolutely nothing to do with intuition! Nothing. Quite the opposite. For the skeptic all claims start at the same level: prove it or it’s unfounded, regardless of what the claim is. Whether it’s mystical or scientific claim, they’re all considered unfounded and unproven until a preponderance of objective and verifiable evidence proves the validity of the claim BEYOND and regardless of any ideas of intuition.
Reflexilogy has yet to provide any verifiable, objective, repeatable evidence that proves the validity of its claims beyond the default condition of all claims: unfounded.
Start with http://www.skepdic.com/reflex.html

By: Tim Farley

Tim Farley — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:47:07 +0000

Excellent summary of a very real problem. I run a website that is dedicated to collecting stories of people being harmed by lack of critical thinking, it is illustrative to see how often this occurs and in how many areas.

The site is here: http://whatstheharm.net/

By: Kevin Kunz

Kevin Kunz — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:18:05 +0000

I think it is interesting when you include reflexology in a whole list of fringe practices. Have you actually looked at reflexology? Have you looked at the research? Or do you just know it is wrong.

Intuition plays a big part in a lot of skeptics lives. Yet they rail against it.

Very interesting that you know all these things are illogical with just a hunch.

By: CelticBear

CelticBear — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:04:20 +0000

Thank you for visiting my site and commenting!
Yeah, I first heard of Burton’s book (and your own, I believe) from the “Point of Inquiry” podcast.
It’s an absolutely fascinating subject, consciousness, the epistemology of “knowing”.
=)

By: Madeleine Van Hecke

Madeleine Van Hecke — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:39:53 +0000

What an excellent and powerfully written entry! You are probably aware that there’s been a burgeoning of books discussing recent advances in neuroscience. One book in particular is relevant to the question of why people hold to beliefs not only in the absence of evidence, but in the presence of counterevidence. It’s called On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not by neurologist Robert Burton. He argues that the tendency to ignore evidence contrary to our beliefs is built-in, that our brains are hard-wired to generate a feeling of knowing or a feeling of certainty that we are right – and that when this “feeling of knowing” often trumps evidence to the contrary. Example: In one of the studies Burton describes, a professor asked students – in class, on the day after the Challenger exploded – to describe where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, etc. when they heard of this tragedy. Two and half years later he re-contacted the students – he still had their original essays in hand. When asked if they remembered hearing about the Challenger explosion, they were all certain that they remembered the circumstances clearly. Yet less 10% were correct in all details, and 25% got it all wrong. Yet so strong is our feeling of knowing that even when shown their original essays, many had trouble accepting that they were wrong. One student said “Well, that’s my handwriting but that’s not what happened.” So we have a long way to go to convince people that our feeling of certainty that we are right is often wrong! Thanks for a great entry.