David Bernstein asks: "Why do people develop 'religious' beliefs about secular issues?" In this article, I provide an answer: Because, in most such cases, there is little incentive to learn the truth. The article focuses on political beliefs, where it is rational to be ignorant because there is so little chance that any individual vote will determine the outcome of an election. As a result, those citizens who do bother to acquire political information often do so for reasons other than the pursuit of truth. For example, they enjoy having their preexisting prejudices reinforced, "rooting" for their political "team" (much like sports fans enjoy rooting for the Red Sox or Yankees), or the like.
But the lesson applies more broadly. As I point in the article, polls show that large numbers of people hold irrational beliefs about nonpolitical subjects too. Thus, large numbers of people believe that we are being visited by UFOs piloted by extraterrestrial beings, believe in ghosts, and reject the theory of evolution. Wildly inaccurate beliefs about these subjects - like inaccurate political beliefs - don't harm most people in their daily lives, and they can be enjoyable and emotionally satisfying. It's fun to believe in UFOs or ghosts, emotionally satisfying to believe that God "specially created" you, and so on. Thus, for many people, it is perfectly rational to let considerations other than rigorous truth-seeking guide their belief-formation processes on many issues.
Unfortunately, individually rational behavior can often lead to collectively harmful results, as when flawed political beliefs lead to harmful government policies.
In an entirely different category are the relatively rare people who actually act on wildly inaccurate beliefs in ways that harm them personally. For example, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building because of his highly implausible belief that doing so would lead to the overthrow of the federal government by white racists, as depicted in the idiotic Turner Diaries. Obviously, McVeigh's actions instead led to stronger security measures, and to his own capture and execution. Such people are, however, very rare compared to the millions who hold foolish beliefs that do not directly harm them.
NOTE: I assume that, by "religious," David means something like "based on faith without any evidence," rather than based on belief in a God or gods. So defined, even atheists can (and often do) fall for foolish religion-like beliefs about secular matters.
Related Posts (on one page):
- More Evidence that Most People Don't Find Politics Interesting:
- Testing My Rational Ignorance of Pop Culture:
- Inaccurate "Religious" Beliefs About Secular Issues:
- Why Do People Develop "Religious" Beliefs About Secular Issues?:
Holding to these beliefs intensely is (for some people) part of the fun. For the same reason that it's also fun for some to be intense sports fans.
Jesus and St. Paul were crazier then McVeigh if they thought meekness would bring down the mighty Roman Empire! Ilya could have explained to Martin Luther how futile it would be to nail those repetitive 95 theses to the door! And imagine how small a role was played by the Germans in shipping that Zurich troglodyte to St Petersburg. Not to mention that it was a mere table leg that kept von Stauffenberg from changing World History.
this ceritnly explains the presence of ward churchill types in tenured academia..the 'costs' of irrationality fail
frankcross asks about the 'fervency' of beliefs. I would proffer that the fervency of the belif increases as the benifit/cost raito increases.
the more comfort a person gets from his belifefs..the more benifits...the more repercussions of those beliefs..the more costs.
OTOH Ilya Somin says little about the benifit side of that equation:
what benifit do theise belifs give the holders? I think that is what the real mystery David Bernstein is getting at is.
Ilya does give illustrrate possible benifits in passing such as:
the comfort you can get from them such as the comfort of the belif of a god who specialy created you..
or the excitement and valaidation you get for rooting for a team (whehter that team is the yankees or the republicans)
Some..like perhapps David Bernstien..is wither that they have not (or dont remeber) experincing those benifits..OR they have had horrible experinces with the costs..so much so..that they cant imagine why others have an opposite experince...(those who have trouble making decisons on anything but dogma..be it secular or religous dogma)
perhapps Prof. bernstien vaules the truth so much..that the cost of having conforting beilffs would be too great. those beliefs would get in the way. I think that is the case amoung many intelectuals
perhapps the more specific question to ask..via the gguidance of Prof. Somoin is:
what are examples of costs and benifits of beliefs that i have?
those costs and benifits (and the weight ascribed to them)...will change regarding every belif you have.....
this question is the same as the old simple qquestion..what are my biases here?
NOTE
whether or not that belief is irational is not nessesairly at issue here...a person may hold a rational beild for irrational reasons (such as making them feel good)
i mention this in part b/c i dont belive that the belief that god createdc yo specialy is (nessarily) an irrational belief..but it is also subject to 'irrational' reason to belive..like confort or peopple telkling you you will go to hell if you dont belive.
Religious belief is often as much an exercise in intellectual discipline as it is a belief about metaphysical reality. Believing the literal inerrancy of the Bible is akin to believing that your superior is infallible in a war zone. It is an expression of the (as some believe, including me) superior wisdom-gathering mechanism of religious tradition. Or even short of believing in literal inerrancy, as Congregationalist protestants do, great deference to, for example, the Catholic Church is expressed in believing that the saints did miracles. Privately, most Catholics do not believe it, but they profess it as an expression of their fealty and deference to their faith and the wisdom of the Church.
In fact, religious mythology remains such a powerful force in the world today because of the potential value of such deference. People may, without quite realize it, be deferring to superior wisdom by truly believing in a world view.
The proposition is that it is much wiser to do so than to think that one can analyze and come up with the right answer on the basis of one’s own intellect and access to whatever small array of life experiences and books one has. Even if one has a strong intellect and a wide array of experiences, they may still be vastly inferior to the information-gathering and processing abilities of a religious tradition.
That is what I think you consistently underestimate or wholly miss in your writings on this general topic.
so your saying..some religous belifs may be rational...becuase we are relying on 'experts'
but thats not the question..the question is...why do some people hold irrational secular beliefs....where there is no such tradition...
i only mix the answer with relious beildf b/c sometimes..the same reasons they hold secular beliefs are the reasons they hold religous ones (ex comfort)
but not always...like as you say..when they are relying on 'expwerts'
These are 4 very different cases. Meekness did NOT bring down the Roman Empire. Barbarian invasions and economic decay did. Of course, Jesus and St. Paul never expected that meekness would do so. Martin Luther was supported by many powerful social forces. As for Lenin and Stauffenberg, they had much better reason to believe they could succeed than McVeigh did.
BTW, I find it oddly amusing that some can be so comfortable dismissing out of hand as presumptively "inaccurate" the fairly common view that "that God 'specially created' [people]" (via either major account of how, I presume?). I would never suggest that reality is somehow determined by popular opinion, but when so many intelligent and educated people are quite comfortable believing exactly that, it does make me wonder just who it is that's seeking comfort through a forced false certaintly.
I keep arguing on the internet, even though I know it won't change a damn thing.
arguing on the interenet could reasobaly ( but not alwyas)
1. change the views of people your arguing with..ussually not entirly but sometimes in part (or it could chagne yours..whole or in part)
2. even if it doesnt do 1 by itself it could have a cumulative effect with other information or experice they have after the conversation (the same appplies to you)
3. just have you learn much about the issue and strethon and/or develop new seprate views on the subject..as distinct from going back on what you said in whole or in part (or the other perssons)
4. genreally strenthgen your ability to critically think (or the other persons)
true..youd like to think ti would do more..and thatxs certinly a confortable belif...but the fact that there are irrational reasons to post doesntmena there arnt also rational ones to post
Our stone age ancestors expanded their tribal reach by getting a group of like minded individuals to cooperate in various ventures, whether that venture be taking down a mammoth or sacking a neighboring village. Who cares of the Shaman gets everybody working together by telling tales of demons or giants? The important thing is that we can depend on nobody getting cold feet at the wrong moment. That means all believing alike and acting in concert.
Folks that don't get hung up on precision of beliefs where they don't matter get to enjoy the mammoth steak or the fruits of plunder and rapine, folks that can't tended to get weeded out by the strong hand of evolution.
Evolution allows us to change when the investment gets higher, but seriously, how often does the age of the earth affect ones billing rate? I can say (to non clients, of course) that the earth is 6,000 years old and still get the Statement of Work signed, so it's a freebie. Only in the last few hundred years or so have there been occupations where actually finding truth for truth's sake. That eyeblink of evolutionary history isn't even a rounding error in the forces that have shaped us.
So it's not, as IS argues, the little incentive to learn the truth, but rather the Chrisitan incentive to willfully lie? Wow. WWJD indeed.
In the same paragraph, you first write:
Then you write:
So, it is "rational" to hold the "irrational beliefs" you enumerate? Clearly, you are not being consistent in your definition of rational, even within the same paragraph. I think it would be helpful if you formulated a clear definition of rationality and stuck with it. Or alternatively, explicitly acknowledged transitions in your use of the term.
But wouldn't it be accurate to say that citizens who bother to acquire political information also often do so because they want to pursue the truth? The word "often" does not really say much. How frequent does this phenomenon have to occur before the word "often" may be appropriately used? Is this claim so weak and so obvious as to not be worth making? Of course, it is "often" the case that political junkies are more interested in information that satisifies their preexisting beliefs or feeds their partisan inclinations. This strikes me as old news.
Well, first of all, certainly individually rational behavior can lead to harmful results as well, based on at least one of the inconsistent definitions of rational that you use. For example, if one maximizes their pleasure by being indolent, even though if they started to work out and stuck with it such that their body changed and they actually started to enjoy working out, they would actually be much happier, that would be a harmful result. Likewise, when that indolent individual dies at a premature age from heart disease or other obesity related illness, this will harm family members. The pleasure maximizing decision to sit on the couch watching television rather than work out may be "rational" under some definitions of the terms. But it is also a decision that may result in harm that reduces both individual and collective happiness.
Given that rational actions can result in harm to an individual, is seems obvious that such actions can also result in collective harm.
In addition, it should be pointed out that in the real world, many government policies are not simply beneficial or harmful in the aggregate. Rather, different policies represent different tradeoffs. People with different values will evaluate different tradeoffs that policies represent differently. For example, someone who thought that the homeless deserve to be homeless might evaluate a government policy to improve the conditions of homeless individuals differently than someone who does not. Whether the complex tradeoffs that are involved in a particular policy are "beneficial" or not is often not the simplistic question that you seem to making it out to be. It is not purely "objective" but also is a function of our individual values and collective values.
To summarize: (1) You do not use the term "rational" in a consistent manner. (2) You do not justify the puzzling assumption that seems to underly your argument, i.e. that individually rational actions are not ever individually harmful, so we should be suprised when they turn out to be collectively harmful. (3) You also do not justify the assumption that we should think of government policies using a binary rubric (labeling them as either beneficial or harmful) instead of considering them as representing multidimensional tradeoffs that will be evaluating differently by people based on their values.
Finally, it should be noted that the libertarian solution to imperfect decisions -- do nothing, because we cannot expect the political process to result in perfect policies -- fails to recognize a basic and fundamental fact. Doing nothing is a choice with complex and imperfect consequences. So, not only is the observation that the political process does not work perfectly obvious, the suggestion that "doing nothing" (or more precisely, having the government do nothing) in response is obviously the "safe" path to go ignores the fact that doing nothing is a choice with complex consequences itself. To the extent that people are collectively likely to fail to perfectly evaluate the consequences of policy X or Y as they are equally likely to fail to perfectly evaluate the consequences of doing nothing, which, after all, is a choice with consequences. Give possible active policies X and Y, doing nothing is policy Z, nothing more and nothing less. Policy Z is not some utopic and always correct choice that some libertarians make it out to be. It too needs to be carefully evaluated and the evaluation of that choice, like the others, is subject to flaws in the political process.
Folk medicine is a wonderful example. Virtually every culture has a collection of folk-medical beliefs and practices, and while most are simply harmless placebos, a great many--think of leeches, purgatives, starvation remedies, and the like--are actually downright harmful to patients. Yet those patients faithfully follow the "medical" advice their culture offers them--even when it ends up killing them.
I understand, Ilya, that you have a great deal invested in the thesis that people are irrational because they have little incentive not to be--and, as a libertarian, in its converse: that people are reliably rational when they have a strong incentive to be. I assume that you have little incentive to let go of this irrational belief of yours. Nevertheless, given the facts, it is an irrational belief.
This illustrates quite nicely why we should avoid using the same word for different things in the same paragraph. =)
similar with belifs..occationally people make mistakes and dont make the right judgement of what the benifits or costs of certian belifs are...so they join the heavns gate cult.
if you want to know:
"The question, though, is still how individuals go about acquiring this faith."
then your still asking..what benifits do certian belifs provide for the beliver..and how are these belfis advertised to the market
this very threada more recent thread touches on) to have a fairly strong confirmation bias.2) the placebo effct is not sufficient to explain ALL instances of homeopathic medicine; my wife tried a "homeopathic" (so it said on the box) medicine for earaches and teething pain on our infant children, and it was quite effective. I'm not saying ALL homeopathic medications are effective, mind you, I'm only giving my (very limited) experience. Or are 3-month-olds old enough for the placebo effect to kick in? It's worked and worked VERY well on 2 of our 3 children, and the third hasn't had need of it (yet). Make of that what you will - I have no idea what mechanism makes that particular "medication" work (the official theory of homeopathy being complete bunk, of course), I only know that it does.
Such people use beliefs not as ideas to be examined, but as badges of membership in some group. They are fervent about their beliefs because they had a deep psychological need to continue to identify with that group, and think that changing their opinion would isolate them from the group. The prototype of this behavior actually was religious - people holding vehemently to beliefs about the untestable (Transubstantiation) and even the not-understood (Predestination) because that particular belief distinguished their kind of people from the others.
Fortunately, Christian sects have nearly universally come to the conclusion that you can't effectively force people to adopt your beliefs, and you can't wipe out all the others even if you are the largest group by far (although 400 years ago the Catholics weren't the only sect trying that), so you'd better get along with other religions. However, it is interesting how atheism gets them so much more upset than a religion that contradicts most of their beliefs; atheists and agnostics aren't on another team, they aren't playing the game, and that's really upsetting to some people. And yet, I still don't worry about the fundamentalist congregation that meets in my neighbor's garage working themselves into a frenzy and lynching me...
The problem is that when people take this attitude out into the non-religious world, they make decisions about issues that are testable and even have real-world consequences in the same way - not on the evidence, but because it's what the crowd they want to belong to is loudly claiming. They may decide that global warming is proven and 10 times as bad as any scientist working on it has actually predicted, or that it just doesn't exist. They may decide that liberals and Democrats are for freedom, and ignore decades of nanny-state regulations, violations of property rights, speech codes, high taxes and the drug war. Or they may decide that conservatives and Republicans are for limited government, and ignore increased police powers, attempts to regulate sex, violations of property rights, pornography laws, high spending, and the drug war. All of which definitely has real world consequences, even for those of us desperately searching for a viable candidate who really believes in freedom and limited government.
Is there anything more general that can be said about what sort of beliefs are likely to be harmful to the believer and what sort are not? I think the following distinction is useful: The concept "belief" really covers two rather different propositional attitudes (mental attitudes regarding claims of fact), namely (a) subscribing to (or sincerely professing) a claim; and (b) absorbing (or presupposing) a claim. If I walk down the street without looking at the sidewalk, it is because I have absorbed the belief that the ground underneath me will continue to be solid. The is the sense of belief conveyed in the proposition that knowledge is justified true belief. It is potentially disasterous to be wrong about this kind of belief.
By contrast, the correctness of a subscription belief (e.g. professing to oneself belief in God, or the eternity of the world, or the 6,000 year age of the world) is likely to have no adverse consequences. Rather, what is likely to have adverse consequences about subscription belief is (a) making a public profession of the belief to which one subscribes; or (b) publicly acting upon the consequences of the belief one subscribes to.
Of course, the same belief may be a subscription belief to one person and and absorbed belief to another. To most of us, the belief that the world is round is one to which we subscribe. To a mariner or a cartographer, it is a belief which is absorbed.
If this is correct, then it is easy to see why the most ridiculous beliefs may have no negative consequences for the believer -- though they may have important consequences for society. It also explains why the fact that one is attached to a stupid belief may in fact be very intelligent. One who believes in space aliens, or the literal truth of the Book of Revelation, likely will never be in a position where such beliefs (as opposed to the expression of such beliefs) will matter to quotidian activities. Nothing in the believer's subscription to such claims will make a difference to how he or she acts because the truth of falsity of the claim professed is unlikely ever to have real-world consequences. By contrast, a group's subscription to such beliefs will involve a public attachment to them, and it is the attachment to the belief, not action on the consequences of the belief, that will have an important effect in the public sphere.
I'm not sure what other sorts of forces you mean, or what you include as part of the theory of evolution, but generally when I hear people say this, the reasons they do supply aren't very good ones. In particular, citing the CE is generally a bad sign, because there is a LOT of confusion and misrepresentation in regards to what the CE was, what the mysteries of it are, and what the implications of those are for evolution.
"Or are 3-month-olds old enough for the placebo effect to kick in?"
The placebo effect in this case would be on you. Teething pain and earaches tend to clear up on their own. Of course, it's not unheard of that the medication would also contain an active ingredient beyond water. And, of course, sometimes babies don't get enough water and get testy because of that. :)
Regarding your own formulation --- that people believe irrational things because they're rational beings --- I can see how one would tortuously arrive at such a conclusion if one took as one's incontrovertible premise the idea that people are rational, and were therefore forced to try to square people's apparent irrationality with that premise. Or in other words, if one took the idea idea that people are rational as an article of faith.