No Sacred Cows

by David G. McAfee

  36. John Rasko and Carl Power, “What Pushes Scientists to Lie? The Disturbing but Familiar Story of Haruko Obokata,” Guardian, February 18, 2015, www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/18/haruko-obokata-stap-cells-controversy-scientists-lie.

  37. Dan M., Kahan et al. “‘Ideology’ or ‘Situation Sense’? An Experimental Investigation of Motivated Reasoning and Professional Judgment,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 64 (2016).

  38. “That’s reassuring, but surely it does not mean we should always trust lawyers’ legal advice, especially since lawyers so often disagree on interpretations of the law,” Horgan wrote for Scientific American (April 8, 2015). “Consider the rancor of recent debates on health care, immigration, taxes, the environment and other issues in Washington, where more than one third of current Representatives and one half of Senators have law degrees.”

  39. Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning (New York: Basic Books, 2014).

  40. D. Jeffrey Meldrum and Trent D. Stephens, “Who Are the Children of Lehi?” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 12, no. 1 (2003): 38–51.

  41. Ira Flatow, “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science,” National Public Radio, November 10, 2006.

  42. Bryan C. Sykes et al., “Genetic Analysis of Hair Samples Attributed to Yeti, Bigfoot and Other Anomalous Primates,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 281, no. 1789 (2014).

  43. Alessandro Nicolia et al., “An Overview of the Last 10 Years of Genetically Engineered Crop Safety Research,” Critical Reviews in Biotechnology 34, no. 1 (2014): 77–88.

  44. Chelsea Snell et al., “Assessment of the Health Impact of GM Plant Diets in Long-Term and Multigenerational Animal Feeding Trials: A Literature Review,” Food and Chemical Toxicology 50, no. 3 (2012): 1134–1148.

  45. “Oslo Gay Animal Show Draws Crowds,” BBC News, October 19, 2006.

  46. Bruce Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (New York, Macmillan, 1999).

  47. Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal (New York: Random House, 2010).

  48. Craig B. Stanford, “The Social Behavior of Chimpanzees and Bonobos: Empirical Evidence and Shifting Assumptions 1,” Current Anthropology 39, no. 4 (1998): 399–420.

  49. Frans De Waal, Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are (New York: Penguin, 2006).

  50. Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, 20th anniversary ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 2011).

  51. Michael E. Miller, “Ben Carson Believes Joseph Built Egypt’s Pyramids to Store Grain—and It Just Might Get Him Some Votes,” Washington Post, November 5, 2015.

  52. Genesis 41:35

  53. Guy P. Harrison, “What Can We Learn from Ben Carson’s Brain?” Psychology Today, October 15 2015, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/about-thinking/201510/what-can-we-learn-ben-carsons-brain.

  54. There are also people who seem to be famous simply because they promote misinformation to a large number of people. One example of this is David “Avocado” Wolfe, a well-known pseudoscientist who thinks gravity is a toxin and chocolate comes from the sun.

  55. Jim Carrey, “The Judgment on Vaccines Is In???” Huffington Post, November 5, 2009.

  56. Michele Corriston, “Charlie Sheen Calls Doctor Who Claimed to Cure Him of HIV ‘Dangerous,’” People, February 10, 2016, www.people.com/article/charlie-sheen-calls-doctor-who-claimed-cure-hiv-dangerous.

  57. “Oh Yes She Did! Gwyneth Paltrow Gets Vagina Steam at Spa,” Us Weekly, January 29, 2015.

  58. Alexandra Sowa, “If You Have the Flu, Please Do Not Listen to Gwyneth Paltrow,” Slate, October 19, 2015.

  59. Ruth Graham, “Gwyneth Paltrow Says Your Skincare Products Should Be Nurtured with Chants and Music,” Slate, March 11, 2016.

  60. Ewan Palmer, “Shane Warne: Aliens Were behind Experiments That Turned Monkeys into Humans,” International Business Times, February 15, 2016, www.ibtimes.co.uk/shane-warne-aliens-were-behind-experiments-that-turned-monkeys-into-humans-1543887.

  61. Christina Ng, “Celebrities and Aliens: Stars Share Otherworldly Experiences,” ABC News, January 30, 2012, abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/celebrities-aliens-fran-drescher-latest-share-experience/story?id=15473464.

  62. “Megan Fox Talks Bigfoot, Leprechauns and Lindsay Lohan,” Fox News, January 15, 2013, .foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/01/15/meghan-fox-talks-big-foot-leprechauns-and-lindsay-lohan/.

  63. Toyin Owoseje, “Ariana Grande Reveals Demonic Encounter: ‘It Was Terrifying’” International Business Times, February 23, 2016, www.ibtimes.co.uk/ariana-grande-reveals-demonic-encounter-it-was-terrifying-1447540.

  64. Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), 333.

  65. “I would like 2016 to be the year when people remembered that science is a method of investigation, and NOT a belief system.”—John Cleese, actor

  66. Rogerus Bacon, Opus majus (Pittero, 1750).

  67. Richard Phillips Feynman, The Character of Physical Law 66 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1967).

  68. “Scrutinizing Science: Peer Review,” Understanding Science: How Science Really Works, undsci.berkeley.edu/article/howscienceworks_16.

  69. Daryl E. Chubin and Edward J. Hackett, Peerless Science: Peer Review and US Science Policy (Albany, NY: Suny Press, 1990).

  70. Gordon Pennycook et al., “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-profound Bullshit,” Judgment and Decision Making 10, no. 6 (2015): 549.

  71. John G. Sotos, Zebra Cards: An Aid to Obscure Diagnoses (Mt. Vernon, VA: Mt. Vernon Book Systems, 2006).

  72. “Reconstructing trees: Parsimony,” Understanding Evolution, evolution. berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/phylogenetics_08.

  73. Raymond S. Nickerson, “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises,” Review of General Psychology 2, no. 2 (1998): 175.

  74. Peter Ayton and Ilan Fischer, “The Hot Hand Fallacy and the Gambler’s Fallacy: Two Faces of Subjective Randomness?” Memory & Cognition 32, no. 8 (2004): 1369–1378.

  75. Michael Shermer and Pat Linse, The Baloney Detection Kit (Altadena, CA: Skeptic Society, 2001).

  76. Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, “Corporal Punishment by Parents and Associated Child Behaviors and Experiences: A Meta-analytic and Theoretical Review,” Psychological Bulletin 128, no. 4 (2002): 539.

  8

  THE IMPORTANCE OF REALITY

  “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion however satisfying and reassuring.”

  —Carl Sagan

  There are an infinite number of false beliefs that influence people’s behavior at home, at work, and in the voting booth, and any action taken as a result of a faulty idea is bad because it’s based on a flawed premise. The best way to get a positive outcome from any situation or choice is to be knowledgeable and informed about the topic(s) at hand, and then act in accordance with that information. As thinking people, shouldn’t we strive for the most accurate data on which to base our decisions?

  People’s beliefs often determine how they behave, which is why it is and will always be incredibly important that we challenge and doubt ourselves and work to correct any and all misguided ideas. It is not my intention to make all believers discard their faith or to prevent them from practicing their cultural traditions, but those outcomes are often the natural result of my true goals: to promote rationality and evidence-based thinking, and to help people see the importance of reality. Personally, I see this as a sort of community service. According to Dr. Darrel W. Ray, author of The God Virus, Sex & God, and other titles, “You decrease your suffering when you accept reality. So train your mind to perceive reality as closely as possible and recognize when your mind is trying to fill in the blanks with BS.”

  IS REALITY REAL?

  Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick defines reality as “that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” That sounds great, but what if reality isn�
��t real? Like many things in this world, reality is only important if it can be shown to exist. So, is there an objective reality? Are we real? The short answer is, “Yes.” There are certain assumptions we must make when taking on any logical discussion, and chief among those is the idea that we exist to be able to participate in it at all. As French philosopher René Descartes famously wrote, “Cogito ergo sum,” or “I am thinking, therefore I exist.”1 In other words, the very fact that we can ponder our own existence shows that we must exist in some form or another.

  Objective facts do exist—barring incredibly unlikely, hypothetical Matrix-like scenarios2 for which there is no supporting evidence—whether we like them or not. This means that some things are real and some are not and, no matter how much we dislike certain facts, no amount of imagination or willpower can change them. That consistency is what makes reality so powerful, and what makes it hated by so many. Poet Christopher Poindexter expressed this conflict quite well:

  How we

  all want so

  badly to

  divorce reality,

  but that bitch just

  won’t sign the

  papers.

  Some believers might say the virtue of strong faith makes the objects of that faith “real” to the believers on a more personal level, but that idea is irrelevant when dealing with universal truths. Feelings, perceptions, opinions, and beliefs are subjective experiences that don’t—and can’t—alter the objective reality by themselves, so leaving those things out of the equation entirely makes the most sense when looking for what’s real. Jonathan C. Smith explains that words like reality, truth, and answer can be “weasel words.” They can mean different things to different people and they have a “certain ambiguity in that they can also refer to objective facts as determined through the scientific method,” according to Smith.

  “An ‘objective fact’ is by definition based on reliable and public observation,” he wrote. “The only way to show that something is publicly and reliably observable is to subject it to public and reliable observation, that is, scientific inquiry.”

  Even if there is no objective reality, however, we are still forced to act as though there is. All scientific endeavors, all of our verified findings, and indeed everything we have ever known is effectively erased if we don’t actually exist, so we have no choice but to start from that point when determining universal realities. Sure, it’s possible that we could exist as a computer program and everything we see could be a hologram, but we live our lives as if that’s not the case—and verifiable facts are more important than unverified opinions and unsupported assertions for that reason. Comedian Penn Jillette pointed out in his book, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales, that the greatest thing about reality is that it is, by definition, shared. “Every argument is really an agreement—an agreement that there is a reality that can be shared, judged, and discussed,” Jillette wrote. “To argue over whether the speed of light is constant or Batman could beat up the Lone Ranger is to share the parameters. God is solipsistic; reality is shared.”

  Once we can agree that we must at least act as though demonstrably true things exist if we are going to get anywhere in discussions with other people, the next step is to determine whether reaching those facts is important and worthy of the effort.

  IS REALITY WORTH IT?

  I write about the process of getting rid of false beliefs because I think it benefits the whole of society, but it also helps me directly. Not only do I learn from my studies and discussions every single day, but I also get to improve interactions for myself and others in the future. In leading by example and teaching individuals how to seek out facts and discard fallacies, we can create a world in which more and more people base their decisions on rational thought, logic, and evidence—as opposed to tradition, paranoia, or emotional responses. That’s the world I want to live in because misunderstandings, and therefore injustices, would become less frequent.

  Anyone who enjoys a good detective story can tell you that uncovering the truth can, in and of itself, be an extremely positive experience. A reader could always just pick his or her favorite fall guy in the beginning, assume it was him, and never finish the book, but they don’t. They don’t do that because figuring out what really happened is its own gift. Believing in something because it makes you feel good—or because you were raised to—just isn’t as rewarding or as honest as basing your beliefs on evidence, reason, and testable conclusions. Ben Radford highlighted the pleasure and importance of finding things out for yourself and solving a mystery.

  “Mysteries are cheap, and easy to create, and everywhere; they are the default status of our knowledge about the world,” Radford told me in an interview. “Finding solutions to those mysteries and answers to those questions are what science and critical thinking are about. Finding out what’s true about the world is (or should be) one of the highest achievements of being human.”

  I don’t want my most important ideas to be shaped solely by my family, or tradition, or religious scriptures. Instead, I want them to be based on my own logic and an informed understanding of the data at hand (from the most objective approach possible). Even if you don’t value honesty above all else as I do, you should still think it’s better to know the truth—the real problems you face. With that information, you can prepare for potential hurdles instead of tripping over them because you pretended they didn’t exist in favor of a more tolerable perceived reality.

  A lot of people insist that delusions are healthy if they help foster a positive outlook. While that may sometimes be the case, I don’t think the majority of people are better off blindfolded. Wishful thinking can have its benefits psychologically, but most people would still be better off separating their wishes and dreams from what they believe to be real. Hope for something better can be an amazing and beneficial feeling, but, like most ideas, hope is usually best when based in reality. Steven Pinker framed this idea quite well when he said, “If you’re being chased by a tiger, it may comfort you to believe it’s a rabbit. But it is a tiger. And it’s going to eat you.” I don’t think many people, if any, actually need these false beliefs, even if they do find comfort in them, and I try to show that to others.

  False ideas can give some believers a positive feeling, but that’s not always the case, and they should never be treated as cures for any sort of mental or psychological ailment. I think our cultural biases regarding gods, afterlives, and other “positive” delusions, combined with the popularity of those beliefs, keep us from seeing that faith in them isn’t usually warranted at all—and that it can in fact be very unhealthy. As Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote in the 1912 play Androcles and the Lion, “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.”

  When I’m presented with the option between a comforting myth and a potentially uncomfortable reality, I will always choose what’s true—regardless of the topic in question. It’s not just gods, angels, psychics, and ghosts that can invade ill-equipped or impressionable minds and cause irreparable harm; all sorts of earthly ideas can pose similar threats. By keeping high standards in mind for all claims and demanding evidence across the spectrum, we can help make sure our beliefs conform to our facts—and not the other way around. There’s nothing wrong with believing in things, but if you disregard evidence, you’ll end up willingly adopting any so-called answer you hear—anything that temporarily fulfills your desire to know what’s unknown. When given a choice, I think most people would choose what’s proven to be real.

  FINDING REALITY IN DAILY LIFE

  If reality exists, and understanding it better is worth the hard work, then why is it so difficult for people to come together in their conclusions about the world around us? Some experts, like cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman from the University
of California, Irvine, suggest that all animals (including humans) have evolved in such a way that our perceptions sometimes only show us what we need to survive—as opposed to what’s really there. Hoffman’s work shows that our senses “constitute a species-specific user interface that guides behavior in a niche.”3 He uses male jewel beetles that, in their attempts to mate, frequently confuse discarded beer bottles for their large, brown, and shiny female counterparts, as a typical example of a “category error” brought on by flawed perceptions.

  “Just as the icons of a PC’s interface hide the complexity of the computer, so our perceptions usefully hide the complexity of the world, and guide adaptive behavior. This interface theory of perception offers a framework, motivated by evolution, to guide research in object categorization. This framework informs a new class of evolutionary games, called interface games, in which pithy perceptions often drive true perceptions to extinction.”

  While there is no scientific consensus on Hoffman’s interface theory, it is clear that some people view things differently than others and that it’s often difficult to uncover reality as a result. That’s why skepticism of claims, ideas, and data is important to everyone at all times—whether you’re debating supernatural claims, reading an article in the newspaper, or anything in between. Skeptical inquiry can be used to determine that religions are probably not “divine” and that mermaids don’t likely exist, but it can also help you discern false claims in advertising and decide whether or not the terms for a specific loan would be appropriate. While supernatural beliefs have always been a problem, in a world filled with fake personalities, false agendas, and deceptive marketing, it’s more important than ever to seek out what is real in every facet of life. And skepticism, when combined with critical thinking, can help us do just that by fending off all sorts of flawed assertions and bogus claims in our daily lives. This is how we get closer to the truth and, for me, that’s always a good thing.