Think Critically!

It is easy to get frustrated, and never more so when witnessing the absolute gullibility of humanity. We all know, of course, about the strange beliefs that some people hold, that aliens abduct and probe humans, that aliens built the pyramids, that planes disappear in the Bermuda Triangle and that Bigfoot is walking around somewhere in the undiscovered wilds. We may shake our heads at the fact that some people swallow an endless number of conspiracy theories, seeing the hidden hand of the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Jews, or some other secretive power behind the workings of the world. We rightly mock and ridicule anyone who seriously believes that FEMA is setting up detention camps, just waiting for a crisis to allow them to impose a fascistic "New World Order" on the United States, or that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a false flag operation. These are easy targets, however, and only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wrong and foolish things that we believe.

The plain fact is that we all believe something that is ridiculous or just wrong. We simply don't realize that this belief is mistaken, in many cases. It seems obvious, but if we thought that something we believed was demonstrably untrue, really thought it, we would stop believing that. But we can cling to our beliefs with remarkable tenacity, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that we are wrong. Take climate change for example. Those who dogmatically reject that our climate is warming and that this is caused by humans burning fossil fuels will deny or rationalize away any evidence that their beliefs are wrong. This denial of reality isn't nearly as harmless as, say, the belief that Elvis lives; it has real consequences on our policies and thus on the world in which we live, delaying necessary action to mitigate and reverse the damage we are doing. 

When it comes to evidence, we are quick to apply critical scrutiny to new information that contradicts our beliefs and just as quick to accept new information that confirms what we already believe. Our confirmation bias defends and protects our most deeply-held beliefs from the scrutiny that they deserve, whether they have a basis in reality or not. This is not a criticism of specific ideologies, though some systems of belief may certainly be said to have a greater basis in reality than others, but an observation made by many others well before me. It is a warning to us to be careful, a reminder that we are pre-disposed to this behavior. We owe it to ourselves to try to re-examine our beliefs in light of new evidence, to be open to changing our beliefs if it seems warranted. I believe that we would be a healthier society, a healthier world, if more of us could transcend the closed-mindedness that seems to be our natural disposition as a species, and a move towards that ideal begins with each of us.