Abandoning Critical Thinking

We are faced every day with friends and neighbors who seem to be able to stare logic straight in the face and still make the wrong decision. This can easily be misinterpreted as stupid behavior, except we know that many of these people did well in school. Some even have advanced degrees. How else can we explain this apparent abandonment of critical thinking?

My theory is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, opinion polls and the apparent direction of popular trends, America is still a very religious country and is getting more religious with each passing day. The difference is that I am not talking about standard, organized religions. The new religions involve pseudoscience and are promoted by personal interactions, especially on social media, and by celebrity endorsements, rather than by priests, ministers, rabbis and imams. 

Consider how a traditionally religious person reacts when his faith is challenged. Show someone an obvious contradiction in the Bible or the Koran – and there are many to choose from – and such a person will argue for a while, but eventually fall back on the argument that it's a mystery only God can explain or that it is a matter of faith not subject to logical analysis. End of conversation! No one has changed his mind. He may even feel vindicated because his faith was challenged but endured.

Now have a similar conversation with someone convinced that communication with the dead is not only possible, but that it happens frequently on daytime TV and in private homes where mediums hold séances. No matter how much logical information such a person receives, a change of mind is a rare occurrence. A more likely response is the same quasi-religious reaction, resistance to logic and reliance on a strong belief in the spiritual realm.

But this new-age religious experience is not limited to the customers of séances and tarot card readings. With the help not only of charlatans, but also of marketing departments, industry institutes, lobbyists, interest groups, fund-raising organizations and individual crusaders, it spreads through the entire country creeping into every corner of our lives. It is so much easier to sell to people on the basis of faith than on the basis of logic. So all these forces work in concert to gain converts to particular products, services and ideas. The emotional argument draws them in; then the feeling of embarrassment or of betrayal of one's beliefs, keeps them coming back.

Consider the religious fervor displayed by backers of ideas like: harm from vaccination, danger of GMOs, danger of fluoridated tap water, superiority of bottled water, benefits of a gluten-free diet (except for medical necessity), power of alternative medicines, danger of anything artificial or chemical, dietary supplements, radiation from power lines, food irradiation, sea salt, therapeutic touch or Reiki, refusal to consider nuclear power as a clean electricity source, super foods, unquestioned halo-effect of words like green, natural, sustainable and ancient wisdom, essential oils, and the list goes on and on.

Yes, we are truly a religious nation. The religions of junk science, fads, hype and misinformation are thriving, converting new believers every day!

More Food for Thought

When they launch a rocket, to resupply the space station for example, the fuel is liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.  When they combine, it causes a big explosion, which provides the thrust for the rocket.  The residue of this explosion is water vapor, H₂O.  When the vapor cools and condenses into drops and falls to the earth as rain, does anyone suspect that this rain is not the same as the other water falling from the sky?  Is it considered dangerous or looked on with suspicion because it is synthetic or man-made as opposed to being natural?  Do parents worry more about their children being caught in the rain near Cape Canaveral because of this possibility?   It wouldn't come as a surprise since we seem to decide what to be scared of without regard to science.

According to a Yale/Gallup poll from last month, 71 percent of Americans are personally convinced that global warming is happening.  At the same time about 40 percent “believed there is a lot of disagreement among scientists.”  They conclude, “many Americans appeared to have already made up their minds, without waiting for a perceived scientific consensus.”  Well, science is about evidence and not consensus anyway, but compare this with the GMO scare.

About 90 percent of Americans are concerned enough about GMOs to favor a requirement that they be labeled as such, despite the fact that a consensus of scientists agree that they are safe and a “large scientific study from 2013 found no significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops."  In this case, a recent Pew Research Center survey finds that “two-thirds of the Americans they interviewed think scientists themselves don't fully understand all of the ways GMOs could affect health.”

What are the long term implications when so many Americans make up their minds about scientific issues on the basis of what they think should be the answer and justify it by declaring that the scientists don’t know for sure either?

In the end it’s all about marketing.  If you frown and say “chemical fertilizer,” you will hear a chorus of boos; but if you smile and say “plant food,” they haul out the Miracle-Gro sprayers.  People will trust and believe in anything they buy at a “health food” store, despite the fact that these packages are more likely to contain contaminants or be inaccurately labeled.  To solve the GMO fear, maybe they just have to call it something like crop enrichment instead.

See how we are controlled and manipulated by marketing and social media when we let our emotional responses override our critical thinking!

Food For Thought

- Isn’t it much easier to find prejudice if you are always looking for it?

- Watching the Women’s World Cup games between teams from various countries with various commentators, I noticed that they use many of the same expressions as the men use:  “a two-man wall,” “separate the man from the ball,” “she beats her man,” and several others.  Since these commentators are former players, we must assume that players on the field likewise use these expressions.  Could it be that no one is offended by such sexist talk because first, it is a woman using these expressions and second, these women are confident enough in their abilities not to make themselves victims over something so petty?

- We have in the house three grocery items from same baking company.  The loaf of bread has on the package the reassuring label “Non – GMO.”  The package of English muffins says that there are “0g of transfats per serving.”  The hamburger buns’ claim to fame is:  “No high fructose corn syrup.”  This proves one thing.  There are so many different groups of food advocates trying to scare us about so many aspects of the food supply that labeling of packages is a grab bag of promotional choices.  Pick one scary thing that’s not in your food and post it proudly on the box or package to try to increase sales to a gullible public.

- Staying on the subject of food, for years people have been telling me that the daily Diet Coke is going to kill me.  The latest study on aspartame differs.  According to this recent video from the American Chemical Society that criticism is completely unfounded.  To come even close to an unacceptable level of consumption as set forth by the FDA, a person would have to ingest “97 aspartame sugar packets or more than 17 cans of diet soda in less than 24 hours.”  I think I’m safe.  (If taking 17 aspirins a day is dangerous, does that mean I should be afraid of taking aspirin?)

- That brings us back to the reality that everything, everything in the universe, is made of chemicals.  A synthetic chemical has exactly the same effect as the same chemical from nature.  (The tree doesn’t know if the nitrogen came out of a bag or the back end of a cow!)   Someone who is scared of chemicals or tries to avoid chemicals or thinks chemicals is a warning sign is playing a losing game.  It is fairly certain that critical thinking never killed anyone.

Words Revisited

Recall how on October 3, 2011 I wrote about how advertisers try to get us to change our vocabulary.  I’m not talking about political correctness.  Rather, this is an attempt to change the way we think, to make certain products or activities seem more attractive.  Examples included realtors, seemingly successful in changing the word houses to homes, which sounds much warmer, friendlier and more personal; and car dealers, somewhat less successful in rebranding used cars as previously owned.  Here are a few more examples that I noticed over the past six months.

One example is the use of expressions gaming and gambling.  Basically, gaming is legal, gambling is not, but they are really the same activity, risking money to win more.  When it happens at a casino or takes the form of a lottery run by the state, it’s called gaming and it’s OK.  If it’s an office football pool, it’s gambling and not OK.

Ironically, in the 10x10 matrix used in the office pool, you pay $1 for a 1 in 100 chance to win $100.  In a pick-3 type state lottery, you pay $1 for a 1 in 1000 chance to win $500.  The office pool is a smarter bet by a factor of two, in fact the probability of winning is superior to any legalized game!

Another advertising ploy is to label products as “chemical-free,” supposedly meaning safe or pure.  The concept of chemical-free is an impossibility, since all matter from stars to mother’s milk is made from either a single chemical element or chemical compound or some mixture of both.  Yet many cleaning items, for example, make ample use of this expression.

Critical thinkers know that when you go back to the dictionary definitions, we all live in houses, use chemicals for good and bad purposes, and gamble whenever we place a bet to win money.  They are not influenced by advertisers’ clever use of euphemistic or manipulative wording.

As long as we’re talking about words, also note that, in this campaign season, when you hear a politician mention healthcare in most cases he is really talking about only insurance, not healthcare or the rising cost of healthcare.  There is a big difference.