That pudding in there
Mar. 13th, 2016 05:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easyReading an Analog magazine from a few years ago and was reminded of the dangers of being scientific, superior, and smug. The editorial: "many, if not most, people neither understand nor care about evidence or logic." Why? Because they believe "faith" is a "virtue".
Maybe Analog doesn't publish a lot of SF based on neuropsychology and its insights into the irrational mechanisms of the brain - mechanisms which mislead rational, intelligent, educated people just as much as the unwashed masses. Unless I am very much mistaken, people who hold irrational beliefs haven't rejected evidence or logic - as far as they're concerned, they're putting them to good use.
It's dangerous to think of ourselves as superior thinkers, for many reasons. In the same issue's letcol, a contributor speculates that Americans "nuke" their food because they think "nuclear radiation" and "microwave radiation" are the same, and the editor bemoans how "poorly educated" Americans are and "how sloppy their thinking [is]". Both of them miss the obvious possibility: it's a joke.
Maybe Analog doesn't publish a lot of SF based on neuropsychology and its insights into the irrational mechanisms of the brain - mechanisms which mislead rational, intelligent, educated people just as much as the unwashed masses. Unless I am very much mistaken, people who hold irrational beliefs haven't rejected evidence or logic - as far as they're concerned, they're putting them to good use.
It's dangerous to think of ourselves as superior thinkers, for many reasons. In the same issue's letcol, a contributor speculates that Americans "nuke" their food because they think "nuclear radiation" and "microwave radiation" are the same, and the editor bemoans how "poorly educated" Americans are and "how sloppy their thinking [is]". Both of them miss the obvious possibility: it's a joke.
