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| The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer |
May 31, 2017
Book 45 - The Believing Brain - From Ghosts and God
to Politics and Conspiracies - How We Construct Beliefs
and Reinforce them as Truths
Michael Shermer (2011)
Part 4 - pages 164-227
Reading Time - 1 hour
to Politics and Conspiracies - How We Construct Beliefs
and Reinforce them as Truths
Michael Shermer (2011)
Part 4 - pages 164-227
Reading Time - 1 hour
A trio of chapters that cover Belief in God, Aliens and Conspiracies. We are apparently hardwired to believe things, so belief comes first and reasons second. Religiosity is, in large part, genetic. Naturally, the author does not believe in God, as it is impossible to prove that God exists from an empirical scientific point of view. He also argues that a highly advanced extraterrestrial would be indistinguishable from God. Which makes sense. If we dragged Noah forward into the 21st century... he might think he was surrounded by "gods".
As for aliens and abduction stories, the author basically dismisses them as bunk. He repeats his theory that belief comes first and then we look for evidence. Which I think isn't all that different from the scientific method. Many scientific theories are based on a hypothesis... "I think this is what is happening"... and then we test for evidence to support or disprove the theory.
And then there are conspiracy theories... like the assassination of JFK and 9/11. He claims that the conspiracy theorists have their pattern-detection filters wide open and that there is no screening. Unexplained anomalies lie at the heart of conspiracy theories. It's almost like... don't confuse them with facts, their minds are made up.
At this point, I am just plodding through this book... and it is a hard slog. The author repeats himself and his primary theory quite a bit and it's a bit tedious.
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