Motivations for irrational beliefs

robindch

Hi -

Davros made the following interesting comment at the end of the men-on-the-moon thread:

The longer a defender continues to post, the more clues we get to why the scientific argument holds no merit in their eyes and to what really motivates their belief. We need to understand that to further our aims.

I think it would be interesting o try to follow up on this -- does anybody know of any reputable research done into the nature of irrationality and irrational belief systems? The intriguing APA paper on incompetence, which I referenced earlier, makes a good start at one aspect of inaccurate self-analysis, but the researchers don't seem to have gotten around to asking people the vital question about why they felt they were good or bad at the tasks given them. Any ideas folks?

WRT Turley's men-not-on-the-moon delusions, the motivation derives from a blanket paranoia concerning the US Government (which, no doubt, extends outwards to cover the activities of authority figures everywhere) which permitted him, internally, to deny the validity of any information produced by any institution connected with it. The moon-evidence itself is simply unimportant, since it's already invalid, and he's therefore able simply to ignore any questions concerning it and, from that, simply deny the fact of the landings (since there's no internally valid evidence for them).

Other systems which permit total denials such as this include all religious belief systems I can think of ('God exists and he's told me that NASA didn't go to the moon, therefore they didn't (btw, are you calling God a liar?!)'), Dawkin's 'argument from personal incredulity' ('I can't imagine how NASA went to the moon, therefore they didn't'). Another strange one wrt rationality is the weird idea, which I've had stated to me in various guises, that 'Rationality is such a limiting idea, and I don't want to be limited, therefore I can think and believe what I want to because I'm unlimited'.

What other internal motivations have I missed?

- robin.

ps: борщ с диоксином - it's Russian speciality and much better in Moscow

davros

robindch wrote:

The intriguing APA paper on incompetence, which I referenced earlier

That's a very entertaining and interesting paper. (I also learned from it that psychology students can get course credit for evaluating the humour content of jokes; I definitely picked the wrong subject at university.)

robindch wrote:

asking people the vital question about why they felt they were good or bad at the tasks given them. Any ideas folks?

Prince Charles knows why:

What is wrong with people nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far above their capabilities? This is all to do with the learning culture in schools. It is a consequence of a child-centred education system which tells people they can become pop stars, high court judges or brilliant TV presenters or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having the natural ability.

Personally, I think people need a good dose of self-confidence just to get through the day. We can't avoid making lots of tricky decisions and if we believed we were incompetent and others were laughing at us behind our backs then life would be intolerable.

What other internal motivations have I missed?

The feeling of powerlessness. It's awful to feel you don't have control over your own life or that highly-qualified experts are dictating what you should or shouldn't do. I believe this is behind the success of alternative medicine. Mainstream medicine has no choice but to tell it like it is: you have condition x, it's incurable but you have a chance of managing the symptoms with these pills. In all likelihood, the visit to the doctor was a thoroughly dispiriting experience involving lots of waiting on your part, a cursory examination and a curt dismissal with a prescription.

We all feel at a disadvantage in these circumstances. When I go to a doctor, I try to close the knowledge gap somewhat by doing some research on the internet. I can completely understand why the simpler and more palatable stories told by alternative practitioners are more readily accepted. We can say that alternative medicine is nonsense but we are not replacing it with new insight into real medicine. So the problem remains and our argument is unsuccessful.

it's Russian speciality and much better in Moscow

robindch

We can't avoid making lots of tricky decisions and if we believed we were incompetent and others were laughing at us behind our backs then life would be intolerable.

Yes, that's in itself is quite right, but I should have phrased my earlier question perhaps more clearly. The researchers don't seem to asked the least competent performers in each test why they believed themselves to be more skilled than they were.

It would have been interesting, though perhaps cruel (and perhaps this is why they didn't), to hear somebody's justification, or otherwise, for their own failure. For example, we all know the awfulness of having to listen to somebody tell an ancient joke, tell it badly, then expect those listening to laugh at the punchline (if noticeable) -- why do people persist in doing this? Makes me wonder whether or not joke + anecdote telling ought to be subjects on the school curriculum in place of demonstrably useless teenage timesinks such as Irish + Religion :-)

- robin.