The Science of Wilful Belief

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I think a you can't do science well if you say, ok, i'm going to look at these three or four reasons that favor my theory. That's not the scientific attitude. So would it be something like a climate scientist would say, i want to listen to my strongest critics. Ask me the toughest questions you got. Let me see how my theory stands. That's the scientific attitude in a nutshell. They use the platonic model of reason to grasp more firmly to the beliefs they want to to hang on to. Another principle of what of this emerging science of what i call cognitive menology, is that wilful belief corrupts the mind's immune system. If you believe

Astonishingly irrational ideas are spreading. COVID-19 denial, anti-vaxxers compromising public health, conspiracy thinking hijacking minds and inciting mob violence, toxic partisanship cleaving our nations, the return of Flat Earth theory… What the heck is going on? Why is all this happening, and why now? More important, what can we do about it? Does our “right to our opinion” trump our responsibilities? Does the resulting ethos effectively compromise mental immune systems, allowing “mind parasites” to overrun them? Are conspiracy theories, evidence-defying ideologies, and garden-variety bad ideas all species of mind parasites, each of which employs clever strategies to circumvent mental immune systems? In this conversation, based on the book Mental Immunity, Andy Norman shows that minds and cultures have immune systems, and that they really can break down. Fortunately, he assures us that they can also be built up: strengthened against ideological corruption. Can his ideas revolutionize our capacity for critical thinking?