Why do people believe in things when the body of scientific evidence shows otherwise

[technodad]

This is not intended to be an attack on any denomination of belief. The aim of this thread is to try to understand why people choose to believe things, when there are far more likely explanations and why people choose to not trust the scientific opinion.

I am not particularly thinking about a discussion about religion because clearly "faith", some old books and preaching make a difference there (although, please discuss religion if it is relevant). I am thinking more about things like:

• People don't believe global is happening when the vast majority of the scientific community can provide evidence that it is.

• People believe in ghosts when their existance violates all the laws of physics and pretty much all "ghost events" (if not absolutely all) can be explained without mystery.

• People don't get their kids vaccinated (e.g. MMR), when it is clear that not vaccinating is orders of magnitude more dangerous than vaccinating.

• People think that palm reading, tea leaf reading, etc actually works...

• People believe in "alternative" medicines work, when every "alternative" medicine that actually works is now simple called "medicine"!

The rules are as follows:

1. You can say what ever you like, and I don't care if you insult me.

2. If you post something, you may have someone say something that challenges your deeply held beliefs, so please only post if this is acceptable to you.

3. No one is allowed to complain about anyone being horrible, or arrogant, based upon the fact that people will only post here if they are up for a debate (see 2).

4. There is no 4.

But silence is supposed to be neutral. It doesn't always achieve it, because scientists are people too. But there are systems in place that usually work to examine and reject bias.

Unlike in the world of pseudo science.

Science is not a conscious organism, so it can't be neutral or biased. I think you mean that scientists can be biased and those who fund them can be biased. That is of course true.

Astronomy is a science and it provides us with massive data and knowledge about the solar system. Just an overview of this mountain of information would show that astrology can't possibly work and is based on totally false ground. So how and why do people believe in astrology? That is the subject of this thread.

You say "Oh but some astronomers might be funded by biased parties". Sure, Christian fundamentalists are welcome to try to fund a study and hope it says that the universe is less than 4000 years old. Does that mean the scientific method is flawed?

Also, you seem to be looking at anything that a professional in a field says whereas I am looking at results of actual scientific studies (experiments & observations following the scientific method). For example, that "black women are less attractive" thing was a blog post.

By the way, that blog post ends with the sentence (and I paraphrase) "racial differences in testosterone levels might be why black women are less physically attractive than women of other races, while black men are more physically attractive than men of other races. I don't know if what he says is true or not, but it must be a strange kind of racism that leads the author to say black men are more attractive than himself.

By the way, Harvard didn't publicise that dissertation. It was Washington Post, who found out about the author's dissertation after he wrote for a think tank about immigration in the US.

Are people really surprised at the ability of the body to heal itself and at the ability of the mind to influence the body, in good ways and in bad ways?

Most people will agree that stress and anxiety have an effect on the body (a good example is when you have to rush to the toilet just before a big talk). but why is it that when the mind helps people heal then it's all looked down as if it was something bad?
I mean if holy water or some stones or crystal means someone doesn't need pills (ADs or painkiller for example) because they don't need them any more, shouldn't we all marvel at this amazing ability of the mind and the body instead of putting it down and discrediting these people?
What is wrong with that? Apart from the fact it's not repeatable and therefore 'not scientifically proven

Thinking that only things proven by science are true IS a belief in itself. But you do need to wonder if this is a belief that is actually beneficial.

I am also a bit at the ides that for one problem there is only answer/solution/explanation. If you want to base your life and what you hold as the truth only on science then you need to agree that science has or will have all the answers to all the questions, including the existential ones for example. But has it that ability?
Isn't that close to what people use to do with religion?

"Are people really surprised at the ability of the body to heal itself "

The body pretty much always heals itself. Until it can't and you die, I suppose. So no, we are not surprised at that.

"and at the ability of the mind to influence the body, in good ways and in bad ways?"

No, that's not surprising, either.

"the ides that for one problem there is only answer/solution/explanation"

Where is this coming from? Nobody said that there is only one answer to a problem. If your child has a fever, you can help decrease it with paracetamol, advil, or applying cold towels.

Have you been reading a different thread?

I see the straw army is making it's appearance..............

Cote re scientific method and flaws.
Look at Jimjam post before and the issue with the way some questionnaires are prepared for a study. The study will be biased because it excludes by default some people with autism. The study itself might be conducted exactly the 'right way'. It might be peer reviewed and approved by the scientific community. However, there will be a bias to it by default, because when the people who did it put the questions together, they did it with an idea of what an autistic person will be.

Research is plagued by that sort of thing. Actually I think it's even worse as it can NOT be avoided even when the people doing the research are good at what they do and are really trying to be as neutral as possible. If you read the research papers, you will see that they quite often come to conclusion that suits them rather than what the study can actually say.
So even when you do some 'experiments and observations' following the scientific method as you say, there will be some issues.
There is actually plenty of literature available on that subject.

The other issue is the complexity of the subject. If you study the human being (eg in medicine) or weather warming, the subject of the study is so complex that it does allow the neat and tidy 'experiment and observation' that you are talking about. So many variables are at play that it is never possible to isolate the subjects completely from them and do a 'proper scientific study'.

CAM depends entirely on the body"s ability to heal itself. That's how homeopathy etc work.

Straw army? What is that???

A straw man argument is when one side says that the other side has said something they haven't, and argues with that instead of what they actually said.

curlew

Feeling - I am quite familiar with what jimjam thinks on the subject of MMR and I happen to agree with her.

The human body is not too complex to experiment on/with. I don't know which planet you are broadcasting from where that might be true.

Are people really surprised at the ability of the body to heal itself of course not. In fact if you want to know more about it look in science/biology textbooks.

Apart from the fact it's not repeatable and therefore 'not scientifically proven actually both the body's usual ability to heal and the placebo effect are accepted as real - why wouldn't they be?. We're not all covering our eyes and saying "nooo!! we can't look".

Those pretending that the cause of the body healing is spirits or magic are not helping.

If you want to base your life and what you hold as the truth only on science.... Science is not a magic fairy that we are praying to for answers. It is simply a method of testing ideas to see if they are true.

The offered alternative seems to be "close your eyes and imagine what you'd like to be true and then simply believe it from now on"

Do you have a better alternative?

I knew I should have refreshed first :)

FeelingGrateful, really, how do you decide the truth of things?. Prayer? Dice?

I love how people are reading things behind my posts that I have written :)

How do I decide? Well first I do not think I know the truth for anything at all. The best I have my best informed decision. Not truth.
Which probably means that I have beliefs rather than anything else.

My decisions are based on my reading of as many different materials as possible can on specific subjects. but what I do not do is take only research articles from the scientific community to take my decisions.
I also try things out whenever I can and decide for myself if it's working for me.

Not sure what a prayer has to with it or a dice . Are you saying that apart from following 'science' everything else is just as a good as a prayer?

"Not sure what a prayer has to with it or a dice . Are you saying that apart from following 'science' everything else is just as a good as a prayer?"

Well, I might replace "science" with critical thinking or reason, but hasically, yes.

But science and critical thinking are two very different things.

So yes I use my critical thinking brain and because of that refuse to accept 'science' as the one and only thing that holds the 'truth'.

If you think I misrepresented you then please be specific so we can correct it. I just asked you a question.

If you read my posts you will see that I don't have faith in anything. So you won't hear me saying "ohh a scientist said it so it must be true".

Can you give us an example of 'different materials'? Consulting lots of sources sounds sensible, but if you meant for example "The pope, my priest, the guy who works in the chip shop who does Reiki in his spare time and the lady in that magazine who does the horoscopes" then that's not so good.

I also try things out whenever I can and decide for myself if it's working for me. you know that doesn't work don't you? If you have a cold and rub a fresh trout on your nose you may get better. This may not be down to the trout though. If you now 'believe' that trout cures colds then you now know less than you did before.. This is why sciences uses double-blind tests.

Are you saying that apart from following 'science' everything else is just as a good as a prayer? I am still waiting for someone to come up with anything that is not science yet better than a dice.

Back having had a look at the methods of testing that 'science' uses, I actually do have an issue with it.

Eg with acupuncture, science says that for one illness (let's say headaches), you can only check one sets of acupuncture points to see if it works otherwise it's not following the 'right' methods.
Chinese medicine says that treatment is individual, that you can not use a specific set of acupuncture points because it will be different of each individual.
So... 2 systems, 2 different paradigms.
If you follow the first one, you are likely to find results that aren't that good or not reflecting the strength of that specific method.
If you follow the second, then you are not following the 'right methods' so it's worthless.

So the methods set by science work best within its paradigm but not if you use another one such as the one used by Chinese medicine.
This is one of the issue with doing research in that area.
So where is the 'truth' then? is it working, not working? Is it that the modalities used to test acupuncture aren't appropriate or is it that it just doesn't work?

Why do you keep going back to science and double blind studies if you don't believe in science?

And you do realize that double blind studies aren't possible to do all the time (eg heart surgery, phyiso etc...). It only works for pills.

"Eg with acupuncture, science says that for one illness (let's say headaches), you can only check one sets of acupuncture points to see if it works otherwise it's not following the 'right' methods."

I don't think that's true- acupuncture has been tested exhaustively and shown repeatedly not to work.....

"Why do you keep going back to science and double blind studies if you don't believe in science?"

Who doesn't "believe" in science?

Consulting lots of sources sounds sensible, but if you meant for example "The pope, my priest, the guy who works in the chip shop who does Reiki in his spare time and the lady in that magazine who does the horoscopes"

Well I would hope that my critical thinking has pointed that out to me already
That doesn't mean that my only source of reading will be scientific articles (I don't believe that's what people do anyway. Too complex for people to understand unless you are in that specific field. People read summary and extracts and comments instead)

why is it that when the mind helps people heal then it's all looked down as if it was something bad

Its not. There's nothing wrong with something like CBT, or with making use of the placebo effect if it can be done ethically - which some doctors are starting to do. There is a problem with dressing up a particular method of placebo delivery, especially if becomes an alternative therapy rather than a complementary one - leading to the danger of missing out on appropriate conventional treatments because of undue faith in a particular brand of woo.

curlew Black said she doesn't have faith in anything incl science.

And acupuncture has been so well demonstrated not to work that NICE is asking GP to referred their patients for acupuncture for back pain, migraines and tension headaches.
Because you know it just doesn't work .