Re: LOGO-L> Why is accurate thinking so unpopular?

["Bill Kerr" <kerrb@senet.com.au>]

Bob Gorman wrote:
>It's not that people can't see what's going on around them, or understand
it,
>but
>rather because (?) of higher level needs (ego and identity) they actively
>avoid sensing and interpreting what is going on right in front of them. To
>stop
>believing in an illusion, one has to admit they were originally fooled or
>conned or whatever, and indeed may still be. For those with a weakened
sense
>of self or indeed only an ego image to maintain, this ranges from difficult
>to
>devastating. Paradigm shifts are the hardest of all, because they involve
>giving up
>solutions that worked in the past for something, perhaps better, but
unproven.


We are designed by evolution to survive and reproduce not to be good
scientists.

Steve Pinker in 'How the Mind Works' says that good science is pedantic,
expensive and subversive.

Pedantic: base your reasoning on the premises mentioned in the question,
ignoring everything else you know.

Expensive: "Recently I was dissatisfied with the bread I had been baking
because it was too dry and fluffy. So I increased the water, decreased the
yeast, and lowered the temperature. To this day I don't know which of these
manipulations made the difference. The scientist in me knew that the proper
procedure would have been to try out all the 8 logical combinations ... But
the experiment would have taken 8 days ... I wanted tasty bread, not a
contribution to the archives of human knowledge."

Subversive: "Our brains were shaped for fitness not for truth. Sometimes the
truth is adaptive but sometimes it is not. Conflict of interests are
inherent in the human condition and we are apt to want our version of the
truth; rather than the truth itself to prevail."

-- Bill Kerr



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