I originally posted this as a comment on my Extraordinary Claims post, but it really deserves its own entry. It's one of those observations that explains so much about the world and why people cling to certain ideas:
You cannot reason a person out of something they were not reasoned into.
This quote is commonly attributed to Jonathan Swift, who wrote Gulliver's Travels. However, I disagree with it a little bit. I think it is possible, but it takes a lot more work to break someone of long-held beliefs that they didn't form using logic, reason, and evidence than it does for someone who formulated their beliefs based on empirical data.
A lot of people believe things not because they arrived at those beliefs through logic or evidence, but because they were taught them at a young age or because those beliefs just feel right. Take flat-earthers, for example. The idea that the world is flat may seem ridiculous to most of us, but for some people it just feels true based on their own intuition and what they see with their own eyes. They're not starting from evidence. They're starting from a gut feeling and then working backward to justify it.
I think a lot of personal beliefs work the same way, especially the ones we pick up in childhood. When I was a kid, my grandmother told me that dragonflies were called ear sewers, and that if one flew near you, it would sew your ears shut. It sounds silly now, but I believed that well into my teenage years. I even remember asking my biology teacher if it was true. Of course it wasn't. But I never thought to question it until someone challenged it with facts.
Take The Waterboy, for example. There's a perfect moment where Bobby Boucher is in class, and the professor asks why alligators are so ornery. Bobby replies, "Because Mama says they got all them teeth and no toothbrush." The professor tries to correct him by explaining it's actually because of the medulla oblongata, but Bobby digs in. "No, Colonel Sanders, you're wrong," he says, and then tackles him. It's funny because it's absurd, but it's also a perfect example of someone clinging to a belief simply because Mama said so, not because it made sense or was based on evidence.
Many people carry beliefs like that into adulthood. Sometimes they're harmless, but sometimes they're not. And even when confronted with solid evidence, they won't let go. Instead, they try to reshape the facts to match what they already believe. If more people were willing to challenge the ideas they were handed and follow reason and evidence, even when it feels uncomfortable, the world would be a better place.
You see this in business too. Back when I did a lot of consulting, I'd walk into companies still running everything on index cards, Excel spreadsheets, or old DOS-based systems. I'd say, "We can really streamline this with a proper database. It'll save you time and cut down on errors." But they'd push back with, "Oh no, we can't change that. This is how we do it." And when I'd ask why, the answer was usually something like, "That's how our founder set it up back in 1963." I'd have to remind them, "You know it's the 21st century now, right?" Just doing something the same way because it's how it's always been done isn't a good reason to keep doing it. It's actually a good reason to take a closer look and see if there's a better way.
The funny thing about this scenario is back in 1963, when Joe Founder created the method of doing what they've been doing this whole time, that might have been the most efficient method when index cards and typewriters were the norm. Flash forward 60 years, and that's no longer the case. And some of these people can't be reasoned out of their illogical belief that what the Founder did was best.
You see this kind of thinking in programming and database development all the time. I've had students who just couldn't accept that Access might work differently from what they were taught years ago. They'll say, "That's not how my instructor showed me," even when their method doesn't fit the situation or breaks in newer versions. It's not about what works best or follows current standards. It's just what they're familiar with, and changing it feels uncomfortable.
I've had people tell me, "I'm an old COBOL guy," or "I used to write everything in C," and then they come into Visual Basic or Access with all kinds of habits and assumptions. They question why things are done a certain way. When I ask why they do it their way, the answer is usually, "That's how I learned it in school." And I say, "Okay, but does that actually work well in Access?" Most of the time, the honest answer is no. But they still resist because it's what they're used to.
I've known people who swear by old wives' tales instead of going to a doctor. Or who think AI is evil because they saw a movie once where robots took over the world*. They weren't reasoned into those beliefs, so it's nearly impossible to logic them out of them.
And of course, in Star Trek, this kind of thinking shows up all the time, too. Take the episode Attached from TNG. The Kes, one of the native factions on Kesprytt III, believed for generations that the Prytt were a threat, despite all evidence to the contrary. No reason or diplomatic effort could sway them, because their paranoia wasn't based on logic. It was cultural conditioning. They weren't reasoned into fear, so no reasoning could undo it. The same goes for the Prytt. They were so consumed by suspicion and fear of outsiders that they captured and imprisoned Picard and Crusher simply for showing up. They implanted devices in their brains, treated them like spies, and refused all cooperation with the Enterprise. Even when presented with proof that their beliefs were unfounded, the Prytt doubled down. Their worldview had nothing to do with facts. It was built on long-standing mistrust and isolationism. In the end, neither the Kes nor the Prytt were accepted into the Federation, not because they lacked technology or resources, but because they lacked the ability to think rationally and work together. It is a perfect example of what happens when beliefs are rooted in fear, not evidence. No amount of diplomacy or reasoning could change minds that had never been open in the first place.
Another great example comes from the episode I, Mudd in the original series. In this story, the crew of the Enterprise is captured by a group of androids who want to serve and protect humans by essentially imprisoning them in a utopia of comfort and safety. Harry Mudd, who originally brought the crew to the planet, ends up caught in his own scheme. The humans, particularly McCoy and the rest of the crew, start coming up with increasingly ridiculous and illogical behaviors in an attempt to confuse the androids and overload their circuits. It works, but the whole plan hinges on embracing irrationality, something that goes completely against Spock's nature. At one point, while McCoy is rambling through one of his arguments, Spock sharply responds, "I find your arguments strewn with gaping defects in logic." It is classic Spock. While the humans are making emotional leaps and nonsensical statements to break free, Spock stays grounded in reason. His comment cuts through the noise and highlights just how far people will go with irrational thinking, even when it works. The episode plays it for laughs, but it is also a reminder that irrationality can be contagious, and sometimes logic gets thrown out the airlock when people are desperate or stuck in their beliefs.
Reason matters. Logic matters. If we want a society that runs on facts instead of fear, we need to start teaching people how to think, not just what to think.
LLAP/RR
* OK, to be fair, there are a LOT of movies where AI takes over the world. It makes for great sci-fi.
Sometimes what mama says though has perfect reason and logic.
For example, in my family we were studious Sunday viewers of Creature Double Feature on Channel 56 in Boston. on a trip to California, one of many, there are plentiful visible high tension power lines. Those are something you don't see much of in New England. She referred to them as monster killers. They are THE very reason monsters never made i it from Tokyo to Anaheim.
Of course there are absolutely scientific and historically accurate records to prove that the power lines kept Godzilla from getting very far into California. I mean, you've never seen them on the East Coast either, right?
And people have never seen Superman and me in the same room at the same time. Coincidence...???
Thomas Gonder
@Reply 13 days ago
One of my favorite arguments against intuition/gut logic/common sense, etc.
Two cars travel 100 miles and back to the starting point. Once car goes a consistent 50 mph and the other travels at 49 to the return point and then 51 on the return trip. Which car returns first?
Psychologists, that study the phenomenon, claim that mostly we humans make a "rational" decision based upon emotion, and only after the decision is made do we start to analyze it logically. And only to support the emotional decision!
Hence, most people can't reason their way out of the proverbial paper bag.
Yeah that's a good one. I remember that one from high school. Our physics teacher used to give us a weekly mind bender. It would be a problem like that you had to solve and show your work to make people think and to bust common misconceptions like that.
One video I watched recently blew my mind by saying that we have no way of measuring the speed of light in one direction. Every test that we've done that measures the speed of light is a two-way trip. Because we can only shoot out a beam of light and measure how long it takes to return after reflecting off of something like a mirror.
And what that leads to is that how do we really know what the speed of light is in one direction? It might be that it has a certain speed in one direction and a different speed in the other. For example, what if the speed of light is actually half of what we think the speed of light is traveling in one direction and then instantaneous on the way back?
For example, if you send a message to someone on Mars and it takes 10 minutes for you to get a reply, did that message take 5 minutes to get there and then 5 minutes to hear their response, or did it take 10 minutes to get there and their response came back instantaneously? We have no way of knowing.
Here's an interesting followup video too. While I don't agree with it 100%, he raises some interesting points.
The reaction video tries to replace one convention (Einstein synchronization) with another (a CMB-based preferred frame), but without experimental justification. It's more philosophical speculation than scientific refutation.
Thomas Gonder
@Reply 13 days ago
Richard As for the speed of light, I think they have resolved that problem with, in simple terms, rotating disks that block the light and it only works because of precise motor speeds and high-speed sensors/electronics. What's interesting to me, is that they've been able to slow down light. So, the medium that light travels in affects its speed? Ahhh, how the whole concept of a warp drive begins to be a POSSIBILITY.
Physics is the one class that escaped me during HS and university. I bought a textbook on it, and man, that is some heavy stuff!
I took more philosophy and political science classes, which allows me to better argue about how many fairies can dance on the head of a pin.
Are we talking classical fairies, Celtic fairies, D&D fairies, faeries? You have to be more specific. Some don't dance. :P
Thomas Gonder
@Reply 12 days ago
Richard Ahhh my friend, the real fairies, only the real ones.
As to the light problem, my engineer friend, Doug, came from Scotland on a visa to solve the problem of the Litton guidance system causing cruise missiles to prematurely "plow into the ground". He was fresh out of University in Scotland. They said, "fix this thing" and stuck him and John (also from Scotland) in an isolated lab. They weren't allowed contact with any of the USA senior engineers that designed the guidance head. It was all top-secret stuff, but Doug once, after several whiskies, explained a bit about the project (99% went way over my head). It seems the major problem was measuring light in dozens of meters of spherically arranged fiber optic tubes as they moved through space at high speeds. Yes, they had to solve the problem of light traveling at different speeds in different directions. When these two Scotsmen came out of the lab, cruise missiles started reaching their targets. Ultimately, they designed a chip that could perform the appropriate calculations. A crude version of their work can be found in all drones today that contain a gyro. Many "toy" drones use GPS for positioning, but some sophisticated ones are auto guidance, like the old cruise missiles. Oh, did I mention Doug and John also invented the three and four motor drone technology?
Thomas Ut can be figured using a calculation of X * the terminal velocity of an unladen swallow which I believe is 42.
the answer also involves knowing which driver had coffee. they woul arrive at the same time unless one driver had to make a rest stop.
Thomas Gonder
@Reply 12 days ago
Bill Since you're the first to answer the car travel question, I'll spoil the fun. What if the second driver drove 1mph to the turn point and then 99 back? In another thread I mentioned the value of testing extremes in programming; it applies to problems of logic/math too.
Bill Carver
@Reply 12 days ago
That depends on whether or not the said unladen swallow tastes like chicken. However if the cat's calculations are correct and no rest breaks taken. (He's the one that told me the swallow tastes like chicken) It's a tie
Thomas Gonder
@Reply 12 days ago
r * t = d; t = d / r
car 1's time for round trip = 200 / 50 = 4.0 hours
car 2's time = 100 / 49 + 100 / 51 = 4.0016 hours
Extreme example:
car 2's time = 100 / 1 + 100 / 99 = 101.0101 hours 'car 1 has returned to the starting point 96.0000 hours before car 2 even gets to the turn point.
Lesson: When you use your knowledge about averages in a "gut" fashion to solve a similar problem, your common sense is nonsense. Or as Richard would say, reason is logical, your intuition isn't.
That's why, when everyone says, "Well, my gut is telling me," I always take a step back and look at things even more logically. It's kind of like when someone says, "I'm not going to lie," but that always tells me, "Well, do you normally lie?" or "To tell you the truth," why don't you always tell the truth?
Michael Olgren
@Reply 9 days ago
Back to the OP... Here's even more science behind decision-making-- using Game Theory to explain why people don't get their children vaccinated:
https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/game-theory-explains-why-reasonable-parents-make-vaccine-choices-fuel-outbreaks
Michael That's a really interesting perspective, and I appreciate the article. Game theory definitely offers a valuable way to understand collective behavior and how individual decisions can unintentionally lead to larger problems like outbreaks.
That said, I am not convinced that most vaccine hesitancy today is the result of people consciously doing that kind of calculated risk analysis. I think a lot of it comes down to other factors - misinformation, fear-mongering by public figures who do not understand the science, religious objections, general distrust of the medical system, or sometimes just plain laziness or complacency.
So while the game theory model is fascinating and makes sense as a theoretical framework, I think the real-world reasons we are seeing a rise in things like measles are more rooted in ignorance, distrust, and bad information than in rational individual strategy.
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