Not so fast
Wait. Something wrong here
The battle by scientists against “irrational” beliefs such as creationism is ultimately futile, a leading experimental psychologist said today. The work of Bruce Hood, a professor at Bristol University, suggests that magical and supernatural beliefs are hardwired into our brains from birth, and that religions are therefore tapping into a powerful psychological force.
He told a science conference in Norwich that it’s simplistic to divide people into those who believe in the supernatural and those who don’t, and adds “But almost everyone entertains some form of irrational beliefs even if they are not religious.” That seems fair enough. But then he backs up the point in what I think is an odd way: “For example, many people would be reluctant to part with a wedding ring for an identical ring because of the personal significance it holds.”
Well of course they bloody would, in fact I would guess that not “many” but pretty much all people would, but that’s not irrational, and it’s also not a belief. It’s arational, if you like, but it’s not irrational. It’s sentiment, but that’s a different thing. Sentiment doesn’t have to be rational, and it mostly doesn’t matter that it isn’t. (Yes, yes, I can think of exceptions, but it mostly doesn’t matter.) Personal significance, memory, association, are all a different kind of thing from beliefs, and all the more so from supernatural beliefs. Most people probably don’t believe their wedding rings are magic, but they value them for other reasons. I’ll tell you something. Prepare for a shock. I have quite a few objects that I value above their intrinsic worth because of who gave them to me or whom they once belonged to. Imagine that. I have my grandmother’s gold watch, given to her by her father for her 21st birthday. I wouldn’t want to swap it for an identical one with an identical inscription; I want the one my grandmother actually owned and had and used and (I assume) treasured. I don’t consider that in the least irrational. Sorry; I just don’t. I have a wooden writing desk my mother gave me, and a smaller wooden writing desk my brother and sister-in-law gave me, and a wooden figure of a monk holding a cross my brother gave me when he was in the Navy and found himself in Barcelona. I like having all of them, and I would be “reluctant” to trade them for exact replicas – very reluctant indeed, as a matter of fact. I don’t consider that the smallest bit irrational.
The idea that such attachments and sentiments are irrational sets way too high a standard for human, possible rationality, and by doing so, sets too low a standard. It’s a sort of bait and switch. Humans are not rational, they like to keep things that loved people give them, therefore they are hardwired to believe in supernatural entities. No. Sentimental attachment to inanimate objects, from teddy bears to blankies to rings to writing desks, is not the same thing as belief in the esistence of supernatural entities; in fact it’s pretty dang different.
Prof Hood produces a rather boring-looking blue cardigan with large brown buttons and invites people in the audience to put it on, for a £10 reward. As you may expect, there is invariably a sea of raised hands. He then reveals that the notorious murderer Fred West wore the cardigan. Nearly everyone puts their hand down…Another experiment involves asking subjects to cut up a photograph. When his team then measures their galvanic skin response – ie sweat production, which is what lie-detector tests monitors – there is a jump in the reading. This does not occur when a person destroys an object of less sentimental significance.
Same thing. Interesting, sure; not particularly rational, fine; the same thing or even the same kind of thing as believing in the god of religion, no. Unless the Guardian left a huge amount out, Bruce Hood didn’t make his case there.
Me too.
Not only that, but some of this can be explained by a rational estimate of the irrationality of others. The fact that I’ve got Fred West’s cardigan doesn’t make me any more likely to kill people, but if others think that it does, then it’s entirely reasonable for me to decide I’m better off not wearing it.
Sometimes I despair at the ignorance of (some) natural scientists. Unless, like you said, the Graun missed out the killer facts of the presentation.
We are *hardwired* for magic and superstition? Leaving aside all the valid questions Ophelia raised, does the mere existence of a particular neural process mean that it can be construed as an innate rather than learned response?
Sentiment doesn’t make any claims to truth, or even ways of understanding the world, so its hard to see his point.
The point is, we’re gullible as hell, don’t fight it.
OB paraphrasing: “Humans are not rational, they like to keep things that loved people give them, therefore they are hardwired to believe in supernatural entities.”
But that’s not exactly what he said. The way I read it, he argued that some beliefs, however irrational, are similar to loved objects, implanted so deeply that you cannot bring people to let go of them by using logic.
I am sure we have all met a brick wall sometimes when talking to people, some idea so central that our interlocutor is unable to let go of it, however convincingly we trash it. It’s obvious there that reason has nothing to do with it and that reason will never convince. I won’t say that the case with all theists, or even most, but for a lot of them, letting go of their beliefs, however foolish they may seem, even to them, is nearly impossible.
Reading the Guardian article, I have the feeling the journalist saw a lot more in that than Pr Bruce Moore said (Bruce and an academic? He cannot teach at Bristol Uni. He has to be Australian!). The word “hardwired” for instance doesn’t show up in any of the extensive quotations.
And yes, I remember being sternly chastised when using the same word a couple of weeks ago (when I should have said “socially conditioned”, and you were right, Keith McGuiness!) which is also why I am a bit sceptical of it being used by Moore in the first place.
Really? That’s not how I read it at all, Arnaud. I took another look, and tried to read it that way, but I just don’t see it. That’s not what the Guardian has him saying. The G could have got it wrong, of course…
(You’re right that he didn’t say the sentence I put in italics though, I agree with that: I was just putting it into argumentative form, and parodying slightly in the process.)
I agree with OB here. Quote: “But almost everyone entertains some form of irrational beliefs even if they are not religious. For example, many people would be reluctant to part with a wedding ring for an identical ring because of the personal significance it holds.”
The quote directly links irrational beliefs and religious beliefs AND the example of “irrational” beliefs is a sentimental attachment. But as OB argued, sentimental attachments are not intrinsically irrational.
The argument is poort.
There are other ways of convincing people, other than argumentative logic.
Practical demonstration is one – preferably based on solid research.
Galileo’s demonstration that Jupiter has moons must be a classic of this nature.
As I’ve posted in the second one on this subject, there are beliefs that people don’t hold any more.
We just need more, and better proper education.
The last thing one should do is give in to the superstitious.
On the BBC website this morning:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5314164.stm
“Hood believes that the way in which humans learn about the world around them leads them to be predisposed to these superstitions.
Children have intuitive theories about how things work. One of these theories is that objects have an essence, or soul.
“If you’ve got a theory, it’s very difficult to modify, and no amount of counter evidence will change it. We tend to have a bias to pay attention to those instances which confirm our intuitions.”
This means that children’s intuitive theories are not fully disproved, and become lodged in their minds. As a result, they continue to half-believe that objects have emotions and human attributes.
“We are hard-wired to make sense of the world, and that includes both rational and irrational assumptions.”
This hard-wiring, which leads us to find an explanation for everything, may explain why superstitious beliefs and even religions develop.
“I don’t think it’s a case that our belief in the supernatural is given to us by religions. We intuitively think that these [supernatural] things are real, and religions just give us the context,” he says.
Well, he DID use the phrase “hard-wired”. I was wrong there. But not hard-wired for religion as such or even irrational beliefs.
And yes, I know you were parodying his argument.
Keith : The quote directly links irrational beliefs and religious beliefs AND the example of “irrational” beliefs is a sentimental attachment.
Once again, that’s not what I read: the comparison made is between objects such as a wedding ring and an irrational belief (such as religious belief) and he says that BOTH can be the objects of an emotional attachement.
And this attachement is not rational (sorry OB). Now, maybe it’s not irrational either; personnaly I think it is outside of reason’s domain, like most of our personnal experiences. But the thing is, when you argue with such people, it will be very hard to convince them to change their mind.
Maybe that’s not a very original result, and clumsily reported as well, but I don’t think it’s wrong.
Looking at his cv, I see he’s done some quite interesting studies that embrace attachement theory and intuition in babies and infants; the above seminar seemed little more than a bunch of parlour tricks though. Still, nice menu on that conference lunch…
I had the same ‘uh-oh’ response to the seeming equation of sentiment with irrationality.
However…
Firstly, newspaper reporting of scientists’ opinions and theories is notoriously inaccurate. It would not surprise me at all if Moore was making a very different fundamental point from that presented in the Graun.
Secondly, the cardigan trick really is interesting. Refusing to wear the cardie of a serial killer is basically fetishism. That can’t be swept under the rug of sentiment… I suppose Moore feels that people regard sentimentally treasured objects with fetishistic attitudes; in many cases, I imagine he’s right.
Mementoes of those that have died is an interesting one, too: what’re theyfor? To remember the lost one, or to feel that in some way we are keeping an actual physical place in our lives for that person? Isn’t the latter basically the instinct of fetishism?
“And this attachement is not rational (sorry OB).”
No need to be sorry, I agree with that, and said so: sentimental attachment may be arational, but it’s not irrational. I too think it’s outside reason’s domain; reason is just beside the point. But that’s not the same thing as irrational, and to pretend it is is (for one thing) a way to turn people off rationality.
“Refusing to wear the cardie of a serial killer is basically fetishism. That can’t be swept under the rug of sentiment”
Not sentiment (not in the usual sense anyway) perhaps, but still a feeling that is not rational but not really irrational either; at least I think so. I think it’s just repugnance at the association. It doesn’t require believing there would be any actual (physical) harmful effects; one could just not like the idea and let it go at that.
In other words, I don’t think I like this definition-creep. Fetishism entails thinking an object has magic powers or is inhabited by a spirit; that’s not the same thing as valuing it because of its associations. That standard is too demanding. Humans are humans. We’re sentimental, we’re apprehensive, we feel distaste and disgust, but all those are well short of magical or irrational thinking. We don’t have to give a rational explanation of why we value mementoes of people who have died; that’s not necessary in order to be rational.
I get your primary point with regard to the sentimental. I’m not sure about ‘one could just not like the idea and let it go at that’ – asking why people think and do patently irrational things is the point!
However, it’s a big leap from ‘people are naturally superstitious/sentimental/whatever’ to ‘rationalism is a lost cause.’
Yes, true – I didn’t mean ‘let it go at that’ to mean don’t ask questions, but something more like ‘there’s no requirement to define the non-rational as irrational’.
But I’m still saying that not wanting to put on a serial murderer’s putative sweater is not irrational, and certainly not patently! It’s just a feeling, and it’s not irrational because it doesn’t make any truth-claims. It’s a Yuk, but a local, personal, individual Yuk.
Now, if someone in the next row wanted to put it on and you interfered – that would be irrational. But just not fancying it yourself? No. At least I don’t think so.
The muralist Diego Rivera stated, if I recall, that in the fully rational future, cannibalism would be well accepted as we would have lost all irrational attachment to burials and graves… That ‘sets the bar’ for rationality a bit too high for me, I guess.
More to the point, would the difference between “arational” (as in OB’s attachment to a ring, or her repugnance at the idea of trying on a serial killer’s sweater) and “irrational” (her hypothetical interfering with another person’s choice in trying on said sweater) be mostly in one’s self-awareness and distance of not-entirely-rational feelings and emotions?
It would be the difference between being sentimentally attached to items, and making sacrifices to them. Or between (hobbyhorse alert) theism as a philosophical position, and faith.
So Merlijn, what’s with this thing you have for your hobbyhorse? It’s a fetish, right?
cackle
Just to clarify: it’s not my attachment to a ring; I can’t stand jewelry and don’t have any; it’s the idea of attachment to a (meaningful, symbolic, inherited, etc) ring.
But yes: it’s the difference between sentimental attachment and making sacrifices. Or, it might be, between voting for G W Bush, and praying to a life-sized photo of him.
The sweater. I suppose what I’m thinking is, the reason it’s not irrational is because it’s based on personal associations which would or could cause unpleasant thoughts. Therefore it would be irrational to interfere with other people’s putting the sweater on, because you can’t know whether they’ll have unpleasant thoughts or not, whereas they probably can. It’s about other minds, basically. (I know I’m slightly obsessive; I can make an educated guess that if there’s an intrusive thought available, I’ll have it; I can’t make educated guesses of that kind about some stranger in another row.)
Does no-one have a problem with the notion of “Hard-Wiring”;perhaps they should?
Well, yes, especially with the idea that “beliefs” are hardwired – but that could be sloppy journalistic paraphrasing or incomprehension rather than Hood’s own way of putting it. That part isn’t a direct quotation, so who knows how accurate it is.