Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking - Softcover

Thomas E. Kida

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1591024080 ISBN 13: 9781591024088

Publisher: Prometheus, 2006

Synopsis

Kida vividly illustrates these tendencies with numerous examples that demonstrate how easily we can be fooled into believing something that isn't true. In a complex society where success - in all facets of life - often requires the ability to evaluate the validity of many conflicting claims, the critical-thinking skills examined in this informative and engaging book will prove invaluable.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas Kida is a professor in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the author of many articles on decision-making.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Don't Believe Everything You Think

The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in ThinkingBy Thomas Kida

Prometheus Books

Copyright © 2006 Thomas Kida
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-59102-408-8

Contents

Acknowledgments...................................................9Introduction: A Six Pack of Problems..............................111 Weird Beliefs and Pseudoscientific Thinking.....................252 A Gremlin on My Shoulder........................................453 Thinking Like a Scientist.......................................674 The Role of Chance and Coincidence..............................855 Seeing Things That Aren't There.................................1016 Seeing Associations That Aren't There...........................1197 Predicting the Unpredictable....................................1338 Seeking to Confirm..............................................1559 How We Simplify.................................................16710 Framing and Other Decision Snags...............................18311 Faulty Memories................................................20112 The Influence of Others........................................215Epilogue: Some Final Thoughts.....................................233Notes.............................................................239Index.............................................................279

Chapter One

Weird Beliefs and Pseudoscientific Thinking

It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society, it is belief. -George Bernard Shaw

On a popular local radio station, three morning show personalities were talking with a frequent guest. "Unbelievable!" "Amazing!" That's how they described their guest's incredible ability. In fact, they urged their audience to get to one of her seminars as soon as possible. Why? Because she can talk with the dead. Now these talk-show hosts are critical of many things; they often try to uncover the folly in what other people say or do. However, they were completely taken with the psychic. So were their listeners. Caller after caller was amazed by what she said-some even cried upon hearing what they thought were the words of their deceased loved ones.

You're at the hospital with severe abdominal pain. While lying on the examination table, a nurse enters the room, places her hands several inches above your body, and begins moving them in a gentle, wavelike motion, starting at your head and progressing slowly down your torso. "What are you doing?" you ask. "I'm driving the negative energy from your body," she says. "It's what's causing your pain." Sound a bit crazy? That wouldn't happen, would it? Well, it could. The nurse is practicing a technique called therapeutic touch. More than forty thousand nurses have been trained in this technique, and more than twenty thousand actively practice it today. In fact, it's taught at more than one hundred colleges and universities worldwide, including major medical schools at respected universities like NYU, and it's used in at least eighty hospitals in the United States alone.

My good friend Joe is a geologist. He runs a water exploration company and travels the world finding drinkable water for towns, cities, and even small countries. He uses the most advanced technology, from complex computer models to satellite imagery, to locate high-output wells. Joe is very successful at what he does. In some areas of the Caribbean he has achieved an almost godlike status for his ability to find water where no one else could. Joe is one of the most intelligent individuals I know. And yet, at one point in his career, he used dowsing in his water exploration. Dowsing is a technique in which an individual holds an object, like a Y-shaped tree branch, and walks around the land in search of water. When the branch twitches, it's taken as a sign that water is below. Joe met a "professional" dowser while working in New England and became convinced that it works. In fact, many years ago when I bought some land to build a house he came over, dowsed the land, and told me where to drill.

What do these cases have in common? Very bright, capable, highly trained people are holding extraordinary beliefs that have little or no credible supporting evidence. In fact, the evidence indicates the reverse-talking with the dead, therapeutic touch, and dowsing don't work (my well has never yielded much water), but smart people continue to believe. It happens to medical professionals, successful businesspeople, scientists, and to you and me. Now you may say, "I wouldn't believe in such bizarre things." But what about other beliefs that may, on the surface, seem more plausible? Consider the case of "facilitated communication."

SOUNDS REASONABLE, DON'T YOU THINK?

Your friend has an autistic child. Autism is a medical condition in which children can be unresponsive, aloof, and seem incapable of forming relationships with others. One's heart goes out to the children and parents affected by such a debilitating condition. Then there appears to be something that can help. Your friend recently told you of a fantastic new discovery that has enabled him to talk with his child. He says the technique, called facilitated communication, has demonstrated that autistic children are quite intelligent, and that their main problem centers simply around their inability to communicate. Delighted for your friend and intrigued by this breakthrough, you decide to learn more about the technique.

You find that facilitated communication has been used since the 1970s, when a teacher discovered that if you provide physical assistance to a severely autistic child, by holding their hand or arm to a typewriter or computer keyboard, the child will type out coherent, intelligent thoughts. Apparently, hidden beneath the impaired exterior of an autistic child lay a very capable mind that would demonstrate considerable intellect if put in a situation enabling him to communicate. In effect, facilitated communication demonstrated that severely autistic children have communication problems that are primarily caused by physical, rather than mental, limitations.

Based on this amazing discovery, the Dignity Through Education and Language Center was opened in 1986 to promote facilitated communication, and since then other centers have been established at major American universities. At Syracuse University, the Facilitated Communication Institute was established, which has trained thousands of therapists, and programs have been developed at other schools.

As time went by, the usefulness of facilitated communication gained support. Numerous reports were published indicating that facilitated communication was effective even for people with severe autism. Thousands of children throughout the world have been communicating with their parents and others using the technique. In fact, autistic children have been attending regular schools and progressing quite well with the help of facilitated communication.

The evidence seems compelling, doesn't it? Research centers are set up at major universities. Numerous personal testimonials indicate that parents can now communicate with their children. Severely autistic children are succeeding in school. And, there's "research" to support it. Pretty convincing stuff. Or is it?

It turns out that when controlled scientific studies were conducted, facilitated communication was shown to be worthless. In one very dramatic example, a researcher put headphones on both the facilitator and the child and asked a series of questions. When both received the same question, the child answered correctly. But when the child and facilitator were asked different questions, the child typed the answer to the facilitator's question. In another compelling study, a thin wall was erected between the child and facilitator. Each was then shown different items and asked to identify them. The item identified by the child was what the facilitator saw, not what the child saw. These studies clearly demonstrate that it is the facilitator, and not the child, who is responding during facilitated communication. The facilitator is simply guiding the child's hand, likely without even knowing it.

All it takes to test the claims of facilitated communication are a few simple experiments. Yet, people are willing to accept the belief that it works on the basis of unscientific evidence. Why? We often believe what we want to believe. Parents desperately want to communicate with their children. Facilitators also want to help the children. They may also be motivated by professional prestige and greater funding opportunities. Unfortunately, when such motivations are not held in check by rigorous scientific testing, we can believe things that just aren't true. This desire to believe is so strong that many of the proponents of facilitated communication are still defending it, even in the face of compelling contradictory data.

THE PERVASIVENESS OF WEIRD AND ERRONEOUS BELIEFS

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. -Bertrand Russell

The variety of strange things that people believe seemingly knows no bounds. Many people believe that aliens have visited the earth, psychics can foretell the future, astrology works, crystals can heal sickness, Bigfoot exists, the Bermuda triangle swallows up ships and planes, people can levitate, houses can be haunted, near death experiences prove that there's an afterlife, and psychic detectives can find murderers. In fact, a Gallup poll conducted in June 2005 indicates that the majority of us (73 percent) hold at least one paranormal belief. We believe even though there is little or no credible evidence to support these beliefs; in fact, many are contradicted by hard evidence. Take, for instance, the so-called Bermuda Triangle. We have all probably seen or read something about the mystery surrounding the triangle. It's commonly believed that an extraordinary number of ships and planes have disappeared there, apparently because of paranormal or alien forces. However, a close examination reveals that these losses can be explained by a variety of normal causes. In fact, when you consider the increased rate of traffic in the area, there are actually a smaller proportion of losses in the Bermuda Triangle as compared to the surrounding areas.

Weird beliefs are found in every segment of our society. Our federal government, for example, has made a number of costly decisions based on faulty beliefs. The Pentagon has spent millions trying to develop weapons based on ESP and psychokinesis (the ability to affect physical objects simply by thinking about them). The Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA has spent $20 million on the Stargate program alone, investigating psychics' supposed ability to view objects that are hundreds of miles away. And our government continues to give large grants to investigate such bizarre claims. This money is spent even though belief in these phenomena contradicts many of our well-established principles of science. Might this money be spent better elsewhere?

Corporations make similar errors in judgment. Major companies in Europe and the United States have used graphologists when making their hiring decisions. A graphologist analyzes a job applicant's handwriting to determine what kind of person he is-not by the content of what he writes, but by how he loops his letters and cross his Ts. Research shows that graphology is totally useless, but you may have been denied a job in the past if a graphologist said your handwriting indicated you're not trustworthy.

What about our leaders? Does it trouble you to learn that the actions of one of our presidents, arguably the most powerful person in the world, were guided by astrology? As noted earlier, and as reported by Donald Regan, White House chief of staff for President Reagan, "every major move and decision the Reagan's made during [his] time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise." It probably shouldn't be too surprising, since an American living in the twenty-first century is more likely to take astrology seriously than a person who lived during the Middle Ages. We live in an era that has witnessed a rise of so-called New Age thinking, which rejects much of western science, and has given us "channelers" who speak with the dead, crystals possessing the power to heal, and the books (and lives) of Shirley McLaine (more than eight million sold).

Influential writers are also not immune to believing weird things. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the celebrated author of the Sherlock Holmes series, created a character known for his ability to solve crimes by using a superior capacity for reason and logic. You might expect that the creator of such a rational character would value critical thinking above all else. However, Sir Arthur also believed in fairies. In 1917 and 1920 two girls from Cottingley, England, took five photographs of fairies that, they claimed, played with them. When Doyle saw the pictures, he became convinced that fairies actually exist. Years later the girls admitted that the pictures were a hoax-the fairies were simply cut out from a children's book.

University professors can be believers in the weird as well. Harvard professor and psychiatrist, John Mack, wrote a book in 1994 titled Abduction in which he argued that several hundred thousand, and possibly as many as several million, people may have been abducted by aliens or had related experiences, oftentimes without even knowing. Dr. Mack believed this because of the stories he heard from a number of people about their abduction experiences. No hard physical evidence exists to support these abductions, only stories.

So, is there any credible evidence to support these extraordinary claims? Numerous scientific investigations reveal that when such claims are put to close scrutiny, the evidence falls away. In fact, the James Randi Educational Foundation has offered $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate a true psychic or paranormal phenomenon under well-controlled conditions. To date, no one has won the prize.

We also believe many things that, on the surface seem reasonable, but just aren't true. Research has shown that many commonly held beliefs turn out to be false when put to empirical test. For example, many people believe we only use 10 percent of our brains, but there's no basis in neuroscience to support this claim. What about the supersensitive hearing that the blind are said to develop? Not the case. How often have you thought that crime and drugs are out of control in the United States? Data show that violent crime rates have dropped 33 percent over a ten-year period ending in 2003, and the number of drug users is also down. While many people think that low self-esteem is a cause of aggression, empirical research indicates no connection. How about the perception that religious individuals are more altruistic than less religious people? Once again, a closer look reveals that religious people are no more likely to be charitable or help their fellow man than people who say they're atheists. Do opposites attract? Not according to the research. If you're happy in your job, will you be more productive? Not necessarily. But that would seem like "common sense," wouldn't it? We all believe in common sense. As psychologist Keith Stanovich notes, however, 150 years ago it was a matter of common sense that women shouldn't be allowed to vote and that blacks shouldn't be taught to read. Faulty thinking can lead us to hold many unfounded beliefs.

THE IMPACT OF THE MEDIA ON WEIRD AND ERRONEOUS BELIEFS

Television programs on Atlantis, Bigfoot, psychic powers, the existence of ghosts, as well as a variety of other equally weird topics appear every week on cable TV channels like The Learning Channel (TLC), Discovery Channel, History Channel, and the Travel Channel. For example, a recent TLC show reported on psychics who used remote viewing to pinpoint unknown military installations in the Soviet Union during the cold war, and who correctly predicted movements in the silver markets nine times in a row (allegedly proof of psychic powers). Shows on such extraordinary topics are even aired on the national networks. ABC ran a program called the "World's Scariest Ghosts," which was filled with personal accounts of ghostly encounters. My favorite quote from the show was, "I knew right away it was a ghost because there was no other way to explain it."

These shows typically provide only a one-sided view. Rarely do they report on scientific data that refutes the claim, or interview one of the many competent skeptics, such as James Randi, Michael Shermer, or Joe Nickell, who might provide other plausible explanations for the phenomena. For example, the TLC show failed to report on the scientific evidence that demonstrates remote viewing doesn't work. Why? The sensational sells, so viewers are typically not made aware that extraordinary claims have been tested by legitimate science and found to be false. Nor did the show interview a skeptic who might have pointed out that the psychic's ability to predict the silver markets could easily be explained by probability theory. If skeptics are interviewed, their comments are often limited to a few choice sentences, which are quickly dismissed with comments such as, "Could the skeptics be wrong? There appears to be something the skeptics can't explain."

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1591024080
• ISBN 13: 9781591024088
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 286