The principles of woo reasoning

[Dr B]

Under the 'infrasound' heading i mentioned how mischaracterising scientific arguments seems inherent in so called 'woo counter arguments'. In reality these are not valid counter arguments as much as they are straw-man arguments leading straight to error. So a failure to characterise arguments appropriately seems important to their reasoning.

I would like to expand this idea. I think a further, and perhaps more fundamental reason, relates to logic itself. Or to put it another way, most woo's do not understand informal logic or the principles of logic at all. This might also explain why many of us appear 'closed minded' to the woo's - because they do not fully understand what logic is or how it works - therefore - they do not appreciate why you reject their claims / arguments / theories.

I was wondering what others here thought. Can we sum it up, to a reasonable degree, that the main central reason is a failure of the woo to understand logic and what makes reasoning sound and valid? I know many scientists and writers have tried to explain this (like Shermer) - but they came to different conclusions to me here. I am wondering, to what extent, woo-reasoning represents a failure to understand or apply logic to arguments. This would be a simple explanation to a complex issue - if of course, it is true. 8)

[Araneus]

Can we sum it up, to a reasonable degree, that the main central reason is a failure of the woo to understand logic and what makes reasoning sound and valid?

It is not just woos that don't understand what makes reasoning sounds and valid -- most people don't understand either. How often do you hear, from otherwise intelligent people, statements like "Chiropractic must be valid, why else would insurance companies pay for it?" or "There must be something in religion, after all it has survived for thousands of years".

If you could find a solution to this, you would solve pretty much every problem human society has ever had.

[Dr B]

I am not sure I totally agree. When you explain logic to the 'average joe' they get it and accept why it makes sense. You never get that from a woo.

Ask any student and they will tell you that their first exposure to logic was probably met with a headache ;D however, when logic is explained properly - they can see why it makes sense.

The woo must reject logic to maintain their view.

However, it is certainly true that the general public are not up to speed on logical thinking - but they are more than open to having it explained to them. O0 This is in contrast to the woo at least in my opinion

[Araneus]

You may well be right, it seems valid to distinguish between people who are just not fully up-to-speed on logical reasoning or associated facts (such as my colleague, who visits an osteopath for neck pain but is otherwise a competent programmer and not lacking in general intellect), and people who are simply incapable of understanding them (such as tiger from the "Is Randi looking for truth" thread), whose model of reality is so different from that of a rational scientist that there is no possibility of meaningful communication.

[Jocky]

it seems valid to distinguish between people who are just not fully up-to-speed on logical reasoning ... and people who are simply incapable of understanding

... or who would be capable of understanding if they wanted to, but just don't want to.

A lot of people seem to attach tremendous personal importance to belief in their pet woo - and they will cling onto it desperately, despite possessing the faculties to understand why it is logically invalid. I find this a lot more fustrating than somebody who just doesn't get it because they ain't got the marbles.

To someone like this, logic is less important than belief. It is not just a matter of explaining critical thinking, it's a matter of selling it, finding a way of helping them to recognise that it is a better approach. And that in turn means addressing what they think they stand to lose, by letting go of those cherished misconceptions ...

[Blue Wode]

It is not just a matter of explaining critical thinking, it's a matter of selling it, finding a way of helping them to recognise that it is a better approach. And that in turn means addressing what they think they stand to lose, by letting go of those cherished misconceptions ...

According to former New Ager, Karla McLaren, what they stand to lose is a complete lifestyle that has evolved to help them cope with life’s uncertainties. She attempted to get to the heart of the problem in her article “Bridging the Chasm Between Two Cultures”. It’s quite a long read, but has some interesting insights towards the end:



Our cultural training about the dangers of the intellect makes it nearly impossible for us to utilize science properly - or to identify your intellectual rigor as anything but an unhealthy overuse of the mind.

-snip-

It is possible that our two warring cultures will never build a bridge across the deep rift that divides us. I know that in my own case, the transition from my culture to yours was long, arduous, and deeply painful. It was not an easy traipse across a well-constructed bridge. In essence, I had to throw myself off a cliff. I had to leave behind my career, my income, my culture, my family, my friends, my health care practitioners, most of my business contacts, my past, and my future. I say this not to garner sympathy but to show what the leap truly entails. The New Age is a complete culture with its own rules, ideals, infrastructure, and social life.

-snip-

Opening the questioning process is a very dangerous thing, and people in my culture seem to understand that on a subconscious level.

-snip-

One of the biggest falsehoods I've encountered is that skeptics can't tolerate mystery, while New Age people can. This is completely wrong, because it is actually the people in my culture who can't handle mystery - not even a tiny bit of it.

-snip-

One of the most frightening things about attaining the capacity to think skeptically and critically is that so many things don't have clear answers. Critical thinkers and skeptics don't create answers just to manage their anxiety.


http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/new-age.html

[Jocky]

Many thanks for that link, Blue Wode - a really interesting article O0

After travelling the journey she has, the author of this article is able very clearly to explain things which are rather opaque to those of us who have never walked on the woo side of the street.

She eloquently describes the effect to which I was trying to allude above, in these terms:


I've discovered in ... conversations I've had with faith-based people that skeptical information is absolutely threatening and unwanted. What I didn't understand until recently is that when you start questioning these beliefs, there's a domino effect that eventually smacks into your whole house of cards - and nothing remains standing. Opening the questioning process is a very dangerous thing, and people in my culture seem to understand that on a subconscious level.

Such an all-encompassing threat would inevitably (and, in a way, understandably) provoke a defensive response.

Let me try and relate this back to the OP:


most woos do not understand informal logic or the principles of logic at all ... therefore - they do not appreciate why you reject their claims ... Can we sum it up, to a reasonable degree, that the main central reason is a failure of the woo to understand logic and what makes reasoning sound and valid? ... I am wondering, to what extent, woo-reasoning represents a failure to understand or apply logic to arguments.

Perhaps what we perceive as a failure to understand critical thinking does not always result from lack of understanding per se - it could be a subconscious defense against information which is intuitively identified as a significant threat. The straw men, and all the other irritating fallacies which are strewn around such debates as the one to which Dr B referred, are not presented because the arguer actually thinks that they are logically sound - they are simply 'smoke and mirrors', designed to inhibit any serious questioning of the underlying belief.

The way forward therefore has to involve more than just explaining what logic is. It has to be predicated upon some degree of acceptance on the part of the woo that investigating the reality of their beliefs can in the end be rewarding and worthwhile - that there is more to life than tenets based purely on blind faith and misunderstood subjective experiences.

In short, skepticism has to be sold, not just promulgated 8)

As Blue Wode pointed out, Karla McLaren said:


One of the biggest falsehoods I've encountered is that skeptics can't tolerate mystery, while New Age people can. This is completely wrong, because it is actually the people in [the New Age] culture who can't handle mystery - not even a tiny bit of it ... One of the most frightening things about attaining the capacity to think skeptically and critically is that so many things don't have clear answers. Critical thinkers and skeptics don't create answers just to manage their anxiety.

Perhaps we should first address the question: What is it that woos find so colossaly threatening about reality, that they feel obliged to invent non-existent answers for its mysteries - and conversely, what is it about skeptics which apparently innoculates us against sharing this debilitating fear?

[Araneus]

The straw men, and all the other irritating fallacies which are strewn around such debates as the one to which Dr B referred, are not presented because the arguer actually thinks that they are logically sound - they are simply 'smoke and mirrors', designed to inhibit any serious questioning of the underlying belief.

Sounds like the intellectual equivalent of the urticating hair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urticating_hair) possessed by some tarantulas, which irritates and repels potential attackers but cannot usually cause significant harm.

[Dr B]

It is not just a matter of explaining critical thinking, it's a matter of selling it, finding a way of helping them to recognise that it is a better approach. And that in turn means addressing what they think they stand to lose, by letting go of those cherished misconceptions ...

According to former New Ager, Karla McLaren, what they stand to lose is a complete lifestyle that has evolved to help them cope with life’s uncertainties. She attempted to get to the heart of the problem in her article “Bridging the Chasm Between Two Cultures”. It’s quite a long read, but has some interesting insights towards the end:



Our cultural training about the dangers of the intellect makes it nearly impossible for us to utilize science properly - or to identify your intellectual rigor as anything but an unhealthy overuse of the mind.

-snip-

It is possible that our two warring cultures will never build a bridge across the deep rift that divides us. I know that in my own case, the transition from my culture to yours was long, arduous, and deeply painful. It was not an easy traipse across a well-constructed bridge. In essence, I had to throw myself off a cliff. I had to leave behind my career, my income, my culture, my family, my friends, my health care practitioners, most of my business contacts, my past, and my future. I say this not to garner sympathy but to show what the leap truly entails. The New Age is a complete culture with its own rules, ideals, infrastructure, and social life.

-snip-

Opening the questioning process is a very dangerous thing, and people in my culture seem to understand that on a subconscious level.

-snip-

One of the biggest falsehoods I've encountered is that skeptics can't tolerate mystery, while New Age people can. This is completely wrong, because it is actually the people in my culture who can't handle mystery - not even a tiny bit of it.

-snip-

One of the most frightening things about attaining the capacity to think skeptically and critically is that so many things don't have clear answers. Critical thinkers and skeptics don't create answers just to manage their anxiety.


http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/new-age.html


I am not sure I agree totally with this 'threatening world-view' idea that we often hear. I also dont think, as it has been posed - it actually acts as an explanation.

Maybe cognitive dissonance is more apt - but that went through a hell of a hard time in recent years as well (shortage of empirical evidence). In addition, many people do shift world-views from die-hard believers to hard-nosed skeptics (look around here.... 8)).

So for me, it raises more questions than it answers. It does not explain why many people do walk away from hard-line woo ideas - while others holding the exact same views do not. Intelligence is not a viable option either. Its too metaphorical and although it 'feels' as if it should be right - it does not explain many findings, and actually is not that explicit as an account - at least to me. O0

[Dr B]

My hunch is - like all good scientific stories - it will be a multi-factorial story.

Woo's have been shown not to understand logic at all - and deviate from it in their reasoning. They have also been shown to have a lower tolerance for ambiguity in information. This might be more key..... 8)

Interestingly, schizophrenics and those with thought-disorders show similar biases :D

[Jocky]

I am not sure I agree totally with this 'threatening world-view' idea that we often hear. I also dont think, as it has been posed - it actually acts as an explanation ... many people do shift world-views from die-hard believers to hard-nosed skeptics ... It does not explain why many people do walk away from hard-line woo ideas - while others holding the exact same views do not

I agree that the 'threated world view' hypothesis does not explain why woos believe in the things they do, nor does it justify holding such beliefs. However, I think it may shed light on the motivation behind some cases of senseless logic abuse committed in argument by woos in defence of their beliefs.

My point is that under such circumstances, different tactics may be called for. Lecturing someone on poor reasoning, when their arguments were motivated not by reason but by fear, is unlikely to be a productive line of discussion. If they don't actually care about reason per se to start with, one cannot expect them to respond well to being confronted with the details of their abuse of it.

That's not to say that there is no benefit to be had in elucidating such abuse, of course - bystanders listening to a debate where logic abuse has occured can definitely learn from having it pointed out O0 I know I have!

However, I think that in some instances the chance of actually converting the woo in person is enhanced if they can be persuaded first to address their own reasons for belief. After all, we know why we support critical thinking, and if challenged could provide good reasons for this stance - but do they always know why they are supporting irrational credulity? If confronted with the real reasons why, perhaps some could be persuaded to move on to a more productive way of thinking.


Woos have ... been shown to have a lower tolerance for ambiguity in information.

I take the point that some people may have brains which are best 'wired for woo', as it were. If this is so, some people are going to be intrinsically harder to persuade than others ... just out of interest Doc, do you know of any converse evidence, suggesting that certain groups (scientists, say) have a generally high tolerance for ambiguity?

[Admin]

It’s questions like this that has got me studying psychology! :D

I think, as Dr. B points out, that there’s not a single answer to this. It’s more likely to be a mixture of several different reasons although I think we can get a good approximation as to what some of them are.

It has been pointed out that woos are less tolerant of ambiguity. Ambiguity leads to uncertainty and superstition is a coping mechanism for uncertainty; in fact, there seems to be a directly-proportional relationship between the levels of each. Could it be that the discomfort of ‘not knowing’ leads to a propensity towards woo? i.e. woo provides answers; albeit not real ones.

We also need to look at this from an evolutionary point of view. Our brains mostly evolved to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle on the African savannah. So whatever ‘hard wiring’ of our brain occurred to work the way it does (pattern-seeking etc.) would have had an adaptive advantage in that environment but it is not necessarily an advantage in a modern, technological society.

Also, if a belief system appears to work then it does not necessarily follow that it is desirable to change it if it can be shown to be wrong. We seem to have an inbuilt resistance to change our minds on things even when definitive, contrary evidence is placed before us. This can be described as cognitive dissonance but it also makes sense from an evolutionary point of view – whatever you’re doing that keeps you alive, keep on doing it.

There’s a great article on this here: http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html

Just a few thoughts there. My ambition is to get to the bottom of this one day.

My first big revelation as a skeptic was that you cannot change people's minds or thinking by presenting logic, reason, evidence and facts!!

I still haven't gotten over that! ;D

[median]

It has been pointed out that woos are less tolerant of ambiguity. Ambiguity leads to uncertainty and superstition is a coping mechanism for uncertainty; in fact, there seems to be a directly-proportional relationship between the levels of each. Could it be that the discomfort of ‘not knowing’ leads to a propensity towards woo? i.e. woo provides answers; albeit not real ones.


Paradoxically, the answers is exactly what they don't want. Hence their constant shifting of their perspective. Perhaps their comfort answer is 'there are no answers' :D

[Dr B]

One the one hand they do like to keep things mysterious - but if you look closely they invoke supernatural 'explanations' to make this work - there is a paradox here - but it exists in their reasoning - not in objective fact.

For woo merely saying 'its ghosts' is an explanation that for them, means all science can be rejected. For them it seems to be a certain type of story that is needed. This story may have to serve some needs (as discussed above) or may be due to a 'weighting' of nonsense material.

[Cuddles]

Woos have ... been shown to have a lower tolerance for ambiguity in information.

I take the point that some people may have brains which are best 'wired for woo', as it were. If this is so, some people are going to be intrinsically harder to persuade than others ... just out of interest Doc, do you know of any converse evidence, suggesting that certain groups (scientists, say) have a generally high tolerance for ambiguity?

Interestingly, I would have said this exactly the other way around. The reason I became a scientist (and I think this is true for many others) is precisely because I hate not knowing what is going on. The difference seems to be not tolerance of ambiguity, but rather how they attempt to resolve it. The woos must know, at the back of their minds, that they do not actually have the answers and so they are never quite happy and constantly on the defensive against anything that might force them to acknowledge that the ambiguity is still there. Scientists, on the other hand, know that the ambiguity still exists, but choose live with it and try to reduce it rather than simply pretending it isn't there.

In fact, this is quite similar to what I wrote in the "Science vs. religion" post. The difference between science and any woo is that when confronted with the unknown, the woos try to paper over it and pretend it doesn't exist, while scientists try to find a lasting solution. While we are forced to live with more uncertainty in our daily lives, we are happy with this because we know we are working to get rid of it, while the woos pretend it is not there, but deep down know that it still is and always will be, and so they are never as happy with their answers.

[Blue Wode]

The CSICOP article, ‘Why Bad Beliefs Don’t Die’, is fascinating. It more or less makes the same point that Jocky makes, i.e. that what we perceive as a failure to understand critical thinking does not always result from believers’ lack of understanding per se, but that it could be their subconscious defence against information which is intuitively identified as a significant threat.

This from the article:


Beliefs, in essence, serve as our brain’s “long-range danger detectors”.

-snip-

By referring to my belief rather than to sensory data, my brain can “know” something about the world which I have no immediate sensory contact. This “extends my brain’s knowledge of and contact with the world.

The ability of belief to extend contact with the world beyond the range of our immediate senses substantially improves our ability to survive.

The brain “knowing” idea also seems to support Karla McLaren’s view that believers create answers (beliefs) in order to manage their anxieties.

This is also interesting:


As far as our brain is concerned, there is absolutely no need for data and belief to agree. They have each evolved to augment and supplement one another by contacting different sections of the world. They are designed to be able to disagree. This is why scientists can believe in God and people who are generally quite reasonable and rational can believe in things for which there is no credible data such as flying saucers, telepathy, and psychokinesis.

When data and belief come into conflict, the brain does not automatically give preference to data.

The great skeptic, Martin Gardner, would probably be able to relate to that. This from his Wikipedia profile:


Gardner believes in God, claiming that this belief cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by reason.

-snip-

Gardner's philosophy may be summarized as follows: There is nothing supernatural, and nothing in human reason or visible in the world to compel people to believe in God. The mystery of existence is enchanting, but a belief in The Old One comes from faith without evidence. However, with faith and prayer people can find greater happiness than without. If there is an afterlife, the loving Old One is real. "[To an atheist] the universe is the most exquisite masterpiece ever constructed by nobody", from G. K. Chesterton, is one of Martin's favorite quotes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner


This would suggest that a desire for continuity in happiness (and therefore diminished anxiety) also plays a role in the need to believe in irrational concepts.

Regards Jocky’s question “What is it that woos find so colossally threatening about reality and what is it about skeptics which apparently inoculates them against sharing this debilitating fear?”, it looks like the answer might lie in this excerpt from the article:


Skeptics' ability to alter their own beliefs in response to data is a true gift; a unique, powerful, and precious ability. It is genuinely a "higher brain function" in that it goes against some of the most natural and fundamental biological urges. Skeptics must appreciate the power and, truly, the dangerousness that this ability bestows upon them. They have in their possession a skill that can be frightening, life-changing, and capable of inducing pain. In turning this ability on others it should be used carefully and wisely. Challenging beliefs must always be done with care and compassion.

Unfortunately, the advice contained in that last sentence isn’t always easy to follow.

[median]

Skeptics' ability to alter their own beliefs in response to data is a true gift; a unique, powerful, and precious ability. It is genuinely a "higher brain function" ........ Skeptics must appreciate the power and, truly, the dangerousness that this ability bestows upon them........ In turning this ability on others it should be used carefully and wisely. Challenging beliefs must always be done with care and compassion.


Sounds slightly messianic to me. ???
Kind of thing that gives skeptics a bad press :-\

[Dr B]

I still dont buy the 'world view being threatened' account. I just dont find it that explicit or useful. I gave my reasons in my earlier posts. O0

[Dr B]

Interestingly, I would have said this exactly the other way around. The reason I became a scientist (and I think this is true for many others) is precisely because I hate not knowing what is going on. The difference seems to be not tolerance of ambiguity, but rather how they attempt to resolve it.

I agree - how one solves it is the difference - but the tolerance for ambiguity is not an absolute concept as you seem to imply. It refers to an attitude where we resist the temptation to jump to conclusions prematurely and we are happy to ask questions and seek more evidence before we make a decision - however, we want to make that decision as quickly as we can. Ultimately a scientist does not want ambiguity - but they also do not want to generate nonsense just so we dont have it. I think this is what is meant by this approach. Perhaps it should be called something like a tolerance for 'immediate ambiguity' to be more accurate.



The woos must know, at the back of their minds, that they do not actually have the answers and so they are never quite happy and constantly on the defensive against anything that might force them to acknowledge that the ambiguity is still there.

I am not sure they are 'aware' of the ambiguity or if its implicit...but you make an interesting point and I could see some much needed research on this.