Interconnects
Reply #46 – 2008-07-02 16:17:58
Not at all. This way of thinking has exploded over the last few decades precisely because the real world no longer bites individuals who act on such irrational reasoning in the way it would when the world was poorer. On the contrary, we could probably come up with lots of examples where disbelieving the science can be harmful. One example I can come up with is seat belts. All of the statistics show that wearing seat belts dramatically improves the odds of surviving a crash, but there are still people who heard of one example where someone survived because they were thrown clear, and because of that they refuse to wear a seat belt. Any more examples? There are also many - though, less known - examples where "believing" in what is called "science" caused widespread myths. What you ignore in your example, is that the "error" which those "few people" make, isn't "disbelieving in science" but simply believing something regardless of available information plus inability to efficiently analyze information. Your example doesn't show the "truthfullness" of science, but simply the inefficience of being dishonest and unable/unwilling to properly analyze information. honestguv's argument is valid. How much people can afford to lie/believe depends on how severe the consequences of them are. This is why humans have a long record of only thinking and acting honest at the last possible chance - in other words, being forced to choose between imminent honesty and imminent disaster.