So I recently watched a series of youtube videos that got me thinking. (Uh Oh!) The first video was Dr. Chris French from the University of London (also editor
of skeptic magazine) talking to the host of skptiko.com about how he feels that there are psychological reasons why people believe in things such as the super
natural or conspiracy theories. It seems that everywhere I see a debate between skeptics and believers the skeptic is always making personal attacks on the
believer and it's always made me curious as to why this happens because to me this would indicate an obvious loss on the part of the person doing to
attacking. BUT.....It occurred to me while watching this video that though the skeptic always appears to be at a loss and thus resorts to personal attacks,
this may not actually be the case.
See, the skeptics like Dr. French are sooooo overly convinced that they are right that they assume there must be a psychological reason to the believers views. What they always fail to acknowledge is that if you are going to say that there are psychological reason why people believe then you must also be willing to say that there are psychological reasons why some people are skeptical...and not only skeptical but "overly" skeptical or what we call "extreme skeptics" here.
I reflected on my life and if there may be a reason why I believe in certain conspiracy theories. Dr. French says that people believe in the government conspiracy in order to make sense of the world. That is complete non-sense. If anything the world makes more sense without the theory. I didn't always believe in this conspiracy and the world was a much simpler place before I did. So now I am wondering if maybe the skeptic cannot believe in the conspiracy because it would overly complicate his world. The believer, in my case, has been convinced through evidence that there is a conspiracy while the skeptic won't even bother to take a serious look at the evidence in fear that the evidence may be right. If the evidence is right then his entire world view is crushed, as well as his pride because he prides himself on being a skeptic.
In summery I feel that the extreme or better yet, career skeptic has psychological reasons for dis-belief. The same goes for both sides. The believer needs to stop defending himself and point out to the skeptic that everyone has personal biases.
See, the skeptics like Dr. French are sooooo overly convinced that they are right that they assume there must be a psychological reason to the believers views. What they always fail to acknowledge is that if you are going to say that there are psychological reason why people believe then you must also be willing to say that there are psychological reasons why some people are skeptical...and not only skeptical but "overly" skeptical or what we call "extreme skeptics" here.
I reflected on my life and if there may be a reason why I believe in certain conspiracy theories. Dr. French says that people believe in the government conspiracy in order to make sense of the world. That is complete non-sense. If anything the world makes more sense without the theory. I didn't always believe in this conspiracy and the world was a much simpler place before I did. So now I am wondering if maybe the skeptic cannot believe in the conspiracy because it would overly complicate his world. The believer, in my case, has been convinced through evidence that there is a conspiracy while the skeptic won't even bother to take a serious look at the evidence in fear that the evidence may be right. If the evidence is right then his entire world view is crushed, as well as his pride because he prides himself on being a skeptic.
In summery I feel that the extreme or better yet, career skeptic has psychological reasons for dis-belief. The same goes for both sides. The believer needs to stop defending himself and point out to the skeptic that everyone has personal biases.
