@Ben Eshbach, consiracy theorists/true believers call themselves skeptics and freethinkers when they are anything but.
To be truly skeptical is to employ critical thinking to assess all the available evidence as well as the quality of evidence before coming to a conclusion on a dubious claim, as well as the ability to change one's mind if new evidence is presented.
Conspiracy theorists on the other hand have already made up their mind and use confirmation bias to accept evidence that supports their argument while disregarding evidence that contradicts it as all part of the consiracy. This is not freethinking.
@Fata Morgana, it is a strawman argument to accuse people of treating science like a cult or religion when scientists do no such thing.
I believe hmm... was intending to express that a person thinking scientifically shouldn't believe in a paranormal being when there is no evidence to support its existence. You may say there is no evidence that it doesn't exist but because it is scientifically impossible to prove a negative, and the religious are the ones making the claim, the onus of proof is on those who argue that god does exist. If and until such proof arises, the scientific thing to do is to say that there is not enough evidence to support the existence of a god/s.
As for the argument that god cannot by its very nature be observed, well then the claim that god does exist is not a scientific one. As such, the scientific thing to do again is to say that there is not enough evidence to support the extstence of a god/s.
And I'd just like to point out that when I say I am a skeptic and a freethinker, I am using those words in the sense of scientific skepticism and the skeptical movement, which applies the same critical eye towards conspiracy theories as everything else. I disapprove of global warming denialists ,9/11 "truthers", and birthers hijacking these terms for themselves.
Thanks for the patronising lecture, but I consider myself a skeptic and a freethinker, and I am always trying to improve my critical thinking skills.
I do not believe everything the media tells me (far from it), nor did I comment on whether I agreed or disagreed that OBL is dead, but clearly people who are so certain that OBL died years ago and the US government has covered it up without a shread of evidence are buying into a conspiracy theory.
@ Vonskippy, lol. I would however argue that you can be smart and religious. Francis Collins is an Evangelical Christian who was the head of the human genome project for 15 years and is a prominent advocate and defender of evolution. He provides an admirable example of how people can be religious without letting their faith compromise their scientific views, or trying to push their religious views on others.
One of the central characteristics of a conspiracy theory is that evidence contradicting the theory is interpreted to be all part of the conspiracy. So somehow conspiracy theorists manage to flip evidence against their theory in their heads into evidence that supports it.
This is why once a person buys into a consiracy it is very difficult to change their mind.
What I don't understand is why articles such as the one linked never provide a reference for the studies they discuss so that people have an opportunity to check it out for themselves?
For all we know, only a small fraction of participants were in the angry god group, which would offer a poor representation of the target population (keeping in mind they were all 1st year college students too). Similarly, the dependent variable (taking advantage of a computer glitch to cheat in a test) is not necessarily a good predictor of how individuals will perform in all moral/ethical situations.
The study is correlational in nature and offered no control, so there may be extraneous or confounding variables that correlate with belief type that may have affected the results above and beyond the type of god they believe in.
This study also had extremely high face validity so it would have been quite obvious that they were measuring whether or not the students would cheat, which may have affected results. First years are usually subjected to a range of social experiments and come to be quite good at picking up on the intent of studies and may inintentionally malinger.
It's clear that some believers will interpret this as to why people should believe in god (especially a mean god), but if a study came out saying that a belief in unicorns enhanced moral behaviour, does that mean we should be promoting unicorn belief?
@John London & elizamel, Honestly people? Neither autism or auditory processing disorder are characterised by chranio-facial abnormalities. Her face looks normal to me. There is some co-morbidity between the two, but many people with APD do not have autism and vice versa. You could make the argument that she has hyperacusis (a sensitivity to loud sounds), or just aknowledge that it's normal for a child to be a little frightened and cover their ears when thousands of people below them are cheering, screaming, and whistling, and jets are flying overhead. She was very well behaved throughout the ceremony.
It is extremely difficult to change belief in a conspiracy theory as any evidence to the contrary is only interpreted to be part of the conspiracy. This is confirmation bias at its most extreme - evidence to support the conspiracy is acknowledged while evidence to the contrary is dismissed as part of the conspiracy or ignored entirely.
I agree with others above who have stated that a belief in conspiracy theories is quite the opposite of skepticism. To be skeptical is to aknowledge all the evidence before coming to a conclusion. A central characteristic of skepticism is the ability to change your mind if new evidence is presented that is in contrary to your beliefs, which these apologists are clearly not capable of doing.
I also agree with Ryan S who correctly pointed out that this is not an example of cognitive dissonance (a term which is frequently misused on this site). Confirmation bias is a more appropriate cognitive bias to explain such behaviour.
To be truly skeptical is to employ critical thinking to assess all the available evidence as well as the quality of evidence before coming to a conclusion on a dubious claim, as well as the ability to change one's mind if new evidence is presented.
Conspiracy theorists on the other hand have already made up their mind and use confirmation bias to accept evidence that supports their argument while disregarding evidence that contradicts it as all part of the consiracy. This is not freethinking.
I believe hmm... was intending to express that a person thinking scientifically shouldn't believe in a paranormal being when there is no evidence to support its existence. You may say there is no evidence that it doesn't exist but because it is scientifically impossible to prove a negative, and the religious are the ones making the claim, the onus of proof is on those who argue that god does exist. If and until such proof arises, the scientific thing to do is to say that there is not enough evidence to support the existence of a god/s.
As for the argument that god cannot by its very nature be observed, well then the claim that god does exist is not a scientific one. As such, the scientific thing to do again is to say that there is not enough evidence to support the extstence of a god/s.
Thanks for the patronising lecture, but I consider myself a skeptic and a freethinker, and I am always trying to improve my critical thinking skills.
I do not believe everything the media tells me (far from it), nor did I comment on whether I agreed or disagreed that OBL is dead, but clearly people who are so certain that OBL died years ago and the US government has covered it up without a shread of evidence are buying into a conspiracy theory.
This is why once a person buys into a consiracy it is very difficult to change their mind.
For all we know, only a small fraction of participants were in the angry god group, which would offer a poor representation of the target population (keeping in mind they were all 1st year college students too). Similarly, the dependent variable (taking advantage of a computer glitch to cheat in a test) is not necessarily a good predictor of how individuals will perform in all moral/ethical situations.
The study is correlational in nature and offered no control, so there may be extraneous or confounding variables that correlate with belief type that may have affected the results above and beyond the type of god they believe in.
This study also had extremely high face validity so it would have been quite obvious that they were measuring whether or not the students would cheat, which may have affected results. First years are usually subjected to a range of social experiments and come to be quite good at picking up on the intent of studies and may inintentionally malinger.
It's clear that some believers will interpret this as to why people should believe in god (especially a mean god), but if a study came out saying that a belief in unicorns enhanced moral behaviour, does that mean we should be promoting unicorn belief?
Honestly people? Neither autism or auditory processing disorder are characterised by chranio-facial abnormalities. Her face looks normal to me. There is some co-morbidity between the two, but many people with APD do not have autism and vice versa. You could make the argument that she has hyperacusis (a sensitivity to loud sounds), or just aknowledge that it's normal for a child to be a little frightened and cover their ears when thousands of people below them are cheering, screaming, and whistling, and jets are flying overhead. She was very well behaved throughout the ceremony.
I also agree with Ryan S who correctly pointed out that this is not an example of cognitive dissonance (a term which is frequently misused on this site). Confirmation bias is a more appropriate cognitive bias to explain such behaviour.