Why do seemingly sane adults believe in childish nonsense? Better yet, why do educated adults, some with high intelligence, believe in demonstrably false fairy tales? This is something that has bothered me most of my adult life. I, for one, think it a terrible tragedy and one that prevents the human race from progressing as it might. I think I have an answer but that doesn’t mean this elaborate fortress of fabrication can be easily demolished.
Ghosts
Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that a manifestation of a human, presumably in the form in which he or she died, pop in and out of our realm on some inexplicable schedule and without apparent reason except maybe to frighten us. 99.9% of us aren’t afforded this exciting experience and to this day (2011), there isn’t a shred of solid supporting evidence and yet we’re supposed to believe in that .1%? Without even discussing the violation of the laws of physics or even more mundanely, the law of death, the absurdities nevertheless pile up like crushed beer cans in a freshman dorm.
Do ghosts appear of their own free will? And if they have a free will, why don’t they appear more often? Wouldn’t you want to see your brother or sister or wife or girlfriend and say “hey, it’s not so bad over here, we’ll have a great time when you get here, so don’t worry”. Well, ok, granted, perhaps they think oh I’ll scare them to death so I better not bother. But what do they do in the meantime? Do they have consciousness? Isn’t it boring for God’s sake, lollygagging around with nothing to do until it’s time to pop over into the “real” universe and scare somebody? Who makes the rules over there? Oh I know, I’ve heard the ridiculous notion that poor dead souls are somehow unhappy with how they went out so they’re hanging around until pleased with things here before moving on to yet another elevated realm of non-existence. Please! Why not just pop in and tell someone to erect you a headstone and move on? Why not appear to someone stable who might help you address your grievances rather than the emotionally shaky among us? How fun is it to traverse this neverland in a wait state? Get busy haunting and move on for Christmas’ sake.
The questions of a six year old can’t be answered let alone those of an adult. Now I know the defenders of the faith, and let’s face it – it is a faith, will say that we can’t rely on science or rationality because this is something beyond, something that humans cannot and will never understand. Nonsense! This is a fallback argument to defend the indefensible – “Oh we just can’t understand it, it’s beyond humans, no use in trying” – the same argument made when Galileo studied the heavens. To dismiss the rational weakens rather than strengthens the argument, in fact it ends any argument, just as when the faithful say “I know it’s irrational but I believe it anyway” – very like a child stamping in the corner saying “yes I did climb the beanstalk to heaven”.
Poltergeists – see Ghosts – equally ridiculous
Loch Ness
Unlike with spectral fantasies, there is no rational, scientific or common sense reason that the Loch Ness monster couldn’t exist. We discover new species all the time and will continue to. It’s possible that a large prehistoric creature has survived and avoided our detection but how likely is it?, Not very! Many people have spent a lot of time and money to find this creature, some with state-of-the-art scientific equipment, yet without success. We’ve scoured the lake umpteen times; we’ve analyzed the photos with the finest equipment. We’ve all but emptied and dragged the lake. Dragon myths are undeniably fun and why this one has survived; yet, it’s time to admit the beast is slain and put the notion to rest. I know it will cut down on money making documentaries and the excitement of the yearly sighting but people c’mon, there really are enough compelling things to do in the real world without the need for rehashing fairy tales. Leave those for children for whom it has a positive and decisive purpose.
Sasquatch/Yeti/Abominable Snowman
The Sasquatch phenomenon is identical to that of Loch Ness. The creature cannot be eliminated by reason alone, again it’s possible that a bipedal hominid has survived and remained hidden from us – the evil and dangerous humans – but lest it seem like I’m repeating myself, let me repeat myself, how likely is it?, Hmmm, not very! To think that a creature could be living in the woods without us as yet finding any evidence is a pretty outlandish idea; no bones, fire pits, animal carcasses, clothes, ornaments, dvd’s oh uh sorry but you get my point. Perhaps there are some pockets of Neanderthal’s hidden and surviving in the wild but if so, they’re a helluva lot smarter than we are.
UFO’s
Of course UFO’s exist; we all know that. Spaceships piloted by space aliens however, which many consider synonymous with UFO’s, is an entirely different story. Again, this is something that is theoretically possible but I’d put it in a category even less likely than that of the Yeti or Loch Ness mainly because of the distances involved. The universe is infinite for all practical purposes and the idea that ours is the only life sustaining planet is downright scary. But for a civilization to reach a point where it can travel to the stars (somehow overcoming distances in light years) and then choose to visit us and have been here for god knows how long and somehow they’re interested in our nuclear facilities and our reproductive abilities and blah blah blah… ad absurdum. With all this acitivity and through all this time we still haven’t one valid shred of evidence – yes we have lots of fakery – but nothing that can stand up to scientific scrutiny. I know, these guys are too clever for us, way more advanced than we, just toying with us hmm… but then they can’t reproduce? They haven’t figured out how to do that in a laboratory yet they’ve solved the space-time barrier. Hmm… Or they want our minerals which are available everywhere or they’re threatened by our mini-nukes or some other nonsense which is incongruous simply with their ability to get here. And how did they find us in the first place? Are we that important? I know we think we are. We’ve only recently developed the technology to send a signal to space and that only in our small corner of the milky way – did they hear our radio waves and decide “hey let’s go see those guys” – but no wait, I forgot, they’ve been here since prehistoric times. Hmmm… If they are here there is no evidence they’re doing anything either. Our nukes are not being expunged. Pollution runs amok. Our cattle and humans are reproducing just fine. I could continue but the point is – it only takes a little logic to start making these silly ideas fall apart. There are no aliens flittering about our skies doing nothing people, sorry.
Conspiracy theories
Ok, we all know, conspiracies do exist just as UFO’s do. With that said, I feel fairly confident in stating that of the ones I’ve heard 99% are nonsense. I’ve studied the Kennedy assassination case and I’m convinced that Oswald was a lone ranger – I could be wrong about this – but I mention this only because this case is more open to such a possibility than nearly any other; MLK, same thing, a mad loner. And no, despite the lawlessness and immorality of the Dubya administration, it didn’t have the competence to bomb the twin towers it selves. We know the Arabs that did, and their families and their histories and their plans. We also have an excellent science based explanation of how and why the towers fell; sorry, no need for the CIA to plant bombs at prescribed intervals. My favorite is the Council of 12, the aliens controlling everything or is it a handful of rich Rothschild Jews? All great stuff; if the creative people who come up with this crap put their minds to more worthwhile endeavors we could solve many of the world’s ills. Sorry believers but the burden of proof is on you, not me, please provide a scrap of evidence for anything I’ve mentioned thus far, anything, and remember, credible evidence that can withstand scientific scrutiny, not photographs of flying garbage lids or the recordings of delusional people on meds. I’ll wait.
God
This is the biggie. We all want one of it, what I call Daddy, a big all powerful Daddy that protects us and makes sure everything is Ok. It’s natural to desire this but just as a child grows and realizes Daddy isn’t all that he was cracked up to be; we must grow beyond the childhood of our species and accept what nature delivers. To paraphrase an M.I.T. astrophysics professor, “in some cases absence of evidence is evidence of absence.” The human race exists by a combination of accident and the universes’ tendency toward increasing complexity and in seeming contradiction, escalating entropy.
If the dinosaurs aren’t whacked by an asteroid we don’t exist. If a small group of our ancestors don’t survive the Ice age we’re toast. If the Pikaia vertebrate doesn’t survive the Cambrian in the burgess shale we’re a non-entity. We’ve survived by the skin of our teeth many times as other branches of the human tree have become extinct. This will no doubt happen again, perhaps this time of our own doing, and will anyone care, will any God care? The short and long answer is No. No more than any god cared when we lived brutal short violent lives as cave men or when we suffered through the bubonic plague or flu epidemics or the holocaust or untold wars. Nobody came and nobody cared and nobody listened. If we blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons or suffocate ourselves with global warming, no one is coming to the rescue. We need to grow up and own up to this fact as many of us undoubtedly already have. We needed to invent a god when we didn’t know what the moon was or why the rains came or why the leopard ate our child but we know these things now and it’s time for philosophy to catch up to knowledge. Delusions are fun and even essential at times but overall, for an individual or a society, are ultimately harmful.
Think how far ahead we might be if we could discard the tyrannical hand of religion! Think of the Dark Ages and the Catholic Church’s persecution and prosecution of scientists, thinkers, rationalists. Consider the Taliban and evangelical Christians today – doing everything in their power to take us back and deny rational thinking and science – their childish denial of the fact of nature called Darwinian evolution, their rejection of the overwhelming evidence for man-made global warming, their refusal to support stem cell research – all extremely detrimental to the species. And has been the case throughout history, the ignorant are the loudest, the least tolerant and the most violent and will use any means to bully their way into power (see the Republican Party in the U.S. today).
A pantheistic god or even a deistic god is not an unreasonable position but a personal god is, it’s arrogant beyond belief to begin with (in this grain of sand in the universe some god cares about what we’re up to?) and flies squarely in the face of the evidence. Do we care about the microbes frolicking under the geysers in the Arctic? To be more succinct I’ll paraphrase the Italian journalist Oriani Fallaci, “what kind of a god would make creatures that must eat each other to survive?” It’s a simple, crude, concise question that is somehow profound. We don’t need a god people, we’re on our own, cheer up; we can do it.
Astrology
This fake science may exist solely because it is so much fun. I admit, I sometimes ask people his or her sign and enjoy the ensuing conversation. But I can also discuss ghost stories, fantasy and science fiction with enthusiasm. In fact, I’m all for escapism of this sort, it’s good for the imagination and probably has some cathartic effect but when someone proclaims that it’s real that’s where I draw the line.
The idea that heavenly bodies can influence personality is certainly an imaginative one. Of course stars and planets affect earth’s gravitational fields and indirectly us as well but that’s about as far as you can take it. This promotes the fallacy of applying macro realities to the micro level or vice versa. This was the theme of that silly movie “What the bleep do we know?” where the peculiarities of quantum behavior were extrapolated to the macro world, suggesting that we could change the outcome of events such as jumping off a building if we really wanted to. Horse manure! I’ll stand by while you give it a shot but that’s a reality test I’m not willing to try – all evidence thus far shows the result to be consistent. People will do anything to believe in magic and this idea is but another example, albeit dressed in scientific frocks. The notion that a constellation millions of light years away may make you adventurous because you were born in September and the star cluster is in the Northeastern night sky, well, do I really need to point out the absurdity of this?
Numerology – see Astrology (same nonsense with numbers)
Conclusion
Obviously many more fairy tales could be added to this list. I needn’t add religion since I basically covered it in the god category. Crop circles, alien abduction, out-of-body experiences, palm reading, ESP, any paranormal mumbo jumbo – the list is nearly endless but I wish to keep this short and covering every nonsensical idea would take too long. The important point is why? Why do we have a seeming need to believe in nonsense? I think there are a few simple answers.
As I mentioned earlier, in reality we are nothing more than cave men in suits. Fear of the unknown is in our genes and what better coping mechanism than to make up stories of explanation. This is quite understandable and probably very helpful at one time to survival but not in 2011! Another factor is our imaginations, again something absolutely crucial to our longevity but a consequence of which is often a desire to believe in hocus pocus today. It’s pleasing to believe there are little Walter de la Mare fairies frolicking in the weeds or leather faced aliens patrolling our skies or giant Neanderthal monsters munching on wart hogs in the forest – such things make the world more exciting and interesting and so we really want to believe them contrary to any evidence. It pleases our minds and imaginations and keeps the mundane facts of existence somewhat at bay. This is equivalent to the fact that most people vote not based on reason, facts, ideas, positions, but on emotion. How many of us know people who will stick to a political position when corroborated facts are placed before them contradicting it? Yet, like a computer glitch, they will repeat the same fatuous arguments again and again. This is what we’re up against – the feel good position, like the anti-evolution position, which has no interest in the facts but only in maintaining the delusion.
Something more fundamental and psychological is going on here; the entire scaffolding of some people’s ideas would come crashing down if certain thoughts gained credence and the thought of this is too much – they wouldn’t know how to live – this is the true fear. This willful ignorance is very human and very dangerous. It’s caused untold suffering throughout history. These psychological constructs are, in my opinion, why adults believe in fairy tales. Is there any hope for overcoming this barrier to progress, this embracing of the irrational, this colossal waste of time and good minds?; well, I must say I’m skeptical. I guess one changed mind at a time is better than nothing. It’s always been the rational few that have moved the species forward and that will probably have to continue.
I’m sure at one time a group of cavemen hovered howling at the moon while one guy on the side worked at constructing the wheel. I’m sure dozens of monks prayed for healthy crops while Gregor Mendel toiled in his garden discovering the laws of genetics. Guess which one got better crop results? Nothing quite like a religious scientist – must love that one – he probably wasn’t’ really pious but it was and still is too good a gig to pass up. Imagine if Einstein wasted his mind on ghost stories instead of concentrating on the laws of physics or if Copernicus or Galileo didn’t tinker with telescopes to figure out our position in the universe; the Catholic Church would still insist that the earth is flat and persecute anyone who begged to differ. Yes the rationalists, the thinkers, the progressives are few and it is to them that we owe our existence. I even have an idea to save the healthcare industry – deny coverage to those who don’t accept the theory of evolution – since all modern medicine results from its understanding. Sign a form when you come in, otherwise sorry, I’m sure God will save you, next. Cruel, I know, isn’t it! Almost as cruel as current Republican plans to cut Medicare and Medicaid and throw the unworthy to the streets as the wealthy amass more of the pile. But that’s another discussion for another time.
The purpose here is not to say science is the answer to all things or there is no room in society for fantasy, superstition or mythology. In fact, I think these things are essential, especially imagination, for without it science couldn’t progress; i.e., see Einstein. The problem arises only when people claim these fantasies to be truths of nature; this cannot be abided as extrapolations like this hinder progress and confuse valid avenues of inquiry.
The world is rife with problems and its solution lies in the proper use of reason and rationality. These will not come via fantasy, superstition or pseudo-science. We need our minds, our research and our money going to the right places. Imagine if we redirected all the money wasted on palm readings, ghost tours, the UFO industry and churches for that matter into the coffers of stem cell researchers, NASA, the CDC and cancer scientists. Funding is important, cutting it, along with a trend toward a lack of good practitioners, has grave consequences. Think of the advancement in gadgetry over the last 20 years versus that in medicine. Not very close is it. Where do you think the money’s going? Are our priorities in order?
Civilization is but a blip on the human radar screen. If we wish it to continue we must use reason, that which elevates us above most other animals – although this is debatable – and we must fight those that would return us to the dark ages of ignorance and fear or those that would push us into new age nonsense because it seems cool – when both are equally irrational and worthless.
We do have an emotional need to believe in fairy tales and we have a genetic wire that promotes the supernatural; these are very hard to overcome but we have survived not because of these tendencies but despite them. Although it will be very hard to let these childhood fantasies go, we should be comforted in the fact that we can engage these mirages to our hearts desire in movies, fiction and the arts. We don’t have to let what feels good go completely, we need only root it out from rational discourse. This should please the irrational among us. Long live Harry Potter, Dracula and the X files, just don’t confuse these with the National Academy of Science.