Please read the following column by Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal:
Maybe We're All Conspiracy Theorists
Do you think the author is right to make the suggestion in the title? What feature of the human brain, according to Michael Shermer, makes us particularly prone to conspiracy theory thinking? Do you think religious beliefs resemble conspiracy theories? Why?
It is a common fault in human psychology that we often do not use Occam's Razor; we are often more ready to accept an outrageously unlikely explanation for an event or phenomenon than the simplest one. For example, some people believe that the moon landing never happened. They find one small, easily accounted for discrepancy ("that rock's shadow is pointing the wrong way!"), and, based on the first explanation they can think of for how it got there ("it was faked!") and create an elaborate and flimsy explanation for it, finding more "evidence" along the way. ("his suit is the wrong color!") This could be a leftover evolutionary advantage, or it could simply be that we would rather seek out information to support our beliefs than arguments against them. In the case of religion, yes, they do resemble conspiracy theories. The origins of religions usually appear to follow the aforementioned pattern. However, the same can be said for atheism. In any case, simply denouncing all other sides as conspiracy theories will not help much in a search for truth.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the title is fine, because that is what the article is about. The title with that name also catches the reader's eye. What I mean by that is, it is an interesting topic and title. The part of the brain tha makes us think of conspiraces so much if the belief engine. I do not think that religion and conspiracy theories are the same. Religion is somthing that people can debate about, and so are conspiracy theories. Religion is more of faith than conspiracy theories. Religion is something that you believe in very deeply and emontionally. Where conspiacy theories is something that you think about and ponder. So I feel that religion is not the same thing as conspircy theories.
ReplyDeleteI think the author is right to make the suggestion in the title. I also think that their thought about the brain is true. That is most likely why we have optical illusions. The problem is that this 'believeing' part isn't just with illusions, it is also with theories, hence the name of the article. This is the same thing with religious beliefs. We think there is a god up there.
ReplyDeleteThere was also a quote i heard from an Exile song called 'The Sound Is God. It Went something like this...
"The quest for liberation, the quest for deliverance from thinking that you are just you, and realizing after all who you are. We’re all entranced, we’re all spellbound - under the influence of a certain kind of thinking. Which makes us just like hypnotized chickens, with their noses to a white chalk line; they can’t get up. So in the same way, that white chalk line corresponds to the ego. Each one of us thinks, “I am I”. We’ve been told so, we’ve been educated that from childhood - so we think, “I am I”. Not this ‘I’ we think we are, but the ‘I’ which is everything."
I think the title suits the article very well, as the article proposes that the two sides of an argument could be right when they label the opposing side as crazy and unwilling to let go of their biases and face the facts. This suggests that people arguing about a topic where neither side has any solid evidence to support their claims is a conspiracy theorist in their own right. Mr. Shermer pointed out that the brain is a sort of "belief engine", meaning that it is capable of creating and finding patterns where there are none. I would say that in a way, religion does resemble conspiracy theories. This is because both rely more on belief than actual proof. Not to say that either religion or conspiracy theories wrong, they're just not provable at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI think the author is fine to use the title because it makes the audience want to read more and maybe there is some truth to it as well. Michael Shermer believes that the human brain picks out patterns in any situation where they might not be one at all. He believes that the brain doesn't want to accept that things just happen by chance. If you think like Michael Shermer, that "the brain doesn't want to accept that things just happen by chance" then yes, religious beliefs could resemble conspiracy theories only because people with a strong sense of faith in religion want to believe in a higher power, not that humans just appeared on earth for no reason.
ReplyDeleteThe author is right to make the suggestion in his title. At some point, everyone has tried to support their own conspiracy whether they realized it at the time or not (like that teacher who was "out to get you"). The "belief engine" part of the brain makes us prone to conspiracy thinking. Humans like everything to have a reason behind it, no matter how extraneous the reason may sound. It is comforting to know that there was a cause for something occuring. Religious beliefs can resemble conspiracy theories. People will defend their religious beliefs, no matter how much evidence is shown that proves them wrong. I think this is because there is a part of every human being that finds comfort in knowing why things happen. Humans don't want to believe that things happen at random, so they come up with various theories to explain events (hence why there are so many religions, each with different beliefs).
ReplyDeleteI think the author is within his rights to make the suggestion in the title. Everybody has a theory about something, and everybody has that one topic or event that sets them over the edge of reasoning and into the land of obsessing, because of what Shermer states about the brain: the brain is "predisposed to see patterns where none exist and to attribute them to knowing agents rather than to chance." It's in this way that such thinking is similar to religion. People find patterns, in this case unexplained experiences or phenomena, and attribute them to what they believe is a logical explanation; religion.
ReplyDeleteI think that the title is right for what he is saying. He has a right to express his opinion so there should not be anything wrong with saying that. The 'belief engine' is what makes us think of these theories. Religion is in way like one of these theories but at the same time it is also something completely different. I think they are the same because lots of people follow it and support and there is people who think it is wrong. Also there is no hard evidence out there to support it concretely. But at the same time it is different because it's almost like a step past the theory level it's not thought of a theory much it's thought of something much more real then that.
ReplyDeleteI believe the author had his rights to make this movie called that. The reason why I am saying that is because it brings the audience in and make them want to know more. Everybody and I mean everybody has something they would like to know. Micheal Shermer believes that the brain picks out certain patterns and they all may not all be there.
ReplyDeleteThe title for this article is fine. The article itself is mostly about conspiracy theories and it is an interesting title at that. The part of the brain that makes us think of these theories is the "belief engine". A conspiracy theory is something that a person thinks of, studies and wonders about all the time. Even though we do these same things with religion sometimes, religion is something that you could have grown up with, something that your family has taught you to believe in and something that you yourself faithfully believes in. Conspiracy theories are things that ,usually, you yourself thinks up.
ReplyDeletewe all lose faith someway, if it is bad things like losing your parents,your house get burned down.People want proof just so they ask questions about why did u let this happen when bad things happen like Ellie in the movie. So she tells the guy when she is bed that maybe you saw it because you needed to see it.
ReplyDeleteThe Author is total right about the title. We are constantly trying to prove of disprove something. If we believe that something is true then, we conspire to try to find edvidence for our opinion. Like if someone believes in God they will do anything to prove God is real. But if someone believes in science they will do anything to prove science. It depends what religion, like Jehovah's Wittness's believe only a certain amount pf people get to heaven.
ReplyDeleteYes the title is valid. human beings are so willing to accept because they need to make connections so that things make sense. we crave truth. so even when there is nothing hidden, we like to think things for one excitement and two, justification.
ReplyDeleteI think this was a good choice for the a title. Connections are always being made between two ideas so truth can be found. Assumptions are also made to find truth in things where the truth is non-existent. It's all part of human nature: our brains are wired in such a way that it can never change.
ReplyDelete