In the third decade of the third millennium, we face deadly threats to our health, our democracy, and the livability of our planet. Though the problems are daunting, solutions exist, and our species has the intellectual wherewithal to find them. Yet among our fiercest problems today is convincing people to accept the solutions when we find them.
Steven Pinker, Rationality. What It Is,
Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
Are humans rational or irrational? How do we acquire knowledge? What are the reliable or authoritative sources of knowledge? Should we trust our senses to understand the world? What distinguishes science from nonscience? Is science the most reliable way to acquire knowledge?
We live through perilous times. It is impossible not to notice the tremendous damage and suffering around the world caused, directly or indirectly, by climate change: stronger and more frequent storms, flooding in places, drought and record heat in others, catastrophic wildfires, and rising sea levels. The most impacted are the poor and those living in small island countries, which are paying the price for the pollution and greenhouse emissions generated mostly by industrialized nations. The reduction in arable land and drinkable water will inevitably lead to widespread conflict, as is already happening in many parts of the world.
Should we despair? The answer is no if we can put our act together. Some of the damage to the ecosystems may be irreversible, but we are highly adaptable and collectively we can do quite a bit to prevent things from getting worse. There are promising technologies on the horizon that, we hope, can help us avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. One of them is the possibility of harnessing the unlimited power of nuclear fusion, the energy that fuels stars like our sun. Another one is quantum computing, which uses the strangeness of the atomic particles to do calculations that would take millions of years for classical computers. These computers could spur the development of new chemicals, addressing the problems of climate change and food scarcity.
The main challenge, however, is not technological but social as we need to work together to achieve these goals. This seems a hopeless dream in today’s highly polarized society. Not only do people disagree on what strategies are more effective in combating the effects of global warming, but also, crucially, on the fact that the climate is changing. Some believe that climate change is a hoax or that its detrimental effects are exaggerated, or they simply can’t face the magnitude of it, or only think of their own immediate needs.
The disagreements are not limited to the climate. In the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, many people, including then President Donald Trump, wrote off the pandemic as liberal fearmongering, despite an exponential increase in the number of infections worldwide. This was reinforced by right-wing media. For example, in March 2020, talk show host Sean Hannity said on his prime-time Fox News show that the virus was the media’s attempt to “bludgeon” Mr. Trump with “this new hoax.” As we know, many lives could have been saved had the government taken early preventive actions, as happened in other countries.
Disinformation, disregard for science, hatred of perceived political foes, and conspiracy thinking are feeding the polarization in our society. Consider QAnon, the conspiracy cult united in the belief that Trump is defending the world against a network of “Satanic pedophiles” – including Democrats, Hollywood stars and others. According to a poll by the Public Region Research Institute, 15 to 20% of Americans, and 28% of Republicans, believe in tenets central to the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory movement.[1] The fact that 60 million or so Americans share these beliefs poses a real danger to our democracy.
Our beliefs matter now more than ever. The world has become so complex, its resources too limited, and its dynamics too unstable to accommodate bizarre, wrong-headed, or simplistic beliefs. The Panglossian vision of humans as inherently good and malleable preached by liberal ideologies and religions alike can be as dangerous and misleading as the extreme world of the fundamentalists. We must strive to protect societies not only from fundamentalism and irrationalism, but also from all those who in their quest for solace and emotional security look the other way, as they cannot bear the “dark” reality of human nature.
The old dichotomies “conservative vs. liberal” or “religious vs. secular,” are no longer useful to make sense of the polarization of our society. A more applicable classification could be those who belong to the “reality-based” community and those who do not (conspiracy theorists, antivaxxers, believers in pseudoscience, etc.) The challenge for our society is two-fold: first, understand why so many of its citizens hold irrational thoughts (why do people believe that Hillary Clinton ran a child sex ring out of a pizzeria?) and second, provide the means and tools to allow the reality-based community to grow and thrive.
In this section I will address some of these issues. I will focus on how the human brain perceives reality, processes information, and interacts with the world. I will also address the notion of knowledge and how we gain it, topics that have been of interest to philosophers for centuries.
As we shall discover, our intuitive knowledge is a powerful tool that allows us to navigate the world and make day-to-day decisions, but it is far from perfect. I will outline the built-in constraints and limitations that the mind has not only to know the external world, but also to know itself. I will also discuss some of the approaches and practices that scientists and philosophers have developed to uncover truths about the natural world, by eliminating personal biases, emotions, and false beliefs. We will also look at the methods used to distinguish science from non-science, and in particular, pseudoscience. These are all at the core of what it means to be a critical thinker.
[1]Understanding QAnon’s Connection to American Politics, Religion, and Media Consumption, PRRI, May 27, 2021.
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