{"id":1185,"date":"2011-04-02T23:13:54","date_gmt":"2011-04-03T07:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/?p=1185"},"modified":"2011-04-02T23:13:54","modified_gmt":"2011-04-03T07:13:54","slug":"reality-is-a-hard-sell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/?p=1185","title":{"rendered":"Reality: a hard sell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t help but wonder if doggedly debunking all spewings from the purveyors of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.skepdic.com\/woowoo.html\">woo<\/a> is somewhat a fool\u2019s errand.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-1216\" href=\"http:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/2011\/04\/02\/reality-is-a-hard-sell\/hands_soil\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1216\" style=\"margin:8px;\" title=\"hands_soil\" src=\"http:\/\/jarrodhart.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/04\/hands_soil.jpg?w=200\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"120\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hands_soil.jpg 460w, https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hands_soil-300x180.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a>There are a number of\u00a0pseudo-scientific\u00a0disciplines whose concepts are inherently highly attractive and contagious to the average Joe, saying things that make him feel good and making him want to pass on the good news. Think of how easy to sell these messages are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>organic food &#8211; frolicking chickens, steaming compost, happy farmers, healthy food &#8211; a return to basics, back to a purer time when humans actually had roots in the earth and cared for it; you too can go organic!<\/li>\n<li>complimentary medicine &#8211; age-old wisdom, so long suppressed by big pharma is unlocked just for those open-minded enough to look. Are you\u00a0open-minded! Yes? Here are your keys to healthy prosperity!<\/li>\n<li>astrology &#8211; our fates, entwined with the universe, form a\u00a0beautiful\u00a0unity; enigmatic scholars have acted custodian to its cipher through the ages. Are you a spiritual soul? You too can share time&#8217;s secrets!<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1215 alignright\" style=\"margin:8px;\" title=\"tarot\" src=\"http:\/\/jarrodhart.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/04\/tarot.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"169\" height=\"298\" \/><\/li>\n<li>parapsychology &#8211; our minds are more powerful than science knows, and we all have potential beyond our wildest dreams! But hold on! Only those willing to break free from the trappings of conventional science will ever see the light&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>and of course the big kahuna, religion &#8211; imagine for a minute the greatest most wonderful thing in all the world, and that is but nothing compared with the joys that await the believer, and for all eternity too!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is little wonder the bible I had as a kid said \u201cGood News\u201d on the cover.<\/p>\n<p>The issue is that the logical shredding of these pieces is often a sobering dose of\u00a0reality\u00a0that fills most people with instant sleepiness:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>organic food is not always kinder to the planet and claimed health benefits are of the &#8216;hard to verify&#8217; sort<\/li>\n<li>alternative medicine actually does work, but only the level one would expect from getting time, care, attention and the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Placebo\">placebo <\/a>effect<\/li>\n<li>the laws of physics do allow marvellous things (x-rays, computers, holograms) but it takes serious study to understand why they don&#8217;t allow for the positions of stars and planets to have predictable effects of the day-to-day ongoings in suburbia.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1219 alignright\" style=\"margin:8px;\" title=\"study\" src=\"http:\/\/jarrodhart.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/04\/study.jpg?w=200\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"151\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/study.jpg 400w, https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/study-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/li>\n<li>the\u00a0mind\u00a0is indeed fabulously clever\u00a0and poorly understood, but those tedious laws of physics, and indeed dry, cold logic, are annoyingly sticky when it comes to clairvoyance, ESP,\u00a0psychokinesis and precognition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So YAWN! Boring!! Logic and analysis mean effort, work, thinking things through, totting up totals, cross-checking claims, testing, questioning and doubting. Pretty much the opposite of nice &amp; easy. Accepting we are not all-powerful, we are not immortal and that we will all be forgotten someday is just no fun. These are not\u00a0messages\u00a0that will go viral, that will breed missionaries, that would generate a manic fervour. More like manic depression.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>So the deck is stacked.\u00a0Pseudo-scientific\u00a0ideas persist because they\u00a0are\u00a0tenacious\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Meme\">memes<\/a>, and they are almost impossible to kill. They are\u00a0contagious and sticky, and lovely and easy, and fighting them off requires not just the will, but also the ammunition.<\/p>\n<p>And <em>that<\/em> is why it worthwhile to continue to fight the good fight &#8211; to keep trying to debunk poor thinking &#8211; to provide the ammunition to that small number, those that may be on their own, surrounded by superstition, but with that gift in their heart that is that first inkling of doubt.<\/p>\n<p>I will do it for those that think they are alone as I once did.<\/p>\n<p>We live in a time of\u00a0unprecedented opportunity &#8211; people have better access than ever to the tools to arm themselves to achieve a new sort of ideal: to make life choices with full access to all the facts.\u00a0We are after all free to choose to believe anything, the problem only comes when we are not given the choice. No information, no balance, no choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t help but wonder if doggedly debunking all spewings from the purveyors of woo is somewhat a fool\u2019s errand. There are a number of\u00a0pseudo-scientific\u00a0disciplines whose concepts are inherently highly attractive and contagious to the average Joe, saying things that make him feel good and making him want to pass on the good news. Think [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,26,28],"tags":[252,70,86,257,94,108,157,267,268,269,210,221,223,271],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}