On Double Deference in Religion and Science
Dr. Paul Bloom returned to our campus to speak his third out of four lectures. Previously, he spoke on "moral circles".[1, 2, 3] His topic this time around was "Religion Is Natural".
He opened by citing statistics of the number of people around the world who believe in a creation, a god or gods, spirits, and life after death. Those who do not are an exception, not the rule.
As a researcher, Bloom is interested in descriptively studying universals and near universals with which we seem to be born.
It is known, for example, that children have a sort of pre-programmed system of physical understanding. Almost all children believe the world is flat (usually rectangular, actually) until they are taught otherwise. Almost all children believe that a ball rolling down a spiraling ramp will continue to curve upon leaving it, when in fact it will travel straight after that. Almost all children believe that the air is weightless. These seem to be programmed into us. *
Bloom also believes that people are pre-programmed with a system of social understanding as well, such as programmed morality. (Refer to the previous entries on his lectures for more information.)
As for non-physical pre-programmed systems of understanding, Bloom has found three beliefs to be near universal:
animism creationism dualism
Animism is the attribution of consciousness to what are considered (by modern thought) to be inanimate objects. In the previous "Helper/Hinderer" studies[1], for example, the babies seemed to have no difficulty with solid shapes performing moral actions. They preferred the objects based on how those objects behaved "morally".
In general, it has been shown that humans tend to see intention even when something is known to be accident.
Creationism is not limited to a Judeo-Christian, six-day creation belief. No one is born knowing that. But it has been shown that children are more creationist than their parents. Even children with atheistic parents are still very likely to believe that the world was created by a higher power.
People have been shown to "find" patterns where there aren't any. In a line-up of disordered pennies, studies have shown that people think they can see a pattern. One argument, then, is that people think they see design in the world when they are not really seeing these patterns at all.
Children are also more likely to assign purposes to objects than adults are.
An experiment involving order I found to be interesting. Children were shown a picture of a messy room and a clean room and asked which was caused by a sister? There was no significant difference in answers. They were equally likely to suggest that the sister had messed up the room as they were to suggest that she had cleaned it. However, when asked, "Which result was caused by the wind through the open window?" nearly all answered that the messy room was caused by the wind.
This was repeated in babies, using the staring assumption (that babies stare longer when they are surprised by something). When shown an animation of a cartoon person entering a box and either ordering or disordering pins, they did not seem surprised. When a ball was shown rolling and knocking over the pins, they still did not seem surprised. However, if that ball set up the pins, they stared at the image far longer, indicating perhaps their great surprise at this.
Humans seem preprogrammed with the idea that anything can bring about disorder, but only animate beings can create order.
Dualism is the belief that "I" can be thought of separately from the body. This was the topic of his first lecture, which I missed, but he brought up a few examples.
He mentioned how there are many children's books and movies about "body-swapping". They have no difficulty grasping these stories.
Also, more children believe in life after death than adults.
I was not as impressed by his examples this time around, but what he next spoke about was really good. He moved on to discuss hypotheses explaining what causes these initial pre=programmed beliefs to change.
Scientists and thinkers tend to propose two main hypotheses:
Children are like sponges. They absorb new beliefs from their culture. People come to scientific beliefs from doing science.
Bloom stated that the former is only partly true, whereas the latter is almost entirely false.
Dawkins is a strong holder of the first hypothesis. In his view, children will blindly accept whatever lies they are taught as children until they are wise enough to understand that ideas of religion are stupid.
Bloom, however, doubts this. His and other studies have shown that children are not blind sponges. They have a selection process for what knowledge they accept as true.
In word learning, children are very sensitive to the amount of confidence the teacher shows in the meanings of words. They are also sensitive to past reliability and age of the teacher.
As for this last one, they seem to naturally hold that adults know more facts. However, they pay more attention to peers in matters of accent and slang.
The same trends seem to hold for other kinds of learning.
It makes evolutionary sense for children to have a mechanism to separate truth from fiction.
As for the second hypothesis above, Bloom argues that -- excepting philosophers, theologians, and the like -- people don't care about the details of their so-called beliefs. They may claim to believe in a god, but when asked about that god, they aren't likely to be able to tell you much.
People use what Bloom calls a double deference. They go to "experts" when deciding which beliefs to believe, and they also leave the details to those experts. This happens subconsciously most of the time.
In some (I find) very scary studies, pollsters presented an extremely generous welfare plan and an obviously cruel welfare plan to voters. With each plan came the statement, "The Republicans support this plan," or, "The Democrats support this plan." The researchers alternated whcih party supported which plan. The voters almost always chose the plan that matched with their political party. The scary part is that, when asked why they made their choices, they almost always made up reasons for why one plan was better than the other!
He gave numerous examples of this sort of phenomenon. (One involved opinions on steroids, which I'll give its own entry.) Many of the examples had to do with what people thought other people believed. Take Wikipedia, for example. It is truth according to the masses.[4] Most of us assume that if most people believe something, it must be true.
And contrary to snobby scientists, there is a double deference in science as well. How do I know there are quarks? Have I done the experiments? Can I even understand the mathematics behind their discovery? No. I defer to the particle physicists, whom I trust.
The fact of the matter is that most people who believe in natural selection have no idea how it really works. Most people who believe the earth is billions of years old cannot explain how they "know" this. This is no different than all of the "religious folk" who believe in a god and yet cannot tell you anything about him or her.
Bloom claimed that it is not knowledge that triggers beliefs but rather deference -- whom do you trust?
He also noted that people only say, "I believe...," when there is some uncertainty or controversy. No one, for example, ever says, "I believe in ants."
*This is why science education is so difficult. It is not that the students cannot understand science; it is that they come into science with so many incorrect beliefs about the physical world that need to be corrected.[5]
He opened by citing statistics of the number of people around the world who believe in a creation, a god or gods, spirits, and life after death. Those who do not are an exception, not the rule.
As a researcher, Bloom is interested in descriptively studying universals and near universals with which we seem to be born.
It is known, for example, that children have a sort of pre-programmed system of physical understanding. Almost all children believe the world is flat (usually rectangular, actually) until they are taught otherwise. Almost all children believe that a ball rolling down a spiraling ramp will continue to curve upon leaving it, when in fact it will travel straight after that. Almost all children believe that the air is weightless. These seem to be programmed into us. *
Bloom also believes that people are pre-programmed with a system of social understanding as well, such as programmed morality. (Refer to the previous entries on his lectures for more information.)
As for non-physical pre-programmed systems of understanding, Bloom has found three beliefs to be near universal:
Animism is the attribution of consciousness to what are considered (by modern thought) to be inanimate objects. In the previous "Helper/Hinderer" studies[1], for example, the babies seemed to have no difficulty with solid shapes performing moral actions. They preferred the objects based on how those objects behaved "morally".
In general, it has been shown that humans tend to see intention even when something is known to be accident.
Creationism is not limited to a Judeo-Christian, six-day creation belief. No one is born knowing that. But it has been shown that children are more creationist than their parents. Even children with atheistic parents are still very likely to believe that the world was created by a higher power.
People have been shown to "find" patterns where there aren't any. In a line-up of disordered pennies, studies have shown that people think they can see a pattern. One argument, then, is that people think they see design in the world when they are not really seeing these patterns at all.
Children are also more likely to assign purposes to objects than adults are.
An experiment involving order I found to be interesting. Children were shown a picture of a messy room and a clean room and asked which was caused by a sister? There was no significant difference in answers. They were equally likely to suggest that the sister had messed up the room as they were to suggest that she had cleaned it. However, when asked, "Which result was caused by the wind through the open window?" nearly all answered that the messy room was caused by the wind.
This was repeated in babies, using the staring assumption (that babies stare longer when they are surprised by something). When shown an animation of a cartoon person entering a box and either ordering or disordering pins, they did not seem surprised. When a ball was shown rolling and knocking over the pins, they still did not seem surprised. However, if that ball set up the pins, they stared at the image far longer, indicating perhaps their great surprise at this.
Humans seem preprogrammed with the idea that anything can bring about disorder, but only animate beings can create order.
Dualism is the belief that "I" can be thought of separately from the body. This was the topic of his first lecture, which I missed, but he brought up a few examples.
He mentioned how there are many children's books and movies about "body-swapping". They have no difficulty grasping these stories.
Also, more children believe in life after death than adults.
I was not as impressed by his examples this time around, but what he next spoke about was really good. He moved on to discuss hypotheses explaining what causes these initial pre=programmed beliefs to change.
Scientists and thinkers tend to propose two main hypotheses:
Bloom stated that the former is only partly true, whereas the latter is almost entirely false.
Dawkins is a strong holder of the first hypothesis. In his view, children will blindly accept whatever lies they are taught as children until they are wise enough to understand that ideas of religion are stupid.
Bloom, however, doubts this. His and other studies have shown that children are not blind sponges. They have a selection process for what knowledge they accept as true.
In word learning, children are very sensitive to the amount of confidence the teacher shows in the meanings of words. They are also sensitive to past reliability and age of the teacher.
As for this last one, they seem to naturally hold that adults know more facts. However, they pay more attention to peers in matters of accent and slang.
The same trends seem to hold for other kinds of learning.
It makes evolutionary sense for children to have a mechanism to separate truth from fiction.
As for the second hypothesis above, Bloom argues that -- excepting philosophers, theologians, and the like -- people don't care about the details of their so-called beliefs. They may claim to believe in a god, but when asked about that god, they aren't likely to be able to tell you much.
People use what Bloom calls a double deference. They go to "experts" when deciding which beliefs to believe, and they also leave the details to those experts. This happens subconsciously most of the time.
In some (I find) very scary studies, pollsters presented an extremely generous welfare plan and an obviously cruel welfare plan to voters. With each plan came the statement, "The Republicans support this plan," or, "The Democrats support this plan." The researchers alternated whcih party supported which plan. The voters almost always chose the plan that matched with their political party. The scary part is that, when asked why they made their choices, they almost always made up reasons for why one plan was better than the other!
He gave numerous examples of this sort of phenomenon. (One involved opinions on steroids, which I'll give its own entry.) Many of the examples had to do with what people thought other people believed. Take Wikipedia, for example. It is truth according to the masses.[4] Most of us assume that if most people believe something, it must be true.
And contrary to snobby scientists, there is a double deference in science as well. How do I know there are quarks? Have I done the experiments? Can I even understand the mathematics behind their discovery? No. I defer to the particle physicists, whom I trust.
The fact of the matter is that most people who believe in natural selection have no idea how it really works. Most people who believe the earth is billions of years old cannot explain how they "know" this. This is no different than all of the "religious folk" who believe in a god and yet cannot tell you anything about him or her.
Bloom claimed that it is not knowledge that triggers beliefs but rather deference -- whom do you trust?
He also noted that people only say, "I believe...," when there is some uncertainty or controversy. No one, for example, ever says, "I believe in ants."
*This is why science education is so difficult. It is not that the students cannot understand science; it is that they come into science with so many incorrect beliefs about the physical world that need to be corrected.[5]