My life has developed over the years to a point where I endeavour to lead my life and make my decisions from a place that’s focused on using evidence, science, skepticism and facts to determine how I understand and interact with the world. This is the culmination of many things coming together – my lifelong love of books and reading (especially non-fiction), my early skepticism about religion, my university education, my own critical thought about how the world works, spending time in relevant Internet forums.
For that reason, there’s a long list of things I don’t believe to be real (like a good science-minded individual, I would never say that I *wouldn’t* change my mind if strong, consistent evidence showed otherwise. But just that right now, there is no credible scientific evidence for any of them.) This includes religion (of any kind), paranormal phenomena, ghosts, astrology, UFO’s (although math proves that alien life of some sort is a near certainty), vaccines being harmful, horoscopes, psychics (I accidentally typed “physics” but rest assured, that I *do* believe in!), many conspiracy theories of varying levels of believability, and much more.
I often try to capture how I feel about people who *do* believe in these things – my religious friends who go to search every Sunday, the family members who send me horoscopes. Saying these people are “stupid” or “dumb” feels pretty harsh and is incorrect since many of these people are really quite intelligent, well-read and worldly. “Ignorant” is closer but still a pretty loaded term. For me, a better way I’ve found to think of people who believe in things that have no basis in reality (and let’s not get into an argument about what “reality” really is!) is to think of these people as being otherwise intelligent, kind, well-intentioned people who happen to have *very large* blind spots in their thinking.
We all do and what I said off the top about my own views isn’t meant to indicate I’m somehow better than anyone else in this area. I have my own gaps – all the evidence tells me that the lifestyle I lead – in terms of much of the food I eat and the exercise I don’t get – isn’t good for me. Yet I persist in “believing” that it’s not too harmful to me. I don’t believe in ghosts but childhood conditioning plus too many horror novels and movies means my heart rate would go up if I had to walk around an abandoned farm house late at night. I suffer from The Campfire Delusion where I partake in an activity pretty much all summer that science shows is most likely very harmful to me.
Now, “not too harmful” is a good way to describe most people’s involvement with religion, paranormal interests, etc. For most, these are mostly harmless interests/activities/passions that don’t affect many people and often do good (as I admit some churches do.) True believers might spend some money getting their palms read or have to live with the odd irrational fear just because it’s dark and they think they see a ghostly figure out the window. But usually these beliefs don’t cause irreparable harm.
The problem comes when these faulty beliefs do cause active harm to themselves and others. The recent news about the escape of three young women who’d been abducted and held for a decade in a Cleveland basement is horrific. What is almost as bad in its own way is the news that noted psychic, Sylvia Browne, had incorrectly pronounced a vision that one of the teens was dead in 2004. Browne made this harsh announcement to the teen’s mother on a national daytime talk show, possibly causing a grief spiral that contributed to the mother’s early death a couple years later. (In fact, even though Browne claims an 80-90% success rate and that “only God is right 100% of the time”, one analysis puts her success rate at 0% out of 115 public predictions made on the Montel Williams show!)
Browne has a long history of incorrect predictions, often in highly charged situations responding to the desperate queries of those who are ill or have lost loved one. I am part of the problem here too – I have long thought of psychos (er, psychics) like Browne and those of her ilk are borderline evil. But when I got a request to purchase one of her books at Southeast Regional Library, I bit my tongue and approved it. (I should write about my views on the social and moral responsibility of the librarian sometime. The short form is that if I don’t believe a preacher should be able to refuse to perform a gay wedding because of their personal beliefs or a doctor shouldn’t refuse information about abortion, a librarian also shouldn’t allow their personal beliefs to influence their work in building a collection that is representative of all points of view including those they may not personally agree with.)
Anyhow, if you would like to begin leading a slightly more skeptical life, why not start by realising that *all* psychics are fakes – mostly skilled at the art of cold-reading people who are often in situations where they are desperate to hear reassuring (or at least definitive) answers to their biggest problems – illness, relationships, death.
