Science and Belief

Norm is talking about superstition and ritual; he asks

What does it all mean - that so many people, included among them firm atheists, behave as if there are hidden causal processes that could link their saying an over-confident or otherwise ill-chosen word, or their touching (or not touching) wood, or wearing a particular garment, or crossing fingers, or whatever else, with the outcome of a football match or an election?

I would hazard a guess that it has something to do with thought processes that have served us well in evolution. Causal beliefs come naturally to us- John kicks the ball and it moves, Mary pushes the cup off the table and it crashes to the floor. Indeed, in "How the Mind Works" Steven Pinker explains that babies as young as six months understand the basic rules of causality. Babies are shown various animations of balls rolling around. If Ball A crashes into Ball B and B starts to move, they are bored. If however Ball A starts to move for no apparent reason, or Ball B remains still when Ball A crashes into it, or even if Ball A is shown to pass through Ball B- the babies look baffled- their eyes transfixed by the events they have seen.

It's easy to imagine how many ancient tribal beliefs could have developed - "I danced like this then it rained," "I prayed to my favourite God then a wild boar crossed my path." One thing happens then another. We know it's a logical fallacy to say that the first caused the second, but the thought is natural to us.

Scientific understading, scientific method, and experimental procedures on the other hand, do not come to us naturally at all. How many people throughout history, having thought up an explanation for something, have thought to themselves "Now first I will change my one independent variable and I will measure that change. I will then measure the resulting change in the dependent variable or variables. Finally, I must figure out how the controlled variables will be maintained at a constant value."

This is an enormously complex way of thinking and it's no wonder it took us so long to get there. To answer Norm's question then: 300,000 years of evolution trump 400 years of Science- even in the most intelligent, rational person.