Covid-19 vaccines? Lockdowns? Masks? For some reason, many people are forgetting to use the faculties that have brought humankind to dominate this planet — the faculties of rationality. In the midst of all the unscientific questioning of recent public health measures and partisan rhetoric, we should take a quick refresher on what it is to think rationally and why it is so important.
It is commonly held that rationality is a ‘new thing’, birthed out of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz’s rejection of empiricism. However, the faculties of reason, logic and probability have been utilised by hunter-gatherers since early modern humans first started doing their thing. The San and Khoisan people — both Southern African tribes that still practice hunter-gatherer lifestyles — apply logic and the scientific method when hunting. When they are looking for an animal, they apply bayesian thinking when weighing up old and new evidence to establish what and where animals are. They don’t confuse conditional probabilities and manage to calculate a rough credence in their formulated hypothesis. They also engage in critical thinking — knowing not to always trust first impressions and perceive the dangers of confirmation bias from leading them astray. While many of us today fall to the mercy of biases and heuristics, we can still train ourselves to be aware and be more rational. No one can be perfect, but we must strive for betterment. We must find our long lost rationality.
As Elon Musk tweeted recently: These should be taught to all at a young age.
There have been many beacons of rationality that have saved countless lives and made for a much better world. The introduction of the scientific method and the hypothetical deductive method of reasoning ensured hypotheses could be falsifiable and thus science developed one Randomised Control Trial at a time. For example, bloodletting was one of the most common ‘cures’ for illness and disease from antiquity to the 19th century. Instead of helping patients, bloodletting led to the deaths of millions that if left alone, probably would have been alright. If a patient survived, it was because the method saved them and if they died, it was because they were too sick and would’ve died anyway. Or so it went. It wasn’t until the introduction of the rationalisations of the scientific method that bloodletting was proven ineffective and better treatments established.
Failures in reasoning have many, big consequences in the modern day as well — not only in terms of public health but also much broader issues. Reasoning skills have been shown to have a high correlation with life outcomes. While correlation, of course, is not causation, Bruine de Bruin and colleagues ran multiple regression analyses and found that even when intelligence is held constant, better reasoners suffer fewer bad outcomes. While this may fall short of proving causation, the high prior plausibility, two major confounds statistically controlled and reverse causation being unlikely, entitles us to hold some credence in the causal link between reasoning skills and life outcomes. Moreover, rationality has made our world safer and happier. Many things from the past once seen as normal are now seen as barbaric (and rightly so) through the progress of critical thinking, logic and reasoning. With this, moral progress can be achieved as well. From the stoning of homosexuals to slavery, brave people utilised arguments of reason to convince the world of the logical and moral inconsistencies that tainted their societies.
So if hunter-gatherers without formal scientific education can think so rationally, how come the modern, highly educated West is struggling so much? Recent political divisions, uptake of conspiracy theories, distrust of science and public health directions suggest it may have to do with an even more primal need — to identify with a tribe through dogmatic beliefs. Particularly with the knowledge of the current movement away from science and rationality, it is evident that rationality should begin to be taught in school just like mathematics or physics. Maybe when more of the population is aware of the cognitive biases, logical fallacies and unscientific reasoning that befall them, the world will become yet a better place.
Also
Dunning Kruger effect + Social Media -> amplification of stupidity.
Truth becomes “Truthiness”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness?wprov=sfti1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect?wprov=sfti1
Religious indoctrination in childhood (daily irrationality training). Choose your own truth. Anecdote preferred over data. “Lived experience “
Poor investment in math and science education.
Innate difficulty of primate brain in understanding very large or very small numbers make it difficult to accept evolution, the age and size of the universe, and assessment of risk.
Politics.