Another interesting TED talk, this time on the idea that our brains have a “belief engine” which makes it so easy to deceive ourselves.
Shermer gives the name “patternicity” to our tendency to find patterns whether or not there are really there, and goes on to show why the cost of creating false negatives (believing there is no pattern when in fact there is one) can cost far more than creating false positives (which is the opposite illusion). He believes this, combined with the tendency of stress to increase patternicity, explain why we (as a species) are so credulous.
I have a few doubts about his hypotheses. Firstly, although he shows that we tend to see false positives in split-second, potentially life or death situations, he does not show why we should tend to perceive false positives (e.g., the ridiculous [to me] idea that the universe has been designed, and has one designer) when we are not under such stress. Secondly, if it is generally better in evolutionary terms for us to generate false positives rather than false negatives, why do we experience the latter at all? Thirdly, he draws huge conclusions from what look like fairly limited and context-specific data – which leads me to my fourth concern, below.
My fourth worry is that it seems difficult to actually test Shermer’s hypothesis: what predictions could it make that might be tested or disproved? If it can’t be disproved in principle, then we should treat it with the same suspicion due astrology, psychoanalysis or any other self-contained belief system that doesn’t make testable predictions – on the face of it, we would have no more reason to believe Shermer’s view here than to believe any of these other self-contained systems, which are often incompatible with each other (The philosopher Simon Blackburn raises worries about evolutionary psychology in general here, in the second part of his review of psychologist Steven Pinker‘s book, The Blank Slate).
Nonetheless, Shermer gives an interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining talk. I hope you enjoy watching it.
