Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole (25 page)

There are reasons to be suspicious about such reports. Some sound very much like the phenomenon known as sleep paralysis, which people have been reporting for centuries (though the little creatures that they report vary from culture to culture). In “I
Just Know!
” we saw that religious experiences tend to be highly culturally specific and also contradictory. The same is true of alien abduction experiences. Just like religious experiences, abduction experiences tend to halt at certain culturally significant national borders. And what gets reported also seems to a very large extent to be shaped by the power of suggestion—the kind of “aliens” tending to reflect what people expect aliens to look like. The abduction reports also tend to contradict each other to some extent (though this can partly be put down to our being visited by lots of different kinds of aliens).

Consider, for example, the 1961 case of Betty and Barney Hill, the first widely reported abduction case. In 1964 the Hills were interviewed independently and while under hypnosis about their experience. Barney's unusual description of the aliens having “wraparound eyes” and speaking with their eyes using “thought transference” was remarkably similar to characteristics of the aliens shown on an episode of the TV show
Outer Limits
just twelve days prior to his interview (moreover, Barney never previously mentioned these peculiar details during the previous three years). In addition, despite being involved in the same encounter, Betty's description of the aliens differed from Barney's—her aliens had no hair or noses. These and various other features of their accounts strongly suggest that, while Betty's and Barney's reports were almost certainly sincere, they did not, in fact, have any sort of genuine extraterrestrial encounter.

Given that the evidence for alien abduction is so poor, why are so many people convinced that it is a real phenomenon? Typically, they are persuaded by two things: in some cases, by personal experience. They say, in effect: “I
just know
I was abducted.” However, given there are excellent reasons for supposing that, even while entirely convincing, very many of these experiences aren't genuine, surely someone who believes they've had such an experience themselves ought not to take their experience entirely at face value. Second, people are often also convinced by
Piling Up the Anecdotes
—by the combined testimony of various supposed abductees, such as that of the Hills. Objections to belief in alien abduction, such as that surely any alien civilization would be too far away to travel here on a regular basis, tend to be dealt with by
Playing the Mystery Card
(see above). So three mechanisms in particular—“I
Just Know!” Piling Up the Anecdotes
, and
Playing the Mystery Card
—combine to transform belief in alien abduction into something like an Intellectual Black Hole.

Self-Help Blather

Many books promise you THE SECRET—be it of success in dating, marketing, business, or life generally. The self-help industry is huge, its gurus filling auditoriums with people prepared to pay significant sums of money for their advice. There's often some value in what these self-styled experts say. However, as often as not, what the self-help “experts” are selling are little more than truisms padded with
Pseudoprofundity.
The impression that they possess THE SECRET is often bolstered by means of numerous testimonials from people who say that they followed the advice and now they are millionaires or happily married or whatever. That is to say, sellers of THE SECRET tend to rely heavily on
Piling Up the Anecdotes
to generate the impression that there's good evidence to back up their claims. Cases in which THE SECRET hasn't actually been successful are typically
either ignored or explained away using “
But It Fits!
” (if Bert lost a fortune after applying the techniques described in “The Secret of Gambling Success,” then that's because he didn't follow the instructions properly).

Other mechanisms may also come into play in selling THE SECRET, including
Pressing Your Buttons.
Those who have paid to hear about THE SECRET firsthand in an auditorium may find themselves on the receiving end of various forms of psychological manipulation. Indeed, such events often have a “cult” feel.

As a result of the combined effects of
Pseudoprofundity, Piling Up the Anecdotes, “But It Fits!
” and
Pressing Your Buttons
, it may seem to those walking out of an auditorium after a rousing performance from the seller of THE SECRET that their eyes have now been opened. They can now just “see” how things
really
are. Everything “fits”! They have achieved The Vision Thing. In reality, of course, they've just been sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole.

Psychic Powers and Angelic Visitation

Those who believe in the abilities of psychics, when asked why this is a reasonable thing for them to believe, typically rely heavily on
Piling Up the Anecdotes.
When asked for evidence, they'll say they were just thinking about so-and-so when the phone rang and it was them, that Psychic Sue told them all sorts of things she could not possibly have known if she wasn't psychic, and so on. When, in reply, it's pointed out that there's no solid, nonanecdotal evidence to support belief in any genuine psychic ability, defenders often
Play the Mystery Card
, saying “there are more things in heaven and earth.” As we saw in
Going Nuclear
, those who believe in psychic powers sometimes also press the nuclear button when their beliefs are challenged, either playing a general skeptical card or embracing relativism about truth (they may say, “That psychic abilities exist may not be true for you, but it's
true for me.
).”

Claims of angelic visitation are currently popular. All sorts of people insist they have been helped by an angelic presence. You can even receive lessons on how to summon your own angel. Again, these beliefs are usually propped up by a combination of
Piling Up the Anecdotes
and “I
Just Know!
” Books on angelic visitation are for the most part just large collections of anecdotes. Of course,
Playing the Mystery Card
and
Going Nuclear
can crop up too. Róisín Ingle concludes her interview with Lorna Byrne, author of
Angels in My Hair
, in the
Irish Times
by coming close to doing both:

Spending time with [Lorna Byrne] is both challenging and inspirational. I say goodbye reluctantly and all the way home I keep thinking about that Hamlet quote, that there's “more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Is Lorna Byrne telling the truth? Well, she's telling her truth. It may or may not be yours.
²

Prophecies of Nostradamus

This sixteenth-century apothecary published collections of prophecies, which, many believe, accurately predict important world events, including the Great Fire of London, the rise of Hitler, the
Challenger
space shuttle disaster, and the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Here is one of Nostradamus's best-known “predictions”:

In the year of the new century and nine months, from the sky will come a great King of Terror. In the city of York there will be a great collapse; two twin brothers torn apart by chaos while the fortress falls; the great leader will succumb; third big war will begin when the big city is burning.

In fact, this is a hoax (exposed by magician and skeptic James Randi). The passage does not exist anywhere in the writings of Nostradamus. An actual passage from Nostradamus
(note the similar first two lines) that does supposedly accurately predict the future is this:

The year 1999 seven months from the sky will come the great King of Terror to resuscitate the great king of the Mongols. Before and after Mars reigns by good luck.

So what does this predict? As Robert T. Carroll at the online
Skeptic's Dictionary
points out:

Nobody, not even the most fanatical of Nostradamus's disciples, had a clue what this passage might have meant before July 1999. However, after John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister Lauren Bessette, were killed in a plane crash on July 18, 1999, the retroprophets shoehorned the event to the “prophecy.” Here is just one example culled from the Internet: “Could the crash of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s airplane in July of 1999 fulfill the line ‘from the sky will come the great King of Terror’? Could the human fear of death and bodily injury be the intended definition of ‘the great King of Terror’? It might be possible.” “It might be possible”—now
there
is a precise bit of terminology. Other disciples were generous enough to think that Nostradamus was referring to a solar eclipse that would occur on August 11, 1999. Others feared a NASA space probe would come crashing down on earth.
³

Another famous Nostradamus prediction, supposedly about the rise of Hitler, actually turns out to be about Hister—the Latin name for the Danube River. By switching an “s” for “l,” and flipping the letters, Nostradamus's contemporary interpreters were again able to demonstrate his amazing predictive powers.

What rarely happens, of course, is that someone is able to predict some major event
before it occurs.
Plenty of such predictions are made in the many books published about Nostradamus. Check a volume printed several years ago, and you'll find its predictions rarely come true. For example, one 1980 volume predicts
war in 1999 between China and a Soviet-American alliance; another says prominently on its back cover “1992—George Bush re-elected.”
⁴
Bush lost.

So how are people able to convince themselves that Nostradamus could accurately predict the future? Primarily, by means of “
But It Fits!
” Nostradamus's writing is so vague and woolly (see the example above), that it is not difficult to come up with a reading on which the passage turns out to have “come true.” Whatever happens can, with a little ingenuity, be “predicted.”

Piling Up the Anecdotes
also plays a role. We should expect a few of the countless clear and concrete predictions made by commentators on Nostradamus's writings to come true by chance. One or two “hits” among the hundreds of misses is likely anyway, whether or not Nostradamus had any real predictive gift.

Pseudoprofundity
also helps to contribute to the impression that Nostradamus should be taken seriously. The fact that he wrote in such a bombastic manner lends his writing an air of profundity and portentousness it doesn't deserve.

Political/Economic Theory

Have a particular political or economic theory you want to promote? Anecdotal evidence for your favored theory, whatever it happens to be, can almost certainly be found. Believe tax cuts for the rich help raise the income of the poor? Just dig up one or two cases where tax cuts for the rich were followed by the poor becoming richer and voilà! by the power of
Piling Up the Anecdotes
your case is “proved”! Believe tax cuts for the rich make the poor poorer? Again, no problem. You'll no doubt be able to find some cases that “prove” your theory. But what if you claim tax cuts for the rich make the poor richer, and someone points out cases where this did not happen? Just explain such counterexamples away using “
But It Fits!
”

None of this is to say that political or economic theories are never reasonable, of course. No doubt some are. But if you want your
belief in such a theory to be genuinely reasonable, you had better not make it too reliant on anecdotal evidence and “
But It Fits!
”

Notice that an unscrupulous media mogul who wanted to promote a particular economic or political theory might fill his programs and publications with supporting anecdotes (the more emotive, the better) and have his pundits employ “
But It Fits!
” to deal with any apparent counterexamples. They could also use all sorts of button-pressing techniques to shape the belief of viewers and readers, employing emotional manipulation, censorship, uncertainty, and so on. Audiences on the receiving end of relentless programming of this sort might well end up achieving The Vision Thing: they'll suppose they can
just see
what's
really
going on, and that everyone is either a victim or perpetrator of some dark conspiracy to hide the truth.

The truth, of course, is that such passionately committed audiences will be among the least knowledgeable, not the most. They're also likely to be extremely hard to reach, rationally speaking. Such political and economic “true believers” have fallen victim to a particularly insidious, media-generated form of Intellectual Black Hole.

A Certain Sort of “Sophisticated” Theology

Plenty of religiously minded theologians are content to adopt an intellectually honest and rigorous approach when discussing religious matters. However, there is a minority of theists who, when presented with any sort of intellectual challenge to their faith, tend to rely heavily on
Playing the Mystery Card, Going Nuclear, “I Just Know!
” and above all,
Moving the Semantic Goalposts
to neutralize the threat. Criticize what they believe, and they'll accuse you of being arrogantly wedded to scientism and remind you “there are more things in heaven and earth.” Persist, and they'll say, in a condescending tone, “Ah, I'm afraid you are guilty of a crude misunderstanding.” Either that, or they'll
Go Nuclear
, insisting (probably without even bothering to explain
why) that “atheism is a faith position too.” Ask them what they
do
believe, and they'll spout
Pseudoprofundity
, reveling in the obscure, opaque, and contradictory. Ask for further clarification, and you'll be told that what they believe is ultimately ineffable, or that religious language is not used to make claims that might be refuted. And yet, come Sunday morning, there they are at the pulpit, saying a great deal of literal-sounding stuff about, say, God, Jesus, and the Resurrection, without providing their congregations the slightest clue that they (so they told
you
) don't believe a word of it, literally understood. What such Theists offer, in truth, is not intellectual sophistication but intellectual sleight of hand. Whether or not their particular religious beliefs are true (whatever their beliefs are, exactly—who can be sure?), they have succeeded in transforming them into an Intellectual Black Hole.