The Believing Brain
September 23, 2011
In this lecture, Dr Michael Shermer presents his theory on how humans form beliefs about the world.
He answers the questions of how and why we believe what we do in all aspects of our lives, from our suspicions and superstitions to our politics, economics and social beliefs.
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I just flicked through it – pretty interesting. But he said something like “we all have our beliefs and then we make reasons to justify them. Smart people are better at doing that”. Does the same apply to his own thesis, or am I missing something?
Schermer says he doesn’t exempt himself from his thesis. His response is that we need to rely on the scientific community to evaluate our beliefs to determine whether there is evidence to continue to hold them.
shermer is onto something. love his research. ‘believing brain’ is really good.