Let me first apologize for the dryness and lack of amusing aspects to the following. After weeks of expounding on the theme of "civility," which I now find dull and many of my friends find incendiary, I gave it a rest and turned to slightly more amusing material for a spell. Now a new book appears to be using science to confirm much of what I was saying. I know this because I read part of an article about it in the New Yorker, and then immediately downloaded the book and skimmed the first third of its introduction while watching a Daffy Duck cartoon on a phone app.
The book is "Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts That Will Save Us," by two separate Gormans (Sara and Jack).
The authors explain a few things that would provoke many leftists and liberals in my Facebook friends list if they were coming from me and not from scientists. National Review has suggested that the left's recent science-bragging is disingenuous, and phony; if you enjoy disproving NR writers as much as I do, you'll no doubt resist the temptation to cherry pick anecdotal evidence to allow you to continue with the folly of believing Karl Straub was wrong about something.
Among other nuggets available to the reader willing to download a free sample of this book and glance at the foreword, we have these intriguing assertions:
Ignoring facts is not evidence of stupidity. It's a normal part of our cognitive behavior, selected for by evolution for complicated reasons, and we all do it.
It's so deeply wired into us that our bodies actually sometimes release dopamine into our systems as a reward for fact ignoring.
Calling people stupid because they ignore facts is ineffective and unhelpful, and may just perpetuate the problem.
Shaming people for selfish/immoral behavior that includes a component of fact-ignoring is ineffective and unhelpful, and may just perpetuate the problem.
My smug conclusion is this. If you carry on with your policy of insulting and shaming people for ignoring facts and science, you will be ignoring facts and science. Feel free to find comfort in the idea that this hypocritical behavior is entirely normal for a human, which you presumably are. Also, enjoy the hit of dopamine flooding into, or perhaps from, your cortex. I suppose it's your cortex; I couldn't really say for sure.
Lastly, and most ominously, let me say this: it's just occurred to me that the cortex is the only part of our bodies that rhymes with Gore-Tex. I think deep down I always knew this, but I'm finally coming to grips with it now.
Thus we insulate ourselves from the truth?
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