Tuesday, November 12, 2019
I wouldnt have seen it if I hadnt believed it No one is above self-delusion
I wouldnât have seen it if I hadnât believed it No one is above self-delusion I wouldnât have seen it if I hadnât believed it No one is above self-delusion No one is above self-delusion.This thought kept buzzing in my head as I was doing research related to a book Iâm currently writing. Brilliant scientists- on a regular basis- fool themselves.We tend to think that weâre above cognitive biases and subjective distortion. The âIâm not biasedâ bias is a real thing. Studies show that people regularly rate themselves as less biased than the average American. These studies remind me of how President Dwight Eisenhower was astonished to learn that half the U.S. population had below-average intelligence.But scientists should be in a different category. After all, theyâre trained in the scientific method designed to counter human biases and help separate fact from fiction. Yet, scientists arenât immune from seeing what they want to see- even when itâs not there.Consider these examples, all of which are about Mars.In the late 1800s, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli spotted what he called canali on the Martian surface. T hese canali- not to be confused with the delicious Sicilian dessert cannoli- were long, canal-like structures.Although Schiaparelli didnât attribute these canals to intelligent life, the astronomer Percival Lowell later took that leap. Lowell wrote that the canals were built by an ancient intelligent civilization in order to access water from Marsâs polar ice caps. Lowellâs speculations fueled the publicâs already voracious appetite for alien stories, providing fodder for numerous media stories and science-fiction books like Ray Bradburyâs Martian Chronicles.But the canals turned out to be optical illusions.Mars also led Nikola Tesla, the inventor of the AC motor, astray. Tesla reported detecting signals from Mars consisting of a âregular repetition of numbers,â much like how Jodie Fosterâs character in Contact detected prime numbers from Vega. Tesla interpreted these numbers as âextraordinary experimental evidenceâ of intelligent life on Mars.More recently, scie ntists at Stanford University picked up a signal from the Mars Polar Lander after the spacecraft was thought to have crashed on the planetâs surface. To verify the signalâs origins, they told the spacecraft to send smoke signals by turning its âradio on and off in a distinctive sequence.â The spacecraft appeared to oblige. The scientists received the smoke signal and announced, much like Dr. Frankenstein, that the spacecraft was alive.But it was not. The signal turned out to be a fluke.The Stanford scientists were experiencing a phenomenon known as âI wouldnât have seen it if I hadnât believed it.â They wanted the Mars Polar Lander to be alive so badly they saw what they wanted to see.None of these scientists were intentionally trying to mislead the public. Their conclusions were based on their interpretation of seemingly objective data. So how did these brilliant people see something when there was nothing?We tend to assume thereâs a negative relationship between intelligence and cognitive bias. In other words, we believe that the more intelligent you are- the more advanced your operating system is- the less likely you are to fall victim to the type of fallacies that affect the rest of the public.But the opposite is true. As Tali Sharot explains in The Influential Mind summarizing the relevant research, â[t]he greater your cognitive capacity, the greater your ability to rationalize and interpret information at will, and to creatively twist data to fit your opinions.âSo if you think youâre immune to fooling yourself, think again. No one comes equipped with a critical-thinking chip that diminishes the human tendency to let personal beliefs distort the facts. Regardless of your IQ or intellectual capabilities, physicist Richard Feynmanâs adage holds true: âThe first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.âOzan Varol is a rocket scientist turned law professor and bestselling author. Click here to download a free copy of his e-book, The Contrarian Handbook: 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, youâll get the Weekly Contrarian - a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only).This article first appeared on OzanVarol.com
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