Scientists have verified the areas in the brain where words and emotions originate. However, the human mind is still being investigated, and there are many things we don’t understand about how people think.
As a student of human behavior, I am interested in what makes people believe in some things and disbelieve others when both instances may involve invisible or unlikely objects or events. If knowledge is power, why are people so susceptible to belief in things that can’t be seen or verified? If humans use one bit of knowledge to build on another, how come so many people refuse to believe we have landed on the moon?
Science is the field of study aimed at building a testable body of knowledge. A hypothesis is a testable sentence about a set of observations. These are things which several people have seen happen more than once over time. A theory is a well-supported and well-tested hypothesis. A fact is a conclusion confirmed through repeated testing, often by people who did not originally believe in the fact. Sometimes a hypothesis will be headed toward becoming a fact only to be sidelined by new evidence. The value of failure cannot be overemphasized in science. Failures, like the child’s game “Hot and cold” lead us closer to truth. Science is committed to the tentative nature of conclusions.
Dogma is any unproven conclusion based on authority rather than logic and evidence. Parents, teachers and fiction are all sources of dogma. Hearing the same bedtime stories over and over helps children create stability in their world. Instead of choosing the most rational belief, we all filter the facts and select those that most confirm what we already believe. Naturally, if we hear about Grandma’s ghost visiting the homestead, we are comforted by the notion that she didn’t really leave us. Mostly we believe incredible things because those beliefs comfort us.
Humans have to maintain a balance between being so skeptical that new ideas pass us by and at the same time being so open-minded that scam artists can convince us to send money for phony causes. If we haven’t done some critical thinking, it’s easy to deny that excursions to the moon took place.
People are naturally curious, and I think that is the basis of all human development. We are open to the new and undiscovered, but it does not advance humanity if we keep re-discovering the same facts or allow ourselves to be influenced by naysayers. So, when confronted with an apparently new idea, we must answer some questions. First, what is the quality of the evidence? Second, does the thing work as claimed? Lastly, can we trust the credentials and past work of the people making the claim?
Scientific law describes a regularly repeating action that is open to rejection or confirmation. It describes actions in nature that can be tested. The existence of ghosts hasn’t been tested against reality, but gravity has. Knowledge of gravity helped us get to the moon.
Ronda Bishop is a licensed mental health counselor and experienced parenting educator. She has worked as a counselor, teacher and life coach for the past 15 years. Questions for Ronda can be e-mailed to Mslrbishop@comcast.net.
