<quote>This is why it is a mistake to think that you can somehow ‘correct’ people’s views on an issue by giving them more facts, since study after study has shown that people have a tendency to selectively reject facts that don’t fit with their existing views. … … But smarter people shouldn’t be susceptible to … Continue reading Education often leads to intellectual arrogance and more bias
In response to this article: http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/lawyer-declared-brain-dead-wakes-up-after-calls-to-pull-plug-on-her tl;dr: Doctors diagnose brain death, but patient later fully recovers. The doctors who were guilty of malpractice (misdiagnosing a brain death) are getting off scot-free, as they watch the credulous laypeople celebrate their religious “miracle”. Win-win. There tends to be a stark contrast between how some laypeople interpret an event, … Continue reading Misdiagnosed brain death = “miracle”!?
From time to time, I find some sermons upsetting, for not living up to my subjective (hence not necessarily reasonable) expectations. This was one of them. Firstly, I really appreciated the speaker teaching about how some Psalms with hateful-sounding content (i.e. asking God to do seemingly morally reprehensible stuff) should be treated as merely describing the Psalmist’s own imperfect … Continue reading Post-sermon thoughts, 11 Sep ’16
Recently, I’ve come to better understand a motive / justification that conservatives tend to have for their resistance to new ways of seeing things. A conservative may say, “we need a stable reference point to keep us from going astray, so we must be careful to test other religious ideas against our own religious tradition / doctrine / dogma … Continue reading Point-of-reference bias; religious conservatism
Caveat Lector 