Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to "A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest"

re: "A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest"
ER — (archived)

This ability to fool oneself into seeing evidence for what one wants, and ignoring any counterevidence, is a very human trait, and as you point out, intimately tied in in with our personal desires and philosophical committments. Without mentioning any of our fellow posters here by name, it is pretty clear that many of them fiercely seek out any shred of evidence which supports their prejudices, and both ignore and attack any which contradicts them. Not only do they feel the need to believe, they feel compelled to expect everyone else to believe also. You will note I am making no comment on whether these people are right or wrong, just how they evaluate evidence. How many times have we seen someone here point out a fact or reference to support their cause only to fail to see content in their "evidence" that actually undermined their case! They were just so eager to find corroborating evidence they failed to see the inherent rebuttals in it.

I am certainly not immune to this human foible, and I welcome it being pointed out to me when I am guilty of it. For example, I am convinced that life, and intelligent life, abounds in space. I also recognize that my enthusiasm for this subject is due in no small part to the fact it would validate one of my philosophical assumptions about nature: the discovery of either life or intelligence in the cosmos would reinforce my prejudice that these are both the result of natural physical processes, and possess no supernatural or mystical component.

I make a conscious effort to be self-critical and skeptical about SETI as much as possible in order to counteract this tendency. Of course, how successful I am at this is not for me to judge.

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