Biologist Alexander Panchin: why people reject science

New scientific discoveries are being made before our very eyes. But many continue to believe in a flat earth. And also in the opportunity to change reality, sitting on the couch and drawing in the imagination pictures of a beautiful future. Biologist Alexander Panchin told Boris Vedensky, why people stubbornly hold on to delusions and do not believe scientists. Lifehacker outlined the conversation.

It is easier for people to believe in a conspiracy than to abandon a stable picture of the world

A person has beliefs that underlie his worldview. They have developed for a long time, and a person does not want to change them. It happens that it is easier for people to believe in the theory of a general conspiracy of scientists than to doubt their own views.

Such an approach to the conclusions of science is not uncommon. Polls

VTsIOM, every third Russian believes that the Sun revolves around the Earth. And every fifth - that a person lived on the planet at the same time as dinosaurs.

Of course, all these people went to school and heard about scientific theories. But if a person is sure that the Earth is flat, and knows that science denies it, then he must explain yourself why this is happening. As a rule, a person does not want to admit that he may be wrong. Therefore, he makes a logical conclusion for himself: it means that scientists have organized a conspiracy to hide the truth from ordinary people. But if these nerds are lying about the shape of the Earth, then they may be hiding other serious things. For example, the fact that vaccination can cause terrible consequences for the body.

This is how they are born conspiracy theories. Over time, a person finally convinces himself that scientists, and therefore science, cannot be trusted at all. And it is better to listen to some grandmother from the village: at least she is not involved in a conspiracy and has nothing to do with corruption.

Our brain finds false causal relationships where there are none.

The human brain is used to looking for causal relationships in any events and patterns. This is natural: those who knew how to find such connections and draw the right conclusions survived. But sometimes the brain doesn't have enough data to analyze.

For example, a person sees a light bulb and a lever, then presses the lever and watches the light come on. A person clearly sees the relationship of cause and effect.

But imagine that there are a lot of light bulbs in front of him, and they do not light up immediately after he presses the switch, but after some time - for example, after a minute.

The experimenter pulls a few levers in a random order, and then sees chaos - randomly flashing signals. It will be difficult for him to understand by what principle the bulbs light up.

But our brain is designed in such a way that it primarily looks for a connection between events that occur simultaneously. Therefore, a person can draw wrong conclusions about the connection of levers and light bulbs.

In addition, our ability to analyze has another disadvantage. We are looking for connections even where they cannot exist in principle.

For example, during breakfast, you can see an image of a face on a toasted piece of bread. Or notice that the tea leaves in the cup lined up in the shape of a cross. One will think it's funny accident. And the other will see the sign and will try to explain why he appeared here. And he may decide that these higher powers are trying to warn him about something important.

A person makes generalizations based on one particular case.

People believe that if something happened once, then it will always happen.

This confidence underlies, for example, the popularity homeopathy. Hundreds of studies could be cited to show that homeopathic remedies are just sugar balls. The effect from them is the same as from a pacifier. But the person says: it helped me, so the balls work. Perhaps his recovery is a coincidence, and he would have recovered without homeopathy. But he has already built a causal relationship and does not want to give it up.

The same phenomenon explains belief in astrology. To put it simply, a person thinks something like this: I have a girlfriend who is a Capricorn according to the horoscope, and she does not cook borscht well. So, all Capricorns do not know how to cook.

Such generalizations may sound absurd, but they are very common in society.

The brain accepts the conclusions dictated by old neural connections as important signals of intuition.

Sometimes what we call intuition is simply our brain's automatic response to a task that seems familiar to it. This is a very important property of the brain - not to solve every problem from scratch, but to turn to your past experience. To old and strong neural connections.

This feature helps us. After all, it is not always possible for a person to stop and calmly think or even conduct research. Sometimes instant action is needed, and the best way out is to trust automatic reactions.

But the new situation may not be the same as before. And then it’s really worth looking for a new solution and creating fresh neural connections that didn’t exist before. But people don't want to think. They still react automatically and say they trust intuition.

For example, such an experiment is described in popular psychology textbooks. People are asked to solve a problem: a baseball bat and a ball together cost one dollar and ten cents, and the bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much is the ball worth?

Most respond immediately: 10 cents. This is the wrong answer. You can count and make sure that the ball costs five cents, and the bat costs a dollar and five. But people don't. It seems obvious to them that the ball should cost 10 cents because that's the first number that comes to their mind. And they insist that their answer is correct, even if they see the solution.

In the same way, we sometimes trust our automatic reactions and at the same time believe that we are acting intuitively, and therefore correctly.

People think they have supernatural abilities, but science denies them

Human nature magical thinking - there is such a scientific term. It is the belief that we can influence reality through symbolic actions, whether physical or mental. For example, through thoughts. Well, if science does not recognize this, then it is not right.

Man confuses his imagination with reality. And it seems to him: if, for example, every day you imagine a car, then “space” will definitely give it.

Visualization really works, it's a useful mechanism. If a person first draws a car in front of his inner eye, and then makes a plan on how to get it, then a bright picture will help to focus on the goal.

Magical thinking begins when a person discards the most important thing - the plan. He believes that thinking about the car often enough - and it will appear without his efforts.

Some people go even further and sincerely believe that they have supernatural powers. Researchers have tested this claim as well.

One of the TV channels established the Houdini Prize. This is a reward of two million rubles, which could be received by anyone who demonstrates paranormal abilities. And he will prove in the conditions of the experiment that he can perform actions that cannot be repeated without magic.

Among those who assessed the correctness of the studies were scientists and illusionists. Their task is to check whether there are hidden technologies behind the actions of the nominees.

The conditions of the experiment were discussed with each participant separately, and the "magicians" approved them themselves. They took only those tasks about which they could say: “I will definitely do this.” For example, they agreed to determine who is depicted on photos, upside down.

There were no sensations. All experimental results were within the limits of statistical errors. But interestingly, most of the participants did not admit that they did not have unusual abilities. They attributed their failures to chance. Or they said: “Yes, I felt which answer was correct, but for some reason I chose the wrong one. I do not know why".

Bottom line: in this experiment, "psychic" could not prevail over science. And about this, as well as about other evidence of the unscientific nature of paranormal phenomena, scientists should not be silent.