Intelligence and woo

[widdershins]

All I can say is I'm a magic train engineer..WOO WOOO! :P

I'm not sure I get it.  Are you magic or is it the train?

[SGOS]

double post

[SGOS]

We never employ our intelligence more deviously than when trying to justify not changing our beliefs.

So true.  Along with human intelligence comes the capacity to invent, rationalize, and selectively remember (or ignore).  These are both gifts and a curses.  Somewhat related to these capacities is a power to reason like no other animal.  This is not news.  Our power of reason is shouted from scientific journals and from philosophers, as well as from the pulpits of churches.  Yes we have that power, but apparently it is not our default setting.  Those other less glamorous capacities we seem to forget.  They are not as charming to acknowledge.  So we go about our day assuming all we do is reason, and believing we do it well, no matter how stupid we act.

[SGOS]

I know that when I was deconverting, in my teens, I spent a few years on the woo-train ... mainly belief in mental powers.

Yeah, I did that too.  It helps if you're doing drugs.  It's kind of embarrasing now, but you know, we were young then.  We had not been around long enough to really sort things out.  You're trying to make sense of the world, and are influenced by the behavior of those around us, many of whom have much stronger attractions to wild thinking.  You get tempted into trying to give them credit, often times for things they don't deserve.

[widdershins]

I know that when I was deconverting, in my teens, I spent a few years on the woo-train ... mainly belief in mental powers.

Yeah, I did that too.  It helps if you're doing drugs.  It's kind of embarrasing now, but you know, we were young then.  We had not been around long enough to really sort things out.  You're trying to make sense of the world, and are influenced by the behavior of those around us, many of whom have much stronger attractions to wild thinking.  You get tempted into trying to give them credit, often times for things they don't deserve.

Fuck, the woo train is nothing.  I spoke in tongues.  Now THAT is embarrassing, especially when I see video of it now and how damned stupid and obvious it looks.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I know that when I was deconverting, in my teens, I spent a few years on the woo-train ... mainly belief in mental powers.

Yeah, I did that too.  It helps if you're doing drugs.  It's kind of embarrasing now, but you know, we were young then.  We had not been around long enough to really sort things out.  You're trying to make sense of the world, and are influenced by the behavior of those around us, many of whom have much stronger attractions to wild thinking.  You get tempted into trying to give them credit, often times for things they don't deserve.

So true, including the, er, "experimentation" with drugs.  Took me a few years to find my moorings.

[SGOS]

I know that when I was deconverting, in my teens, I spent a few years on the woo-train ... mainly belief in mental powers.

Yeah, I did that too.  It helps if you're doing drugs.  It's kind of embarrasing now, but you know, we were young then.  We had not been around long enough to really sort things out.  You're trying to make sense of the world, and are influenced by the behavior of those around us, many of whom have much stronger attractions to wild thinking.  You get tempted into trying to give them credit, often times for things they don't deserve.

Fuck, the woo train is nothing.  I spoke in tongues.  Now THAT is embarrassing, especially when I see video of it now and how damned stupid and obvious it looks.

LOL You should post that video here.

[Colanth]

Back to the OP, there's a difference in the intelligence needed to parrot back what you learned well enough to "earn" a degree and the intelligence needed to think rationally.

[widdershins]

LOL You should post that video here.

Not a video of me, silly.  Videos on the Internet of people doing it.  Every day I thank God that there are no videos of me doing it.  Or Thor.  Or Satan.  Whoever is handy, really.  They all have pretty busy schedules, though I would avoid Zeus.  He's a little needy these days.  If you talk to him he'll stalk you for, like, a month.  He does pay on dates, though.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Woo can be harmless nonsense, but it can also be terribly dangerous and destructive (homeopathy, for example).

There's probably some woo that I unconsciously accept as given mainly because I don't know enough about it, but when it comes to medical science, I can't help but think you're a prat if you believe in woo in that context. Looking up evidence for medical science practices/ treatment isn't difficult (ask your GP/doctor), so I can only assume that people who don't and rather believe in nonsense are just lazy and apathetic, else being wilfully ignorant (or a combination).

[Colanth]

but when it comes to medical science, I can't help but think you're a prat if you believe in woo in that context. Looking up evidence for medical science practices/ treatment isn't difficult (ask your GP/doctor), so I can only assume that people who don't and rather believe in nonsense are just lazy and apathetic, else being wilfully ignorant (or a combination).

Many of them "know" that they aren't ignorant, so they see no need to look it up.  (As in taking an antibiotic every time you get a cold.  Antibiotics cure illness - everyone knows that.)

[SGOS]

Many of them "know" that they aren't ignorant, so they see no need to look it up.  (As in taking an antibiotic every time you get a cold.  Antibiotics cure illness - everyone knows that.)

Or as a woman I worked with said (imagine a parental tone when you tell your child he can't put his hand on a hot stove), "If you don't go to the doctor to get antibiotics, you'll never get rid of your cold."

[Davka]

As we are all aware there is a negative correlation between intelligence and belief in woo

Um - no. There isn't.

There is, however, a negative correlation between education and belief in woo. Specifically, scientific education tends to negate belief in woo.

But intelligence? Nope. Tons of woo-addicts are engineers, mathematicians, psychologists, and just about any other profession you care to name that does not require a rigorous background in the hard sciences (and yes, I'm excluding mathematics from that category).

If belief in woo were correlated with stupidity, we would find roughly the same percentage of woo-addicts across all nations. But we don't. We don't even find it among Western industrialized nations. Rational thought is not necessarily a function of intelligence. Unfortunately.

[Davka]

LOL You should post that video here.

Not a video of me, silly.  Videos on the Internet of people doing it.  Every day I thank God that there are no videos of me doing it.  Or Thor.  Or Satan.  Whoever is handy, really.  They all have pretty busy schedules, though I would avoid Zeus.  He's a little needy these days.  If you talk to him he'll stalk you for, like, a month.  He does pay on dates, though.

Yes, but does he put out?  :-k

[AllPurposeAtheist]

IT'S A MIRACLE! ....that the whole state of Florida didn't get sucked down in that guys bedroom floor!