Re: Brin: Arguing Doesn't Work: Fact Vs Belief

On 11/21/2010 10:17 AM, Nick Arnett wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Michael Harney 
> <dolphin-LOIcXuj58f4UY/[email protected] <mailto:dolphin-LOIcXuj58f4UY/[email protected]>> wrote:
>
>     Dawkins addresses this a bit in his book _The God Delusion_.
>      Evolutionarily, it makes sense.  Children cannot afford to
>     disbelieve things that are told to them by elders.  Doing so means
>     consuming poisonous things or getting too close to lions or other
>     dangerous predators. 
>
>
> That seems tautological to me, since it is only true if what you're 
> being told is true.  Believing false information of that nature would 
> be selected against, so one could imagine that humans could have 
> evolved a strong sense of when to believe those in authority.
>

Actually, false ideas would only be selected against if those ideas had 
negative survival value.  If the survival value is neutral, then the 
idea and the people who believe it continue.  Or, an idea may have 
negative survival value for the individual, but positive value for the 
group. ex: the Aztecs would sacrifice people to the gods during times of 
famine to try and appease the gods to end the famine.  Though bad for 
the individual being sacrificed, whether or not the famine ended, the 
group would be better off as there would be less mouths to feed and 
fewer people would starve.  You do have a point though as teenagers 
actually lose judgment and consequence ability in their early teen 
years, it makes it more likely for them to disregard what they have been 
taught, making it more likely to try something that they were told was 
bad.  Any thing that has negative consequence is likely to be witnessed 
by others and the taboo reinforced, but expectations to can influence 
what a person sees.  If the parents said "Say your prayers every morning 
and night or bad things will happen".  If a rebellious teen stops saying 
their prayers, they are more likely to interpret any bad thing that 
happens as a direct consequence of not saying their prayers as that is 
what they expect.  In this way, people may end up crediting the wrong 
idea for good or bad results resulting in neutral ideas being sustained.

>  Besides, some of us had parents who taught us to be skeptical of 
> authority.  I'm fairly sure DB's kids have been taught that!
>
> "Be skeptical of authority, kid."
>
> "Why?"
>
> "Because I'm your father and I said so."
>
> Nick
>

True, but the idea of teaching children to question authority is a 
relatively new one, or rather, it is one that only a small portion of 
the population engaged in until recently.  Even now I would say it is 
still a small minority of the population.  If holy texts are any 
indicator, questioning authority back in much older times usually ended 
in the questioning person being killed.