The thinking that fuels the pseudosciences is primitive and rudimentary . It’s the kind of thinking that simplifies things, stumbles over the argument from authority, or relies more on intuition or hunch than on evidence. We all have brains designed in such a way that pseudosciences are more enjoyable for us.
To be skeptical is to go against our own nature. When there is something we are ignorant of, we need a false answer rather than an “I don’t know” because uncertainty creates stress for us. Being skeptical is like going on a chard diet, but pseudoscience is very tasty and addictive cakes and sweets that we can’t stop eating even if they cause cavities .
The rigor of thinking rigorously
However, it is not necessary to build a supermind or to always live against the current to realize that the sustenance of pseudosciences is, at least, flimsy. You don’t have to be a rebel or always on an intellectual diet. Sometimes it is enough to use the most powerful tool that exists to know if something is true or a lie: an experiment .
When in doubt, then, I experiment. When in doubt, a ruler to measure things. And if what raises your doubt cannot be subjected to the rigors of an experiment or a measuring instrument, then what raises your doubt is debatable and, therefore, will always carry within itself a good dose of that uncomfortable uncertainty. that many are pushed to embrace religions, pseudosciences and other superstitions.
However, since in life we cannot always be on a diet or live in uncertainty (only during short periods of time when we sit down to seriously debate an issue or try to clarify the truth), then we have to assume that we are going to be religious, pseudoscientific and superstitious in many areas of life, from the affective to the political.
Because we all base much of our lives on unsupported beliefs. This is what happens when we live in universes that are too complex. We do not like uncertainty. And therefore, we all tend to be like those who cultivated the Cargo cults, as I explain below. Yes, they were very naive, right? Like us .