Intelligence and stupidity are tricky terms.  I’m not going to define them rigorously so I'll just say, in the simplest sense, that intelligence is the ability to understand complicated ideas.  And most people can do it.  Some people are better than others sure, but very few people are utterly incapable of understanding something if a) they want to learn it and b) it’s explained well.
    But having said that, have you ever seen a news story or overheard a conversation on a bus and thought to yourself “wow, how can people be that stupid?”  
    I agree.  People can act pretty dumb sometimes, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a lack of mental ability.  I think it’s a lack of awareness of cognitive biases.
     Cognitive biases are patterns of thought which prevent us from drawing good conclusions about the world.  Everyone is prone to them and Scientists try, as much as possible, to get round them.  You can't remove them altogether because they're part of your brain, but you can reduce their effects and that's the whole point of critical thinking and Science: training your mind to think well.
​
                                   Here are 20 of the most common cognitive biases.  
                                                   I’m probably guilty of them all.
 
1) Confirmation Bias

• You tend to notice and remember evidence which supports the idea you had to begin with.   
  
• Suppose you believe mass-shootings take place everywhere guns are legal.  You’ll notice mass shootings which happen in America (a few times a year maybe) but ignore the many countries where guns are legal but mass shootings are rare.
  

 
2) Seeking Validation, not negation

• You tend to seek evidence to confirm your beliefs, rather than debunk them.
  
•  Suppose you believe climate change is fake.  You Google websites which provide evidence that “climate change is a myth”.  But how often do you type “climate change is real” or even “climate change myth – debunked”?  
  

 
3) Availability of Ubiquitous Information

• You tend to rely on facts which are presented more commonly.
  
• The most unfortunate and frightening example we're seeing in the modern world is how often we see the words Islam and Muslim being associated with terror attacks on the news.  We've even seen a potential presidency candidate talk about "Muslims" as if they were one type of person.  I've known people who have avoided sitting next to a Muslim on an aeroplane.  The fact is it's easy to remember group stereotypes and racial profiles.  And when they're presented in every newspaper and on every TV station, some people find it hard to assess a situation because all they're thinking about are the hundreds of news reports they've seen linking "Muslim" with "dangerous".  The availability of the terrorism link is much easier to access than the far more important fact we all know: you should analyse people and situations individually.
  

​4) The Dunning-Kruger Effect

• You don’t know your own ignorance, but you assume you know enough.
• I’ve come across people who don’t accept evolution by natural selection because “why are there still monkeys around?”  The person speaking has actually failed to understand Evolution because it claims no such thing and never has.  The person is so ignorant of evolution, they don’t realise it because they aren’t aware of how little they know. 
  

 
5) Associating physical attraction with value

• You tend to assume attractive people are more talented and know what they’re talking about.
• Remember when Susan Boyle got famous?  Here was a middle-aged, dawdly woman with nothing charismatic about her.  But she could sing pretty well.  The story was essentially just that: ugly woman has talent!  We’re so used to thinking that talent and physical attraction go together we’re surprised when someone ugly turns out to be good at something.  By contrast we tend to value the evidence and opinions of gorgeous people and overestimate how good they actually are. 
  

6) The Genetic Fallacy

• You tend to evaluate data by evaluating the person.
• Einstein was a clever bloke, so people end up trusting any data or quotation he presents (check my blog on the topic).  The person is remarkable, so the quotation must be too!  It works the other way round as well.  Richard Dawkins is a biting and barbed critic of religion who makes what are sometimes incendiary and cruel remarks.  The tragedy is that a lot of what he says about the value of Science is brilliant, but so many people are put off reading his ideas because he, the person himself, rubs many the wrong way.
  

 
7) Anchoring Bias

• You accept the first bit of information you hear on a subject and reject anything which comes afterward.
  
• Classic example is the MMR-autism debacle.  The original research paper claiming such a link was a set of interviews conducted by Andrew Wakefield with parents of a handful of children suggesting a link...in their opinion.  Hardly a conclusive set of data.  And yet people cite it all the time as “Science has shown the MMR vaccine causes autism” when in fact a single, not exactly well researched paper suggested one thing.  But it was the first paper to say it, making it “breakthrough research” which “triggered the debate”.  As a result, the wealth of information which has come afterward refuting it, has been ignored by many.
  

 
8) Ingroup Bias

• You tend to go along with the opinion and behaviour of the group you’re in.
• I’m a peaceful guy who would never shout abuse at someone I didn’t know.  Yet in the middle of a football crowd I’ve joined in aggressive chanting at a referee.  I’m not even a football fan.  But being surrounded by a thousand people all shouting made me do it as well.
  

 
9) The Taxicab Fallacy

• You follow evidence until it takes you to the conclusion you want, rather than follow to the end of the line.
  
• Suppose you believe in ghosts.  You might hear someone talking about an experience they had of seeing a ghost.  You therefore assume that’s evidence, rather than grilling them and grilling them to try and pick apart their claim to see if it holds up.  You just stop at “evidence of ghosts” because it takes you to where you want to go.

 
10) Ignoring Statistics (or failing to understand them)

• You tend not to think in a statistical context.
• I once saw a vegan post on Instagram saying more meat-eaters die of cancer which...proof that meat “causes cancer” (whatever that means).  It’s definitely true that more meat-eaters die of cancer but what you have to remember is that there are more meat eaters.  Suppose you take 100 people, 10 of whom happen to be vegetarians.  Let’s say that in this group of 100, 20 of them get cancer.  Chances are, most of those cancer victims will be in the meat-eater category because it’s bigger.  Suppose 19 of the people who get cancer are the meat eaters, while only 1 person from the veggie camp gets it.  It’s now true to say that 19/90 meat eaters got cancer while only 1/10 veggies did.  Aka 21% of the meat eaters got cancer while only 10% of the veggies did.  Aka twice as many meat eaters appear to get cancer as vegetarians…or you could even say 19 times as many meat eaters got cancer as vegetarians.  By misunderstanding statistics you can draw false conclusions.  
  

11) Choice Supportive Bias

• If you have chosen something you tend to make it out to be a better choice than the alternative.
  
• Do you know someone in a bad relationship?  Their partner grinds them down and makes them miserable?  Why do they stay with someone when the relationship is clearly bad?  Well, the thing is, they've chosen to be in that relationship so in their head, it must be good for them ultimately.  The person believes their judgement is sound and that they know what's best for them.  The alternative would be not only to break the relationship, but accept that they made a poor choice and their judgement isn't perfect.  This is a really common and very difficult bias to overcome.
  

 
12) Apophenia

• You tend to spot patterns and links where there aren't any.
  
• The harmless version is the way you look at clouds and see faces because your brain is really good at extracting patterns.  The dangerous version is when you read a description of how your life will turn out, randomly assigned to you by your birthday and feel it is talking to you directly.  You notice events in your life and find ways to match them back to the descirption.  "Oh my God!  This prediction was accurate!”  You retroactively find prophecies in random data, notice parts of your horoscope which are relevant to you and end up living your life according to a random set of instructions. 
  

 
13) Selective Perception

• When data is presented that you don’t like, or contradicts your position, you literally ignore it and pretend it isn’t relevant or real.
  
• Ever been in a debate with someone and they’ve produced a solid fact to back up their point?  Rather than saying “Oh, I didn’t know that, good point, let me change my view accordingly!” you tend to say things like “That doesn’t prove anything” or “Well that’s just one example” or “Oh I don’t care about that.”  And then somehow, when you’re telling the story to your friend later, you literally leave that part of the debate out.  The reason?  You’re worried if you repeat the fact, your friend will agree and not take your side i.e. you actually see the value of your opponent's argument, but you don’t want to acknowledge it so you pretend it never was.
  

 
14) Survivorship Bias

• You tend to focus on the data which stands out and ignore the more boring, but far more common data.
  
• Many people watch talent-shows like X-Factor or America’s Got Talent and see people "making it".  What they don’t notice are the tens of thousands of actors, singers, musicians etc. who never make any impact on the world.  The viewer ends up deluding themselves into thinking that just because they can sing or act they are destined for fame and glory, ignoring the fact that singing, acting, dancing etc. aren't particularly rare talents. 

 
15) Selection Bias

• When evaluating or investigating a claim, you unconsiously select data that isn’t a fair sample.
• Say you believe “everyone knows murder is wrong”.  You talk to the first fifty people you meet and they all agree with you: murder is wrong.  You then conclude it’s a universally held belief.  But actually, the first fifty people you interviewed live in the same neighbourhood as you, have similar jobs, political stances etc.  If you went into a prison, you might get a different response.
  

16) You notice the more interesting/exciting idea

• When presented with two explanations, you go with the one that brings you greater happiness or entertainment.
• You notice crop circles are a thing.  You know they could easily be faked by people with planks of wood.  But this is a boring, mundane explanation.  You also know that a potential explanation is aliens.  So you assume some crop circles are made by aliens.  You like the idea so it stands out in your head as more likely, even though strictly speaking it is actually a less likely explanation.
  

 
17) Current Moment Bias

• You give more weight to how you’re feeling and thinking in the here-and-now than the past.
  
• Your house becomes untidy so you clean it.  Then you look around and decide “this time I’m going to keep it clean”.  You will swear blind to other people that this is a sincere promise.  What you ignore is the fact you’ve said that to yourself a dozen times over the past year, and each time you’ve felt just as confident you’d keep the place tidy.  You decide that on previous occasions “you didn’t really mean it” but this time it's different.  This is the more important one.
  

 
18) Trusting Authorities

• You tend to give more weight to the opinions of people you consider authorities.
• Even though you might consider yourself someone who “doesn't trust people in authority” you really mean the government, your boss etc.  Actually, you have your own internal set of authorities: your favourite newspaper columnist perhaps, the television programs you watch, favourite comedians, your knowledgeable friends etc. etc.  Those people are your authorities and you trust what they say.
  

 
19) Reification

• Assuming words and ideas which get said a lot have a concrete meaning beneath them.
  
• Take the word “country”.  Looking at the Earth from space, you can’t see lines drawn all over the land.  In fact what we really mean by “country” is that when we draw a picture of an area of land (a map) we divide the picture into sections which we agree “belong” to certain people.  Again, what we mean is that certain people occupy parts of land and we decide to obey their rules if we live inside the imaginary lines we have drawn on our pictures.  The picture is real, as are the drawn lines, as is the agreement to behave according to the rules of the people.  But the actual country isn’t a real thing.  We use the word “country” as a shorthand for this complicated, abstract, concept, so we start to assume it’s a real thing.  Actually we are individual organisms occupying an area of land...we do not belong to anywhere, nor does anywhere belong to us.
  

 
20) The Confabulation Effect (False memories)

• You assume your brain records events accurately.
  
• This is one of the scariest biases, but it has been shown repeatedly that human beings are pretty bad at recording or remembering events.  I once investigated a fight that had broken out in my school.  I interviewed everybody separately and got different accounts from all witnesses…not just on the details of who had thrown the first punch etc....people even disagreed on who the fight had involved!  And this had happened an hour earlier.  A lot of your memories are distortions, mixed with dreams, corruptions or outright lies.  And you can’t tell the fake memories from the real ones.
  

Image credits:

Goodness gracious: gswaterman
Eva Green (Nobel Laureate): JamesBond Wiki 
Testicle: Vertical measures
Jeremy Kyle: Thisisbigbrother
Insomnia: Healthusnews

When Dinosaurs Roamed the Moon
     I’m going to argue that conspiracy theorists are people who have the desire and motivation for Science, but they stop too soon.  I'm not going to say they're too lazy or too scared of discovering the truth...but I am going to argue that they commit the "taxicab fallacy" i.e. they adopt an approach, take it where they want to go and stop when they reach an exciting conclusion, rather than following it through to the end.  
    A student of mine, let’s call him Edward, believed the 1969 moon landing was a hoax.  As a Science teacher I hear this a lot and I don’t mind at all.  It sounds like a cool and exotic thing to believe, right?  In fact, when I was twelve, I believed in the moon-hoax myself (for about a day) after watching an interview with a conspiracy theorist who had what I thought were good arguments.  My father quickly explained how we know the moon landing did happen and, hearing his explanations, I changed my mind back to the conventional belief.  I’m not ashamed of this.  Everyone make mistakes.  No big deal.
    So, I sat Edward down and went through the whole thing.  Why the footage has no stars in the sky (exposure of the camera), why the flag appears to move (it’s made of tinfoil and wobbling from being put into the ground) why there’s a second light source (it’s the Earth) etc. and then I gave the evidence for the moon landing.
    The Soviets monitored the moon landing and acknowledged it happened (they would have given anything to avoid that).  We can shine lasers onto retro-reflectors planted by Armstrong and Aldrin and bounce them back to Earth.  We can see the Lunar landing module with a powerful telescope.  And, perhaps most importantly, the astronauts are moving in slow motion which wasn’t possible to fake in 1969 due to camera technology (you’d need to create an impossibly long stretch of film to do so) and could only be achieved in a low gravitational field i.e. the real moon.
    As I went along, I could see Edward’s face changing: “Whoa.”
    That’s right, he literally said whoa. 
    I know the hoax explanation does suggest something pretty exciting, but the fact we journeyed to the actual moon is even more astonishing.  Edward thanked me and spent the next few months researching space travel.  Reality was cooler than the cloak and dagger stuff he’d been fed. 
    I’ve always found the same thing.  I have never heard a conspiracy theory which was as exciting, mind-bending, astonishing or baffling as the way nature actually is.

    I had a different experience with another person, let’s call her Marge.  She believed dinosaurs hadn’t existed.  In her own words “the government put the bones there as part of a global conspiracy.”  Once again, I tried to explain why I thought she was mistaken. 
    I explained that most fossils weren’t bones at all and a lot of them were stuck too deep into the rock to make burying possible.  I explained the history of palaeontology and how difficult it would have been for governments to orchestrate this as far back as 1676 (the earliest confirmed dinosaur fossil) or to fool Chang Qu in 2000 BC who discovered the earliest fossil.
    Marge, unlike Edward, wouldn’t accept it.  “I still don’t think they were real.”
    “Alright, how come?”
    “I dunno, I just don’t.”
    Maybe I am doing Marge a disservice but I got the impression her motivation to believe in the dinosaur-conspiracy was desire.  It seemed as though she preferred the conspiracy.  Plus it’s possible she didn’t want to back down (another perfectly understandable and entirely human behaviour). 
    Thing is, she didn’t have a counterargument to my evidence while I had counterarguments to every point she made.  That’s probably a good litmus test: a sound theory should be able to explain not just the evidence, but also dis-confirm the counterarguments.

Why are Conspiracy Theories Popular? 
    It’s not surprising that conspiracy theories are common.  They usually have some Scientific, political, economic, technological or sociological spin to them which sounds like the kind of thing we’ve heard experts saying.
    "Moon landing faked because USA wanted to embarrass USSR" has an authentic ring to it.  By understanding such a theory we’re showing other people (and ourselves) that we understand history, global politics, governmental behaviour and we therefore have a claim to intellectual understanding.
    Plus it feels good to believe you’re one of the few people who’s seen through the lies.  You’ve managed to outwit the people in charge and that makes you feel good.  Of course it does.  Everyone likes to feel clever. 
    Thing is, the world is run largely in secret.  None of us are privy to the meetings which take place in a government’s inner chambers or in a corporation’s boardroom.  None of us know what the intelligence agencies are up to and none of us know what’s inside Area 51 (or, to give it its proper name: Homey Airport at Groom Lake). 
    We get to put a little cross on a piece of paper every few years and otherwise we’re sort of powerless.  That’s not a nice feeling.  Conspiracy theories give us a sense of control again, like we have power over the faceless corporations which run much of our lives.  There’s an obvious attraction there.

Time to get angry
    Conspiracy theories also give you explanations (even blame) for why things happen.  For instance, during the outbreaks of AIDS, H1N1 and Ebola there were conspiracy theories everywhere.  It’s very tempting to put an organisation in place as having “started the disease” because it gives us someone to be angry at, rather than the cold, blunt truth that horrible things happen without reason and we cannot stop them easily. 
    Plus it once again makes us sound like one of those experts we’ve heard talking on TV: we can start throwing around words like “virology”, “genetic engineering” and “genome” etc. etc.  which again shows everyone, and ourselves, that we really do get it!
    Also, and perhaps most temptingly, conspiracy theories are easy.  Science, economics, social politics, history etc. offer you the same thing as conspiracy theories: unobvious and hidden explanations for what’s going on in the world.  But they’re hard.  Very hard.  I love Science, but I’m not deluded, it can be hard work and sometimes the rewards aren’t immediately obvious. 
    If you want to understand how diseases are spread you have to study Biochemistry, Pathology, Sociology, even medicinal history.  This is difficult, depressing and often not fun.      
    Alternatively, you can read a post on the internet that says government/scientists made diseases and deliberately spread them for some reason.  This gives you the same sense of personal pride and cleverness, without having to put the hard work in.  
    I’ve also noticed that conspiracy theories always seem to be depressing.  People were very quick to claim the Ebola outbreak was organised by some shady organisation because it was a traumatic event (if it really was an organised disease though, it’s probably the worst organised disease in history.  More people died of flu last year in the UK alone than have ever died of Ebola…in the world, so if this was the best attempt a secret organisation could manage, we really don’t have to worry because they’re evidently incompetent). 
    But nobody, to my knowledge, has ever claimed the discovery of Penicillin, Sulfanilimide or Cis-platin (drugs which benefit the world) were conspiracies.  Nobody ever puts forward conspiracy theories to explain the wonderful things which happen in civilisation: the end of apartheid, women getting the vote, the end of segregation in America, the abolition of slavery etc.
    If there are secret organisations running the world, they seem to do an awful lot of nice things for us as well.  Yet this somehow makes the conspiracy less exciting doesn’t it?  It’s more tantalising when there’s “an enemy” behind every corner watching us. 
    And to quote Mark Twain: “The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might.” 

   I often find conspiracy theorists are ever so bold, loud, aggressive and forthright in explaining their positions.  They never let the evidence speak for itself.  
    By contrast, Scientists tend to be fairly plain-spoken, dry and even (sadly) boring in how they present their findings.  The reason is that they don’t need to compensate for anything.  They’ve got facts on their side so there’s no need to embellish with performance. 

         The truth doesn’t need to be shouted, it should be obvious from the most delicate whisper.

So why do I think Conspiracy Theories aren’t all bad?
    There are several things conspiracy theorists do which Scientists mirror and even encourage.  Conspiracy theorists don’t just believe the first explanation they hear (check).  They look for the explanation behind what’s happening (check).  They do research (check).  They don’t worry about how they come across to others (check) and they are usually highly skeptical of explanations given by those in authority (check).  I think conspiracy theorists are trying to make sense of the world, just like Scientists.  They’re just not going far enough.
    Conspiracy and Science are very, very close.  There’s just one difference between them.  But, as is often the case, this little difference makes all the difference.  And the difference is this:

                                                    Scientific speculations are easily falsified.

    In other words: Scientists set up ideas and explanations which you can easily check and destroy.  In fact, the strength of a Scientific theory isn’t the evidence for it.  It’s how easy it would be to find evidence against it, and yet none can be found.  In Science we seek to disprove our guesses, not to confirm them.
    This is where conspiracy theories fall flat.  I have no way to go back in time and follow Lee Harvey Oswald from birth to death to see if he was paid to shoot JFK.  I have no way of talking to the pilots of the September 11th attacks to see if it was a false-flag operation.  And so on. 
    Conspiracy explanations are structured in precisely a way which means we can’t verify or falsify them.  We aren’t inside the secret meetings of government and business, so we can imagine whatever we like.  Try it.  Next time you hear a conspiracy being described, ask the following question: "can you propose an experiment to test whether your idea is true?"
    Speculation about hidden government agendas are fruitless.  If we can’t know what happens in a secret meeting, why assume a conspiracy?  Why not assume there was no conspiracy?  There’s just as much evidence. 

Technically...
    I can’t completely disprove any conspiracy theory because any conspiracy theory has an element of “we can never know the truth” .  Science, however, sets up explanations which you can easily go out and check.  
    A skeptic will see the moon landing and get suspicious about the lack of stars, so they start to question it (a healthy thing to do).  They come to an initial conclusion: “that's not how space should look” and the conspiracy theorist goes no further, only seeking more evidence to back up that first conclusion.  They don’t go the next step “is there another explanation for the lack of stars?” which is what the Scientist does…discovering that there is a perfectly good explanation. 
    A conspiracy theorist types “moon landing faked – evidence” into Google.  A Scientist types the same thing but after reading the evidence, types “debunked” to see if there are counterarguments. 
    So, to any Conspiracy theorists reading I say you’re on the right track and your desire to know more is something I agree with completely.  But you need to start searching for evidence against your conspiracy belief.  Try to disprove it and see if there are non-conspiracy explanations for the puzzles you’ve sensibly spotted.  It’s good to be skeptical about what you’re presented with, but you need to be skeptical of yourself as well.  Question your intuition, attack your own motives, be self-doubting and always open to criticism. 
    To everyone else I say this: don’t be rude to conspiracy theorists.  They, like you, just want to find the truth.  It’s better to be a conspiracy theorist than someone who never questions anything…it’s just even better to be a Scientist.  
    Encourage the skepticism but don’t let anyone stop when they get to an exciting or salacious explanation.  Push them further.  Get them to doubt their doubts.  Get them to investigate and investigate until they’ve reached the limit of what anyone can know.  And, if all goes to plan, you’ll have turned them into a Scientist.  At least...that's what the illuminati told me to write.  

Image sources:

JFK: iowalum
Marge: ​bustle
Mark Twain: a4filesbiography
Affleck: ​​businessinsider

​     When I was a kid I believed in UFOs.  Well, technically I still believe in them and so does everyone else.  A UFO just means an Unidentified Flying Object, and everyone at some point has seen something in the sky and wondered what it is.  What I really mean is, when I was a kid I thought Earth was being visited by alien spacecraft. 
    One thing which, to me, indicates intellectual maturity though, is being able to justify your beliefs.  When I was four if you asked why I believed in aliens I couldn’t have answered, probably wouldn’t have understood the question.  By the time I was seven I might have given a more sophisticated answer, probably citing stories I’d heard, documentaries I’d seen and weird stuff I’d noticed in the sky.  In other words, I would have given evidence (albeit poor).  Even though in all honestly the main reason I believed in aliens was because I wanted to.  I still do.  The discovery of any alien life would excite me.

​ Eventually, once I began investigating the evidence properly, I came to the conclusion that UFOs are highly unlikely to be alien spacecraft and that most accounts can be explained in simpler ways.  But here’s the thing: given the choice, I’d rather believe UFOs are aliens.
    The thought of aliens is so unbelievably cool and profound I can’t express it responsibly.  If I was allowed to choose what I believed, I would believe in alien visitors without a scrap of hesitation.  But the annoying thing is you can’t choose what you believe.  I’ll say it again, in bold and centred for the people who only skim-read:
 
                                                              Belief is not a choice.  Ever.
 
    That’s not how belief works.  As I’ve said in previous posts, belief is a coercive thing.  You let the facts force your brain to a conclusion and sometimes that conclusion isn’t a nice one. 
    I would love to believe aliens visit the Earth, that global warming is a myth and that we can communicate with the dead via mediumship.  All of those things would be wonderful and great and amazing and I want, so badly, to believe in them.  But I can’t because I’m a skeptic.  I'm not allowed to believe in stuff I want.  And it sucks. 
    Skeptics are people who check and make sure before they believe something.  They’re the people who want evidence.  Oh, and a skeptic isn’t the same as a cynic by the way.  Cynics are people who assume (from the start) that the claim is wrong.  Cynics don’t make good scientists because they assume the outcome before investigation.
     Skeptics often get confused with cynics, which I guess is unavoidable.  We both do the same things on the surface: question people and refuse to believe things they tell us.  The difference is that a skeptic wants it to be true.  I’m now going to put a sentence in bold just to confuse the skim-readers who will wonder what the main text could possibly say to justify it:
 
                                               Apples are always more important than werewolves
 
     The biggest misconception about skeptics is that we enjoy being skeptical.  And I know why.  Skeptics come across as people who are trying to be impressive, ruin the party and look like the cleverest person in the room.  This is another reason it sucks to be a skeptic: people think you’re trying to show-off.
     Oh, and skeptics aren’t just people who refuse to believe anything unusual.  Skeptics can believe in life after death, gods, monsters, magic and anything else you care to mention…if there’s evidence for them. 
     If you’ve ever seen those X-Files T-shirts with “I want to believe” on them, you know what skepticism is.  The T-shirts don’t say “I believe”.  And that’s the difference.  Wanting to believe is different from believing.    

    So if skeptics would rather believe in fun stuff, why question everything?  Why not just give skepticism a rest and enjoy the stories?  Wouldn’t that make us happier? 
    Well, yes it would.  But there’s something even more important to someone who chooses skepticism:
 
                                 Better an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable lie.
    
     If you agree with the above statement, skepticism is for you.  But it isn’t a fun path to take.  It doesn’t help you win more arguments, doesn’t make you popular and certainly doesn’t make you feel special or clever. 
     If, on the other hand, you don’t agree with the above statement, you can believe whatever you like.  You can pick and choose the reality which makes you feel good.  You can live in a world where wizards are real, supermarkets sell unicorn meat and leprechauns faked the moon landing.  But please remember: skeptics aren’t disagreeing with you because they aren’t willing to believe.  We are willing to believe, we just can’t live with ourselves if we do it in the absence of good evidence.
     A short anecdote to finish.  A while ago I was stopped by someone in my town centre who wanted to tell me about their religion.  It happened to be a religion I am not a member of.  This shouldn’t shock or offend you by the way; with over 4,000 religions in the world, you probably don’t believe in at least 3,999 of them.

    The man in the street talked to me about his beliefs and I asked a few questions like “what made you believe?” and “what can you give me that will convince me?”  The conversation went on for a long time and became circular. 
    I realised, long afterward, why he failed to convert me: he was trying to tell me about all the wonderful things his religion offered.  How much peace it brought him, how happy it made him and how much order it had brought to his life.  Good for you, I thought, but that doesn’t sway me away from my own religious perspective. 
    He made the assumption that I didn’t want to believe his religion because I was happier with different beliefs, or that I wasn’t prepared or willing to accept his ideas.  He thought he had to “help” me believe…actually what he needed to do was “make” me believe.
    It occurred to me that many people who try and convince me of something fail because they take the wrong tactic - they try and tell me how awesome the belief is.  Let me save you the trouble: I’m not interested in whether a fact makes me feel good or clever. 
    If you’re talking to a skeptic and trying to convince them of something there is only one approach you ought to take.  Forget convincing us we’re damned if we don’t believe and forget convincing us we’re saved if we do.  Forget convincing us your belief will make us happier or more fulfilled.  Convince us of one thing and one thing only.  Convince us your belief is true.

Image credits:
Jar Jar: Independent
X-files shirt: hottopic
Tom Cruise: Smashinglists