Beliefs may take one of two forms:

1. faith in the unprovable or

2. assumptions of the verifiable but with no effort made to verify.

This web site addresses the latter of the above two. The former, of course, leads us into all the various religious beliefs that have come to characterize humanity, and we wouldn't be human, it seems, if we hadn't them altogether.

I. Belief Biases (Physical Misperception)

    We all intuitively make assumptions about reality and how we expect it to "behave" each minute of each day. These personal beliefs become our steadfast guides to managing the world surrounding us. Over the courses of our lives we all accumulate in our memories countless little perceptions that tell us what to probably expect most of the time. The true validity of this sort of thinking of course falls way short of reality. In our minds we may justify our personal perceptions solely on personal experience. If in the past we tended to experience the ordinary, today we may not expect anything much different to potentially occur. On the other hand, if in the past we experienced the rare or unusual, we may tend to expect similar unusual events to occur once again. For example, a child reared under irrational control may expect a new acquaintance to behave similarly. Also, some new cultural or religious belief contrary to your own may seem awkward or strange upon your first encounter.

    As another example, if the ground ahead seems dry and solid, you walk forward and expect nothing out of the ordinary. Plenty of memories support your action. You have performed countless such "ground analyses" before, always with a successful outcome. But for someone else who may be trying to deceive you in some way, an illusion may lie ahead in your path which you may be unable to immediately discern: a slick surface that seems dry or a concealed pit for you to fall down into.

    The crux of the matter rests in the simple realization that our world is enormously complex. So, we concoct our own personal "cause-effect" or "A implies B" beliefs in a way that helps us to understand everything going on around us without having to exert much effort in doing so. And this leads to another problem: personal beliefs having no global or universal validity. What may seem apparent to you from your own particular perspective may not actually bear any relevance to someone else with some overview on the situation.

People appear to be particularly adept at generating ideas, explanations and theories [with which to ‘fit’ new incoming information into their present perspectives or paradigms] and usually with a fair degree of plausibility.— Michael S Gazzaniga, The Social Brain: Discovering the Networks of the Mind, 1985; Richard E Nisbett and T. D. Wilson, Psychology Review, 84: "Telling more than we know: verbal reports on mental process," 1977

When making judgments and decisions, we employ a variety of informal rules and strategies that simplify fundamentally difficult problems and allow us to solve them without excessive effort and stress. These strategies are generally effective, but the benefit of simplification is paid for at the cost of occasional systematic error. There is, in other words, an ease/accuracy trade-off in human judgment. — Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life, 1991

We can sometimes become overly impressed by data which, upon closer inspection, merely suggests credence to a particular argument or idea. Subsequently accepting this hypothesis as true, despite the apparent inadequacies, we fail to see beyond this ‘illusion of validity.’ The belief then becomes accepted, incorporating itself in our personal paradigms, with the believer(s) consequently professing vehemently that this is a ‘logical’ conclusion drawn from ‘objective evidence’ that ‘any rational person can see.’ — H. J. Einhorn and Robin M Hogarth, Psychology Review, 85: "Confidence in judgment: persistence of the illusion of validity," 1977

The simplest answer is not always the right one; truth is very often not simple.— Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, XXX

    Quite obviously, then, the lesson for the professional is this. Don’t rely solely on your own personal beliefs to guide you through your decision-making! Instead, stick to the tried and true scientific method of formulating hypotheses and conducting carefully controlled experiments to test their validity. Retain a worried and concerned outlook. Check to make sure! Verify, verify, verify! Sometimes you'll spot some errors overlooked. While other times you'll find yourself uselessly expending time and effort to check up on matters already robustly prepared. Nevertheless, it's always best to err on the side of safety than to idly allow any potential for error to fester and subsequently yield to catastrophe!

II. Logical Fallacies (Verbal Misperception)

    Effective fallacious reasoning exists because humans are emotional. We are selfish, gregarious and just plain lazy! Because of these inherent shortcomings, we are prone to being duped by arguments that appeal to our emotional side. Their effectiveness rests on our trust in the speaker(s) using them and our ignorance or lack of preparation to help guard ourselves from falling prey to their deceptive enticements. Succinctly said, in the words of Professor Stephen Downes (http://datanation.com/fallacies/howto.htm):

And remember - most people have non-logical reasons for believing the things they do. They may have political opinions because their parents had them; they may have on-the-job views because they're afraid of being fired; they may think a movie is good because all their friends do.... There is no reason for you to hold these beliefs, because you are not subject to the same non-logical factors. But you should be aware that mere reason may not be enough to get them to change their minds. So use reason with caution, and if you really want to persuade someone of something, remember that compassion, honesty and tact are as important as logic.

Included in the next dozen pages is a more complete discussion of all the fallacies of reasoning "out there," special thanks again to Professor Stephen Downes. First, though, allow us to address these following common faults in human reasoning that directly relate to our most innate tendencies....

III. Emotional Biases (Emotional Misperception)

All opinions expressed in this web site, unless otherwise noted, are my own, Michael Gaspard. If you notice any errors or have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know by e-mailing webmaster@mdpme.com. Thank you!

This web page was last updated on Monday, May 24, 2004.
http://www.mdpme.com/fallacy.htm

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