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The human mind is very limited as stated prior in this series. This is because the entire
drive in evolution is to survive and pass on genes. Being able to contemplate infinity
or even large numbers are not traits required for survival or success in the wild. The average
human mind can only grasp the concept of numbers up to 5 6 or 7 and in some cases as high as
9 at some extremes in areas where primitives do not have numbers. After that point it just
becomes “many” and we process it algorithmically. At a certain point our brain can't even process
algorithmically once it becomes too large. I worked on an aircraft carrier in the navy
and just looking at it hurts your brain to contemplate. Astronauts get vertigo from looking
at the earth from space until their brains can adjust and learn to ignore the fact that
it can't process what it is seeing. So there is little wonder that the human mind really
sucks with probabilities which are nothing but calculations of ginormous numbers. Because
of this people can lie to and prey on uninformed people using false statistics very easily.
Penn and Teller did a show on how easily con artists can trick our brains just by using
large numbers including one where they tried to break a large and made it complicated and
the person never even noticed that the person walked away $20 richer.
Other type of con artist uses our limited mind to their advantage. These are the religious
types. Take prophecy for example. The a religious person, there seems to be a higher chance
that prophecies in the bible came true, than it was either a passage taken out of context
to fit the prophecy, or that the prophecy was written retroactively to make a better
story. When living prophecies occur, people fail to take into account that only the winners
of the prophecies and only their correct predictions are ones that are paid attention to. If you
make a ton of predictions, especially about disaster, one of them is statistically going
to happen, and because of this people will flock to the person who happened to make the
correct prediction and ignore those who weren't lucky enough to guess correctly about the
future. Miracles are exactly the same concept, no one wants to hear about the thousands of
tragedies that occur, that's depression, they just want to hear about that one statistical
outlier and believe it is supernatural. Any person who believes in revelation will
tell you that the end times are very near because the bible says that there will be
more wars, people calling for peace, and more natural disasters. They fail to realize that
the number of wars have actually dropped, and the numbers of natural disasters have
remained the same except for the ones linked to climate change. However due to our explosion
in communication and media, and the fact that the American new media knows that disaster
news sells like hot cakes, we are now constantly being told about disasters that occur, things
that we would have been previously oblivious to.
Creationism uses our limited perception of probabilities when they use the argument against
abiogenesis and evolution by natural selection as being as probable as a Boeing 747 being
made by a tornado. They fail to realize that this mathematician himself said that the statistics
were quite probable over a very slow gradual change. Watch my very first series called
“A case against intelligent design” for a breakdown of the probabilities. Probabilities
and statistics were the very last linchpin that kept me from accepting evolution and
rejecting religion. I remember my dad telling me that statistics were stupid and the majority
of people tend to have a distrust of the field especially in terms of surveys, unless it
or a tiny fact mined piece of it goes in their favor and then quote it as gospel.
Just this morning I heard a republican senator site a poll showing that the majority of Americans
disliked the health care bill. He tired to make it sound as if the majority of Americans
agreed with the republicans. If you stopped there your perception would appear that he
was right think he was right. NPR looked at the survey and found that there were other
questions asked on it, and the majority of Americans supported health care reform but
the majority of Americans had problems with certain portions of the bill and agreed with
it over all. The poll also found that the majority of Americans wanted Obama to be more
forceful with the republicans and that majority Americans distrusted Republicans by 10% more
than they distrusted republicans. Its amazing how you can use any poll or statistic to your
advantage if you omit most of it. Science based polls require multiple questions ask
from multiple angles and varying levels of detail or they will get confirmation bias.
While people distrust big odds when it goes against their beliefs or ideas, they have
no problems with taking huge and foolhardy risks where the odds are completely against
them. We have a naturally evolved trait linked to our reward pathway system, to gamble and
take risk. In the cases of casinos the possibility of a big reward can blind them to the ridiculously
staggering odds of losing. This is why Christians jump as Pascal's wager so easily and don't
even take into account that another religion has equal probability of being right as their
own given the evidence they fail to have. Risk taking is a trait that inherent to us
as humans. This is because, if the risk pans out, the winner takes all, and that has for
millenia meant mates as well. Especially in hunter/gatherer societies. In Jarod Diamond's
book, “Why sex is fun” He discussed tribe of people who have had little to no contact
with the outside world. In their societies, Women pound sago which is a boring but steady
job, no risk involved. While the men basically live on hunting parties killing small game
which they will eat among themselves and not share with the women and children. About once
a month they will bring down big game and then take it back and share with the tribe.
The purpose is not however for altruistic purposes, the purpose is to barter for infidelity
with many of the women of the tribe. The men could easly pound sago too and if you look
at the actual amount of food men and women each bring in, women bring in way more. However
it is the perception of all that food at once that allows this sort of risk to continue.
Being hailed brave and a hero as well as a risk taker is something women are primed to
find attractive. Throughout history, warriors have received the same status by genetic psychology
of women. The reason for this is that a risk-taker that wins has a lot more goods to care for
their mate and children and tends to pass on a lot more genes with more women than a
man that does not take risks many times with the non-risktakers mate. Just because a man
has more good however does not mean that he will be a good father, but its quantity over
quality strategy in evolution. However just because you are a risk taker does not mean
you will win. Natural selection only allows risk takers who succeed to pass on genes.
Many of the risk takers fail and die or in the modern market fail financially, but tend
to be capable of passing on their genes still because they are removed from the gene poll
via natural selection anymore. They also have an added bonus for passing on genes in this
safe world as women are still wired to be attracted to the bad boy. Women don't really
want to date a guy who is abusive or who takes stupid risks in their mind, but hormonally
the traits a risk-taker exhibits make a lot of women weak-kneed. These women then can't
figure out why they can't find any good men, when there are good non-risktakers there but
they don't give nearly the same drug rush a bad boy does. This is why so many nice guys
finish last, until they reach their 30's or 40's when women have learned to distrust their
hormones. can't The only way to make a good assessment of probabilities is through the
meticulously proven study which we call math. Emotions can make any probability seem either
too probable or impossible depending on which our emotional and personal interests lie.
Confirmation bias is our bane with out the mental construct of math because huge numbers
mean nothing to our limited brains.