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Welcome to Part 10 of our series on the oddly common ways that the thinking of theists and
statists goes wrong.
And here's one very weird way: how they can dismiss, in advance, the results of experiments
that haven't yet been done. For example, some homeopaths say:
"You can't test homeopathy with double-blind placebo-controlled studies! It just doesn't
work that way."
It isn't just the Special Pleading like we talked about in Part 2. It's the fact that
they KNOW what the result of these studies will be, even before they're done. They know
in advance that these studies will end up with a negative result, and that they'll have
to explain away that result.
This goes to something Daniel Dennett calls "belief in belief." This is where you CLAIM
you believe something, without actually believing it. And the weird thing is, you might even
believe that you believe it, without actually believing it. I know that sounds weird, but
let me explain.
Carl Sagan once recounted a hypothetical conversation:
"I have a dragon in my garage."
Okay, show it to me!
"Well, it's invisible."
Then I'll put flour on the floor and observe its footprints.
"That won't work--the dragon constantly hovers."
So I'll detect the heat from the fire.
"Sorry, but it only breathes invisible cold fire."
So I'll spraypaint the dragon.
"That won't work either. It's incorporeal and the paint won't stick."
And so on. Now, Sagan's point was that this is an untestable, unfalsifiable hypothesis,
and there's no way to distinguish between a garage that contains this dragon and an
empty garage.
But let's combine this with Dennett's insight. Suppose instead, the person said:
"Hey, that spray paint thing's a good idea! Let's try it!"
And only when it failed he said:
"Oh well, I guess the dragon's incorporeal."
Then the person would still be deluded, holding to an unfalsifiable claim, but his BELIEF
would be genuine. It's coming out directly, before any such test has ever been done, and
saying:
"That won't work either. It's incorporeal and the paint won't stick."
That lets you know that this is belief-in-belief. Because he knows AHEAD OF TIME what the result
of the experiment will be and how he'll have to explain it away. He may honestly believe
THAT HE BELIEVES a dragon is in his garage, but his expectations will always be the same
results that would occur with no dragon at all. His mental model of the universe works
PRECISELY as it would if there were no dragon. He might honestly believe that he believes
that the dragon is there, but he doesn't ACTUALLY believe it.
Now, do I REALLY need to tell you how this applies to religion?
"God exists! I know because the Bible says so!"
Okay, well, I've come up with a scientific test that'll determine whether or not he's
there. Whaddya say we do it?
"Oh, no! The Bible says, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'" (Deuteronomy
6:16)
Oh, really?
"Yes! And whent he devil tried to tempt Jesus into doing such a test, the Bible says: 'Jesus
said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”'"
(Matthew 4:7, Luke 4:12)
Hmm...Well, that's convenient, isn't it?
"Because, 'faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.'"
(Hebrews 11:1)
So, you're saying you should refuse all tests about God?
"Yep, just like Ahaz did to Isaiah." (Isaiah 7:12)
So throughout the book, Christians are actively discouraged from doing actual tests to see
whether or not God is real. And why might that be, hmmm? Could it be that the Biblical
authors knew ahead of time that these tests would fail, and that the universe would behave
exactly as if there were no God? And how many Christians today say the same thing?
"God can't be proven scientifically! You just have to have faith!"
They may BELIEVE that they believe that, but if they REALLY believed in God, then they
shouldn't hesistate to do ANY of these tests! I believe in gravity, and I'll do any test
based on the current scientific gravitational model any time you say.
But what happens when, for example, a long-term study of intercessory prayer shows no benefit
from praying over those who are sick? What's the Christian reaction? Christianity Today
concluded:
"Our prayers are nothing at all like magical incantations. Our God bears no resemblance
to a vending machine...God seems to have granted favor without regard to either the quantity
or even the quality of the prayers...True to his character, God appears inclined to
heal and bless as many as possible. It is as if he can barely restrain himself—though
he often does—from supernaturally intervening and disrupting the nature of the universe
to care for those he loves, whether they acknowledge it or not. Did God answer the prayers of the
study's official prayer teams? Yes. But more than that, he answered the prayers of the
patients, of their friends and relatives, and perhaps even of those who may not have
known they were praying."
Okay, so we have the usual after-the-fact wrangling. But the funny thing is, as that
very same article pointed out, they didn't need to actually wait for the results of the
study to know what they would be. Here's what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Efficacy of Prayer:
"I have seen it suggested that a team of people—the more the better—should agree to pray as
hard as they knew how, over a period of six weeks, for all the patients in Hospital A
and none of those in Hospital B. Then you would tot up the results and see if A had
more cures and fewer deaths. And I suppose you would repeat the experiment at various
times and places so as to eliminate the influence of irrelevant factors.
"The trouble is that I do not see how any real prayer could go on under such conditions.
“Words without thoughts never to heaven go,” says the King in Hamlet. Simply to
say prayers is not to pray; otherwise a team of properly trained parrots would serve as
well as men for our experiment. You cannot pray for the recovery of the sick unless the
end you have in view is their recovery. But you can have no motive for desiring the recovery
of all the patients in one hospital and none of those in another. You are not doing it
in order that suffering should be relieved, you are doing it to find out what happens.
The real purpose and the nominal purpose of your prayers are at variance. In other words,
whatever your tongue and teeth and knees may do, you are not praying. The experiment demands
an impossibility."
See? Lewis knew AHEAD OF TIME what the results of any such study would be, and how he'd have
to explain it away. He may have honestly THOUGHT he believed that the prayer in such a study
wouldn't be "real" prayer, but the fact is that his mental model of the universe behaves
EXACTLY like a universe where prayers are not answered at all.
And guess what? Once again, libertarians have experienced exactly this phenomenon when dealing
with statists. How many times have we heard THIS:
"There's never been a libertarian society in all of history!"
So, then, what, that means we shouldn't try it? In the 16th century, someone might just
as easily have said:
"There's never been a country that banned slavery in all of history!"
Right, there never had been...until there was. Would you have told the Wright Brothers
that they might as well give up, since there'd never been a successful heavier-than-air aircraft
before then? What would happen to human progress if people took this attitude? Ironic that
many who pose this question call themselves "progressives."
But here's the real point: it sets up an obvious trap. We can't ever try a libertarian society,
until there's actually BEEN a libertarian society and we can see how well it works.
But then, how do you ever get that first libertarian society? There's no logical way to do it!
So why do they set this trap? Could it be that they KNOW IN ADVANCE what the results
will be, and that it won't go the way they want? At the very least, they must consider
it likely enough to be afraid of the results. Their actual beliefs--their mental model of
how the universe works--doesn't conform to what they CLAIM to believe, what they may
actually THINK they believe themselves.
Here's another one we get all the time:
"Libertarianism is just like communism: it works on paper, but no way it can work in
reality!"
First of all, let's forgive the fact that communism DOESN'T work on paper. Let's ignore
the fact that it's mathematically unsustainable and economically nonviable.
Also, let's ignore the implication that simply "looking good on paper" is good enough to
disprove it. If it doesn't even "look good on paper," if the mathematics and the economics
don't work on paper, what reason do we have to think it'll work in the real world?
No, let's forgive all of that for now. This is just another example of belief-in-belief:
by their own admission, there's never been a libertarian society, so this knowledge that
it doesn't work any better than communism isn't based on empirical data. Again, it's
the fact that they know AHEAD OF TIME what will happen and what they'll have to respond
to that clearly indicates that, no matter how sincere they're being, what they THINK
they believe doesn't match their actual expectations of how reality will behave. So just like with
the dragon, they need to do whatever they can ahead of time to cut off any tests at
the pass.
It happens in the details, too. In a recent video on this channel, I was talking about
the data showing the harm caused by Minimum Wage. A user named Waddy Mutters said to me:
"Ok provide the studies and I (sic) show you how to read them correctly and show you where
you were deluded."
Now understand: he did NOT look at me citing a study, look it over, and determine that
I WAS reading it incorrectly. He hadn't looked at ANY studies at that point! If you assert
you know the answer before you begin, it DOESN'T MATTER how many studies you find to support
it! You were right or wrong the moment you made the statement, and NOTHING in the universe
can change that.
But there's more: it's not just that he presupposes the conclusion; it isn't just his smug, arrogant
assumption of superior knowledge; it's that he ALREADY KNOWS WHAT THE STUDIES WILL SAY
and that they have to be "read correctly" to get the "right" answer. It's belief in
belief. In his mind, he expects any test to come out the way it would if the Minimum Wage
caused harm, and he needs to prepare for that eventuality: the study has to be "read correctly,"
just like the Bible has to be "read correctly" when it says the Earth is flat.
This is where cognitive dissonance comes in: this is the stress you get from holding contradictory
beliefs. In this case, it's where their stated political position is at odds with their internal
mental model of how the universe behaves. In fact, Minimum Wage is a perfect example
of this:
"We need a living wage! Raise the Minimum Wage to $10.10!"
What, do you hate the poor or something? Why not make it $20 an hour? Or $50? Hey, why
don't we make it a MILLION dollars an hour and we can all afford private jets!
"Well now you're just being silly."
I am? Why?
"Because it won't work to raise it that much! It'll be destructive to the economy!"
But if increasing the Minimum Wage is destructive, then why do you want to increase it by a smaller
amount?
[crickets]
So they KNOW that if they do a BIG Minimum Wage increase that it'll cost jobs and raise
prices. In their mental model of the universe, that's what happens, and then they'll be embarrassed
because the destruction caused by their policy will be obvious.
But if you only bump it up a little bit, you only do a TINY amount of damage and it gets
lost in the noise. All of the other factors that can make unemployment go up and down
end up overpowering it. But that doesn't mean that the damage isn't there! It just means
that it's small enough that they don't have to face the negative consequences.
So watch out for that: There are lots of studies they like to trot out showing that a SMALL
Minimum Wage increase has no measurable effect on unemployment--because the increase is so
small the effect gets lost in the noise. When someone presents such a study to you, ask
yourself why they restricted themselves to only looking at small increases in the first
place.
THAT is why it's belief-in-belief. They may honestly believe that they believe the Minimum
Wage is beneficial, but in their mental model of the universe, it isn't, and so they'll
only advocate Minimum Wage increases that are so small that they can blame the resulting
unemployment on other factors.
"It's those greedy corporations again!"
Inflation is another example. Governments LOVE inflating the currency! And what's the
reason they give?
"Inflation means the economy is growing!"
But isn't it funny that, whenever they actually examine growth in the economy, all of the
figures are adjusted for inflation? Why would that be? If inflation is an indication of
a growing economy, shouldn't you include it in your growth figures? Controlling for inflation
means that they don't actually believe there's any link between inflation and economic growth.
They may profess that belief for political reasons; they may have even convinced themselves
that they believe it. But again, their actions show that they don't actually consider inflation
to be a measurement or cause of economic growth at all.
Belief in belief happens when the consequences of not believing are too much to bear. Maybe
someone has a lot emotionally or financially invested in the outcome. Maybe it's a long-held
belief. Maybe it's a situation where it would be embarrassing to admit that they're wrong.
Maybe they genuinely fear that society would be damaged if that belief were destroyed.
Whatever the reason, they have already, in a real sense, been convinced that they are
wrong, since they expect the universe to behave that way. Even if they still consciously believe
it, that belief doesn't match their expectations. That's belief in belief.
This is what you see whenever someone comes up with an excuse not to do a particular test,
or some way of explaining away the results of a test he hasn't yet seen:
"Oh, God healed the control group, too."
Which is in itself a tacit admission that intercessory prayer makes no difference in
outcomes.
"That unemployment must have been caused by something other than Minimum Wage."
Which, if nothing else, acknowledges that the unemployment did, in fact, occur. And
the fact that they know this will happen AHEAD OF TIME means that they already believe that
intercessory prayer doesn't work, or Minimum Wage causes unemployment, or whatever else
it might be that runs contrary to what they profess to believe in. They know, deep down,
that there's no dragon in their garage, and that whatever experimental test is done will
turn out exactly as it would if the garage is empty.
And so the test needs to be intercepted, or avoided, or explained away. Really, how is:
"You shall not put the Lord your God to the test."
Any different from:
"There's never been a libertarian society in all of history!"
The answer is, it isn't. And everyone who makes those arguments knows it. Even if they
believe that they believe otherwise. Stay tuned.