Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole (12 page)

THE VISION THING

So effective can “
But It Fits!
” be in generating the illusion that a theory is overwhelmingly confirmed by the evidence that its
defenders may come to think its truth is
just obvious for anyone with eyes to see.
This may in turn lead them to suspect that those who can't see its manifest truth must be suffering from something like a perceptual defect. We might call reaching this advanced stage achieving
The Vision Thing.

Popper noted something like this effect in some followers of Marx, Freud, and Adler. He says:

I found that those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud, and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent
explanatory power.
These theories appear to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, open your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of
verifications
of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refuse to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still “un-analyzed” and crying aloud for treatment.
²⁰

Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham similarly puts down the inability of his opponents to “see” the manifest truth of creation to their arrogant and egotistical ways:

Why can't the humanists, the evolutionists, see that all the evidence supports exactly what the Bible says? It is because they do not want to see it. It is not because the evidence is not there. They refuse to allow the evidence to be correctly interpreted in the light of biblical teaching.
²¹

Evolutionists deliberately choose not to see what's right there in front of their noses. Clearly, Ken Ham has achieved The Vision Thing.

Young Earth Creationism, as defended and promoted by people like Ken Ham, is a very impressive Intellectual Black Hole. Indeed, Ham is one of the great contemporary masters of the “
But It Fits!
” strategy. However, “
But It Fits!
” is by no means restricted to Young Earth Creationism and fruitcakes like Dave. It crops up in all sorts of places. See the conclusion for more examples.

S

One possibility is to adopt strategy I call
Going Nuclear. Going Nuclear
is an attempt to unleash an argument that lays waste to every position, bringing them all down to the same level of “reasonableness.” Mike might try to force a draw by detonating a philosophical argument that achieves what during the Cold War was called “mutually assured destruction,” in which both sides in the conflict are annihilated.

There are two main variants of
Going Nuclear
: skeptical and relativist. I'll begin with some skeptical versions.

SKEPTICAL VERSIONS OF GOING NUCLEAR

Skepticism about Reason

In philosophy, the term
skeptic
usually refers to someone who
denies we have knowledge in a given area
(outside of philosophy, the term is more commonly used to refer to someone unwilling to accept claims of the miraculous and extraordinary that don't withstand close critical and scientific scrutiny). Here is a classic example of a skeptical philosophical argument:

Whenever we argue about the truth or falsity of a belief, we apply our powers of reason. But why suppose that reason is itself a reliable route to the truth? We might attempt to justify our use of reason, of course. But any justification of reason that we offer will itself rely on reason. Relying on reason to justify our reliance on reason is a bit like taking a secondhand car salesman's word for it that he is trustworthy—it's an entirely circular justification, and so no justification at all! So it turns out that our reliance on reason is entirely unjustified. It's a leap of faith!

From the claim that our reliance on reason is unjustified, it is seemingly then but a short step to the conclusion that no belief is justified:

But if reliance on reason cannot be justified, then, because every rational justification relies on reason, so no belief can be justified. But if no belief is justified, then, ultimately, everything is a faith position! But then your belief is no more reasonable than mine. Get out of that!

Whether this is actually a good argument for the conclusion that no belief is justified is not a question I'll address here. The point is, at first sight, it does
look
pretty persuasive. It's not easy to spot precisely where the argument goes wrong, if, indeed, it goes wrong at all. This means that if Mike's belief system is
taking a beating, rationally speaking, Mike can adopt the last-ditch tactic of employing this skeptical argument. Mike can then admit that while
his
belief might not be justified,
his opponent's beliefs can't be justified either.
The skeptical argument offers Mike a wonderful get-out-of-jail-free card. It allows him to walk away with his head held high, saying, “So you see? In the last analysis, our beliefs are
equally
(ir)rational! They're
both
‘faith positions!'”

You can see why I call this strategy
Going Nuclear.
Once Mike plays the skeptical card, all his opponent's hard work in constructing arguments against Mike's position counts for nothing. Kaboom! At one stroke, Mike demolishes them all. He lays waste to every rational argument, bringing every belief down to the same level.

In order for Mike's opponents to deal with his
Going Nuclear
, they will now have to refute his philosophical argument. That is a difficult, perhaps impossible, thing to do. They are certainly going to struggle. As a result, any audience to their debate will be struck not only by Mike's sophistication in employing such a devastating philosophical objection, but also by his opponent's mounting frustration as they wrestle with the thorny philosophical conundrum Mike has set them. It's quite likely Mike will be perceived to be the intellectual victor in this exchange. At the very least, he won't be thought to have lost.

This version of
Going Nuclear
can be employed in defense of a wide variety of beliefs. Believe in the curative powers of crystals or that there's a family of fairies living at the bottom of your garden? If you find yourself on the losing side of the argument, you can always employ
Going Nuclear
as a last-ditch, face-saving strategy.

So what, exactly, is wrong with this version of
Going Nuclear?
After all, it might be that the skeptical argument Mike has employed really is a good argument. Perhaps every belief system really is as rational as every other. So, if Mike finds himself argued into a corner, why shouldn't he employ such a skeptical argument?

Because it's almost certainly an intellectually dishonest ruse. Those who press the nuclear button rarely do so in good faith. Bear in mind that, in such discussions, playing the skeptical card really is the nuclear option. By
Going Nuclear
, Mike avoids defeat, but
only by utterly annihilating the rationality of every belief.
All positions, no matter how sensible or nuts, come out as equally (ir)rational.

If Mike is to be consistent, he must now accept that that the earth is flat, that the earth is round, that milk makes people fly, that it doesn't, that astrology is true, that it isn't—that all these beliefs are equally (un)reasonable. Now of course, Mike almost certainly doesn't believe any of this. The fact is, he does think reason is a fairly reliable tool for establishing what is true and what isn't. We all rely on reason in our day-to-day lives—Mike included. In fact, Mike constantly trusts his life to reason whenever, for example, he trusts that the brakes on his car will work, that a bridge will support his weight, that a medicine will save his life, and so on.

Indeed, those who employ this version of
Going Nuclear
are usually quite content to rely on reason to make their case just so long as they are not losing the argument. It's only when the tide of rationality turns against them that they reach for the nuclear button. And of course, once their opponent has left the room, they'll start using reason again to try to prop up their belief. That's downright hypocritical.

So this version of
Going Nuclear
is, in truth, almost always a ploy. Those who use it don't usually believe what they're saying about reason. They say it only to raise enough dust and confusion to make quick their escape.

A Religious Example

The skeptical version of
Going Nuclear
outlined above crops up quite often in debates about the truth of religion. For example, when responding to rational arguments raised against his belief,
one Orthodox Jew writes: “The belief in reason seems no less a dogma than any other.”
¹

Perhaps belief in reason is, ultimately, a dogma. However,
if
this person relies on reason in every other aspect of his life, and indeed appeals to reason whenever it appears to
support
his particular religious outlook, then he is guilty of hypocrisy. Playing the skeptical card is merely a ruse he selectively employs in order to avoid having to admit that what he believes is, by the standards that he accepts and employs in every other aspect of his life, unlikely to be true.

Skepticism about the External World

There are several variants of the skeptical version of
Going Nuclear.
Sometimes a different skeptical argument is employed. Here's another example.

Suppose a Theist finds herself on the losing side of a debate with atheists about the existence of God. Her own arguments for the existence of God have been shown to be weak, and she is struggling to deal with the evidential problem of evil (see Appendix B to my introduction) raised by her opponents. As a last-ditch strategy she may try this: she may admit that her own belief involves a leap of faith, but then add that her atheist opponents make a similar leap of faith when it comes to
trusting their senses.

Atheists, after all, believe they inhabit a physical world filled with mountains, oceans, trees, houses, and people. But they believe this only because that is the kind of world their senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, and so on seem to reveal. How can they know their senses are a reliable guide to the truth? How can they know that their experiences are produced by a real world, rather than, say, a supercomputer generating a sophisticated virtual reality, as in the film
The Matrix?
After all, everything would seem exactly the same, either way. So, it seems atheists cannot justify their belief in such an external world. But if atheists cannot justify their belief in such an external world,
then they don't know that such a world exists. Their belief that there is such a world must involve a huge leap of faith.

Having set up this skeptical argument, our Theist may then add that she happens to enjoy not only
sensory experiences
but also a
God experience.
God, she supposes, reveals himself to her. But then, precisely because she trusts her God experience—she supposes that it is not a delusion she then doesn't have to place any
additional
faith in the reliability of her other senses. Why? Because the kind of God she seems to experience is no deceiver. She can be sure that, if there is such a God, then he will have provided her with senses that are fairly trustworthy. So, for such a Theist, trusting her senses does not require any
further
leap of faith.

In which case, our Theist may conclude that, for someone who has such religious experiences, belief in God need be no more a faith position than the atheist's belief in the external world. The two beliefs are actually intellectually on par. It's
leaps of faith all round.

Notice, incidentally, that our Theist may make the same suggestion about the atheist's use of logic and reason. She may say that atheists just
assume
that their use of logic is reliable—they cannot ultimately justify it (for the reason we saw above). But, because our Theist places her faith in her God experience, she
doesn't
have to make a further leap of faith so far as her use of logic is concerned, because her God would not allow her to be deceived about the reliability of logic.

Criticism

Perhaps it's true that atheism is a faith position, because any belief about how things stand outside our own minds is ultimately a faith position (although this is certainly controversial—some philosophers would say we are justified in supposing there is a physical world of mountains, oceans, trees, houses, and so on because that hypothesis provides the best available explanation of what we experience, a better explanation than the Matrix-type
hypothesis that it's all an elaborate computer-generated illusion). However, even if any belief about the external world involves a leap of faith, it does
not
follow that it's as reasonable for Theists to place their trust in their God experience as it is for atheists to trust their senses.

First of all, note that, while we have no obvious grounds for supposing our ordinary senses are highly untrustworthy,
there are very obvious grounds for supposing that such religious experiences are, as a rule, untrustworthy
(see “
I Just Know!
” for details). The content of the religious experiences people report appears to be very largely a product of their culture and sometimes also the mind-altering practices they tend to engage in, rather than any sort of divine reality.

Secondly, and still more significantly, even if our Theist's assumption that she is experiencing God leads her to trust her other senses, her other senses then appear to furnish her with ample evidence that there is no such benevolent God. There is, for example, the evidential problem of evil—surely an all-powerful, all-good God would not have created a world of the sort her senses reveal: a world containing so much appalling suffering. So, unlike the assumption that our other senses are reliable,
her Theistic assumption ends up undermining itself.

In short, this version of
Going Nuclear
doesn't work. The Theist's assumption that her God experience is reliable appears, on closer examination, to be far less reasonable than the atheist's assumption that our other senses are reliable. Perhaps it's leaps of faith all round, but some leaps are, it turns out, much bigger than others.

Beyond Going Nuclear

There is an interesting twist on
Going Nuclear
that is popular in certain religious circles—a twist that involves combining
Going Nuclear
with “
I Just Know!
” (see
chapter 5
). It runs as follows.