Why We Believe Weird Things (And How to Stop)
Your Brain Is a Sucker. Here’s How to Outsmart It.
Science is a Verb
It’s not a dusty textbook. It’s an active process of replacing bad ideas with good ones.
Not a “Thing”, But a Process
We often mistake science for a collection of facts. That’s wrong. Science is a way of actively seeking natural explanations. The goal isn’t to be “right”—it’s to replace bad ideas with good ones.
The Engine: Skepticism is the engine that drives this entire process.
The Psychic’s Trick
How do you fool yourself? Only count the hits and ignore the misses. We forget the 99 failures but are blown away by the 1 “hit”. A true scientist keeps a database of both.
Case Study: Quadro 2000 A $900 “drug dowsing” rod. Controlled tests showed it worked 50% of the time—exactly the same as a coin flip.
Why We Believe Weird Things
Your brain wants to be fooled. We are pattern-seeking animals. This helps us spot predators, but it also makes us see false patterns.
- • The “Face on Mars” (just rocks)
- • Religious icons in toast
- • “Hidden messages” in songs
Priming: If told to find a pattern, your brain will create one, even in meaningless gibberish.
The Powerful Question
When facing an extraordinary claim (UFOs, miracles), ask:
“What’s the more likely explanation?”
Before assuming something is “out of this world,” ensure it’s not in this world.
UFOs vs. Hubcaps Is it more likely that aliens traveled light-years, or that someone threw a hubcap in the air?
Start vs. End
Pseudoscience says “A miracle occurred.” It offers nowhere to go. It is the end of the causal chain. Science is the start. Galileo observed Saturn but was wrong about the rings. He didn’t stop. Later, others used better data to solve the puzzle.
The Goal: Skepticism isn’t about having all answers; it’s about being comfortable with a better process of finding them.
Why do we believe in psychics, see faces in clouds, or get fooled by “miracle” products?
It’s simple: our brains are wired to find patterns and take shortcuts. We’re great at it. In fact, it’s what helped us survive as a species. But that same wiring makes us easy targets for bad ideas, pseudoscience, and outright nonsense.
There’s a tool to fight back. It’s not about being a cynic or a know-it-all. It’s called skepticism, and it’s one of the most powerful ways of thinking you can ever learn.
Stop Thinking of Science as a “Thing”
First, let’s get one thing straight. We often think of science as a “thing”—a dusty textbook, a lab coat, or a collection of facts.
That’s wrong.
Science is a verb. It’s a process. It’s a way of actively looking at the world, asking questions, and seeking out natural explanations for all phenomena. The goal of this process isn’t just to be “right”; it’s to replace bad ideas with good ones.
Skepticism is the engine that drives this process.
The Psychic’s Trick: How to Fool Yourself
Here’s the easiest way to fool yourself: Only count the hits and ignore the misses.
Pseudoscientists—like psychics, astrologers, and tarot card readers—are masters of this. They make dozens of vague predictions. We forget the 99 times they’re completely wrong, but we’re blown away by the one time their “vision” seems to come true.
A skeptic, like a good scientist, keeps a complete database. They track the hits and the misses. They then ask: Is the number of “hits” statistically better than random chance?
Usually, the answer is a resounding no.
A perfect example was the Quadro 2000 Dowser Rod. This $900 piece of plastic was sold to schools, claiming it could “dowse” for marijuana in student lockers. When tested in a controlled experiment (one box with marijuana, one empty), the device found the drugs 50% of the time.
In other words, it performed exactly as well as a coin flip.
The Most Powerful Question You Can Ask
When you encounter an extraordinary claim, from a miracle cure to a UFO, a skeptic asks one simple, powerful question:
“What’s the more likely explanation?”
Before we conclude that something is “out of this world,” we must first be absolutely sure it’s not in this world.
- UFOs: What’s more likely? That an alien civilization traveled light-years to visit us, or that what someone saw was a perceptual mistake, a weather balloon, or a hubcap thrown in the air?
- Crop Circles: Is it more likely to be a message from extraterrestrials, or the work of clever humans with some rope and wooden boards?
This simple question can dismantle a huge amount of nonsense.
Why Your Brain Believes Weird Things
Here’s the hard truth: your brain wants to be fooled. We are pattern-seeking animals. This evolutionary trait helps us see a predator’s face in the bushes. Unfortunately, it also causes us to see…
- The “Face on Mars” (just a pile of rocks and shadows).
- The Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich.
- Religious icons in tree bark or window condensation.
This isn’t limited to images. Our brains are “primed” to find auditory patterns, too. If someone tells you to listen for a “Satanic message” played backward in a song, you’ll hear it—even if the sound is just meaningless gibberish. Your brain creates the pattern it’s told to find.
Science: The Start of the Conversation, Not the End
Skepticism doesn’t mean you have all the answers. It means you’re comfortable with a better process of finding them.
This is the key difference between science and pseudoscience:
- Pseudoscience (like Intelligent Design) says, “A miracle occurs.” This is the end of the causal chain. It offers nothing to test and nowhere to go. It’s a full stop on curiosity.
- Science is the beginning of the causal chain. When Galileo first observed Saturn, his data wasn’t great and his theory was wrong. He lacked the full picture. Later, Christiaan Huygens used a better telescope (better data) and a better theory to finally solve the puzzle of Saturn’s rings.
Science is a journey, not a destination. It’s a self-correcting process that builds on itself.
It’s also a process that works. When science educator Simon Singh heard pop singer Katie Melua’s song “Nine Million Bicycles,” he cringed at a lyric that described the age of the universe as a “guess.” He wrote to her, explaining that scientists have a very precise estimate (13.7 billion light-years).
In a wonderful display of intellectual honesty, Melua re-cut the song with the scientifically accurate lyric.
That’s the power of good ideas. They don’t need miracles or defenses. They just need a hearing, and they will, in time, replace the bad ones.
Check out our top titles on amazon!
Skepticism removes bad ideas, but we must replace them with a robust framework for truth. For a defense of progress, science, and humanism in the modern age, read the Pinker & Harris Case for Reason.