Often I have asked myself: what do all forms of stupidity have in common?

I have concluded that despite its myriad forms, derp has but one source: lack of curiosity. This attitude is exemplified in the cliche “perception is reality,” a phrase which makes me wonder if the people who use it have ever seen a magic trick.

The whole point of thinking is to look past what is obvious. That’s why we say (and should say more often) “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Synonyms for “think” in English include words like “ponder,” “examine,” “consider,” all of these words are derived from Latin words that mean to weigh or look at closely. Thinking means to test ideas, not just have them.

Our natural instinct is to make quick decisions and judgements based on first impressions and to stick with them. This approach works in most but not all situations. Even when faced with disproving evidence, most people are much more likely to look for information that confirms what they believe than evidence which contradicts it.

Does Not Compute

My favorite example of this is the broken calculator experiment. In it, high schools students and adults who had passed a math test were asked to estimate the answers to some arithmetic questions and check their answers with a calculator. The calculator was rigged to give answers that were off by about 25% – a difference big enough that a numerate person would know something is wrong. Yet in the experiment, about half the participants at the end said they believed calculators do not make mistakes.

In an even more depressing example, 19 college professors with PhDs in sciences were asked to evaluate a geometry lesson on calculating the volume of sphere. First, they were given an orientation on finding the volume by calculation and by measurement. The next day, they were given an incorrect formula which gives a sphere a 50% larger than normal volume. Then they were given actual spheres which they filled with water and then measured the volume with graduated cylinders. Incredibly, none of the participants questioned the formula. They reasoned they must have measured wrong or the equipment was labeled incorrectly.

So why do people persist in error? For the same reason people do many other wrong things – because doing the right thing is uncomfortable. The good news is that false beliefs cannot outlive the people who hold them, and so they tend to die off eventually.

 

When the decisive facts did at length obtrude themselves upon my notice, it was very slowly, and with great hesitation, that I yielded to the evidence of my senses.

-Joseph Priestley

Leo Tolstoy

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.

-Leo Tolstoy

The main hindrance for the search for truth is probably the inability to abandon a present belief and adopt a better one when it comes along.

-Peter Elbow

The desire to be right and the desire to have been right are two desires, and the sooner we separate them the better off we are. The desire to be right is the thirst for truth. On all counts, both practical and theoretical, there is nothing but good to be said for it. The desire to have been right, on the other hand, is the pride that goeth before a fall. It stands in the way of our seeing we were wrong, and thus blocks the progress of our knowledge.

-Willard V Quine and J. S. Ullian