L I E S
THE BEST LIES ALWAYS HAVE A GRAIN OF TRUTH IN THEM. WHY DO WE BELIEVE THEM?
“Absence of evidence in not evidence of absence.”
It is very hard to believe that President Trump, during his 3 ½ years of US Presidency has uttered 19,127 false or misleading claims according to truth–checking institutions and fact–checking folks.
Press people and reporters out of respect for the highest office in the land, do not come out and say “he lied” but instead say, ”that is not exactly true,” or “it does not match our records,” or “it is only partly true.” But Trump’s supporters, many of them are well – educated professionals, and Republican Party members believe that whatever President Trump says is the absolute truth.
I always wondered, why do we believe in lies when plenty of evidence is out there to see the truth? Why don’t we like critical thinking when it is necessary? What do the experts say about all this?
As I see it, we human beings are social creatures as much as we are social learners. We start to learn our social beliefs in early childhood (long before we start learning knowledge), from our parents, our siblings, our friends our teachers and the people that we admire. This social learning and transmission of beliefs form our “belief culture.” Beliefs do not depend on objective criteria or facts like knowledge does. Actually beliefs defy logic, rational thinking and scientific data, because beliefs did not form on the basis of them.
Beliefs are necessary. Our belief provides our identity and gives us a sense of belonging to the group of friends and the community we live in.
I personally think that we have a genetic tendency to develop our beliefs, which originated from our ancients ancestor’s tribal culture. In order to survive in that environment, we had to believe in our tribal culture and identify with their beliefs.
Beliefs, conformity, sense of belonging and social trust are crucial aspects of the human psyche. We as humans always have a tendency to believe in something bigger than us and life, in a super power like our faith and religion, like mysticism, tribalism and cultism.
Our beliefs, once they are formed, become an innate part of our being. They guide our behavior and form the basis of our opinions and who we are. Therefore, in a free and Democratic society, there should be an understanding that everybody is entitled to his/her opinions. But problems often arise when opinions are presented as facts. Opinions are subjective beliefs and have nothing to do with facts. Facts are opposite to opinions, they are scientific, objective and out there for everybody to see and check.
Our belief and opinions, just like our faith are very personal and they are also very prone to abuse, manipulation and changes by demagogy, misinformation and opportunistic people or politicians. Especially our modern culture, which is shaped and internationalized by digital technology, the internet, social media, and the TV and film industries. This 24/7 unregulated, cultural environment has made it very easy to spread misinformation, rumors, false beliefs and to manipulate public opinion to create deep divisions and polarizations in our society.
Social scientists and community theorists have been trying to understand how false beliefs form in a society, and how they persist and spread with social interactions by using two study models: The Contagion Modeland The Network Epistemology Model.
The contagion model treats beliefs like a virus and uses computer algorithms to detect the spread of false beliefs from person-to-person with ease and with an unthinking trust.
The network epistemology model goes further to capture cases where people form their beliefs on the basis of gathered evidence with an assumption that there would be a consensus of opinions and the truth would prevail. However, their results did not match the real world situation. People tend to gather selective evidence that matches their opinions and become more strict about their opinions, thereby causing more polarization in the society.
I am not really surprised because these study models are missing crucial aspects of the human psyche. Tribal culture, conformity and social trust dictates our opinions and behaviors. We trust our community’s opinion more than we trust scientific facts of a government agency’s (like the CDC) opinion. This is why many people oppose vaccinations with a false belief of their community that vaccinations cause autism. I believe this is a serious problem of misunderstanding and an abuse of the freedom of expression and one of the shortcomings of Democracy.
