Keep an Open Mind, But Don’t Let Your Brains Fall Out #thinking #think

One of my favorite sites has a great post: Elvis Sightings and You.

The message is straightforward: Nothing requires you to treat the impossible as possible. Refusing to spend your valuable time on nonsense doesn’t prove you’re close-minded, and it surely doesn’t prove the nonsense is correct.

Some of what Elvis left behind

When someone comes to you and offers to prove to you that the Earth is flat with their YouTube video, do you — on the principle of “questioning everything” — hear them out and listen to their argument? No, and neither should you. A Flat Earth claim is an Elvis sighting. It’s false, no matter what — no matter what — some ill-informed, gullible person has been led to believe. It is false even before it gets out of bed in the morning. It is false before it pours its coffee. And it will remain false all day long.

When a fact is a fact – not a hypothesis, not an opinion, not the subject of contradictory measurements – we don’t waste our time on arguments. We know they’re wrong even without listening to the claims or reviewing the evidence. We should not waste our time doing either.

But… but… but, I hear you stammer. Shouldn’t anyone be willing to look at anything? Well, life is short and what are you willing to spend your time doing?

Are you riled up? Read the post for yourself. After all, that’s what you should do, right?