Of these three assumptions—the Ignorance Assumption, the Idiocy Assumption, and the Evil Assumption—the last is the most disturbing. But the first is the most decisive. We assume that other people are ignorant because we assume that we are not; we think we know the facts, and (as the ’Cuz It’s True Constraint mandates) we think those facts determine our beliefs. Put differently, we think the evidence is on our side. It is almost impossible to overstate the centrality of that conviction to everything this book is about, which is why we are going to turn next to the topic of evidence. Our faith
...more
