The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake

by Steven Novella

As you can see in the chart, the most competent individuals tend to underestimate their relative ability a little, but most people (the bottom 75 percent) increasingly overestimate their ability, and everyone thinks they’re above average.

People also have an easier time recognizing ignorance in others than in themselves, and this will create the illusion that they are above average, even when they’re performing in the bottom 10 percent.

Ignorance carries with it the inability to accurately assess one’s own ignorance.

An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors, and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate knowledge.

a good rule of thumb is to err on the side of humility. If you assume that you know relatively less than you think you do and that there is more knowledge than you are aware of, you will usually be correct.

The appeal to antiquity is a special form of the appeal-to-authority fallacy. In this case the alleged authority is the assumption of ancient wisdom, or the notion that an idea that has stood the test of time must be valid.

The modern conception of acupuncture involves inserting very thin needles through the skin at alleged acupuncture points in order to have a beneficial physiological effect. This idea is only about a century old, however. Previous to this modern rebranding of acupuncture, it was more obviously superstitious—it was actually a form of bloodletting using lances or large needles, and acupuncture points were also connected to Chinese astrology, linking our bodies to the heavens. Despite this clearly documented reality, modern acupuncture is frequently marketed as an ancient treatment that is thousands of years old.

The effects of acupuncture have also been shown, quite convincingly, to be entirely placebo.

The appeal to nature is a logical fallacy based upon the unwarranted assumption that things that are natural are inherently superior to things that are manufactured. Additionally, it relies upon a vague definition of “natural.” If it’s natural, it has to be good for you. Well, bird shit and gravel are natural, but I won’t eat them! —James “The Amazing” Randi

The appeal-to-nature fallacy falls apart quickly upon examination of its two main pillars. The first pillar is that things in nature tend to be good for humans. The second is that we can operationally define “natural.

what is the difference between a molecule of vitamin C that was purified from rose hips and a molecule of vitamin C that was manufactured in a lab? By definition, nothing. Atoms and molecules don’t know where they came from. Their chemical and biological properties are not dependent on their source.

My intution tells me theres something we domt understnd yrt.

The organic food industry, for example, doesn’t allow the use of synthetic pesticides but does allow the use of so-called “natural” pesticides. In many cases the natural pesticides are less effective and more damaging to the environment than their synthetic alternatives. Some natural pesticides, like copper sulfate and rotenone, can be highly toxic. And yet they’re not viewed with the same caution, simply because they are “natural.”

A true anomaly is something that can’t be explained by our current model of nature; it doesn’t fit into existing theories. Anomalies are therefore very useful to scientific inquiry because they point to new knowledge—the potential to deepen or extend existing theories.

Some moon hoaxers claim they can see the American flag waving in the breeze, even though there is no atmosphere on the moon. The lack of an atmosphere, however, allows the flag to flap for a long time once moved by an astronaut. Without air to dampen the oscillations, they continue.

Torture the data, and it will confess to anything. —Ronald Coase

As Carl Sagan eloquently pointed out, randomness is clumpy.

We inherently use a two-step process in evaluating the data that surround us. First we have hyperactive pattern recognition—a tendency to see any possible patterns, erring on the side of false positives. This would serve the purpose of minimizing the chance of missing real patterns that may be important. Then we evaluate those potential patterns to see if they are in fact real—do they make sense and do they comport with what we already know (psychologists call this process “reality testing”)? Our brains evolved to capture everything and then weed out the fake patterns, but we are better at step one than step two.

That question assumes you specified the pattern you were looking for ahead of time. If you didn’t, then the real question is: What are the odds of any correlation occurring in this data set?

To confirm a correlation, you must ask ahead of time, What is the probability of this specific correlation occurring? and then test a new or fresh set of data to see if the correlation holds up.

The term “coincidence” refers to the chance alignment of two variables or events that seem to be independent, especially if it seems as if the occurrence defies the odds.

Coincidence is the science of the True Believer. —Chet Raymo

If I am flipping a fair coin, which of the following sequences is more likely: HHTHTTTHT or HHHHHHHHH?

Returning to our friend who calls soon after you think about him, this event becomes much less striking if we consider how many times we’ve thought of friends who did not then call.

how many details are there in all of your dreams in a typical month? How many details do you encounter in a typical day? That any two of those details would seem to align every now and then isn’t remarkable. It would be truly remarkable if such things never happened.

Over the course of a lifetime you should, by chance alone, accumulate several extremely unlikely coincidences—unlikely if considered in isolation but not as part of the...

Research shows that the more people feel at the mercy of forces beyond their control, the more they reach for superstitious beliefs to provide the illusion of control. This can be extremely counterproductive, as they may put their efforts into magical rituals rather than, say, studying for an exam.

I do suggest that if you are trying to change the minds of other people, or spread your worldview, you at least think about your strategy and monitor your results. Your instincts may or may not be serving you well,

You can remain polite if you don’t like confrontation, but I would never be afraid to stand up for reason. Of course, use judgment when choosing your time and place, and know when to back off. There’s courageous, and then there is a pain in the ass.

Skepticism is also fun and empowering. One of the most common bits of feedback we get from listeners is that they’ve finally shed a belief system, and how liberating it is. They don’t have to labor under an oppressive belief anymore. They can think freely and only believe what actually makes sense to them.

I think that’s why Carl Sagan is so universally respected among skeptics and science communicators. More than anyone else, he embodied that sweet spot of opposing pseudoscience while embracing the wonder and magic of a scientific view of the universe.

When dealing with a spouse, however, you may be willing to invest literally years of effort to slowly change their worldview. This means you need to be incredibly patient. Don’t expect the scales to suddenly fall from their eyes.

Everyone is skeptical of something. Find that thing.

There is something called “tone trolling” that occurs in social media: Instead of addressing the points that someone is making, tone trolls nitpick their perceived tone. It’s a strategy to push someone out of a discussion or get them to shut up.

The consensus opinion is that sharing fun quality time with your kids is perhaps the best thing you can do for them. Experts also agree that it is helpful to regularly read to your children and have as many books around as possible.

I would also take them on imaginary journeys through the solar system. This requires no more than a box, or even a closet—and your imagination. Rather than just tell them about the solar system, I would “blast off” with them in our imaginary spaceship and we’d travel to each planet in order. I would describe how long it took to get there, what it looked like from orbit, and what it was like to be on the surface, gravity and all.

One of the best analogies to the current situation with the science of global warming was given by Phil Plait, who promotes science and critical thinking under the name The Bad Astronomer, which I will paraphrase here.

Doing nothing is also a decision in and of itself, one that has risks and benefits,

And even if CO2 causes warming, the Earth is warming and humans are causing it, and the results will be bad, is there anything we can do about it? Perhaps our efforts will be best spent dealing with the consequences rather than trying to prevent it.

First, there is denial of the consensus itself, or even the very concept of a scientific consensus. Deniers argue that this is an appeal to authority logical fallacy, that science is not done by consensus, that science is never “settled” and this is all an attempt to shut down legitimate scientific debate. None of this is true, or the claims are at least a misleading distraction.

In fact climate scientists have searched for any other possible explanation for the increases in average global temperatures over the last century, and they have essentially ruled everything else out, other than all that extra CO2 we are dumping into the atmosphere.

The problem with global warming is not that there is one perfect climate for the Earth. The problem is actually twofold. The first problem is that we build our civilization around the current climate. This means that we have built many cities along coastlines. The Earth itself might not mind being a little warmer—but we will.

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We are pretty much using all the available highly arable land to grow food for over seven billion people. Destabilizing this infrastructure should not be done lightly.

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Our current electricity grid cannot handle an all-renewable energy supply, and the higher the percentage of intermittent sources, the more overcapacity we need to make it all work. That means that each new solar panel or wind turbine gets less cost effective as you start to go beyond about 40 percent penetration.

We can build more nuclear plants, using Generation IV technology, or even the older Gen III technology, to meet demand, displacing coal-fired and even natural gas plants. We can also maximize other forms of power, such as geothermal and hydroelectric. Finally, there is grid storage. With enough grid storage we can have an entirely intermittent infrastructure. But we don’t quite have the technology for this yet.