Book Review: The Believing Brain

All is quiet on the Truther front, at least until another one of them gets arrested, so I figured I would do a post on a related subject the Michael Shermer book The Believing Brain, which I recently finished.

The book discusses the biological reasons, mostly evolutionary, that the human brain has for believing things, in this case he mostly focuses on things which are an article of faith such as religion, superstitious beliefs and, of course, conspiracy theories. The rest are interesting, even though I consider Shermer to be somewhat self-absorbed and meandering as a writer, but outside of the scope of this blog.

Shermer, who is well known for his skepticism and criticism of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and conspiracy theorists in general, is actually somewhat kind to them, in much of the same way that Jonathan Kay was in his book, pointing out that people who hold these fringe beliefs are not idiots, but may actually be fairly smart, it is just their brains are hardwired to act this way. Shermer's thesis is essentially that the brain is built around recognizing patterns (see Jeff Hawkin's excellent On Intelligence for an in-depth examination of this) and "conspiracies" are the ultimate patterns.

The problem, Shermer argues, is that we have to recognize patterns to survive, he uses the famous example of a caveman recognizing the rustle of grass made by an approaching predator, but we are extremely bad at detecting fake patterns. And, as he points out, this is worse among certain people, especially when they are stressed or feeling insecure, which is something that has been proven through experimentation. For example when made to feel stressed test subjects are more likely to recognize objects in a completely random pattern of dots than control subjects.

Anyway, so what the thesis basically ends up arguing is that conspiracy theorists aren't necessarily dumber than the rest of us, and some may even be geniuses, but that they have an overdeveloped sense of recognizing patterns and making connections, even when they do no exist. For example a Truther who insists that there must be a reason that Michael Chertoff, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, and Benjamin Chertoff a former junior editor at Popular Mechanics share the last name. It can't just be pure random chance. Or that there must be a reason that Flight 77 crashed into the part of the Pentagon that was being remodeled, it is not just that this happened to be the side of the Pentagon the plane was approaching from.

This thesis makes a lot of sense, especially when you consider that the people who have absolutely no filter for being able to detect patterns, who completely detect patterns which do not exist at all, are schizophrenics. As in the famous case of the Nobel Prize winning Mathematician John Nash, this ability to recognize and create comes in handy, even though it leads to insanity and destroys their lives.

Overall, although Shermer really needs to focus as a writer, a good book. It does give an interesting insight into why otherwise intelligent people believe in weird things.

Bits and Pieces

Nothing much new to report from the Troofer front. Jesse Ventura was on a radio program the other day with Michael Shermer from Skeptic Magazine. Ventura hit him with "Why haven't they indicted Osama bin Laden for 9-11?" It's a variation on the Sacred List fallacy, which usually gets phrased as "Why doesn't Osama's Most Wanted poster list 9-11 as one of his crimes?"

Of course, the reason is simple. Osama hasn't been indicted for 9-11 because the US already has plenty of indictments against him and there's no particular reason to get more unless and until he's brought into custody.

But what does Ventura think it means? Is there some "Truther" group of US attorneys, bravely refusing to indict Osama because they know 9-11 was really an inside job? And how would Jesse square that with the pending military tribunal of KSM?

Lenny Dykstra, the former baseball player who attracted our attention with his buddy-buddy relationship with Charlie Sheen and Alex Jones, has got more problems.

Former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra was arrested for investigation of grand theft, a day after he was charged with a federal bankruptcy crime, authorities said Friday.

Dykstra, 48, was arrested Thursday night by Los Angeles police at his Encino home on suspicion of trying to buy a stolen car, police spokesman Officer Christopher No said. He did not have other details.

Hat tip on the latter to Richard Gage's Testicles.

The Conspiracy Theory Detector

Skeptic Magazine's Michael Shermer weighs in on conspiracy theories in Scientific American. For an added bonus, catch Uncle Fetzer's rant in the comments.

This past September 23 a Canadian 9/11 "truther" confronted me after a talk I gave at the University of Lethbridge. He turned out to be a professor there who had one of his students filming the “confrontation.” By early the next morning the video was online, complete with music, graphics, cutaways and edits apparently intended to make me appear deceptive (search YouTube for “Michael Shermer, Anthony J. Hall”). “You, sir, are not skeptical on that subject—you are gullible,” Hall raged. "We can see that the official conspiracy theory is discredited....It is very clear that the official story is a disgrace, and people who go along with it like you and who mix it in with this whole Martian/alien thing is discrediting and a shame and a disgrace to the economy and to the university."

The Troofer Michael Shermer Harassment Series

Michael Shermer posts the series of videos from his recent troofer harassment, including the one I made at Powell's. Even more interesting though is the second video at the also excellent Elliot Bay Bookstore in Seattle, in which he thoroughly schools a troofer in the nature of proof. Well worth a quick watch.

Michael Shermer on the Truthers

Uber-skeptic Michael Shermer discusses the troothers stalking his book tour in his latest podcast, and gets a couple of good shots in. The video I posted of the troofers in Portland comes in for a mention. He also discusses his book on economics, pretty much saying what he said at the signing. I haven't read the book yet, so I will have to take his word for it.

When Troofers Annoy

I went and saw Dr. Michael Shermer at a booksigning tonight, for his new work on biology and economics, The Mind of the Markets. The speech was rather interesting, being rather interested in economics myself. Shermer seems likes a rather big Adam Smith fan (go invisible hand) and I picked up a signed copy myself.

Based on the fact that he has spoken quite vocally against the troofers, I was expecting them to interrupt his event yet again, so I brought my camera. Sorry for the shoddy camera work, I was just sitting in the audience. This isn't everything they did, since I didn't keep the camera running, and had no idea when they would start to rant. Amazingly this is the first YouTube video I have ever done, so I hope it looks OK. My editing leaves a bit to be desired, especially at the end where it looks like my blog is "pot.com". Well, in Portland that might actually be rather popular.

Troofers Take on New World Order

It is pretty silly when they go after presidential candidates, but now the troofers are congratulating themselves for confronting that NWO kingpin, Michael Shermer.





Incidently, Shermer is on a book tour, so if I can work it into my schedule I will try and go see him next week. I was thinking of picking up the book anyway, and I can give him an official Screw Loose Change New World Order t-shirt.

Shermer Versus Ryan Debate Wrapup

Kudos to Michael Shermer for doing a very, very good job. There were only a couple of missteps. Always consider your audience and tailor your responses based on that. This was an Air America audience. Shermer could have scored big by noting that Ryan was questioning whether the Bush Administration was incompetent, and that he was pretty sure Hartmann would not be surprised at that notion. And the Put Options question should be a slam dunk; all you have to do is note that the Put Options on United were bought by an investor who also purchased a large block of American Airlines stock.

But he hit almost every other note perfectly, and of course it's easy to critique from the sidelines. I'm not saying I wouldn't have made mistakes, just not those particular ones. ;)

Waterboy Wonder was miserable, no surprise. He started out slowly, with the usual "the government's own story is a conspiracy theory". About the only time he was effective was when Hartmann gave him some help with a blizzard of facts lead-in. He absolutely chunked his wrapup by claiming that the conspiracy theory is the only theory supported by the evidence; that's too big a leap for the non-CT crowd and he should have done the usual "there are enough questions that a new investigation is required".

And Hartmann was awful, especially after the debate where he agreed with all the woo callers and stepped all over the non-CTers. The notion that he's an "agnostic" is just a fig leaf. He's full-on Troofer.

Update: For the most laughable attempt to prop up Ryan, check out this ridiculous post by Alex Floum. He's put up some floaters in the past, but this is quite bizarre. Talking about the South Tower and the fact that controlled demolitions always proceed from the bottom:

While this may be considered demolition from the "top" of the building, if -- instead -- we imagine that the top is comprised of a 30-story high building, the demolition would actually proceed from the bottom of that building.

I'm speechless.

Shermer Versus Ryan Debate About to Start

Click here and choose "Listen Live". There will be a test afterwards. ;)