I used to view it like the "you can lead a horse to water, but cannot make it drink", but I've become more philosophical about it, because ultimately our perception of life is experiential. Some are happy to study/learn and some just want to play.
A good analogy is this....
We can use science to detect an increase in Ghrelin, and study all the biochemical markers to deduce what a person needs for a particular meal for optimum health and physical performance. We could tell them they are hungry and exactly what they need to eat. But they just go on the feelings of their gut and want the KFC meal. In many ways, what's best for them won't be a satisfactory meal and what is not best for them literally IS what they want.
So giving them science, asking them to apply science etc, is a bit like telling giving them a prescription for something they don't want, versus a gut feeling for something they do want. They go on their feelings and experiential nature and are satisfied by simply indulging in that aspect, without applying thought.
And if one considers what it would be like to have a prescribed meal every time we eat, versus what the human-condition is hankering for based on feelings, I think we can all see that just going on gut feel here is going to be compelling. We're not all calculating our meals due to objectivity are we?
I'm not saying objectivity has no validity - it definitely does. But people are individuals and some cannot be bothered to learn and apply science as they just want to indulge in the experiential aspect of life and will base decisions based on experience and/or feelings, not rational thought.
The "impossible to overcome an irrational and unfounded belief with a rational rebuttal" is exactly right. Color doesn't really exist, but you experience it and utilize the ability of your first-hand perception to be safe at traffic lights and such. We don't abandon our evolved mechanism for something that measures wavelength to tell us what 'red' is at traffic lights. It's no surprise that the evolved mechanisms that enabled species survival are ingrained in to people's psychology as something they wish to rely on. It's not stupidity or irrationality per se - it's just human nature itself.
Excellent post! Good analogy!
I see your post, if I've understood it correctly, as saying "
Yes people don't always respond to reason, and yes they are being irrational in rejecting evidence against their belief, but there's a good explanation for that." In other words, it's a case of over-relying on a sort of heuristic - accepting the reliability of our perception - that is actually rational in many or most cases. And, correct me if I'm wrong, I think you even imply there is therefore a certain rationality to their reaction...even if it happens it leads them astray sometimes. (?)
I've made points very similar to yours (though not precisely the above) in terms of cautioning about the overreach of judging other people's beliefs as irrational or "anti-science."
And I've used the analogy to cooking as well.
The vast majority of what everyone here is doing all day is not scientific. We are not putting every decision we make through a process of scientific vetting, controlling for all relevant variables, to arrive at decisions with scientific levels of confidence. That is impractical to the point of impossible.
It is irrational to expect the impossible, therefore it's most rational to make decisions based on what is practical for us to do.
So if we are in to cooking, we may be trying different recipes, sharing recipes with others, tweaking recipes to our satisfaction etc. None of this is done in the context of scientific controls. I felt the recipe needed a bit more salt, I added a bit more, it tasted a bit more salty as I wanted. Could bias have been involved? Certainly. Maybe it tasted a bit more salty merely from my expectations, since I know I just added more salt. Or...it's also entirely plausible that adding more salt indeed made it taste more salty. Since we don't have the means to scientifically controll all such everyday inferences, it's entirely practical and reasonable to go with what our senses seem to be telling us, when cooking in this manner.
It's "un-scientific" in that sense, but that doesn't mean it is "Anti-Science" or opposed to, or in rejection of science. It's precisely the practical, rational way forward you'd have to use to get through life, and is entirely compatible with science. When it becomes incompatible, or when the "un-scientific" becomes the "anti-scientific," I think is when we violate the heuristic
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." In other words, if I think adding more salt increases the salty taste, that's a plausible proposition that doesn't violate any of our scientific knowledge. But if I'm practicing cooking like homeopathy, thinking that adding a drip of liquid that once had salt in it, but possesses zero salt molecules, but think this will change the taste of the dish (and it won't just be my imagination), then I've become anti-scientific in my thinking.
I approach audio the same way. I like hearing all sorts of different attempts in making audio gear - the wild, wacky, the scientifically designed, etc. And I scale my confidence levels to the degree that what I seem to perceive is plausible. I think I hear a big bass hump with the speakers positioned close to my back wall that smooths out when I re-position them? Could be bias...but it's technically plausible enough for me to, as a practical matter, go with my perception (even though it could be ratified with greater precision with measurements etc).
On the other hand: If I think I see a difference in picture quality between two working HDMI cables? That's so technically implausible I'd be suspicious enough to want some new plausible theory or better evidence, e.g. controlling for bias effects, for it.
