Reddit Reddit reviews How We Decide

We found 6 Reddit comments about How We Decide. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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How We Decide
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6 Reddit comments about How We Decide:

u/kleinbl00 · 5 pointsr/skeptic

Uh oh! People who aren't holding the same informed beliefs as we are! Well, we know what to do:

THROW DATA AT THEM!


When will "skeptics" figure out that this approach never works? You all act as if this data is hard to find, or as if anti-vax proponents that have somehow never considered the FDA to be at all reliable will suddenly experience a complete change of heart if you insist that they wade through a bunch of PDFs published in government-ese. I know! Let's make them read a scientific paper on Wiley - that'll learn'em!

All it does is piss them off and make them hate you, which pisses you off and makes you hate them, and then you retreat to your respective corners, angry at the infidels and their blind adherence to faith/science/pseudoscience/dogma/doctrine/canon/whatever-ideas-you-yourself-don't-hold.

Swap shoes with them real quick. From a comparative standpoint, you're saying "read the Old Testament, idiot" and then seeing it as a failing when they say "I reject the mumblings of cave-dwellers three thousand years dead." And yes, Margaret, I know that "science" is evidence-based and repeatable and "The Old Testament" is the mixed and muddled oral histories of scattered Abrahamic tribes edited, redacted and expanded over two millennia of history to further various and sundry agendas. But don't you see? That's the whole problem:

In order for science to be convincing, one must accept "Science" as truth... and THEY DON'T.

Give an anti-vax "skeptic" a fact sheet from the CDC and they'll give you the Robert Kennedy Rolling Stone article. You'll say it was retracted, they'll say it wasn't. Tell them that Andrew Wakefield's study has been withdrawn and his medical license revoked and they'll bring up [Semmelweis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis "who invented germ theory and died penniless in an insane asylum for his troubles"). Neither one of you will learn a thing, despite the erudite and varied knowledge being thrown about.

[Jonah Lehrer](http://www.amazon.com/How-We-Decide-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0618620117 "read books, not tables") pointed out that "climate skepticism" on the Right is the equivalent of "vaccine skepticism" on the left - despite mountains of data, arguing the evidence only further entrenches the skeptic because they have a worldview at stake and mentally, we re-trench and re-configure like crazy to avoid cognitive dissonance. No amount of "evidence" will ever convince someone that their closely-held beliefs are in error, because their beliefs are primarily emotional. In order to make headway against the beliefs, you start by making headway against the emotions.

NOT by saying "look it up, dipshit."

My wife gives about 5 vaccine workshops a year, to about 20 couples at a time, right here in Hollywood: ground zero for vaccine denialism. And she doesn't start with "y'all are full of shit." She starts with "here's the schedule. Here's what the schedule used to be. Here's the evidence that vaccines are bad for you, as well as the criticism of that evidence; here's the lack-of-evidence that vaccines aren't necessarily good for you, as well as some of the criticism. Here's what you risk by not vaccinating your children, here's what you'll have to do in order to protect them from the diseases they are now risking. Here are some easy-to-read resources to educate yourself on what each vaccine does, here are the consequences you will face by delaying or foregoing vaccination. Finally, here's a list of pediatricians who will accept and treat children who follow a delayed or curtailed vaccination schedule; you should talk to them because a child that isn't vaccinated is, above and beyond the secondary effects of vaccines, a child at increased risk for serious illness."

Know what? Every single person who has ever taken that class has had "evidence" like yours thrown in their face, and it has increased their "skepticism" without moving them an inch towards vaccinating their kids. And you know what? After taking the class, most parents who were going to skip vaccinations entirely end up doing most or all vaccinations, and some parents who were going to skip some vaccinations end up following the FDA schedule.

You are doing no favors to anyone by throwing the American Academy of Pediatrics at someone who doesn't trust vaccines. It's like throwing Deuteronomy at someone who doesn't think same sex marriage is a sin. Meet them in the middle. Ask what their concerns are. Ask why those are their concerns. Ask what would allay their concerns, and then help them find their own way to their own truths. If you come at them with an agenda, however, they'll smell you from a mile away.



      • Yeah, yeah, yeah. You still want to give them something. Start with a cartoon. if nothing else, it exposes that Wakefield had a financial motive for shitting on vaccines.
u/eroq · 1 pointr/science

Just read How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. This is all in there.

u/arpie · 1 pointr/politics

Yes, it's unfortunate, but that's they way it is. It's part of how our brain works to rely on emotions/ feelings/ gut to make important decisions -- in part because we need to do that for survival, we need quick reactions in some situations so our brain uses these emotional shortcuts. However, there are plenty of times (like in the cases we're talking about) where this emotional reaction is wrong and misguided, but it still happens. A good book on the subject is "How we Decide" by J. Lehrer. http://www.amazon.com/How-We-Decide-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0618620117

u/zlozlozlozlozlozlo · 1 pointr/AskReddit

No. It's from a book (How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer), the patient was of one António Damásio. You could probably look up his writing too, in particular read about the case of Phineas Gage.

u/zen_boy · 0 pointsr/AskReddit

Well, I have only ever read Freud, so I would recommend all of his books, he, after all, although he didn't invent the idea of the subconscious, seems to be the one who formalised the whole thing. His writing about the ego and the id, and the super-ego, is worth reading, I think.

Apart from that I haven't really read anything on this topic, although I've heard recently about a few books which seem to be related to it. I really can't say whether I'd recommend these books or not, though, but they might be worth a try:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0141014598

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-We-Decide-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0618620117/

Blink is pretty well-known and the other one was mentioned on the "Out of the Game" podcast though I haven't read either. Sorry if those aren't what you're looking for but I haven't really kept abreast with psychology or philosophy at all really, I find self-analysis more useful and would recommend that (and maybe meditation?) in addition to reading. I'm sure there's stuff out there though.

Actually, I've just remembered, I did read some Robert Anton Wilson and he seemed to have something to say. The Illuminatus Trilogy seemed to promise a lot but I didn't think it really lived up to its promise, or what I expected of it, although some things seemed to make sense. Also Philip K Dick had some pretty interesting stuff to say about how things work, particularly his later novels.

One issue is that, in my view, everyone is inherently mentally unstable due to the design of the brain. Our brains distort things so much, and fail to recognise things about ourselves and the way we behave, for whatever reason. There seems to be a mental blind spot which makes it difficult for us to see some things, because we have a vested emotional and subconscious interest in not seeing them, or seeing them wrongly. We rationalise things so much, it's no surprise that we find it difficult to figure ourselves out. I saw one experiment on TV where people were asked, as part of a psychological study, to interview some random person and decide whether or not they would give them a job, but they were primed beforehand by being asked to hold a hot or cold drink. The people given the cold drink turned down the interviewees, and then rationalised that decision. The people given the hot drink passed the interviewees, and rationalised that decision. The truth seemed to be that their decisions were dictated by whether they held a hot or cold drink just before conducting the interview. But they thought their conscious mind has made the decision, and fabricated a reason without knowing they were doing it. I think this shows how much influence the subconscious has, and how difficult it is to disentangle it from what is rational. I think it's because we experience everything the subconscious experiences second-hand. Its compulsions and feelings are relayed to us in such a way that we feel they are our own, we own them.

Another experiment studied people's brainwaves and asked them to move a finger at random. Their brainwaves spiked before the people were conscious of deciding to move the finger, indicating a sub-conscious thought process.

Sorry I don't know of any specific forums related to this topic, I only ever really post on general discussion sites like Reddit, Metafilter, and Kuro5hin. Maybe barbelith.com is a good site, but it's difficult to get an account there, I don't have one so I'm not quite sure. Deoxy.org seems to have a forum now but I've never posted there but I used to read that site.

Yes I admit I'm an amateur, but honestly, I don't think professionals are making much progress on this issue. Most psychological studies seem to be related to other topics, like why we find people attractive etc. There only seem to be a few dealing with the subconscious, and the interesting results seem only to be beginning to appear. Also studying other people is always going to be less illuminating than studying oneself, since one can never have as much access to the thoughts of another person as to one's own thoughts. And furthermore, how can someone in a position of not understanding their own brain fully hope to understand another person's brain? The people doing the studies are surely subject to the same prejudices, preconceptions, psychological distortions, insecurities, fears and subconscious trickery as the people they are studying.