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Bo Bennett. Reason: Book I
Preface
The Point of Reason and Rationality
Idiocracy: The Future of Humanity
PART I: Science Works
How Important Is Scientific Literacy?
So what can we do about it?
Don’t Blame Science for Bad Doctors
The Problem with Relying on Your Own “Common Sense” and Ignoring Scientific Consensus
“Common Sense” and “Intuitions” Often Contradict Reality
Experts and Trust
Your “Freedom to Reject Science” Ends When It Puts the Safety and Lives of Others in Jeopardy
Doubting Science Because of Unknown Possible Long-Term Effects
Understanding the Science
We Fear the Unknown
Risk and Rewards
A Guide for Trusting Sources of Science, for the Non-Scientist
Why Trust Scientists?
If you don’t trust scientists with scientific information, who do you trust with it?
Why Trust Science When It Keeps Changing Its Mind?
Money and Science: Just How Skeptical Should One Be?
PART II: Rationally and Scientifically Correct
Should Women Stick To Their Gender Roles?
About Gender Roles
The Happy Grandparents
Why Gender Roles Should Not Be Prescriptive
To Blame or Not To Blame: A Look at Victim Blaming
Why do we unjustly blame the victim?
Are victims ever to blame?
Increasing Your Well-Being Through Emotional Responses
Baby, I Was Born This Way... or Not
The Flaw in the Question, “Are People Born Gay?”
Equivocation of the Term “Gay”
Another False Dichotomy: Born Gay or Choice
A Gross Misunderstanding of How Heredity Works
#BlackLivesMatter and Racism Today in America
#BlackLivesMatter vs. #AllLivesMatter
Examining the Generic Claim: Prejudice and Discrimination Exist Against Blacks in America Today
The Media Shouldn’t Determine Reality
Meeting the #BlackLivesMatter Demands
Has America Lost Its Sense of Humor?
Nothing New
What’s Funny?
How Political Correctness Spoils Comedy
Sacred Cows and Taboo Topics
Not-So-Cruel Intentions
A Lesson from Freud
Is “Sex Addiction” a Myth?
The Bibles of the Mental Health Profession
Might As Well Face It You’re Addicted To Love
Social and Cognitive Factors Involved In Maladaptive Behavior
My Thoughts and the Current Research
Dismissing Whitey: The Voice of the Non-Marginalized in a World Full of Marginalized Groups
Does Your Opinion Count?
Self-Interest and Being Objective
Facts, Biases, and Perception
Encouraging Obese People to Get In Better Shape... or Not
What is obesity?
What is wrong with being obese?
Blaming the victim
We are not our weight
Cause and effect
How you say it and why you say it
Be prepared for the wrath
Part III: Here’s To Your Health and Well-Being
How to Stop Self-Licensing from Ruining Your Health and Fitness Goals
Willpower, Smillpower. A Better Alternative
Seven Reasons Why We Find Fad Diets Irresistible
Part IV: Human Behavior and Navigating Our Social World
Jumping On Grenades: Attempting to Explain Determined Behavior
The Will and Human Behavior
Predictability and Acting in One’s Own Best Interest
The Predictability of Human Behavior
Determinism and Predictability
The Lack of “Freewill” Does Not Necessarily Mean Determinism
Are Genes Linked to Psychopathy?
How To Avoid Being Seen as “Creepy”
Bo’s Five Rules To Avoid Being Perceived As Creepy
How To Tell If Someone Likes You (or Not)
The Secret To Success
Part V: A Healthy Dose of Skepticism
Dead Men Don’t Tell Tales: Understanding the Survivorship Bias
Woo or Communication from Beyond?
Don’t Be Manipulated by Loaded Language
Personal Religious Experiences: Real or Imagined?
If Zombies Eat Brains, Do They Eat Minds, Too?
Emergence
Physical Correlates to Mental Phenomena
Near Death Experiences and Other “Evidence” for Dualism
Do Atheists Fear Hell?
Do You Believe in Karma? Should You?
The Science Behind “Group Levitation”
The Psychology Behind the Anti-Vaccine Movement
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
The Availability Heuristic
Emotional Appeals
Sense of Control
The Appeal To Nature
The Post-Hoc Fallacy
The Confirmation Bias at Work
The Placebo Effect Explained
The Controversy
Is there really such thing as a placebo effect?
What does this mean for the “mind/body connection”?
If placebo-based deception has a significant effect on the patient’s health, does that justify its use?
Part VI: Doing Your Part To Make The World a Better Place
What You Can Do About Political Polarization
Demonization
Dehumanization
Dichotomous Grouping
Splitting
Stereotyping
How You Can Help Solve the Problem of Mass Shootings
How You Can Show More Appreciation
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I take a critical thinking-, reason-, and science-based approach to exploring issues that matter with the goal of both educating and entertaining. I have a PhD in social psychology, but I cover a broad range of topics including: Science Education (scientific method, what is / is not science, etc.), Success, Entrepreneurship, Motivation, General Psychology, Social Psychology, Positive Psychology (well-being, flourishing, happiness, etc.), Cognitive Psychology (belief, cognitive biases, memory, our flawed brain, etc.), General Social Science, Critical Thinking, Logical Fallacies, Humanism / Secularism, and Philosophy. This book is part one of an ongoing project to do my part in making the world a more reasonable place.
You can read more than you would ever care to know about me at http://www.BoBennett.com. But if you don’t care to know more than you would care to know about me, then let me give you some of the highlights. I am a serial entrepreneur who has started and sold many companies over the last 25 years. I focus on building web properties and marketing. I sold my first company of significant value in 2001 at age 29, which allowed me the financial freedom to pursue interests that could have a significant social impact. I passionately studied the sciences, philosophy, and religion. I went back to school and earned my master’s degree in general psychology, then my PhD in social psychology. My mission in life (and goal of this book) is to contribute to the well-being of individuals and society by combining education with entertainment.
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It is no secret that much of the information found on the Internet today is strongly influenced by its monetary value, or to put another way, how many clicks an article can get. Unfortunately for science—and humanity—accuracy, journalistic integrity, and truth are of far less monetary value than shock, emotional appeal, and fear. As a result, if scientific information does manage to make its way into the mainstream media (assuming nothing is going on with the Kardashian’s that day), it is often a greatly modified version of the information, twisted by biased media sources with far greater allegiances to politics or the bottom line than science. Assuming a media source does prioritize scientific integrity, the lack of scientific education and knowledge could lead to misreporting the facts. Despite these seemingly insurmountable problems, there are ways that you can get the most accurate information possible on scientific issues, even if you don’t know much about science.
For those of you who do know a bit about science and how scientific information is published, you may think that peer-reviewed journals are the definitive source of scientific information. In a way they are, but in other ways, they are not. Jeffery Beall maintains a comprehensive list of academic journals that range from questionable quality to outright pseudo-scientific. Just because something is published in a journal, does not make the information scientific. Anyone can start a journal, and reviews by peers of quacks have no scientific value. For a perfect example, check out the Journal of Creation that “strives to publish papers that promote the development of rigorously logical biblically-consistent models in various areas.” Not only do they not mention the goal of being scientifically valid, but they specifically state that “the journal covers a wide spectrum of studies, not just science.” Further, scientific papers can mislead non-scientists who don’t have a firm grasp of the scientific process, methodologies used, and the limitations associated with the methodologies. For example, just because one study reports significant findings, it does not mean that those findings are indicative of a scientific discovery—it could be a flawed study or simply a statistical outlier (i.e., a study that shows significant results based on probability alone). For these reasons, the non-scientist is generally better off using scientifically-credible sources geared towards the general public.
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