Читать книгу Reason: Book I - Bo Bennett - Страница 11

Discussing freedom is a touchy issue, but it is important in understanding that your “right” to reject certain findings in science is limited, just as your “right” to freedom of speech is limited by not yelling “bomb” in an airport. Some examples include:

•Rejecting the science behind the safety of vaccines and putting your own children, and other people who cannot get vaccines at risk.

•Lobbying against GMOs “because it just seems wrong” rather than understanding the science behind GMOs, not realizing that GMOs can save millions of lives of people who are starving and cannot afford to shop at Whole Foods.

•Insisting that the universe is 6000 years old and trying to have that idea taught in public schools, which is undermining the younger generation’s trust in science.

Use your own brain—but know its limitations. We are all subject to cognitive biases that give us a false sense of confidence in what we think we know and rationalize that the easy way out (expending no cognitive energy) gives us the intellectually superior high ground, when it clearly does not.