Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World (22 page)

Examine your own religious history if you have one. I was raised a Jew. I heard my share of prosocial things about the accomplishments and virtues of my own people (most of whom I had never met and was unrelated to). But I also heard occasional negative comments about outsiders. Our biggest competitors (growing up in New York) were Christians and there was no shortage of adjectives to describe “them.” There was no outright violence in my experience, but the things I heard about “them” were rarely the stuff of public relations campaigns. When I became a bit older and talked at length to my Christian friends, I was surprised to learn that they had heard similarly negative things about “us.” The comments were never enough to provoke a fight, and most of them had been delivered in an offhanded, even humorous way. But it was part of the identity and solidarity of both groups to criticize and distinguish themselves from the others.

Back then and there, it was Christians and Jews. The world has changed. These days it’s the Muslims who bear the brunt of our fear and loathing. I’ve never heard a bad word about the Hindus, but then I’ve never lived in Pakistan. And I’m sure many Indians could teach me a thing or two about the Muslims. In any case, the stakes appear a lot higher today, but it is doubtful that the underlying issues have changed very much.

Ask yourself, what is basic about human beings? What is it we have that other species arguably do not? That list used to be a lot longer than it is these days. Many “distinctly human” qualities (like tool use, logic, numerical skills, thinking) are now topics that students of animal cognition are actively studying. Even within this context, language has withstood virtually every challenge. We have it and they, no matter which species we’re referring to, do not. Language in the sense that humans practice it effortlessly and universally remains our sole domain. It is a defining quality of our species. I mention language because David Berreby has argued quite pointedly that the tendency toward forming “insider” and “outsider” judgments in humans is every bit as hardwired and universal as language.

Think about the impact of that statement and its far-reaching implications. If “us and them” judgments are as defining a trait for humans as language, then—at the least—efforts to teach inclusive-ness, tolerance, and universal brotherhood may have a lower ceiling than we might hope. Certainly, they will succeed insofar as the size of the in-group (those to whom we direct altruistic acts) can be expanded, but as for erasing the boundary between “us” and “them,” the likelihood of that landmark change seems remote. If you truly wanted to erase racial or religious conflicts, for example, one way would be to create a newer and bigger “them.” This is Military Science 101. Let Earth be attacked by Martians and watch how quickly Christians, Muslims, and Jews work together. All it takes is a common enemy to forge a newly expanded “us.”

Try to imagine a culture that forces humans
not
to learn language. Just how might that happen? There is probably no way, short of brain alteration. The title of Steven Pinker’s book
The Language Instinct
²⁵
says it all. The tools for language acquisition are hardwired into human brains. There is a window of opportunity in all normal humans during which inputs will be wrestled from the environment and processed in certain predetermined ways. That marvelous program will result in language comprehension and expression. That’s just the way it works. Now imagine the same hardwired process for group identity and “us versus them.” Keep in mind, as Berreby notes, that such a statement is value free. In other words, the mechanism for parsing the world into “us” and “them” is neither good nor bad. It is simply part of the legacy of being human. Some parts of what it means to be among the “us” group are undoubtedly positive. We experience everything from protection to a sense of “belongingness.” Having an out-group to direct our conceptual (and perhaps physical) ire against also produces in-group cohesion. It is rarely good to be a member of “them,” except for the fact that such membership means one is counted among their own “us” group. We are only outsiders to the people we care less about. To those we have bonded with, we are part of an “us.”

Those judgments of “us” and “them” are rarely based upon anything real—like biology. Virtually any category will do: distinctions of race or “ethnicity,” sexual orientation, profession. It really doesn’t matter. Once the mind of an individual has seized upon an easily grasped distinction, the brain module for “us” and “them” will go to work and do its job as effectively as the language acquisition module. It is essentially uncritical about what it processes.

Does this mean the prognosis for our species is hopeless? I don’t think it is. Plainly, there are circumstances under which these mechanisms are most likely to be triggered. What is inevitable is making “us” and “them” judgments. What is
not
inevitable is the malevolence or violence resulting from those judgments. But how easy is it to “just say no” to xenophobia? Can our species simply turn its back on a fundamental part of human nature? Once we decide that something about our species is unseemly, can we simply refrain from doing it?

Needless to say, there is a lot of flexibility in how we define both insiders and outsiders. Humans can be “played” by skillful manipulation of our hardwired tendencies. When political or religious leaders exploit these tendencies in us, they can turn most humans to their agenda with coordinated violence. The process can be amplified by claiming that a generally accepted deity is on “our” side. As the numbers swell, even more group members will be co-opted because of a seemingly validated threat against “us.”

If we recognize the power of this module within our minds, we can be increasingly vigilant against those who attempt to trigger it. Plainly, you do not need the language of evolutionary psychology or the tools of cognitive neuroscience to be a savvy consumer. These processes, as well as our resistance to them, operate at an intuitive commonsense level. Having the vocabulary may merely make it a bit easier to identify the process while it is occurring and hit the “pause” button. If it is any consolation, the people who rally us to their causes by triggering our “us versus them” circuitry may have little formal understanding of what they are doing. They simply
know
what works. They, too, are human. They know that if anyone comes for their sister, they will protect her to the death. The extension from sister to cousin to neighbor’s sister, to someone in Texas’s sister to an American’s sister is a simple matter. Einstein was right when he called nationalism “an infantile disease, the measles of mankind.”
²⁶
The circuitry is not very discerning. Once it has been triggered by your guru or imam or president, your hands start reaching for a uniform and a gun.

Disturbed by unsupported claims of supernatural ability and paranormal events, and frustrated by the public’s uncritical acceptance of them, professional magician James Randi founded the James Randi Educational Foundation in 1996 (
http://www.randi.org
). In its own words, the foundation “is committed to providing reliable information about paranormal claims. It both supports and conducts original research into such claims.”

The Randi Foundation has a standing offer: US$1 million to anyone who can document evidence of any supernatural, paranormal, or occult power or event. The offer began in 1968 as a “$100 challenge.” Over the years, its value increased to $1,000, and then $10,000. Randi originally established the award after a radio interviewer taunted him to “put your money where your mouth is.” The money is kept in a special account in the form of negotiable bonds that will be delivered to any successful claimant. The applicant is required to meet a two-stage requirement. There is a relatively simple preliminary test of each claim that, if successful, is followed by a formal test. Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the Randi Foundation at the site where the applicant lives. Upon success in the preliminary test, the “applicant” becomes a “claimant” and is tested using a formal procedure, partially designed (but not administered) by members of the foundation. The design of this test also involves participation of the claimant.

This remarkably straightforward approach to the paranormal puts things in sharp perspective. On one hand we have countless millions of people actively believing in something that may not exist. On the other hand, we have someone, a foundation actually, who does not share that belief, saying, “If what you believe is true, convince us. Show us what it looks like. We will not apply an unreasonable standard of evidence. Surely, if it is out there—whether it be ghosts or telepathy or communication with the dead or clairvoyance—there must be some measurable evidence of its existence. Show it to us and we will give you $1 million for your trouble.”

That seems fair (not to mention lucrative) by any standard. Yet, nobody has claimed it. In fact, no one has ever passed the preliminary stage of testing. Forget about unreasonable standards in unnatural (laboratory) settings. This has never gotten past the minimal demonstration in one’s own home or haunted house. That seems a pretty strong indictment of those espousing the existence of paranormal phenomena. Not a week goes by when enormously successful supermarket tabloids don’t make multiple front-page claims, any one of which would qualify for Randi’s award. For those who buy the tabloids “strictly for fun,” there is no contradiction. But for that indeterminate proportion of readers who
do
believe that 1) a woman gave birth to an alien baby, or 2) a corpse has come back from the dead and now heals the sick, or 3) ghosts inhabit a local house and rattle their chains every night, the time has come to put their beliefs to the test. Either this stuff is real (and someone is about to be a million dollars richer) or these beliefs are utter nonsense and it’s time to renounce them.

To every horoscope-reading, “spiritual” person who lives from paycheck to paycheck, buying lottery tickets and hoping for a big payday, you’re missing a golden opportunity. Find yourself a practitioner whose abilities you believe in. That shouldn’t be too hard. Then go to the Web site
www.randi.org
and make your claim. What’s the downside to all this? Unfortunately, I think we know the answer to that question. It’s “your belief in the paranormal” that might be a pretty costly thing to give up. A world without ghosts, telepathy, “everything happens for a reason,” and alien abductions might be a pretty unexciting place to live. We can hear the response: “You keep the million bucks and let me keep my mysteries.”

T
hose are three very important words when it comes to science, statistical inference, and just plain common sense. If someone tells you she has just scored 123 on a test of moral decency, you may want to utter those three words before either embracing her warmly or slipping away as quickly as possible. “Compared to what?” is embodied in the notion of control groups, baselines, and norms. Without those words it’s pretty hard to make sense out of individual cases in fields ranging from medicine to athletics.

Comparisons are central to the scientific method. Indeed, they are one of the least exotic, most comprehensible aspects of all science. There is really nothing magical about the way science does its business. The most common difference between normal, everyday bright people and those who have had scientific training is not a collection of exotic facts, but rather an ability to parse the world into manageable chunks and ask and answer questions about them.

For many years I taught an entry-level research design course in the Psychology Department. I usually began by asking my students to generate an interesting question about psychology—something they thought really needed to be answered in order to further our understanding of human behavior. Virtually all of them could do this. There was almost no limit to the number of interesting questions they could generate. Next I asked them to design some research to answer the question they posed. This is where the trouble began. It wasn’t just exotic statistical techniques that kept them from designing their experiments; often it was an inability to pose questions in a way that led to testable hypotheses. Many of them designed procedures that could find supportive evidence only. I pointed out that a criterion for scientific rigor is a hypothesis that can also be refuted. What would it take to reject this hypothesis? All the confirmation in the world is useless if the same hypothesis can’t be rejected.

Another important theme of that course was the role of control groups in evaluating evidence. It’s the “Compared to what?” question. Understanding the role of chance in this regard and being able to quantify its effects are essential, not only to statistical inference, but also to good decision making. Most people seem to know this intuitively. If I stand up in front of an audience and announce that I have a trick coin that is biased toward heads, how many flips will it take to convince them that the coin is not normal? (In this case, “normal” means a two-headed coin with the probability of heads = the probability of tails = .5.) Once we specify this, the effects of chance become easy to compute using what’s called the
binomial expansion
.

If I flip it once and produce heads, can I bow and walk away? Obviously not. When you ask a nonscientific audience to explain why, they will say essentially the same thing that PhD scientists say: “Because that outcome could have happened by chance with a normal coin.” When the coin comes up heads a second consecutive time, my audience remains unconvinced. A third time does little to change that. Four consecutive heads? Not yet. A fifth? A sixth? Somewhere around the sixth or seventh toss, people are beginning to wonder if maybe this is a “trick” coin. By the tenth toss, most everybody seems pretty sure. But there is a break point, say, between the sixth and tenth toss, where people begin to see that all these consecutive heads lie beyond what we’d expect to see if heads and tails were equally probable.