{"id":601,"date":"2014-02-08T13:42:31","date_gmt":"2014-02-08T21:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=601"},"modified":"2020-10-18T11:58:34","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:58:34","slug":"mooney-on-our-not-to-scientific-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2014\/02\/08\/mooney-on-our-not-to-scientific-minds\/","title":{"rendered":"Mooney on our not-to-scientific minds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s an article by Chris Mooney that captures the essence of my own interest in matters of evolution and cosmology and their religious detractors. (These matters aren&#8217;t &#8216;debates&#8217; or &#8216;controversies&#8217; except in the minds of those blinkered by religious indoctrination. The science is well established.) This essence is the irony that,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nOur brains are a stunning product of evolution; and yet ironically, they may naturally pre-dispose us <i>against<\/i> its acceptance.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This entails the raft of psychological biases our minds rely on, or are prey to, to make a living as biological beings. But these same biases encourage us to live in a sort of fantasy world in which we interpret the world around us in the most flattering way possible \u2013 we are the center of creation, etc. \u2013 rather than how reality actually is, as deduced through rational evidence gathering and logical thought.<\/p>\n<p>Mooney\u2019s  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2013\/11\/seven-evolutionary-reasons-people-deny-evolution\">7 Reasons Why It&#8217;s Easier for Humans to Believe in God Than Evolution<\/a> are<\/p>\n<p>Biological essentialism<br \/>\nTeleological thinking<br \/>\nOveractive agency detection [the theme of Jesse Bering\u2019s book on this matter]<br \/>\nDualism<br \/>\nInability to comprehend vast time scales<br \/>\nGroup morality and tribalism<br \/>\nFear and the need for certainty<\/p>\n<p>He references a book I have on my shelf waiting to be read: <b>Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not<\/b>, by Robert N. McCauley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s an article by Chris Mooney that captures the essence of my own interest in matters of evolution and cosmology and their religious detractors. (These matters aren&#8217;t &#8216;debates&#8217; or &#8216;controversies&#8217; except in the minds of those blinkered by religious indoctrination. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2014\/02\/08\/mooney-on-our-not-to-scientific-minds\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,20,12,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evolution","category-psychology","category-religion","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":602,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions\/602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}