Why do Indians believe in Weird Things?
When reading the history of the glorious nations, we find that, like gullible individuals, they also process their own peculiar whims that manifest on periodic intervals. Whole communities suddenly fix their mind of one idea and strive to obtain that pursuit, a single delusion that captivates the attention of millions of individuals until it is superseded by a new much more captivating folly. Be it the zeal of nationalism or the seduction of religion, we see the entire nation and its inhabitants, from the rich to the poor, being suddenly seized by a ravaging desire to achieve a type of scintillating glory. The aftermaths of most of these events culminate in blood and tears which are then left for the next generation to analyze.
- The Indian Civilisation has been the most ancient of all great civilizations and is completely indigenous. They had knowledge of all scientific fields which was unfortunately lost because of foreign invasions.
- Ayurveda being the ancient science has a remedy for all human ailments.
- Astrology or Jyotish has scientific explanations and the birth chart can predict an individual’s future.
- There is a nexus of foreign forces that are secretly undermining the economy of India and all its internal problems are a result of malicious conspiracies by foreign state’s secret agencies.
- Our religion (Whatever it may be) is facing an invisible attack from appeasement politics and media ignorance.
These are some of the beliefs that well-educated Indians hold — a handful of them I have mentioned that I could think of at the top of my head. There are many, many more. We can find these beliefs being perpetrated by the evangelist of a political idea who has access to all the scientific information and common sense to rectify them. Needless to say, these ideas still are persistent in our society and have a few opponents. But the question still remains, why educated people still believe in these weird things?
Michael Shermer in his book “Why People Believe in Weird Things” have identified the following possible reasons:
- Problems in Scientific Thinking
A theory is constructed by the scientists and then champions are required to defend it with data and further research. So, while the process of data collection and scientific observations are in progress, the theory gets engrained in the conscience of the masses. Even if the theory is then rejected by a majority of the scientific community, it persists in the memory of the populace who continue to refer to the earlier research for their own justifications.
2. Problems in Pseudoscientific Thinking
The use of anecdotal evidence along with the scientific language used to defend the bold statements creates a belief that anything that is challenging the existing scientific theory must have some evidence. We can find this logic among the practitioners of Ayurveda and Homeopathy.
Humans by their very nature are curious social beings and the communication of information from peers has been important for our survival. This part of our nature also leaves us vulnerable to believe in unsubstantiated rumors. (from Whatsapp for example) and we end up with a faith that something unexplained will always be inexplicable. Our psychology also finds patterns in the chaos and so we consider coincidences as proof of correlations whereas the number of times the coincidence didn’t work out is ignored.
3. Logical Problems in Thinking
After Mr. Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India in 2014, he delivered a speech while inaugurating the newly-built H N Reliance Foundation Hospital.
During his speech, he claimed that many discoveries of modern science and technology were known to the people of ancient India several thousand years ago. He said, “We can feel proud of what our country achieved in medical science at one point of time….We all read about Karna in the Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we realise that the Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time. That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb.” Modi went on: “We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.”
Shermer in his books notes that the use of emotive words makes humans think illogically and they readily accept an argument if it is being made by someone with authority. Similarly, they also have the propensity to reject an argument just because they are not very much accepting of the person making the argument. In the Indian context, no matter what opinion is given by the leader of the opposition party, it will be mocked upon by the followers of the regime just because they are on the opposite end of the political spectrum.
4. Psychological Problems in Thinking
We strive to find certainty in a random world and therefore are not much enthusiastic about ideas that can change our existing perceptions and views.
Our ingrained beliefs are not the result of logical thinking but rather due to parental upbringing, siblings and friend's influences, peer pressure, education experiences and life impressions.
Shermer also points out two logical biases:
1. Intellectual Attribution Bias: attribution of causes of our own or other’s behaviors to either a situation or a disposition. Giving a logical basis to one’s own illogical beliefs and trying to justify it using rational arguments.
2. Confirmation Bias: the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values.
So how to avoid these fallacies and become a true skeptic? Carl Sagan in his 1987 lecture “the burden of skepticism” quotes:
It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.)
On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones. If all ideas have equal validity then you are lost, because then, it seems to me, no ideas have any validity at all.
Perhaps, in the end, it all comes down to the one point: to believe or not to believe is not the question, the question is what to believe and how to confirm it.
But in these peculiar times, these principles are hard to employ in a country where the Health Minister was the one who launched an Ayurveda-based Covid medicine and there are people in power who claim that the water of a holy river can save someone from a pandemic. We already have government-funded research institutes that are publishing papers on the efficacy of Bullshit, maybe we should look around to notice how deep in Bullshit we are already.
