Delusional Nation

I recently heard a report of a study that found that when people think they are hearing advice from experts, the critical thinking portion of their brain shuts down. The way they tested people was pretty simple. They had a logic game, where they were given circumstances and asked to decide which option they wanted. The first time through, they were not helped in any way, and brain scans were being taken as they played the game. They noticed what areas of the brain were lighting up when a person was making a decision, going through a critical thinking process.

For the second round, it was almost identical, except after they presented the circumstances, they introduced an expert in the subject of the game who was supposed to advise them how to choose. This time around, when they chose, the critical thinking portion of the brain did not light up at all.

The conclusion is that when you think someone else that knows better tells you what they think you should do, then most people don't enter the normal critical thinking pattern. They aren't thinking about what they've been told and they don't analyze or process the information.

In other words, if you believe that what some expert is telling you is correct, you stop thinking for yourself at that point.

You see this in our recent financial crisis. So many experts on CNBC telling the world to buy more and more stocks and don't worry about the basic unsound premise it's all being built on. "Real Estate is the ticket! It will always go up." Never mind the fact that you're buying into it at the height of the bubble. How else can you explain why so many people get together and do the wrong thing as a group. It's like the old fable about "The Emperor Has No Clothes". It takes someone not caught up in group think to walk in fresh and realize what a mess things are in.

It's a little like the network news phenomenon. People watch the news and forget to consider that it might not be right. They believe that the people on there must be experts. They could not possibly be allowed to talk on television if they weren't correct. So if a news story misses the mark completely, no one bats an eye. This is similar to what went on leading up to the Iraq War. Convinced that Iraq was connected to 9/11 and the terrorists and that they had weapons of mass destruction, who wouldn't support the people that think we need to do something about it?

And this also brings me to religious leaders. People believe that their pastor or priest or minister or rabbi or mullah are well-read, divinely inspired experts about the faith and all matters pertaining to God. That is why so many faithful people disbelieve in anything that contradicts their religion. Their expert said so, and that's good enough for them. They somehow feel that to question their religious leader is a form of faithlessness and will not risk going to hell by entertaining any questions or doubts about what is being told.

Critical thinking is essential for being able to face the world and make decisions based on facts and reality. Having "experts" that don't know what they are talking about, or worse, that want you to believe something they themselves do not believe is delusional. And holding onto our delusions is dangerous. Sooner or later, you will collide with reality.