It is hard not to see our species as being defined by this fatal flaw! In particular the claims and beliefs of organized religion – which should have been dismissed a long time ago – that have lead to centuries of religious strife that resulted  in countless of  lives lost for no reason other than the competition between such beliefs and the vested interest that the various religious denominations had acquired in them.

Gullibility can be even deadlier – to the point of voluntary self destruction – as in the case of religious cult membership, one tragic example being the  dead by suicide of more than 900 Americans, members of the People Temple cult in Jonestown, Guyana on November 18th, 1978,  at the urging of their demented  leader the “Reverend” Jim Jones.

Then, a more recent example that even the most bizarre and unsubstantiated  beliefs can have deadly consequences for those that accept them as absolute truth happened in  1997, when members of Heaven’s Gate, a religious cult, believed that as the Hale-Bopp comet passed by Earth, a spaceship would be travelling in its wake—ready to take true believers aboard. Several members of the group bought an expensive, high-powered telescope so that they might get a clearer view of the comet. They quickly brought it back and asked for a refund. When the manager asked why, they complained that the telescope was defective, that it didn’t show the spaceship following the comet. A short time later, believing that they would be rescued once they had shed their “earthly containers” (their bodies), all 39 members killed themselves. (from a July 2020 article in the The Atlantic)

Today the practice of blindly believing the unsubstantiated is running rampant on the internet. Donald J. Trump supporters take note: he lost the election by more than 7 million validated votes. But since you believe that DJT would have been the obvious person to vote for, more or less guaranteeing a landslide victory, you have difficulty believing he lost the election. So when you hear claims that the election was rigged, you will want to believe that, even when there is no factual evidence in support of it.

This is an epistemological problem, and some will refer to this as examples of cognitive dissonance,  defined as the motivational mechanism that underlies the reluctance to admit mistakes or accept scientific findings. Once we form an opinion on a particular topic, we refuse to believe anything contrary to our beliefs; even going as far as to reject factual information to rationalize our own opinion.

The question is, how did our species  get as far as it has with this obvious flaw – something I consider an absolutely critical flaw, and responsible for much of the evil  that people have inflicted onto themselves and others over the centuries.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. (Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662)