Some scientists say people cling to their convictions instinctively, ignoring contrary evidence
03/11/2001
By Ira J. Hadnot / The Dallas Morning News
The tongue is not the only part of the body that defends beliefs.
 Believe it - or not • Why we believe what we believe |
In much the same way that soldier ants instinctively surround unwanted intruders in the nest, some scientists argue, the mind shields human beliefs from outside attacks.
These processes have evolved, the experts theorize, right alongside the instinct for survival. Just as the brain directs the senses to respond to danger, to prepare the body to fight or to flee, it is also capable of protecting ideals people consider sacrosanct.
But how are beliefs formed? Are they biological, as these experts suggest, or the result of external conditions such as culture and upbringing?
The answers are complex and controversial – a vast concept like beliefs is hard to test in the laboratory. Some scientists say beliefs have a biological basis, some say a social one, and still others say the truth is somewhere in between or just a matter of semantics.
"People have an ability to hold onto their beliefs even when there is contradictory or compelling evidence that no longer support them," says Dr. Gregory Lester, a psychologist at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.
That ability, Dr. Lester says, is biological.
"I won't go so far as to speculate that it's biological – like moving an arm or leg," says Dr. Jack Dovidio, a social psychologist at Colgate University. "I would say that beliefs are psychological. They begin externally as information we take in. And the process of confirming that information somehow involves the brain. There is much we do not know."
Yet theories about beliefs abound.
"Why we believe, what we believe and how those beliefs are sustained is an open-ended debate among theologians and 'evolutionary' scientists," says Robert John Russell, founder of the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences in Berkeley, Calif.
"It is a circular discussion," says Dr. Russell, a physicist and professor of theology and science. "One could say that everything is biologically determined, and it still would not disprove that God is in the wiring."
In a recently published magazine article titled "Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die," Dr. Lester argues that "because beliefs are designed to enhance our ability to survive, they are biologically designed to be strongly resistant to change."
Psychologists call this resistance "confirmatory bias," an ability to absorb information that confirms beliefs and discount things that challenge them. As social animals, experts speculate, humans have probably always held beliefs to some extent. Some biologists say beliefs reflect the evolutionary rise of humans from primitive animals to thinking ones.
"I am not concerned about the content of beliefs, which is largely tradition and learned," says Dr. Lester. "I want to know why beliefs exist. Why do we need beliefs?"
The "short" answer, according to Dr. Dovidio, is:
"People have two goals – to understand the world and to feel good about understanding the world. There's a bias toward moving in the direction of things that make you feel good and avoiding information that makes you feel bad."
Beliefs, he says, are not "merely descriptive" but "channel" the way humans make choices about information.
The "distorting" or "discounting" of new information that challenges existing beliefs happens subconsciously, Dr. Dovidio says. "Many researchers hypothesize that there are neural connections that turn thoughts into beliefs and this all happens somewhere in the neocortex."
Dr. Andrew Newberg has found changes occurring in the frontal lobe or neocortex of the brains of Tibetan monks while they are meditating and Franciscan nuns while they are praying. By injecting a radioactive tracer chemical that infuses the brain cells, Dr. Newberg, who specializes in neuroscience and psychiatry, has used a special camera that has enabled him to see increased blood flow while his subjects were in a spiritual or meditative state.
Ten years of studies will be discussed in his forthcoming book, Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and The Biology of Belief.
"Neuroscience can explain the nature of spiritual beliefs and their importance in human evolution," says Dr. Newberg, director of clinical nuclear medicine and an associate professor of radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
He quickly adds that only limited conclusions can be drawn from the research. "The range of spiritual experiences and beliefs are so broad that it would be hard to design a scientific experiment that could address them all. Meditation and prayer are among the easiest to replicate in a laboratory setting."
Essential part of us
No matter how beliefs work, it is not possible to exist for very long without them, according to Dr. Michael Shermer, author of Why People Believe Weird Things and a follow-up book, How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science.
Dr. Shermer is director of the Skeptics Society and publisher of Skeptic magazine. He has graduate degrees in experimental psychology and the history of science. He also hosts a show, Science Talk, aired by National Public Radio.
"We have to believe in something," he says. "We are a species that connects the dots for survival. We are a pattern-making, story-telling people. The brain has to have some consistency, and beliefs provide that. If you are constantly changing your mind about things, that disrupts this intricate process that was established from the very beginning."
The brain, Dr. Lester writes, is "responsible for our survival. Like the senses, beliefs are tools for our survival. Beliefs extend the range of the senses from merely being concerned with the immediate and improve the long-term chances of survival as humans are thrust in and out of unfamiliar environments."
"If beliefs act as we think they do, then it means they operate independently of sensory data. The beliefs are not supposed to change easily or simply as a response to conflicting evidence. The brain doesn't care whether or not the belief matches the data. It cares whether the belief aids the survival process. The cave man didn't have to be convinced that his life was in danger if he left home without weapons. "
Rather than calling people who cling to their beliefs anal, bull-headed or ignorant, he suggests that it is simpler to understand that as far as the human brain is concerned, "belief and data are designed to disagree." In the December issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, he writes: "This is why scientists can believe in God and people who are quite reasonable and rational can believe in things for which there is no credible data such as flying saucers, telepathy and ghosts."
All types of beliefs, experts say, are subject to the same defenses.
"The human genome project has shown us that we all share the same genetic structure. Now that is an anti-racist argument based on scientific observation," says Dr. Russell. "Yet there are people who believe that others, because of their skin color, are genetically inferior."
Why?
Racial prejudice, Dr. Shermer says, is an example of "confirmatory bias." That means that people look for information that confirms their prejudice and ignore evidence that doesn't support it.
Studies, dating to the 1960s, have looked at "confirmatory bias" extensively, says Dr. Dovidio. "They were called self-fulfilling prophecy studies. In one, teachers were given the expectation that some of their students would be late bloomers and would eventually do very well on tests. Believing that information, the teachers paid more attention to those students, and they did do better on the tests. What the teachers said is that they knew it all along.
"In another study, people were told they were having a telephone conversation with an attractive person. Based on that, they acted very warmly to the person. The other group believed very strongly they were talking to an unattractive person on the phone and treated them coldly.
"There is also some sense that confirmatory evidence is stronger for negative beliefs.
"If people see another group as threatening, it may be safer to regard them as enemies. It may keep you alive to believe that lions kill people rather than test each individual lion for its reaction to you."
The trouble with some negative beliefs that are shielded from new information is that they can "create more social problems than they solve," says Dr. Dovidio. "No one person has all the information. We have a piece of it, and that never constitutes the whole truth. It's unwise to think that the belief we may hold is all the truth there is."
The unknown
It is not known where beliefs reside in the mind, says Dr. Shermer. The mind processes thoughts and beliefs, just as it directs memory and receives an image from the eye and then tells us that the color of an object is green, red or yellow.
"Much is known and still very much is unknown about how the brain works," he says. "The anecdotes about beliefs come easier than the science."
Experts say these theories are difficult to test.
Most of the latest research on beliefs involves religion and spirituality, he says. The work of Dr. Newberg and his late colleague Dr. Eugene G. d'Aquili, a psychiatrist and anthropologist, is often cited.
Dr. Newberg says: "We know that something is happening in the brains of believers. It is not too much of a leap to say that as people develop other beliefs to support their concept of the world that certain neural pathways become stronger. And that it is extremely difficult to break these neural pathways and form new ones. That would require a significant experience such as a conversion or repeated exposure to new evidence that makes you change your mind."
The findings about religious beliefs, Dr. Shermer and his colleagues say, can also extend to political, social and cultural beliefs. And it seems nearly every discipline – from anthropology to zoology – has its advocates and critics of theories about beliefs and behavior.
In the last 25 years, fields with names like sociobiology and evolutionary psychology have emerged. Bookstores, university curricula and Web sites are teeming with material for laymen and scientists. Last year, the Harvard University Press published a 25th-anniversary edition of Edward O. Wilson's groundbreaking work, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis.
The book looks at the evolution of social behavior in diverse groups of animals. Dr. Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize and National Medal of Science winner, drew bitter attacks for his claim that human social behavior, indeed human nature, has a biological foundation. The controversy has not died down.
Dr. Glenn Hass, a psychologist at Brooklyn College, and several colleagues published a paper last year, arguing that "perspectives on human behavior that are either exclusively biological or exclusively social seem to us to be restricted and incomplete. ..."
Dr. Wilson wrote in his book's latest edition that research in genetics and neuroscience has "strengthened the case" for a biological understanding of human nature.
Some animals have a genetic predisposition for "imprinted programming." It is what scientists call "eidetic" memory – they will believe whatever they're taught. It is not clear whether humans have this type of memory.
A professor emeritus at Harvard, Dr. Wilson observed the social interaction among animals and insects. He found similarities that led him to connect some dots and come up with sociobiology.
Soldier ants have no reproductive function, yet they will fight to the death to defend the nest. The behavior doesn't seem logical on an individual level. On a collective one, the ants are preserving their species.
Humans also have the capacity for collective altruism, and at the same time for extremely individualistic beliefs and behavior. It is as hard for people to have their beliefs challenged as it is for soldier ants to change eons of evolutionary behavior and welcome intruders.
It is normal for people to be defensive about their beliefs, Dr. Lester says. "The mind goes into survival mode. It can direct any area of the body to help. The first outward sign of conflict is that we lash out with language. We use our tongues to counter this intrusive information. We engage in a war of words."
The tongue may eventually wear out in a battle of beliefs. But by then, the mind may have developed a new defense.
-- Anonymous, March 11, 2001
