SCI-ART LAB

Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication

Krishna: If I say, ‘Just scientific knowledge? “NO!?” ’ :)

Okay, you have acquired lots and lots of scientific knowledge. You even got a PhD in science. That will not make you a person of science! :) :)

The way your mind processes this knowledge dictates what type of person you will become.

The minds of human beings are conditioned since their childhood. Conditioned by religion, culture, tradition, politics, emotions and what not. Unless a person overcomes ‘all’ these things, he will not have a neutral mind that can process the information put before him in an unbiased and faultless way. Unless one is a Critical Thinker, one cannot achieve this.

Instead of getting rid of their irrational beliefs by using the scientific knowledge they gathered, aren't we seeing some people using the same knowledge to substantiate their own beliefs and misconceptions creating pseudo-science and conspiracy theories in the process?

So the reverse process is happening here!

Just because a new day has dawned bringing with it infinite knowledge, when a human mind cannot utilize it properly, all that goes waste and doesn't make you an enlightened person. We try to caution people about it, teach them how to go about it in the right way, but most of them don't have the mental capacity to grasp our good intentions. They think we are their enemies trying to fight them and their beliefs.

Why don’t people trust scientific evidence?

There are several reasons for this.

People can’t understand science easily like they understand silly stories told by people around.

Even if they read and hear what we write or say, they cannot analyse and perceive it the way it should be done because of conditioning of minds.

They cannot co-relate it to their situations.

Most of the people treat scientific evidence as scientists’ opinions.

Lack of critical thinking skills.

Cognitive dissonance is difficult to deal with. Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviours. This produces a feeling of mental discomfort because this can lead to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviours to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. It will be easy to discord a new one instead of the one that is already well established in one's mind.

Dunning Kruger effect makes them refuse what others say.

People start using the information they have or get to support their beliefs and create pseudo-science in the process.

People find sticking with their group, family, and friends more comfortable and safe than going against the tide.

People will interpret the facts not with their heads, but with their guts – their emotions, prior opinions and biases. Human perceptions and expectations are huge determinants in understanding things, we tend to see what we expect. We see things as we are, not as they are! Research has shown that only one- tenth to one-fourth of people can really do unbiased reasoning and accept a fact based on evidence. Rest of the people will go with emotions and biases! So they resort to motivated reasoning.

So just because you have shown evidence based facts doesn't make people accept them.

We, the people of scientific community, are fighting all these things to make general public understand scientific facts in the way they should to utlize them properly and come out of their ancient mind sets.

That is one of the aims of Sci-Com. Let us see how far we can succeed.

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