An interesting article, not exactly a new idea, though it does help to put a scientific basis on what I think people already pretty much knew (at least people who think about such things).
I have conversations along these lines quite often with my girls. I'm trying to battle various cultural "facts" and attitudes as I attempt to raise my sisters-in-law to be independent thinkers and not be dependent on (say) a man to take care of them for the rest of their lives.
One of the biggest problems, particularly nowadays, is that there are so many published "facts" available either via reading, or via word of mouth (or any other medium) and many of these "facts" are contradicted by others who have other findings or assumptions. Sometimes at the same time, or sometimes later, these "facts" are found to be erroneous or said to be erroneous when maybe they aren't. Anthropogenic global warming is an example of this, I believe. Many people are convinced on both sides by various levels of science and both sides have their beliefs that are often safe because they don't accept other findings that find against their beliefs. And there is indeed a wealth of science that points to both things being correct, or wrong.
Data are data. Data are often interpreted in a fashion that supports a person's thinking in an attempt to justify how that person sees the world. Others see those same data, and if it is explained by someone that another person trusts, often that person sees the data the same way. "Facts" are not as hard and cold in most cases as we would have ourselves believe.
And not all of us can be scientists. We must read what others do and try to figure out if things are valid. That leaves a large hole for those who are not even interested in understanding to begin with. And to be fair, most people are more worried about finding a way to live a decent life than things that don't immediately impact them.
I always go back to the first sentient ape. Imagine what that person must have felt like, being able to think beyond hunger and shelter for their self and their offspring. There was no one to teach them, from youth, anything except survival maybe and for the truly first one, they only had the example of their instincts and what others were doing. The first sentients had to make it all up as they went along, unless one is a subscriber of Von Daniken and his ilk
Modern-day religion is an offshoot (in my opinion) of the primitive desire to understand and explains the wonders (and/or terrors) of the universe (including life itself) that started off from those first sentient hominids on this planet. As well is the study of human behavior and such things as science and politics and how we fit into the secular world. We stumble about blindly, trying to find the "truth" but the real world is never that simple.
Personally, I like the idea of memes. It seems to explain a lot. I mean, a whole lot. Only problem is it's hard to study empirically. But if one takes the idea of memes and applies it to the study of "flying from facts", it is a theory that helps explain many illogical failings of the human race and why we hold on to beliefs that may not be all that helpful in the "modern" world.
The article mentions a way to combat the "flying from facts" is to raise people with healthy skepticism and a vigorous education of the "facts". Indeed, the two ideas are almost contradictory - how can you teach someone to be skeptical while teaching them "facts" that can be subjective, based on the point of view of the observer, or even the experimenter? The way we think today is based on the way we thought yesterday. Most "facts" are based on bias, the summary of data points with sometimes no clear objective point of view. Sometimes the facts actually coincide with what we can observe of reality but many times that is not the case. Even when the facts seem to coincide with reality, they are often incomplete facts and may lead to a completely different set of facts when understanding is complete.
I certainly don't disagree with their conclusion of how to change some of this "fly from facts" phenomenon, but it's not a simple thing to implement either.
I think particularly of Einstein, one of the greatest minds of the 20th century surely, who couldn't deal with some of the more bizarre aspects of quantum theory (things he called "spooky"), like quantum entanglement which seems to allow the propagation of information instantaneously (as far as we can tell) which seems to break Einstein's general theory of relativity. And Bohr and Einstein are two famous people who argued different sides of the argument, but Einstein could just never accept what today seems to be reality.
Those who read up on quantum entanglement don't even really understand it, nor those who are actually experimenting to try to understand it. But it does seem to give some good theories as to why two electrons that are "entangled" on a quantum level can be separated by a huge distance, and changing one changes another - once it is observed. Nowadays, theories of "aether" are making a comeback, even. What is the "truth" and which "facts" lead us there?
When you put into the mix everyday people who don't have near the grounding in science that either Einstein or Bohr had, much less in most cases a small grounding in science (or politics, or any other field of study), it's no wonder that people believe in a variety of things that are unprovable and flee to what they "know" as opposed to what is reality.
