So let's move on to argument number five. And I think arguments number five, six and seven will be the more challenging arguments in the sense that a serious debate about these arguments is going on nowadays. Okay, so here's number five. Science gives debunking explanations of common sense beliefs. Here's an example, nowadays, there's a large field called the cognitive science of religion that aims to explain why people hold certain religious beliefs. Why they believe in gods and ghosts and spirits and angels and demons and so on. So one example is an explanation in terms of a hyperactive agency detection device. So the idea is basically this, imagine that you are 10,000 years ago and you and your fiend are sitting at a camp fire, and all of a sudden, you hear something behind you in the bushes, a weird sound. Well, in that case, you might think, that's probably just the wind or maybe a branch fell down off a tree or you might think, what's that, it might be a tiger or it might be a lion or some other dangerous creature. So let's get a stick or let's get ready or let's get out of here maybe. Right, that's what you could do. Now it seems that those people who always think, that will be the wind or something else, those people are significantly less likely to survive, because sooner or later, it is going to be a tiger or a lion. So as a result of that, people have a certain agency detection device that is hyperactive. So they detect agency, they're inclined to think there's agency, even when there isn't. And people still have that hyperactive agency detection device. So as a result of that for instance, they tend to see faces in clouds. And as a result, that they look at nature and think, wow this is so beautiful, there must be a God who created all of this. But that's hyperactive agency detection. There's no God there at all. That's the basic theory, and you will find similar or somewhat similar debunking explanations for morality. Now, if you look at the literature, you will find various explanations and they compete with each other. But I don't think we should discount them on the basis that they compete with each other. Because as long as one of them is correct, then people who embrace those common sense beliefs might be in trouble, right? So, the likelihood that this specific one is correct, might be low. That doesn't count against there being a good debunking explanation. All right, I think there is still some work to do for these arguments, though. And let me point out the three important things here. First, what these explanations should do in order to be truly debunking, so in order to debunk religious and moral beliefs, is rule out independent evidence. So in the case of God for instance, they should rule out other evidence that comes in favor of the existence of God so just argument for God or maybe certain revelations, right. Because belief in God is not only based on agency detection, it's also based on other things. Second, these theories should meet so called criteria for good scientific explanations. So one example is good scientific explanations have a certain predictive power. And it's not clear that all of these explanations as it stands have sufficient predictive powers so that they can actually be tested themselves. And finally, they should be truly debunking. So in order to be debunking it should not merely explain the phenomenon but also explain it away. So it should explain away moral beliefs. Why we hold moral beliefs and why that's somehow illusory. And same thing for belief in God. But in order to do that, it seems one needs some kind of philosophy. Why, because one needs to explain well, why this phenomenon exists and why it's somehow illusory. And that's going to be a challenge if you are an adherent of scientism in its strongest version. Let's move on to the next argument. The next argument says science shows common is permeated with bias. So we find bias all over the place. Here are two examples, the denomination effect, that's the bias that people have to spend more money when they have it in coins, than when they have it in bills, right? So if you give two people $100 each, but you give it in coins to one of them and bills to the other person, the person with coins is going to spend more money on average. Right, it's a certain bias people have. And another interesting one is judging other people in comparison with one's self. So, they've asked for instance scientists, how well they think they're doing in comparison with their colleagues and it turns out, 95% of them think that they're better than their colleagues, which of course, can't be true. So, people have a certain bias here, right? And one might think look common sense, so belief is not based in science shows all these biases so it's not reliable, so it should rely only on the deliverances of the natural sciences. So is this a good argument? Two points, first, in order for this to be a good argument it should really be about beliefs. So the denomination effect for instance, is not clearly something about belief but maybe more something about behavior. So if I spend more money when I have coins then, when I have got bills then that doesn't necessarily come with a belief. In fact, once you ask people about it they might change their behavior. So we should focus on those biases that come with certain false beliefs. And the second thing is, and I think more work needs to be done here, is how widespread are these biases? We know that there are lots of biases and that many people have them, but how widespread are they in the sense that they're sufficiently widespread to undermine the reliability of common sense? And that would be an interesting thing to find out. So I challenge anyone working on this to do more research and show us that this is sufficiently widespread to undermine the reliability of common sense. And that brings me to the seventh and final argument for scientism. And that's a complicated argument and there's lots of empirical research to back this up, so I'm going to be very brief here. The argument is this, science shows that common sense beliefs are illusory. Here are two examples, belief about free action. So Libet has done several experiments and other people have taken those experiments to show that there is no such thing as free will. Because we can measure a certain readiness potential in people's brains before they act. And I think they act freely. And a second example is beliefs about the reason for which one does something. So Wegner and Tyler Wheatley have done research on this. And one example I particularly like is the following, so they set up a certain experiment and what they do is they, someone is in a shopping street and has certain groceries with him or with her and that person drops the groceries, apparently accidentally on the floor right? This is the whole setup. And then they look at the people surrounding this person in the street. And they check whether they actually help this person. And let's say it's 9 o'clock early in the morning people are in a rush. And it turns out most people won't stop right? So about 80 or 85% of people just continue to walk and go to their work or wherever else they need to go. But here's something else they also do in this experiment, and this is crucial, they put a $10 bill in a telephone box nearby, and what they do is they check the people, they measure what they do when they've been to one of those telephone boxes and found the $10 bill and it turns out that 80 or 85% of those people will actually help the person who dropped their groceries. And they would interview the people afterwards and ask, why did you help the person pick up their groceries or why did you not help this person and people will say things like, well, I help this person because well, we need to help each other, right? If we don't help each other, what kind of society are we? And so on, but nobody will appeal to the fact that he or she just found a $10 bill in a telephone box. So, this suggests that people don't really know the reasons for which they act. They don't really know why they did the things they did. And while they did not do the things they did not do. That's the basic thrust of the argument and there are other experiments to back this up. Well the main question I think is, how representative are these examples? There are more questions to be asked but this is I think the main questions, how representative is this? Does it also apply to bigger decisions in our lives, such as a decision to take a job, or a decision to marry, or other decisions? So, these are great experiments and I think we need to continue to do them. But in order to be a good argument for scientism, we need to know more about how representative they are.
