What makes weird beliefs thrive? The epidemiology of pseudoscience

Abstract

What makes beliefs thrive? In this paper, we model the dissemination of bona fide science versus pseudoscience, making use of Dan Sperber's epidemiological model of representations. Drawing on cognitive research on the roots of irrational beliefs and the institutional arrangement of science, we explain the dissemination of beliefs in terms of their salience to human cognition and their ability to adapt to specific cultural ecologies. By contrasting the cultural development of science and pseudoscience along a number of dimensions (selective pressure, cumulative change, sources of stabilization, and types of attraction), we gain a better understanding of their underlying epistemic differences. Pseudoscience can achieve widespread acceptance by tapping into evolved cognitive mechanisms, thus sacrificing intellectual integrity for intuitive appeal. Science, by contrast, defies those deeply held intuitions precisely because it is institutionally arranged to track objective patterns in the world, and the world does not care much about our intuitions. In light of these differences, we discuss the degree of openness or resilience to conceptual change (evidence and reason), and the divergent ways in which science and pseudoscience can achieve cultural “success”.

Keywords::

• Belief Systems
• Content Biases
• Cultural Attractor
• Cultural Evolution
• Cultural Stability
• Defense Mechanisms
• Epidemiology
• Intuition
• Pseudoscience

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers from this journal for their constructive comments, William Bechtel for his helpful editorial suggestions, and Konrad Talmont-Kaminski for commenting on an early draft of this manuscript.

Notes

^[1] From an evolutionary point of view, this concern with truth and accuracy makes sense. In order to successfully navigate the world, you need an accurate representation of at least those features of the world that are relevant to your survival and reproduction. Indeed, it turns out that it is hard to find examples of flat-out misbelief that are directly biologically adaptive (McKay & Dennett, 2009). True belief, ceteris paribus, pays off.

^[2] By the time scientific findings trickle down to the public at large, if they do at all, the evidence cited in their favor may be largely obscured. Even scientifically literate laypeople often have no more than an inkling of the empirical evidence supporting the scientific worldview (Sperber, 1996, p. 97). Indeed, only a small minority of scientists has (partial) access to such evidence. But this hardly means that the public acceptance of science has nothing to do with rationality. Deferring to the authority of experts is a most reasonable thing to do.

^[3] One complication is that some pseudoscientists disown the term “science” and see themselves as promoting “other ways of knowing.” They boast of empirical knowledge, but not of the epithet “science” per se. For an elegant solution to this categorization problem, see Hansson (2009); for additional discussion, see the contributions in Pigliucci and Boudry (2013).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Flemish Fund for Scientific Research (FWO) and by Ghent University (bof13/24j/089), and carried out at the Konrad Lonrenz Institute in Vienna.

Notes on contributors

Maarten Boudry

Maarten Boudry is a postdoctoral research fellow at Ghent University.

Stefaan Blancke

Stefaan Blancke is a postdoctoral research fellow at Ghent University.

Massimo Pigliucci

Massimo Pigliucci is K.D. Irani Professor at the City College of New York.