The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

 WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic.

Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. They focus on themselves — their attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations — over their relationships and social roles. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically distinct? What role did these psychological differences play in the industrial revolution and the global expansion of Europe during the last few centuries? To answer these questions Joseph Henrich draws on anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church. It was these changes that gave rise to the WEIRD psychology that would coevolve with impersonal markets, occupational specialization, and free competition — laying the foundation for the modern world. Shermer and Henrich discuss:

• psychology textbooks that “now purport to be about ‘Psychology’ or ‘Social Psychology’ need to be retitled something like ‘The Cultural Psychology of Late 20^thCentury Americans’,”
• Darwin’s Dictum: “How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observations must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service.” What views Henrich is writing for and against,
• evolutionary psychology and the search for human universals in the context of his thesis that WEIRD cultures are so different,
• Max Weber’s book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and how his thesis holds up under modern studies,
• the problem of overdetermining the past (so many theories explaining history: Jared Diamond’s geographic models, Ian Morris’ War: What is it Good For?, Matt Ridley’s The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge (ideas having sex), Robin Dunbar’s Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language, economic historian Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms, Benjamin Friedman’s Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success,
• normative vs. descriptive accounts of human behavior
• polygamy vs. monogamy,
• 1^st cousin marriages?
• conformity, shame and guilt, illusions, loss aversion, cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, superstitions,
• religion doesn’t have to be true to be useful,
• national differences in cultural psychology (for example: Italy a loose culture, Germany a tight culture),
• origin of writing and literacy rates,
• origin of religion and its purpose(s),
• the “Big Gods” theory of religion’s origin,
• the purpose of religious rituals and food taboos,
• families and kin, kin selection, group selection,
• meaning and happiness in non-WEIRD cultures, “Then you get Westerners who are like ‘I’m an individual ape on a pale blue dot in the middle of a giant black space” and “What does it all mean?’”,
• physical differences: “WEIRD people have flat feet, impoverished microbiomes, high rates of myopia and unnaturally low levels of exposure to parasites like helminths, which may increase their risk of heart disease and allergies.”, and
• When we colonize Mars and become a spacefaring species, what should we take with us from what we’ve learned about human history and psychology?

Joseph Henrich is an anthropologist and the author of The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, among other books. He is the chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, where his research focuses on evolutionary approaches to psychology, decision-making, and culture.

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The Devil In The Details

I've added a note from a friend of mine to precede this article. I think it's important to note what she has to say. "I have to say, I consider myself to be pretty savvy with food label scrutiny and digging into the details, but I was unaware of a whopper of subtlety as outlined in today’s discussion, from Brian Johnson’s “Optimize” e-zine. I’m continually amazed (and more than a little ticked off…) by the lengths to which corporate entities will go to keep up appearances and basically mislead the public.".

Article by Brian Johnson (from the “Optimizer” e-zine)

I recently read Mark Hyman's new book Food Fix. It's a powerful look at the dysfunction of our food system and "How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities, and Our Planet—One Bite at a Time."
As Mark says: "If we were to identify one big lever to pull to improve global health, create economic abundance, reduce social injustice and mental illness, restore environmental health, and reverse climate change, it would be transforming our entire food system. That is the most important work of our time—work that must begin now."

It's a sobering, mind-exploding, more-than-a-little enraging, yet ultimately hopeful look at what's broken and how we can fix it. Today I want to focus on just one super-small aspect of our overall food system: your food label. If you look closely, you'll see that it might be lying to you.

In a chapter called "The FDA Is Not Doing Its Job to Protect Us" in Part II on "The Dirty Politics of Food," Mark tells us: "Companies are required to list ingredients in the order of their pre-dominance (the quantity of the ingredient). But that doesn't tell you how much is actually in the package. If sugar is the second ingredient listed on a package, that doesn't tell you if it makes up 30 percent of the food or 5 percent.

Have you ever picked up a jar of strawberry jam at the supermarket and looked at itsingredient list? A jar of Smucker's strawberry jam lists strawberries as the first ingredient, and then the second, third, and fourth ingredients are as follows: high-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, and sugar. This tactic is very common. The reason companies often use several sweeteners in one product is so they don't have to list 'sugar' as the first ingredient. As Jerold Mande, a nutrition expert who worked on food labels at the FDA and USDA, explained, 'What we know from some investigations is that companies often use five different sugars in their products so that individually, they don't show up too high on the list.'"

Let's think about that for a moment. Of course, we have food labels so we can get a sense of what's actually in our food. Naturally, the ingredients are listed in the order of their pre-dominance (meaning, the quantity of said ingredient). Now...

Can you imagine being in the strategic discussion at Smucker's (and countless other Big Food companies) coming up with the idea to use THREE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SUGAR so that "Strawberries" could remain at the top of the ingredient list so an unsuspecting customer (you? me? your mom? my mom? your brother? my brother?) will pick it up, take a quick glance and then say, "Strawberries. Awesome. Must be healthy!"?

Seriously. Picture the scene. Walk into the conference room. Pull up a chair. I suspect the meeting/conversation might go something like this:

Boss: "Ok, guys. New label laws say we need to put the largest ingredient in our jar of jam at the very top of the list." Pause. "Now... We ALL know we can't have 'sugar' at the top. It's gotta be strawberries. Right?!"

Everyone nods.

Boss: "I mean, if we put SUGAR at the top, people might catch on to the fact that this is NOT a truly healthy food and we can't have THAT happen! Right?"

Everyone nods again.

Boss: "So... I have an idea." (Leans in...) "What we need to do is throw in a few different versions of sugar to keep the product sweet, but LOOK healthy by keeping Strawberries right at the top of the ingredient list."

Boss: "Here's the game plan: research and pick out all the different names and sources for “sugar” you can find, and let’s rework the recipe. We’ve got product to sell and we need to prioritize our profits."
 
(End of hypothetical discussion…)
 
I wish the above thought exercise had no resemblance what-so-ever to reality, but apparently, given the label’s ingredient list, its probably not too far off the mark. Who thought it was a virtuous idea to manipulate the label like that rather than being honest about your product and/or optimizing it so it ACTUALLY IS healthier?

The book is packed with countless examples of how various stakeholders in our food system are manipulating their products and public policy without regards to our health. I don't get easily enraged, but it's enraging. So...I ask: Can you (and should you) trust a company that does that? Can you (and should you) support a company that does that by buying their products? I don't think so.

You? If you feel so inspired, go check out your pantry and take a glance at your food labels. Let's remember that we vote for the world we want to create with every dollar we spend. Let's do so thoughtfully and wisely, starting TODAY.

The Kindness of Strangers: How a Selfish Ape Invented a New Moral Code

In this sweeping psychological history of human goodness — from the foundations of evolution to the modern political and social challenges humanity is now facing — psychologist Michael McCullough answers a fundamental question: How did humans, a species of self-centered apes, come to care about others? Ever since Darwin, scientists have tried to answer this question using evolutionary theory. McCullough shows why they have failed and offers a new explanation instead. From the moment nomadic humans first settled down until the aftermath of the Second World War, our species has confronted repeated crises that we could only survive by changing our behavior. As McCullough argues, these choices weren’t enabled by an evolved moral sense, but with moral invention — driven not by evolution’s dictates but by reason. Today’s challenges — climate change, mass migration, nationalism — are some of humanity’s greatest yet. In revealing how past crises shaped the foundations of human concern, McCullough offers clues for how we can adapt our moral thinking to survive these challenges as well. Shermer and McCullough also discuss:

• Darwin’s Dictum: All observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service.
• the problem to solve: why are people kind to strangers (i.e., origins of empathy, altruism, and kindness)?
• why we don’t need “divine command” theory to explain real morality, which can be derived through evolutionary theory plus philosophical ethical systems,
• evolutionary “by-product” theory: when we help strangers in the modern world we are following ancient rules of thumb that worked well enough in a world in which meeting someone for the first time was a reasonably good indicator that you’d meet them again,
• Frans deWaal and the “thin veneer” theory of human morality and civilization he thinks Dawkins holds, and why our morals are a thick veneer on our evolved nature,
• Peter Singer’s expanding circle,
• Norbert Elias’ The Civilizing Process and his etiquette books advisories,
• why stranger-adaptation and blessed-mistake theories are too simplistic,
• a brief overview of the past 10,000 years of moral progress,
• our evolved human instincts: (1) our social instincts for helping others in hopes of receiving help in return, (2) our instinct for helping others in pursuit of glory, (3) our ability to track incentives, and (4) our capacity for reason,
• the 7 Ages of human history: Age of Orphans, Age of Compassion, Age of Prevention, First Poverty Enlightenment, Humanitarian Big Bang, Second Poverty Enlightenment, Age of Impact, and
• the end of poverty, UBI, and other social tools for creating a more just society of strangers.

Michael McCullough is a professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego. The winner of numerous distinctions for his research and writing, he is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He lives in La Jolla, California.

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6 Mindset Changes That Can Help You Lose Weight Faster

by Autumn Calabrese

Eat more vegetables, control your portion sizes, and exercise regularly. Those are proven steps for losing weight that you're probably tired of hearing about. However, there's a critical component missing from that tried-and-true weight-loss to-do list—mastering the mental game of becoming the healthiest version of you.

"Eating healthy food, drinking water, getting enough exercise and sleep—that's the (relatively) easy part," says celebrity weight loss coach Autumn Calabrese, author of the new book Lose Weight Like Crazy, Even if You Have a Crazy Life. "So why do we struggle so much? It's because we're battling our mind, heart, and emotions, which are all very powerful. The traumatic experiences you endured in life are there to help build you into the person you are meant to be, but you have to choose how they define you. Do they fill you with self-doubt, self-hate, and self-sabotage or do they build you into a warrior?"

Calabrese, a Beachbody trainer who has helped many people live heathier lives, both physically and mentally, stresses that the first step toward positive life change is recognizing that the only opinion about you that matters is your own opinion.
'To set yourself free from any mentally binding chains, you need to convince yourself that you are brave, you are beautiful, you are worthy, you are smart, you are capable, you are strong, and you are enough just the way you are," says Calabrese. Here are "Autumn's Attitude Adjustments," which have been powerful agents of change in her own life.

     1). Choose The Challenge: It can be a challenge to eat healthy foods instead of junk foods and make time for exercise when you're not feeling good about yourself. It can be hard to push yourself to sweat and be out of breath. It also can be discouraging to feel uncomfortable in your own skin. It's tough to feel bad physically and emotionally. It can be disheartening to look in the mirror and not recognize yourself. Regardless of all these legit challenges, you have a choice.

Be deliberate, choose to practice self-care, exercise, and eat right. When you choose all these challenging actions, you'll feel stronger, prouder, and more confident in who you are. It may not be easy, but it is worth it, and the its only way you’ll ever change your situation for the better.

     2). Realize That Motivation Wanes: Motivation is hard to sustain. As such, you can’t rely on it to get you through the rough patches. There are days when I'm not feeling motivated, but I can always opt to be disciplined. I have days when I want to have a few more glasses of wine than I should or I want to sit on the couch with a tub of ice cream, but I don't do that because I choose to be disciplined about taking care of my body for my health. You can still have the things you like in moderation, just be mindful of what you’re doing and don't overindulge. That's discipline.

     3). Remember That You Are What You Eat: Let this sink in: Every single thing you put into your body is what your body becomes. So, don't be fast, easy, cheap, or fake. Change your attitude about what food truly is—fuel to build, protect, and preserve your body and your health. When you look at it through this lens, it becomes much easier to make healthy choices. 

4). Expect Defeat, But Develop A “Never Quit” Response To It: When you were first learning to walk, you didn't fall down and think, "Well that's it, maybe this walking thing isn't for me." No, you got back up and eventually learned to walk. Success doesn’t happen on the first try. When you face defeat—and you will—remember your younger self, the child inside of you who didn't know the meaning of failure. Rise up and try again and again because the only time you truly fail is when you quit. Good thing our younger selves never quit or there would be a lot of crawling adults out there!

5). Memorize A Mantra: Repetition is powerful. The more reps of dumbbell curls you do, the stronger your biceps become. Same goes for strengthening your resolve. Make a practice of repeating a motivating mantra every day whenever you need to tap its power. Need help? Try this one on for size:
  
"I'm doing this…Not for him/her, but for ME
Not for today, but EVERY DAY
Not to feel good in a dress, but to feel good in my SKIN
Not for the beach, but for my HEALTH
Not for a competition, but for the competition I've created for MYSELF, BY MYSELF to become the best version of MYSELF, EVERY SINGLE DAY."

6). Strive For Progress, Not Perfection: Some people quit because they're frustrated by slow progress. You need to recognize that slow progress is still progress. Stop looking at the weight scale for validation that your healthy habits are working. Look for the "non-scale" victories in your life: You have more energy; your clothing feels and looks better on you; you sleep better at night; you are more optimistic; your skin is clearer; you think clearer, you move better. That's real progress. When you celebrate those victories, you'll find the discipline to overcome the challenges of even the hardest of days.

9 Houseplants That Remove Toxins From Your Indoor Air

by Kayla Bowsher for Money Talks News

These plants may also do everything from reduce the amount of dust in your home to improve your productivity!

For our first Valentine’s Day, my husband brought home two dozen long-stemmed red roses. I told him he wasted money on a cliche that would be dead in a week. The next year, he came home with a verdant houseplant. I told him how the peace lily would scrub our indoor air for years to come.

I’ve been fascinated by houseplants and their health benefits ever since I stumbled across landmark research conducted by NASA in the 1980s. It documented the ability of particular houseplants to remove harmful substances such as formaldehyde, benzene and trichloroethylene from indoor air. Such substances, collectively known as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, are emitted by synthetic materials, NASA explains. So, VOCs plague the air of sealed space stations and energy-efficient homes alike.

The main scientist behind NASA’s research, B.C. Wolverton, went on to conduct further studies and write books like “How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 Houseplants That Purify Your Home or Office,” a personal favorite. Other researchers have since corroborated and expanded on Wolverton’s findings. It turns out houseplants also can do everything from reduce the accumulation of dust to improve productivity.

The following houseplants are among the best at cleansing the air and offering other such benefits. The list also includes several beginner-friendly options.

1). Snake Plant: Don’t be deterred by this plant’s common names, which also include “mother-in-law’s tongue.” It’s ideal for folks with a black thumb. The snake plant can survive, if not thrive, with dim light and sparse watering. It’s so tough that it’s among a handful of houseplants that Costa Farms, one of the largest wholesale nurseries in the U.S., markets as “Plants of Steel.” The snake plant is also among few houseplants known for producing oxygen at night so consider it for your bedroom.

2). Chinese Evergreen: Also referred to as Aglaonema, the scientific genus, Chinese evergreens are another air-purifying Plant of Steel known for tolerating low light. The particular variety studied by NASA is Aglaonema crispum “Silver Queen,” named for its green and silvery leaves. But there are many varieties of Chinese evergreen, each with different leaf patterns — Costa Farms’ website highlights 11 examples.

3). Aloe Vera: This powerful air purifier is also a medicinal plant. The succulent plant’s thick, fleshy leaves are filled with the aloe gel from which healing products have been made for centuries.

4). Boston Fern: The Boston fern specializes in cleansing the air of formaldehyde, which the American Cancer Society considers a known human carcinogen. Of the 50 houseplants featured in Wolverton’s book, the Boston fern ranks No. 1 for removing formaldehyde gas from the air.
     Small amounts of formaldehyde are found in nearly all homes and don’t lead to health problems for most people, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But unhealthy levels can be found in homes with smokers and homes with new products made of certain substances.
     The CDC says new products that tend to contain high levels of formaldehyde include:
   Some manufactured wood products such as cabinets, furniture, plywood, particleboard and laminate flooring.
   Permanent press fabrics (like those used for curtains and drapes or on furniture).
   Household products such as glues, paints, caulks, pesticides, cosmetics and detergents.

5). Lady Palm: This palm excels at removing ammonia, landing it at No. 1 among Wolverton’s list of 50 air-cleansing houseplants for removing that unhealthy gas. According to the National Institutes of Health, you can be exposed to ammonia at home if you use products that contain it, such as pesticides and cleaning products.

6). English Ivy: This vining plant’s air-purifying ability is more than just NASA-certified. Researchers told the 2005 annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology about a study that found English ivy can clear the air of allergens such as airborne mold and even airborne dog feces, according to WebMD. Also, in 2009, research out of the University of Georgia found English ivy had one of the five highest rates of air-contaminant removal out of 28 plants tested.

7). Golden Pothos: This vining plant is another air purifier known to tolerate neglect and lower light. It’s one of my favorites, along with the next plant on this list. NASA studied golden pothos, Epipremnum aureum, which has green and yellow marbled leaves. But other varieties commonly seen at national retailers also bear distinctive foliage: Epipremnum aureum “Marble Queen” has green and white leaves, and Epipremnum aureum “Neon” has almost-fluorescent chartreuse leaves.

8). Peace Lily:  This houseplant will tolerate lower light — but it will bloom more with brighter light. It’s among few plants that will bloom reliably indoors. Peace lilies are also well-rounded air cleaners. NASA found that they remove at least eight chemicals, particularly acetone, from the air.

9). Spider Plant: If you want to clean your air on the cheap, this is your houseplant. Spider plants are relatively easy to keep alive, and they can effectively clone themselves. They grow umbilical cord-like shoots that bear baby spider plants, as seen in this picture. So, expanding your spider plant collection is about as simple as snipping off a “baby” and putting it in soil.

A Caution About Plants: Now that you’re psyched to bring home air-friendly plants, one word of caution: If you have pets or children, be sure to look up whether any plant is hazardous before bringing it home.

The ASPCA maintains a searchable list of plants that are toxic to dogs, cats or horses. You can find lists of plants that are poisonous to humans on the websites of organizations like the nonprofit National Capital Poison Center and the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics

 One of the most influential physicists of our time, Stephen Hawking touched the lives of millions. Recalling his nearly two decades as Hawking’s collaborator and friend, Leonard Mlodinow brings this complex man into focus in a unique and deeply personal portrayal. We meet Hawking the genius, who employed his mind to uncover the mysteries of the universe — ultimately formulating a pathbreaking theory of black holes that reignited the discipline of cosmology and paved the way for physicists to investigate the origins of the universe in completely new ways. We meet Hawking the colleague, a man whose illness leaves him able to communicate at only six words per minute but who expends the effort to punctuate his conversations with humor. And we meet Hawking the friend, who could convey volumes with a frown, a smile, or simply a raised eyebrow. Modinow puts us in the room as Hawking indulges his passion for wine and curry; shares his feelings on love, death, and disability; and grapples with deep questions of philosophy and physics. This deeply affecting account of a friendship teaches us not just about the nature and practice of physics but also about life and the human capacity to overcome daunting obstacles. Shermer and Mlodinow discuss:

• what it was like working with Stephen Hawking,
• what Stephen Hawking was like as a person and personality,
• Hawking’s place in the pantheon of great physicists in the history of science,
• Hawking’s major contributions to physics,
• What is grand about the grand design of the universe?
• model dependent realism and the philosophy of science,
• Can we ever know reality?
• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• What caused the Big Bang to bang?
• What there was before time began?
• Why does the universe look fine-tuned and designed?
• Is the universe itself a giant black hole?
• Did the universe begin in a singularity?
• Hawking’s beliefs about God and why the concept isn’t necessary to explain the universe.

Leonard Mlodinow received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of California, Berkeley, was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute, and was on the faculty of the California Institute of Technology. His previous books include the best sellers The Grand Design and A Briefer History of Time (coauthored with Stephen Hawking), Subliminal (winner of the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award), and War of the Worldviews (with Deepak Chopra), as well as Elastic, Euclid’s Window, Feynman’s Rainbow, and The Upright Thinkers.

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The After Time - The future of civilization after Covid-19

 BY MICHAEL SHERMER

As I write on these late days of the summer of 2020, it often feels like our civilization has morphed into a Herman Melville novel in which …

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

Who would not be maddened and tormented by the images and stories coming out of intensive care units where Covid-19 patients gasp out their final breaths as loved ones watch remotely, unable even to bid a final farewell? Who hasn’t experienced cracked sinews and caked brains from months of being isolated with our thoughts, our voices masked, our social movements regulated?

As we peer into the distant horizon, the seeing becomes misty, clarity clouded in the fog of uncertainty. What will 2020 mean in 2030? Or 2050? Or 2120? Even that class of seer known as superforecasters, those trained in the dark arts of Bayesian reasoning and big-data analysis, do no better than chance when they look more than five years out. And I’m no superforecaster. Called upon to forecast the future of our civilization, I feel like Will and Ariel Durant, who in their short volume The Lessons of History (1968) began: “It is a precarious enterprise, and only a fool would try to compress a hundred centuries into a hundred pages of hazardous conclusions. We proceed.”

The Before Time and the After Time

In a 1966 episode of Star Trek titled “Miri,” the prepubescent heroine of the story explains to a flummoxed Captain Kirk what happened on her planet in which all the Grups (grownups) were dead, leaving the Onlies (children) to fend for themselves: “That was when they started to get sick in the Before Time. We hid, then they were gone.” According to linguist Ben Zimmer, who has traced the phrase’s etymology, the Before Time often represents a pre-plague world, and the expression has a literary history at least as old as the King James Bible, in which the author of the Book of Samuel writes: “Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer: for he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer.” The locution has been resurrected in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as when Atlantic columnist Marina Koren wrote of “the exacerbated sense that the days before the coronavirus swept across the country—the ‘Before Time,’ as many have taken to calling it—feel like a bygone era.”

If there is a Before Time describing a pre-postapocalyptic world, there is also an After Time onto which we may prophesize what happens after the world ends. Although troubling times are often tagged apocalyptic, invoking the complete and final destruction of the world, the word’s original Greek meaning was “revelation,” or “an unveiling or unfolding of things not previously known and which could not be known apart from the unveiling.” It is in this sense that I want to turn toward what this period may unveil, if we can see through the barriers blocking prognostication. There is a reason why, as Yogi Berra quipped, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” I will mention four.

The first is the availability heuristic, which holds that we assign probabilities of potential outcomes based on examples that are immediately available to us, especially if they are emotionally salient and easy to visualize. Your estimation of the probability of dying in a plane crash, for example, will be directly related to your exposure to stories about air disasters. The second is the negativity bias that directs our attention to threats more than treats, negative stimuli more than positive. The third was identified by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner in their 2015 book, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, in which most so-called experts were no better than dart-tossing monkeys when their predictions were checked. They were overconfident, encouraged by the lack of feedback on their accuracy (also known as confirmation bias), and, despite the scientific veneer, are victims of all the cognitive biases and illusions that plague the rest of us. The fourth, and arguably the biggest impediment to prediction, is that the world is highly contingent and chaotic, and at certain inflection points, the course of history can be nudged out of one pathway and into another by seemingly small and random events, but these are very difficult to predict.

The question is, are these factors distorting our evaluation of the events of 2020? Does the Covid-19 pandemic constitute a nudge sufficiently powerful to knock society into entirely new pathways, or will it be washed over by the tides of history as we continue on with business as usual?

Most salubrious changes in society come about incrementally through established institutions, not through violent revolution or disruptive upheavals of change. In my 2015 book, The Moral Arc, I tracked centuries of progress in domains ranging from politics to economics, civil rights to criminal justice, war to civility, governance to violent crime, with a number of stops along the way. In nearly every case, the evidence demonstrated that gradual, step-wise problem-solving is by far the most successful strategy in creating a safer and more equitable society. Will that trend continue through this pandemic and into a post-Covid-19 world? Let’s consider the possibilities. […]

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Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth

Science is how we understand the world. Yet failures in peer review and mistakes in statistics have rendered a shocking number of scientific studies useless — or, worse, badly misleading. Such errors have distorted our knowledge in fields as wide-ranging as medicine, physics, nutrition, education, genetics, economics, and the search for extraterrestrial life. As Science Fictions makes clear, the current system of research funding and publication not only fails to safeguard us from blunders but actively encourages bad science — with sometimes deadly consequences. Yet Science Fictions is far from a counsel of despair. Rather, it’s a defense of the scientific method against the pressures and perverse incentives that lead scientists to bend the rules. By illustrating the many ways that scientists go wrong, Ritchie gives us the knowledge we need to spot dubious research and points the way to reforms that could make science trustworthy once again. Shermer and Ritchie also discuss:

• why we need to get science right because science deniers will pounce on such fraud, bias, negligence, and hype in science,
• Daryl Bem’s ESP research and what was wrong with it,
• “psychological priming” and the problem of replication,
• sleep research and the problems in Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep,
• Amy Cuddy and the problem with “Power Posture” research,
• Andrew Wakefield and the biggest fraud in the history of science linking vaccines & autism,
• diet and nutrition research and the complication of linking saturated fats, unsaturated fats, cholesterol, and heart disease,
• Phil Zimbardo‘s Stanford Prison Experiment,
• Samuel Morton’s skulls showing racial differences in head size, Steve Gould’s critique, the critique of Gould, and the critique of the critics of Gould,
• self-plagiarism,
• p values / p hacking
• the Schizophrenia/amaloid cascade hypothesis and why it has been hard to prove,
• the file-drawer problem,
• how to detect fraud, and
• Terror Management Theory and why it is almost certainly wrong.

Stuart Ritchie is a lecturer in the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at King’s College London. His main research focus is human intelligence: how it relates to the brain, how much it’s affected by genetics, and how much it can be improved by factors such as education. He is a noted supporter of the Open Science movement, and has worked on tools to reform scientific practice and help scientists become more transparent when reporting their results.

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