Why We Believe

During my visit with family this last week, we had some interesting conversations with some of those on my wife's side of the family. One of the young men -- college age -- was quite agitated over global warming. He had seen An Inconvenient Truth and he had all the facts. How could any of us even question it? He had the science. He had the evidence. It was a certainty. Why weren't the rest of us as concerned?

I found the conversation interesting at times. When his grandmother pointed out that some of the facts of the movie are flatly denied by many scientists, he waved it off. Science had nothing to do with it, apparently. The only way to deny these facts was if they were liars with an alternate agenda. I mentioned that I was fascinated by the photograph I had seen recently. Al Gore had come to ASU (where I work) to talk on the topic and I saw a picture of the lot where the audience parked. Easily half the vehicles were SUVs. I said that it bothered me that so many people pounded their fists about how things needed to change but refused to change a thing themselves. Someone then asked our college kid, "So ... have you stopped driving?" Of course not. But he was caught off guard with that question and became much less irate.

The question that really struck me, though, wasn't so much the topic at hand, but the concept of why we believe what we believe. Two people in the room were quite sure that Mr. Gore had presented a true statement about the problem of global warming in his movie. No number of critics or scientists who disagreed would matter. He was right; they were wrong. The Earth is warming and the United States is the cause and if we don't act now we will kill everyone. More people in the room were quite sure that Mr. Gore had presented a less than truthful argument. They had seen the same information and questioned its veracity. They had heard the critics and opposing scientists and found them to be more compelling than Mr. Gore. None of the people in the room worked for the oil companies, so it couldn't be argued that they had alternate agendas.

My question is "Why?" Why did two of them believe Al while the rest did not? Why is my father-in-law adamant that we ought to ship every single illegal alien back to where they came from while the rest of the family is not? Why is my brother-in-law completely convinced that Jesus is the answer while his sister is convinced that Jesus never really existed? What is it that convinces us to believe what we believe? Why are there people who hear, "You know, the World Trade Center wasn't hit by an airplane; it was blown up by George Bush" and they believe it? There are conspiracy folks who leap on every possibility and conspiracy skeptics who think that a conspiracy cannot happen. There are folks quite certain that the Earth is flat and folks who believe that the moon landing was a fake.

Why? Why do people believe what they believe? It's not the evidence. Generally speaking we all have access to the same evidence. I cannot figure out what causes one person to buy into "A" and the other person to be equally convinced, viewing all the same evidence, that "A" is a lie.

I suppose if I knew the answer to a question like this, I would not only be a genius, I would be able to rule the world. I could just use this information to convince them to make me king. Now that is a scary idea. Maybe I won't pursue this question much further.