This can apply to the denial of well known political issues: evolution denial, global warming denial, Holocaust denial, just to name a few, but also to an unhealthy confidence in products: trust in certain alternative medicines, "high-energy" water, and weight loss products. And then there are others: belief in conspiracy theories, doomsday scenarios, and the paranormal. All in all, these things are what most people consider ********.
If these views are irrational, then how are they perpetuated in society? Why don't these ideas die down when or if they have been proven wrong?
Why do people stick to their guns in the face of overwhelming evidence against their position? Is it a choice or is it a reaction? What about on a biological level? - this might be more controversial. Do you believe certain people are just genetically predisposed to believing irrational ideas or is their upbringing and childhood more important?
On a more fundamental level, what right do we have to judge what is irrational or not? Isn't simply a difference in opinion? Is what the majority believe usually right?
Discuss!
Because there isn't overwhelming evidence against their position. What you're saying might be true about climate change, evolution, and the holocaust, however, there is reason to be skeptical about many of the things you posit - widely-accepted narratives on historical events, widely-accepted scientific and medical paradigms, and prevailing opinion on global political issues especially.
For instance, conspiracy theories are severely denounced in our society, yet there are many cases in which conspiracy involving various levels of government, private industry, and other organizations have been involved. Look at MLK Jr........James Earl Ray said he was innocent until his dying day, and the King family believed him. A civil court case filed by the King family in 1999 ruled that his assassination was, in fact, a conspiracy. Read about it on the MLK Center website here:
https://www.thekingcenter.org/assassination-conspiracy-trial
Regarding the infamous JFK Assassination, the Warren Commission's testimony is what is propagated by positivists in the intellectual, academic world as well as the media. However, the House Select Committee on Assassinations from 1976-78 concluded that the Warren Commission was gravely flawed, and that he was likely assassinated as the result of a conspiracy.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The fact that these shocking revelations are never discussed in the media, to me, suggests that there is a systemic lack of integrity on the part of both governmental institutions and mainstream journalism (both of which two of the foremost factors in the development of popular opinion) - the common thread between these two entities being that they are financed by very powerful forces in the private sector (for instance, NBC was owned by GE for a long time, and their biggest sponsor is Boeing).
Now on to science. Well, it's true that people might doubt evolution and climate change for all the wrong reasons - previously inculcated religious doctrine, industry-fed information, etc.....however, scientific paradigms sometimes become a dogma in themselves among people whose critical thinking needs more rigor. For instance, I once voiced my skepticism about research regarding heritability of IQ - in which the researchers concluded that, IQ is an overwhelmingly inherited trait (a stance that is supported by much of the field). The heritability seemed weaker earlier in life (as in, the intelligence of the progeny could more often be at variance with that of the parents), yet seemed to align itself with that of the parent's much of the time following puberty. It was assumed that this was because the genes involved in determining intelligence took that length of time to fully express themselves, as with identifying physical features........
I argued that the researchers hadn't nearly controlled many of the possible confounding variables...the only way to do that, it seemed to me, would have to involve micromanagement of every environmental factor discernable, which would inevitably be a breach of ethical guidelines.......it seems very obvious to anyone with a scintilla of reason that this would thoroughly confound any research on heritability of intelligence. Yet I was dismissed and even attacked as being too simple to understand the complexity of the research (though I understand enough to know that the researchers themselves probably have high IQs, in addition to very comfortable egos, having allowed their research to convince them that their superiority was purely innate).
Another instance is with the Vaccine controversy. Now, pharmaceutical companies would be taking a foolish risk to market a product that they were aware isn't safe - this rarely happens, except for in a few cases. Nonetheless, medical research is far from flawless - the biggest pharmaceutical studies involve only 2,000 or so participants and the long term effects are barely studied for more than 10 years. If it so happened that there is a severe negative reaction to a drug for every 1 in 2,500 people, this could elude such a study. If every American were to take that drug, there would be 150,000 or so people who would have a severe reaction........
Given that, it seems very plausible that there could be dangers to vaccines that elude researchers. Yet parents of children who, for instance, may have had a seizure almost immediately following a vaccination, are denigrated for speculating that it could have been the vaccine.
My analysis of clinical research is incredibly generous to it - the 2,000 person phase is only to check for efficacy - checking for safety is as low as 100.
Alright, I'll stop there for today, but basically the reason why people conflate rational thought with conventional opinion, is because they are either lemmings who just want to be comfortable and entertained, or not very strong thinkers.
