Table Of ContentWinnJanet_cb_cpi:AUS dd.qxd 6/15/2014 10:03 AM Page 1
W A M E R I C A N U N I V E R S I T Y S T U D I E S
The Quicksands of Belief: The Need for Skepticismdraws on history, anthropology, i
n
sociology, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences in an accessible, non-academic n
style in order to argue that humans don’t question enough. Instead, uncritically
accepting the often absurd beliefs swirling around them, too many lack the skep-
ticism needed to avoid global disaster. The claim of this book is that humans need
to question everything they think they know.
The way the human brain works is impressive and has taken Homo sapiens
T
a long way. However, it is also the source of our failure to doubt. Janet B. Winn h
explores consciousness first, then the sense of self and how it affects thought. e
Subsequent chapters deal with beliefs—about reality, politics, religion, pseudo- Q
science—and attempts made to explain human behavior by the social sciences. u
i
This concept includes a consideration of the failure to grasp the meaning of evo- c
k
lution, the evolution of language, and how language distorts understanding, along
s
with the role culture plays in these distortions. The remarkable human brain has a
n
made an extraordinary creativity possible, yet this ability is used to find ever-more
d
powerful ways to destroy the planet and its inhabitants. Winn argues that this s
sequence follows primarily from absolutist thinking. In spite of the fact that we o
f
cannot know what is true with any certainty, we try to impose our certainties
B
on each other, leading to the lies and chaos of the political world, to the destruc-
e
tion of the environment, and to war. l
i
e
f
Janet B. Winn has a B.A. from Vassar College, where she was Phi Beta Kappa
and was awarded a fellowship for graduate work. She earned an M.A. in philos-
ophy from Stanford University, advanced credits in sociology at the State Uni-
versity of New York at New Paltz, and a Ph.D. in philosophy of social science from
the State University of New York in Albany. She has taught both philosophy and
sociology in the New York State university system. She is the author of The The Quicksands
Open Mind and Sociology(Lang, 1988).
v
(cid:129) of Belief
2
1
7
The Need for Skepticism
P
E
T
E
R
L
A
A M E R I C A N N
G
U N I V E R S I T Y
JANET B. WINN
www.peterlang.com S T U D I E S
WinnJanet_cb_cpi:AUS dd.qxd 6/15/2014 10:03 AM Page 1
W A M E R I C A N U N I V E R S I T Y S T U D I E S
The Quicksands of Belief: The Need for Skepticismdraws on history, anthropology, i
n
sociology, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences in an accessible, non-academic n
style in order to argue that humans don’t question enough. Instead, uncritically
accepting the often absurd beliefs swirling around them, too many lack the skep-
ticism needed to avoid global disaster. The claim of this book is that humans need
to question everything they think they know.
The way the human brain works is impressive and has taken Homo sapiens
T
a long way. However, it is also the source of our failure to doubt. Janet B. Winn h
explores consciousness first, then the sense of self and how it affects thought. e
Subsequent chapters deal with beliefs—about reality, politics, religion, pseudo- Q
science—and attempts made to explain human behavior by the social sciences. u
i
This concept includes a consideration of the failure to grasp the meaning of evo- c
k
lution, the evolution of language, and how language distorts understanding, along
s
with the role culture plays in these distortions. The remarkable human brain has a
n
made an extraordinary creativity possible, yet this ability is used to find ever-more
d
powerful ways to destroy the planet and its inhabitants. Winn argues that this s
sequence follows primarily from absolutist thinking. In spite of the fact that we o
f
cannot know what is true with any certainty, we try to impose our certainties
B
on each other, leading to the lies and chaos of the political world, to the destruc-
e
tion of the environment, and to war. l
i
e
f
Janet B. Winn has a B.A. from Vassar College, where she was Phi Beta Kappa
and was awarded a fellowship for graduate work. She earned an M.A. in philos-
ophy from Stanford University, advanced credits in sociology at the State Uni-
versity of New York at New Paltz, and a Ph.D. in philosophy of social science from
the State University of New York in Albany. She has taught both philosophy and
sociology in the New York State university system. She is the author of The The Quicksands
Open Mind and Sociology(Lang, 1988).
v
(cid:129) of Belief
2
1
7
The Need for Skepticism
A M E R I C A N
U N I V E R S I T Y
JANET B. WINN
S T U D I E S
The Quicksands
of Belief
SERIES V
PHILOSOPHY
VOL. 217
This book is a volume in a Peter Lang monograph series.
Every volume is peer reviewed and meets
the highest quality standards for content and production.
PETER LANG
New York Washington, D.C./Baltimore Bern
Frankfurt Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford
Janet B. Winn
The Quicksands
of Belief
The Need for Skepticism
PETER LANG
New York Washington, D.C./Baltimore Bern
Frankfurt Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Winn, Janet.
The quicksands of belief: the need for skepticism / Janet B. Winn.
pages cm. — (American University studies. V, Philosophy; Vol. 217)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Skepticism. 2. Knowledge, Theory of. 3. Belief and doubt. I. Title.
BD201.W547 121’.6—dc23 2014009357
ISBN 978-1-4331-2611-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4539-1352-9 (e-book)
ISSN 0739-6392
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council of Library Resources.
© 2014 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York
29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006
www.peterlang.com
All rights reserved.
Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.
Printed in Germany
Contents
Introduction vii
1 Imperfect Brains 1
2 The Sense of Self 11
3 The Animal That Believes 25
4 Irrationality and Religion 41
5 Pseudo Science: Witches, Astrology, and Ufos 55
6 Social Science: Efforts to Explain Ourselves 71
7 Evolving: The Human and His Chimp Cousins 89
8 Humans Have Words 101
9 Language, Reality and the Hopi Indian 113
10 Culture as a Lens 131
11 Creativity, for Better and Worse 149
12 Absolute Certainties 169
13 The Political Animal 185
14 The Warring Animal 209
15 Survival 231
Notes 235
Bibliography 245
Introduction
“The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. This is
the chief occupation of mankind.”
H. L. Menken
There is no excuse for certainty; there are only degrees of assurance. One can be-
lieve passionately, but with the awareness that what one believes is likely to be false.
Humanity is on a fast track to extinction. If we are to survive, we’d better
learn to be skeptical; not to be is simply stupid. Menken has pegged us as fools.
Is the human animal stupid? We send earth-movers into rain forests to rip
out ancient trees and erase magnificent domains of animals, butterflies, insects,
snakes, and humans. Toss them aside. For what? We think we must have re-
sources to run the machinery of modern life, including the means of, yes, killing
each other. We don’t stop to question the means. In the process, we ignore the
future. Seems really unintelligent, doesn’t it? Man is not the “rational animal,” but
only the animal that is capable of rationality, as Jonathan Swift said in a letter to
Alexander Pope.1
We are the most intelligent animal ever to live on the earth. But something
vital is usually missing. This animal befouls his nest, turns rich forests into decay-
ing slums. Marshes humming with myriad insects, plants and birds and secretive
animals become stinking morasses that give off toxic fumes. Over and over again,
viii | The Quicksands of Belief: The Need for Skepticism
the creature that builds magnificent cities, then bombs them into trash heaps of
bricks and bodies. Creators of libraries full of pages that glow with human ethical
wisdom, concern for other people and awareness of the value of life, are the same
animals that indulge in torture. How can this be? The core of the problem is that
we humans insistently claim to know what we cannot know. We fail to be skep-
tical, fail to ask questions and more questions. We fail to be tentative about what
we think we know.
There is a story about three men traveling together, an economist, a logician,
and a skeptic. Their train crosses the border from England into Scotland and
they see a brown cow standing parallel to the tracks. The economist says, “Oh
look! There are brown cows in Scotland!” The logician says, “No, there are cows
in Scotland at least one of which is brown.” And the skeptic says, “No, there is at
least one cow in Scotland, at least one side of which appears to be brown.”2 This
book is an argument for the skeptic’s wisdom. I am making the claim that we
cannot know anything with certainty.
What Is Skepticism?
Recent TV programs presenting discussions of global warming offered a panel
that they claimed to balance with a “global warming skeptic.” Global warming,
the set-up of the panel implied, is open to scientific dispute, and is a notion that
we ought to discard. Although no serious, scientifically aware skeptic today would
propose that global warming doesn’t exist, the so-called “skeptic,” paid by corpo-
rations such as Exxon Mobil, rolled out arguments to disprove the possibility that
the environment is in any such danger. Pooh, he said, nobody has ever shown
global warming in a laboratory, so why believe it exists? The tobacco industry
fostered the same kind of doubts when threats to health from smoking were first
understood. There are, thanks to smoking, still some half a million premature
deaths each year, yet, as a cigarette manufacturer Brown & Williamson memo put
it, “Doubt is our product,”3 doubt about any threat to human health from what
they sell, missing the fact that while scientists do not speak to us with certainty,
they can amass evidence we ignore at our peril. We have been presented with the
pretense of promoting a healthy skepticism of both global warming and the harms
of smoking. This is neither skepticism nor healthy.
Skepticism is not a matter of throwing up our hands and saying there’s no
such thing as knowledge. Skepticism doesn’t mean we should ignore intelligently
collected data. It simply means we can’t be certain that the cow is brown nor can
