Americans seem too eager to treat matters of opinion as articles of faith
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Whenever I hear a question being asked about an issue of public debate, I can't help but notice the verb "believe."
"Do you believe in global warming?"
"Do you believe that President Obama is a secret Muslim?"
"Do you believe that silver amalgam dental fillings will make you sick?"
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"Do you believe in vaccinations?"
Is it just me, or is the word "believe" being patently misused here?
We've all seen examples of people acting as staunch activists for something they "believe" in, despite ample evidence proving them wrong. In my little world of dentistry, I have had a patient call to ask if I could remove his root canal fillings because he believes they contribute to cancer. Even as I explained to him that there was no science to support his view, and that leaving his canals open could lead to jaw infections, I knew that there was only a very small chance that he would change his mind. These days, I explain things because it's my job to do so, not because I think I can convince anyone of anything. In the end, I politely refused to provide the treatment he requested.
But the reason I'm bringing up the word "believe" is that it may help explain why we seem unable to change our points of view about certain topics. When someone decides to believe in a logically disputable premise and resist changing his mind about that premise, he is essentially turning that premise from a matter of opinion into an article of faith. The perceived danger in vaccinating a teenager against HPV is not a point of view any more, if one decides to believe it without being able to provide sensible proof for it. It is more like religion.
The zeal exhibited by some activists in nonreligious matters reminds me a lot of religious zealotry. It seems as if we're confusing articles of faith with disputable points of fact.
But why do our minds behave this way? Is it possible that each of us is hard-wired to hold a set of beliefs that cannot be questioned? Do we have a "belief center" in our brain that must be filled with something or other, that otherwise will begin to gobble up conjecture and adopt it as faith?
On international tests, American students rank 25th in math but first in confidence. Does our overconfidence make us resist changing our minds? Have we been raised to think that blind faith is a virtue?
Maybe we should teach our children never to believe in anything, unless they can prove it.
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Hani Hamdan, DDS, lives in Burnsville and practices dentistry in Lakeville, Minn. He is a contributor and editor of Engagemn.com and a source in MPR's Public Insight Network.
