Evidence

Science is a framework for seeking knowledge. The framework shapes a process. The process requires evidence.

Evidence has shown how our species, homo sapiens, has survived. It wasn’t through warring until only the strongest, quickest, or shrewdest is left to procreate. And it wasn’t because we developed the ability to walk on two legs, thermoregulate, or run. It was because we helped each other through cooperation, caring, nurturing, and community.

Those tribal drives have produced a tangential consequence: embrace the tribe’s beliefs. There is a strong biological drive to be stupid in a crowd of stupid rather than being ostracized by the tribe. It was a matter of survival.

If our beliefs don’t align with the evidence, we feel unsafe. Our response to feeling unsafe is to run, submit, or fight. Often, the choice is to fight.

When we believe things without evidence, we hurt ourselves. When we spread beliefs that have no evidence, we hurt others.

None of us is immune to this. It’s in our DNA to behave this way. What beliefs do you cling to that have little or no evidence?