The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

People Like to be Fooled

interview by Peter Moon
translation by Michael Silva

The psychologist and American writer, Michael Shermer, says that it’s easier to believe in weird things—like mediumship, horoscopes and flying saucers—than to think and question. The difference between a magician and a medium is that the magician confesses that he uses tricks, while the paranormalist says he has powers that enable him to read minds, predict the future or talk with the dead. “All a medium must say is that he has powers and people will believe him. It is part of human nature”, says the psychologist and American writer Michael Shermer, 57 years old, director of the Skeptic Society and Skeptic Magazine. “We didn’t evolve to doubt or have a skeptical view. This requires education and reflection. Believing is easier.” In this interview, he talks about the themes in his book Why People Believe Weird Things and attacks the farce behind the belief in flying saucers, witches, chiromancy and mediumship.

ÉPOCA: Why do people believe in weird things?

Michael Shermer: The basic reason lies in our brain, programmed by evolution to see our environment in a certain way and find supernatural reasons to explain natural events.

ÉPOCA: Please give an example.

Shermer: In tribal societies, the witchdoctor is the person who has the knowledge that can save the members of the tribe in decisive moments. The witchdoctors are the ones who know which plants and roots have special curative powers. It is they who decree that a certain region is taboo, making it into a prohibited zone and giving the fauna time to regenerate. Years later, in a moment of shortage, it is the witchdoctor that has the power to send the hunters to the location, saving the tribe from hunger. That kind of power was always exclusive of magicians, witchdoctors and priests. Therefore, believing in your emissaries meant one’s own salvation. When the witchdoctor said that he could see the future, that the members of the tribe should hunt or collect water in a certain region and that the salvation of everyone depended on doing what he said, everything he said was nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s as simple as that.

ÉPOCA: There are those who say they can see supernatural things and others who say they can hear angels singing and dead souls mourning.

Shermer: We are social animals and the brain was programmed to recognize faces and facial expressions. Therefore, we have a tendency to see faces hidden in the clouds, in spots on a shroud or on rocks on the surface of Mars. For the same reason, all we have to do is look at clouds to recognize the forms of various animals. This is also an evolutionary inheritance since for millennia the ability to recognize the existence of an animal hidden in the landscape could mean the difference between life and death. Any person can say that he speaks with the dead. It’s nothing special. The hard part is getting the dead to answer. Claims such as these that were seriously investigated ended up revealing the existence of microphones hidden in furniture, in walls or in the oven. No photograph allegedly taken of a flying saucer survived a detailed examination. They are all false allegations, concoctions created to elude. Although it is possible that some claims of paranormal, UFOlogical, or psychic events might turn out to be true, but the truth is that so far all of them are false and probably most of them are nothing more than pure farse.

ÉPOCA: Why do women seem to believe more in weird things than men?

Shermer: That isn’t true. Men and women, indistinctly, have the same tendency to believe those things. What changes is the type of weird thing. Women believe more in mediums, spiritualists, fortunetellers, witchcraft, amulets, alternative medicine and healers. Men prefer to believe in the paranormal, pseudoscience, creationism and UFOs.

ÉPOCA: Why do people differentiate a professional magician who does magic tricks from a medium that says he’s using the paranormal?

Shermer: Because the magician confesses that he does a trick, but doesn’t reveal the secret. This has historical reasons. Magic is as old as the art of predicting the future. Many centuries ago, during the Inquisition, the magicians who earned a living following the regional fairs in medieval Europe were sensible to declare that they weren’t witches. They confessed that they used tricks so as not to end up in a bonfire. Their confessions withdrew from professional magicians a supernatural aura that they have never, to this day, been able to get back.

ÉPOCA: How about fortunetellers?

Shermer: Most of them ended up in a bonfire. Fortunetellers and mediums today were persecuted because they alleged having supernatural powers. They claimed to predict the future and influence people’s destinies. Now, those were exclusive Catholic Church attributes. The same inquisitors that were soft on magicians weren’t as forgiving with fortunetellers and diviners, all of them labeled as witches, followers of black magic. Mediums and charlatans of today don’t confront those same risks. Therefore, they can say without fear that they have visions, that they talk with the dead, see the past, present and future; or alleging that they can read the future or influence your destiny looking at Tarot cards, the lines on the palm of your hand, the alignment of the planets of an astrological chart, the reflections of a crystal ball or the blotter on a cup of coffee.

ÉPOCA: Why do people insist on believing that those allegations are true?

Shermer: Because mediums say they are true. All mediums, witchdoctors and saints have to say is that they have visions and can predict the future so that people will believe them. It’s part of human nature. We didn’t evolve to doubt or question. Developing a critical mind and having your own view of the world takes education, reflection and time. Having faith is much easier. People prefer to be deceived.

ÉPOCA: Those who require money in exchange for a good or service that doesn’t exist can be prosecuted. Why doesn’t this apply to the “professional work” of fortunetellers and mediums?

Shermer: Because fortunetellers and the paranormal protect themselves behind universal rights and freedom of speech, expression, assembly and religion. It is very hard or almost impossible to prove that someone doesn’t hear inner voices or talks to angels if he says does. The religious and believers of official religions could be investigated and prosecuted exactly for the same allegations, because their religions accept donations of money just like fortunetellers. Their members also allege having a direct contact with the supernatural like the fortunetellers.

ÉPOCA: Why do intelligent people believe in weird things?

Shermer: For the title of the book I chose to call the bunch of beliefs and deceptions claimed by mediums and paranormal of “weird things”. A more correct word would be farce or deception. They are acts usually created to elude and deceive. In certain circumstances, they can be classified as delusions, when their devotees believe that they lived or live an extraordinary experience, inexplicable and extra sensorial. However there is as explanation for everything. Whoever is informed and believes in those fantasies does it based on two possibilities. Or he is someone who is an accessory in the farce or he is someone who has lost his mind, is a Schizophrenic and therefore sick or had a hallucination. The altered state of consciousness can be a consequence of the ingestion of a hallucinogenic like ayahuasca, mescal or LSD. Psychotic episodes can also be caused by sleep deprivation and by extreme fatigue. For everything there is a logical explanation. If it convinces a believer or a sick person is another question.

ÉPOCA: What do you think about religiosity and human syncretism?

Shermer: I am an Atheist and an optimist. Until the middle ages we were a species controlled by faith and dominated by certain beliefs and fears. Today, tens of millions of people in rich countries declare themselves atheists. Religiosity, at least in Europe and the United States is in retreat year after year.

ÉPOCA: It isn’t that way in Brazil and other developing countries.

Shermer: As your standard of living increases, higher education and science education will reduce the percentage of the religious in the population. It is inevitable. All governments must do is invest in high quality education.

ÉPOCA: An argument often used by the religious to disqualify atheists is that they chose not to believe in a God and that is their belief.

Shermer: If the religious want to believe in a kind God, in a paradise with 100 thousand virgins or whatever, I don’t really care. The religious don’t interest me. What interests me are the hundreds of millions of people that don’t follow any religion and never go to church.

ÉPOCA: This means that in your view religion is inoffensive?

Shermer: The problem begins when the religious followers use religion to attack skyscrapers with airplanes, explode bombs in abortion clinics (in the United States), mutilate women, restrict individual freedoms and change legislation to prevent the teaching of evolution.