On 05/05/12 22:39, nu...@bid.nes wrote:
> On May 5, 6:39 am, Al Lal<
alal112...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have a hypothesis, that most SF readers/writers are more liberal
>> than conservative.
>
> OK... how would you pigeonhole RAH?
>
>> In reality, people do not fall neatly into such categories.
>>
>> Thinking intuitively and emotionally leads to religious belief and
>> conservatism; while thinking deliberately and analytically leads to
>> atheism and liberalism.
>
> Interesting juxtaposition of assertions. Do people categorize
> easily, or not?
From this week's New Scientist magazine:
"Humans use two cognitive systems for processing information: one fast
and intuitive, another slower and analytical. Intuitive thinking is
thought to underpin supernatural beliefs, while activating analytical
thinking can override the intuitive system - and vice versa. Ara
Norenzayan at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada,
used this to probe the causes of disbelief.
His student Will Gervais asked 93 university students to rate their
belief in God and other supernatural agents. Then, several weeks later,
the students underwent "priming" for analytical thinking - reading words
such as "rational", deciphering text written in hard-to-read fonts or
looking at a photo of Rodin's The Thinker (pictured). Controls were
given less analytically charged tasks.
The researchers then asked the students to again rate their supernatural
beliefs. The students who had been exposed to analytical priming
downgraded their belief in the supernatural, regardless of their
previous degree of belief (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1215647).
The simplest explanation is if intuitive thinking leads to belief, and
analytical thinking somehow suppresses this process. "Habitual
analytical thinking could be one reason scientists tend to be
disbelievers," notes Norenzayan."
--
David Mitchell
No, not that one.