The Dread Slender Gnome on Nostr: By the way, I suspect this is also part of how smart people can convince themselves ...
By the way, I suspect this is also part of how smart people can convince themselves of all kinds of nonsense, while still thinking they're being smart.
If you adopt the right premises, you can then follow them perfectly logically, and end up in genuinely silly conclusions. And you can then embrace those conclusions as a result of well-executed logic, because your series of deductions was internally consistent. As long as you don't question the starting premises, you can keep thinking of yourself as a rational person who knows how to do logic, while believing utterly nutty things.
Not naming any names, but I have my suspicions... *cough*PZ Myers*cough*
If you adopt the right premises, you can then follow them perfectly logically, and end up in genuinely silly conclusions. And you can then embrace those conclusions as a result of well-executed logic, because your series of deductions was internally consistent. As long as you don't question the starting premises, you can keep thinking of yourself as a rational person who knows how to do logic, while believing utterly nutty things.
Not naming any names, but I have my suspicions... *cough*PZ Myers*cough*