Recently in Logic Category

Study Demonstrates How We Support Our False Beliefs - UB NewsCenter

The study, "There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification" calls such unsubstantiated beliefs "a serious challenge to democratic theory and practice" and considers how and why it was maintained by so many voters for so long in the absence of supporting evidence.

Co-author Steven Hoffman, Ph.D., visiting assistant professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo, says, "Our data shows substantial support for a cognitive theory known as 'motivated reasoning,' which suggests that rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.

The Erasure of Islam -- The Philosophers' Magazine

What Enlightenment? It may have been good for Europe, but for the rest of the world in general, and Islam in particular, the Enlightenment was a disaster. Despite their stand for freedom and liberty, reason and liberal thought, Enlightenment thinkers saw the non-West as irrational and inferior, morally decadent and fit only for colonisation.

The Science of Decision-Making -- Science Friday Archives

Paper or plastic? Steak or salmon? Stay or go? Every day, we make thousands of decisions, most minor, some major. But how does your brain make the choice? In this hour, we'll take a look at the science of decision making. Can your genes influence split second decisions? And how do your emotions influence the way you decide?

Link to the Podcast of this story from the Science Friday website.

Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed  -- Litemind

Our minds set up many traps for us. Unless we're aware of them, these traps can seriously hinder our ability to think rationally, leading us to bad reasoning and making stupid decisions. Features of our minds that are meant to help us may, eventually, get us into trouble. Here are the first 5 of the most harmful of these traps and how to avoid each one of them.

Once upon a time, four blind men were walking in the forest, and they bumped into an elephant...

Yes, Looks Do Matter - NYTimes.com

Scientists are finding that stereotypes are not simply stored and retrieved by the brain, but "are associated with general regions in the brain involved in memory and goal-planning," Professor Amodio said, suggesting that "people recruit stereotypes to kind of help them plan a world that's consistent with the goal they might have."

Professor Fiske's research suggests that those in low status register differently in the brain. "The part of the brain that normally activates when you are thinking about people is surprisingly silent when you're looking at homeless people," she said. "It's kind of a neural dehumanization. Maybe we can't bear the horrible situation they are in, or we don't want to get involved, or we're afraid we might get contaminated."

But, she said, the neural response is restored when people are asked to focus on what soup the homeless person might like to eat, something that makes one think about the person as someone with wants or goals.

Choice blindness: You don't know what you want - New Sceintist

As anyone who has ever been in a verbal disagreement can attest, people tend to give elaborate justifications for their decisions, which we have every reason to believe are nothing more than rationalisations after the event. To prove such people wrong, though, or even provide enough evidence to change their mind, is an entirely different matter: who are you to say what my reasons are?

Link to the TED site for the original video and discussion.

DNA Found to Have "Impossible" Telepathic Properties -- The Daily Galaxy

Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the "amazing" ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA. The recognition of similar sequences in DNA's chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.