Elaborating On Accepting Scientist's Unbelief

[David Sklansky]

The following is a repost of a reply I made to sexdrugsmoney regarding how I would feel If Newton lived now and was still a devout Christian (which I said would almost certainly not be the case). It is important because I realize that up to now, I had left out an important reason why I tend to accept brillinat scientists judgements on these matters.

SDM:

"So by your logic, even if Newton was alive and was a convinced believer in Christianity, you would still dismiss his claims citing 'brainwashing' because he obviously is educated (¬A), obviously a genius (¬B), & obviously "normal" (¬D), therefore he must be brainwashed (C) and if so his opinion doesn't matter anyway.

Is that an accurate assumption or have I erred?"

ME:

VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION on your part. Before I answer it let me make it clear that under the heading of brainwashing or abnormal I also include what might be called a strong or even pathological, psychological need to believe. Because to some, the implications of non belief are so depressing or horrifying. But with that being said I still could not dismiss Newton's beliefs as being caused by these things.

The reason is that brilliant scientific minds can almost always FIGHT OFF emotion caused irrationalities. This is an important point that I should have accentuated earlier. John Nash realized "they weren't getting any older". An apocryphal story, to be sure but it makes my point. If you are both brilliant in and trained in logic, probability and science, you have strongly learned to distrust your insincts. Similar to the way Tversky describes rare trained people in Judgement Under Uncertainty.

In other words, Newton would have to be much more "sick" than the average person to believe in Christianity if he had present day knowledge. Since such a severe sickness is very rare, I would not be able to easily ascribe his belief to such a thing and would have to take his belief seriously.