Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Epiphenom

Home
About

Home
Nonreligious
Why are unfalsifiable beliefs so attractive?

Why are unfalsifiable beliefs so attractive?

Last updated on: December 18, 2014 at 10:39 pm by Epiphenom

Why are unfalsifiable beliefs so attractive? 2014-12-18T22:39:37+01:00 Epiphenom

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Recently, Dr. John Wentworth, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argued that regardless of future advances, science will likely never discover whether the supernatural exists. He said,”almost always, our research raises more questions than it answers, therefore the question of God’s existence just isn’t scientifically testable.”

If you are religious, how does reading that make you feel about the validity of your religious beliefs? OK, so how about this version:

Recently, Dr. John Wentworth, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argued that yes, one day science will be able to shed light on whether the supernatural exists. He said, “Eventually, we may be able to test scientifically whether or not God exists”

Of course, neither is true. Dr Wentworth is an invention, created for the purposes of a study by Justin Friesen (now at York University, Toronto) and colleagues.

When they gave expanded versions over those stories to a group of 103 American adults, they found that those who were highly religious reported stronger religious convictions after they read that science cannot disprove the existence of god

That seems an odd result, but the researchers reckoned it might be linked to a fundamental psychological drive that underpins religious and similar beliefs. Specifically, when people feel threatened or insecure, they latch on to beliefs they feel to be unshakeable.

To test this idea, they ran a similar experiment on a group of Canadian undergrads who were all at least slightly religious. This time, the news stories they were given to read were about the discovery of the Higgs Boson.

Half of them read that this discovery undermined religious belief (so their beliefs were threatened), while the other read that the results were consistent with religious beliefs.

Then, after giving them a few meaningless tasks so they wouldn’t guess the purpose of the study, they asked them about different reasons for believing in god. Most were unfalsifiable, such as “Living a moral life would be impossible without God”. But some were falsifiable, for example “Historical and archaeological evidence shows how God intervened in the world”.

Take a look at the graphs below, and I’ll walk you through them.

What’s shown is how important the students rated the unfalsifiable beliefs (top panel) and falsifiable beliefs (bottom panel). First think to note is that the basic pattern is the same in both panels.

Unlike the highly religious, students who were not very religious did not rate any of the reasons for belief as very compelling. But both the highly religious and the less religious rated the unfalsifiable beliefs as more compelling than the falsifiable ones.

When their beliefs were threatened (dotted line), the highly religious rate both kinds of reasons as more compelling, while the opposite happened with the less religious. The differences are statistically significant, but the trend is interesting anyway.

But the biggest increase was for the ratings the highly religious gave to unfalsifiable reasons for belief. When they felt their beliefs were threatened by evidence, they suddenly found unfalsifiable beliefs significantly more compelling.

Friesen and colleagues point out that, on their own, these data are not conclusive. It might be that the core beliefs of religion are unfalsifiable, and what we’re seeing here is simply people clinging to core beliefs when their belief system is threatened.

But they did similar experiments look at politics and found that, here too, people prefer unfalsifiable beliefs when they are challenged in some fundamental way.

They concluded that these beliefs, more than logic or reason, appeal to fundamental issues of the human condition. At at they end of the day, holding on to these fundamental issues is more important than fixating on reality:

We suggest that when people turn to unfalsifiability, it is because these “practical” issues—for us, existential motives—like having positive self-worth, being a valued group member, or obtaining symbolic immortality, have temporarily trumped questions of belief accuracy or testability.

Friesen, J., Campbell, T., & Kay, A. (2014). The Psychological Advantage of Unfalsifiability: The Appeal of Untestable Religious and Political Ideologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000018

This article by Tom Rees was first published on Epiphenom. It is licensed under Creative Commons.

Causes of religion - psychological

Previous Post

December 8, 2014

Can religion reduce crime?

Next Post

January 2, 2015 The Best Science of Religion Stories of 2014

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Causes of religion - evolution Causes of religion - psychological Causes of religion - social Demographics Digest Effects of religion - health Effects of religion - psychological Effects of religion - social Notifications Politics Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was Barnabas' original name?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Timothy Silas Joseph Mark