While I’m sympathetic to the idea that “you are likely to begin believing things you say to yourself frequently, and furthermore you are likely to act in ways to make these beliefs come true,” I’m not sure I’d use Scott Adams as the prototypical purveyor of this idea. He is known to have beliefs difficult to characterize as “rational,” notably a belief in intelligent design creationism. The Wikipedia also cites him as being a hypnotist and a vegan; these are not inherently irrational, but I don’t have further sources to analyze Adam’s specific perspective on these issues.
The intelligent design issue is complex, but he’s said outright that he doesn’t believe in it. I think his position is something like “Most people who believe evolution are not smart enough to understand it, and would be better off believing intelligent design since it makes more sense on a naive level. Most believers in evolution who are not biologists are making the ‘science as belief-attire’ type mistake.” It’s been a while since I read about that particular flame war, so I might be mistaken, but I do remember he specifically said that with extremely high probability ID was wrong.
Hypnotism has been shown to work in studies by the AMA, BMJ, and every other group of medical experts who have investigated the question, and he’s a vegetarian, not a vegan—and so am I, so you’re going to have trouble convincing me that’s a strike against him. Though if you want to write a post about it, I’d be interested in hearing your arguments against.
As far as I can remember, Scott recognizes the overwhelming evidence that supports evolution, but thinks that our current understanding of how it acts is incomplete. I think he actually made a wager that in the next few years, we’d discover new evidence that rewrites a lot of what we know about evolution—but don’t quote me on that.
His reasoning is that evolution currently sets off his ‘bullshit meter’, another method of using his subconscious he has. It doesn’t sound like the right explanation to him.
Of course, Scott Adams is about as qualified to discuss the merits of evolution as my cat, so I’m not sure I’d rely on his subconscious for guidance on this issue.
His vegetarianism, as far as I know, is simply because he gets terrible stomachaches whenever he eats meat.
Some of the smartest and most epistemically rational people I know are vegan. They simply do not want to support what they consider the unnecessary cruelty to animals involved in modern food production.
While I’m sympathetic to the idea that “you are likely to begin believing things you say to yourself frequently, and furthermore you are likely to act in ways to make these beliefs come true,” I’m not sure I’d use Scott Adams as the prototypical purveyor of this idea. He is known to have beliefs difficult to characterize as “rational,” notably a belief in intelligent design creationism. The Wikipedia also cites him as being a hypnotist and a vegan; these are not inherently irrational, but I don’t have further sources to analyze Adam’s specific perspective on these issues.
The intelligent design issue is complex, but he’s said outright that he doesn’t believe in it. I think his position is something like “Most people who believe evolution are not smart enough to understand it, and would be better off believing intelligent design since it makes more sense on a naive level. Most believers in evolution who are not biologists are making the ‘science as belief-attire’ type mistake.” It’s been a while since I read about that particular flame war, so I might be mistaken, but I do remember he specifically said that with extremely high probability ID was wrong.
Hypnotism has been shown to work in studies by the AMA, BMJ, and every other group of medical experts who have investigated the question, and he’s a vegetarian, not a vegan—and so am I, so you’re going to have trouble convincing me that’s a strike against him. Though if you want to write a post about it, I’d be interested in hearing your arguments against.
As far as I can remember, Scott recognizes the overwhelming evidence that supports evolution, but thinks that our current understanding of how it acts is incomplete. I think he actually made a wager that in the next few years, we’d discover new evidence that rewrites a lot of what we know about evolution—but don’t quote me on that.
His reasoning is that evolution currently sets off his ‘bullshit meter’, another method of using his subconscious he has. It doesn’t sound like the right explanation to him.
Of course, Scott Adams is about as qualified to discuss the merits of evolution as my cat, so I’m not sure I’d rely on his subconscious for guidance on this issue.
His vegetarianism, as far as I know, is simply because he gets terrible stomachaches whenever he eats meat.
I wish this was separated into two comments, since I wanted to downvote the first paragraph, and upvote the second.
Some of the smartest and most epistemically rational people I know are vegan. They simply do not want to support what they consider the unnecessary cruelty to animals involved in modern food production.