If many people got the same belief from Ouija boards independently, I’d update my belief in Ouija boards.
Conversely, if millions of people believe the result of a single poorly designed study, that does not make their number very relevant.
I think what should undermine belief in religions or conspiracy theories is that these people all read the same books and watch the same YouTube videos.
If many people got the same belief from Ouija boards independently, I’d update my belief in Ouija boards.
I envisaged them all in the same room using the same Ouija board at once, but that image isn’t really the most obvious interpretation of what I said.
Nevertheless, you’re not right about the Ouija board case.
First of all, it also depends on how many different beliefs could result from the Ouija boards, and how many people ended up with different beliefs. For example, if 40% of the world’s population independently used an Ouija board to conclude the truth of a certain religion, and another 40% of the world’s population independently used an Ouija board to conclude the falsity of that religion, this would not be significant evidence despite the large numbers involved.
On the other hand, if 80% of people tried it and 79% of people ended up with the same belief, then you definitely need to take a significant look at Ouija boards and how people are using them and try to figure out what’s going on there. However, I wouldn’t really take it as evidence in favour of Ouija boards, because while systematically inducing certain beliefs is a strong sign of precision, it is not any kind of sign of accuracy.
Unless you have other reasons to support accuracy of Ouija boards, such as a well-understood causal mechanism, or being consistently correct about various known facts (that are unknown to the test subjects) in double-blind experiments, you cannot use them as evidential support for either belief.
Conversely, if millions of people believe the result of a single poorly designed study, that does not make their number very relevant.
Your point about the importance of independence between people is an important one, but I think you still have to pay significant attention to the specific nature of the method by which the belief was attained.
If, as in your example, millions of people believe due to exact same study, your evidence now consists of a single scientific study which managed to become very widely known and believed, as compared to many studies which do not.
Both of these factors are correlated with truth, but the a priori weight of millions of people has been screened off;
relative to that prior weight you should probably update your beliefs only slightly upward after finding out that the source of the peoples’ belief was a single study.
On the other hand, if you find out that each person formed their belief on the basis of an independently performed experiment then you would view it as significant evidence, although it would behoove you to study the details of the experiment they performed in order to work out whether there is a systematic error in the experiment or in their interpretation of that experiment.
I think what should undermine belief in religions or conspiracy theories is that these people all read the same books and watch the same YouTube videos.
An easy counter-argument in the case of religion is that those people all read those same books because they’re religious, rather than all being religious because they read those same books. If the religion causes them to read those books then it’s irrelevant that they read the same books.
In the case of religion, I think socialization and indoctrination are probably the more significant underlying causes. However, those are clearly not generally reliable methods for truth, especially when you consider that the root sources of those religions are also not based on particularly reliable paths to knowledge.
If many people got the same belief from Ouija boards independently, I’d update my belief in Ouija boards.
Conversely, if millions of people believe the result of a single poorly designed study, that does not make their number very relevant.
I think what should undermine belief in religions or conspiracy theories is that these people all read the same books and watch the same YouTube videos.
I envisaged them all in the same room using the same Ouija board at once, but that image isn’t really the most obvious interpretation of what I said.
Nevertheless, you’re not right about the Ouija board case.
First of all, it also depends on how many different beliefs could result from the Ouija boards, and how many people ended up with different beliefs. For example, if 40% of the world’s population independently used an Ouija board to conclude the truth of a certain religion, and another 40% of the world’s population independently used an Ouija board to conclude the falsity of that religion, this would not be significant evidence despite the large numbers involved.
On the other hand, if 80% of people tried it and 79% of people ended up with the same belief, then you definitely need to take a significant look at Ouija boards and how people are using them and try to figure out what’s going on there. However, I wouldn’t really take it as evidence in favour of Ouija boards, because while systematically inducing certain beliefs is a strong sign of precision, it is not any kind of sign of accuracy.
Unless you have other reasons to support accuracy of Ouija boards, such as a well-understood causal mechanism, or being consistently correct about various known facts (that are unknown to the test subjects) in double-blind experiments, you cannot use them as evidential support for either belief.
Your point about the importance of independence between people is an important one, but I think you still have to pay significant attention to the specific nature of the method by which the belief was attained.
If, as in your example, millions of people believe due to exact same study, your evidence now consists of a single scientific study which managed to become very widely known and believed, as compared to many studies which do not. Both of these factors are correlated with truth, but the a priori weight of millions of people has been screened off; relative to that prior weight you should probably update your beliefs only slightly upward after finding out that the source of the peoples’ belief was a single study.
On the other hand, if you find out that each person formed their belief on the basis of an independently performed experiment then you would view it as significant evidence, although it would behoove you to study the details of the experiment they performed in order to work out whether there is a systematic error in the experiment or in their interpretation of that experiment.
An easy counter-argument in the case of religion is that those people all read those same books because they’re religious, rather than all being religious because they read those same books. If the religion causes them to read those books then it’s irrelevant that they read the same books.
In the case of religion, I think socialization and indoctrination are probably the more significant underlying causes. However, those are clearly not generally reliable methods for truth, especially when you consider that the root sources of those religions are also not based on particularly reliable paths to knowledge.