While happy thoughts seem exceedingly unlikely to by themselves cure any sort of case of cancer, certainly persistent unhappiness can lead to many physiological changes which are associated with degenerative disease and cancer risk (stress, trouble sleeping, and so on).
As Lumifer pointed out, it’s important to consider what the practical consequences are of their beliefs. If the person you’re referring to simply believes that engendering a sustainably happy state of mind will decrease their cancer risk, then I doubt there’s anything to worry about. But if you would expect them to refuse a proven surgical technique and instead attempt to cure themselves by hanging out with their friends and watching fun movies, then surely it would be a highly useful service to this individual to point them in a better ideological direction.
Don’t introduce them to a catalog of logical fallacies. Understanding a few important logical fallacies can help people who possess a propensity to propagate new conceptions through their web of beliefs, figuring out which beliefs should stay and which should go based on their new theory. But most people don’t operate in this way. Updating all the different areas of one’s belief structure in accordance to a newly acquired abstract tool doesn’t come naturally to most individuals. If you coax a friend down the path toward Less-Wrong-style rationality, then there may come a day where reading 37 Ways Words Can Be Wrong would be quite an enlightening experience for them. But that day is probably not today.
I wonder whether your impression that the world of pseudo-science is a rosy one, and rationality is a window into the bleak reality of human life, is the key to the frustration you’re communicating here. The only language that your non-rationalist friends will appreciate is the language of concrete results. If you can’t employ your ability to think rationally to become noticeably better than them at activities they pursue in a serious way, give them health advice which to them seems to miraculously clear up certain long-standing inconveniences in their life, etc., then you’re not giving them any evidence that your way of thinking is better than theirs.
Use your capacity for rational thinking to succeed in concrete endeavors, and then demonstrate to them the results of your competence. One day they may ask to look under the hood—to see the source of your impressive abilities. And then the time will have come to introduce them to the abstract rationality concepts you consider important.
Both conditions greatly decrease the body’s ability to repair and heal. If you believe that the body has any sort of immune response to the proliferation of cancerous cells, then it would follow that stress and sleep deprivation would increase the likelihood of getting cancer.
I don’t have an estimate for how much of a factor this is besides noting it as simply one more reason to make sure to avoid chronic stress and sleep deprivation.
While happy thoughts seem exceedingly unlikely to by themselves cure any sort of case of cancer, certainly persistent unhappiness can lead to many physiological changes which are associated with degenerative disease and cancer risk (stress, trouble sleeping, and so on).
As Lumifer pointed out, it’s important to consider what the practical consequences are of their beliefs. If the person you’re referring to simply believes that engendering a sustainably happy state of mind will decrease their cancer risk, then I doubt there’s anything to worry about. But if you would expect them to refuse a proven surgical technique and instead attempt to cure themselves by hanging out with their friends and watching fun movies, then surely it would be a highly useful service to this individual to point them in a better ideological direction.
Don’t introduce them to a catalog of logical fallacies. Understanding a few important logical fallacies can help people who possess a propensity to propagate new conceptions through their web of beliefs, figuring out which beliefs should stay and which should go based on their new theory. But most people don’t operate in this way. Updating all the different areas of one’s belief structure in accordance to a newly acquired abstract tool doesn’t come naturally to most individuals. If you coax a friend down the path toward Less-Wrong-style rationality, then there may come a day where reading 37 Ways Words Can Be Wrong would be quite an enlightening experience for them. But that day is probably not today.
I wonder whether your impression that the world of pseudo-science is a rosy one, and rationality is a window into the bleak reality of human life, is the key to the frustration you’re communicating here. The only language that your non-rationalist friends will appreciate is the language of concrete results. If you can’t employ your ability to think rationally to become noticeably better than them at activities they pursue in a serious way, give them health advice which to them seems to miraculously clear up certain long-standing inconveniences in their life, etc., then you’re not giving them any evidence that your way of thinking is better than theirs.
Use your capacity for rational thinking to succeed in concrete endeavors, and then demonstrate to them the results of your competence. One day they may ask to look under the hood—to see the source of your impressive abilities. And then the time will have come to introduce them to the abstract rationality concepts you consider important.
Stress and having trouble sleeping causes cancer?
Both conditions greatly decrease the body’s ability to repair and heal. If you believe that the body has any sort of immune response to the proliferation of cancerous cells, then it would follow that stress and sleep deprivation would increase the likelihood of getting cancer.
I don’t have an estimate for how much of a factor this is besides noting it as simply one more reason to make sure to avoid chronic stress and sleep deprivation.