On the basis that if one makes definite assertions, responses are more likely :-)
My question: Why is it an evolutionary advantage to betray our lies with behavioural clues? Until challenged with an alternative reason that makes any sense, my assertion remains the only possible reason.
However, if we can’t trust our belief-forming faculties to tell us the truth about God, why should we trust them to tell us the truth about anything, including evolutionary science? If our cognitive faculties only tell us what we need to survive, not what is true, why trust them about anything at all?
Rewrite the paragraph; but remove all unnecessary particulars and emotive words, leaving the propositions in the abstract:
… if we can’t trust our beliefs … to tell us the truth … why should we trust them to tell us the truth …? … If our cognitive faculties … only tell us what we need to survive … not what is true … why trust them?
The first proposition reduces to an entirely meaningless tautology. The second proposition implies that truth is something other than what we need to survive. Together, the propositions ask the question: In what contexts can we trust our beliefs?
These abstract forms of the propositions, expose the issues under discussion: What is belief? To what extent can we trust our beliefs? These issues have been the subject of much discourse and quite a number of wars, genocides, and such like; over the past few thousand years. Although there appears to be no convincing philosophical argument either way, historical and palaeontological evidence suggests that species and cultures unable to adapt, do not survive. In the human cultural context, these issues have been explored by Jared Diamond.
The evolutionary source of empathy appears to be our mirror neurons, you may follow the research from the work of V.S.Ramachandran, outlined here, and from this video.
Here are a few pointers to philosophical arguments that might expose fallacies in thinking.
Beliefs may be classified into two types:
a belief that can be externally verified by experiment (science)
a belief that can not be externally verified by experiment (faith.)
The former type, are those beliefs that I must have; for example, if I do not believe the doorway is where it is (my map does not correspond to the territory), I will likely walk into the wall. These types of beliefs are necessary for my survival.
The latter type, are those beliefs that I choose to have; these beliefs express my preferences and values; for example, if I prefer to eat chicken than pork, and am offered an option, I will value a bowl of chicken more than a bowl of pork.
Preferences are contextual: if I am offered no choice, and have the option of eating pork or starving; then my preference for chicken may compromise my survival. If my preference for chicken prevents me from eating pork, and I subsequently die; my unshakeable preference for chicken will die with me.
I consider that the above illustrates that only the former type of belief will survive in the long run; which answers the question by inference.
Provided that one person feels that their preferences were freely chosen; then, what justification is there for denying another similar freedoms? If someone asks: Do you believe in God? - answer: Do you believe in a god? If their answer is in the affirmative, one can then answer in honesty: I believe that you believe in a god? This becomes a little tricky if someone asks: Do you believe there is only one God? Then one must find at least two people to respond in the affirmative, before one can answer in honesty: No (the burden of proof falls to them, if they wish to claim that these are one and the same god.)
For those of a more philosophical temperament, this paradox sometimes suffices (or failing that, invokes a perplexed expression):
For some ‘thing’ to exist; that ‘thing’ must first be recognized (there can never, therefore, be only one instance of any ‘thing’.)
This works for any ideal (universal), but can be applied to the concept of ‘god’, as easily as the concept of ‘chair’ or ‘unicorn’. It makes no sense to ask: Do you believe in the existence of ‘chair’? For the question to have sense, one must ask in the particular; Do you believe in the existence of ‘that chair’?
These are all plays on words, and I for one, have never really understood the difference: a ‘believer’ claims to believe in one ‘unicorn’, and a ‘non believer’ claims to not believe in another ‘unicorn’. This confuses me; if pressed, I prefer to label myself ‘apatheist’, I really do not see that this kind of belief makes any difference either way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism
To lie convincingly, it is necessary to first believe the lie yourself; in other words once you deceive yourself, convincing others is easy. The reason for this phenomenon appears to be the behavioral clues offered when one knowingly lies. Why is it that we offer these behavioral clues when we lie? Surely it would be advantageous to disguise our lies?
The only possible reason appears to be, that these behavioral clues are the only way we have of knowing of ourselves, that we lie. Without this metaphorical ‘crossing of fingers’, we would have no way of knowing that we lied. If this is the case, then behaviorism has a point; much as we might like to think otherwise, it appears that we may be nothing more than the sum of our behavior.
It would appear that many of these problems would be circumnavigated, if voters were permitted to save their votes. In the case that none of the candidates were to my liking, I could then save up my vote for any forthcoming election. When, after a 50 years of waiting, I am finally offered a candidate of my liking, I may then have an opportunity to spend all 50 of my votes at once (great for minorities who are never offered a meaningful choice.)
A system based upon non expiring votes would likely be sufficiently unpredictable to discourage strategic voting (manipulation), as the total number of votes cast in any one election is variable. This could be extended to different types of election; perhaps, an initial equal allocation of 10 votes per year each, to be cast on any election of my choice, whenever I choose. I might just get to spend all of my 500 votes, saved up from 50 years of not voting for local and regional representatives, on a referendum to make one meaningful change to the system itself.
Sorry, this is a hobby horse of mine: the goods market offers bountiful choice, but unfairly allocates the number of spendable votes; the political market fairly allocates the number of votes, but never offers any choice of when and what these may be spent on. Does not appear that either system is democratic in any meaningful sense.
Interesting that you should prefer ‘they’, referring to the plural data; some versions of the aphorism also use this form—in retrospect, I prefer this form.
Torturing data is a common problem in my field (geophysics). With large but sparse datasets, data can be manipulated to mean almost anything. Normal procedure: first make a reasonable model for the given context; then make a measureable prediction based upon your model; then collect an appropriate dataset by ‘tuning’ your measuring apparatus to the model; then process your data in a standard way. In the case that that your model is not necessarily wrong; then make another measureable prediction based upon your model; collect another dataset by an independent experimental method; then …
Even when following this procedure, models are often later found to be wildly erroneous; in other words, all of the experimental support for your model was dreamt up.
A perennial favourite: “If you torture the data enough, they will confess.”
Often attributed to Ronald Coase, however this version was likely: “If you torture the data long enough, nature will confess”—perhaps implying a confession of truth. Another version, attributed to Paolo Magrassi: “If you torture the data enough, it will confess anything”—perhaps implying a confession of falsehood.
Personally, I find the ambiguous version of greater interest.
You were likely referring to some of the recent work of Vincent Courtillot. A video summarizing some of his work here.
The most interesting aspect of this work, is that Courtillot did not start out with any intention of finding correlations with climate; his field is geomagnetism. Only after noticing certain correlations between geomagnetic cycles and sun spot cycles, did suspected correlations with natural climate cycles become evident.