Superstition

1) A poor explanation for a phenomenon; a flawed description of cause and effect.

2) An explanation for a phenomenon that employs an element of magic to describe the event’s cause.

3) The use of magical thinking to predict an outcome.

One contemporary superstition is the belief that markets can cure any environmental problem. Another is the belief that human ingenuity can and will ultimately undo the destruction to ecosystems so that current societies and their behaviors can continue without interruption or change. These beliefs (which result from endowing markets and human ingenuity with magical properties) allow individuals to avoid questioning their current behaviors and what the cost of them is to ecosystems, the biosphere and the viability of the planet for human beings in the future. These beliefs can serve as a justification for inaction.

Belief-induced Blindness

1) The inability to perceive sights and sounds and phenomena that contradicts existing beliefs or the inability to receive information that conflicts with those same beliefs.

2) A person unaware of the process in which beliefs are shaped (or how error prone and indifferent to reality this process is) and so invests more his or her beliefs than in any type of evidence.

Permanence

Permanence is a fiction invented by homo sapiens and also an illusion believed by them. The idea is incompatible with the laws of biology and no organism is in possession of it.

The fiction or invented reality of permanence is paired with the notion of the self to give individual homo sapiens the illusion of continuity of and preservation of themselves through time (i.e., a soul). The soul is one fiction that convinces sapiens that they are apart from and superior to the other organisms on the planet.

The invented reality of permanence is also necessary to accept the idea of the progress and advancement of societies toward an ideal state and to accept the notion of continuous economic growth—ideas which often serve as justifications for actions and behaviors which destroy ecosystems and habitats.

Invented Reality

An invented reality is an idea or thing that exists only in the imaginations of human beings and has no reality outside of it. By existing in the imaginations of human beings and being believed by them, an invented reality can produce the conditions necessary for mass cooperation between humans, a level of cooperation that would not otherwise be possible.

Invented realities do not exist in the biological realm—that is, they have no biological reality—but invented realities can produce behaviors in human beings that are destructive to ecosystems or are complicit in this destruction. Markets are one example. Markets do not exist in the biological sphere but it is due to markets that human being ignore the function of certain things within ecosystems and see them only in terms of a fluctuation price given to them by the markets.

Here is a video about invented realities and how we use them for mass cooperation.

Greenhouse Gases

Greenhouse gasses are the thermostat (or an important part of it) of the planet. Dial up the greenhouse gasses and the planet’s temperature goes up. Dial them down and the planet’s temperature goes down.

The pre-Industrial Revolution thermostat setting was relatively stable for the last 15 million years and set the conditions that made it possible for many of the planet’s current species to exist. A change in that thermostat setting and the planet’s temperature will change what species can survive on the planet.

So greenhouse gasses are an important element of the current biosphere and a foundation for life on the planet.

Greenhouse gasses make the atmosphere function like a greenhouse by holding a certain amount of heat from the sun (much of the heat from the sun is reflected back into space). This ability to store heat makes the temperature of the planet’s surface conducive to many forms of life.

Since the Industrial Revolution homo sapiens have increasingly relied on the burning of carbon (wood, coal, oil, gas) and since the beginning have dumped the waste product (CO2) of this activity into the atmosphere. This dumping of CO2 waste into the atmosphere continues today and at higher levels each year. Currently, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are higher than there were for the last 800,000 to 15 million years. As a result the planet is now in the early phases of another mass extinction. This extinction is being called the Holocene extinction (current rates of extinction are estimated to be 10,000 times higher than a typical species extinction rate) and resembles, in terms of the changes to the atmosphere, the Permian-Triassic extinction event.

See this short video primer and this explanation of the role of greenhouse gasses in the biosphere.

Denial (aka Closed Cognition)

1) A act of willful ignorance that is often described, or excused, by the person doing it as an act of skepticism.

2) The act of holding two different standards for an idea; the person holds a very high standard of evidence for the side of the argument they don’t like (and this standard may be even higher than scientific procedure requires) while simultaneously holding a very low standard of evidence and support for ideas and the side of the argument they like.

3) A phenomenon whereby a person 1) fears what a fact or scientific finding would mean to them if it were true and so 2) denies the fact or the validity of the scientific finding.

4) It is being closed off from knowledge.

For example, let’s say a person considers the fact that scientists have found evidence to support the idea that greenhouse gasses will increase the planet’s average temperatures to the point where much current life on the planet will be unsustainable. This person then sees this evidence through the lens of their lives. They think, “If this is true, and I agree that it is true, then I’ll have to burn less gas and less home heating fuel. I’ll have to increase the insulation in my home and reconsider my consumption of meat. But I don’t want to do any of those things. So I’ll deny the validity of the scientific evidence.” By rejecting the person can then continue their current behaviors—and do so without a sense of guilt or shame that would come with accepting the scientific evidence and not changing their behavior.

Denial can serve a number of purposes for those who resort to it. One. It can be a way to avoid responsibility. If a person a polluter, for instance, they may deny the harms caused by that pollution. Two. Denial can be a way to defense in favor of a person’s near-term financial interests. If a person is making money from a company or investment which is polluting or causing harm to ecosystems, denial allows the person to avoid the conflict their financial self-interest and their obligations to others and to the planet. Third. Denial can be a way to please those within your social and ideological tribes. If a person denies the validity of facts and evidence that others within your tribe are ideologically against, then you can increase group cohesion and show your loyalty to that group and foster your identity as a good member of that group.

DENIAL VERSUS SKEPTICISM

Those who opt for denial and willful ignorance may justify their behavior by calling themselves skeptics. But there is a wide gulf between the skeptic and the willfully ignorant. The skeptic studies the evidence but avoids making a conclusion. The willfully ignorant refuse to study the evidence and come to a conclusion. The skeptic is open, awaiting new evidence and new information, and the willfully ignorant is closed, certain of their conclusion even if evidence is found to support a claim or scientific theory. The skeptic accepts uncertainty. The willfully ignorant refuse it.

DENIAL AND INVENTED REALITIES

Denial can occur when our invented realities (religions, ideologies, currencies) come into conflict with the fundamental laws of biology, chemistry and physics or when it comes into conflict with the viability of ecosystems. As a cooperative species human beings invent and then cling to these invented realities (which often have no basis in the physical world) as a way increase the cooperation between large numbers of people. However, because of their social role or their role in establishing a person’s role and membership within a group, these invented realities can seem more urgent and emotionally salient than the laws that govern the planet’s ecosystems.