How Do You Know? Two Strategies

How do you know something is true? I propose that most of the time we use two strategies.

The Scientific Strategory
At its heart, the scientific process is simply, "Check to see if you got it right." Obviously scientists do sciency things all the time, what with their peer reviews, revised hypotheses, and blah blah blah. I suppose most of us use a quick and dirty version whenever we "guess and check." How do you make the best coffee? Do you french press it with 4 packets of sugar, grind it fresh and use a coffee maker, or just admit defeat and pick it up at Starbucks?

Sometimes this is a ridiculous way to think.

Me: Son, don't play in the street, you'll get run over.
Son: Thanks dad, I'm going to run a series of experiments to verify your hypothesis.

This is extra funny to me because my son is 3 months old. Here's how it really went down.
Me: Aoooooooga!
Son: (looks confused, then really happy, then concerned, then at the ceiling, then happy again, and then starts crying)

The I-Told-You-So Strategy
Something is true if an important person said it, and it sounds right. This approach is often a fine way to think. You don't jump into the hippo pit at the zoo because the internet said they can bite alligators in half. Sometimes, however, this too is a ridiculous way to think. Why? Important people are first class bullshitters. I suggest that this is in the top three things you should learn during your post high school education. The other two are probably, "Correlation is not causation," and... uh... "Waft, don't just stick your nose in the beaker." Every time I clean out my fridge I forget this rule.

Back to the point at hand, seriously, it is REALLY easy to be wrong, and important people are wrong. all. the. time. Somebody should run some sort of experiment because, and I'm going to make these numbers up, regular people are wrong 70% of the time, while important people are wrong 80% of the time.

So when exactly should you use I-Told-You-So-Reasoning? Ah, I don't know. It probably has something to do with whether you're a child, how easy the advice is to follow, how dire the consequences are, how motivated the important person is to bullshit, and how obvious the advice is. I just made that all up, frankly I'm not giving you a very thorough answer. Rather, let me answer this question:

What are three ways Americans incorrectly use I-Told-You-So thinking?

I'm glad I asked! First,

National Policy
Take this abstinence only debacle we find ourselves in. Abstinence only education was a fine guess at the time, but it turns out to be completely useless. Rather than just coming up with an idea and sticking with it because our president said so, come up with a bunch of ideas including, oh I don't know, fact based sex ed. Try them all out, see what works the best, and go with that.

Next,

Seeking Grand Cosmic Truths Through Religion
Now this is important, so pay attention. I am NOT arguing against religion in general (what an ambitious topic, but don't worry, I'll probably tackle that later). No, as far as this post is concerned, I have no problem with religion. I am going to make this much easier argument: religion is a bad way to figure out what's true. Religion is all about I-Told-You-So thinking. It kind of has to be these days, because people using scientific thinking keep chasing religious thinkers away from topics that you can check, the shape of the solar system being a prime example. Now as my friend Becky, one of my millions of readers, will point out, lots of people don't really think their religion has anything to do with discovering ultimate truths about the universe. Good, I think they're on the right track. For those who disagree with Becky, consider these arguments.

Disagree and Don't Check

1. There are a lot of old dudes in a lot of different religions standing in front of lots of people quoting very ancient books and saying very important sounding things.
2. They completely disagree.
3. There's no way to check who's right.
4. Ergo, chances are bad that anybody has any idea what they're talking about.

Motivation

1. The more arcane knowledge a religious person has about uncheckable things, the more impressive and important they become.
2. Therefore, important relgious people have a conflict of interest to just make stuff up.
3. Therefore, uh, they are more likely to make stuff up.

Finally,

Health
To be fair, I've met a lot of honest, humble doctors who listen. However, who hasn't met their fair share of doctors who know what's best for you because they said so. I imagine this was particularly obnoxious when medicine wasn't really into science yet. Sure bloodletting is a good idea! All the doctors say so! Oh wait, it killed Robin Hood. (No joke, I cried for days)

Also, let's all start a fad diet endorsed by Oprah.

In Summary
A lot of you vehemently disagree with me on this post. Lay into me in the comments.

Also, don't play in traffic. Because I said so.