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I was recently out to eat when my waitress noticed the tattoo of a dragonfly on my left bicep. "Oh, my goodness!" she exclaimed. "Your tattoo — I keep seeing dragonflies everywhere. I can't figure out what it means, but the universe is trying to tell me something. Can I take a picture of it?"
"Sure," I said, while rolling up my sleeve. "If I may, can I tell you what I think it means?" Intrigued, she said, "Please do." I continued, "I think all it means is that dragonflies exist, and therefore sometimes you might see them."
Dumbfounded and offended, she looked at me as if I had committed some cardinal sin for not indulging her mysticism. I had just offered her the most logical and parsimonious solution to her quandary, yet it was rejected outright for not being the solution she wanted.
On my way home from lunch I began to reflect on this interaction. I thought about our species' predilection to assign meaning and purpose to that which can be adequately explained by coincidence. I thought about our collective tendency to reject what is most rational in favor of what is most satisfying. I thought about the hostility with which those who challenge these tendencies are met and the implications for society.
We are inundated by comforting but baseless claims daily, whether they be from our religious leaders, politicians, psychics or the horoscopes in this very paper. It is important to remember that there is an objective standard of what constitutes a fact. Truth is ascertainable and is supported by evidence.
While most of the time it is harmless to indulge in myths and superstitions, it is not always innocuous. Too often religious conviction dictates our legislation, pseudoscience informs our medical decisions, conspiracies advise our politics and astrology shapes our love life. The only reliable and repeatable methodology our species has ever devised for accurately making predictions, advancing our understanding, solving our problems and bettering our quality of life is the scientific method. We would be well served to remember this as we move into a future that will require cogent thinkers to solve our many problems.
