(HOST) Trying to ‘divine the future’ in everything from tea leaves to the stars is a popular pastime – especially this time of year. But commentator Willem Lange wonders why people see signs and portents where probably there aren’t any.
(LANGE) Why do some people, looking at a window pane stained with kitchen grease, see the face of the Virgin Mary? Why are others certain the United States Government engineered the collapse of the World Trade Center with cleverly positioned munitions? Several sober fellows have offered to share with me their proof of a conspiracy that would have involved at least hundreds, none of whom has yet uttered a peep, It beggars the imagination. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is why.
A friend sent me two pieces from Scientific American written by Michael Shermer, a professor of the history of science and the editor of Skeptic Magazine. The first piece, "Patternicity," asks why people see images, hear voices, and seek patterns in what probably are random phenomena. Shermer notes that creatures that identify patterns in their surroundings are more likely to survive than those that don’t. A rustle in the grass may be the wind, or it may be a tiger. Those that choose to act as if it’s a tiger may be a bit jumpier than those who don’t; but we’re their descendants because when it was a tiger, they survived.
We have a natural need to make sense of our experiences. But that need can lead us astray when there’s no sense to be made of a phenomenon. Those who know the causes of a tsunami can accept it as a regrettable, but natural calamity; those who don’t may interpret it as an act of god. Many of us, for example, don’t know what, if anything, actually happened at Sodom and Gomorrah; but many others of us are certain.
Which leads to "Agenticity," the belief that invisible agents – everything from an Intelligent Designer to angels, demons, and government conspirators – are controlling our lives; this in the utter absence of data that can be tested and replicated. The need to find predictive patterns to govern our lives is important: Plant too early, and you may lose your crop; head across Lake Champlain in bad weather, and you may be in the news that night. The problems occur when we see patterns and agents where there may be none: for example, human beings are too complicated to be the result of evolutionary selection, and therefore were created by a supernatural designer.
Why do some people seem to need to see patterns where clearly there are none? I think it’s essentially a response to complexity. Belief in a higher power, for instance, can be wonderful; but whether that power acts directly in our lives is arguable. I spoke recently with a pair of Fundamentalist Christians who claim to be discarding earthly possessions because "the signs" (patterns) indicate the imminent Apocalypse, Judgment, and Rapture.
I wanted to ask them if I could have their Subaru, but I have a feeling that after a couple of cold nights out on some hilltop, gazing upward, they’ll be back; and they’re gonna want their car.
This is Willem Lange in East Montpelier, and I gotta get back to work.