Too Good to be True

I have this thing where I automatically distrust anything I hear that I agree with too much. Take this, for example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax

That chain email you probably remember from 15 years ago was something I agreed with 100%. Almost as though it was perfectly constructed to match my biases… and as it turns out, it was.

Or this one, about how it’s almost impossible to find atheists in prison. Do you remember that one? Well, it’s true as far as it goes, but not for the reasons implied in the myriad thinkpieces devoted to it.

Or take for example Robert Altemeyer’s work on right-wing authoritarianism. It’s probably true, the research seems to back it up. But it so perfectly conforms to my pre-existing biases that I can’t help but think it will be disproved sooner or later.

The latest case of this is a radio show I listened to yesterday, on Orthorexia Nervosa. You may not have heard of that. If you have, it’s probably just in the past few years… it may or may not be a fad diagnosis, but it’s definitely a new thing. It’s all about clean eating gone too far… people who eat gluten free and soy free and low carb and raw and local and and and. It’s something that seems to be coming up a lot lately. And it would be so nice to think that all these people I have a little disdain for are actually crazy… that feeling makes me suspicious right off the bat.

Maybe I’m right to be suspicious. Apparently this diagnosis was invented by an alt-med practitioner, the radio show was unclear what flavour of alt. And it’s not in the new DSM 5. Why not? I don’t know. But my BS alarm is starting to beep, just a little.

I’ll probably do some reading into this and post a book review addressing the subject sooner or later. But for now… all of you out there, just try to take a second look when something seems at first glance to be confirming exactly what you thought all along.