Why We Believe in the Preposterous

We all have that friend or family member that believes in the most ludicrous things, convinced of a conspiracy that doesn't fit into the reality shared by the rest of us. I don't think an empirical mindset is the default for humans, but is something that's built over time, usually through education (though I wonder how much of our bullshit-detector calibration arrives with us at birth). I also don't believe that an empirical mindset is with us at all times. In fact, I'd estimate that we are incredibly fallible beings with no good reasons for thinking and behaving the way we do the majority of the time. I don't want to sound like I'm knocking on "gullible people" because every human is capable of all sorts of cognitive errors. Emotions is what makes us human. However, as emotional beings, even the most rational among us are capable of misguided beliefs. We are prone to believing in things without any rational reason. We see agency where none exists, because natural selection favors the…