Skeptic Society or Gullible Society?

According to Michael Shermer, “science is a verb that means looking for natural explanations for all phenomenon.” In this respect, when people are considering two different options, they have to decide, “What is the more likely explanation?” As an example, he shows a picture of a crop circle with the word Skeptic written in it. He then asks what is more likely: that this is a natural phenomenon or a Skeptic reader created that picture with photoshop? I couldn’t help but laugh during this Podcast because Shermer really does a good job of bringing to light how gullible society can be. People believe only what they want to believe regardless of thinking about what can happen in reality. It got me thinking. Why do people believe such strange things?

We may never know the answer to that question, but what we do know is that as marketers, we can use this characteristic of humans to our advantage. If people are willing to believe in something such as the image of the Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich, then they surely have the ability to believe in your product without having experience with it first hand. My personal opinion is that people do believe what they want to believe. For example, I am completely guilty of falling into the traps of infomercials on television. I always want the next hot new product or the next fitness product that is going to give me my “ideal body.” Even though, I know better, I still fall into these traps because I want to believe that buying these products will work for me. My parents always have to remind me that those infomercials are all about stretching the truth. The good news for the marketing industry is that there are many people in the market who are just like me: willing to be your product with full faith that it will meet their every expectation.

Shermer also talked about how people tend to only remember what goes right versus the failures when they are exploring something new. I can definitely see how this is human nature. It very much goes along with a customer and the idea of cognitive dissonance. Say you just bought a new car. Soon after your purchase you continue to take notice of other cars on the street and pay closer attention to car commercials when watching tv. This is because you are still trying to reassure yourself that you made the best decision. When people only take into account the “hits” versus the “misses,” they are in fact reassuring themselves that the product or service they bought is the best choice they could’ve made. Again as marketers, by knowing this information, we can use it to our advantage. Realizing that we just need to reassure our customers after their purchases can be used to our advantage. This can help get repeat business as well as maybe get happy customers to make referrals to other people about our products.

Overall, I found this podcast to be very insightful. It is truly amazing what our eyes can trick our minds into believing. I think it is hard for people to see something incredible and not realize that it is most likely due to chance versus scientific reason. From now on, I will be much more careful about what I choose to believe without having hard evidence to back it up with.