The eCrozier

In 1954, research psychologists heard about a cult leader who was prophesying the end of the world on December 21^st of that year. Apparently, the cult leader had received messages from another planet that gave her a heads up for that date. So, pretending to be true believers, the researchers infiltrated the group to study how the group would respond, when, let’s say, the world didn’t end when the cult leader said it would. Their hypothesis was that the followers wouldn’t abandon their leader when she proved to be a charlatan. Rather, they’d find rationales and justifications for her mistake and afterwards they would even deepen their trust in her as their leader. And that’s what happened. They had invested their lives in her being right. They couldn’t begin to think otherwise. Later, when another cult leader, Jim Jones, went even more wrong in Guyana, the term was coined: “They drank the Kool-Aid.”

In 1960, English psychologist Peter Wason was the first to use the term “confirmation bias.” It’s a psychological condition that leads us to hold fast to false beliefs even when the overwhelming evidence indicates we shouldn’t. In the midst of “confirmation bias” we’ll not only discount evidence that contradicts our beliefs, we’ll also search out any information that confirms what we already believe. So, when we’re trapped in such bias, we’ll first discount what contradicts our beliefs and then we’ll go to great lengths to find information that undergirds what we want to believe. We drink the Kool-Aid.

And that brings us to the poor souls who recently gathered at state capitals to protest state government’s restrictions on physical distancing and businesses. Those gathered flaunted the norms put in place to protect them and their fellow citizens from viral spread. Many gathered believe the virus isn’t as deadly as scientists are saying. It’s just an excuse for the government to take away their rights. People, of course, are welcome to put their own lives in danger, but what about the people they might infect? Their right to have what they want ends when exercising that right could put other people in harm’s way. But they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. Then came the tweet responding to these protests: “save your great 2^nd Amendment. It is under siege!” How does protecting public health during a pandemic threaten anyone’s 2^nd Amendment rights? The answer doesn’t matter to the Kool-Aid drinkers. It’s feeding their bias and the tweeter certainly knows that.

Expertise in infectious disease and epidemiology isn’t a matter of biased opinion. It’s science. Scientific research doesn’t always have answers, but scientists pursuing answers do so on the basis of verifiable studies, historical patterns, and tested outcomes. A man at a protest in Kansas said he wants to get business open again. He says he follows “all sides of the issue,” but he worries “in general, we are hearing the science-only side.” What other side should there be in a viral pandemic? For those who have drunk the Kool-Aid, facts don’t matter. They may “feel” a certain way about the scientific facts of this virus, but how they “feel” about those facts is immaterial. The virus just is and our opinion about it doesn’t change its ongoing infection rate and death toll. I don’t like the current situation any more than the next person, but for heaven’s sake, let’s heed the public health experts. And let’s not drink the Kool-Aid.

+Scott