Understanding Rationality
From Zanecorpwiki
"Irrational" is for all intents and purposes a derogatory term. It says, "You should be rational, but you are not." This idea is fairly deeply ingrained in our thinking and no one wants to be seen as irrational.
At the same time, there is a large segment of the population of the US which is clearly and expressly anti-rational. Is there any functional difference between "irrational" and "anti-rational"? Not really. The first connotes one has become non-rational by failure to be rational while the second connotes a choice, but the result is the same.
There's this real tension, on both side (the Rationalists an the Anti-Rationalists) that needs to be resolved. The first problem is the Anti-Rationalists inability to admit what they are.
"Intelligent Design" (ID) is a great example of the problem. ID is a non-rational proposition, by which I mean it is not testable, it makes no predictions, it can't be disproved. This does not mean ID is wrong, it simply means it isn't rational. This is the first big misunderstanding about what rationality is: rational does not mean true. Rather, rationality is a system of decision making. Intuition--though inscrutable--is another.
It turns out, in fact, that intuition often wins. Is this because we live in a irrational magic world? No. It's because we're not very good at being rational. Our intuitive decision making system is fine tuned to make unconscious snap decisions based on memory and whether it's because of millions of years of evolution or the expert design of a creator, that decision will often beat the conscious, time consuming rational process.
So for their part, the Rationalists need to understand that the Anti-Rationalists have a point. Rationality is not the end-all-be-all when it comes to making decisions. Most decisions, even quite important ones, are well informed by the gut and we would do well to start the rational process with a note of humility and deference and a nod to intuition backed by those millions of years of evolution and/or the design of the creator that produces decisions, which though inscrutable, are rooted in something far deeper than our own meager experience and poor minds.
By the same token, the blind spots and weaknesses of intuition are well proved. There are times when it would be insane to rely on your gut. For example, you've accidentally ingested a poison. Would you try and intuit the cure or call Poison Control where the operator would apply a rational process of matching the substance to decades of study and data to tell you how best to solve your problem?
Both sides have a problem of rejecting the other when in fact both have valid points. It makes sense (is rational!) to intuit many decisions. There are times which rationality is clearly called for. In big policy decisions, we need both.
The larger problem is the polarization of the two camps. We need our gut. We need culture. We need society. We also need logic and reason and data. To throw out either is foolish.
The irrational need to be rational is the first problem to deal with. When the ID people dress up their belief in a veneer of false rationality it does nothing but muddy the waters and cause confusion. The Rationalists correctly attack them for not understanding what rationality is and they themselves become so confused that they fail to make their real point that not everything need be rational and instead waste everyone's time on false evidence and confused lexical torture.
