TREE 570: Why you’ll believe anything

This week’s guest author is Kody Duncan. He writes the very excellent weekly newsletter Habit Examples. I know it’s excellent because I wrote a guest post for it last week. 😉 The posts that aren’t by me are also excellent, which is why I’m sharing Kody with you. He’s ion charge of it all – words, images and music.

Kody started keynote speaking for 1000+ person conferences at just 16 years old, met his Idaho-born wife in Honduras while they both were serving missions for their church, then graduated in psychology from BYU. Now his #1 goal is to help 3000 people build better habits in 2023 through his newsletter. You could be one of them.

Grow slowly
Jeff

You’ve heard by now the shocking new study where participants who ate chocolate eclairs 6x/day actually lost weight.

The scientists found a special nutrient in the eclairs, encomial dioxin, that burns calories like crazy.

Who knew!

Well, Neil Postman knew. He’s made up that story.

See, for 5 years he’d ‘experiment’ on his colleagues each morning asking whether they’d read the New York Times yet.

If they said they hadn’t, he’d tell a fake story like the one I mentioned before.

Here’s another one:

‘The neuro-physiologists at the University of Stuttgart have uncovered a connection between jogging and reduced intelligence. They tested more than 1200 people over a period of five years, and found that as the number of hours people jogged increased, there was a corresponding decrease in their intelligence. They don't know exactly why but there it is.’

Their responses (sadly) ranged from genuine curiosity, to ‘Oh yeah, I’ve heard that before’.

You’re thinking, ‘I’m not that gullible…’

But with Photoshop, deepfakes, and AI, the lines between fact and fiction have never been more blurred.

Neil Postman says, ’In a world without spiritual or intellectual order, nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise.’

Since we tend to believe whatever confirms our current beliefs, one simple thing can spare you from getting duped:

When you hear a fact that seems legit, consider why it might be true and why it might be false.

True wisdom is questioning your own assumptions.