Why Do We Believe Impossible Things?

Sept. 17, 2008— -- Why do so many people hold beliefs that are clearly false? A recent story on ABCNews.com said 80 million Americans believe we have been visited by aliens from another planet, and numerous studies show that millions of people believe in ghosts, extrasensory perception and, of course, alien abductions.

According to biologist Lewis Wolpert of University College, London, all those beliefs are clearly false, and they all share a common beginning. It may well have started when the first human realized he, or she, could make a fire by rubbing two sticks together.

Wolpert is the author of a new provocative book exploring the evolutionary origins of belief, called "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast." The title comes from Lewis Carroll's classic "Through the Looking Glass," when Alice tells the White Queen that she cannot believe in impossible things.

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," the Queen replied. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Wolpert argues that our wide range of beliefs, some of which are clearly false, grew out of a uniquely human trait. Alone in the animal world, humans understand cause and effect, and that, he says, led ultimately to the invention of tools, the rapid rise of sophisticated technology, and of course, beliefs. Even the earliest humans understood that many events that shaped their lives resulted from specific causes. Therefore, there must be a cause behind every event.

Searching for that cause, Wolpert says, led to the rise of religion because surely there must be some purpose behind all this, some ultimate cause at work in the universe.

Wolpert is an atheist, but he says he isn't trying to convert anyone to atheism. If so, he may be the only person on the planet who is willing to share his deeply held beliefs without caring whether he can convince anyone to believe the same way. But his basic premise is sound. We all know other people, not ourselves of course, who hold some beliefs that are absurd, or at least grossly lacking in evidence. Why?