Another knowledge issue to consider when deciding whether or not to discard intuitively appealing explanation is the importance of sense perception and it’s relation to intuition. Can intuitively appealing explanations be kept when paired with perception? For instance, when I see the sun rise and set every morning and evening, it creates an intuitive feeling that the sun will rise and set tomorrow too. This example suggests that it is not valid to discard my appealing intuitive instincts when intuition is combined with perception.
However, a new knowledge issue arises from the previous example: Can sense perception be influenced by emotion? and will that permit explanations that are intuitively appealing to be discarded? David Gal and Derek Rucker, from Northwestern University, found from their study that when people’s confidence in a belief faltered, they actually became stronger advocates for that belief (Yong). When participants, who all believed that Mac’s were superior to PC’s, were told reminded of certain incidents where Mac’s seemed inferior to PC’s, they seemed to become more passionate in defending Mac’s. Interestingly enough, it seemed like the intuitively appealing explanations combined with the influence of their strong emotions of doubt, caused the participants to keep rather than discard their beliefs. Although we should not go so far as to discard the intuitive explanation that Mac’s are superior, other scenarios should be examined. Take blinded fans as an example. Oftentimes, fans will disregard the bad actions of their favorite celebrities and create other, more intuitively appealing, explanations for this behavior, despite the perceivable evidence, due to their personal emotions toward these celebrities. Under these circumstances, it would be more valid if these intuitively appealing explanations were discarded because of the overwhelming influence that emotion appears to have on their intuition and reasoning.
What if the explanation is not a complete one? Take, for instance, traditional Chinese medicine (i.e. use of acupuncture, herbs, and massages to treat illnesses) and Western medicine. Western medicine is always proven to be effective with scientific fact. In contrast, it is often hard to prove the effectiveness of traditional Chinese herbal medicine with scientific fact. In fact, Chinese medicine actually originated from the religion, Daoism. There have been a numerous amount of studies showing scientific evidence that in reality, Chinese medicine has no beneficial effect on human health. For instance, George A. Ulett, a Ph.D, found that the use of acupuncture was merely a form of the Placebo effect (Barrett). In other words, Ulett found that because patients believed in the effectiveness of acupuncture, it became effective. Does that mean Chinese medicine should be discarded? Personally, I have been treated by both Chinese and Western medicine in the past, and have found that, the majority of the time, Chinese medicine does a much better job at treating my illness. Not only does it show immediate results, but it also helps me in the long term. On the other hand, when I have been treated with Western medicine, sure, it does work, but it often takes hours to take effect. Also, many Western drugs, such as antibiotics, actually put the immune system more at risk due to the quickly evolving viruses in our environments. This illustration shows a scenario where intuitively appealing explanations based on non-scientific evidence, maybe belief, should not be discarded.
Overall, it can be stated that if an intuitively appealing explanation has overwhelming evidence against it, and no evidence for it, it can be discarded. This was shown in our examples about the Oreos, the “blinded” fans, and the study done by Gal and Rucker. From these examples, the danger of the combination of emotion and intuition was discovered.
If we accept the above statement, we can also say that if an intuitively appealing explanation does not have overwhelming evidence it and a lot of evidence in support of it, it should not be discarded. Usually, these types of intuitive explanations are combined with sense perception and reasoning.
It can also be stated that when an explanation has limited evidence both for and against it, it should not be discarded. This statement was demonstrated when religion, and the controversy between the Big Bang theory and Creationism was discussed.
We also acknowledged that in some circumstances, like when comparing Chinese medicine and Western medicine, explanations should not be discarded just because there is no science-related evidence in support of it. From this, we learned that belief may be more credible than originally thought.
In conclusion, when deciding whether or not to discard an intuitive explanation, the evidence based on emotions, reasoning, and perception, must be considered.
Intuition, hunch, instinct-these are the things that can lead to a perplexity in human minds whereby sometimes it works but sometimes it leads to a catastrophic implications. Robert Heller, a British magician, mentalist and musician said that “Never ignore a gut feeling, but never believe that it’s enough” . This quotation suggests that intuition is not something we should completely disregard but yet we should not completely have a full faith in it too. Intuition comes from the Latin word ‘intueri’ that always been defined as ‘to look at’. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, intuition is defined as “A direct knowing or learning of something without the conscious use of reasoning”. Fully depending on intuition is not recommended but surprisingly sometimes the outcomes are approximately precise. So, the big question now is, when should we question our intuition whether to eliminate or accept it? Or most importantly when should we discard explanations that are intuitively appealing? Three out of four ways of knowing which are reason, sense perception and emotion will be the guideline in order to attempt this question and also to discover the reliability of intuition.
A very clear answer for the question is when the intuition is obviously contradicted with the facts or the evidence that have proven it to be wrong. Let us take a look with one personal example that can justify the above statement. I have a friend who used to feel very insecure with her body shape and she completely admire anorexic models. She always thought that to be cool and loved by all her friends she need to be thin and skinny. Pressures from her siblings that always call her fat encourage her more to be like the anorexic models. She is aware with all the negative consequences that she will face and she always encountered with all the news where anorexic models die due to starvation and lack of nutrients. However, the fact that she have in mind where the size zero models are beautiful and the fact that she could stop her siblings from calling her fat again make these explanation become intuitively appealing to her. She has suffered as an anorexic for 2 years until she comes to a realization that her intuition has doomed her life. It might be true that part of our society see anorexic individuals as very attractive figures as they can become models, they are on TV and magazines and get famous. But, the fact that anorexia nervosa may lead to death has proved that becoming an anorexic is wrong. This example suggesting that intuitively appealing explanation that has evidence which can prove it definitely wrong should be discarded. It may sound simple but we should consider other different situations before we make a conclusion.
The above example shows that the intuition with facts that has been proven it to be certainly wrong with no doubt should be discarded. However, how about the explanation with intuitive appealing feelings based on logical reasoning? Does this explanation should necessarily be discarded too? “Intuition isn’t the enemy, but the ally, of reason”- quoted from a famous journalist, John Kord Lagemann . This shows that intuition is not always false as there is always room for the logic side of our mind to evaluate the reliability of the explanation and provide reasons whether it can be applied or not in our life just like what have been said by Austin Dacey, “Guts are important. Your guts are what digest things. But it is your brains that tell you which things to swallow and which not to swallow” . One example that can be linked to this idea is the Creationism and Evolution controversy. Both of these theories are intuitively appealing to most of us and it has been a very debatable issue especially between the creationist and evolutionist. In addition, both of these theories have come with a great amount of good logical reasoning that makes the explanation do not necessarily to be discarded. Creationism theory squabbles on the creation of the universe, humanity and life in which it is very complex that this religious based theory believe that it is created by God. This concept is based on faith so cannot be proven or disproven. However, it is still logic and we cannot simply discard this explanation only due to lack of definite evidence to prove it. Just same goes to Evolution Theory where it is a scientific based theory that believe the human species evolved from a single-cell life form. It is supported by the logical reasoning and not necessarily be discarded.
Another aspect that we can consider while deciding whether or not to accept the intuitively appealing explanation is when we paired the intuition with the sense perception. Sense perception is the judgement or interpretation that we do based on our senses and our own experiences. So, can we accept the intuitively appealing explanation when we take our sense perception into consideration? For instance, I can only see stars during night and not during the day. So, it builds an intuitive feeling saying that every night I can see the stars but not during the day. This shows that intuitively appealing explanation that comes together with sense perception should not be discarded.
However, we should realize that there are always complications in our sense perception. There is a possibility that our sense perception can be influenced by our emotion. And when the sense perception is influenced by emotion, does it allow the intuitively appealing explanation to be discarded? When the decision is decided based on our emotion, we will usually incline to not willing to accept the hard facts which will give us unpleasant feeling and we will try as hard as we can to defend our original believe which might probably contradict with the new findings. To answer the statement above, I believe it depends on the intensity of the emotion. If the emotion outweigh the sense of perception which make our decision is more to emotionally biased, we should think twice before accepting the intuitively appealing explanation. Let us go back to the early example where some teenagers have made the anorexic model as their role model. Part of our society sees that the anorexic model is an attractive media figure. Within their perception, they see that to be fame and get place in the world of popularity, anorexic model is the best example. This is what they see and this is their perception towards the anorexic model. Thus, it has create an intuitively appealing to them saying that by being an anorexic individual you will be as beautiful, famous and popular as the anorexic models. It has been quite an issue when a few authorities have discovered the bad sides of being anorexic in which the worst it can be is death. These facts have been proven by a few cases where a few anorexic models died due to anorexia nervosa and also proven by a few scientific researches. However, the community who have the perception which stated earlier will tend to defend their original belief even though the evidences are very clear. Most of them will rather keep their belief on the anorexic model than discard it when the intuitively appealing explanation comes together with the strong influence of their emotion. Thus, it will be better if we disregard this intuitively appealing explanation when there is emotion involved as it will give overwhelming effects toward their intuition as well as reasoning and perception.
Two major areas that we can relate in order to attempt this question are religion and science. Religion is a belief in the existence of god and it is a system of faith. Explanation based on religion is hard to be proven and also hard to go against it as it depends on the strength of our faith towards our religion. Religion based explanation sometimes clash with the scientific based explanation. Science provides us facts and it is one of the most reliable sources as the facts it provide are true and justified. Both of these explanations are very intuitively appealing. Even though the religion based explanation does not have definite evidence like the science based explanation that does not mean we have to completely discard it. Just like the previous example of Creationism theory and Evolution theory. Creationism is based on religion and Evolution is based on scientific research. We can believe in Creationism and at the same time accept the facts from Evolution theory.
In general, the intuitively appealing explanation that has clear evidences against it and quite vague evidence for it, it is advisable that this explanation be discarded. Example of anorexic model has been used and we managed to discover that when emotion combined with intuition, the explanation is necessary to be discarded based on the intensity of the emotion. The intuitively appealing explanation that comes together with logic reasoning and sense perception should not be discarded. The explanation based on science and religion also should not be discarded just like the Creationism and Evolution Theory. Thus, last but not least, to decide when should we discard the intuitively appealing explanation, we should consider the evidence based on logical reasoning, sense perception and emotion.