Believe what you hear?

People do believe some very strange things. When scientists, or credible figures, tell the public what is there, people will find a way to see it or believe it. Quite often people claim that they see things such as the Virgin Mary or Mother Teresa in tree bark or glass panes because someone saw it first. As it turns out, all you need is someone to tell you what to see and then you will tell your mind to see it immediately. Sadly, the palm tree and sprinkler formed the Virgin Mary image that many people traveled thousands of miles to see on a pane of glass. Of course this faith keeps many believers happy and steady, but the images may not be what they seem. Let’s be realistic, it seems a little silly to believe that the Virgin Mary would want to reveal her image on a grilled cheese sandwich. The fact is that sometimes people want to believe strange things to keep their hope strong.

Shermer says that people often remember the hits and forget the misses. This case is true for science and even personal experiences. We always want to remember the good times and forget about the bad ones. In science, people will try to back up their findings by keeping record of the supportive evidence and disregarding any evidence that may throw the claim off track. This notion helps people to further believe strange things because they want to believe that something is true, most importantly a miracle or some phenomenon of some sort.

The songs Shermer played backwards really solidified the fact that people believe things when they are told to believe them. I could have possibly made out the Satan when he played the first song backwards, but there was no way I heard all of those words. However, when he told me the words the song said, I heard all of them word for word. It is interesting to note that many people will believe what they see or hear.