Hello Zenphamy,
Once one has conceived and accepted that “a posteriori” is superior to “a priori” much of the world seems mad.
Mutant..some would say, awakened, enlightened... Nature--- nurture...
Whatever. Badge of honor.
O.A.

Due to my electrical engineering beginnings, I refer to people as being "wired" differently all the time. That or being a mutant is the only explanation. One of my sons asked me once "Don't you just BELIEVE anything." I told him that I believed only the conclusions that I arrived at by rational analysis. He then asked the question that he must have been taught in school "Who are you to determine what is believable and what is not?" My answer was that I am my mind and it is the only instrument I have to determine anything so I have to rely on it. I can't feel about something, I have to think. I don't think he ever got it. My oldest son lives it, the second son follows but the believer continues to be influenced by anything that sounds right.

I'm proud to have learned the skill of critical thinking. I don't think that how we think is inborn or predetermined. It's a skill like any other, but it's one of the more difficult ones to learn.

The aspect of Objectivism that appeals the most to me is the feedback loop of "Contradictions cannot exist" and check your premise. We all make decisions based on current understanding and only the wise are happy to find that contradiction to improve their understanding. I do not see the word mutant as a bad thing. Only the mutants who started using their mind enabled the rest of humanity to enjoy the fruits of their labor. That will not change. The people of the mind are the only force that can save humanity and I do "believe" it is worth saving. Mutants will save the day.

The author here is allowing a glaring hole to exist in her argument. She separates medicine into two binary options - either mainstream, scientifically corroborated and approved medicine, or everything else that belongs in the field of quackery. However, if we may agree that some form of medicine is required for humans to treat their ills and injuries, as do all animals, in order to continue to exist, then we must accept the fact that prior to the discovery of the scientific method and its implementation, humans have been successfully practicing medicine for millions of years (blending the transition line here with whatever mammals were originated from). No doubt much of that medicine was not successful, but enough of it was to allow us to survive and flourish. Thus, her argument that all non-scientifically proved and accepted medicine is a waste is contradicted by facts and her own existence is one proof of it. Then, there is no mention of the medical community intentionally shutting out forms of medicine that do not bring profit and compete with more profitable, although sometimes less effective methods. Some of those “unapproved” methods are perfectly well approved, accepted and effective in other countries. Then there’s no mention of scientifically approved methods that cause side effects that may be as bad as or worse than the original condition, due to either intentionally hiding the facts, or due to lack of knowledge. I agree with the direction of her thesis, but the example chosen is a bad one – too many gray and controversial issues that her own critical thinking approach should have easily been able to demonstrate.

I will readily admit an overreliance on anecdotal evidence. However, the vast majority of that was acquired under conditions where I know the underlying premises and biases.

On the other hand, I have a lower confidence in "studies" because both one of my old bosses and I have each had about 50% success in reproducing experiments that we have read in the scientific literature. I have become more skeptical via experience, rather than being skeptical by default.

With regard to anecdotal evidence regarding alternative medicines, I am skeptical, but not immediately dismissing. I am quite sure that most people in Galt's Gulch Online are more immediately dismissive of partial, but inconclusive, evidence than I am.

Most of today's pharmaceuticals were originally plant extracts, and some still are, for example. Your point regarding the nature of evidence, and how to act on it, is a good one.

Don't your think it an insult to be considered a mutant simply because you have learned to think. If you are a Objectivist it means you have learned to think. The thing that ray hyman has to learn to do is think!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This article illustrates the difference between belief and understanding. Belief is the acceptance of something as "true" based on the dictates of authority while understanding is the acceptance of something as "true" because you understand WHY it is true.
I have used this example before. I was once asked if I believed that two plus two makes four?
My answer was "NO" but because I understand the rules and procedures of mathematics I understand why and under what circumstances two plus two makes four.
Belief is a word I use rarely and with great care. I would far rather understand something than simply believe it. Understanding is much more difficult but it is worth the effort.

Are 'we' mutants? Objectivists and libertarians (using true definition of words) are rare. My best friend once pointed out that in my family (I married a woman who already had two children) out of the five children, we had two more daughters and son were all exactly like me when it comes to critical thinking and the two older girls are declared socialist and communist like their mother (to whom I am no longer married, she was married to a socialist) who voted twice for Barracula Obama. He wondered if there was some genetic predisposition. Sounds like a good book topic.

As a trained scientist and engineer, and of a certain age (not a millennial), I am constantly being taunted and ridiculed - mostly, but not always, humorously - as "thinking like an engineer," presumably meaning evidence and logic based rather than emotions. I have had much experience with the "emotion is better than fact" concept in my heady and mis-spent California days, and of course we can all see where that got us, and is continuing to become more and more prominent.
For me, living in Oregon now, it is almost as if I have landed on a different planet (compared to flyover country), and I grow increasingly aware of two very different species of people out there. I hate to say "us vs. them" but that's how it seems. And "they" are winning.

Excellent article. She expresses very well what I've been trying to say. Thanks.

Great question, Zenphamy! I have a theory. Bear with me as I outline it step by step.

1. All life forms are the result of mutation. Natural selection builds on changes that work.

2. Evolution is continuous. Life’s algorithm drives growth and the urge towards greater complexity as new features are added to the previous levels.

3. From microbes to nation-states, organisms grow by building on an originally simple template.

4. I posit that both hardware and software are involved in maintaining life and building the template. The software is the electro-magnetic process in the brain and actually throughout the body. Even single-cell organisms have a field around them with which they can connect to other cells and transmit information, albeit of a very simple kind. They join in clusters to form larger collective organisms. (Sorry about that.) By the time larger animals, including humans, have evolved, they contain trillions of cells organized into symbiotic aggregations.

5. I posit that the software of consciousness is a similarly evolving and emerging system, that it attaches itself to living tissue with which it co-evolves from conception to adulthood, and develops the same operating directive of survival and self-defense. This software is composed of bits I call “memes” (as named by Richard Dawkins in “The Selfish Gene)”.

6. In humans, what we call intelligence is the development (evolution) of brain functions with problem-solving, creative thinking, critical analysis, abstract reasoning, systems building capabilities. Since survival depends on an accurate appraisal of the real world —reality—and of the natural laws that operate in it—the laws of cause and effect—the cognitive functions of the brain and its fitness for supporting more complex software will naturally evolve through that process of mutation that favors higher efficacy. And when brain function maps accurately onto reality, we call that rationality.

7. Not all humans are equal in their brain capacity nor their efficacious meme set, just as not all humans have equal talents in other functions. Further, not all brains have equal receptivity to appraising reality. What brains (and their software) do have is a subroutine for accepting second-hand information—just as young animals learn from their parents about the basic necessities for survival.

8. Humans thus do not all possess the most highly evolved brain hardware nor the most enlightened software. Each individual is different. Some are content to be patterned by their culture. Thus the argument from authority can embed errors of judgment from childhood on. Some may rebel but without a better alternative. what they all share is being linked to their emotional chemistry. At this point in human history, the prefrontal cortex is in place, but only the rarest individuals have self-generated operating systems, alias free will.

9. Once memes (information received second-hand or even experienced first-hand) are internalized, they will block attempts to remove or change them. We see a parallel to this in computer programs that are protected from outside tampering. This is how belief systems take on a life of their own, with “truth” no longer the measuring rod or compass for the content of consciousness, and sometimes even to the detriment of the host.

10. So, yes, Objectivism is the outgrowth of a mutant emergence in the brain of its creator, from where it spread virally to the minds of others whose equipment is capable of downloading it. Yes, Objectivists are the latest stage of evolution. And our eagerness to teach it to everyone else illustrates the life force and survival drive of ideas that use human brains as incubation and replication devices.

The term "mutant" has a negative connotation, but it doesn't have to be that way. All of the positive aspects of evolution regarding life required mutations that better enabled the "mutants" to survive.

Objectivists are born tabula rasa, with no innate ideas so no room for the content or method of thought to be imposed on the brain by using it rationally. You are stuck with Hyman's ill-informed use of a scientific term. As Ayn Rand said, "Man is a being of volitional consciousness" you have to choose to use it and how you use it. Objectivists just know and care a little bit more about their use of their brains. That's why we like the feel of using reason. Hyman probably thinks sesame bagels are mutants of plain bagels.. .

What you can say is that it takes critical thinking to be able to become an Objectivist. When you see someone who shows no inclination to think that way, you will not likely be able to convert him. This is why education is sooooo important.

Seeing chiropractic put down in that article was a big time turn off. Not saying the writer was wrong about anything else.
Just last week my chiropractor made another arthritis flare up go away in a hurry.
This has been going on since the 90s after prescribed medication failed to do the trick..
Early in this decade old dino's knees began to ache.
I was told I needed some kind of shots in my knees.
Decided to take my knees to my chiropractor first. He determined my knees hurt because thigh muscles were tight and went to work on them.
BINGO! .I got better oh so fast.

I definitely feel like a mutant. I dont fit in pretty much anywhere, except perhaps here. All I need now is superpowers.

Anyone ever read "Gulf" by Robert Heinlein? Great story about "mutants"
Edit: clarity

I think, opposed to "feel" takes effort and time. Elevating one's consciousness in acquiring objective knowledge is not for the laze about or the person driven by emotion. Mutant? that's sci-fi BS and I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Mr. Hyman is a big fan. Thanks for the post, Zen. :)

Let's start with the word "alternative" as in Alternative Medicine. It means the difference between two or more incompatible things. Usually, the newer idea is considered the alternative. But is that bad? It's always good to be skeptical of something new, but the skepticism should not be so strong that it doesn't allow for innovation. Our history is filled with instances of new ideas and propositions that were held up because of a refusal to accept them even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Even the evidence was greeted skeptically.

In addition, humans have imagination. Imagination is supreme in the arts. But it can be a deterrent to science. We as a race love stories, and often, the more imaginative the story, the more we tend to accept them. That is one reason why the majority of Homo Sapiens loses the sapiens part when told a good story as an explanation of what our senses tell us. The bible and religions are cases in point.

If it's the Mutants who are the skeptics, they are also the imaginers. For they are the one who are willing to discard the usual for the new and prove the new to be better. The 20th century is filled with such examples, the greatest of which is probably the work of the patent clerk, Albert Einstein.

It has been determined that .01% of the American population has reached the second tier of conscious thought, behavior and world view. It is important that in order to reach this tier of consciousness one must realize the certain values of each of the preceding memes or levels. Do Objectivist fit into this category in some way...I think so and Yes, we will be seen as mutants, different and more evolved. See: Spiral Dynamics

In reference to modern day medicine - (allopathic medicine) has in fact, it's roots in a procedure translated as Quackery. Both allopathic medicine and quackery is the practice of treating symptoms of disease and not the cause, This practice started in earnest during the beginning of the "Progressive era".
Natural medicines, (not the voodoo stuff), always attempted and largely did, address the causes of disease and today use science to find out how and why certain treatments eradicate disease.

See this link about Quackery...if anything, it's interesting: http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/history...

My mother was forever telling me:
"...something thing is wrong with you!"
Perhaps that is because I am a mutant?
OK... WORKS FOR ME!

We can learn from our own mistakes, or learn from the mistakes of others.

I am convinced that each individual human being is a mutant.