About halfway down the spacious hallway between my brain hemispheres, you will see a large, wall-mounted dial. A plaque identifies it as the Critical Thinking Control. Its three settings are marked clearly: ON, OFF and CONVENIENT.  

Before I stumbled upon skepticism as an approach to claims, the dial’s position depended on a convergence of influences, such as my degree of personal investment in a particular claim, my loyalties, a lifelong buildup of prejudices and whims, what I had for lunch, what I “figgered,” blind spots, whose opinion reached me first and, least often, my own depth of knowledge.  

Now I try to keep the dial set to ON. I even searched among my homunculi, found an uncommonly bright one — Dave — and hired him fulltime to watch over the dial. Should it slip to OFF or CONVENIENT, Dave’s job is to wrestle it back to ON posthaste.  

It is easier said than done.  

The above-referenced influences — personal investment, loyalties, prejudices and the like — do not give up easily and never play fair. They know that Tyson — the homunculus who happens to be charged with overseeing my ego — is dim and easily seduced. They are adept at duping him into binding and gagging Dave while they have their way with the dial. As many times as Tyson has fallen for their wiles and later apologized to Dave, he remains their easy prey.  

The darned dial itself is of flawed design. There is no locking it to ON. Worse, jostling it in the slightest tends to reset it to OFF or CONVENIENT. Since it moves noiselessly, Dave, who is only humanoid, may not notice for weeks, months or longer.  

Dave thinks I know everything, which is kind of quaint, but between you and me, I don’t. This is driven home to me whenever one expert adds to, takes from or utterly torpedoes what I had earlier understood from another. The more I learn, the more I acknowledge that the database in my head is doomed to be ever incomplete, ever subject to revision.  

Nor does the nature of evidence itself always help. Sometimes an evidence trail makes unexpected turns. Parts of a trail may be obscured. A trail may lead only so far, making the destination a matter of an educated (or not) guess. One could hardly blame an underpaid homunculus for not always knowing where ON really is.  

Finally — dare I admit this? — sometimes I am guilty of asking Dave to look away WHILE I MOVE THE DIAL MYSELF. Just for a little while, mind you. Like, when I choose to believe that the bathroom scales and mirror are exaggerating, that I can win an argument by talking faster and louder, or that Angelina Jolie would find me fascinating.  

I once fancied that my newfound passion for critical thinking would render me immune to foible. But I have come to realize that we all have moments when the dial moves, with or without our knowledge. Sometimes, even, with our complicity.  

Yet the realization has an upside. It helps me rein in one of my other, more unruly homunculi. Perhaps you’ve met Brutus. He’s the impulsive one in charge of the red button on the facing wall, identified by a plaque that says Press Here to Slap Upside the Head Anyone Who Doesn’t Get It. Whenever Brutus waxes a bit full of himself, as he often does, I remind him that, at any given moment and despite best efforts, the ranks of Anyone Who Doesn’t Get It may include him. And me.  

 

Dave, Tyson and Brutus declined to be interviewed for this article. Steve Cuno is the founder of the RESPONSE Agency, the author of Prove It Before You Promote It, and has spoken at TAM. You can read his blogs by clicking here.