Truth-Default Theory

We are equipped with a powerful desire to believe what people tell us. You can’t be a human being and abandon this impulse, because without that impulse, you cannot communicate with anyone. First, we believe. Only after that first moment can we doubt, analyze and verify.

The study of our desire to first believe what we hear is called, “Truth-Default Theory.”

This theory posits that people tend to have a default assumption that others are telling the truth, particularly in the absence of reasons to doubt their veracity. In other words, people are generally wired to initially believe rather than to disbelieve.

There are specific times and places, such as when engaging in scientific research or trusting a person to invest our money, that are about disabling that impulse to believe. A scientist hears a claim, then thinks, “Let’s wait and see if the experiment always works.” We feel excited by a hot stock tip, then pull back on the horse reigns. “Let’s take the time and effort for financial due diligence.” (Continued below video)

Training Our Biases

The only way to be properly skeptical in the world is to be trained to be properly skeptical in the world. It doesn’t come to us naturally until we engrain and integrate new habits into our nature.

In this video, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell uses stories of deceit and fatal errors to cast doubt on our strategies for dealing with the unknown.

• Why do we so often get other people wrong?
• Why is it so hard to detect a lie, read a face or judge a stranger’s motives?
• And how can we make it through the next stage of human history?

Malcolm Gladwell takes us on a tour of the darker side of believing what people tell us, where strangers are never simple and misreading them can have disastrous consequences. He shows how this is especially true in the midst of a serious events such as:

• a pandemic
• political turmoil
• economic uncertainty.

The skills to get at the truth, particularly in day-to-day life, need to be learned, nurtured and grown. You can’t catch the truth and put it in your pocket, just as you can’t catch the light and save it in your pocket. But you can approach the light, just as plants do naturally. And we can get closer, ever closer to truth. It is why this site is called “Truth Grows.”

Discussion Questions

1. Is it OK to deceive or even lie to protect other people’s feelings? What are other positive reasons people give themselves for not telling the truth?
2. Is evasion deception? What does evasion have to do with our desire to believe our first impression?
3. How is being truth biased helpful? How hard does our truth bias make it to spot it when someone isn’t telling it to us straight? Why?

Torah

Jews are known as “The People of the Book” because historically, Jews learn Torah. In particular, the most “Jewish” Jews spend their days and nights learning Talmud. It may be the only thing that can be said to be uniquely Jewish. Talmud’s arguments, debates, personalities, stories, analogies, verifications, analytics and insights into getting at the truth are like no other body of work in the world. It is the Jewish training ground for drilling down to the truth, getting closer to the truth and growing upwards toward truth.

The culture Talmud creates, even among those who don’t invest in it, may be a core reason why Jews are notoriously good at the sciences, with 1200% the average rate of Nobel Prizes. Science is where the pursuit of truth is the key.

Learning Talmud is a great way to train oneself to compensate for our Truth-Default Bias.

One small example of applying Talmud to train oneself to overcome the instinct to believe can be found in the Talmud’s Bava Batra 136a:

§ The Gemara relates: Rabba bar Avuh was sick, and Rav Huna and Rav Naḥman entered to visit him. Rav Huna said to Rav Naḥman: Ask him whether the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yosei or the halakha is not in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yosei. Rav Naḥman said to Rav Huna: I do not know Rabbi Yosei’s reasoning; can I ask him about the halakha? Rav Huna said to Rav Naḥman: You ask him if the halakha is in accordance with his opinion or not, and I will tell you his reasoning afterward.

בְּעָא מִינֵּיהּ. אֲמַר לֵיהּ, הָכִי אָמַר רַב: הֲלָכָה כְּרַבִּי יוֹסֵי. בָּתַר דִּנְפַקוּ, אֲמַר לֵיהּ: הַיְינוּ טַעְמֵיהּ דְּרַבִּי יוֹסֵי, דְּאָמַר
…

Rav Naḥman asked Rabba bar Avuh. Rabba bar Avuh said to him that this is what Rav says: The halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yosei. After they left, Rav Huna said to Rav Naḥman that this is Rabbi Yosei’s reasoning…

There are a number of ways to understand this section. One is to ask, why does Rav Nahman need to know Rav Yosie’s reasoning, before posing his question to Rav Yosie? I have heard a number of answers. One is that we should learn that, in complex questions, we need to know a bit about the reasoning, or perspective, of the person we are asking.

For example, I once asked a Rabbi if it was wise to move to Israel. He spent a long time describing the potentially overwhelming complexities involved. While true, it made my head spin and it wasn’t till 15 years later that I moved. My brother-in-law, on the other hand, posed the same question to his Rabbi, whose reasoning created the following response: “Do you see any homeless people here? Have you met anyone without a job or a place to live? Have you met many people who don’t own their own car?” Yes, it may be complex, but the latter’s reasoning resulted in the opposite answer. I wish I had trained with Rav Nahman. I wish I had asked for the reasoning behind the Rabbi before popping my question.