3 steps to conquer false beliefs

Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician who worked in the General Hospital in Vienna in the mid-19th century.

In the hospital were two maternity wards but one of them had significantly higher death rates than the other. There was no clear explanation for why that was the case.

Semmelweis realized that in the first maternity ward doctors were regularly performing autopsies. He speculated that women could be infected by doctors carrying over “particles” from these autopsies. The solution? Doctors should wash their hands. The result: Maternal mortality rates dropped to 1%.

But Semmelweis’ claims were met with ridicule in the scientific community. His ideas were unthinkable. A prominent American obstetrician said that “doctors are gentlemen, and gentlemen’s hands are clean.” Only through the work by other scientists after his death his ideas became what is now common knowledge.

What can we learn from this story? We are all prone this effect of rejecting arguments when they contradict our own beliefs. But we can get better at identifying and managing this "Semmelweis reflex". How?

1. Assessing beliefs. Whenever we come into situation where we feel like “this is complete bullshit here” we should get curious and ask ourselves: Why am I angry? Does this go against a belief I hold and if yes, what is it?

2. Getting curious. Once we have identified a belief, we can engage with the arguments for and against. What else had to be true to change or keep my view?

3. Accepting/Rejecting. After having engaged with the claims, we can make a call: Do we need more information or are we sure this is either false or wrong?