Learn about how atheists and believers have different moral compasses; how scientists will know if life ever existed on Mars; and how to persuade people to do what you want using the foot-in-the-door technique.
Learn about how atheists and believers have different moral compasses; how scientists will know if life ever existed on Mars; and how to persuade people to do what you want using the foot-in-the-door technique.
Atheists and believers both have moral compasses -- they're just different by Kelsey Donk
How will scientists know if life ever existed on Mars? by Cameron Duke
The Foot-in-the-Door Technique Can Persuade People to Do What You Want by Annie Hartman
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Find episode transcript: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/if-life-existed-on-mars-how-would-we-know
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about how atheists and believers have different moral compasses; how scientists will know if life ever existed on Mars; and how to persuade people to do what you want using the foot-in-the-door technique.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Morality is a big part of religion. That can sometimes lead people to believe that atheists don’t have a moral compass. But could that be true? Until now, no scientific study had looked into the differences in morality between atheists and theists. But now, new research suggests that atheists and believers both have moral compasses — their compasses are just a little different.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago conducted four surveys to get a sense of the gap between believers and non-believers. They surveyed 429 American atheists and believers about their moral values. Because believers hold a majority in the United States, they also expanded their survey to question more than four thousand believers and nonbelievers in the United States and Sweden, which has been called the least religious country in the Western world.
The biggest takeaway from the surveys, according to the main researcher, was that people who don’t believe in God do still have a moral compass. Atheists and believers align on lots of moral values. Things like protecting the vulnerable, valuing freedom over oppression, and believing in evidence are important to both atheists and theists. The groups have more in common than they think.
But there were some differences, too. For example, believers were more likely than atheists to have moral values that promote forming a cohesive group. Past research has suggested that a main function of religion is to create societies where people help each other and exist peacefully. Religions often promote social cohesion, so it makes sense that group cohesion would be important to religious peoples’ moral compasses.
Another difference: Atheists were more likely than believers to judge the morality of an action based on its consequences. So while a religious person might say that killing is always wrong, an atheist might be more likely to say killing Hitler is ok — as long as it leads to more good than bad consequences.
This uncovers some clues as to where the idea that atheists lack a moral compass came from. Atheists tend to value group cohesion less, so their actions might stick out in a majority-religious community. And since atheists judge morality on a case-by-case basis, it may be harder for religious people to understand their morality.
But atheists and believers do both have moral compasses. And they’re similar in a lot of ways.
Recently, NASA landed the most advanced rover yet on the surface of Mars. The Perseverance Rover will roam Jezero Crater looking for signs of life. And we’re not just talking about current life — it’s also searching for evidence of life that may have existed long ago. But what signs of life is it looking for? What do scientists need in order to know whether life existed on Mars?
Here’s the thing about Mars: the entire planet is pretty much a frigid desert with ice caps and a tiny population of robots. It doesn’t exactly seem like a likely oasis for life. That is, until you take a closer look.
Those ice caps are made of water, and there are scars of dry rivers etched across the surface of the planet. Evidence suggests that Mars could have been a pretty happenin’ place in its heyday. It could have potentially supported microbial life — life that wasn’t too different from the kind that existed back when Earth was still an oxygen-free rock with a big dream.
So, if Mars was home to microbial life billions of years ago, how would scientists know? What, exactly, are they looking for?
The bad news: microbes don’t leave fossils. But! They can leave behind mineral deposits called stromatolites. Stromatolites are the inorganic mineral excretions left behind by mats of photosynthetic bacteria. As time goes on, these stromatolites can be incorporated into rock a lot like fossils can.
In fact, the earliest evidence of life on Earth is not a fossil, but stromatolites in Australia that are about 3 and a half billion years old. Jezero crater used to be a body of water, and if photosynthetic bacteria ever lived in that water, buried stromatolites could have been left behind.
That’s why Perseverance has a drill that will take core samples from rocks and analyze those samples for microbial stromatolite signatures. Perseverance has an onboard device called Pixl for this very purpose.
If Perseverance finds evidence of life on Mars, it’s much more likely to be these mineral remains than actual microbial life. But of course, it’s not just going to ignore that slim chance: it’s searching for active life too. Either way, finding evidence of life would be a groundbreaking discovery that will force us to rethink our place in the universe.
Have you ever been talked into doing more than you initially agreed to? Maybe a car dealership gave you one price, but you ended up paying more? You may have been a victim of the foot-in-the-door technique. The good news is, once you understand it, you can use it to your own advantage.
The foot-in-the-door technique is a way to persuade people to agree to big demands by starting with small requests. It’s the same idea as the old adage “if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.” The idea is once they’ve committed to the smaller request, they will be more likely to agree to the larger one.
The term was coined back in the heyday of the door-to-door salesman. They used this tactic to literally get their foot in the door instead of getting it slammed in their face, which helped them stay long enough to make a sale.
One of the earliest studies on this strategy was published in 1966, when researchers called women at home and asked if they would answer a few questions about the kinds of soaps they used. Later, they called up these same women, plus others who hadn't been contacted previously, and asked if they would mind letting five to six men into their homes to identify the various household items they used. Those who had answered the questions were significantly more likely to say yes to the larger request than those who were being contacted for the first time.
Of course, this technique isn't just used to convince you to do things you shouldn't. Charities use it to raise money too.
Why does this work? There may be a few reasons, but one is that we tend to make up reasons for our actions after the fact. So maybe you said yes to that first ask because it felt awkward to say no, but your brain later decides it’s because you’re a generous person who gives people a chance. So the next time they ask, you’re more likely to say yes to maintain your generous image.
Now that you know this technique, you can use it in your own life! (Only for good, please.) Maybe persuade your family to help you clean the house by starting with just one room. And next time someone gets their foot-in-the-door with you, you’ll know what they’re doing — and you’ll be better equipped to know whether to let them take another step.
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk, Cameron Duke, and Annie Hartman, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes. …[EVIL TONE, CACKLING] and now that I’ve got you on the hook, I will make tomorrow’s episode SEVEN HOURS LONG!!! MORE LIKE THE FOOT IN THE EAR TECHNIQUE, AM I RIGHT?? MWA HAHAHAHAHAHA.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!