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Consider the analogy of a swimming pool with a cleaning brush on a long pole, half in and half out of the water—the pole appears impossibly bent; but we recognize the illusion and do not confuse the straight pole for a bent one. Bacon brilliantly employs something like this analogy in his conclusion about the effects of the idols on how we know what we know about the world: “For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced.” In the end, thought Bacon, science offers the best hope to deliver the mind from such superstition and imposture. I concur, although the obstacles are greater than even Bacon realized.

For example, do you see a young woman or an old woman in figure I.2?

This is an intentionally ambiguous figure where both are equal in perceptual strength. Indeed, roughly half see the young woman upon first observation, and half see the old woman. For most, the young and old woman image switches back and forth. In experiments in which subjects are first shown a stronger image of the old woman, when shown this ambiguous figure almost all see the old woman first. Subjects who are initially exposed to a stronger image of the young woman, when shown this ambiguous figure almost all see the young woman first. The metaphoric extrapolation to both science and life is clear: we see what we are programmed to see—Bacon’s idol of the theater.

Idols of the tribe are the most insidious because we all succumb to them, thus making them harder to spot, especially in ourselves. For example, count the number of black dots in figure I.3.

The answer, as you will frustratingly realize within a few seconds, is that it depends on what constitutes a “dot.” In the figure itself there are no black dots. There are only white dots on a highly contrasting background that creates an eye-brain illusion of blinking black-and-white dots. Thus, in the brain, one could make the case that there are 35 black dots that exist as long as you don’t look at any one of them directly. In any case, this illusion is a product of how our eyes and brains are wired. It is in our nature, part of the tribe, a product of rods and cones and neurons only. And it doesn’t matter if you have an explanation for the illusion or not; it is too powerful to override.

Figure I.2

Figure I.3

Figures 1.4 and 1.5. The 3-D impossible crate

Figure I.4, the “impossible crate,” is another impossible figure. Can you see why?

All of our experiences have programmed our brains to know that a straight beam of wood in the back of the crate cannot also cross another beam in the front of the crate. Although we know that this is impossible in the real world, and that it is simply an illusion created by a mischievous psychologist, we are disturbed by it nonetheless because it jars our perceptual intuitions about how the world is supposed to work. We also know that this is a two-dimensional figure on a piece of paper, so our sensibilities about the three-dimensional world are preserved. How, then, do you explain figure I.5, a three-dimensional impossible crate?

This is a real crate with a real man standing inside of it. I know because the man is a friend of mine—the brilliant magician and illusionist Jerry Andrus—and I’ve seen the 3-D impossible crate myself. Like other professional magicians and illusionists, Jerry makes his living creating interesting and unusual ways to fool us. He depends on the idols of the tribe operating the same way every time. And they do. Magicians do not normally reveal their secrets, but Jerry has posted this one on the Internet and shown it to countless audiences, so as a lesson in willy-nilly knowing, figure I.6 provides the solution to the 3-D impossible crate.

Buried deep in our tribal instincts are idols of recognizable importance to our personal and cultural lives. As an example of the former,