When Your Best Friend Becomes Convinced She Has Reptilian DNA

I haven’t yet listened to the podcast, but I have a thought or two about it anyway. I really have to wonder about how closely attached to what the rest of us might call reality is someone who thinks that she is in possession of reptilian DNA. It’s far beyond mere ignorance. In fact, I think it’s far beyond stupidity, and that is saying something, especially if this person is functional.

I have written about this before. I don’t think the explanation is psychological, though she might simply be crazy. I think the answer is more sociological, and the answer is tribalism. My tribe is good, your tribe is not. My tribe is special, your tribe is not. Whatever I do or say or think is important, because my tribe it is important. This kind of thinking is reinforced within the tribe, and the tribe is all that is important to the individual who is so alienated from the rest of society that tribal thinking substitutes for engagement with fact, logic, and experience.

I had an interesting conversation the other day with an antivaxxer. It was a very typical conversation with an anti-VAX, so I won’t go into all of the details, but it was very clear – and I told her so — that her decision was political and tribal, not medical and scientific. I pointed out that there was science and 250 years of sound public health policy behind the vaccines for Covid. I also had a conversation with a very relentlessly anti-trans gentleman. He basically told me he didn’t care what the experts on the subject said. All that mattered to him was what he thought about it, and I was clearly deluded if I believed anything different than what he believed. I am sure that many of the people who watch moms podcasts have had very similar conversations with highly religious people.

facts, logic, and experience are not going to penetrate into that mindset…

any more than facts, logic, and experience are going to penetrate into the mind of someone who believes that she has reptilian DNA.