Originally Posted by
Tiglath
I don't expect the pro-death faction to don a helmet any time soon no matter what anyone in the pro-life group writes. Conversely, we are are not quitting helmets even if you threaten to continue to write bad comedy.
Actually, a lot of people on both sides of this discussion have more or less changed their opinion, so I'm not sure who the "we" is you do the talking for. Anyway, inability to change one's view might not be the sign of intelligence you seem to think it is.
Many people who hold mistaken and bewilderingly silly beliefs can at least claim some utilitarian effect. The difference between the rabbit who flees because mistakenly believes that the wind shaking the tall grass is a fox nearby, and the rabbit who refuses to budge until better data is available is that the analytical rabbit leaves fewer offspring. People who believe that the world is only six thousand years old and other bold claims from preachers and priests, draw at least the soothing benefits of ardent believers.
A witty reference to natural selection. How original. Of course a less flawed parable would be about wabbits who do or don't use little bicycle helmets to mitigate attacks of predators. A lot of the bare headed are very much into bicycle safety, i.e. take little risk when assessing danger i.e. are more comparable to the nervous little wabbit.
But it's hard to fathom out the utilitarian effect of believing that cycling is a low risk activity that does not warrant wearing head protection.
It's hard to believe for people who don't use statistics, because they have decided statistics are vastly inferior to their own experience with cycling. That does of course say more about one's competence and recklessness, than about cycling You can discuss the subjective qualities of safety, but it's rather clear that cycling is typically about as safe as a lot of activities that also don't warrant the use of a helmet.
For a moment, it looks that there is some utility in using the pro-death faction as a bad example. Unfortunately, that may lead some folks with poor habits of thought to take it as an example to follow, so in the end it's a belief with no benefit at all anyway you look at it.
The most successful cycling cultures come without helmets, in fact in most societies cycling helmets aren't the norm. The mass graves full of dead cyclists and the nursing homes full of brain-damaged cyclists one would expect to find there based on your hysteric assessment of the risk of helmet-less cycling, are missing. Helmets are a quirk associated mostly with English speaking societies which all seem to come with piss-poor to failed cycling cultures. There's no reason to believe bicycle helmets are of any importance to bicycle safety, and shouldn't be viewed as anything else than an additional thing you can do. That's not a belief, but a fact.