the scientific method

I often wonder if people really are rational or if they just go through the motions of rationality because they haven't encountered something new and unique which challenges their view of the world. Scientists have shown they can fairly easily get anyone to believe completely irrational things.

The real issue is that very few people truly embrace rationalism. They may believe in things like the scientific method abstractly, they may be skeptical about the existence of UFOs and ghosts and all of that, but they aren't skeptical about their religious beliefs. They've never completely applied rational thinking to themselves. So they get left with this huge part of their mind that is still willing to accept "miracles". When scientists subject them to experiments designed to trick them into believing something wholly irrational is going on, such as that their thoughts have influence on the game playing ability of a second person, they fail to examine the experience in any rational way. They aren't truly a rational person, they are a religious person and so there is always that part of them willing to believe in magic. Provide them with "evidence" and rather than examine that evidence and consider it in a rational way, they instead slot it into their existing system of magical thinking.