In the spirit of Carl Sagan's classic, The Demon-Haunted World and Sam Harris' bestseller, The End of Faith, R.L. Bays examines the perplexing root cause behind many of humanity's worst ideas. From global warming denial and the anti-vaccine movement to faith-healing and creationism, Bays explores the hypothesis that these ideas only persist because of either the inability or unwillingness of otherwise rational adults to examine and critique their own deeply held beliefs through the reason-based lens of critical thinking. In this debut work, Bays dismantles many of the logical fallacies which underpin people's irrational beliefs, and he weakens the core support structures that allow these notions to take root in the first place.