Thom / Susan
Thom in the Yard
Susan (l) & Thom with a friend, 1973
Thom with daughter Anjali and wife Diana, 2020
Susan, 2020
Right before graduation, Thom Krystofiak asked a friend what he thought was the most important thing he learned in four years at Harvard. The answer: “It is better to be fooled many times than to be a skeptical man.” That exchange intrigued Thom for decades as he wrestled with the idea that he might be fooled by the nature of reality.
Having moved to Fairfield, Iowa in the ‘70s because he was “out to save the world” by joining a community of fellow Transcendental Meditation practitioners, Thom believed in the possibility that he might be able to fly by way of levitation. When that didn’t pan out, he felt like an “outlier” in his own community and came to view himself as a skeptical man.
On a personal quest to explore the nature of belief and doubt, Thom wound up writing and publishing a book, Tempted To Believe: The Seductive Power of Claims About "The Truth". In it, he explores one of the biggest dangers of our times — how conspiracy theories, the anti-vaccination movement, threats to our democracy and climate denial have gained a foothold through belief systems that have little basis in reality.