Social proof is susceptible to betrayal, while reasoning, because it relies on God — or mathematics and the laws of physics if you wish — never lies. Since history is pretty much a catalog of betrayal and obscurantism, it is rational to rely on reason. This conviction once lay at the heart of Western civilization and drove its progress but not any more. We’ve become superstitious savages with smartphones. We’ve forgotten why reason was adopted as the cornerstone of civilization to start with.