Sep 23, 2010

Paying a Friend What I Owe

When I started this blog up three days ago, I originally gave it the title "Ask a Philosopher. . .  or don't," playing off the fact that typically we philosophers aren't asked for, but give our views and observations anyway (generally for free -- we're far too generous -- a tradition going back to Socrates).

Then, I opted to shorten it, and when I posted a link to the first entry on Facebook, my old college friend Dan Callahan (a perfect moniker for a political career if I've ever heard one!), dropped a little conundrum in my lap:

suppose a 16 year old male decides that the theory of evolution is indeed factually true not because of a biology class or independent reading of scientific literature but because every sci-fi movie and TV show he has seen throughout his life has claimed it to be true. Does he "believe" in evolution or not? In either case, what consequences does this have on the current cultural clash?

Because I'm a practiced philosopher, I avoided the big-implication issue he explicitly asked me about, and focused in on what I could address fairly easily.

sure he believes in "it" -- no problem there about belief-- but probably what he believes in is not the "theory of evolution" (or a theory -- given that there's historically more than one!), but a sort of vague, ill-defined notion that evolution takes place, that it is "scientific" in some sense, that evolution explains some phenomena (which he'll call "things"), etc.

Dan was not so easily satisfied.

How can they believe in "it" when they don't know what "it" is?

Now, that there is a genuine grade-A philosophical problem.  To answer it fully requires more time and space than Facebook makes available, and honestly more than I intend to devote to it here. There's three things I do intend to say about it, though, and I responded with one of them

Because they have a vague belief, with an ill-defined object. Perfectly possible to believe all sorts of things in such a manner. One reason why belief is not the same as knowledge

And this is quite true. We often have and express beliefs about imaginary things or about real things that turn out to be quiet different than we picture them.  We don't always have a definite, clear and comprehensive mental grasp of what it is that we adopt this doxastic attitude towards, and which we express in our language. And thank God, because we need vagueness in some things and contexts.

I should point out here that at this point Dan and I have both made an imperceptible shift away from inquiring about "believing in. . . " to "believing that. . ."  It may well be that belief in. . .  can be appropriately vague, while the associated beliefs that. . . ought to be clear.  And this sort of popular-fictional-based belief which is purportedly in the theory of evolution might well fit in that category.  Dan thinks not, and he makes a key point:

Sorry, I still think it's a more interesting problem than that. If I believe in 'A' in the context that "to believe is to understand" (as is the case with science) but don't understand 'A', then the situation becomes interesting, IMHO.

To believe in the theory of evolution -- putting aside all of the problems of clarification that talking about "the theory" threatens to raise as soon as you start delving into the history of science -- does mean believing that some set of propositions (or claims, or statements, however you like to put it) are true -- a very large set if you want to understand the theory in its application, a smaller set if you're content with speaking in general.

And notice -- believing in the propositions that are supposed to constitute the theory of evolution is not the same as believing the propositions that are supplied as "proof" or "demonstration" of the theory.  Generally, if you believe one set, you'll believe the other, of course.  But logically they are not the same.

Can one claim to believe in "science" (itself a terribly vague term, as any practicing scientist who is at all reflective will tell you!), or in a theory without actually having some solid understanding of what one is believing in? Well. . .  yes, but then one is believing in a manner that goes directly against the spirit and intention that lies behind and animates science.  That is to believe in science in a very unscientific, unenlightened, irrational, uncritical way.  (and in many of the blogs and conversations dealing with evolution, that's precisely what one sees!)

So, the second thing I have to say about this:  Dan's 16 year old believes in an ideological construct (in the classic Marxist sense -- I'm no marxist, but I do think he got some things right), one which might well turn out at points to coincide with something resembling what a consensus of scientists mean when they refer to the theory of evolution, what it is that they pass on not only through teaching but through demonstration (via argument, not direct observation, of course, given the nature of the theory) to the new generation of scientists in formation.

Dan's 16 year old believes that "evolution is real," or some other analogous proposition.  Although other people may (and in my book, do) have good grounds for believing something along the lines of the propositions the theory of evolution sets out, Dan's 16 year old clearly does not. From a Critical Thinking perspective, he is as careless and sloppy as anyone else believing in something largely because of references to it in culturally-manufactured and -dependent entertainment commodities.  He has about as much warrant for his belief in evolution as he would if he believed that Fred Flintstone has a bad temper among other vices and that Wilma ought to send him to anger management classes. 

The picture does not get much better, actually, if he has had a high school class dealing with evolution.  Not from an epistemological perspective.  Unless it's a top-notch class, taught by an unusually competent and committed teacher, our 16 year old will again have only tangential contact with the theory.  He'll watch some documentaries, read a textbook, write a paper for which he copies internet resources, and promptly forget almost all he has learned by the time he is in my college class!  Most likely, the only real basis for his acceptance of the ill-defined shadows of the thing in his head he calls the theory will be Argument from Authority -- the teacher says so, the textbook says so, the scientists say so.

So, what is our 16 year old?  An ideologue, pure and simple.

I'll throw out the third remark without explanation, which can be the matter for a later post, or dealt with in comments.

 "Believe" is not a univocal term, or as the analytics who for the moment rule the Philosophy roost might say, "the grammar of 'believe' is not as straightforward and clear as we originally thought it was"

4 comments:

  1. Thank you, not only for the time you took to respond, but also for some wonderful writing (especially the Flintstones analogy).

    To be specific about one interesting aspect of the cultural clash that we see on this issue: we have the 16 year old who believes in evolution via an Argument to Authority who then engages in an online "debate" with someone who is pro-ID, a creationist, or just someone who thinks that "Darwinism" is full of holes. (I put the word debate in quotes to describe what goes on at, say, Amazon.com, when the topic is raised by groups who want to throw names at each other. Darwinism is in quotes as the label is ambiguous enough that one is usually unsure of its definition in most online conversations.)

    Why I find this interesting: those not on the side of evolution have had to do at least some homework to get an understanding of their position. They knew they have to play defense on nearly every level in the debate, and usually either do so or keep their mouths shut.

    Thus, when the flamefest begins, we have our 16 year old whose argument boils down to: "I saw it on TV, and I'm NOT WRONG!", while his opponents cite books, DVD's, websites on historical anomalies, etc. Having been burned, our 16 year old may go off and read Dawkins and retort with that, but assimilating Dawkins' arguments would simply be a continuation of the Argument to Authority.

    So, in certain, limited instances, we have the side with science on their side acting like barbarians, while its opposite can appear, at least from a certain perspective, to be more educated.

    [Obvious caveat at this juncture: if you read the above and find that I have made hasty or sweeping generalizations about either side of this culture clash, then you've misread it. I am stating what I find "interesting", not universal, good or even relevant to anyone else's experience. (Greg, I know you wouldn't think that -- it's the rest of the Internet I worry about!)]

    One slight critique of the pro-evolution side (which certainly does not apply to everyone who believes Darwin's Big Idea was essentially correct): if it turned out that DNA evidence (or something equally as irrefutable) determined that Darwin was absolutely dead wrong, I personally would go to bed dry-eyed. I have a feeling that there are some so attached to this theory that it has become a de facto religion to them. Not a good way to practice science.

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  2. Yes, I'd agree with you that quite a few of those "not on the side of evolution have had to do at least some homework to get an understanding of their position" -- though admittedly, there are a lot of people out there content to recyle anti-evolution tropes.

    I'll be shorter here than your comment(ary) deserves, but try to make up for the brevity with sweeping assertions, good seasoned logs to keep conversational campfires burning.

    The reason we have culture wars is not, as the left-leaning side often represents it to itself, because there is side composed of calm, rational, careful, critically thinking people which is opposed by mobs of irrational, sloganeering, opponent-demonizing yahoos. if there ever was any truth to that, it eroded away years back. Yes, there are many, way too many people who believe (in some sense of the term)in evolution in a manner just as fideistic and as detached from evidence-providing and -understanding as any totally fideistic religious person.

    And, they do ultimately base their belief on a dimly conceived notion of scientific authority (treated as a superstituous fetish), or on "everyone knows" appeals (everyone being, e.g Syfy writers!)

    Worse, they also demonize their opponents, replicating precisely the sort of benighted, ill-tempered arrogance they often accuse religious people of, assuming that it must be there in anyone who practices (or often even is seeking out) a faith. It is for this reason that I think the term "barbarians" is appropriate to them -- as well as, I add, for their religious counterparts.

    To pretend that one is a citizen of an enlightened world of free and open thought, that one engages in genuine dialogue, that one respects the requirements of the marketplace of ideas, and then behaves in a manner which indicates that this is just ideology -- that is a terrible form of barbarism.

    Chesterton brilliantly dissects two types of moral failure in his essay Russian or Prussian Barbarism? What we're talking about here is closely akin to the second type.

    Now, I hasten to add that myself, I beleive in evolution in the fairly weak sense of both terms; that is, I accept (as does in fact my church and most of our theologians and pastors) that something like natural selection likely does take place, and would account for an awful lot of observable biological phenomena. Anything that goes beyond that, and extends the
    "theory" by intoducing shakey, oversimplifying metaphysical or moral assumptions -- for instance, that ethics or emotions can be explained solely by reference to the workings of evolution, I reject as both bad philosophy and bad science.

    What staves off barbarism is men and women of good faith, often on opposite sides but committed to retaining, defending, and when possible (often not!) advancing gains of civilization (e.g. scientific discourse that remains scientific and justifies itself scientifically, not via ideology) -- civilization being something that does to some degree reside in how we engage our interlocutors, how we enter into, trade within, and maintain the workings of the marketplace of ideas.

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  3. We are thinking along the same lines (although to your eloquent response, I can only offer a Slim Pickens-esque "Ditto!").

    Framing the topic as one aspect of Barbarism works wonderfully. It made me ask what makes a Barbarian -- a type of person that most believe we have banished from our 21st century world (credit card commercials aside).

    Getting comic images out of the way, it's clear that not only do Barbarians thrive in this world, but also the problem of their existence is an intractable part of human nature (and in this, I know that I am preaching to the choir). One trait that makes a modern Barbarian (at least in my opinion) is the predilection for self-definition: that is to say, someone who claims to have property 'A' merely because they define themselves to have 'A' independently of all external tests or measures.

    An obvious example drawn from our principle discussion includes the evolutionist who simply defines his/her position to be "right", and therefore anyone who disagrees must be "wrong". But this example doesn't differ greatly from the creationist who defines the Bible to be the sole book on planet Earth from which one may derive knowledge (although certain, "proper" books about the Bible may be read, as they allow us to perceive what the Bible has to say in context, etc. etc.).

    In either case (and in many similar cases), acting as barbarous as one's Barbarian opponent in the cause of stamping out barbarity is a contradiction that cannot be ignored indefinitely. The only way out, apart from admitting the error, leads to further self-definition... namely, to "I am what I am not."

    I suspect that blatant contradictions in one's intellectual edifice have a similar effect on one's self as a government's interference with its own currency has on its economy: chaos -- not necessarily the flashy kind found in disaster movies, but dynamical chaos, where one's mathematical model loses its predictive power and can only describe probabilities. This is fine, even lovely, when considering how smoke rises from a campfire, but deadly when considering which way the flames of a house fire will turn next.

    Contradictions are ugly, untenable. They cannot last by their own nature. But by refusing to reject them outright (either from the fear that by doing so one must also give up a cherished belief or for another more selfish reason), the path to something better cannot be seen to lie in straight lines or smooth, differentiable curves; the path seems jagged, broken. So "I am what I am not" dies its quick death and is replaced with something that removes all contradictions by locating the source of all truth in one's self; that is to say, "I am what I am". Obvious echoes to Popeye aside, this is a sinister phrase for a human being to utter. In the Western tradition, weak and watered-down as it is in our educational system, it still means "Hello, my name is God".

    (continued)

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  4. This line of thinking, taken to its logical extreme, can only terminate in the oft-quoted, über-clichéd phrase: "You will bow down before me!"

    That's another comic image based on an idea that has been purged from our 21st century world... except in North Korea. But to find an example before that, we need not dip as far back into history to Nebuchadnezzar's golden idol, or to the Caesers, or even the medieval Papacy. We had it in Mao's China, Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy. Some even claim to have seen it in the hero worship of Barack Obama, c. 2008 (which I hasten to add that Obama did not instigate).

    There have been a number of articles and books written recently about the rising levels of narcissism in our society. What if the problem is not too much self-regard but instead a line of thinking whose only substantive content is to repeat the phrase "I am"?

    Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I must cut this short here. I end with the usual caveats that if you are an Internet reader whose favorite exercise is jumping to conclusions, this ain't the gym you're looking for. Finally, the good news is that the Barbarians have always outnumbered the rest of us, and the rest of us are just Barbarians in rehab.

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