The Winding Path

A paper by Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg on the topic of Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science appeared in the May 18th issue of Science, and then on Edge, and has since been discussed all over the blogodrome (no, not the Iraqi one). The article itself, and the discussions, are some of the most interesting stuff I’ve read recently so I must contribute despite being late into the fray, and having no-where near the authority of most of the bloggers I’ve read. Coturnix has a good summary and discussion, and provides links to plenty of supporting information and discussions.

This article and all the discussion surrounding it truly highlight the difficulty I have in understanding those who don’t accept science, or at least prefer the spiritual side of life. The early development of an intuition which favours concepts based on authoritative teachings or purely perceptual experience, as opposed to those based on empirical evidence, sounds like an entirely reasonable explanation for the formation of beliefs which agree with that intuition. A lifelong, unchallenged sense of intuition would be extremely difficult to ignore, let alone deny.

As Coturix pointed out, many people have “great difficulty grasping more complex areas of science which depend on two counterintuitive ideas: a) uncertainty and b) emergent properties of complex systems.” It’s the uncertainty of science which fazes people; they believe science attempts to prove beyond doubt the nature of the universe. In finding that scientific explanations are constantly changing (or has Julian put it, “The universe works like this….. no… this… no… hang on, like this! no…. wait… like this!”) they lose trust in all of science.

Science and politics

This misunderstanding of the nature of science, combined with highly publicised, yet where pure science is concerned, completely irrelevant political maneuvering, results in opinions like Uplift’s:

“if science admitted ‘we just don’t know’, and admitted that their guess was no more sophisticated or valid than those that they overule, then I would have more time for them. I have formally studied the scientific process, and it isn’t as straight forward as you suggest. Science is dictated to by funding and the peer power struggle. I like to refer to piltdown man as an example of science, not really because it was a hoax, and completely wrong, (because as the last post by palimpsest described, virtually all scientific theories collapse in the end), but because it blatently exposed the corruption and power plays that control the world of science, which are the ultimate decider of the myriad of ‘proofs’ submitted.”

Science itself is as straightforward as I suggest. That some scientists (even if that means most) are subject, and sometimes cave into, political pressuring, that has no impact on science itself, just their practice of science.

That’s not to say that politics can be ignored. It’s simply inappropriate to consider science as a whole to be flawed because of the influence of politics. Politics are of great importance, as the debate regarding framing shows.

Evolution of uncertainty

I think that many people don’t realise that uncertainty reflects an evolution of understanding, the same evolution of understanding which occurs in non-secular circles. Take Christianity for example, and the canonisation of the Old and New Testament. Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament first appeared in their current form. That seems common sense when made so obvious, but I think it’s something some take for granted, that the Bible was provided by God through a number of authors, collated at some time in the past, and existed as such ever since.

Science is generally communicated as certain, though scientists understand it to be uncertain. Spirituality is felt as certain, though understood as ultimately unknowable. Disagreements arise when these aspects of uncertainty are misunderstood, or when one side or the other makes claims of their side’s infallibility.

Emergent properties of complex systems

As for an inability to grasp the concept of emergent properties of complex systems, this is why some people don’t believe consciousness is simply an emergent property of our wonderfully complex brains. Consciousness is given high regard because it seems something unique to humans, and of fundamental importance to our existence. When taught that there is more to being human than just having a human body, that there is also a spirit, it becomes reasonable to associate that spirit with consciousness, and to therefore believe in the duality of mind and brain.

While science hasn’t yet demonstrated conclusively that consciousness resides in the brain, it has demonstrated other emergent properties of complex systems.

Phatic communication

Coturnix mentions phatic communion as a use of language to establish social hierarchy. Perhaps I haven’t read enough on the topic but I’m unable to find any mention of phatic language as a way of establishing social hierarchy. Connection, yes, also willingness to communicate, and the mood of that communication, but not to establish any hierarchy of those involved in the communication. It seems true phatic communication is similar to small-talk.

None-the-less Coturnix’s point about use of language is important. People will see the use of certain styles of language as a way of establishing status, authority, and intent, even if the writer’s intent was purely to convey information. So another issue which must be taken into account when considering one’s audience is the implications of one’s use of language on social status.

Evolution of understanding

This is what Coturnix discusses in Phase 1 of his suggestions for what to do next. He suggests the use of language for establishing authority through complete certainty, despite the intrinsically doubting nature of science. This reminds me of something I read in the Science of Discworld books (The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, I think. I don’t have my copy of the book with me). That as we grow and learn we’re taught progressively clear truths. What we’re taught in primary school isn’t really wrong, but it’s far from the whole truth and has lots of caveats which aren’t explained during the initial learning period.

It was the same when I learned Japanese. I’d taught myself a little before taking the classes so I noticed that when the teacher taught the class something, how to conjugate certain verbs for example, she said that specific groups of verbs always change their suffixes in the same way. I knew that there were some exceptions, but she said nothing about those. At least until the next unit. This happened a few times prompting me to finally bring it up in class. Our teacher jokingly told us that at the start we were too dumb to understand everything at once, but as we got smarter she filled in the gaps. But those gaps did undermine our belief in the truth of her statements. After the first few corrections the class learnt that when she said something like, “A always becomes B,” she actually meant, “A becomes B except when it becomes C, or D, and if Z is involved, it becomes E,” and we knew to ask about C, D, E and Z. We became progressively less certain even as we were learning more and more. Would that have been any different if we knew from the start that we were never being told the whole truth?

Fear of doubt

But I agree with others who have said this is how we currently teach, and it doesn’t seem to be effective. Does this mean Coturnix’s suggestion is invalid, or does it simply mean we can focus more on the next phase? I currently lean towards the suggestion that people do need to be made more aware, from an early age, that the true nature of the universe is uncertain, that science does not conclusively prove anything, but that that in no way detracts from quality of life.

It seems to me that lack of certainty forces us to ask questions, so why is it suggested that certainty is necessary at early stages of development and learning, and at what stage is is ok to acustom people to uncertainty? Bloom and Weisberg’s paper states that children “prefer to learn from a knowledgeable speaker than from an ignorant one (29, 33), and they prefer a confident source to a tentative one (34).” This does not mean that they need certainty, just prefer it. Can’t we give them certainty at the same time as giving them as clear a picture as we are able, and as they are able to understand? What happens if we confidently show them how lack of certainty doesn’t hurt?

As for the rest of us adults, can’t we deal with uncertainty? What is it about doubt that people fear? Why is doubt seen as oh so terrible? What about we humans causes us to chase after certainty, and to embrace it without question? It is the security it provides? Does that mean we’re fundamentally insecure, and require external certainty to counteract our internal uncertainty? What about insecure skeptics? What is it about some people that causes them to both embrace uncertainty and fear it at the same time?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 11:35 am and is filed under Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.