Facts! Again?


     Some time back, I wrote a column about confirmation and disconfirmation bias; the process of believing the facts that we like and disbelieving the facts that we dislike.  This column is about another interesting aspect on facts.  It’s about the nature of knowledge:  That is, the knowledge that we depend on to declare something a fact.  In formal philosophy this is called epistemology.  It addresses the questions: What is valid knowledge? How is knowledge acquired? How do we know what we know? 
     Since Sir Francis Bacon and the advent of the scientific method, some have learned to value so-called objective knowledge above all other forms.  For instance, is the moon made of green cheese or is it mostly minerals?  If I were to say that its green cheese, I’d get laughed out of this paper.        So I say that it is a fact that the moon is made of minerals.  That seems obvious enough.  But how do I know what I know in order to claim this statement as a valid fact.  Science tells me, thank you very much.  Science is a consistent system of logic that depends on empirical evidence.  It is made up of laws.  Certain of those laws, like spectral analysis, show us that when viewed through a special instrument like a prism, the light that is reflected from the moon can be analyzed to determine exactly what kind of minerals it is made of.
     But not all people go to science for answers. Some people go to their Bible and quote passages as fact.  But there’s a hitch here.  The Bible is a book of wisdom, not of science. If I ask them how they know a scientific fact and they tell me that they read it in the Holy Bible, I suspect that it’s a case of confirmation bias.  It boils down to, “how we know what we know” determines what is really a valid fact and what is simply a preferred belief.
     What I’m getting to is that Charles Darwin’s birthday is February 12th and we can thank him for giving us the set of facts we call evolution. He had a great deal of reluctance before releasing his findings in the now famous book, On the Origin of Species.  He feared the backlash that would come from religious institutions.  Much like the problem Galileo experienced back when people read the Bible as though it were a book of science.
Although the modern world had moved on, many Americans  still cling to some pretty old fashioned ideas  insisting that they are facts:  According to a Gallop Poll, 78 percent believe in creationism or intelligent design. Only 15 percent believed in evolution without any divine intervention.
So here we sit in 2013, while the rest of the modern world understands that the future will depend on science and technology, we have states revising textbooks to include religion in science curriculum and passing laws that allow students to refuse lessons that interfere with their religious beliefs.
            While stem cell research progresses in places like, Europe, South Korea and China, we give public platforms to the likes of Generations Radio host, Kevin Swanson, who explained that “the wombs of women who use birth control are littered with the embedded dead bodies of unborn children.”While other countries emphasize science education programs, we lay off hundreds of thousands of teachers and reduce funding for scientific research.
So, does this mean we must choose between our religious beliefs and scientific progress? Only if we belong to the kind of thinking that tries to control the minds of its adherents.  Only if we believe that more religion is the only hope in a world torn apart by religion.
Keep your religious faith but open your eyes to the marvels around you. Evolution is one of those marvels.  Happy birthday and thank you Mr. Darwin!

Robert DeFilippis 

 



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