What is the truth?

This question comes to us every day. Conflicting stories in newspapers, retracted stories, conflicting experts, even simple decisions about "what vegetable do you prefer for lunch?" when you suddenly realize that you don't like brocholi any more!

Our response to the quandary depends on many factors. Some are (1) What is the cost of making a mistake? (2) What is the cost of being publically shown to have made a mistake? and (3) What is the cost of being right?

Dale Carnegie, in his book Winning Friends and Influencing People, recounts an incident something like this...

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a dinner conversation in which two protagonists, one of whom is the host, publically disagree about whether a quote is from the Bible or from Shakespeare. Finally they appeal to a third guest, an reknown Shakespeare expert. The expert says he thinks it is from the Old Testament.

After the other protagonist leaves, the host asked his friend, the Shakespeare expert, why he did not support what he knew to be true - it was a Shakesperean quote!

The expert basically replies that the issue did not matter much, and that the pleasantness of the event was better served by backing the other protagonist!

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So, it seems, most humans are NOT in search of the truth. They are in search of the answer that makes their lives the most pleasant.

Then there are those cursed individuals, like me, for whom not knowing the truth is unpleasant - and being forced to appear to assent to something we strongly suspect is not the truth is down-right annoying.

Here is where the rubber mets the road for the individual in choosing the explanation that they will use for the origins of the earth....

They all make the choice to make their lives pleasant. They just don't find the same choices pleasant.

/Bevin

Great question, bevin. I'm too busy right now to have time to respond in detail, but would just like to add that the principle of assuming the best of others is relevant here.

There might be a little bit of condescension in the way you've framed the question... or at least it might appear that way: "most people just look for rationalizations, but I'm cursed to seek The Truth"! I'm sure that's not your intention, but you might want to clarify your intention.

I'd say what makes most people's lives most pleasant is reduced cognitive dissonance. I follow the psychology of George Kelly, who believes humans are driven by the need to understand, rather than that of Freud, who believes they are driven by sex and death! People tend to seek truth as coherence - all their ideas hang together and are plausible in the light of one another - rather than truth as correspondence with external reality.

We can leave aside the philosophical arguments around realism and idealism, I think, and the possibility of correspondence, and just think about the ways people work to reduce their cognitive dissonance.

Some do so by choosing to ignore certain evidence: and the weight we put on different kinds of evidence is, I think, the crux of this matter. I think what you're actually saying in your post (and please straighten me out if this is not a fair characterisation) is that you believe that choosing to ignore or minimise the importance of empirical evidence is an inappropriate strategic move for reducing cognitive dissonance. That is, you place a high value on empirical evidence, and in seeking coherence will aim to protect that most strongly.

I think it's crucial that we be willing to credit those who disagree with us with high motives, to at least the same extent as we credit ourselves with high motives. A big part of the problem around this debate is that each side tends to assume the other is intentionally dishonest, sneaky, corrupt, manipulative and not being upfront about their values and motives. On the contrary, I think each side is doing its best to be honest and upfront and consistent: they just place dramatically different values on different types of evidence.

I'm willing to bet, Bravus, that Bevin is suggesting both that his curse is a blessing and that the blessing has a curse in it. And further that he recognizes both and chooses to accept them; in fact, he finds that in spite of the complexities and convolutions, they rather work for him -- essentially an existentialist approach.

Pardon my tea leaf reading, but am I close to right, Bevin?

As for the "dramatically different values on different types of evidence" notion, to me that explanation hits that nail on the head, dramatically well.

Regards,
Norm

I understand what you mean about the feeling of condescension. I do *feel* it is better to face the facts and accept uncertainty - but on the other hand I do *know* that sometimes pretending uncertain things are certain can be a strong survival trait.

For instance, being part of a group, and accepting without question that group's group-think, often brings major economic rewards. Questioning the group-think tends to either win or lose big...

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they just place dramatically different values on different types of evidence

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Yes, or even just what is meant by 'evidence' - for instance: for one person, the fact that some authority figure uttered some statement about the topic is very important, whereas for another person it carries little or no weight.

The bottom line though, for me, is that most people don't choose their explanation based on anything which is modifiable by fact-based arguments... This is true for BOTH sides of the creation/evolution debate.

/Bevin