What Can You Believe?

Chuck Schultz

How can we value diversity when diverse people have such strange ideas? It is largely a matter of overcoming inertia. We have to respect people enough to assume that if they hold an idea it must be worth something. Then we try to figure out what it is worth. Using open-mindedness and applying critical thinking we may discover useful methods or overcome resistance to change.

Preconception is the greatest impediment to scientific advancement and the greatest impediment to changing procedures. Experts (that includes you) have trouble believing that an alien concept has relevance to the task at hand. But equally important, we need to avoid wasting our time on nonsense, or even on some great ideas that we cannot make use of.

Daniel Boorstin in The Discoverers (p. 151) suggests that "For most of history the human mind has abhorred a vacuum, and preferred myths and fictitious facts to the label Terra Incognita." Mariners no longer fool us with tales of mermaids, griffins, and sea monsters. Now we have quantum mechanics, acupuncture, the unconscious, and interpsychic communication.

People find reason to believe various ideas that conflict with ordinary experience:

The earth is round
Jesus was born of a virgin.
People can move objects with their minds.
How you think affects your immune system.
Extra terrestrials from flying saucers have abducted humans.
There are millions of infinitesimal creatures living in your body and mine.
Ted Kennedy was named after Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington.
General intelligence is the most efficient predictor of job performance.

Each of these ideas has gained wide acceptance; although based on every day observations, any of them may seem preposterous. Our sense perceptions tell us that, except for some drastic variations like the Grand Canyon, the earth is essentially flat. Most of us base our concept of the solar system on what we are told that experts have observed. We are similarly told that other experts report extra terrestrial visits to the earth. We accept some premises and reject others, largely because of what is acceptable to our mentors or peers. Despite well-controlled experiments that find ESP occurring at greater than chance levels, some of us readily conclude that ESP does not exist. Do we really care that some null hypotheses have been rejected?

We can have no knowledge or beliefs without accepting premises for which we have no proof.

For certain actions, we even accept premises that we know to be false. When I go for a winter hike, I take on faith that snow provides a solid footing. Occasionally events demonstrate that my faith is ill founded, as the foundation gives way and I fall headlong, perhaps to struggle to my feet under a heavy pack. The alternative to my faith in the soundness of my path is checking my footing at every step. I elect to engage my attention elsewhere and take my occasional tumble.

Utilizing diversity among ideas entails a broadminded approach to sort the gems that will brighten your day from the conjectures you cannot salvage from obscurity. M. F. Belenky et al. distill in Women's Ways of Knowing (p. 139) "…True experts must reveal an appreciation for complexity and a sense of humility about knowledge."

Chuck Schultz may be reached at (360) 923-5340, 2941A Firwood Loop SE, Olympia, WA 98501-4844.