Rationalism and Belief

 In my previous post, I talked about the value of education, for a number of reasons. I hope I managed to get across its importance in creating not just a profitable but a stable and sustainable global society. This time I'd like to talk about a related issue, one which our species is very much overdue to address – the struggle that plainly exists between our ability to think rationally and our predisposition to believe what we want to believe. If the study of Psychology has taught me anything, is that this is one of the greatest obstacles that we have to recognize and overcome in order to become effective learners.

 We all want to believe that we're rational beings. In our day to day lives, we require evidence before committing to believing an argument, and typically, once we hear convincing evidence, we are either compelled to believe it, or to seek additional information so that we can make a more fully informed decision about which side of the fence to come down on. This is true in almost every area of our lives, but there are times where rationality, the very standard by which we interpret the universe, breaks down. At times, when we have an entrenched belief, one which has been with us for a long time or which we are heavily invested in, we have a tendency to relax the rational standard for evidence. Indeed, in these cases, it is possible to maintain a belief not only when rational evidence is lacking, but when evidence exists that contradicts a belief entirely. This is the Achilles heel in the human mind, a back-door in our consciousness through which reason can be “hacked”, and through which we can be manipulated into believing some very irrational things indeed.

 This wish-thinking, or believing something simply because we want it to be true, is still shockingly common, even in our modern and heavily science-dependent world. However, since there is no conclusive evidence, or indeed any evidence at all to support the idea that the universe cares what we wish, or even knows that we're here, the only course remaining, if you're interested in the truth, is to simply ask: “What are the facts?” There are, of course, some people who have no interest in facts, truth or rationality. This argument isn't directed at them, however, because using a rational argument to convince someone who doesn't value rationality is an exercise in futility. I'm more interested in convincing those who still do value rationality, because in the long term it will be those people, who live in the real world, who will ultimately have the most impact on human history. Those who reject logic and reason can reasonably be dismissed from any important debates, as they arguably suffer from a form of mental illness, and as such, their influence on our collective history will most likely become more and more marginalized in the coming century.

 To understand our consciousness and what drives the way we think, it is important to understand the human animal in evolutionary terms. This concept may be difficult for some, but the results are in, utilizing multiple streams of archaeological and genetic evidence, and they are, at this point, flatly undeniable – we evolved from primates. We are driven, like any other animal on the face of this planet, by our biology, and the genes which ultimately form the building blocks for who we are. Some might argue that this is a reductionist position, and there is certainly much to be said about social influences, but even social structures are molded and shaped by our innate behaviour patterns, which in turn are driven by our genes. To put it another way, in determining who we are and how we behave, our life experience does indeed play a non-trivial role, but much of this is social experience, and a great deal of how we behave in social contexts results from the structure and activity in our brains, which of course were shaped by millions of years of biological evolution. We evolved as social animals, and evolution shaped certain norms of social behaviour by hard-wiring behavioural tendencies into our brains, much in the way that many spiders are hard-wired to build webs, even though they are never taught to do so. They simply know what to do, just as most of us have the innate ability to interpret complex social cues; even babies can interpret facial expressions, and have basic concepts of what constitute acceptable and unacceptable social behaviours. As we grow, and as our brains grow, more complex social behaviours emerge, but these are still largely predicated upon innate and ingrained social tendencies. As people interact, these innate tendencies can be seen to express themselves in similar ways across many divergent societies. The differences we see are trivial when one imagines how different things could be, as most of our societies emerged in relative isolation from one another. We ultimately have far more in common with each other than we tend to recognize, and this is rooted in the remarkable uniformity of the human genome.

 One tendency that seems so ingrained in our consciousness as to suggest a strong biological link is our tendency toward credulity – that is, simply believing what we are told. The examples of this are innumerable, and this is no doubt a tendency that you can recognize in yourself when you recall how many times you've been won over by an argument without bothering to check the facts put forth within it. This tendency is actually readily explicable in evolutionary terms, and Richard Dawkins illustrates it very well when he points out that any child who did not believe what its parents told it (for example, that snakes or lions are dangerous) would have reduced odds of surviving very long, and therefore credulity would have been selected for over time. This is where all arguments from authority come from, and while they can occasionally be useful, this says nothing at all about whether or not they are actually true.

 Not everyone falls prey to this tendency, however. While credulity exerts a strong influence on our psyche, so too does curiosity, as there have been strong reasons for the selection of this trait in our past as well. Curious hunters and gatherers would have had greater opportunities to find more food, for example, and therefore would have been better able to produce and support more children, who would of course pass on this trait. It is our curiosity about the world in which we live that surely plays a large role in driving rational enquiry, as only by relentlessly asking questions and challenging mere assertions can one be assured that one is not simply being lied to or misguided. This certainly has survival benefits. If we lived in a world in which no one ever lied, or abused positions of authority in order to gain advantages over others, then credulity might be the more admirable or desirable trait, but sadly we do not live in such a world, and therefore if one is interested in the truth at all, one must be critical of mere assertions, and insist on evidence at all times. This is even more important today, as we live in a world that is driven by information, and false information can (and does) destroy lives.

 An insistence on the facts is, after all, what has gotten us this far. Our species has managed to climb out from the caves in which our ancestors evolved, and shape ourselves into a modern technological society, and this has not happened by accident. It was only through rational enquiry, and by insisting on making sure that we got the facts about the natural world correct, via science, that any of our progress has been possible. Science works, in fact, simply because it insists on this principle, pursuing it relentlessly - asking the questions necessary to expand our knowledge, even when the questions may be uncomfortable to hear, or impossible to answer right away. The greatest advances in our knowledge have come when we have accepted the sobering realization that the universe does not exist to console or comfort us, nor to provide us with easy answers, and that we may only learn its secrets if we are willing to do the work, and apply ourselves honestly to this pursuit. What we believe is irrelevant, in other words – if what we believe doesn't line up with the facts, we will be forced to adapt our beliefs when they inevitably run up against the facts, just as scientists do every day, or accept that we will look very foolish to others if we don't. This is best illustrated by the Catholic church's insistence on a flat Earth, sitting at the centre of the universe, for much of its history. We now know, unequivocally, that this is utter nonsense, and the church looks both foolish and rather wicked for having burnt people at the stake in order to prevent people from believing otherwise.

 This, I believe, is the fundamental reason that faith, for a great part of our history, has been insistent on its immunity to criticism. It simply can't stand up to rational enquiry, and history demonstrates this abundantly well – every time belief is placed before reason, it is ultimately proven to have been misguided, no matter how hard some may fight (or who they may kill) to maintain such beliefs. The truth will always win, and any skirmishes that belief may appear to come ahead in can only be a temporary reprieve. Think of the physical laws of reality as an island in a storm, unmovable. They simply are what they are. Belief, in its rigidity, is much like a boat, that can only smash itself to bits against reality when the two conflict. Science, on the other hand, is more comparable to the waves, that feel out the shape of the land, in order to conform to it. While both the boat and the water can have a relationship with the land, the water can have a much more precise and intimate relationship with the shore, as it allows itself to flow and adapt as the shore dictates. The ship of belief may moor itself to reality briefly from time to time, taking what suits it, but then it tends to quickly cast off again, often far from reality, in whatever direction its wishes dictate. I'll end the metaphor here though, as metaphor is far too often abused in the defence of belief, as though making comparisons were a form of evidence, instead of merely a descriptive tool. Let it not be said that I am attempting the same.

 Ultimately, I hope that our species can move beyond our preoccupation with Bronze-Age belief systems, and move the conversation about our collective future forward into the 21^st century. Rational enquiry, or science as it is otherwise known, having improved the quality of our lives in countless ways over the past few centuries, has proven that it works, because every single technology that we enjoy serves to validate the claims about reality that science has made. Science simply describes reality more accurately than any other method we have ever developed. Furthermore, as it has progressed and pushed at the boundaries of our knowledge, it has made the universe a much less frightening and much more fascinating place. It has broadened our minds and our perspective, and unlocked fantastic and exciting possibilities for our species. As always, we face the choice of courageously following our curiosity further, or falling back on beliefs that insist we already know all we need to.