EN 77: "In search of truth (I)"
After a rather long hiatus and working from Spain, I’m back in London. I had a couple of conversations that, together with the state of the world, left me pondering and preoccupied, if what’s been happening these past years hasn’t been enough.
One conversation was about climate change. The other one, about nutrition. As different as the topics are—though interconnected—the two conversations followed a single thread: a thread of doubt, scepticism, and denial of evidence. There was a conflict inside of me, a certain cognitive dissonance, I respect the interlocutors, they’re intelligent, well-read, and reasonable, in other topics I could trust their insight.
These conversations revived some fears. I’m afraid I could become one of those old men who turned hateful and sour, out of touch, enclosed in a bubble while rejecting the present. I’m also afraid of being so fundamentally wrong that I can’t even recognise it nor myself, immutable, defending my identity over reality. Being wrong doesn’t scare me, what scares me is becoming a person that, faced with strong evidence, chooses to reject it and double down, specially if my choices can hurt others, or the world.
If it can happen to people I respect, it can happen to anyone, it could easily happen, and could be happening, to me, my friends, my family.
My initial reaction after the conversations was to go and have a hard look at the evidence again. We’re full of biases, and confirmation bias is the one to look out in these situations. I remember searching in PubMed about the nutrition topics relevant to the conversation, while thinking repeatedly to not only find studies and meta-analyses that aligned with my views. The goal is not to find confirmation of my beliefs, but to look at the body of knowledge.
After reviewing the extensive evidence, there wasn’t anything that made me seriously reconsider, but, what if I did not look deep or broad enough, or missed or ignored critical information? I don’t claim to be a scientist or an expert, most areas of knowledge I know nothing about.
A world without truth
During my time in Spain, I happened to watch a “debate” between scientists and flat-earthers. After many centuries and a vast collection of evidence, how did we get here?
The whole flat earth wave is fascinating and a symptom of something else. No matter how much evidence they see and tests they do that prove the theory’s wrong, it won’t ever be enough.
One would think that they’re uneducated or that they don’t have critical thinking, they’re not sceptical enough or just plain gullible, but often it’s the opposite. A healthy dose of scepticism is good and necessary, but an extreme amount is equally bad as no critical thinking at all. An absolute denial of knowledge unless evidence is personally experienced, it’s not only limiting, but misguided, and ignores that knowledge composes over time, building upon centuries of human discovery.
An extreme example of scepticism is to deny all proof of the spherical shape of the Earth unless you personally take a rocket and see it. There’s a catch here, if an astronaut on the International Space Station confirms that the Earth is not flat, that’s not valid, as there’s a massive conspiracy, astronauts are bought and all photos from NASA are doctored. Here’s a real “experiment” that happened not long ago, The Final Experiment:
The expedition, which took three years of preparation, was organized by Will Duffy, an American Christian pastor and disbeliever of the flat Earth theory who invited a total of forty-eight content creators so that they could witness and livestream the Midnight sun, a natural phenomenon which contradicts most flat Earth theories and is dismissed by most flat Earthers as not being real.
The expedition was streamed live and, there were still people in the chat that said people there were shills, or that it was fake.
Flat earthers, vaccine and climate change deniers, and a multitude of other similar movements are a symptom of our society. Some people say that we now live in a “post-truth” world, and I couldn’t agree more. Lies and misinformation are commonplace and a demonstrable way to win elections, destabilise governments, divide societies and sow chaos. It’s really nothing new, just the old dusted off manual, massively enhanced by the viral and uncontrolled nature of social media.