The Tyranny of Skepticism

July 20, 2011

This afternoon I put on the audiobook for The Believing Brain by Dr. Michael Shermer for my drive from Helena to Missoula.  I hit play on my way out of town and hit stop when I crested McDonald Pass.  I'm sure there's a metaphor somewhere in that about finding truth on top of the mountain, but I'm not going to scramble for it.

From the half hour that I listened, Dr. Shermer made it clear that he is a skeptic.  Dr. Shermer's marketing materials refer to him as "the world's best known skeptic and critical thinker."  He is a true disciple of scientific method and did not have a high regard for anyone who holds beliefs that cannot be proven through scientific method.  The remaining twelve and a half hours of the audiobook appear to describe Dr. Shermer's reasoning for why people hold these beliefs without standard evidence to back them up.

I wasn't in the mood to listen to anymore or take potshots at Dr. Shermer's arguments.  In part, he's right.  I am a puppet to my faith and belief system.  I analyze the world according to those guidelines and try to act accordingly.  My faith and belief systems have the capacity to change but that requires a serious dose of education, lived experiences, reflection, and/or grace.

But, Dr. Shermer doesn't realize that he is just as much of a puppet to his faith and belief systems as I am.  It's just a different variety.  While I too believe deeply in the scientific method and gathering as much evidence as possible to guide beliefs and decisions, I feel that eventually the scientific method runs aground upon the limits of humankind's ability to perceive the compexity of existence. 

The attempts to use the scientific method to push beyond those barriers while intellectually courageous is similar to trying to teach a lizard (or me) to appreciate the opera.  At best, all you can hope to achieve is to have heads nod up and down to the right beat.  At worst, you've wasted a lot of time playing Vivaldi when the lizard (or me) should have been doing something more productive like catching flies.

It's hard to challenge Dr. Shermer's argument for this skeptical belief system in the present context, because we don't know what we don't know.  It's easier to analyze this system based upon how it would have interpreted the past based upon the evidence available at that time period.

• For the majority of human history, a scientific method-based belief system would have ruled that the world was flat.
• For the majority of human history, a scientific method-based belief system would have held that the Sun rotated around the Earth.
• For the majority of human history, a scientific method-based belief system would have ruled that it was impossible for humans to fly.
• For the majority of human history, a scientific method-based belief system would have ruled that it was impossible for people to create light at night without a fire.
• For the majority of human history, the scientific method-based belief system would have ruled that there was no such thing as atoms, molecules, or genes.

The list could go on and on.  When examined through a historical lens, it becomes pretty clear that our ability to gather evidence of massive, complex, or mind-blowing concepts is pretty limited and therefore relying upon skepticism as a tool to navigate through these challenging issues can almost guarantee failure to comprehend them.

As Thomas Aquinas described it.  "We can't have full knowledge [of complex isssues] all at once.  We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence ourselves."

On the other hand, evidence contrary to our beliefs cannot be avoided.  It must be grappled with and faced or spiritual seekers risk giving the fields of science and reason away to the Dr. Shermer's of the world.  As Aquinas counseled Catholics faced with scientific challenges from Islamic scholars, "The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among... [non-believers] if any... [believer], not gifted with the necessary scientifc learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false."

Creating a rift between science and religion would be a two-sided shame.  First, because the religious would lose the natural grounding of scientific thought and discovery.  Second, because the scientific would lose the spiritual seeker's appreciation of the divine.  They're meant to compliment each other.

"There are two ways to live your life.  One as though nothing is a miracle.  The other as though everything is a miracle." Albert Einstein