Unintended Consequences

Part 1 - How Can We Know?

"The art and science of asking questions in the source of all knowledge." -- Thomas Berger

"The key to wisdom is knowing all the right questions." --  John Simone, Jr.

First of all, a happy, happy new year to all of my readers. It's hard to believe that time no longer seems to be on my side. :)

Sometimes it seems that I wouldn't write anything if I hadn't been prompted to do so by emails from my brother (last post: http://8radideas.blogspot.com/2012/09/off-charts.html) or conversations with my friends (this post). Whatever the motivation, at least I'm putting thoughts in ink. Ehr, in pixels.

This time the post is inspired by a conversation I had with a friend about chemtrails.

For those of you who, like me, had never heard of these "chemical trails" before -- a take, of course, on the condensation trails, or contrails, left by aircraft -- suffice it to say that there are people who, since the mid-90's, have claimed that the government is conducting experiments in the atmosphere over our very own America, releasing something from planes that don't appear to be simple water vapor contrails. The purpose of these experiments? (1) To change the weather or (2) to release biological/chemical agents into the atmosphere or (3) to regulate solar heat and radiation or (4) to control the population.

Now I don't think my friend thinks that chemtrails are a real threat (or even a real phenomenon*), although his wife might, but I mention them only because discussing them brought us to the subject that is my real topic for this post.

While I am a big fan of questioning authority and the status quo and established wisdom, I try to keep sight of the fact that the boundaries of my knowledge are finite. I can't know everything -- I can't even begin to. (I would put forth that, since the advent of modern specialization in information, the days of the Renaissance Man or Woman are long gone, but that's a topic for a different time.)

But this doesn't concern me as much as you might think. In fact, it's a comfort, in a parallel fashion to my atheism (which allows me to cherish every moment of this brief life, content in my attempt to live it well) -- in that we share our ignorance, and answers, when they come, are the result of a shared process. And a 2012 Scientific American article** asserts that ignorance will always grow quicker than information acquired, simply because questioning inevitably leads to more puzzles. The author declares that "the essence of what scientists do ...[is] make distinctions between qualities of ignorance."

In this perspective, questions are far more important than answers.

My friend believes that all questioning is good, that questions have an innate social value.

I, on the other hand, would assert that some questions are just a waste of time. That there are such things as good questions and bad questions. And that the question displays qualities of ignorance or knowing.

If I wanted to, I could come up with hundreds of things that could possibly be true. For example, that the automobile manufacturers have designed the car's ventilation system such that a pheromone is released while driving, thereby making driving a pleasurable experience and in effect creating an addiction to driving.

Is such a thing possible? Certainly. Is such a thing plausible? Of course. Is it probable? No.

[Is the answer to the last question intuitive? Not necessarily. Is it logically deduced? Not necessarily. We must often apply Occam's razor, where the fewer assumptions required for an explanation, the more likely the explanation is. For example, to assume all the steps required for the auto manufacturers to implement such a plot - making the dispenser invisible to the eyes of mechanics, keeping the lips of the assembly persons tightly closed so that no leaks about the device reach the press, insuring the gas is undetectable, and so on - requires far more assumptions than, say, the conclusion that driving itself is addictive.]

The thing about this example is that it's easily verifiable. Take apart a random sampling of automobile ventilation systems and check for the means to such an end.

And this is how science works. One posits a hypothesis. Then, in addition to confirming it, one attempts to prove that the hypothesis is incorrect. Otherwise, because of confirmation bias and motivated reasoning, one runs the danger of ignoring evidence on its face. That's why falsifiability is as important as verifiability.

With most theories of the conspiracy sort, proponents attempt to falsify what's seen as, for example, the government's explanation, but fail to attempt to do the same with their own assumptions. They rule out evidence as being biased but fail to see their own bias. It's like the supreme court justice who can't understand how anyone could see the cross as anything other than a tribute to our dead veterans, whether they be Christian or Jewish or Muslim.***

And if an expert in the law can make such a mistake, how much easier is it for a layman to read the lay of the land incorrectly?

Yet it is the exception that the majority of experts will make the same mistake. Even our courts are a bit like science in that, over time, they are self-correcting. Some terrible decisions have been handed down, but after a while they are seen for what they are and reversed.

In the same way it makes no sense to let the layperson, unschooled on the topic at hand, propound on solutions to problems that he can't explain. We have to resort to the informed opinions of the specialist.

Would you trust a highly qualified electrician to stand in for you to tally your books for a day? Yet we seem ready and willing to accept a non-expert's opinion on something as complicated as climate science just because it seems expedient or because we might disagree with the relevant consensus opinion or because we think someone's trying to hide something from us.

And this is my principal point when it comes to questions, knowledge, and focus: We can't always judge whether a question posed is a legitimate concern or a fantasy, but, in this age of specialization, when it comes to answering such a question or assessing a claim that falls outside of our own area of expertise, we must defer to the relevant consensus opinion of the experts.

Otherwise we will quickly use up our resources on frivolous investigations into countless phenomena, allocating precious little to the substantive and far more important issues of our day.

Stay tuned for Part 2: What Harm Is There?

* Spend some time at http://www.panacea-bocaf.org/chemtrails.htm

 watching the videos and reading. Then view this skeptical response:   http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/chemtrail_conspiracy/

. Let me know by leaving a comment which side you come down on.

** What Science Wants To Know

*** See The Myth of Choice by Kenneth Greenfield, pp. 88-91. Also, for quoted comments by Judge Scalia, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/08/scalia-defends-cross-on-p_n_313625.html