How do we answer those who apply doubt to sway public opinion in favour of irrational views? How do we respond to the well-orchestrated media campaign that encourages people to doubt the credibility of evolutionary biology in favour of supernatural fiat? How do we challenge the leader of a religious group a billion strong who uses doubt to discourage condom use as means of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS? And how do we save our children from those who would use doubt to deny that human activity can adversely impact the planet’s climate?
Doubt is a powerful tool. Like a shovel, it can be used to turn soil for the nurture of new growth, or it can be used to bury things. Like any tool, its function is neutral; it acquires its usefulness or danger from the person wielding it. Although doubt rings in our ears with a minor key (skepticism, lack of faith, insecurity), its lineage in Western thought is predominantly positive where it has served as our most powerful epistemological tool: we use doubt as a means of enlarging what it is that we can say for a certainty about the universe we inhabit.
Occam’s razor provides an early example of this. As a strategy for inquiry, William of Occam proposed that when presented with competing explanations of a phenomenon, one should choose the simplest viable explanation since this is the explanation most likely to be correct. He applied doubt like a razor to improbably complex accounts of the natural world.
One of the best examples of Occam’s razor in action comes from the emerging explanation for the movement of planetary bodies. Growing alongside the observations of Copernicus and Galileo were attempts to develop mathematical models to account for the motion of the planets. When Copernicus first tried to switch from a geocentric to heliocentric model, he imported the Ptolemaic model of epicycles, proposing that the planets traced little circles as they went on their paths around the sun. However, Kepler was able to dispense with epicycles by proposing that the planets moved in elliptical orbits. Kepler’s account remained particular to his observations and it was Newton who produced a generalized set of laws. He was able to do this by inventing the necessary mathematical techniques and coupling Kepler’s laws of planetary motion to his own theory of gravity. Once Newton invented the “vocabulary” to describe a simpler solution, the more complex account of epicycles seemed improbable and could be sliced away once and for all. Now, we find the notion of epicycles quaint and amusing.
Occam’s razor was a precursor to modern scientific method. Scientific method does not aim to discover the “right” explanation of the phenomenon it studies; on the contrary, it presumes that each explanation it provides will be supplanted by a better one in the future. Science is an approach rather than a claim. It answers the question “How?” not “Why?” Central to the application of that “How?” is doubt.
Bernard Lonergan’s epistemology offers a precise description of how this works. Beginning from a careful description of the cognitive process, he states that we cannot help but know our world in well-defined patterns. He breaks the act of knowing into eleven discrete steps which are invariant and unconscious. Along the path from simple observation to the claim that “x” is the case, one of the steps is recursive. Turning back on what we believe to be the case, we ask: “Is that so?” We are hard-wired from infancy to test the claims about our world. If we lose this tendency, as many adults do, it is because of the introduction of distortions into the cognitive process. Distortions include things like bad habits and deference to ideological dogma. Not surprisingly, scientific method is an institutionalized process which exactly mirrors the natural habits of human cognition. The scientific hypothesis is answered by this recursive step—”Is that so?”—the act of doubt. In other words, whether at the level of basic cognition or at the level of institutionalized scientific inquiry, doubt is indispensable to the claim that we know anything at all.
In addition to the act of cognition, Lonergan looks at the objects of our knowing and breaks these into several categories which are complementary and cumulative. At its simplest is the thing itself. Examine a table, touch it to confirm that it’s real, shoot it into orbit around the Earth and predict the orbit’s decay. These are all ways you can apply your knowledge to the existence of a thing called a table. This is the kind of knowledge that belongs to Newton’s classical mechanics. No other kind of knowledge was conceivable until the early 20th century with the rise of a branch of mathematics called statistics and probability and a branch of science called quantum mechanics. These disciplines describe a kind of knowing which Lonergan calls the “statistical heuristic structure.” This is the kind of knowing that Heisenberg used to describe the position and velocity of subatomic particles. It’s also the kind of knowing that actuaries use to determine how much you should pay for your life insurance.
This is knowing in the aggregate. It is blind to the fate of individuals, offering predictive value only to an entire system. It cannot tell you whether or not you will die of liver cancer, but it can tell you the likelihood of such an outcome if you engage in certain kinds of behaviour. This knowing is cold comfort for the person who has just been diagnosed with liver cancer but has never engaged in those behaviours which increase the likelihood of such a diagnosis. Nevertheless, the frequency of even such an unlikely diagnosis is quantifiable. This knowing is cold comfort, too, for the person who believes in a supernatural deity who takes a personal interest in the unfolding of their life. How can such a deity be loving and compassionate if it merely sits and watches while human lives play themselves out in ways that can be described using statistical models? Does this not reduce God to the status of an underwriter?
Our claims to knowledge are not neutral or abstract. Each of the concerns I mention at the outset of this piece—evolutionary biology, epidemiology and HIV/AIDS, and climate change—is the turf on which competing interests vie for primacy of their respective knowledge claims. Primacy carries with it real-world consequences for groups with no voice in these debates. For that reason, each of these concerns is burdened by ethical demands which cannot be ignored without the risk of inflicting harm on the vulnerable.
As a lawyer, I can’t help but introduce the notion of presumption into the process by which we make knowledge claims. Legal procedures have evolved mechanisms for discovering knowledge while simultaneously honouring ethical concerns. Chief amongst these mechanisms is the presumption which favours the most vulnerable interests. In civil proceedings, where money and property are at stake, the presumption favours the defendant, and the plaintiff must overcome that presumption on a balance of probabilities. In criminal proceedings, where personal liberty is at stake, the trier of fact must apply a higher burden of proof to the presumption—in this case a presumption of innocence. Guilt must be established “beyond a reasonable doubt” before the defendant can be denied personal liberty. There are two reasons for the higher burden of proof in criminal proceedings: i) loss of liberty is deemed more devastating than loss of property, and ii) the defendant in a civil trial must counter the resources of another individual whereas the defendant in a criminal trial must counter the resources of the state because it is the state (and not the victim of the crime) which prosecutes. While this outline of the protections afforded in legal proceedings is theoretical and susceptible to cynicism because its actual practice is sometimes thwarted, it nevertheless provides a useful model for considering other (non-legal) knowledge claims where their consequences demand ethical considerations.
It’s instructive to note that legal proceedings acknowledge that there is no such thing as an absolute knowledge of the truth. Did O.J. Simpson kill Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman? We can never know for certain because we weren’t there to witness the events in question. In Newtonian terms, the question is unanswerable. However, courts do not apply a classical model of knowledge to the evidence. Instead, they apply a statistical model to the evidence and try to ascertain what probably transpired. In Simpson’s criminal trial, the jury found that the evidence was insufficient to overcome the presumption of innocence. Regardless of what the public may have thought, there was a reasonable doubt, and the jury refused to deny him his liberty. However, in the civil trial, the jury found that on a balance of probabilities, O.J. Simpson caused Nicole Brown Simpson’s death, and so he was liable to pay damages to her estate. Taken together, the two trials indicated a likelihood that O.J. Simpson killed his wife that was somewhat more than a balance of probabilities but somewhat less than beyond a reasonable doubt. Certainty was never a consideration.
The problem with creationists, papal pronouncements on condom use, and climate change deniers is that they confuse doubt and probability. Doubt is a tool in the service of knowledge. Probability is the statement of a substantive knowledge claim. “There is an 80% chance that it will rain today” is a statement of fact. The complementary statement that “There is a 20% chance that it will not rain today” is also a statement of fact, not an expression of doubt. Doubt doesn’t have a foothold in the debate.
So how do these various interests abuse doubt?
First, it’s revealing to note that each doubt is raised by a conservative religious voice against a discipline whose knowledge base rests upon the claims of a statistical heuristic model. Evolutionary theorists can never identify a precise instant at which the transition from one species to another occurs; all they can do is continue to gather evidence which increases the probability of the accuracy of their explanations. But the probability of inaccuracy is not the same thing as doubt. Epidemiologists can never guarantee that promotion of condom use will protect any given individual from contracting HIV/AIDS, but they can say with something approaching certainty that across the entire population of sub-Saharan Africa, this is more effective than the promotion of abstinence. (The Vatican is right to observe that abstinence is more effective than condom use, but that’s not what is at stake; at issue is the effectiveness of promoting these measures.) And it is impossible to establish a strict (Newtonian) causal connection between human activities and global climate change. The best we can ever do is to develop complex models that approximate real-world conditions. But, once again, lack of direct causal evidence provides no justification for doubt. The first abuse, then, is that in each case, the critique applies a tool which is inappropriate to the kind of knowledge under discussion.
The second abuse is that presumptions are drawn to favour the powerful rather than the vulnerable. As such they are ethically blind. In each case, one must ask whose interests are being served, and at whose expense. Then, applying the legal model discussed above, one has an obligation to apply presumptions which protect those who cannot protect themselves. Consider each issue in turn:
1. Evolution/creationism. This is the most difficult of the three because it’s not apparent that anyone’s life is at stake in this debate. Instead, it is part of the so-called “culture wars” in America. In fact, proponents of creationism often turn the debate on its head and claim they are the victims and their religious freedoms are being threatened. However, if we look beyond the immediate debate to the policies that creationist interests would promote if they were given free reign, we see new areas of vulnerability. Consider, for example, the potential harm that could arise if evolution-dependent research suddenly lost funding. Should we ignore the possibility of avian influenza and the emergence of superbugs because the occurrence of new infectious diseases is possible only if evolutionary biology is a fact? I would rather draw a presumption in favour of evolutionary biology, work to enhance chances of survival, and be proven wrong after the fact. Writing from Toronto, I can assure my creationist friends that our 2003 brush with SARS makes us wary of those who deny such a possibility.
2. Condoms/HIV/AIDS. Here the vulnerability is obvious and the epidemiological evidence approaches certainty that the Pope is wrong. The church which brought us the notion of a “preferential option for the poor” … but who are we kidding. Pope Benedict’s position on this issue isn’t even worthy of consideration and I wince with embarrassment for my Roman Catholic friends.
3. Climate change. Here, the vulnerable include unborn generations, children who suffer from respiratory illnesses, vanishing ecosystems, seniors with skin cancers, endangered species, etc. Even using a classical model of risk assessment, the stakes are so high (annihilation of planetary life) that a presumption in favour of life seems an imperative. The problem is: as long as human life exists, it’s always possible to deny that the state of life on our planet is related to human conduct, and if human life doesn’t exist, then the debate doesn’t matter. Short of extinction, there’s no absolute proof for either side of the debate. Nevertheless, meta-analysis of scholarly journals finds significant agreement that i) climate change is real; and ii) we are to blame. In a profession that is compulsively cautious in its statements, such widespread and outspoken endorsement is unprecedented. It is incorrect to ground doubt in the fact that we cannot draw a strict causal connection between human conduct and climate change.
The third abuse rests in the motivation for the deployment of doubt. While doubt can be used for the advancement of knowledge and in the service of justice, it can also be used to manipulate people for self-serving ends. In the context of the creationism movement, Brett Grainger offers the example of Ken Ham, CEO of Answers in Genesis (AiG) which owns the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky, the magazine Answers, and creation product lines and educational materials. Creationism is a market and Ham’s mandate is to maximize AiG’s share of that market. Apart from the profit motive, creationism also serves as a touchstone for the consolidation of a group identity which can be wielded as a political force. These motivations have nothing to do with facts or the advancement of knowledge. Similar motivations underlie the denial of climate. Put bluntly, the acknowledgment of climate change imposes a collective obligation to relinquish many of the comforts of the North American lifestyle. Doubt can be enlisted to protect that lifestyle. As for doubt about the effectiveness of condoms in the prevention of HIV/AIDS, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the motivation for such claims. Power? Influence? Purity? Certainly not the preservation of life.
While it is always useful to have an answer at the ready for those who try to use doubt as an obfuscating strategy, this post illustrates why it may be useful only for personal clarification; as a persuasive tool, it’s probably useless. Even if you encapsulate your reason in something pithy, like “doubt is unintelligible when used to critique knowledge acquired within a statistical heuristic structure,” the efforts to unpack that statement are so long-winded and involved that the people you wish would listen have either left the building or are telling you to put your faith in Jesus. Of that, I have no doubt.