Scholars’ solution

“Scientists tell us that we use only five percent of our brains,” said the radio talkshow host. He repeated this several times during his programme. I was tempted to call in and challenge him to quote even one neurologist who had made such a silly claim. Another talkshow host claims that rich people do obeah before giving out charity so they will get back the money a hundredfold - and describes this as “high science”. Obviously, these are not individuals who have any respect for scientific knowledge or the scientific method. So the more interesting question is this: why do such people invoke science as an authoritative source? Christian pastors who believe the Earth is 6,000 years old still invoke ‘evidence’ from archaeology which seems to confirm Biblical history. They get PhDs, albeit bogus ones from non-accredited universities, to enhance their status. Why bother, if faith is sufficient unto the day thereof?

The short answer is that, by so doing, they are revealing their own belief that scholarship carries more weight than the unaided Word of God. St Augustine said, “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward for faith is to see what you believe.” This philosophy is the very antithesis of scholarship. The true scholar or scientist believes what the evidence tells them. Where the evidence is insufficient, no opinion can be ventured one way or the other. This is why scientific theories are essentially tentative: they say that this is true until disproved. At the same time, the chances of disproving the best scientific theories is abysmally low. Darwinian evolution is such a theory, as is Einstein’s Special Relativity.

Religious believers and ideologues often take advantage of the inherent caution of science to argue that their beliefs are more valid than scientific ideas. Evolutionary biologists say that life began on planet Earth about three and a half billion years ago and that modern homo sapiens appeared about 100,000 years ago. Scientists believe this because the evidence from geology, atomic decay, fossils, DNA mutation rates, and archaeology all point to the same conclusions. Christian fundamentalists believe that God created the universe in six days, and made Adam out of clay and Eve out of Adam’s rib. They say this is true because the Bible says so.

These Christians apparently believe that saying something is absolutely true makes it a fact. Yet they do not believe other assertions made, with equal certainty, by Hindus or Muslims. This is the kind of thing which caused Einstein to remark,  “The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency.” However, this disrespect for truth is not confined to religious fundamentalists. One newspaper columnist writes that cancer can be cured using the power of the mind. As evidence, she cites a book by an American surgeon named Bernie Siegel, whom she describes as a “real scientist”. She devotes two columns to pushing this nonsense, so I e-mail her a quote from genuine scientist Robert Sapolsky, taken from his book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, showing why Siegel is bogus. She agrees with me, or says she does - but then doesn’t correct the misinformation she has given in public to the public.

In similarly wilful ignorance, a senior journalist writes, “The power to establish the terms of trade is one of the most potent forces used by the industrial world to underdevelop the developing countries, as Walter Rodney has so incontrovertibly demonstrated.” Yet a survey by The Economist magazine (28/06/03) shows that between 1950 and 2001, the developing countries whose economies grew fastest were those which adopted liberal trade policies. But perhaps that journalist’s dictionary has a different definition of ‘incontrovertible’. Does any of this really matter, though? In the face of murders, kidnappings, poverty, corruption and so on, does it really matter if people believe that human beings didn’t evolve from apes, or that all diseases can be cured, or that free trade is bad?

I believe it does. No society can become developed without scholarship. But intellectual excellence does not rest on academic ability alone. It also depends on certain cultural traits, chief of which is a respect for rational thought. Here in Trinidad and Tobago, however, many of the students who topped the world in the Cambridge A-Level examinations attributed their success to prayer. Yet studies show that the more educated a person is, the less likely they are to be strongly religious. So, while it may not matter if the average person has false beliefs, if the intellectually able in a society are also so inclined, then the society rests on sand.

A modern society cannot be run by instinct or folk wisdom or feel-good ideas. A modern society requires planning and plans must be based on hard data and data is reliable only when collected by persons who have respect for means-end methods. In the absence of that, ideology takes over. How many of our social policies are based on the bogus history promulgated by NJAC’s Caribbean Historical Society and Sat Maharaj’s Maha Sabha, whose false facts have been ably dissected by Newsday columnist Marion O’ Callaghan? How many of our economic policies are based on discredited socialist ideas? How many persons have died because they relied on herbal cures instead of medical science? Such things also have political effects. If the majority of people in any society follow St Augustine’s advice to see what they believe, they will see only those things which give them comfort, status, or power. That is human nature.

E-mail: kbaldeosingh@hotmail.com
Website: www.caribscape.com/baldeosingh