Local opinion: Learning to be humble in a complex world

As a Science Guy, I have always been drawn to data and facts, but at the same time, I recognize that while those data/facts might be “true” to some extent, they do not completely represent the “Truth,” which is a larger and more perfect understanding of how the world actually works.

My senses tell me the world immediately around me appears flat, and that belief is good enough for me to navigate and walk my dog around the neighborhood, but it is too flawed for me to fly to see friends and family elsewhere in the world. In 1856, an article in Scientific American discussed the nature of the sun’s heat and light, whether it could be due to coal, which sounds quaint now but the extent of our knowledge then could not allow us to conceive of other models? Even today, our current understanding is too coarse for us to form coherent theories about the instant the Universe was born, but we hope that this will not continue to be so in the future?

To be a good scientist is to realize that our knowledge is never complete, that we should challenge what we think we know on a daily basis so that we improve that understanding and move closer to a better truth.

This recognition of our ignorance and the ability to change our minds can be personally challenging, as most great breakthrough’s start out as heresy and a challenge to conventional thinking. It takes many of us most of our scientific careers to come to this understanding and be willing to cut ties to our intuition when it no longer serves us.

But we all should also recognize that it’s not only science that works this way but our interactions with events and everyone else in the world as well. We each develop a personal mythology about how we think, or hope, the world works, what actually happened during some complex event, what is right and wrong.

This personal ideology can be a useful shortcut that allows us to navigate our relationships with our family and close friends or try to make sense of daily events in our lives. However, it inevitably fails when we try to impose that belief system upon the rest of the world. Not everyone nor every event can be reduced to the simple ideas that we hold as individuals, and instead, we must be willing to challenge our perspective of events in the world and what is best for others. How many of us with our personal experiences can really understand the plight of someone who has walked from Venezuela to our southern border, or of civilians caught up in war, be they Israeli or Palestinian, or a child in our country without enough to eat or access to education?

Yet on a daily basis, I read letters to this paper from people who are completely certain in their opinions, so much so that they mistake them for fact. The reason our country seems so fractured at this time is that too many of us have become stubborn in our sense of what has happened during some event, who was right and who was wrong, even worse, who is evil. As Anatole France pointed out: “It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel,” an observation that seems particularly relevant today as many are determined to impose their beliefs upon others.

If we want our country and government to survive, let alone function, we would all be better served in being less convinced of our own rightness, being less judgmental of others, and being more willing to let go of some personal beliefs. Strive every day to change your mind based upon something you learn that day.