Grey Areas of Reasonableness

GREY AREAS OF REASONABLENESS

Grey areas have been popping up repeatedly throughout this book. They seem to be everywhere, and I think we need to accept that and deal with it, and acknowledge that being rational involves accepting that some things are rather fuzzy. For example, many things are “just theories” but that doesn’t make them all equally trustworthy, or equally dubious – it depends what sort of framework has been used to establish that theory. Similarly if a large group of people or sources agree with each other, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a conspiracy, but it might – it depends, again, what sort of framework has been used to establish that agreement.

There are many degrees of trust and scepticism that we can show towards theories, sources, experts and evidence. It’s not just about trusting something or not, there’s a huge grey area in between.

Should we believe scientific “experts” or not? At one extreme, some people think that scientists are all in a conspiracy with each other. At another extreme, some people regard science as absolute and unassailable truth. Against science, some people think that trusting science means you’re an unthinking sheep, and that intelligent people are always sceptical about everything. They cite scientific theories from the past that have turned out to be wrong. In favour of science, some people think that those who are sceptical of science are being irrational and using emotions instead of logic. Both sets of people are liable to think the others are being stupid, and this is not a helpful situation.

I think we should acknowledge that there are grey areas everywhere. For scepticism there is healthy scepticism and blind scepticism and everything in between. For trust there is also healthy trust, blind trust, and everything in between. I would say that healthy scepticism and trust come from, again, a well-defined framework, including evidence and logic.

Blind trust and blind scepticism might actually look on the surface quite similar to the healthy versions. The two versions might be equally fervent. But I call someone’s trust or scepticism blind if they can’t justify it to many steps. I can’t justify my belief in science to the end (because there is no end) but I can keep going for a while: I believe in the system of the scientific framework because it has checks and balances; it is self-reflective and self-critical; it is a process rather than an end result; it has a framework for updating itself and has known occasions when it has found itself to be wrong and corrected itself.

Some people think that admitting you’re wrong is a sign of weakness, or that changing your mind is a sign of indecision. But I think both of these are an important sign of having some framework for your trust and scepticism. That, to me, is a sign of a more powerful form of rationality.