I am not sure the challenge to science (a term that begs definition in this conversation, but I am not going there) is less than that journalism faces, but the role of the media, at least some of whom are at least supposedly journalists, is a hot topic and I appreciate John's observations about journalism's evolution (devolution?).
I would, though, be happier if John talked about facts rather than truth. I see the slipperly slope towards everyhing being opinion as a predictable reaction to the ideas of objectivity and capital T Truth that we are taught, curiously enough by both scientists and priests. Philosophers - mostly these days - are wary of capital T Truth and so should we all be.
We collectively can agree on facts. Rainbows result from the refraction of light through water droplets under certain specifiable circumstances. Yep. But what happens when we endow natural phenomena with meaning? Is the rainbow a sign of God's promise that he will not flood the earth again? I presume there's an "if" attached to the promise, but that is what I was taught on Sunday mornings. Or how are rainbows perceived when used as a symbol of diversity?
I think scientists - many of them - are guilty of pretending that fact and meaning can be separated. But can people stop making meaning? Nope, and so as John points out, the facts science finds get inserted into particular narratives. And narratives, partaking of myth as they do, are more than powerful enough to do with facts as they will.
The question is how to create narratives of awareness in which the story is one of building from facts instead of trying to slot facts into a pre-existing story.
Thanks Lee for your typically thoughtful comment. I must say that the conservationist Rosalie Edge (BTW, my full article will be up later this month) has inspired me to disagree. When she told Aldo Leopold (!) that he lacked the courage to tell the truth, she did not mean that his facts were wrong. She meant that his narratives were causing him to try to create meaning that required too much falsifying.
Yes, we should be wary of alleged Truths imposed by powerful white men (including philosophers!). We should be wary of their Facts too -- because while Donald Trump may have his own Facts about crowd sizes, billions earned, or what he once said, there is a Truth in the photographs, tax returns, and recordings, respectively. Journalists (and scientists, historians, policymakers, etc.) must continue to (as I wrote) *search for* objective truth. Not just facts.
Narratives will never be built on facts. They'll be be built on meaning, which often results from preexisting stories or mythologies. Our task is thus to be like Rosalie Edge: making sure that these meanings don't require too much falsifying.
Can you please direct us all to what Rosalie Edge said about Aldo L? I need to be more clear on what she meant by narratives requiring too much falsification. Its an interesting claim and I don't want to assume that I understand.
I will say that I see photographs, tax returns, and recordings (whether related to Trump or to anyone) as facts. They may end up being used in a narrative or even as part of several competing narratives, but like my rainbow, they are what they are, however interpreted. You can say they're each true (if of course, thst can be verified), but to me that is different from saying they're "the Truth." Facts are subject to verification (or falsification), but narratives - no matter how many or what facts they incorporate - cannot be verified, only evaluated. They are more or less useful (their utility may depend to some degree on what facts they successfully incorporate or explain) but they're not true or false, just better or worse, and they are also ever evolving. The "Truth" isn't something that can come out of a search in the complexity of the world. The "Truth" is something that is imposed to stop the search.
From a draft of my forthcoming article: 'In 1932, Leopold wrote Edge to complain about an ECC pamphlet critiquing government wildlife policies, titled “It’s Alive! Kill It!” He called the pamphlet “misleading and unfair,” especially a claim about the Biological Survey’s “wholesale” poisoning of songbirds. Edge responded, “If you do not call the destruction of 30,000 (or a number probably greatly exceeding 30,000) blackbirds ‘wholesale’ destruction, then the word wholesale must be entirely without meaning.” She didn’t explicitly point out that Leopold, who had just left the Forest Service and not yet joined the University of Wisconsin, was now totally dependent for his income on ammunition makers, which funded his game surveys. She simply said that “In our opinion the failure of conservation is largely due to a want of courage in telling the truth.”'
"Truth" does imply a conversation-stopping certainty. ("And that's the way it is.") But so do "facts." Elites may abuse the word "truth" to amass power, but that too is a "narrative" (and I believe you are arguing that it is one that requires too much falsification). This is a tricky dilemma, but not one we solve by banishing the word "truth" and trying to use "facts" or "useful" or "better" for the same purposes.
Thanks. I look forward to reading your article about Rosalie Edge.
There is a sense in which this is about how one wants to use certain words. I don't have much trouble distinguishing "facts" from "Truth." I see a search for facts as being about information that is verfiable and at least potentially useful, and that is likely to change over time. I see a search for Truth as trying to find a certainty that doesn't exist, trying, among other things, to freeze time. Facts can be discarded and replaced as we learn. Truths are "the way it is."
But of course my definitions are not universal and all these ways of speaking about things get terribly muddled even when one is trying not to let that happen. Even more to the point, though, is that its not just about choosing words. Its about choosing a way of thinking about things, which then gets reflected in the particular words one chooses.
So, I do choose to banish "Truth" because it is, as you say, a conversation stopper. I choose to believe that tall our lives together are best understood as an ongoing conversation that helps us see more clearly as we talk.
That's uncomfortable for a lot of people for reasons we need to explore here, but as I see the dilemma (good choice of words), it can only be resolved by us making some choices. So. I choose to believe (this is irreverent, but I can't help it) that "the road goes on forever and the party never ends." The lack of certainty that implies can be uncomfortable (or worse), but is preferable to having certainty imposed on us. It is also, and I think this is very important, preferable to having the power to impose the Truth on others.
I am not sure the challenge to science (a term that begs definition in this conversation, but I am not going there) is less than that journalism faces, but the role of the media, at least some of whom are at least supposedly journalists, is a hot topic and I appreciate John's observations about journalism's evolution (devolution?).
I would, though, be happier if John talked about facts rather than truth. I see the slipperly slope towards everyhing being opinion as a predictable reaction to the ideas of objectivity and capital T Truth that we are taught, curiously enough by both scientists and priests. Philosophers - mostly these days - are wary of capital T Truth and so should we all be.
We collectively can agree on facts. Rainbows result from the refraction of light through water droplets under certain specifiable circumstances. Yep. But what happens when we endow natural phenomena with meaning? Is the rainbow a sign of God's promise that he will not flood the earth again? I presume there's an "if" attached to the promise, but that is what I was taught on Sunday mornings. Or how are rainbows perceived when used as a symbol of diversity?
I think scientists - many of them - are guilty of pretending that fact and meaning can be separated. But can people stop making meaning? Nope, and so as John points out, the facts science finds get inserted into particular narratives. And narratives, partaking of myth as they do, are more than powerful enough to do with facts as they will.
The question is how to create narratives of awareness in which the story is one of building from facts instead of trying to slot facts into a pre-existing story.
Thanks Lee for your typically thoughtful comment. I must say that the conservationist Rosalie Edge (BTW, my full article will be up later this month) has inspired me to disagree. When she told Aldo Leopold (!) that he lacked the courage to tell the truth, she did not mean that his facts were wrong. She meant that his narratives were causing him to try to create meaning that required too much falsifying.
Yes, we should be wary of alleged Truths imposed by powerful white men (including philosophers!). We should be wary of their Facts too -- because while Donald Trump may have his own Facts about crowd sizes, billions earned, or what he once said, there is a Truth in the photographs, tax returns, and recordings, respectively. Journalists (and scientists, historians, policymakers, etc.) must continue to (as I wrote) *search for* objective truth. Not just facts.
Narratives will never be built on facts. They'll be be built on meaning, which often results from preexisting stories or mythologies. Our task is thus to be like Rosalie Edge: making sure that these meanings don't require too much falsifying.
Can you please direct us all to what Rosalie Edge said about Aldo L? I need to be more clear on what she meant by narratives requiring too much falsification. Its an interesting claim and I don't want to assume that I understand.
I will say that I see photographs, tax returns, and recordings (whether related to Trump or to anyone) as facts. They may end up being used in a narrative or even as part of several competing narratives, but like my rainbow, they are what they are, however interpreted. You can say they're each true (if of course, thst can be verified), but to me that is different from saying they're "the Truth." Facts are subject to verification (or falsification), but narratives - no matter how many or what facts they incorporate - cannot be verified, only evaluated. They are more or less useful (their utility may depend to some degree on what facts they successfully incorporate or explain) but they're not true or false, just better or worse, and they are also ever evolving. The "Truth" isn't something that can come out of a search in the complexity of the world. The "Truth" is something that is imposed to stop the search.
From a draft of my forthcoming article: 'In 1932, Leopold wrote Edge to complain about an ECC pamphlet critiquing government wildlife policies, titled “It’s Alive! Kill It!” He called the pamphlet “misleading and unfair,” especially a claim about the Biological Survey’s “wholesale” poisoning of songbirds. Edge responded, “If you do not call the destruction of 30,000 (or a number probably greatly exceeding 30,000) blackbirds ‘wholesale’ destruction, then the word wholesale must be entirely without meaning.” She didn’t explicitly point out that Leopold, who had just left the Forest Service and not yet joined the University of Wisconsin, was now totally dependent for his income on ammunition makers, which funded his game surveys. She simply said that “In our opinion the failure of conservation is largely due to a want of courage in telling the truth.”'
"Truth" does imply a conversation-stopping certainty. ("And that's the way it is.") But so do "facts." Elites may abuse the word "truth" to amass power, but that too is a "narrative" (and I believe you are arguing that it is one that requires too much falsification). This is a tricky dilemma, but not one we solve by banishing the word "truth" and trying to use "facts" or "useful" or "better" for the same purposes.
Thanks. I look forward to reading your article about Rosalie Edge.
There is a sense in which this is about how one wants to use certain words. I don't have much trouble distinguishing "facts" from "Truth." I see a search for facts as being about information that is verfiable and at least potentially useful, and that is likely to change over time. I see a search for Truth as trying to find a certainty that doesn't exist, trying, among other things, to freeze time. Facts can be discarded and replaced as we learn. Truths are "the way it is."
But of course my definitions are not universal and all these ways of speaking about things get terribly muddled even when one is trying not to let that happen. Even more to the point, though, is that its not just about choosing words. Its about choosing a way of thinking about things, which then gets reflected in the particular words one chooses.
So, I do choose to banish "Truth" because it is, as you say, a conversation stopper. I choose to believe that tall our lives together are best understood as an ongoing conversation that helps us see more clearly as we talk.
That's uncomfortable for a lot of people for reasons we need to explore here, but as I see the dilemma (good choice of words), it can only be resolved by us making some choices. So. I choose to believe (this is irreverent, but I can't help it) that "the road goes on forever and the party never ends." The lack of certainty that implies can be uncomfortable (or worse), but is preferable to having certainty imposed on us. It is also, and I think this is very important, preferable to having the power to impose the Truth on others.
Good read!