Our Dangerous Inability to Agree on What is TRUE | Risk: Reason and Reality | Big Think - 1 views
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Given that human cognition is never the product of pure dispassionate reason, but a subjective interpretation of the facts based on our feelings and biases and instincts, when can we ever say that we know who is right and who is wrong, about anything? When can we declare a fact so established that it’s fair to say, without being called arrogant, that those who deny this truth don’t just disagree…that they’re just plain wrong
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This isn’t about matters of faith, or questions of ultimately unknowable things which by definition can not be established by fact. This is a question about what is knowable, and provable by careful objective scientific inquiry, a process which includes challenging skepticism rigorously applied precisely to establish what, beyond any reasonable doubt, is in fact true. The way evolution has been established
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With enough careful investigation and scrupulously challenged evidence, we can establish knowable truths that are not just the product of our subjective motivated reasoning. We can apply our powers of reason and our ability to objectively analyze the facts and get beyond the point where what we 'know' is just an interpretation of the evidence through the subconscious filters of who we trust and our biases and instincts. We can get to the point where if someone wants to continue believe that the sun revolves around the earth, or that vaccines cause autism, or that evolution is a deceit, it is no longer arrogant - though it may still be provocative - to call those people wrong.
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