In a recent seminar that I was given, a scientist in the audience was offended when a slide I was showing stated that people will ignore data/information that does not match their model. He asked me if I was implying the scientists ignore data.
He went on to tell me that he would get fired in his job if he did that, and that a scientist would "never ignore data."
I was intrigued by how strongly he reacted, but decided that it enough off topic to not pursue it.
And now I run into this interesting "The Truth wears off" article.
Here is an except from the article:
But now all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly unprovable. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology. In the field of medicine, the phenomenon seems extremely widespread, affecting not only antipsychotics but also therapies ranging from cardiac stents to Vitamin E and antidepressants.
How does one explain such phenomena? Does this support my premise about seeing in the data what matches our model? It sure is one explaination!
Where spokes persons for science, religion, philosophy, mathematics, and spirituality come to talk.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Woman by the Window:
Woman by the Windowby Lee Wimberly
Photo by Jerry Gay, published in "Seeing Reality."
I “see” you, pictured by the window,
wheelchair-bound, neck stretched and smiling.
But do I see YOUR picture?
I “see” you, a gift given by light entering window,
softened by curtain-filters to lightly paint your face,
and dress,
and arms,
and hands.
With illumination my near-sighted and
light-ray limited orbs so demand.
So they can surface connect,
fulfilling their separation-saturating role.
That I might recognize your surface, but get not a glimpse of your soul.
Yet I sense so much more than the shades of gray
given me by photographer and binding and book and paper.
How reach you out to me from flattened surface;
past eyes and nerves and brain and self-imposed words?
Past veins and arteries, through blood, past muscle,
to mysteriously move my very heart and Essence?
Let Us not, you and me and listener and onlooker,
remain caught at the superficial veneer we hide
behind to protect that fragile, self-absorbed ego.
But let us instead stand up from our wheel-chair prisons
to reach ahead of separating time and past distancing space.
Let us bask in warm glow of your projected joy,
to go beyond your camera-captured “now.”
Share with us your vibrant spirit and teach us your unspoken,
heart-earned life-lessons in the non-terms of Unifying Spirit.
Let us reach out and touch each other in ways
only understood by Creator. Let the Us we are
collapse the space-time and camera-filtering chasm
that disconnect us and go beyond our limited knowing,
to experience not that which splits us, and deceives us to be
single threads, but instead to comprehend the interwoven strands of
God-space and God-time and God-universe.
And may we gaze past that which we so easily label reality,
to experience and know the Divine.
The picture and photo gives expression to the existential elements behind "Exploring the Gap between Science and Religion."
Friday, January 28, 2011
What is the nature of truth? Is truth self-evident?
I often start a discussion of “Exploring the Gap between Science and Religion” ( http://www.explorethegap.net) by asking the question “Is science equipped to reveal truth?” More often than not, I get the answer: “It depends on how you define truth?”
This response and other discussions have led me to explore, read, and write about “the nature of truth?”
Let me explain why the question is phrased this way. I find many instances of people either discussing truth, or claiming to hold the “absolute truth”. When I encounter such discussions, I find myself wanting to ask “what do you mean by truth?” In some settings, I have found people reluctant to tackle the question of truth, and I find many people claiming “there are many truths.”
What occurs in response, of course, isn’t truth truth? And it would appear that even though truth is illusive, and some don’t want to tackle the topic, many seem to hold firmly that there is some kind of absolute, unchangeable, immutable truth.
So here is why I ask the question “What is the nature of truth?” If we once develop detailed criteria of what truth IS, we can then apply those criteria in evaluating things which someone might claim to be true. In fact, these criteria can be—once established—to evaluate this analysis of the nature of truth. Yes, this appears to be backwards in approach! But by doing it this way, we can have an discussion that does not start out with an unverified premise.
I found a paper posted on the web that provides a detailed analysis and discussion titled “What is the nature of truth?” http://www.southalabama.edu/philosophy/coker2/Joachim_The_Nature_of_Truth.htm
Here is an outline of the areas considered by the paper. A brief definition of each follows.
TRUTH AS CORRESPONDENCE: A match between observation and model/concept.
TRUTH AS QUALITY OF INDEPENDENT ENTITIES: “Experiencing makes no difference to the facts.” “The theory maintains that greenness is what is in complete independence of any and all forms of experiencing, and indeed of anything other than itself.” “Greenness is an entity in itself. And though, as experienced, it is related to a sentient consciousness, yet even in that relation it remains in itself and unaffected by the sentience.
TRUTH AS COHERENCE: “Anything is true which can be conceived. It is true because, and in so far as, it can be conceived. Conceivability is the essential nature of truth.” “To 'conceive' means for us to think out clearly and logically, to hold many elements together in a connexion necessitated by their several contents.” (P. 66) I interpret this to be that the concepts collectively are logical and consistent with each other. I add to it, the notion of comprehensive.
REGIONAL OR TEMPORARY TRUTH: “Universal judgments of science” “What is once true, it must be agreed, is true always: for truth, since it holds irrespectively of time, holds indifferently at all times.” (p. 88). This is contrasted with theories that change when additional information is obtained.
I will periodically pose further questions about about the nature of truth. Remember, we are trying to separate examples of truth with the criteria of truth. Here is the first question:
If we encountered truth, would it be self-evident? Or, stated differently, would the truth be independent of the observer/decider?
This response and other discussions have led me to explore, read, and write about “the nature of truth?”
Let me explain why the question is phrased this way. I find many instances of people either discussing truth, or claiming to hold the “absolute truth”. When I encounter such discussions, I find myself wanting to ask “what do you mean by truth?” In some settings, I have found people reluctant to tackle the question of truth, and I find many people claiming “there are many truths.”
What occurs in response, of course, isn’t truth truth? And it would appear that even though truth is illusive, and some don’t want to tackle the topic, many seem to hold firmly that there is some kind of absolute, unchangeable, immutable truth.
So here is why I ask the question “What is the nature of truth?” If we once develop detailed criteria of what truth IS, we can then apply those criteria in evaluating things which someone might claim to be true. In fact, these criteria can be—once established—to evaluate this analysis of the nature of truth. Yes, this appears to be backwards in approach! But by doing it this way, we can have an discussion that does not start out with an unverified premise.
I found a paper posted on the web that provides a detailed analysis and discussion titled “What is the nature of truth?” http://www.southalabama.edu/philosophy/coker2/Joachim_The_Nature_of_Truth.htm
Here is an outline of the areas considered by the paper. A brief definition of each follows.
- Truth as correspondence.
- Truth as a quality of independent entities.
- Truth as a coherence, to which I would add the term “comprehensiveness.”
- Truth as regional/temporary versus absolute truth.
TRUTH AS CORRESPONDENCE: A match between observation and model/concept.
TRUTH AS QUALITY OF INDEPENDENT ENTITIES: “Experiencing makes no difference to the facts.” “The theory maintains that greenness is what is in complete independence of any and all forms of experiencing, and indeed of anything other than itself.” “Greenness is an entity in itself. And though, as experienced, it is related to a sentient consciousness, yet even in that relation it remains in itself and unaffected by the sentience.
TRUTH AS COHERENCE: “Anything is true which can be conceived. It is true because, and in so far as, it can be conceived. Conceivability is the essential nature of truth.” “To 'conceive' means for us to think out clearly and logically, to hold many elements together in a connexion necessitated by their several contents.” (P. 66) I interpret this to be that the concepts collectively are logical and consistent with each other. I add to it, the notion of comprehensive.
REGIONAL OR TEMPORARY TRUTH: “Universal judgments of science” “What is once true, it must be agreed, is true always: for truth, since it holds irrespectively of time, holds indifferently at all times.” (p. 88). This is contrasted with theories that change when additional information is obtained.
I will periodically pose further questions about about the nature of truth. Remember, we are trying to separate examples of truth with the criteria of truth. Here is the first question:
If we encountered truth, would it be self-evident? Or, stated differently, would the truth be independent of the observer/decider?
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