Keiran King: Humility isn't always a virtue

Two
weeks ago on Nationwide, discussing the accuracy of the Bible with poet
Mutabaruka, Pastor Conrad Pitkin and journalist Ian Boyne, I said,
“It’s not for me to demonstrate that reality is reality. The onus is on
whoever claims something ridiculous to provide evidence that it is
[real].” In the studio, I winced — ’ridiculous’ sounded dismissive;
‘fantastic’ would have been better. Stupid. I’d left an opening for a
sharp debater. Mr Boyne latched on right away in his verbose style,
calling for “epistemological humility” from all involved.

That’s
a mouthful, so let’s digest it slowly.  Epistemology is the study of
knowledge itself. It’s about what we know, and how we know what we know.
For instance, you can know from swotting tables that 12 x 8 = 96
without knowing how to multiply. You can design bicycles without being
able to ride one. You can use an octopus to predict the winner of the
World Cup and end up right for the wrong reason. There are all sorts of
limits and quirks to knowing, once you know where to look.

Underneath
the big words, Mr Boyne was calling me arrogant to dismiss Bible
miracles because, gee, you never know. Maybe God did beat us to
artificial insemination, and split the Red Sea before we split the atom.
Maybe my scientific world view — my way of knowing things — is too
limited to see the larger truth about God. And that possibility, Mr
Boyne posits, should humble us all.

Time
to fess up. Mr Boyne was correct — I was a bit cocksure. But here’s the
really interesting question. Was my arrogance justified, or are all
ways of knowing equal?

When
science goes up against religion, it sounds like a fair fight between
people in white coats and people in white robes. It's not. Science, from
the Latin root for (surprise!) 'knowledge', is basically asking a
question, trying to answer it, and then telling other people. Those
people ask more questions, and the process repeats, over and over and
over, weeding out bad ideas from good over time. That's all.  Science,
to be succinct, is thinking. It's problem-solving. And it's taken us
from the mud to the moon.

If
you're religious, and you grapple with questions about where the world
came from, why you're here, or how to live well, congratulations, you're
doing science. You're thinking. Suggesting God is the answer to those
questions is still science.  In the absence of more questions, it's
worth a try like anything else. Sticking your fingers in your ears so
you don't hear those questions — known as faith— is where it goes wrong.

Even
the religious prefer the epistemology of science (knowing by thinking)
to that of faith (knowing by trust). If we gathered hundreds of Jamaican
pastors to discuss emigration, none of them would suggest asking God to
open a land passage between MoBay and Miami. Why not?  Because everyone
knows — from science — it won't happen. If Reverend Pitkin seriously
suggested splitting the Caribbean Sea, the other pastors would think he
was crazy.

He'd
also be holding up progress, and that's the real issue. When we need a
solution, people who can't distinguish between the improbable and the
impossible are worse than useless — they stop the rest of us from moving
forward. If an idea can’t survive interrogation, it should perish. And
anyone who wilfully ignores the expiration date should be excluded from
the conversation. When facing dogma, humility becomes a liability that
keeps inferior ideas on life support.

Say
we’re building a highway. You want the route to go through Kellitts and
I want it to go around. Being humble helps us hear each other’s
rationale.  But if your argument includes that Jesus agrees with you, at
that point it's best for me to bypass you and the town.

Excessive
humility also threatens existing knowledge. The presence of evolution,
for example, is still hotly debated even though there’s nothing sensible
left to discuss.  Tolerating ideas like intelligent design, after
science disproves them, makes it harder to push the boundary of our
knowledge by turning it into a line in the sand. In the end, the most
arrogant position of all is refusing to admit when you’re wrong.

Keiran King is a writer and producer. His column appears every Wednesday. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and yell@keiranking.com.