I wonder how many historically important people have pretended to be something they’re not, for political reasons. I bet it’s a lot. Did scientists historically pretend to be Christians? Do modern scientists pretend to be materialists? I wonder how deep the pretending might run. Do people convince themselves wholly? Do they convince themselves just a little bit? Do they just plain lie? Or are people generally or always truthful? And how would we know one way or another?
Are such questions answerable? If so, using which empirical methods? In order for the relationship between beliefs and actions to be empirically studied, must we assume that action corresponds to belief - that actions for the most part (i.e. when one isn’t forced at gunpoint) belie one’s true beliefs? If not, how do we account for conscious deception (and unconscious self-deception)?
Whether scientists or not, people are not truthful. Deception in society is endemic. This deception can be accounted for. We live in a competitive world. Winning is what matters and that is achieved by having power over others. An inevitable casualty of living in such a corrupt society is the truth. Thus ‘pretending’ runs very, very deeply, because it has been going on for millennia. It has been going on for so long now that I don’t think people deliberately lie. They are taken in by the lies that are current and don’t question them. Questioning the status quo is not encouraged, after all!
So, to answer some specific questions:
Firstly, it may well have been a technique of scientists to pretend to be Christians. Galileo was forced to recant his heretical theories, wasn’t he? Scientists pretended to be Christians because it was dangerous to be overtly otherwise. (In the natural world, moths use camouflage to avoid being eaten – scientists camouflaged themselves as Christians to avoid being killed!) Then, when opinions started to change and scientific ideas became more prominent and the church started loosing its grip on power, it became safer for scientists to ‘come out’ so to speak. This all happened because the church and science were in the throes of a power struggle – which they still are to this day. The difference being that science has the upper hand and is becoming everyday more and more influential and powerful.
Secondly, such questions are answerable. But not, I think, using empirical methods as defined by science. Individual personal experience is the key. So too is intuition and instinct. The point is that one has a duty to arrive at one’s own conclusions not by accepting what one is told by an authority such as science, but by one’s personal experience.
Thirdly, to tell whether people are lying or being truthful, examine your own experience. Does it agree with what you are being told by those in authority? Also, maintaining a network of deceit is impossible. The saying ‘actions speak louder than words’ is another key. So, to take science as an example, when I am told that scientists share their knowledge freely – which I am frequently told – experience tells me that claim is a lie. Scientific knowledge, as in so many other fields, is censored. Peer review ensures that only ‘approved’ theories or work gets published. Similarly, science tells me that nature is competitive, just like the human world is competitive. Again, experience and observation tell me that is a lie. (I won’t go in to why it is a lie, but the signs are out there for the looking.)
I’d say societal living - in most cases - involves some acceptance of deception. In a hierarchical system people lie simply to get into the ‘drivers seat’ (so to speak…). We lie about our skills, hide our personalities, avoid certain interactions, gossip and spread rumors – all to fit in, or to be given a ‘role’ or purpose.
In the past, the dangers of free thought and speech were far more overt; people lied just to save their necks. This is why, to me, history as dictated by religion or monarchs is highly, highly suspect. These are people who lied to themselves until the line between truth and fiction blurs; after which we can never really know the ratio we are dealing with. When someone finally believes a lie, it is no longer a lie to him; so, to speak that lie in his case is to speak a truth (though it may be a lie none-the-less). I suppose this is why we need our most basic, object assumptions (those by which we function as human beings) to measure various claims against.
Isn’t there an implied assumption that we are somehow rational beings in your OP? I suppose for the sake of consistency, it would be a good thing, but I haven’t noticed a great deal of consistent rational behavior in our society. It would seem to me that if there is deception of self, it is the illusion that we are rational…
This is not true. Peer review ensures that the scientific methods and the references cited are in order; valid results that contradict “approved” theories get published frequently, and often overhyped. That’s how approved theories become improved theories, and how paradigms become overturned.
I like this OP! In studying how Christianity has changed from 1st century alleged sayings of Jesus and eye-witness accounts, it was easy for me to see how the religion was perverted on a fudge by fudge basis. The fudging seems mostly ego related i.e., done with the primary consideration of how self worth is socially acknowledged.
As a useful tool for control, the Bible (as well as the Christian religion itself) became privy to the whims of the ruling class – specifically, in this case, power-hungry and often maniacal monarchs (kings, queens, popes, ‘bishops’, etc.).
In other words, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. A couple thousand years, a couple thousand crazy assholes, and a continual drive toward power & self-satisfaction – consider, say, a single ‘fudge’ every century during that span of time. That is enough fudge to create an entirely new religion with, let alone pervert one that already exists, and, most importantly, works!
It is like “schadenfreude” where it is present everywhere but we may as well use the lone-word because it better encapsulates it that anything else we could come up with.
Is there a difference between what we think, what we say, and how we act? Is a pig’s ass pork? If we were consistently rational, there would be no questions because our beliefs would always be mirrored in our actions. I took your OP questions as curiosity as to WHY our inconsistencies occur, which was also a suggestion that we could be any other way (ie - that we are capable of consistent rationality). Spock doesn’t exist. I know you know, I was just throwing a little sand in the vaseline…
Humanity is the curious mix of AWARENESS of heart (emotion) and mind, and we continuously slide up and down the continuum of rational and irrational thoughts, beliefs, and actions. It seems to me that the only honesty we can posess is recognition that we are more than capable of creating illusion, and that our beliefs contain both rational and irrational elements. There is no way to establish the cause/effect chain between our beliefs > actions because this would require pure rationality - and we aren’t completely rational.
An example: We are inundated with all the information necessary to maintain good health, all backed by rational reasons for doing this, not that. And so we do our best to be disgustingly healthy. We eat the right foods, belong to the right gym, get our yearly check up and all the other “right” and rational things to maintain good health. At the same time, we try to not smoke more than a pack a day, or consume more than 3 martini’s for lunch. Huh? What we think, and what we say, and what we do don’t match up.
OK, maybe some people can claim the health moral high ground, but close examination will find other inconsistencies equally perplexing. I think that difference between what we believe and how we sometimes act is just part of what we are…
When the peer review process works properly it does the latter.
When it is hijacked by religious glowbull warming fanatics who have no concern for whether their beliefs are true, just that they need others to believe them, it acts quite differently.
Scientists are no different to any other sort of human being - they are capable of lying, and put them in the right situation and they will quite happily lie to maintain their status, their salary, or to suck up to some King or Prime
Minister or whatever. Since the dawn of aristocracy the ruling class has had its intellectuals to promulgate useful ideas among the general public.
That said, some scientists are very sincere and honest people. But they’re usually the ones that admit that centuries of observation and experimentation haven’t really got us closer to anything you could confidently call ‘truth’.
I often see this kind of argument as a rebutal of science-scepsis, but I wonder how much technological progress is due to science propper. Do we equate technological invention with science?
To me there seems to be a clear difference between technological applications that seem to come more out of industry, as a result of trial and error experimentation, and the more “theoretical” science being done in accademia. The latter being more of a publish or perrish status game.
The difference is in your perception. Science relies on empirical validation, as much as technology relies on theory; the latter simply converts the former into practical things. Industry is also publish-or-perish (at least, sell-or-perish), more so if anything; tenure is an academic luxury.
A silicon chip didn’t come about because someone decided they wanted a computer chip, tried wood and steel and lots of different materials and finally found one that worked. The ‘academic’ science of semiconductivity was essential. No-one would have launched a communications satellite without having extensive theoretical evidence about electromagnetic radiation. Computers rely on entirely abstract, theoretical Boolean logic. Technology develops knowledge; that knowledge is scientific. Do you think you could use a laptop or listen to a CD without the vast amount of advanced physics that sits behind lasers and semiconductors?
If we were consistently rational, there would be no questions because our beliefs would always be mirrored in our actions. I took your OP questions as curiosity as to WHY our inconsistencies occur, which was also a suggestion that we could be any other way (ie - that we are capable of consistent rationality). Spock doesn’t exist. I know you know, I was just throwing a little sand in the vaseline…