Simple facts are easily recognizable. There are just things we all, as a society, seemed to have learned and learned well. No real dispute, right?
For instance, we all know that bulls hate the color red, right? I mean, you’ve never seen a bull go after a matador waving a green cloth, right?
Here’s another one: Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on earth. That’s been long established. In fact, if a stranger at a bar asked you to bet that a different mountain was actually the tallest, you might (hopefully) decline the bet because the stranger is clearly either not sober or his cheese has slipped off his cracker.
And truth matters. Knowing the truth is often vital to our thriving as human beings.
Knowing that boiling water will burn us is important.
A big factor in deciding how to spend your income is understanding that if you refuse to pay your rent, your family will soon be homeless.
The knowledge that driving 100 miles per hour everywhere you go will likely land you with a hefty ticket, or even jail time, helps determine how soon you will arrive at your desired destination.
• But what if we don’t have all the information we need?
• What if the data is complex and what if we’re really not sure what we’re looking at?
• And crucially, what if the information we have isn’t enough to guide our decisions?
That’s where humility comes in.
Because I can be confident about a thing and also be wrong about that thing. And in my mind, there’s nothing more dangerous than being overconfident about the conclusions I have reached, particularly when my access to or understanding of information is limited.
For instance, if I drive 70 miles an hour because that’s what I believe the speed limit is, I’m getting a ticket in a 35 mile an hour zone. It doesn’t matter what my intentions are–bad data leads to bad outcomes.
So…
Did you know that bulls cannot see the color red? It’s thought that they are more engaged by the motion of the cloth than the color.
Did you know that Mauna Kea, which is partially buried under water, is taller than Mount Everest? Glad you didn’t take that bet.
Now, this isn’t to say that we should go around cynically doubting every single thing we think we know. But it does mean that, perhaps, we should hold our beliefs about the world around us with open hands, rather than closed fists. The point is that our confidence in any given fact can never be absolute, because we can never possess absolute knowledge.
So, first: when claims are made, we should engage them with humility, rather than with certainty, especially when it comes to issues that are complex or where our information is limited. We should consider the available evidence, and keep in mind our own biases, which can so often taint the way we look at things. And we should never find ourselves in a place where we are so dug into our own beliefs that we will not allow our minds to be changed after encountering new or better information.
Second: we must remember that the more outlandish the claim, the more evidence should be required to convince us of it. For instance, if that same stranger in the bar comes up to you and tells you that they have a puppy at home, it’s not that big of a stretch to believe them. Because you’ve seen puppies. You know people own puppies. And if the stranger is lying about having a puppy, it’s really no big deal (unless of course he uses that lie to convince you to go back to his place, murders you, and keeps your internal organs in his fridge. So, you know, remember stranger danger, too.).
But if that stranger tells you that he owns all the puppies in Denmark, you would be right to be skeptical, because again, that’s a claim which should require a lot of evidence to legitimate.
At the end of the day, the entire world—and our individual lives, for that matter—would be a much kinder, more thoughtful place if we would encounter facts which challenge our notions of how things work with the simple beauty of the statement: “I could be wrong.”
Because after all, we often are.
All the best,
Brandon