How opinions become facts

Posted on 20 December, 2019 by alloporus

Our becoming emotionally wedded to our opinions mutates them into indisputable facts. That’s when they become dangerous. When our beliefs possess our feelings and we cement them as truth, we start to exclude, judge or dismiss the beliefs of others. Undue feelings of superiority take hold. And in that condition, it’s impossible for actual truths—even provable, scientific ones—to get in.
Partrick King

If Patrick King is right then opinions readily become ‘facts’ even without proof. When we are invested through a feeling our minds and hearts begin to narrow our world view and make it our immutable own. We start to believe our own thoughts, notorious for their flights of fancy, and consolidate them into our truths. Add to this any number of powerful forces in the modern world that play with our emotions, tapping into and sometimes mutating our core beliefs to fill us up with rigidity. We become closed and, as my own therapist tells me, judgemental and negative. Ouch.

If even half of this is true, we have a serious problem on our hands.

When opinions solidify into cement they corral us into like-minded groups creating the steel reinforcement for the concrete. The really important awareness and empathy suffer and limit our connections to other people. Ouch again.

Before the sky falls in, let’s back up a little.

Opinion is defined as “a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge”. We all have them because we use judgements to help us navigate our lives.

It helps not to have to think things through from first principles all the time for that would be tedious and inefficient. We need the thinking space saved for emergencies. And if there are no crises to resolve, then thinking can be used for creative outlets. Not having to think until we want to is powerful support for opinions.

Facts are defined as things that are known to be consistent with objective reality and can be proven to be true with evidence. In other words, they are objective.

Facts come from a logical process of proof that the proposition (or belief) is true or valid. This involves observation or the creation of information through an agreed process that goes beyond the individual and is repeatable. It should also be agreed that the logic process and the information reflects reality. This is all a bit technical and not touchy-feely at all, far more Mr Spock than Captain Kirk. Most people would rather be Kirk than Spock.

Given these definitions, we can see that opinion is easy to come by for all we have to do is attach to our core and run with what it tells us. Facts are much harder to grasp for we must understand the logic process that generates them in order to accept them as proven and following this logic is hard work.

As far as our minds are concerned, opinion is easy, facts are hard.

There is an evolutionary advantage to the easier, lower-risk path. So it should be no surprise that judgements that are easier to come by and yet are still useful will persist.

This makes the first premise, of mutation of emotion into facts, logical even likely, especially for the pleasant feelings; such as being above average for example.

If they continue to work for us then their persistence makes sense too. The reinforcement of the good vibes that this brings will make the next premise likely too… “we start to exclude, judge or dismiss the beliefs of others.” This is the genesis of dogma. Fine when it is mutually beneficial (conservation of elephants is fine aspiration) and not so good when it is not (my religion is better than yours, in fact, yours sucks). This is bad enough for it creates any number of opportunities for conflict as people join their tribes and disagree with the opinions of other tribes.

The final premise is the one that really matters. Excluding others and feeling superior make it… impossible for actual truths—even provable, scientific ones—to get in. In other words, our opinions become very hard to change even when the evidence is strong that they are wrong or nonsensical.

As a scientist this is challenging. It is already difficult to explain scientific facts to the non-scientist who is not familiar with the logic revolutions of the renaissance or the technical details of your subject. They believe your white lab coat more than your statistical explanation. If we are also up against an evolutionary pressure — the easiest path will lead the genes along it — then we are in serious strife.

Donald, on the other hand, is laughing.

Where do you come from?

Posted on 13 December, 2019 by alloporus

I could answer this by saying Croydon in south London where I was born. Only my parents moved from there before I had any memory of the place. They lived for a time in Herne Bay on the Essex coast where my sister was born but unlikely she would remember that place either because we were soon on our way back to south London, Hern Hill this time. Then from there to Hartlepool in the frozen north where a different language must be learned in a hurry, and then back to London, this time to Palmers Green in the posh northern suburbs.

So you could say I come from London… ish. Not a true cockney of course and sufficiently messed with accent wise to give the game away.

When people ask, that is what I say, I come from North London, mostly as I can remember that place.

When I was in my mid-twenties I got on a plane and moved to Zimbabwe.

Clearly not satisfied with the vagrancy of my youth, I opted for a big getaway that ended up lasting nearly a decade in Africa and is still going in the Antipodes. Almost before the plane touched down among the blossoming jacaranda trees of a vibrant Harare in its 1980’s livery that still worked for most of the people, I felt something homely. A sense of place.

At the time I put it down to youthful enthusiasm and excitement for the adventure. When it kept coming I noted it. I did feel comfort here. It was more than the friendly people and the stunning nature that was a European ecologists fantasy. It was a feeling in your gut that you were close to the truth. Near to something very important.

I travelled to the bush as often as I could and in the Brachystegia woodlands or among the leadwood and apple ring acacias on the banks of the Zambezi River or the majestic granite dwalas of the Matopos, the feeling kept coming. A sense of calm and peace that became a sense of belonging.

All the while I was reminded of the reality of my temporary status. A year-long residence permit with a renewal process that took six months did not even cover the postdoctoral research contract. There was very little pay and the tension of a struggling economy still limping after a decade of sanctions was starting to hurt folk. Most of the cars were older than I was and there was always one failed rainy season short of a food shortage. Yet even though I was alive to the reality of being a temporary guest, this feeling of place grew stronger.

After a couple of years of this delight, I moved again. This time to a more stable situation in Botswana, the next country along. This time the two-year contract was a little easier to renew and the salary was generous enough for a very comfortable life.

On one of the first explorations of the drier yet still magnificent acacia shrub of the granite sands, mopane woodlands in the north and desert grasslands of the Kalahari, I went to the easternmost arm of the Okavango Delta past Mababe village into a place of lush grasslands and mature acacia trees known as the Mababe Depression. This is a place where the water from the delta sometimes goes when the flood is strongest. It is a wilderness of the finest style, impala and sable and even roan mixing it with giraffe and elephant drawn to the water and the sweet grasses, a place to know where you come from.

As I got out of the truck and stood on the sandy clay in awe and gratitude that feeling came to me like never before. A powerful vibrancy in every cell just telling me that this is the place. This is where you are from. And for a moment I wasn’t in my body, I was in the grass and the trees and the impala grazing quietly in front of me.

It all sounds a little fanciful as I recount it now, but it was very real at the time. I knew there was something very special about the earth in that little far away corner of Africa. Only twice more in my life have I felt so connected to the greater universe and one of those occasions was after bypass surgery.

Mababe was truly special.

Fast forward a few decades and I come across a report in the Gaudian on new research from Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney that used analyses of mitochondrial DNA to find where we all came from.

The claim is that “The swathe of land south of the Zambezi River became a thriving home to Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago, the researchers suggest, and sustained an isolated, founder population of modern humans for at least 70,000 years.”

Here is the map I borrowed from the article and added the location of the Mababe Depression. Surprise, surprise it is right there where the founders lived.

There is conjecture as to the veracity of these DNA results and the interpretation but this time I’ll take it.

You see my cells knew.

They vibrated to the energy of ancestors that started it all. That founder population that stood there and contemplated how to catch the impala for supper.

Why integrity and scepticism are inseparable allies

Posted on 6 December, 2019 by alloporus

Scepticism | a sceptical attitude; doubt as to the truth of something

doubt, doubtfulness, dubiousness, a pinch of salt, lack of conviction; disbelief, cynicism, distrust, mistrust, suspicion, misbelief, incredulity; pessimism, defeatism; raredubiety, Pyrrhonism, scepsis, minimifidianism

Integrity | the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles

honesty, uprightness, probity, rectitude, honour, honourableness, upstandingness, good character, principle(s), ethics, morals, righteousness, morality, nobility, high-mindedness, right-mindedness, noble-mindedness, virtue, decency, fairness, scrupulousness, sincerity, truthfulness, trustworthiness

Recently I have been asking myself a lot of questions, some of them pointy.

What is going on in the world? Why are we blind to the impending right-wing takeovers? Why is history repeating? Why do we believe lies? How did I get here?

This is partly a time of life thing and partly a WTF triggered by the state of the world, the country I live in, and my profession. Meantime some workplace nastiness has stalked in from the field and to hit me on the blindside.

In short, I am stressed out.

I have turned to my favourite supports. The butt skyward frame of the downward dog has provided solace, likewise, the gifted Mary Maddux from Meditation Oasis has been a huge help.

Meanwhile, my friends and loved ones have blessed me again and again.

I am starting to feel better.

This time around though my malaise was deep. The forces of the dark side gently yet steadily messing with my balance. I felt like I would fall over at the slightest push.

In this situation, there is only so much the supports can do. They can lift me up each time I fall but they cannot always be there for protection when the winds blow even as they show me how I can be more robust to the gusts and bend more easily. So this time I also sought out and benefited from some professional help.

Therapy is still a little shameful.

It suggests weakness because at the time you are. The point of talking through your inner emotions with a trustworthy stranger is because you need to build or rebuild mental strength. So, yes, I am weak right now. I need help and time to regain my fortitude.

The first couple of sessions went deep. This surprised me a bit. Maybe my subconscious was ready for it, more like ‘screaming to get out’ I think, and one word kept cropping up both during the sessions and as I processed and the therapist listened.

I became fixated with integrity.

My initial conclusion — initial because I suspect that this exploration has only just begun — is that honour and honesty mean a great deal to me, chased closely by character and morals. Integrity is a word to catch deep feelings in a jar and close the lid.

Then I realised that my profession of applied scientist embraces the qualities of integrity, of course, but it demands something else. My work also requires scepticism — the seeking of truth by applying doubt, then displacing it with evidence.

Scepticism is good, at least it should be. Scepticism is the foundation of science and is what separates science from opinion and lies.

As a seeker of truth, you have to question what you hear, see and smell. Even what you touch can deceive and so you apply logic to these things. This is the best way we know to convert information into evidence. My hand smells of lavender because I grasped the seed head of a lavender plant in the garden. The hand wash has the same smell but not necessarily because it had anything to do with a lavender plant.

Integrity and scepticism.

A huge ah-ha arrived when I put these two words together.

Scepticism is a huge threat to integrity.

Integrity functions as a given. You cannot test for it or prove it. Integrity appears through your words and your actions. It is hard to earn and maintain and is lost in a split second. Question a person’s integrity and you wound him. It matters not if there is no foundation, just to ask the question is wielding a weapon.

Yet sceptics cannot help but ask a question for this is what scepticism is, the asking of questions.

It appears I am trained to wound myself.

This is my interpretation and my current landing. My therapist did not suggest this and bears no responsibility other than what can be attributed to gentle prodding and a listening ear. I have decided that I have created a contradiction in myself.

I am latched onto integrity as a core value, if not the core value in my life. And yet all the time I go around questioning almost everything. In the simple act of scepticism, I am wielding a powerful emotional weapon, and just like anyone who would wield a real lightsaber, I am at constant risk of injury.

So far this realisation of self-harm is raw.

It is not really helping me given that I can’t relinquish integrity any more than I can give up scepticism. Both are integral to who I am.

A conundrum must exist. At least I know that now.

Needless to say, I immediately applied my black and white mind to this conundrum in search of a solution. I could give up integrity or scepticism or perhaps both. This would be difficult as a new persona is never easy to build and I would need a new career. Suggestions are most welcome.

Alternatively, I can figure out a better way for them to coexist.

I guess the real problem is that even Master Yoda must have singed a hair or the end of an ear in his fight with Dooku.