This I Believe
The below is the product of an Adult Religious Education workshop held at my church, based on the popular NPRsegment "This I Believe". It was presented at Neshoba Church on October 16th and will eventually appear on the church website, whenever I get around to publishing it.
I believe in Truth. Yes, that's "Truth" with a capital "T". I'm not speaking of some vague, spiritual notion; I mean the one objective, demonstrable reality. I don't deny the importance of more subjective, lower-case "truths", the stories and metaphors we tell ourselves and each other to make sense of our world, but I firmly believe in the primacy of the Truth we share. I have often heard it said that "there is more than one way of knowing", but I disagree. There is only one way of knowing, and that is through experience. It doesn't have to be our own, but it is only through experience, and through deliberate reflection on experience, that we can come to understand the universe and our place in it. Anything else is nothing more than wishful thinking, or, dare I say, delusion. That's not to say our delusions don't have their place, but I believe it's vitally important to remember that's exactly what they are. We should never turn our backs on what is true and real in favor of what is comfortable and convenient. I will always prefer an inconvenient, unpleasant Truth over a comforting delusion.
I believe the universe is comprehensible. Everything happens for a reason, and that reason is nothing more than the accumulation of causes and their effects, stretching back in an unbroken chain to the very dawn of time. We live in a universe of great mystery and wonder, and mystery should be sought out and celebrated. But mystery and ambiguity should never be preserved for their own sake. Mystery is an opportunity to learn, and to grow, and to discover something more about our reality. Mystery is born of ignorance, not of ineffability. There are certainly questions we don't have the answers to, and there are questions to which we'll never have the answers, and there are questions we can never answer. But there are no questions without answers. And there certainly aren’t questions we aren't meant to answer, or things we’re not meant to know. Such a notion presupposes the existence of an "arbiter of meaning" in the cosmos, and I believe there isn't one.
I believe in accidents. The universe never had us in mind, because the universe doesn't have a mind. Our world and our lives are the result of a string of quantum events, cosmological circumstance, and basic chemistry. There is no design. We might say we're insignificant in the Grand Scheme of things, but even that is inaccurate. There is no Grand Scheme. We are accidents; but we are not mistakes. And our existence is made all the more precious because of it. I believe the universe has no ultimate meaning or purpose or reason for our existence. And that means we're free to create our own. We do so, not within the boundless infinity of a cold, indifferent universe, but within the social sphere of our relationships, both with each other and with our world. It is within this much smaller arena that we find purpose and meaning and consequence. We may never have real, lasting impact on our universe-at-large, but the impact we have on individual lives, and on our world, can be profound. That's where I look for meaning and purpose.
Because I believe in people. We are all gentle, hopeful, noble creatures. And we are all selfish, greedy, savage beasts. Which aspect of our dual nature we choose to embrace and nurture is forever our choice. We have a shared responsibility for our world, our future, and for each other, and we can do far more together than we could ever hope to alone. What we do today may not resonate beyond our own insignificant little mudball, it may be forgotten in 1000 years, or in 100. So what? It may be remembered tomorrow. It may make a difference today.
Ignorance
I have a friend who is embarking on a grand experiment: to avoid all news in an attempt to reduce anxiety and be happier. My response? That the last thing we need is more Americans who are hopelessly ignorant of what's going on in the world around them. That's not entirely fair to him, and I didn't mean to be so harsh, but the whole enterprise angered me. I didn't even know why at first. Upon further reflection, I realized that I was offended. I actually found it practically immoral.
This is exceedingly odd for me. I am a deep, dark blue social liberal; I try to only make moral judgements about behavior insofar as it impacts others. Yet willful ignorance deeply offends me. How can you be an effective participant in society while remaining largely ignorant of it? Isn't an educated, informed electorate a necessary component of any healthy, functional democracy? It may be an unreachable ideal, and we may fall far short of it at the moment, but that doesn't mean we should just give up. I would actually be less bothered if he chose to withdraw from society completely, but to remain a part of society, yet refuse to engage with it completely, seems fundamentally wrong to me.
But my offense runs deeper. My friend is speaking specifically of news of politics and world affairs, but others are equally content to be ignorant of science, of psychology, of other cultures, etc. Many are quite proud of what they don't know, speaking of "intellectual elites" and speaking the word "science" with derision. You may argue that avoiding the news is not the same as refusing a few inconvenient scientific facts, and you would be right, but it is the same sort of "celebration of ignorance" that I find disturbing.
How can anyone revel in ignorance? How can anyone desire this, much less actively seek it? This is my chief problem with religion: it encourages you to stop asking questions. I am well aware of the psychological benefits of religion, and of its societal benefits, but those benefits pale when they are in service of a delusion. Truth is a virtue. Truth is the highest virtue. And curiosity is a virtue as well. Our experience tells us the universe is comprehensible; we face practical limitations in our observational and computational abilites, but, in principal, nothing is out of bounds. We must keep pressing further. I will always prefer a hard truth to blissful ignorance, or to a comforting delusion.
Truth is a virtue. Is that a spiritual belief? I concede it might be. But, if it is, it is a belief, in part, that we should not be content with spiritual beliefs. And, if I begin embracing paradoxes...well, that starts to sound like religion. And that makes me a little uncomfortable.
Which brings us full circle; I like to be a little uncomfortable. I enjoy uncertainty. I embrace ambiguity. I crave greater understanding, and I will never be satisfied. This is what drives us forward, as individuals, as societies, and as a species.
Ignorance is not bliss; it is only ignorance.
Vaccines
I was shocked and a little appalled to read the headline: "Family to Receive $1.5M+ in First-Ever Vaccine-Autism Court Award". With this settlement, the government seems to be affirming a link between vaccination and autism, despite the fact that the scientific data says otherwise. What's going on?
First, the facts of the case: Hannah Poling was a happy and healthy 18-month-old. Then, in July of 2000, she received a series of routine vaccinations. Afterward, her health began to decline, and she began showing signs of autism. Her parents sued in federal vaccine court, and the government eventually settled with the family before the case went to trial, saying that the vaccine aggravated an underlying, undiagnosed mitochondrial disorder, which didn't cause her autism, but resulted in it.
While the headline screams "autism", a more accurate description would seem to be "mitochondrial encephalopathy". This disorder typically presents in childhood following a period of normal development. If she hadn't been vaccinated, Hannah would have lived a normal, happy life...until her disease was triggered by a cold, or the flu, or some other environmental cause, or by no apparent trigger at all. So the underlying cause is genetic, but the vaccine is being held responsible for an unforeseeable, all-but-inevitable outcome. That just doesn't compute.
I'd like to say this is simply a case of a clueless jury awarding settlements with little understanding of the science involved, but this is not the case. Vaccine cases are decided by a special "vaccine court", set up in recognition of the fact that vaccine makers would be reluctant to manufacture them if they were open to litigation in the traditional sense. Compensation is determined by a team of experts, and is paid from a special fund to which vaccine makers contribute. The case was settled before going to trial, so there is no guarantee the court would have ruled in the plaintiff's favor, but recent decisions indicate they might have. The problem here is the shockingly low standard of evidence. Plaintiffs don't have to prove causation (which would be difficult regardless), or that an outcome is likely, or even reasonably foreseeable; they simply have to demonstrate a "plausible biological mechanism" by which the event could occur. In other words, they only have to show that it might be possible, even if the odds of the particular outcome are vanishingly small. The family will no doubt have substantial expenses related to Hannah's continuing care, so maybe the government is simply being altruistic; this is, after all, why the fund was established. In this single, isolated case, the vaccine might even be the "trigger", despite the odds; however, this says nothing about its overall safety or efficacy. Unfortunately, that is not how this award will be perceived.
The real travesty is that this settlement will only serve as encouragement to the anti-vaccination crowd. Some are conspiracy theorists, but most base their objections on bad science, such as the utterly refuted autism link, or simply on bad math. The reality is, given the variability of human biochemistry, it is impossible to predict, much less test for, every possible complication. However, the odds of experiencing a serious complication from a vaccination are invariably less than the consequences of contracting the disease in the first place. It's not a terribly complicated risk analysis; that is, after all, the whole point of vaccinations.
While I certainly sympathize with the privacy issues raised by mandatory vaccination, frankly, when it comes to public health, those concerns go out the window. Many diseases, once thought controlled and on their way to eradication, such as measles, have made resurgences in recent years, largely due to anti-vaccination efforts. It's not only the unvaccinated who are affected; their decision compromises the "herd immunity" that protects all of us. Vaccination is not 100% effective, but non-vaccination is 100% ineffective, and more infected people simply means more opportunities for infection.
So that's the practical objection; here's the ideological one: making important life decisions based on junk science and poor reasoning is a BAD IDEA. So in that vein, here are a few suggestions to keep in mind when making medical decisions (most are more universally applicable):
1. You do not know more than your doctor. Your hours spent on Google are no replacement for your doctor's years of training and experience. If you feel he or she has not considered something, absolutely bring it to his attention, but then respect his judgement. If you don't like what you're hearing, seek a second opinion from a qualified medical professional. Not from Google, or from your Facebook friends, or from Oprah, or from your yoga instructor, or from your nutritionist, but from a qualified medical professional.
Corollary 1: All opinions do not hold equal weight.
2. Anecdotes are meaningless. It doesn't matter what happened to your neighbor's friend when he ate pine nuts; it matters what has been demonstrated in controlled scientific studies.
3. Correlation does not equal causation. Just because B follows A, it does not necessarily mean that A caused B. This should probably be tattooed on everyone's forearm, to be referred to throughout the day.
4. Shit happens. Some events are not foreseeable; sometimes you're just the victim of poor dumb luck. There's not always someone to blame.