Just Give Me The Facts

So I have been having an email debate with a colleague over some different ways you can manage an economy. In his latest email he listed a number of “facts” that were clearly wrong. So after burying these ideas with some independently verifiable sources I pronounced myself the winner of that portion of the debate. But no he responded with “well that may all be so but I believe it would be better if...”

This sort of thing drives me nuts, let’s ignore the facts in favour of “beliefs” and people do it all the time. I was particularly reminded about the vaccination “debate” (debate in quotes because I believe there is no valid counter position). Now I am happy for people to have beliefs but this does not make them a valid criteria for decision making.

This got me thinking about “facts” that are subject to challenge or if you will the nature of “facts”. On the face of it what is a fact should be straight forward so I tried to think of things that all of us would agree on. It struck me as harder than I first thought. For example presumably we agree on basic human needs, eg people need to eat, sleep, and drink. (well if they want to stay being people). But perhaps we couldn’t even agree on this as there are examples of people who don’t sleep and eating comes in many forms so potentially even drinking is optional (you might be able to get all your fluid needs from food). So maybe facts are harder to find than I thought.

Then there is the “fact” that there is global climate change, according to a lot of people this is so but I don’t “believe” this fact. There are those words again and I think I have “facts” to back up my belief but not everyone agrees with my facts as I don’t agree with theirs.

Perhaps on second thoughts beliefs are more solid than facts, for example I believe that human life has value. Something that a lot of people would agree with, especially if it is phrased regarding their own life. Do I have “facts” to support my belief. Err well no not really and my belief would be open to challenge in certain situations. (eg sacrificing some lives for the greater good). In fact if we look at the whole concept of human rights this seems more founded on belief than on facts. For example sexual orientation is considered a human right (something I don’t have an issue with before any one sends me hate mail) but I think I could construct an argument that sex without children is potentially a negative idea as that is basically the point right, otherwise the species would die out which is counter to our basic drive.

So where does all this get me, well it makes it more understandable that we debate things that in my mind don’t need debate because the answer is clear. Potentially the answer is clear because of the “facts” I am basing my arguments on, if people won’t accept your facts then you are doomed in your arguments.

Now I don’t think we should throw away scientific enquiry which has at its heart understanding the facts, quite the opposite to agree on the facts or to have aligned beliefs is to agree on the way forward more likely as not. So lets keep our minds open to the search for the truth the whole truth and nothing but, however I guess we need to leave some room for beliefs assuming of course that they don’t conflict with the facts.