Facts Do Not Speak for Themselves

Lack of goodwill is the underlying factor in America’s extreme cultural polarization.

Courtesy: listverse.files.wordpress.com

(CALGARY, Alberta) - “The facts speak for themselves” is commonly heard when there is a disagreement or dispute between people or groups. But do they? Here is a fact that does, indeed, speak for itself. But do you know what it says?

Unless you have a background in physics, you almost certainly don’t. And I am not talking advanced physics, but just a good layman’s grounding.

If I present it as a fact in a discussion, that will either stop the discussion cold, or my opponent will try to divert the discussion over to something he understands or can argue, more readily.

Here’s what this fact, the Einstein formula, says in four words: Matter is frozen energy. That’s what it says. You can go beyond that to understandings about matter, energy and even the speed of light. What that means is that the understanding of a fact has other levels to which it can speak.

If I am having a discussion with a physicist and I happen to not believe that matter is frozen energy—we’re going to have a clash. He is going to assume (reasonably) that we are talking about the same thing with the Einstein formula when, in actuality, we are not talking about the same thing at all.

The speed of light is 300,000 kms/sec. Here’s how it works. “E” is energy, “m” is mass and “c” is the speed of light squared which is 300,000 times 300,000, so evidently E is going to be a very large number. This is the principle behind the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. A little known fact, however, is that only a small portion of the plutonium in the bombs was actually converted to energy. If it had all been converted to energy, it probably would have physically destroyed the main island and all the smaller islands of Japan, leaving behind a crater that would have filled with water and, a few hours later, there would have been no physical trace of Japan left behind.

That didn’t happen, or couldn’t have happened, (as an unpleasant surprise) because the physicists’ theory worked. They calculated in advance that only a small portion of the plutonium would be converted.

(Here’s an interesting aside from physicist Roger S. Jones: “All nuclei beyond bismuth, the eighty-third nucleus, are unstable. They spontaneously disintegrate or decay into smaller nuclei. Beyond the ninety-second nucleus, uranium, nuclei are so unstable that they do not exist naturally. Plutonium, the ninety-fourth element and the most poisonous substance known, is artificially created by earthlings, primarily for the production of atomic weapons. It is found nowhere in the universe. Nature knew better than to make plutonium.”)

The example I just used is really not very problematic. Once we agree on what it means, we can proceed in a straightforward manner. But what happens when the facts are actually opinions? To paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.

Obviously

Another block to communication is the word obvious. Consider the world, the universe; how did it come to be? John Polkinghorne, a physicist turned Anglican priest said: “Those who are seeking understanding through and through—a natural instinct for the scientist—are seeking God, whether they name him or not.”

But if you don’t believe in God, at least as portrayed in the Western tradition, then you and Polkinghorne will be unable to agree on a conclusion.

But, it’s not usually that straightforward. Most of the things that are obvious to us, are not even held consciously. There are many things we just know! In coming to amicable resolutions, it’s important to be able to uncover the unconscious beliefs we bring to the debate.

Translation

If we both read and write English, then we have a ground of commonality. But if one of uses English and the other, uses, say, Spanish. Communication is going to be blocked. But even if we both use English, we can still run afoul of common words, as the Bizarro comic shows.

Ad hominem

An ad hominem argument is one where the speaker is attacked, or some other irrelevant issue. I have been routinely attacked this way and it says more about the other person than it does about me. One regular critique (which doesn’t get approved, by the way) is to point out how I live alone with my cats, and what can you expect from such person? The critic, of course, obviously has no idea of how I live but they obviously read my earlier piece about me and my cats. (For those who say I live alone, they’re just making it up. I don’t live alone.)

This is the kind of argument that appears when the person is caught in a place where they have no rational defense, or one based on “facts”—always a contentious point. It reminds me of a Beetle Bailey cartoon I read years ago. Sarge yells down to some soldiers digging a hole. One of the soldiers yells back: “Your mother wears army boots”.

The last panel shows Sarge with a tear coming from his eye and he says: “I didn’t know he knew my mother.”

Another is to point out that as a Canadian; I am obviously un-American. This, of course, misses the point that I quote and use American sources and don’t say anything different than many other Americans.

Resistance

There are those who have a point of view that is unassailable. They will not let themselves be confused by “the facts”.

A famous example of this is Galileo in the early 17th century. He was not the inventor of the telescope, but he was the first to put it to astronomical uses. He saw craters and mountains on the moon and discovered Jupiter’s four brightest satellites that went around the planet, like the earth goes around the Sun.

The Church Fathers were Aristotelians who believed that the heavens were fixed and unchangeable. For Galileo to suggest otherwise was, ridiculous. So, when he suggested they look through his telescope to see for themselves, they refused. They already knew how things should be and were not going to be swayed by potentially conflicting facts.

Conclusion

An argument is about differing viewpoints. But why do they differ? It comes down to two factors:

§ Inability to agree on what a fact is

§ unconsciously held assumptions and beliefs

Another factor is a lack of goodwill where persons see the other as an enemy rather than a person with a legitimately differing viewpoint. Lack of goodwill is the underlying factor in America’s extreme cultural polarization.

Here is what happened to Denis Diderot at the Russian court. The 18th century French philosopher and atheist was a guest at the court of Catherine the Great. The Queen did not like to openly rebuke his outspoken atheism, so she devised a subterfuge. She told Diderot that the famous mathematician Leonhard Euler was going to prove the existence of God and did Diderot want to attend? At the presentation Euler wrote on a blackboard:

Diderot, ignorant of mathematics, was speechless as the laughter went on around him. Humiliated, he asked permission to return to France and was almost immediately on his way. What Euler wrote, of course, was complete nonsense. Everyone, however, accepted it as a fact!

Winning an argument does not necessarily mean you're right.

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Daniel Johnson was born near the midpoint of the twentieth century in Calgary, Alberta. In his teens he knew he was going to be a writer, which is why he was one of only a handful of boys in his high school typing class—a skill he knew was going to be necessary. He defines himself as a social reformer, not a left winger, the latter being an ideological label which, he says, is why he is not an ideologue. From 1975 to 1981 he was reporter, photographer, then editor of the weekly Airdrie Echo. For more than ten years after that he worked with Peter C. Newman, Canada’s top business writer (notably a series of books, The Canadian Establishment). Through this period Daniel also did some national radio and TV broadcasting. He gave up journalism in the early 1980s because he had no interest in being a hack writer for the mainstream media and became a software developer and programmer. He retired from computers last year and is now back to doing what he loves—writing and trying to make the world a better place