Be wary of certainty.
"Not within a thousand years, " said Wilbur Wright in 1901, "will man ever fly." He was certain for two years.
I know when I stopped watching CNBC. It was December 4th, 2020. CNBC had been my daily morning news source since Imus had gone off the TV. But on that day, in a discussion around COVID, Andrew Ross Sorkin jumped on someone he disagreed with, shouting, "It’s science. I’m sorry, it’s science." Sorkin is not alone in using words like "science" to try to end a discussion. The irony of Sorkin's comments is that he is not a scientist, and he often tries to science-explain the world to his co-host, Joe Kernen, an actual scientist.
I have met people who love to quote Daniel Patrick Moynihan when he said, "You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts." They say things like, "that's the truth, and there is only one truth." But 'truth' and 'facts' are complex things. Today, I generally mistrust people who focus too much on the 'certain' and listen more to people who are less certain and focused on context.
Of course, some people lie about things and call them facts or the truth, but let's set them aside. Instead, let us focus on why we should be skeptical of anyone, scientist or otherwise, who says they know ‘the truth’. We need to be mindful of those that are convinced that they are right beyond any shadow of a doubt. They should have our pity and we should not fall into the same trap ourselves.
Exceptio probat regulam
It occurs to me that there is nothing less scientific than to say that science is decided. The very nature of science is constant testing and retesting of what we believe to be true. The Latin above, which translates to "the exception proves the rule," is often misused every day. Some believe that it implies, if you find an exception, then that proves the rule. When you stop to think about it, this idea encapsulates a direct contradiction. The exception's existence disproves the rule. When this is true, it probably means you need to create a new rule in which the exception holds.
It may be more useful to consider that science is never decided.
Good scientists are always looking for new tests to run or another exception to be proved. As Wikipedia puts it: Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. And the more testing you do, the more you find out what you believed to be true is not. Note the use of the word 'believed.' We will come back to that.
A quick google of "science that turned out to be false" will get you to lots of fun reading. When anyone tells you “It’s science," tell them to search. When they review the findings, they will either dismiss the results, or you will be informed, "we are much smarter today."
Another approach might be the Dr. Fauci approach, which is to use his 'superior science' as a weapon to win arguments and belittle people. Note the BusinessInsider.com headline "Fauci brushes off GOP criticism and says attacks on him are 'attacks on science' he can debunk 'immediately.'" Fauci and others ignore the science that COVID has changed and will continue to change as we test what we learn. Even CNN recognized that we made mistakes with COVID treatment in the early days, not because we were evil but because we didn't know better.
The point is not that science is evil or not to be trusted or that I am in some way a ‘science-denier.’ The point here is not to rely on people who want to win arguments because they think science is decided. The best they can do is to say, "as I understand it, this is what I think the science is showing us today." Yes, it's not a snappy headline or great clickbait, but the humility they show is a sign of their openness to learning when conversing with someone. The moment those are certain of their science without the humility that they may be wrong is when they will be proved wrong.
As the world occurs to you
In the same way, science is not decided, sadly, neither is 'truth.' What you believe the truth is, is something that sounds right to you. The problem with 'truth' is that it's a branch of philosophy. That makes it a complex and complicated subject. While many people would like 'truth' to be a binary issue, either something is or is not valid, it's much messier than that. As Psychology Today says, "truth is a property not so much of thoughts and ideas but more properly of beliefs and assertions."
Everything you think of as true you think of as such because it confirms how you see the world. How you see the world is based on many things, and we can address that at another time. It is essential to understand that each of us sees the world through a series of ‘lenses’, and those change how the world occurs to us. As Howard Zinn, who wrote A People's History of the United States, once said, "...there is no such thing as a pure fact, innocent of interpretation. Behind every fact presented to the world - by a teacher, a writer, anyone - is a judgment. The judgment that has been made is that this fact is important and that other facts, omitted, are not important."
Of course, we can be distracted by what appears to be the ease of working out when something is not true, yet this can be more misleading. If most people believe something to be accurate, is it? Those who rely on opinion polls would love to think so. What appears to be consensus in the zeitgeist may not always have been examined sufficiently. You don't have to go far to prove the opposite - for centuries, slavery was acceptable for a majority, and that was their truth.
As Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic, and religious author, put it: "Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority because the minority is generally formed by those who have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion—and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion… while truth again reverts to a new minority."
1This approach is, of course, very upsetting to some.
A doubter will find examples to prove themselves right and to make their truth safe to them. "Here," they will say, "are you trying to tell me that 2+2 doesn't equal 4?" Of course, 2+2=4 in all practical ways equals 4, but that is not what we are talking about here. If that's the level of debate you are having, walk away.
Maybe the best way to sum this up belongs to Hugh Laurie, the British actor, and comedian. In an article called "Of Moods and Motorcycles" in February 2009, he said “To tell you the truth, the older I get, the less I know. I keep meeting people, both older and younger, who seem to have accrued so much more knowledge or expertise or certainty about who they are and the jobs they do. I just marvel at it.”
Just log into Twitter for a few minutes. We will find all sorts of people Laurie is talking about.