Fact or Fiction? (General)

by dhw, Friday, March 12, 2010, 14:00 (5182 days ago)

In his post of 17 February at 17.39, under "Refutation of the Language-Only Interpretation of Math", George wrote: "The idea of different forms or degrees of existence may have wider implications to the agnosticism debate," and he asked what kind of existence we might attribute to fictional, legendary and divine beings.-Not for the first time, George has raised a fundamental question. How do we distinguish between fact and fiction ... in relation not just to people, but also to those fields of which we ourselves have little or no knowledge? -Do any of us doubt that Euclid, Plato, Euripides lived? They all left behind a legacy that we can still study today. So, it may be said, did Jesus Christ. Millions of Christians "know" that he lived, that he was born of a virgin, worked miracles, and was resurrected three days after his death. There are people who write to Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker Street, or who mourn when a soap opera character is killed off. In due course, when all of us are dead, we shall have no more reality than them, and a soap star is already more real to millions of people than I am. So is Jesus. There's a clear dividing line between the characters we know to be fiction and the characters we know to be historical, but the borders become very blurred when we get down to the details. How much of journalism and of history generally is fact and how much fiction?-Science, on the other hand, purports to deal only in facts. Everything is tested, and nothing is accepted as truth until it's "beyond a reasonable doubt". The virgin birth, miracles and resurrection of Christ will be regarded as "anecdotal", and since they can't be scientifically tested or proven, they have no place in the catalogue of facts. The same applies to any individual experience of "paranormal" events, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, communion with the dead, visions of the future. The implication is that there's a clear distinction between subjective and objective truths. Belief in a deity or any of the experiences listed above comes under the former, while science comes under the latter. Or does it?-I would suggest that in science too the borders between fact and fiction become blurred. New discoveries are being made all the time about the history and nature of the world we live in. Junk DNA is not junk, birds may not be descended from dinosaurs, evolution may not be gradualistic, Neanderthal man was far from primitive. Some of what we read in our science books a generation ago as fact is no longer valid. And what our grandchildren will read may well invalidate the so-called facts of today. -Just how blurred the borders are can perhaps be gauged by this extract from an illustrated encyclopedia of science (2003 edition):-"Yet somehow in this hostile environment, the first incredible spark of life began. No one knows for sure how this happened, but scientists think that energy from sunlight and lightning triggered the formation of chemicals that could copy themselves. This may have taken place in the chemical 'soup' that existed in the oceans, in shallow pools or around volcanoes. The next crucial step was when the self-copying chemicals became trapped in 'bubbles' of oil, which held them together. These tiny blobs of chemicals were the beginnings of the first living cells." The article goes on to tell how "some simple animals without backbones [..] developed into animals with backbones." And how life moved from the sea to the land: "Plants were first to make the move, followed by insects and other small animals, and finally 'walking fishes' called amphibians. From amphibians developed the first large land animals, the reptiles ... such as the dinosaurs ... and later birds and mammals, including humans." -Admirably, the author admits "no one knows for sure how this happened," and something "may have" taken place, and "scientists think..." ... i.e. it's a belief, not a fact ... but he also makes tantalizingly vague references to processes like "triggered" and "moved" and "developed". And yet the text has an authoritative ring to it, and one can well imagine young readers taking it all to be fact. I'd like to extend this account one step further: "God or sheer chance may have brought certain chemicals together so that they were able to copy themselves. God or sheer chance may have wrapped them in oil bubbles which held them together. God or sheer chance may have given them mechanisms that enabled them to adapt to new conditions and to produce new organs and faculties. Thanks to this God- or chance-assembled mechanism of adaptation and innovation, the original tiny, primitive cells eventually developed into us." A lot of adults currently believe in one or other version, and some are convinced that theirs is based on scientific evidence. And yet "no one knows for sure". The believers believe, regardless of the uncertainty. -I'm not criticizing the encyclopedia article ... it seems to me a fair résumé of current theory, and it doesn't hide its speculativeness. The problem lies in the gaps, and in the manner in which some people might fill them. With our current knowledge, how is it possible to distinguish gap-filling fact from gap-filling fiction? The consultant editor, by the way, is Richard Dawkins.