Science is essentially humane
because it stands for clear, rational thinking. You cannot be unjust or
propagate lies when clear thinking has a hold of you and becomes the primary
goal. I am talking about thinking that is so clear that all deception,
including self-deception, becomes impossible because the deception immediately
reveals itself. The humanity of this lies in the fact that when scientific
thinking is applied to any problem, injustice becomes, if not impossible, more
easily correctable. All fields of study, such as the law and the study of
history, are at their best when scientific thinking is followed.
More specifically, here is what I
mean by scientific or rational thinking: Do not leap to big conclusions. Keep
your thinking small and tightly bound to the evidence. Do not confuse
conclusions and facts. A conclusion must not be presented as a piece of
evidence that proves itself. Bear in mind all the potential theories that could
explain a problem. Listen up when someone points out that you have engaged in
circular reasoning and self-fulfilling prophecies.
The power of these rules to
achieve clarity becomes obvious only when you see them in action in specific
cases. Here are four examples of applying clear thinking (the last one concerns
Darwin):
One: There is only one place in
all the Gospels where Judas is called a traitor (at Luke 6:16). Does that count
as one piece of evidence that Judas betrayed Jesus? Just about every New
Testament scholar would answer yes to that question. That is so wrong. Traitor
is a conclusion that someone offered once upon a time, but it is not evidence
for the proposition that Judas betrayed Jesus. It is evidence that some people
spread this accusation, but it has nothing to do with the search for the truth
about what really happened. It is a record of an accusation and an accusation
can never be used to prove itself.
To
put it another way: Three hypotheses could explain how Luke 6:16 became part of
the record. One is that Judas really betrayed Jesus (which means there would be
supporting facts as to what exactly he said and did). A second is that someone
maliciously lied that he was a traitor. In other words, being an innocent man
falsely accused of betrayal could explain that verse in Luke. And the third is
that some facts were misperceived creating the wrong impression of betrayal.
That is the clearest way to analyze this piece of evidence. Assuming the
conclusion or accusation is true is terribly unscientific and leads to
deception in the study of history.
Two: In mid-nineteenth century
Massachusetts, some trials were held of slave rescuers. They had tried to
prevent slave catchers from seizing an allegedly escaped slave and were charged
with violating the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 or some other relevant
statute. One issue that might come up was whether the person they aided was really
a slave. If he was not, then he was not a fugitive slave either and there was
no violation of that particular law. In at least one case, the judge instructed
the jury that evidence of being sold and bought or otherwise treated as a slave
was evidence that the person was indeed a slave. That was false reasoning (and,
by the way, contrary to recent case law which held that such evidence was
inadequate). Evidence of being treated as a slave proves only that he was so
treated and not that he was in fact a slave. What if he had been a free citizen
kidnapped into slavery? The attorneys for the defendants tried in vain to
convince the judge that he was wrong on this point.
Three: Suppose we read the
following in a colonist’s diary: “The other day, some natives approached us in
a hostile manner. We engaged them in battle and slaughtered them all.” Is this
evidence that the Natives were hostile? No, it is not. Hostility is a
conclusion, not a fact. The colonist has recorded his accusation, but has given
us no supporting facts (such as what the Natives said and what gestures they
made). What I said above about the case of Judas applies here as well. Three
hypotheses could explain this diary entry: It is true (i.e., there were
supporting facts concerning gestures and things uttered that could have proven
this), the colonist misperceived what were innocent signs, and lastly, the
colonist outright lied to justify the massacre. Without more evidence, all
three hypotheses are equally viable. That is the correct way to study history.
Four: Darwin and probably a
majority of scientists of his time claimed that Indigenous peoples around the
world were biologically and culturally inferior to Europeans and therefore
doomed to extinction. A minority, but quite a few, argued that this was a
self-fulfilling prophecy and that the extermination of Native peoples was not
inevitable. These dissidents included Herman Merivale, Saxe Bannister, Georg
Gerland, John Lort Stokes (a cabin mate of Darwin for part of the Beagle voyage), Charles Napier, and
more. If they are not well-known today, that demonstrates the power of academia
to erase dissidents from history. They were well enough known in their time.
Merivale
criticized Darwin for his inevitability thesis over a decade before On the Origin of Species (1859) was
published. He was responding to what Darwin had said in his published Beagle journal. Gerland, a German
professor, made the same criticism and in more depth in his 1868 book which
Darwin read very carefully with the help of his daughter Henrietta. Darwin
never responded to their criticisms. What was happening to the Indigenous
peoples was not inevitable, not even their destruction by disease. Darwin knew
how damaging, often deliberately so, Europeans were to the Natives, but never
considered this a moral issue. He presented his conclusion of inevitable
extermination as if it were a biological fact and not a conclusion. Evidence to
the contrary did not interest him.
Western
scientists had become too fond of their own conjectures and dignified them with
the label of facts. Darwin knew how harmful false facts could be to scientific
studies because they are harder to overturn than false theories, but in the
case of Native peoples, he allowed himself to be convinced of the objectivity
of what was really a very subjective study. He knew that the decimation of
Natives was happening at a much faster rate than natural selection would allow
and yet he continued to see this as facts of biology. It was not just Darwin of
course. Too many scientists had deserted scientific thinking and fallen into
the well of their own deceptions.
© 2020 Leon Zitzer
