How to Know

We need to fight back on the idea that there's nothing we can really know. 

When I taught, more and more I'd run up against the claim that there's nothing we can know in the world. I believe that it's a dangerous situation if we think science is on par with random assertions making the rounds on the internet as if there's nothing we can do but shrug. 

Here's Rachel Maddow explaining that concern in one minute 

@msnbc

Rachel Maddow joined Chris Hayes for a live taping of his podcast "Why Is This Happening?", to talk about how authoritarianism has succeeded in the past and how the same tactics are used today. According to Maddow, sowing distrust in institutions "is part of the authoritarian project, and it always has been."

♬ original sound - MSNBC

I taught how to figure out what we can know, what's credible and valid in both my senior classes:

In my social science classes, I gave them an exercise to compare two sides on a controversial issue. 

I start by getting them to find any article about a study in the news or on social media, then dig for the original research article in a journal and look at if the news article and/or headline skewed the actual results or even completely misrepresented the results. I usually have a list of news articles on hand for people who need help with googling for information (something many students still need a lot of help with). Spoiler alert: lots of media outlets sensationalize pretty mundane research.

Then we go further to look at the impact factor and ranking of journals and how to tell if it's a predatory journal. A second exercise has them compare conflicting studies from journal articles on controversial issues, like vaccines cause autism, vaping effect on teens, mindfulness effects on cognitive abilities... I do an example with a claim that was circulating for a while: "there are no bad foods," which has led some kids to justify a lunch of candy, chips and pop. That claim came from an article, not a study, that one person penned in the attempt to stop hateful self-talk around food. It doesn't suggest that it's healthy to mainly eat candy and chips however, which is how it has been interpreted. And other studies do say that we need to ensure we eat foods high in useful nutrients. Unfortunately I lost my example write-up, but here's the exercise. 

I used it before the Covid years, so there's nothing about masks or airborne viruses on it. I'm not sure I'd use it now. People are way too angry to be challenged so openly in the classroom these days. 

Specifically, students had to compare conflicting claims by looking at the studies' methodology (sample size, randomness, tracking of behaviours, repeatable...), whether the conclusions drawn fit the results, the primary authors info, journal rankings, funding, and then look at the number of quality studies on each side. Sometimes it's not possible to get certainty, particularly in the social sciences, but we do have a means to determine which claims are more credible. It's not all up for grabs! 

In my philosophy classes, we're often not scrutinizing factual information, but discussing and debating what to do with the facts. We have dialectics on opinions but not "just opinions"; they have to be well supported and clearly structured. Opinions can be argued if they're clearly presented. 

We start with what an argument looks like compared to just "noise". Then start by listening well to the position: make sure you're hearing what they're saying or reading what they've actually written and not adding in your own assumptions to their words. I highlight the notion of listening charitably, letting go of slight errors in words or minor stats inaccuracies, etc. Repeat the argument back to them as clearly and fairly as possible and check for any inaccuracies. Basically, it's the exact opposite of typical online arguments that scan for any "gotcha" opportunities from spelling mistakes.

Then we follow the rest of Daniel Dennett's guide --> list points of agreement, mention anything you learned from the position, and only then can you raise rebuttals or criticisms. 

That list of rules was on my classroom wall (or was), and we pointed to it often! People really want to jump to the criticisms bit! 

Before we get to take-downs, though, we learn all about fallacies to look for them in other people's arguments and to make sure we don't make them ourselves. That second part's a bugger! Here are my notes for my first few days of philosophy class! Sorry all the links to examples go nowhere. I'm working on making peace with deleting so many things from my teaching days. 

Even with opinions there are ways to determine which are more valid claims. Again, it's not all a crapshoot. Knowledge is possible.