Faith, trust & evidence: Skepticism meets semantics

“Trust nobody. Trust only the evidence”

With this provocative statement, Sir Paul Nurse concluded his recent Horizon investigation into the disturbing rise of antiscientific thinking pervading the media and the public conscience.

And such is the beauty of the scientific method: valid experiments present scientists with data and facts, and those of us who appreciate the efficacy of the scientific method – whether we label ourselves skeptics, critical thinkers, rational inquirers or any permutation of these categories – use our critical thinking faculties to understand how this empirical data helps explain, and can be applied to, the real world. The true scientific method leaves no room for confirmation bias, subjective interpretation or personal opinion, and certainly no call for faith.

Most skeptics will have at some point heard the classic comeback ‘Well, don’t you have as much faith in science as I do in God?’ and despaired. Issues of agnosticism vs ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ atheism aside (see Tom Kilworth’s earlier post on this blog), our enthusiasm and passion for science is founded upon a method specifically developed to remove the need for faith with regards to any measurable or observable feature of our universe. Undoubtedly, occasional ‘scientific’ studies may slip into the public domain littered with confirmation bias or ulterior (often funding-related) motives, but the process of full peer-reviewing and repeatability generally ensures that these flawed findings are soon discredited and reassessed, even if they do sometimes unfortunately reach various media outlets before the process of quality control has had a chance to kick in.

And contrary to the ever-entertaining James Delingpole’s claims, scientific consensus is not based on what the majority of scientists think or believe is going on, it’s based on the most consistent results of controlled and repeatable experiments.

Discussions of empirical data are all well and good when we’re talking about issues such as climate change, cosmology or theoretical physics; areas deemed of great enough importance to warrant large numbers of peer-reviewed, comprehensive studies. But the universe in which we live is so much more complex than we could possibly study or quantify empirically, and it is therefore likely that we will come across situations in our everyday lives when we need to make a decision, whether significant or seemingly unimportant, in a situation where the evidence to persuade us towards the ‘right’ decision is simply not available.

This is surely the dilemma for any self-respecting skeptic – do we really have to make a choice ‘in good faith’ and hope for the best? Well, no, because we are able to act and make decisions without explicit evidence, but based upon trust.

At this point, semantics come in to play and cause unnecessary amounts of confusion, as the words ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ have become intrinsically linked and gradually regarded as synonyms, when in fact there is a vital (and often infuriatingly overlooked) distinction between the two terms. Perhaps the most simple way to differentiate these concepts would be as follows:

Faith: I can find no better way to define faith than by quoting Richard Dawkins’ insightful quote “Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence”. By its very definition, faith is a belief in something irrational, supernatural and completely improvable.

Trust: Trust, conversely, can be defined as acting upon the best knowledge currently available regarding a real life, observable and rational situation. As such, it requires no intellectual dishonesty or acceptance of the supernatural.

There are some circumstances during our short and improbable life as human beings on this planet in which trust, and not faith, becomes an essential entity in all our lives, regardless of our views on religion or spirituality. Although the word ‘faithful’ has arguably taken on an entirely new meaning (more akin to loyalty) in the context of a monogamous relationship, ‘trust’ would be the more appropriate term to use in these circumstances. It is perfectly conceivable to suppose that we are capable of meeting someone, falling in love, and that person remaining loyal to us for the duration of the relationship (no cynical laughter please). Through assessment of a person’s character and their previous behaviour, we can trust them and trust that such a situation could feasibly occur. There are absolutely no supernatural elements in the outcome of the act of trust; no laws of physics would need to be broken for that situation to occur.

A similar principle can be applied to the field of medicine. Whereas a homeopathy believer would have to declare their faith in a scientifically ludicrous system of dilution and ‘water memory’, because clearly some kind of scientific impossibility would need to take place in order for sugar pills to have a genuine, physiological effect on the body, no faith is required in conventional medicine. If I were to be rushed to hospital with a serious illness and in need of urgent treatment I would certainly not have time to read scientific papers relating to the efficacy or safety of the drugs prescribed to me (or indeed to gain any level of basic medical training), but I would be happy to trust that the doctors, through their position as employees of the hospital, have a far superior knowledge of medical science than me and that the medicines prescribed had been through a thorough testing process to ensure their suitably for the problem being treated.

There are countless other examples where we may not have direct personal knowledge of a particular subject – I for one could not tell you the exact mechanisms through which a plane stays in the air, or a bridge supports massive amounts of weight – but as skeptics we should be able to feel comfortable in trusting those with more specialised qualifications than ourselves. We can also embrace the opportunity to trust in our friends and families who have proven to have our best interests at heart without needing to consult a peer-reviewed paper. However, we must be mindful of the limitations of trust and, as much as possible, remember that anecdote and even personal experience can be much more deceptive than most would believe and should never act as a basis for major life decisions.

Secular Ethics

Since the dawn of human civilisation, morality has been a rather controversial topic amongst philosophers and ethicists. The Oxford English Dictionary defines morality as ''principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour''. So how and why exactly do we come up with these principles?

To answer that, let's imagine a society without any moral values. Every man and woman for him or herself. No selfless deeds, no charity, no sympathy, no heroes, no acts of sacrifice, and no BitTorrent seeders. Not only does this sound unpleasant at best, but any society with such characteristics would undoubtedly collapse in the early stages of development.
I believe, therefore, that it is fair to postulate that the inception of moral values works on a 'bottom-up' basis. i.e. it is not the members of a society who create these principles, but it is those who possess them in their psyche that are able to form a society and increase their chances of survival and reproduction.

In the age of experimental science, our understanding of how the human mind works has become less of a 'guessing game'. Neuroscience, for instance, has shown us that the phenomenon of empathy is in fact mainly the result of the activity of 'mirror neurons' in specific areas of our brains. From these findings and other similar studies, it becomes evident that the majority of us are 'hard-wired' to be moral to an extent. However it would be a simple case of committing the naturalistic fallacy, if I were to conclude that relying on our instinctual predispositions can lead to the most moral behaviour, or that we should judge right and wrong solely based on the basic principles that helped us form our societies.

This leaves us with two options. Either we all follow specific instructions without questioning them, or we devise our own system of ethics by means of rational philosophical discussion and reasoning.
Despite the fact that the former may appear to be the 'simplest' option, it is clear that a set of rules which were created for the sake of having a set of rules, with little or no pragmatic justification, are unlikely to successfully serve as a moral framework for a positively functioning society. In spite of the possibility that some of these rules may actually contain good moral advice, if the criterion is ethically unjustified then choosing this method is still irrational as it does not offer any way of reducing or preventing harm. Although, this illogical approach to moral reasoning is unfortunately not uncommon within our society. Time and time again I hear statements along the lines of: "I don't agree with all of Christianity, but I do think that the Bible is a good moral guide. You know, thou shalt not kill, and love thy neighbour and that...". However if we stop and examine the reasons for which we find these guidelines moral, it becomes clear that it is in fact our own evolved intuitive moral sense that cherry-picks the best parts of the scripture. This could be demonstrated by simply asking ourselves whether the reason we find abhorrence in such acts as murder, is solely due to them being condemned in the 'holy text'. (I have to admit that it does worry me when some religious folks claim that this is actually the case and they wouldn't see anything wrong with such actions, had they not been disapproved of in the scripture.)

If we choose the latter method of developing moral values, we would have to come up with a structural foundation for our system. Say we all agree that 'happiness is good and harm is bad'. On this basis we can build and develop our moral framework. By using this utilitarian approach and basing our decisions on attempting to maximise overall pleasure and minimise overall harm over the longest period of time, we no longer need to rely on faith, tradition and other irrational means to ameliorate our social behaviour. This method, however, raises a few problems. For example, the vagueness in quantifying and measuring happiness and harm, or prioritising the well-being of some over others due to our own personal biases. Admittedly, if I were to choose between saving the lives of five strangers versus saving the life of my own brother, I would choose to save my brother with hardly any hesitation. This type of moral bias can be found in almost all of us due to our evolutionary brain development. These issues are precisely the reason why we require intellectual discussion rather than one single algorithm of ethics.

Fortunately it seems that more and more people are realising this in the modern age. Our overall moral sense appears to be evolving from the irrational superstitious approach of the dark ages towards a more rational and liberal approach. Everyday we begin to rethink our outlook towards ethical issues such as slavery, homosexuality, racism and sexism, and realise that moral absolutism is nothing but the result of a failed attempt to oversimplify the complex nature of morality into a set of black-or-white dichotomies, and how irrational thinking and religious dogma can lead the masses towards unjustified immoral behaviour with the appalling excuse that 'it says so in the scripture'. It is at least comforting to know that a minority of rational thinkers are able to use means of secular ethics to break out of this dogma and put the welfare of their fellow humans above any groundless tradition, leading to a gradual but significant paradigm shift.

We, as humans, are all given a single opportunity to experience existence as conscious beings for a finite duration. We are all born with the ability to feel pleasure and happiness, and to be emotionally and empathetically influenced by each other. We can either choose to live selfishly in ignorance and waste this invaluable opportunity, or we can choose to make the best of it, to try and reach our own eudaimonia and to help each other live life to the fullest. I don't know about you, but for me the latter is much more appealing.

George Hrab performs for Skepsoc at the University of Surrey

SkepSoc were very pleased to welcome the fantastic George Hrab, host of the Geologic podcast, to the University of Surrey on Wednesday 9th Feb. Having seen George performing at QED last weekend we were really excited to put on our own gig with him during one of his rare visits to the UK.

George's set included skeptical favourites 'God is not Great', 'Brains Body Both' and the always emotional 'Small Comfort'. The audience provided some great questions for George's Q&A session, including an obligitory Insane Clown Posse reference.

Support came from Carmen d'Cruz, and George's set included a collaboration with QED theme tune composer and University of Surrey Music Department lecturer (home of 4/5 of the Skepsoc committee!) Milton Mermikides, performing a duet of the six-part King Crimson song 'Vrooom'.

We were very excited to welcome The Skeptic Magazine to the event, who filmed and provided a live stream of George's set. Videos are currently being edited and should appear on their website, http://www.skeptic.org.uk/ and youtube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSkepticMag very soon.

Thanks to everyone who was involved with and came to the gig - we can't wait for George's next visit to the UK! In the meantime, get your weekly Geo fix on his podcast, http://www.geologicpodcast.com/.

Here's a video of George and Milton performing Vrooom:

SkepSoc at QED!

Last weekend four members of SkepSoc made the trek at an ungodly hour up to Manchester for the very first edition QED, hosted by the wonderful people of the Greater Manchester Skeptics Society and the Merseyside Skeptics Society. We would like to echo sentiments expressed all over the skeptical corner of the internet by adding our thanks to all those involved in organising and managing the event, and the hugely inspirational and fascinating speakers.

Personal highlights included the chance to hear Steven Novella talk in person and meet the man behind the voice so often heard coming out of our computers. Similarly, Eugenie Scott spoke on the potentially depressing subject of combating the rise of creationism in education, but left us with a feeling of optimism and a few hardened skeptics with 'something in their eye'.

Jon Ronson was hilarious as ever, Simon Singh made the history of the universe sound deceptively simple and Matt Parker, Helen Keen and George Hrab provided the best evening of entertainment a room full of self-proclaimed geeks could possibly wish for. We also particularly enjoyed the workshop on running a Skeptics in the Pub group and came away with plenty of ideas and inspiration for our society.

It was fantastic to meet so many friendly, like-minded skeptics, enjoy a weekend of discussing all things skeptical and of course to make our statement against the silliness of homeopathy as part of the ten23 campaign.

Bring on QED 2012!


Here's a few of our favourite pictures from QED:

With QED host and SkepSoc special guest George Hrab (the setting was his idea!)



Meeting Mike Hall and the fabled Giant Book of Fantastic Facts, as heard on Skeptics with a K



With Marsh, fearless leader of the now global ten23 campaign



With Surrey University's very own Jim Al-Khalili



With Skeptics' Guide to the Universe's Steven Novella

Wrong for the Right Reasons

It seems a common ploy of believers in any type of metaphysical claim to eventually give up on using facts and reasoned arguments and instead resort to a crude form of reverse-psychology, asking “what if you’re wrong?”.

A rather well known example of this was captured in a video of Richard Dawkins at Liberty University, Virginia, being posed this exact question from a Christian. Dawkins’ response was quite spot on, if a little crude, in that he posed the question right back at the Christian. His point was that he holds an atheistic position because there is insufficient evidence for a god’s existence, so to ask, “what if you’re wrong?” falsely presupposes that the position has likelihood worth considering. Even in the case of Christianity, where the supposed punishment for non-believers is eternal torture, it still does not add truth-value to the claim. For that, one needs evidence.

With this said though, I feel that Dawkins missed something. Suppose that, say, a homeopathy supporter posed the question to me as skeptic and asked me to consider a circumstance where homeopathy is shown to work wonders; that water has memory and really can cure diseases like malaria. Would the claimant really be in the right? Of course not. Despite now conceding to the position of the challenger, I would still have been correct to doubt homeopathy’s efficacy, because there was no evidence in favour of the claims that were made about it by homeopaths. Put simply, I would have been wrong for the right reasons.

This leads me to the main point of this post. Skepticism, the process of assessing evidence free from bias, considering all options, weighing likelihoods and remaining open-minded to new evidence, is what ensures that one holds positions that, although may turn out to be false, are nonetheless highly justifiable. The antithesis of this methodology leads the person in that position to be both wrong (and possibly right) for all the wrong reasons. Claims that are not based on evidence and reasoning are not rightly held, even in the unlikely event that they turn out to be true.

Agnostic Atheism

In our modern British society, many of us do not believe in a particular religion, however, not very many of us are willing to describe ourselves as atheists. Popular responses to the question of belief in god involve “I believe there’s at least something more out there”, “I’m more of a ‘spiritual’ person” and “I’m more of an agnostic”. While the first two responses have their problems, it is this third response that I want to examine.

When asked to explain in greater detail their beliefs, it becomes apparent that the definition of the word has escaped the person. The term has become the layman’s word for “I don’t know if there is a god”, but one might be surprised to learn that this is what an atheist is, not necessarily what an agnostic is. While there is a distinction between an atheist that does claim there are no gods at all (sometimes called a ‘strong’ atheist) and one that just doesn’t believe in gods (‘weak’ atheism), the person who “doesn’t know” falls into the latter definition of an atheist.

Maybe it is down to the discomfort one finds with ‘atheist’ as a term that matches them, but agnosticism doesn’t have anything to do with belief, but rather the nature of knowledge. I, myself, am an agnostic atheist. This doesn’t mean I’m ‘on the fence’, waiting for some more evidence or even divine revelation, but rather that I do not hold a belief in gods (atheist) and that gods, even if they exist, are unknowable (agnostic).

Some might find the latter claim a little confusing, but I want to show you why agnostic atheism is the most reasonable position to hold.

Take the Bible, for example. One of the best known claims of the book is that there existed a man named Jesus of Nazareth, who lived from around the start of the Common Era to about 35 AD (the exact dates are not important here), who was crucified and rose from the dead three days later and was then taken bodily into heaven to join the Judeo-Christian God.

The story is widely accepted across a lot of the world, but let’s takes the claims in order and discusses their plausibility.

1. There existed a Jesus around two millennia ago
2. He was crucified
3. He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven

Firstly, evidence for historic figures is in abundance. We know that the Battle of Hastings was fought and lost by King Harold II in 1066, for example, because the claim is proportional to the documented evidence. Historians may dispute the evidence for Jesus’ existence and his story, but the first two claims are at least plausible and we know what evidence would be suitable to justify them.

The issue arises with the third claim. We have no record of people in recent history rising from the dead as described in the Bible, even with our population having increased exponentially and having a system of telecommunication that would make it easy to scrutinise such an event taking place. What is more damning is that modern science suggests that rising from the dead is impossible.

Believers may demand an explanation for the reports in the Bible and their supposed consistency, but what are the claims evidence of, exactly? Even if historians and archaeologists were to uncover sufficient evidence to support the biblical account, all this would demonstrate is that a group of people believed that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended bodily into heaven. In the light of implausibility, a more sensible and rational explanation would be to say that these people were fooled, conspired to create the story or were simply under the influence of confirmation bias.

The logic applied here does not stop at particular supernatural claims from religions, but extends to the very concept of god itself. Definitions of gods vary starkly, but for the sake of this article, we should be safe defining a god as a being that transcends the natural order and that is a conscious creator and controller of the universe. What evidence could be presented for such a being that does not apply to any other explanations? None.

Suppose the stars aligned themselves in the sky and spelled out “there is a god”. Would this be evidence for said claim? Such an event, unlikely for sure, would be impressive and might seem intuitively indisputable evidence for a god, but other more plausible explanations have been over-looked. It could be a mirage, the observers (however abundant) could have been brainwashed. An alien technology could be in use that far-surpasses our own to the point at which we think it is magic. We could even be plugged into a computer or be in a dream, where the world we perceive is not real.

One might dismiss such explanations as absurd, but there is no way to logically filter out the alternatives from the god explanation. What’s more is that the first three alternatives are actually more plausible, especially in the case of the alien technology. In remote areas of the world where human tribes are largely untouched by modern societies, there exist ‘cargo cults’. Famously, one island in Papua New Guinea inhabits a tribe of people who worship the people who last landed there. The tribe thought that the planes that landed on their island where magical creatures and that the people aboard were deities. Upon the departure of the planes and their crew, the tribe set up a makeshift runway and prayed for their return. In the same way that the tribe was fooled by technology that surpassed theirs, we could be being fooled by a yet more advanced technology.

It is for these reasons that agnostic atheism is the only intellectually honest and reasonable position to hold. With the very existence of a god unknowable, one should surely ask not only why belief in god still seems reasonable, but why on Earth so many people claim to know what a god wants and why it has particular interest in the activities of every individual human. The obvious response from a believer is that their belief is “a faith issue”. But that’s not a rebuttal, that’s admitting that, well, I do have a point.