We are powerfully influenced by irrational processes such as
unconscious priming, conformity, groupthink, and self-serving biases.
These affect the most trivial aspects of our lives, such as how
quickly we walk down a city street, and the most important, such as
who we choose to marry. The political and moral realms are
particularly vulnerable to such influences. While many of us would
like to think that our views on climate change or torture or foreign
policy are the result of rational deliberation, we are more affected
than we would like to admit by considerations that have nothing to do
with reason.
But this is not inevitable. Consider science. Plainly, scientists are
human and possess the standard slate of biases and prejudices and
mindbugs. This is what skeptics emphasize when they say that science
is "just another means of knowing" or "just like religion". But
science also includes procedures — such as replicable experiments and
open debate — that cultivate the capacity for human reason. Scientists
can reject common wisdom, they can be persuaded by data and argument
to change their minds. It is through these procedures that we have
discovered extraordinary facts about the world, such as the structure
of matter and the evolutionary relationship between monkey and man.
The cultivation of reason isn't unique to science; other disciplines
such as mathematics and philosophy possess it as well. But it is
absent in much of the rest of life. So I admit to twisting the
question a bit: The concept that people need to add to their toolkit
isn't a scientific discovery; it is science itself. Wouldn't the world
be better off if, as we struggle with moral and political and social
problems, we adopted those procedures that make science so successful?
---SPSmith
