Are Our Beliefs Warranted?

Ten years ago, we pulled up stakes and moved to the “lower 48.” It was hard leaving Alaska but easy to live in Seattle as we were closer to our children, to much of our family, and in a job I loved. Plus, there were roads to drive and places to go and we quickly became enthralled with exploring the Pacific Northwest with all its own outdoor options and beauty.

Flyfishing became a new outdoor activity, although truth be told, minimal harvesting has yet to take place.  Most areas are catch and release and since my primary objective is an outdoor experience, every outing is a win. There’s a ton to learn: the selection of gear, mechanics of casting, reading of the river, knowledge of the fish, the assessment of their food, and selecting the right fly.  It’s an all-encompassing journey of discovery as you develop a fisher’s mind through a continuous appetite for information.  Understanding is the goal – to develop an accurate picture of the behavior of fish on the particular river and day we are fishing.  Previous experience is helpful and general understanding useful.  But the mystery of nature never disappoints as there is always more to learn.

We can accelerate our learning through the help of skilled friends or an outing with a guide or even a diet of educational videos.  But the proof of the pudding comes through the test of experience with each river and day separate trials. I’m still a novice if I only meet success in high alpine lakes where starved fish will strike anything they see. But when there’s a repeatability of success over a wide variety of environments, I can then say my fly-fishing skills have been validated.

In my previous blog, drawing from Julia Galef’s book “The Scout Mindset,” I discussed how we are prone – its actually part of nature – to defend our beliefs and dismiss those we don’t.  She calls this tendency a “soldier” mindset where we rationalize what we believe and see what we want to see. What if instead, she asked, our goal was know what’s actually true through having a “scout” mindset?  Where we survey the territory to draw as accurate as a map as possible rather than defend one side over the other? 

Most people, like me, adopt a scout mindset when learning a new hobby. There’s rarely a set of prior narratives to shape our learning. That isn’t usually the case, however with our more cherished beliefs which touch society and politics.  Now our identity is on the line with much at stake to defend. 

There are exceptions to this rule and my friend Keith is one of those exceptions. Keith’s resume is long with a storied history as a business owner, mechanical engineer, and university professor. Plus, he has a graduate degree in theology with a specialty in philosophy and ethics (which he teaches).  The best part of Keith, though, is his gentle spirit that encompasses a sharp mind where you can always count on him to ask the right “scout-like” question. 

Following a series of off-line exchanges about one of my blogs, Keith sent me a brief but fascinating book that he thought would interest me.  We had been discussing Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow” and he thought Wolfe’s book “Epistemology: The Justification of Belief” would provide a new perspective for this discussion.

Wolfe says that we miss the mark when we seek to prove beliefs are true as it’s just impossible to prove we are right: “The crucial criticism of the belief system is not whether it involves faith, but if it can survive testing.”  And “only to the extent that a scheme remains open to continual testing is it able to display its credentials.  Protecting a scheme from criticism may neutralize any opposition but it also trivializes its truth claims.  Hence, only those belief systems which survive robust open criticism can be considered “warranted,” or validated. 

Wolfe further suggests that whether or not a belief is valid or “warranted” rests on the answers to four questions. Are our assertions based on a belief system that is: (1) consistently applied and hence free from contradiction, (2) internally coherent; and (3) comprehensive with respect to experience?  And finally, (4) is it congruent throughout that range of experience such that it better fits the data in terms of adequacy, precision than other belief systems?  Now that’s 100% in scout territory!

Here’s how this works.  An assertion or statement about the external world occurs within a larger interpretive picture of reality.  Truth claims always involve assumptions, some explicit but others implicit and left unsaid or even unknown.  We cannot prove our assertions are correct.  But we can test them and when we do, we’re really testing our interpretive schemes (from whence our assertions arise).  And if they are able to withstand robust and unfiltered criticism, we can then judge them to be warranted.

How to Make Sure Our Beliefs are Valid

Take my supportive view of the covid vaccine as an example.  I received the initial two doses back in January and February of 2021 and then received a booster in September. I eagerly accepted the vaccine because I saw it as a game changer through lowering my probability of: a) contracting the virus, b) serious illness resulting from any contraction should it still occur, and c) infecting others I encounter.  And all of this came with nearly a negligible risk to my own health as a male senior citizen.   

Many of my friends would disagree with me, holding contrarian views about the vaccine.  To them I would say the following.  My vaccine positive assertion occurs within a larger interpretative scheme marked by three conditions: (1) a profound and anchoring respect of science and its peer review process for warranting research findings; (2) a belief that the best available scientific judgement for an issue occurs through the integration of opinion from a wide range of subject matter experts grounded in peer-reviewed academic research; and (3) the identification of a limited number of trusted sources that have proved faithful to the previous two conditions and hence can be used as a reliable proxy for them.  (My doctor at UW Medicine is such a trusted source).

My interpretive scheme also includes three cautionary guardrails: a profound skepticism about our human tendency (including me!) to shoehorn data and information into preexisting stories while picking and choosing information to confirm those stories; a profound wariness about my groups to unwittingly shape my values and identity, and a moral obligation to put a thumb on the scale for actions that benefit others, faithfully affirming a “love-my-neighbor” ethic above which there is no law. 

So: (1) how does my interpretive scheme (whence my vaccine assertion arises) handle Wolfe’s four criteria for warrant and (2) how does my particular vaccine assertion deal with criticism from others with differing views?

My Interpretive Scheme – How I Judge Whether or Not Something is True

Over 2.6 million peer reviewed papers are published every year covering the gamut of issues from science to philosophy. Most papers expand our understandings about some aspect of our world.  Others challenge existing understandings or a commonly held paradigm.  Errors which escape the skepticism of peer review encounter the critique of other scientists in subsequent publications, establishing a consistent, coherent, and comprehensive process of “warranting” those understandings of our world.  And although erroneous paradigms or findings may persist for periods of time, new findings or a new generation of scientists arise to bring course corrections, restoring congruence between the data and scientific theory. 

To the extent that this peer-reviewed scientific process drives scientific expertise and institutional policy, these four dimensions of warrant persist. But once the human element sets in, things get complicated. We are made to belong and our reputation within our groups subject us to the influence of family, peers, employment, and other associative groups.  Science as seen through the opinions of scientists or agencies now becomes complex, less moored to the original science through relational influence, competing goals, and public pressure. But we can safeguard our understandings by an integrated perspective that weights the opinions of credentialed scientists by their adherence to “warranted” research findings. 

To ensure consistency, coherence, and comprehensiveness in how I treat vaccine questions, I must treat the vaccine issue as I would any other issue involving technological or scientific expertise.  To wit: I must employ my interpretive scheme just as I would for other medical procedures, engineering-dependent activities (e.g., flying), research inquiries, or food science.  I must use the same intellectual and decision approach for each and every issue, from the mundane to the controversial. 

That’s why skepticism is so important to my interpretive scheme, especially when is issue is controversial.  In those cases, I must avoid confirming predetermined outcomes through any sorting of peer review articles, or experts to follow, or agency directives.  Faithfulness to my interpretive scheme means that the whole body of scientific literature needs to honestly considered and the crowd of experts fairly evaluated.  I just can’t pick and choose either data or experts to fit a preexisting narrative.  I can’t form an opinion from the first thing I read.  And I can’t cancel scientifically-based criticism just because it comes from sources I don’t like.

It doesn’t mean that all articles or all experts are equal though.  Credentials matter and the ability to withstand scientific skepticism matters even more. Contrarian viewpoints might be correct as long as they, like any other hypothesis, survive the challenge of robust scientific skepticism.  As Wolfe says: “the genuine believer [in truth] wants to show the truth of his beliefs, and this can only be done in the process of testing.”

Evaluating Contrarian Views of the Covid Vaccine

The arguments against taking the vaccine are many and varied and I’m sure I don’t know the half of them. Here is a sample of a few I’ve heard.  How about the 14,500 covid vaccine death reports? Doesn’t the VAERS database provide evidence for the harmfulness of the vaccine? Aren’t these vaccines unproven technology? And doesn’t the Israeli data show that the jab is ineffective?  Did you know there’s a Cabal orchestrating the whole pandemic situation, using it to establish a new world order? Everyone that I know who’s taken the jab has fallen hard to the covid bug or other harmful outcomes. 

I don’t have space to evaluate each one of these, but if I did, the process would be the same, based on the interpretive scheme given above.  I would first look at the scholarly literature relevant to each assertion.  Multiple papers would be examined and if necessary, read, focusing on experimental design and results.  An integrative assessment of relevant expert judgement would be next.  Sources would be weighed according to credentialed relevancy, not outcomes.  Hence at each step, I would guard against cognitive biases, ensuring that I wasn’t unduly influenced by an article or expert that either supported or opposed a pre-existing belief. My final decision would then be weighted by a moral ethic where the coin flip leans into my neighbor.

Yes, it takes real work to warrant our beliefs but the outcome is worth the effort.

For those making anti-vaccine assertions, departing from the predominant scientific consensus, I’m genuinely interested in hearing about your interpretive scheme and the criteria you employ which leads to you believe those assertions.  

• Are your assertions from a belief system applied consistently, coherently, comprehensively and congruently across every corner of your life, from the mundane to the controversial?  To wit: would you use the same informational process used to evaluate the covid vaccine as you would for the use of capsule endoscopy –another remarkably innovative 21^st medical technology like the covid vaccine?
• How does your belief system respond to critical engagement from all sides or are some sides excluded from that testing through a filter or sorting process that eliminates information or a perspective you don’t like? And if you use such a filter, what objective data supports that use?

Once again, it’s worth remembering Wolfe’s warning: “Protecting a scheme from criticism may neutralize any opposition but it also trivializes its truth claims.”