"When the question is “should we avoid facts because of our feelings?”, the answer can be a very simple “no”.It’s a simple argument to point out that avoiding facts doesn’t change them, and this simple statement clearly demonstrates the simple truth.
But what happens when things get more complex? This is where I’ve seen this phrase abused to death — and the reason behind this critique. When questions get more complex, feelings tend to shape how we navigate an unclear topic...
Any individual fact (singular) is unlikely to be affected by your feelings, as long as it is a clear-cut statement. However, when you start talking about facts(plural), things get messy.
The reason for this is that very few people have a complete understanding of the facts on any issue. If you’re not a Ph.D in a relevant field, or haven’t spent hundreds of hours studying this topic, you almost certainly don’t know all the facts...
How you feel about the political slant of news sources is going to determine which ones you prefer. How you feel about the underlying conclusion of research is going to determine what findings you emphasize and what findings you discard — as well as what research you seek out. You can’t separate the influence your feelings have on the facts that you know."
Also relevant is the reality that we can't measure everything, or people don't get funding to measure certan things, or we measure things and over-generalize about what "facts" they show, so "facts" can only really be one part of many conversations - they almost never proide sufficient information
No comments:
Post a Comment