This model was later adopted by the schools, no doubt because the schools were established by churches. Whatever the reason, schooling until recently consisted of listening to an authority tell you what to believe about the world (in universities, it still often consists of this). In school, though, you were even tested to make sure you’d learned the approved view of things.
In school you also acquire the idea that Truth is something that can be found on the printed page. Consequently we come to accept something that has been published as true, without verifying that it is.
It’s not surprising that we come to look on the truth as something that is dispensed by authorities. Consequently, we look around for people who look like authorities, and treat what they say as information. Furthermore, we treat the methods they use to come up with things to say as methods that can be used to define information. We are often wrong.
Given the track record of authorities (remember all those biological weapons that, according to authorities, Iraq was just itching to use against the West?), depending on them to tell us the truth is a questionable approach. Another problem with this approach is that there is considerable doubt as to whether we need to know the truth, anyway.
Here’s something that’s true: Churchill, Manitoba, is named for John Churchill, first governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company. That’s a fact. Despite being a fact, though, it doesn’t help me get served when I drop in to the local branch of his company.
Every day we are bombarded with truths. The newspaper tells us things like what the temperature was yesterday in Beijing and what celebrities have (or had) their birthdays today. I remember once reading in the paper that it was the late Alfred Hitchcock’s birthday and thinking “I can’t really send him a card, can I?”
Better than mere truth is information. Information is confused with many things that are not informative, though.
Facts, as we have just seen, are not necessarily informative. Unless I’ve made a bet about what the high temperature in Beijing was going to be, that fact cannot be said to inform me of anything.
Furthermore, many items of information are not factual. The idea of intelligence, for example, cannot be said to be a fact, since there is widespread disagreement about just what intelligence is. However, the concept of intelligence is informative because in speculating about it we discover useful things. We have even discovered some of the shortcomings of the idea of intelligence.
As we have also seen, authoritative statements are not necessarily informative. Another reason they're not necessarily informative is that they disagree with each other. In fact, many of them work according to decision models which encourage disagreement as a way of establishing crucial issues that need to be tested. Courts of English law, for example, require two or more highly trained professionals to argue for exactly opposite points.
People also often assume that a logically sound argument is informative. However, it need not be. We can reason as soundly as it’s possible to reason and still be wrong.
Deductive reasoning starts with a general premise or principle. It then applies that premise to a specific piece of evidence and draws a conclusion about that piece of evidence. For example, we might reason like this:
- All Canadians are British subjects. (general principle)
- John FitzGerald is a Canadian. (evidence)
- Therefore, John FitzGerald is a British subject. (conclusion)
- All Canadians have French first names.
- John FitzGerald’s first name is not French.
- Therefore, John FitzGerald is not a Canadian.
For example, many people reasoned out thoroughly logical arguments that on January 1, 2000 the world would be thrown into chaos. I say their beliefs were serious because they acted on them. They stockpiled food, for example, they bought portable electric generators, and some even created fortified shelters to protect themselves from people who hadn’t stockpiled food or bought generators.
As we saw on January 1, 2000, though, the computers didn’t fail. Some of the premises in those thoroughly logical arguments had been unsound. Logic is a tool. Logic does not guarantee that your arguments will stand up any more than a hammer guarantees that the bookcase you build with it will stand up.
Information is often confused with consensus. The supposed existence of a consensus among scientists about global warming is supposed to imply that the consensus opinion is highly likely to be true. Well, a hundred years ago a consensus of scientists would have told you that other races were inferior to whites.
The issue of consensus about global warming seems to have been raised initially as a red herring. That is, people argued against taking action against global warming because there was no scientific consensus about what caused it.
However, consensus has nothing to do with it. At one time there was a scientific consensus that the sun revolved around the earth. That point seems to have escaped the people who are opposed to taking action against global warming, though. Now they complain that this consensus they considered so desirable is being forced on them.
What is informative about an idea is its ability to predict events. The chief value of consensus seems to be coming up with a plan that everyone, or at least everyone important, is willing to go along with. To me, that seems a lot like what lemmings do.
Information cannot be defined by its source. If an expert meteorologist says tomorrow will be sunny, clouds don’t decide to go somewhere else just because a respected source says they will. Information is defined by its effect. Information increases the probability that we will act in effective ways. If it never rains on days when the weather forecast calls for rain, you’re going to end up lugging around a useless umbrella. If it always rains on days your bunions hurt, though, your bunions are a mine of information.
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