This chapter (2) has attempted to provide good reasons for a naturalistic, evidence-based pursuit of knowledge that matters. Faith-based approaches to the meaning of life are limited because they provide no grounds for choosing among the large array of religious faiths available. George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden have their different faiths, but no basis of arguing that one is any better than the other.
Faith has been used to support many beliefs that we have good grounds to deem false, such as placing the earth at the center of the universe. Faith has also been used to support many practices, such as religious wars and torture that from a broader perspective are more in tune with evil than with good. Faith provides no way of resisting natural error tendencies in human thinking, including confirmation bias and motivated inference.
In contrast, although evidence-based thinking is fallible, it has an effective method of correctingerrors, by systematically collecting new evidence, developing new explanatory hypotheses, andselecting the best. Experimental methods such as those used in evidence-based medicine have theadvantage of making inference to the best explanation more effective by helping to identify caseswhere observations are the result of bias, error, or chance.
Inference to the best explanation enablesus to go beyond the limits of human sensory observations to accept theories about nonobservableentities such as viruses and electrons. Done carefully, such inference does not suffice to justify beliefin God. Philosophical attempts to establish truths by a priori reasoning, thought experiments, or conceptual analysis have been no more successful than faith-based thinking has been. All these methods serve merely to reinforce existing prejudices.
In contrast, evidence-based thinking often forces us to realize that our old theories and the concepts embedded in them are inadequate, leading to the development of new ones that fit much better with the full range of observations. That is why our search for wisdom should not be based on faith or pure reason, but instead requires attention to all the relevant evidence, especially what can be learned from research in psychology and neuroscience. A crucial step in this search is the recognition that minds are brains.
This chapter (2) has attempted to provide good reasons for a naturalistic, evidence-based pursuit of knowledge that matters. Faith-based approaches to the meaning of life are limited because they provide no grounds for choosing among the large array of religious faiths available. George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden have their different faiths, but no basis of arguing that one is any better than the other. Faith has been used to support many beliefs that we have good grounds to deem false, such as placing the earth at the center of the universe. Faith has also been used to support many practices, such as religious wars and torture that from a broader perspective are more in tune with evil than with good. Faith provides no way of resisting natural error tendencies in human thinking, including confirmation bias and motivated inference.In contrast, although evidence-based thinking is fallible, it has an effective method of correctingerrors, by systematically collecting new evidence, developing new explanatory hypotheses, andselecting the best. Experimental methods such as those used in evidence-based medicine have theadvantage of making inference to the best explanation more effective by helping to identify caseswhere observations are the result of bias, error, or chance. Inference to the best explanation enablesus to go beyond the limits of human sensory observations to accept theories about nonobservableentities such as viruses and electrons. Done carefully, such inference does not suffice to justify beliefin God. Philosophical attempts to establish truths by a priori reasoning, thought experiments, or conceptual analysis have been no more successful than faith-based thinking has been. All these methods serve merely to reinforce existing prejudices. In contrast, evidence-based thinking often forces us to realize that our old theories and the concepts embedded in them are inadequate, leading to the development of new ones that fit much better with the full range of observations. That is why our search for wisdom should not be based on faith or pure reason, but instead requires attention to all the relevant evidence, especially what can be learned from research in psychology and neuroscience. A crucial step in this search is the recognition that minds are brains.
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