The Human Desire for Answers
Life doesn't always have answers. Some of life's greatest mysteries have been solved, yes, but many more have not. The human drive to seek out new knowledge, find answers, and lay to rest false ideas is a grand one. It's a drive that will hopefully take us to the stars, and beyond. However, like any other human drive, it can be subverted and perverted into something that isn't... useful. In fact, downright destructive.
I was reminded of this by a couple of examples. One, the whole mess of 'settled science' which is really shallow data masquerading as 'an answer' and that irks me. I was raised to ask questions, of pretty much anything. Not just science, things that some people say 'people like me' don't question. Like the Bible. I was raised a fundamentalist, with a scientist's heart. Think about that for a few moments. I don't know if any of my blog readers are of the bent that can't reconcile those two, but if you are, I hope I just broke you a little. Because it's only in breaking that conviction that we know the answers, can you begin to find the truth. See, I believe that scientific inquiry is the way to reveal the face of God in the world around us. Therefore, to honor my faith, I must follow scientific methods. Seeking truth is important to me, and that doesn't mean setting on a belief, pulling my feet up, and stubbornly ignoring that it's not exactly grounded in reality while the water rushes in through the holes. Unfortunately, too much of science as a community these days isn't practicing actual science, as opposed to, say, religion. Sorry, but if the data doesn't support it, it's faith, not science. Which is ok. If your faith can be proven out as mentally helpful in other ways. But don't say it's science if it's not.
Maybe this is why I find conspiracy theories so dang annoying. We know, if we stop and think logically, that some big important secret that could, say, affect the lives of the families of those who are supposedly 'holding the secret' is unlikely to have remained a secret for any length of time. But, being human, we see that we don't have the answer. Joe, over there, might have the answer, so we squint at him in suspicion and fume a little. Someone gets cancer. Surely, in our modern medical world, we should already have solved this little problem. Cancer must have a cure! Someone's got to know! Find something to blame, quick, so we can ban it and then stop worrying about cancer! Baby powder!!!11!!eleventy!
Only that's not how it works. That's not how any of this works. Sometimes the questions are far more complex than we realize when we first start asking them. Sometimes there isn't an easy answer. Most of the time, it's not just one answer. Why do we see more cancer now than we did? Well, because we live longer isn't a satisfactory answer. It's a little glib and pat. We can, and we do, treat cancers now more than we ever could before. That's just not good enough, because we still lose that fight more often than we'd like. So quack doc... um, naturopaths and chiropractors and 'traditional' medicine comes along and offers to sell us the answers the vast conspiracy hides from us, and if it's expensive then hey, you're worth it girl!
And we fall for it. We spend billions of dollars every year on 'nutritional supplements' and 'alternative medicine' because we desire answers, and we aren't happy with the ones we're given by the 'medical establishment' so we set out looking for ones that make us feel better. Don't look at the data, it's all about how we feel, right? If I ate that and it made me feel bad, I should totally never eat it again. If I started taking that supplement, and I started eating better, exercising, and drinking more water, and I start to feel better, it was totally all the supplement and I should buy more. If skeletal remains of ancient peoples don't show signs of heart disease because all the soft tissue is gone, I should totally eat 'just like them' and that will keep me from having heart problems. Nevermind that mummified remains of the era show the same disease and disorders that plague modern human bodies... someone said they had the answer, and I wanted to hear that answer. So now I'm sticking my fingers in my ears and saying LALALALALALA when the questions arise.
If you ignore it long enough, it'll go away, right? Right?
Maybe I'm asking too many questions here. But I can't help it. When I'm presented with an answer, I immediately want to tip my head to the side a little and ask more questions. Dig a little deeper. Puzzle over the ways and means the answer came into being. Like the Elephant's Child, I'm rarely satiated. Idealogues hate that. Be they religious, or 'scientific' they want to cling to their answers and never have to endure the uncertainty and risk of asking questions that might break their precious answers. I sympathize, a bit. It's easier, more comfortable, to have answers. Having more questions than answers is exhausting. Sometimes you just want to take what someone's telling you as gospel and not question it too hard. I've done that. Darn near ended me.
Keep asking. Don't settle. And if they're selling it to you? It's not an answer.