Pragmatism, Authority and Hypothesis Testing (post 32)

Pragmatism is, to a significant extent, about data.

But data, to a significant extent, is about authority.

Take the straight forward datum of the number of planets in our solar system.  Many people think they know the answer is nine.  And it was.  But now it's eight.

And if it was nine and now it's eight, then should we be surprised to learn that it is seven or six or negative 3.5?

I can't see the planets (not all).  I can't count them myself.  In order to know how many there are, I must trust an authority.  And if that authority changes its mind, my trust is damaged.  This is as it should be.

Which types of fat lead to heart disease?

According to the American Heart Association, "Eating foods that contain saturated fats raises the level of cholesterol in your blood. High levels of LDL cholesterol in your blood increase your risk of heart disease and stroke."

In the 1930s, saturated fats were being replaced with artificial "trans" fats - solid fats made from hydrogenated vegetable oil.  Hence Crisco largely replaced lard; margarine largely replaced butter.  Saturated fats were seen as unhealthy and trans fats were seen as healthier.

In the mid 1990's, health authorities such as the FDA began linking trans fats to heart disease.  Last Wednesday, the FDA officially banned trans fats for many commercial purposes.

And just a few months ago, an important meta-analysis of 72 different studies of saturated fat found no link to heart disease.

Then weeks later, that paper was publicly criticized for containing major errors.

This situation is confusing: Wikipedia has a page dedicated to the controversy.

So while saturated fats were once bad and trans fats were once good, the reverse may now be true (or maybe not).  Hence the "pragmatic" response, from many, is to simply stop listening to anything that "nutrition authorities" claim.

Yet is that really a pragmatic response - to ignore scientific authority because it occasionally changes and even reverses factual claims?

I don't think so.

I think the key is to realize that pragmatism is about data, yes, but it is more importantly about balance and about finding optimal paths between extremes.

If one extreme is to ignore science, and the other is to blindly believe its every claim, where is the optimal path?

To answer that question we need to understand that science is most fundamentally the process of hypothesis testing.

Science is not and should not be about defining or presenting "truth".  It is and should be about generating and testing more and more hypotheses.

This process of hypothesis testing is not suppose to give us truth, it is suppose to get us closer to it.
And in doing so, sometimes, it has to backtrack.

Pragmatism is not about blindly following authorities or rejecting them - it is about coming up with our own criteria for evaluations - based on track records, prior successes, honesty, integrity.  These evaluations are themselves hypotheses which must be tested again and again over time.

We should not hope to find a single authority to trust blindly for all our lives.  Instead we should listen to a diversity of voices and adjust our confidence in each as they variously conform and diverge with each other and with our own experiences, reason and conscience.