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A FRIEND who is a scientist once chided me, saying he knew how difficult it is to know something with any degree of certainty, whereas social scientists and journalists seem to have no such trouble. “Everybody is so sure they know what they’re talking about,” he told me, that it seemed they had no idea what knowing actually involved.
Take the example of climate change. Despite decades of work, it still remains an unproven science. The closer one looks at meteorological phenomena, the harder it becomes to ascertain what types of changes are natural and which ones are man-made, or the result of ‘anthropogenic forcing’.
Take also the example of business cycles, that was amongst the top ‘discoveries’ of economic science in the 20th century. Back in the 1930s, a small body of literature evolved around business cycles. Besides Keynes, a host of other historians and economists claimed to have discovered the operation of long cyclical waves that appear to correspond with major historical events.
One fellow, for instance, claimed he had discovered a long wave in which major wars always broke out in the troughs and peace was established when the wave was at its peak. The wave extended at least 500 years back in time. The whole scene of these writers was called the ‘long wave literature’ and as late as the early 1980s, at a conference held to examine the role of these ‘long waves’, one scholar made the argument that nothing was more important than figuring out whether these waves actually existed or not.
“If they don’t exist,” he insisted, “nothing would be lost except for a little time. But if they do exist, we risk remaining unaware of the most important determining dynamic underlying modern history.”
As a journalist, one realises more and more the futility of ‘knowing’ anything.
A compelling case no doubt, but going by the same logic, another retorted, we should all commit ourselves to the scientific discovery of God, since the same argument applied with even more force to that endeavour.
Long wave literature took a powerful hit when a mathematician took a large set of completely random numbers and showed that there existed a wave-like pattern within them. In fact, he argued, any sufficiently large set of random numbers will contain a wave, and if one starts collecting gigantic data sets that span the run of modern history, it is inevitable that a wave or two will be found embedded within it. So much for the most powerful determining force of modern history, that could just as easily be nothing more than an immutable attribute of a large set of random numbers.
It’s the same with climate change. We can show that the climate is changing, but what still remains an unproven science is how much of it is the result of ‘anthropogenic forcing’. Of course, colloquially we all talk about climate change as if it is known to be man-made, but in the scientific community that remains an unproven point.
I was surprised to discover this when I delved briefly into climate literature recently, and was even more impressed to discover how difficult it actually is to ‘prove’ something when dealing with complex, large-scale phenomena like climate. It’s not easy to ‘know’ anything when dealing with the material world.
My point of disagreement with my friend was that he underestimated the difficulty of ‘knowing’ something in other areas too. It’s true that too many people strut around as if they know what they’re talking about, whereas their only way to know what they think they know is what they’ve read in the papers, seen on TV, heard from somebody else. Random titbits of information, that stick to our senses like dust to a vinyl surface, are then absorbed into a cognitive machinery consisting of preconceived notions, prejudices, comforting attitudes, emotional baggage and a spattering of some ‘animal instincts’.
As a journalist, one realises more and more the ultimate futility of ‘knowing’ anything. There is a story, there is a context, there is a newsmaker or people at the heart of the affair. There is a past. And in each of these elements, there are layers and layers that peel off endlessly until one doesn’t know a thing. What animates the affair? The instincts of the key newsmakers? The structural incentives embedded within the situation? The inertia of the past? Some combination of these? If so, what?
Take as an example the power crisis. The new government came in and immediately convened a roundtable of various business leaders to hammer a way out of the crisis. Remember that affair? What really happened back then? For one answer, consider who all sat around that table. Recall where they were then and take a look at where they are now. Was this what they sat down to deliberate upon? Were they really discussing solutions and reform pathways, or were they simply cutting the cake?
Most people I know will gladly say that they were simply cutting the cake. But ask the question: how do you know that? And you’ll get a series of responses that are nothing but surmising.
It’s easy to leap to any conclusion. The facts to build any narrative one wants are present in this affair, as in any other. Those dots can be connected to yield any picture we want. Which narrative ultimately wins will be determined by its appeal to the cognitive machinery of the widest possible audience. Whatever sticks to the antennae of the masses will become the truth, and everybody will know it.
It’s a good idea to keep this mind when thinking in terms of fixed categories. Yes there is corruption and mis-governance in our country. But like those sets of random numbers with their waves, perhaps this is an immutable condition of Third World societies, made worse by a couple of indigenous factors like the legacy of martial law. Perhaps a little less knowing and a little more searching for the truth won’t hurt.
The writer is a member of staff.
Published in Dawn, November 27th , 2014
