Epistemology, Palin, Obama, BP, Humpty Dumpty, and the King and I

[Bumper stickers sometimes sum up one's position succinctly.  But the world is complex and everything is ultimately connected.  So I don't apologize for bringing together a lot of disparate points.  But I do apologize for not doing it better.  I do hope that at the very least a few readers think about how they know what they know.]

I had just gotten into my window seat,  my seat belt buckled,, my book out, and my backpack under the seat, when the woman sitting in the aisle seat, after establishing that J has lived in Alaska over 30 years (the woman said she'd been there only ten), asked what J thought about Sarah Palin.

We'd been in Europe for almost a month and we heard that question a lot when people found out we were from Alaska.  In Europe the question almost always had a tinge of snark but also a recognition that perhaps a local could fill in missing details. Just to mess with their stereotypes, I often pointed out that Palin came into our consciousness when she resigned her oil and gas commission seat in protest over ethics (or so we thought at the time) and then went after the sitting Republican governor for closed door meetings with the oil companies and when elected rehired the Natural Resources team that had resigned in protest of Gov. Murkowski's dealings with the big oil companies.  But then I would reassure them that once she got nominated for vp, things changed and we saw a totally different view of Sarah Palin.

So, I was trying to engage my book as J politely, but more heatedly than is her custom, told the lady what she thought.  The lady then defended Palin.  "I went to lunch with her during the campaign and she's wonderful."  Things seemed to be winding down and I was getting back into my book when the lady asked J about Obama.
J:  "I think he's terrific."  
Lady:  "He's not an American you know."
J:  "Of course he is."
Lady:  "He was born in Kenya."
J:  "He was born in Hawaii"
Lady:  "Hawaii was a territory when he was born so even if he was born there he isn't a citizen."  [Hawaii became a state in August 1959.  Obama was born in August 1961.  People born in territories are US citizens anyway.]

I'm usually pretty unflappable, but at the end of traveling five weeks, with lingering cold symptoms, I was planning a quiet trip reading The Future of Life by socio-biologist E. O. Wilson and I totally lost it.  As J was trying to explain that even if Obama had been born in Kenya instead of Hawaii he would still be a US citizen since his mother was an American citizen, words flew out of my mouth - something about not wanting to listen to this bullshit for the next six hours.  That got both their attentions and they agreed to drop the topic as I put in my earplugs.

I immediately thought of a lot of other ways I could have handled it - like asking how she knew everything she claimed to be true, or even agreeing with her and then pushing to see if I could get her to agree that living under a black president meant our way of life was over and other racist garbage.

Epistemology (go here for a more scholarly discussion) is basically the study of how people can determine what is true.  Is it something you just know inside your head or in your gut?  Does it require external verification? If so what sort of verification?  Do different kinds of truths require different sorts of justification?  Knowing you have a headache is different from knowing what causes headaches.  

There's a whole lot of very questionable 'truth' out there these days.  There always has been, but we think in this era of modern technology we should have a much larger proportion of the population rejecting baseless truths or at least harboring some doubts about what they know. But the spurious truths are alive and well including among the supposedly well educated.  I know this because there are so many contradictory realities being claimed as Truth.   How many people actually think about how they know what they know?  

Why does this matter?  I've done a lengthy post on why people should study philosophy before, but this blog is about how we know what we know in the broadest sense and the fact that so many people 'know' totally different truths means to me, more time should be spent on studying how we know what we know.


As I pondered this morning the woman who believed that Obama is Kenyan, the BP officials who assured Congress there was no danger in drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and our Governor demanding that off shore drilling in Alaska proceed this summer to protect jobs, I couldn't help but scratch my head and wonder how these people came to believe these things.  I randomly pulled out a record, put it on the turntable, and as I was finishing my stretches, I heard Yul Brynner singing these 60 year old lyrics:

When I was a boy
World was better spot.
What was so was so,
What was not was not.
Now I am a man;
World have changed a lot.
Some things nearly so,
Others nearly not.
There are times I almost think
I am not sure of what I absolutely know.
Very often find confusion
In conclusion I concluded long ago
In my head are many facts
That, as a student, I have studied to procure,
In my head are many facts..
Of which I wish I was more certain I was sure! [lyrics from allmusicals.com]

(Yes, Oscar Hammerstein gave the King a questionable English, but that doesn't change meaning of the lyrics.)

It's much better put to music in the Youtube (there's no video, just the cover pic) below:
[UPDATE June 5, 2012: The original youtube had been removed so I've replaced it with this one.]
[UPDATE Jan 9, 2013:  The second video went private.  Here's a better one.]


It's a Puzzlement from Andrew MacGregor Marshall on Vimeo.

Why are so few politicians, businessmen, and other anointed experts willing to publicly question what they know?  Do they at least question themselves in private?

Some, I'm sure, really do believe what they say.  I am sure that BP would have done something different had they known their actions would lead to this catastrophic oil spill.  Minor spills are ok - we have them all the time in Alaska, including right now - but the big one in the Gulf, besides hurting BP's bottom line, causes them and other oil companies severe political damage they would rather avoid.  Surely they believed nothing like this would happen.  (I realize that companies routinely calculate the costs of accidents and take risks if they think the gains are greater than the costs, but this one seems beyond that sort of calculation.)

But what kind of person can be so certain about things they don't know?

Hubris plays a role.


Competition is another factor.  Winning is more important than truth for many.  BP officials wanted their project to get approved and so they said what they needed to say.  This overlaps with the next reason.

Self interest also plays a big role.  The 'inconvenient truths" are those that, if we believed them, would require us to change our behavior.  Global climate change threatens many people because they can't imagine how they would live at a lower level of energy consumption.  We ask  soldiers to risk their lives in wars in oil producing countries, but many people aren't willing to make much smaller sacrifices like turning down the thermostat, driving less, or giving up their motorized sports toys.  Believing stories about American superiority, our rights to be free to do whatever we want, or about scientific progress help people avoid having to make adjustments in their lives and in their heads. The consequences of consuming oil are a minor cost for the American way of life.  Large corporations pay their employees well, so they have a stake in toeing the company line. 

Even our governor, while the Gulf of Mexico is bespoiled, sees no reason to delay Shell's drilling in offshore Alaska.  

“The decision to suspend drilling operations in the Arctic Ocean is based on fear, not sound science. Alaskans have experienced firsthand the ravages of an oil spill with the Exxon Valdez in 1989. We never want to repeat that experience, and our hearts go out to Gulf Coast residents suffering from the effects of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. On the other hand, Shell’s proposed exploration plan in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas has been reviewed extensively.

“I simply cannot understand how the federal government could approve plans of exploration only five months ago - approvals that were upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – but now refuse to take the final step in a long regulatory process and not authorize Shell’s permits to drill. Shell’s leases should be extended, and they should be able to continue seeking permits from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 So, the same people that approved the Gulf drilling can be trusted to approve the Chukchi drilling.  This is different, he tells us, because it's shallower.  But it has lots of other issues like severe weather conditions that are unique.  His professed lack of understanding indicates a severe mental limitation.  He may not agree, but certainly he should be able to understand the feds' concerns.   Even the  "Shell officials said they understand the decision and welcome the additional scrutiny the delay brings." [ADN]

(There's lots more in there - the fear and science line for example - to deconstruct, but I'll leave that for others now.)

I don't know through science any more than the governor does, but I do know that the Louisiana politicians were all enthusiastic about drilling in the Gulf for similar reasons and similarly rejected environmental concerns. 

I think that Gov. Parnell, in his heart,  truly believes Chukchi and Beaufort drilling is perfectly safe.  His whole world view privileges big development projects over environmental concerns, includes the idea that conquering nature is man's duty. 

What chemistry of values and knowledge risks such a spill in Alaska waters for those temporary jobs? What brain chemistry can't imagine and create other sorts of ways of respectably supporting one's family? Can dismiss the potential environmental risks?  Can't delay for a year the drilling in light of the Gulf spill?

I too am biased by my world view, but I'm not running for office and I don't have the kind of stake a sitting governor has to his party and to what he thinks the voters want.   I'm still considering  the portrayal  I read in biologist Wilson's book on the plane of two competing realities in the world today.

The economist is focused on production and consumption.  These are what the world wants and needs, he says.  He is right, of course.  Every species lives on production and consumption.  The tree finds and consumes nutrients and sunlight;  the leopard finds and consumes the deer.  And the farmer clears both away to find space and raise corn - for consumption.  The economist's thinking is based on precise models of rational choice and near-horizon time lines.  His parameters are the gross domestic product, trade balance, and competitive index.  He sits on corporate boards, travels to Washington, occasionally appears on television shows.  The planet, he insists, is perpetually fruitful and still underutilized.

The ecologist has a different worldview  He is focused on unsustainable crop yields, overdrawn aquifers, and threatened ecosystems.  His voice is also heard, albeit faintly, in high government and corporate circles.  He sits on nonprofit foundation boards, writes for Scientific American, and is sometimes called to Washington.  The planet, he insists, is exhausted and in trouble. 

Another human inclination - blaming - is also evident in the oil spill.  Does Gov. Parnell not connect the blame going towards the BP officials and their private servants at the Minerals Management Service with himself if a similar accident should occur in Alaska?

Even Obama is getting some blame for not making the oil spill go away. But once something is broken, we can't simply fix it. Some things simply take time.  Just as we can't speed up a pregnancy, once the spill is underway it will take a certain amount of time to play out.  Even with perfect  knowledge and the capacity and  resources on hand to attack something like this, it will still take time.  We don't have anywhere near perfect knowledge, and we have various people withholding information to avoid blame (ie BP official taking the Fifth to avoid testifying), so it will take even longer.

But blaming people transfers responsibility from those who elect the politicians who do big oil's bidding.  We all share responsibility if we drive and fly.  Americans, particularly, use up a lot more resources than others.  Wilson writes:

[T]he average amount of productive land and shallow sea appropriated by each person in bits and pieces from around the world for food, water, housing, energy, transportation, commerce, and waste absorption. . . is about one hectare (2.5 acres) in developing nations but about 9.6 hectares (24 acres) in the United States.  (p. 23)  [An average city lot is about 1/4 of an acre.]

(It would be nice to find  a personal footprint calculator to help people figure out how big a footprint they leave and how to reduce it. Updated Sunday 5/31/10:  Anon offers this link to calculate your ecological footprint in the comments below - and a long discussion of McCain's citizenship questions.  Thanks!!)

It's much easier to prevent environmental disasters from happening than it is to undo them after they happen. As we were taught as children, "All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty together again." That's why learning to think in the long term with a macro view that connects the seemingly unrelated and to understand epistemology are all important.  (Well, I'm not sure how many people can actually understand epistemology, but at least to understand the questions epistemologists raise.)

So I believe we need to think more about the many ways we endanger the world and take those potential damages seriously, before it's too late. Be more skeptical about what we think is true.  (Are you listening Governor?)  We need to be less certain, less willing to proceed despite potential dangers, more willing to live less luxuriously, and more willing to question those truths 'leaders' tell us when they assure us they know what they are doing.

But that questioning needs to disciplined and reasonable. Not the kind of challenge that claims its own certainty such as those who "know" Obama is a Kenyan Muslim. Rather, we need the kind of questioning that challenges with fact and reason those who believe in projects that support their own well being at great risk to others.