Ignorance and Experience

There are fundamental problems regarding important discussions about climate, energy, federal fiscal policy, foreign policy, terrorism, and many other subjects, that I think few recognize but we all need to understand to be more effective and responsible participants in the discussions.  I'll try to explain my take on them.

The first is, "the ignorant cannot know what they do not know." A correlary might be, "knowledge reveals boundaries," or "only those who have studied a topic extensively know how much they don't know."  This is a problem because the ignorant talk and think and form opinions without realizing how wrong they might be.  We see this every day in public discourse from Facebook posts to blogs to opinion pieces to talk radio shows to politicians' speeches.

The second is that our personal experiences often override other facts in our minds.  There are many examples including politics, economics, and social issues, but good ones to quantify are natural Earth systems (climate, river floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions).  One human lifetime is too short relative to natural cycles to give a meaningful sampling.  If we have a hot or wet or cold or dry decade, many conclude that the climate is changing.  If several big earthquakes occur close together, many conclude that we're having more earthquakes.  If big floods occur in a short period of time, many conclude that floods are increasing.  The fact is that all of these things happen in much more complex cycles and patterns (often random) than any of us will experience in our lifetimes.  None of us has lived in an ice age, for example, and yet our ancestors did.  Our perceptions, then, are only of a small part of the whole story, like the parable of the blind men and the elephant.

How can we personally deal with these issues?  First, to carefully evaluate how much you really know about a subject before forming a solid opinion, ask useful questions like these: How many hours have you spent studying it? (It takes thousands of hours to become an expert).  What were your sources of information, experts or opinion-makers?  (Stick with experts).  Can I put this information into the bigger context of the total possibilities?  (If not, you probably don't understand it well).

This is not to say that we cannot form valid opinions without becoming experts.  We can, but it is vital to recognize the limits of our understanding and the bias that our personal experience puts into our minds.  That just may change our conclusions.

Summary  1) Recognize the limits of your knowledge.  2) Study.  3) Get information from subject-matter experts only.  4) Recognize the bias of personal experience.