23 February 1998, 1063 words
Most people nowadays try to justify even the most irrational opinions empirically. This is the most cogent evidence of how influential the scientific attitude has now become. Just a century ago, all you needed to do was quote Bible, Qu'ran or Bhagavadgita to "prove" the truth of what you were saying and, while that is still so, religious authority is not as sufficient as it once was. Even Pastor Cuffie is using bar charts.
Empiricism is defined as "relying on experiment or experience." For example, Catholics who want other people to stop having sex outside marriage don't just quote the Bible anymore: they cite AIDS stats and the failure rate of condoms. (That not using a condom provides no protection at all is not a relevant fact, since the objective is to stop people fornicating.) Fundamentalist Muslims are about the only group who are still refreshingly free of empiricism: they describe Allah as All-Merciful while saying it is all right to kill small children in a jihad. But the fundamentalists do have logic: the children might grow up to be enemies of Islam and therefore are culpable. Prevention, after all, is better than cure.
But no one can say that such fanatics aren't right and that less murderous people aren't wrong. Empiricism, you see, is not an absolute doctrine. It was the philosopher David Hume who first demonstrated that cause and effect don't necessarily exist. When we see that an event B - thunder, for instance - is always preceded by an event A - lightning - we assume A causes B. But our deduction is exactly that: an assumption. For all we know, maybe some other factor always causes lightning to flash just before thunder rolls.
For this reason, it is impossible to know anything in the truest sense of the word. This is a basic philosophical fact. For example, I could say that Pastor Cuffie does not believe in God and that he just pretends to do so in order to make a very good living. But there is no way I could actually prove this. The expensive white suit, the matching cowboy boots, the quarter-million-dollar van, the fully air-conditioned building, the bottles of jheri-curl - these prove nothing. Pastor Cuffie may have a very deep and sincere belief in God. He may even be exactly what God wants a Christian to be, if God exists. But there's no way to prove God's existence, either.
Pastor Cuffie, of course, would insist that he knows God exists. But this is a man who, in one of his paid Express advertisements, spoke about the "Theory of Evolution" and "the Fact of Creation." No scientist could gainsay him because no reputable scientist would argue that evolution is more than a theory. It happens to be a theory which fits more observed facts than the Biblical creation, but this does not faze people like Pastor Cuffie. They will assure you that things like fossils were put there by Satan to mislead man. (In like fashion, Fr. Ian Taylor assures us that sexy dancing is offensive to God. One can only assume that time hangs really heavily on the hands of immortal beings.)
Some weeks ago a person calling himself Omar Imam wrote a long letter to the Express in which he argued that human beings only appeared on this planet 3,500 years ago. Now it is quite probable that Mr. Imam has a brain. But I could easily insist that he doesn't. Even if Mr. Imam's skull was cut open, you still could not prove to me he had a brain: I would insist that the exposed gray matter was really tapioca pudding and that all Mr. Imam's words and actions were controlled by a demon and Mr. Imam himself was an empty shell which only looked like a man. I'd probably be wrong, but nobody could prove I was wrong.
So, if such concrete facts are impossible to prove, you can see how difficult it is to prove more abstract ones. For instance, Patrick Manning may well be the most beloved leader in the history of Trinidad and Tobago. That he has seemingly alienated many of PNM stalwarts does not disprove this: maybe these disaffected individuals are a recalcitrant minority who have been paid by the UNC to criticize Manning. And, if that premise is true, it means that Manning is only holding on to the PNM leadership because he has the party's best interests at heart.
Similarly, it is entirely possible that Prime Minister Basdeo Panday is determined to stamp out corruption and nepotism from our political system. His lack of action on the airport expansion, the textbook fiasco, NFM, and NP may itself be proof that corruption has already been stamped out. (At least, that's the argument I expect to hear from Anil Mahabir.)
It is even impossible to prove that Agriculture Minister Reeza Mohammed is a congenital liar. Reeza may have spoken nothing but the absolute truth since becoming a Government Minister: it is the IADB officials, Keith Rowley, and Caroni sugar workers who have been lying. One could even argue that Adesh Nanan is not be the most incompetent Education Minister in the history of Trinidad and Tobago: it may be that he is so brilliant an administrator that he is being sabotaged by everyone around him, including whoever told him that paradigm is pronounced para-dig-m.
And yet, science, which is based on empiricism and logic, has managed to invent microwave ovens, Velcro fasteners, and toilets which flush automatically. This is why people treat science with respect. In ordinary life, people can usually distinguish between a fact and an opinion, unless they're Kumar Mahabir. "Hypothetical scepticism is useful for logical dissection only," wrote the philosopher Bertrand Russell. But Russell also had this to say about a lack of scepticism: "So long as men are not trained to withhold judgement in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues."
I would say that this statement explains a lot about the quality of leadership in Trinidad and Tobago. But this is only an empirical observation and can therefore be readily dismissed.
Copyright ©1998 Kevin Baldeosingh