.JPG "Earthen Spirituality")
Living within a living, loving planet
Certainty
The Truth Sometimes Hurts
Aug 12th
The Truth Sometimes Hurts
We scientists need help to communicate in a post-truth world
By Kate Marvel on August 8, 2018
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/hot-planet/the-truth-sometimes-hurts/
“More seriously, every time I talk about the uncertainties inherent in climate projections, I feel attacked from all sides of the climate mitigation debate. I admit that in the current landscape, any expression of uncertainty is immediately weaponized by those who want to delay climate action.”
Stop and think a minute. Many of our professionals work in an atmosphere of uncertainty. Take, for instance, our medical profession. Despite their utmost efforts to “get it right” all the time, the human body doesn’t react to medicine in the same way every day. Why? We are a complex, living organism, not a machine. Earth is a complex, living organism also. As a living organism, our usual measuring instruments miss the mark because they were designed to deal with a machine-like inanimate “things.” Thus there has to be some uncertainty with climate change predictions. Consider weather. The weather forecasts are full of uncertainty and often off centre. So, we live with that. Climate is just weather over a long period of time.
Consider our dedicated and compassionate medical workers do their best with the tools they have available yet they work daily with uncertainty and we accept that.
Climate scientists are often in the best position to analyse and make responsible moral judgements re: climate change. Who knows better? When it comes to risk, I’d sooner believe a few climate change researchers than a spokesperson for an industry that takes profits from CO2 emitting activities.
The Need for Certainty
May 22nd
I think many of us are great seekers of certainty. We press our spiritual and religious leaders for universal truth, always yearning for the definitive answer. Yet all around us we find ourselves immersed in a world where change seems to be everlasting and the only real constant. We expect our scientists to give us certainty, and often they collude with claims that it is only the scientific method that holds the format for certainty. In some scientific research results there appears to be a very solid bulk of certainty, however in quantum physics, the answers seem to just bring up more questions. Unsatisfied and frustrated, we thrust this way and that for answers to life’s mysteries as if not knowing was a huge problem. For all who seek, there will always be a few ready answers and there has never been a shortage of spiritual guides. But we are talking about doubt. Let me form another question and pose an answer if I can. Can we hold both doubt and enough certainty such that we can be comfortable in saying “I have some doubt but I pursue my path discarding the need to be certain”? Can we weigh up certainty and uncertainty and make a decision based on which way the scales tip? I doubt it!
I think we act on the basis of what works for us whilst continually there is awareness of certainty and doubt in a continually changing mixture. One last question: Can we reach the joy in being without certainty or to put it another way, can we reach the joy in being and still have doubts?