I’m Giving Up Certainty for Lent

Listen to the audio version.

I was raised in a Catholic home and, while I haven’t given up anything for Lent in decades, I’m not opposed to the practice. I actually like the idea of recognizing that there are some things that we could do without; in fact, there are some things that actually impede our ability to be our best. This year for Lent I’m giving up certainty. When I say “certainty,” I mean “absolutely no doubt / there’s-no-way-I-could-be-mistaken” kind of certainty. Street Epistemology is my tool of choice to help me steer clear of such certainty.

The basic motivation for Street Epistemology is to assess one’s level of certainty in a claim and then scrutinize the method(s) used to arrive at that confidence. While the claims often tend toward the supernatural, that’s not always the case. For example, in a recent video entitled “I’m My Mom’s Daughter,” Anthony Magnabosco has a conversation with two young women. The first woman (Hafsa) claims, with 100% confidence, that the woman she calls “Mom” is indeed her biological mother.

If one were to claim 100% confidence in anything, this belief would appear to merit such certainty -- our parentage is such a foundational belief that we have probably never even thought to question it. In my mind, this is where Street Epistemology shines brightest -- when it causes one to reconsider those important beliefs that are taken for granted, those that would otherwise not seem worth questioning.

Street Epistemology rarely causes someone to abandon a strongly-held belief on the spot (going from 100% to 0%). What it attempts to do is to drill down to the method(s) being used to substantiate a claim and then make sure that the confidence in the claim accurately tracks with the reliability of the method(s).

Yet we live in a culture, and perhaps are burdened with built-in brain algorithms, in which black/white, binary thinking appears to be the norm. Street Epistemology, in the interest of knowing as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible, advocates for a reconsideration of such absolute positions. Australian musician/comedian/entertainer Tim Minchin’s song, “The Fence,” is a variation on this same theme:

This is my song in defense of the fence

A little sing-along, an anthem to ambivalence

The more you know, the harder you will find it

To make up your mind, it doesn't really matter if you find

You can't see which grass is greener

Chances are it's neither, and either way it's easier

To see the difference, when you're sitting on the fence

While Minchin’s point is that there are advantages to taking a middle position, many will find the shift from certainty to uncertainty to be unsettling, and perhaps seemingly impossible. There is a reason that our politics have become polarized and so many have retreated to (and find comfort/community in) the echo-chambers of certainty found in social media. How do you tactfully and respectfully jog someone who is comfortable with certainty (even if the certainty appears to be inadequately founded) to take a less comfortable position? While SE practitioners tend to ask questions and keep the focus on the interlocutor, there may be a point in the conversation when it is appropriate to share examples (the more personal, the better) that clearly demonstrate the benefits of relinquishing certainty.

While I don’t often practice one-on-one, face-to-face SE with strangers, my method of showing the upside of uncertainty comes in the form of teaching critical thinking skills to my students. For example, one of my lectures (“I Can’t Believe I Believed That: Facts & Fallacies in Physics & Astronomy”) features several examples from my own teaching career in which my own certainty led me to teach scientific concepts incompletely and/or incorrectly. That I was “certain” that I was right in what I was teaching prevented me from being the best teacher I could be. I wasn’t deliberately teaching my students things I knew to be wrong, but rather I was teaching them what, at the time, I thought to be “right,” having never attempted to match my level of confidence in my correctness with the methods I had used to arrive at that confidence. In fact, had I not been challenged, I would never have examined those methods or beliefs in the first place.

This goes to show that even someone trained in science and employed as a teacher can fall prey to the siren song of certainty. It is my hope that the critical thinking lectures I deliver to my students teach them that being open to uncertainty, while sometimes uncomfortable, is a path more likely to bend toward truth.

In the interest of acknowledging my own biases, I admit a comfort level with uncertainty. Before my current teaching job, I worked for a decade as a professional meteorologist – six years as a TV weatherman. When was the last time you saw 100% chance of rain/snow show up on a 7-day forecast? How long would a meteorologist remain employed with an “absolutely no doubt / there’s-no-way-I-could-be-mistaken” level of certainty? My job had probability built into it and my viewers, explicitly or implicitly, understood that -- just as I understood that probability was inherent in the computer models from which I was developing my forecast. Perhaps this is why I find SE, and its emphasis on probability and percentages, so appealing.

Contrast that with my current situation. I live and teach in the Bible Belt South. In a few short weeks when Lent draws to a close, “He is Risen” will be emblazoned on every church’s sign and trumpeted from every pulpit. For many people who live in my community, this is a foundational truth – they are as 100% as Hafsa was about the identity of her biological mother.

At the risk of a “spoiler” (you really should watch the video in its entirety), Hafsa moved from her 100% position by the end of the SE conversation. She didn’t abandon the belief entirely, but the SE conversation helped to more accurately match her level of confidence to the reliability of her methods. Wouldn’t it be nice if, driving around my town on Easter Sunday morning, I saw a “60% chance that He is Risen” on a church sign?

So my plan is to give up certainty, and not just for Lent. Every day should be an opportunity to scrutinize something that I would never have had reason to previously question. Practicing SE can help you identify your own biases, assess the reliability of the methods you use to arrive at beliefs, and give you a more accurate map of reality.

Mortgage Hill Musings makes a living teaching science concepts. When he doesn’t have an answer or a sufficient explanation, he is happy to admit his ignorance. His hope is that, through the practice of Street Epistemology, others will come to enjoy the freedom that such honesty provides. Check out more of his content on his YouTube channel.