Today, knowledge, education, science, and enlightenment are all under attack around the world by right-wing extremists. Their motive is greed, their means is fear, and their opportunity is a reliance on ignorance. There is nothing new about their methods: they serve up ignorance by propaganda. Everyone needs to be aware of who they are, how they operate, and know how to confront and defeat them. Education is a huge and powerful tool in that mix.

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Knowledge is a collection of facts that have been submitted to various tests and evaluated for accuracy, reliability, and usefulness by trained investigators. As these facts gain more and more credence, they become part of our vocabulary. Contrary to the assertions of pushy salesmen, bellicose politicians, or those who just love to dominate the conversation, there are no “alternate facts,” offered on the pretense that facts are just opinions, and mine are as good as yours. Opinions are too vague, too unreliable, and not verified. Most really stink. Facts are verified or at least verifiable. Facts, alone, however, are often not good enough from which to make wise decisions. We still need broader proof of coherence, causality and permanence as they apply to many different situations.

The Danger. There is a growing opposition to facts, knowledge, investigations, tests, measurements, logic, coherence, analysis, synthesis, evaluation; and sound conclusions that flow from all those endeavors. It is called ignorance. Political figures across the US and around the world are currently relying on it to further their own selfish wants. The danger of ignorance is that large numbers of people fall victim to it. Those who are engulfed by ignorance often have no clue that they are completely wrong about many issues that have been passed on to them by the lowest means of how information flows: authoritarianism. Authority figures depend on acceptance of their fallacious pronouncements by the technique of propaganda. This technique dates far back in time, perhaps to the Stone Age. The unwary and the uneducated are easy targets for propaganda. It is rule by force, by threats, and by public enactments. Make no mistake: All authoritarians are your enemy. They want your loyalty, your servitude, your money, or your life. You are as expendable to them as a piece of lint.

A good example of how effective these greedy peddlers of filth can be is visible in their stance on the Covid-19 virus, how it is spread, and what you should do about it. With no training, no facts, and no scientific credentials, they peddle their venom by way of lies.  It is part of their ideology, a collection of false assertions and ignorance that drive them to positions of authority and power. They also draw upon greed, fear, and gullibility to achieve their ends.

This narrative is offered against all of them, it will be defended against all their acts, and the author will call upon a lifetime of study, experiences, and dedication to stop them.

Let’s start with empirically verifiable facts.

The principal of verifiability is from the school of Logical Positivism. This principal separates the knowable from the unknowable. If we can verify something empirically, it belongs in the domain of science. If we cannot, it belongs in another domain. The concept of heaven, the afterlife, and most superstitions are unverifiable and are correctly a part of the domain that is outside the scope of science. They could exist, but it is pointless to try to hold an intelligent discussion about them in the absence of verifiable facts.

Let’s explore the notion of cause and effect. This is a far more difficult concept to isolate than it would seem to be. Are there only singular causes to singular effects, or are there typically multiple causal factors to all events? In trying to establish the cause of an automobile crash, for example, how might we isolate one potentially causal factor from another? There could be many contributing factors such as bad weather, the condition of the tires, a leak in the brake fluid line, an inattentive driver, a jay walker, a passing truck that gushed large amounts of ice and snow across a windshield thus blocking the driver’s view; an obscure pothole that damaged the front end or steering. Legislators and judges are often tasked to make arbitrary decisions about such matters with little or no training in how to determine the impact of many factors that preceded the effect under review. Who wants to be held accountable in a million dollar lawsuit for an accident that was unavoidable? The prevailing wisdom seems to be “let the insurance companies fight over the matter in court.”

Science can contribute much to such issues. Time is often an important determinant. Events that occurred years ago tend to fade in importance, while those that occurred closer in time to the incident become more relevant. Some events that degrade more and more with time, however, are arguably more important than those that occurred recently. Diseases and mental issues are two examples.

Even expert witnesses, however, have difficulty in establishing causality from among a group of potentially causal factors. In mathematics factor analysis or a multiple regression equation can shed light on the cause/effect issue by identifying factors that lie on orthogonal or independent axes, thus they are likely to have occurred independently from the others while still showing a significant causal relationship to an observable effect. Mathematics satisfies theorists more so than do practitioners’ opinions.

The notion of a causal linkage with many factors contributing to an effect becomes clearer by argumentation if not by the need for simplicity. Everything observable in the universe can be traced back to the “Big Bang,” that moment when an explosion occurred with more energy than anything since. Here we are today some 13.8 billion years later after countless collisions, mergers, and transformations of matter that continue even now with billions of galaxies, and billions of stars within each of those galaxies. Every collision can be correctly called a “cause,” and every consequence of every collision an “effect.” You and I and all that we can see, detect, or surmise is traceable backward through a countless number of causes and effects to that First Cause. Scientists can postulate about multi-universes, but for now, this universe is the only one we have knowledge about. In theory, at least, events that occurred at any time in the past had a causal effect on events occurring now. How’s that for muddying the waters of cause and effect? We can, however group causes into proximate and underlying factors. The person who fires a gun is in the proximate sphere while the gun manufacturer could be part of the underlying factors,

In the physical world, we insist that a fact must be verified in very specific ways. We must be able to describe its physical properties as a liquid, gas, or a solid. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future scientists will add plasma, or dark matter as two more states of matter. Other characteristics of matter are length, mass, time, temperature, luminescence, or amount of substance. There are hundreds of derivative measurements based on the fundamental characteristics of our subject such as pounds per square inch, miles per hour, or degrees of heat.

The social sciences also contain disciplines with verifiable facts such as psychology, political science, economics, speech, and history. Each also has elements that are measurable, typically by observation of the actions that are associated with that discipline. Intelligence is one such measurable attribute in the discipline of psychology. Markets and trading data are associated with economics. Income is another, as are hunger, singing talent, and many more. Each is observable and measurable, hence it is part of the discussion. The measurement techniques are often couched in a complex array of probabilities and mathematics, most notably statistics.

Let’s now pull a few of these subjects together so that they coalesce around our topic for discussion—how we know they exist.

The 5 Ways of Knowing

The methods of acquiring knowledge can be broken down into five categories each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

1. Authority. Perhaps the most common method for acquiring knowledge is through an authority figure. As an example, children learn from their parents. It is also the least reliable way of receiving information. Parents are notoriously ignorant about the subjects posed by children.
2. Intuition. This is an inner feeling, or hunch about something that is sometimes reliable, other times not. Sometimes, however, it is all we have to go on to begin our investigation,
3. Rationalism. This method relies on logic. When used correctly and within the rules of logic, it can be a good source of knowledge. In particular, it can demonstrate what is false.
4. Empiricism. This method involves observation, testing, measuring, comparing, contrasting, or submitting data to specific tests. It underscores the scientific method.
5. The Scientific Method. This method incorporates rationalism and empiricism; plus laying out a plan of study relying on the best sources of knowledge; applying analysis, synthesis, and evaluation techniques; following logic, mathematics, and prior research; and by drawing carefully limited conclusions that allow for competing answers to surface if they will. It seeks answers that are accurate, reliable, and useful. Scientific studies are not all-inclusive, rather the findings have limitations. In order to gain acceptance in the scientific community the study must be open for peer review. A scientific study never proclaims any finding as “the truth.” It merely fails to reject them as false. It is the highest form of knowledge that is fact-based.

Information from tarot cards, crystal balls, séance sessions, and mediums of various kinds have yet to demonstrate their facts, the coherency of their methods, or even their motives. We know that charlatans infiltrate their ranks, sometimes referred to as “snake oil” salesmen.

Those who become adept with the Scientific Method often are able to draw upon all the 5 methods and quickly reach tentative conclusions about causes to issues. They nevertheless must remain open to new and more convincing evidence before they can make judgments about them. Past experience, alone, is not a convincing way to end an investigation. No person is such a wise and accomplished investigator that he/she can forgo all the paths to best answers. Science allows no one to rest a conclusion on his or her laurels.