Paul C. Smith writes on 24 Aug 99,:
> Ok, you got me. My favorite topic...
Jeff Ricker wrote:
> > According to my dictionary, faith is an "unquestioning belief that DOES
> > NOT REQUIRE proof or evidence." In a post I wrote last February, I said
> > that:
> >
> > "...this definition paints an ideal that is not often, or perhaps is
> > never, seen in real life: people always require SOME evidence if they
> > are going to continue to hold a belief. The problem is how they process
> > new information with regard to this belief. My guess is that, when a
> > belief is based on faith, what this means IN PRACTICE is that people are
> > more likely to discount evidence that is not consistent with
> > their beliefs..."
I have a good example of this from recent TIPS discussions. How is it that a
person can accept without question the notion that legalizing abortion has
had a direct influence on lowering the crime rate while ridiculing the idea that
removing prayer from the schools has lead to increased problems in
schools? I happen to think that both of these arguments confuse correlation
with causation and are likely to be confounded with all kinds of third factors.
Maybe seeing Richard Nixon resign caused all kinds of criminals to
reconsider their life of crime. However, I think that both arguments are on
equally tenuous ground. The only accurate predictor of which is more easily
believed seems to be the worldview of the listener.
I prefer the following definition of faith I found in Webster's Third New
International Dictionary - Unabridged. It makes a slight modification that I think
makes a big difference. The definition of "faith" is "firm or unquestioning
belief in something for which there is no proof". It is not that it doesn't
require evidence -- it is that there is not likely to be any evidence
forthcoming. I would agree I think with Paul that the last word there should
be "evidence". Faith doesn't require a person to check their brain at the
door. Things believed on faith lack evidence and matters of faith concern
things for which it is unlikely that there will ever be empirical evidence one
way or the other.
Paul wrote:
> So you're saying that in practice, holding a belief "on faith" is not a
> matter of having no evidence or proof, but rather being more likely to
> discount disconfirming evidence. Right?
I would say that the vast majority of things people hold on faith are things for
which there is no empirical evidence one way or the other (I know there are
some popular, controversial and attention-grabbing exceptions -- Jeff
mentioned human origins). What would be disconfirming evidence, for
example, for the existence of God?
Jeff wrote:
>> In teaching the _science_ of psychology, we are trying to help develop
>> in them a worldview where faith has no place.
Oh, so that is what we are doing. No wonder we are failing. Radical
Worldview Group Psychotherapy in 15 weeks at only 3 hours a week. I
doubt that would have much impact on Personality disorders and certainly a
worldview is as deeply ingrained as a personality disorder. In my naivete, I
thought we were attempting to show them to respect the important place
that the scientific method holds in the realm of epistemology. I didn't realize
that we were attempting to sell them on the notion that if it can't be
measured, it doesn't exist. I try to teach my students that there are empirical
questions (has the abortion rate dropped in relationship with the crime rate?)
and value judgments (is abortion the right choice to make?) and possibly
other kinds of situations for which there is no empirical evidence available.
Most value judgments must be based on some kind of faith since there is no
empirical evidence one way or the other. Is abortion a matter of privacy? Is
privacy good? Why? Are there not other cultures where privacy is more of
a vice than a virtue? Does the fetus have rights as a human being? If these
rights are in conflict with the mother's right to privacy in her person, whose
rights should prevail? Are both of these cultures right within their own
systems? And if legalized abortion is shown to reduce the crime rate is that
an argument in favor of it or against it?
How are we to make decisions in the absence of empirical evidence? Is
faith in one's spouse reasonable or should I be concerned every time I am
out of town that my wife is being unfaithful? I have no empirical evidence of
her faithfulness and, in fact, there may be some demographic and
sociobiological evidence to indicate that she may well be unfaithful. She
would certainly have sociobiological and demographic evidence to doubt my
faithfulness.
> We cannot expect to convince many of them that this is the case. It is
> very difficult to learn that, NO MATTER HOW CERTAIN ONE "FEELS" THAT
> ONE'S BELIEF IS CORRECT, THIS IS NOT EVIDENCE IN FAVOR OF THE
> BELIEF.
It is true that certainty of belief is in no way related to accuracy of belief.
That is an empirical question that has been tested and is a powerful enough
effect to use as an in-class demo.
> It is difficult because, in the ideal model of faith, evidence is not
>
> required.
This is correct but it is different from saying that faith requires a person to
ignore evidence. By (my) definition, matters of faith are those for which
there is no evidence one way or the other. And, of course, since empirical
evidence does not come with a truth decoder ring, certain pieces of
evidence may fit multiple seemingly contradictory explanatory constructs. I
don't consider it a great act of faith to ignore empirical evidence because
questions for which empirical evidence exists are not, essentially, questions
of faith.
Paul wrote:
> By the way, that last phrase ("The plural of anecdote is not data") came
> from a TIPSter, I believe. If it's a quote from someone in particular, I
> could really use a source.
I occasionally use it as a tag line -- see below with reference. Now, as I
have been considering that faithfulness issue above, I realize I should
probably head home now to make an empirical judgment for myself.
Rick
Dr. Rick Froman
Psychology Department
Box 3055
John Brown University
Siloam Springs, AR 72761
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.jbu.edu/sbs/psych
Office: (501)524-7295
Fax: (501)524-9548
"79.48% of all statistics are made up on the spot." - John A. Paulos
