Studies! All the time, it seems, we are told that these “show” us things. Indeed it is curious just how many things they show us. “Studies show” us that children do best when their parents are married, and also that it doesn’t really matter what kind of ‘family’ they grow up in. They “show” us that post-abortive women are healthy and happy, and also that they tend to be severely depressed. They “show” us that scientists are divided on the question of global warming, and that they are mostly in agreement; that Americans are racist, and that they hate racism. Amazing things, these studies! There are even studies of studies that tell us how reliable they are, and studies of people reading studies. Chances are that if you have a question, there is a study to provide you with an answer, and that if you don’t care for this answer, there is another study to provide you with a more palatable one.
But what is most incredible about ‘studies’ is the unquestioned authority they enjoy in our nation’s political discourse. If one wishes to assert a controversial point, all one need do is cite the appropriate “study” and the case is settled. There is nothing more to say. It has been studied; and this is the conclusion. You must be ignorant or bigoted even to question the matter. The only trouble is that the other side also has its “studies” to which they lay an equally valid claim, studies which contradict the “showings” of the those cited by the first side. Hence the current mad state of our political discourse: an enraged mud-slinging fiasco in which we incessantly hurl opposing “studies” past one another, with the only effect being that in the end we are angry, out of breath, and in need of a shower.
This is not to say, of course, that there are no objective criteria by which to compare the relative validity of different studies to one another. But even when these tests are applied, the difficulty remains. Many equally ‘scientific’ and ‘peer reviewed’ studies come to contradictory conclusions, so that each party has its choice as to which study to give credence. According to the needs of a given argument, there is always some data by which back your claims.
So why, then, do we continue put such confidence in these supposedly solid claims? As I mentioned in my previous post, when an issue becomes politicized, it is difficult to discern the validity of claims even in the hard sciences; all the more so those of the ‘human sciences’, which attempt to measure such vague notions as ‘happiness’ and ‘well-being’. Science will be hard-pressed to furnish objective criteria for the measurement of these categories. Inevitably, the measure itself will be covertly determined by the prior convictions of the scientists. A study of the well-being of children, for instance, will depend to great extent on the conception of human flourishing that is assumed in setting the criteria for measuring ‘well-being’. But divergent conceptions human flourishing are precisely what is at issue in the contemporary cultural debate. There is no such thing as neutrality here. Hence, the citation of ‘studies’ becomes little more than a veiled form of circular argument in contemporary political discourse.
If we are to resolve these controversies, there is need to ask deeper questions than ‘scientific studies’ are able to address. The question of ‘human flourishing’ is one that lies essentially beyond the scope of the sciences. Science intentionally brackets all consideration of teleology for the sake of a sharper focus on material and efficient causes. That focus has no doubt served its purposes in terms of providing a deeper insight into the material structures of reality, but can it be expected to furnish a comprehensive vision of the human reality? Is the human person really reducible to the material and mechanical? Not so long ago, such phenomena as beauty, knowledge and love were widely recognized to transcend these rubrics. Today, it is fashionable to explain Mozart and Michelangelo entirely from the premises of evolutionary biology, because these are the only premises that exist.
In truth, however, science cannot even ask the most important questions. It simply refuses to acknowledge them, and this becomes problematic when science reaches beyond its limits to become an all-encompassing philosophy. This can only leave us with a groundless existence. By its own resources, science cannot even ground itself. Why care? Why bother? At best it can only attempt a genetic explanation as to why humans are inclined to such exercise, but this is not really sufficient to justify the time, effort and expense of the scientific enterprise. In the end, whenever we ask the ‘Why?’ question a sufficient number of times, we arrive at properly philosophical questions to which science cannot provide an answer. We need to ask these deeper questions. It is necessary, at least, if we are actually to have a thoughtful and genuine conversation about the most controversial issues facing us today.
Unfortunately, though, these questions are no longer allowed in our society. They are against the rules. Our skeptical age has lost all confidence in the competence of the human mind to penetrate into questions of truth, meaning and purpose. So we’re no longer allowed to argue that men and women are ordered to one another for the objective purpose of procreation, or that the monogamous union of mother and father constitutes the ideal context for raising a child, or that an unborn baby is a living human being who shouldn’t really be killed. Such claims are ‘unscientific’ opinions, and so are out of bounds.
So, whatever you do, don’t think! Or if you must think, be sure to obey the rules. Don’t go out of bounds by asking too many pesky questions. Just keep citing your “studies”, and let the loudest (i.e. most powerful) voice win.
Nietzsche was truly a prophet!
Strewn Seed 