Evolution - It's Good for Human Nature, Too.


Wherein Our Heroine Considers The Answer.
"A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject." Winston Churchill (1874–1965), British statesman, writer. Quoted in New York Times (July 5, 1954).

Fanatics scare the living bejeezus out of me. Partly they scare me because I don't understand them: I have never felt an all-encompassing feeling that one thing was completely and totally true, regardless of circumstances, regardless of context. Partly they scare me because of the rage I have seen them display when their will is crossed and their "truth" is questioned. It reminds me of the rage of a mob: unpredictable and dangerous. But from a personal perspective, I just cannot understand an absence of a questioning mind.

It has been said that the people in my family apologize thusly: "I'm s---, I'm so--, I'm ssss - you're wrong." Consequently, I have worked long and hard for my open mind, always trying to remember that a new piece of data might come in and prove my theory, idea or belief to be completely wrong. It troubles me when a person honestly seeking the best solution has no black/white answer and is thereby charged with what is considered to be a moral failure: the failure to be decisive and stick by that decision, regardless of new information. What is such a decisive person to do when they are proved irrevocably wrong? The world is not a simple place, and often it seems that simple answers are offered as inadequate solutions to complex problems.

Consider the history of medicine. As little as a hundred and fifty years ago, physicians sought to cure disease by alleviating imbalances of the body's "humors." Bloodletting was considered something of a cure-all. Bacteria were not even imaginable, and hygiene a matter of cosmetics, not health. Imagine if nothing had changed from then to now. What if fanatics, bent on their belief that a good bloodletting with a casually cleaned implement was good for just about any ailment, were in control of medicine today?

We live now in a time where we can understand many things that were hidden to us before - progress has led us to our present position. But we have not come to that position in order to stop indefinitely. Instead, new data and new conclusions will rise up and change our world by small steps and large leaps. As little as twenty years from now, some of our most cherished notions may be considered quaint and old-fashioned. We head into a future where the answers we think are carved in stone today are found to be written with a shaking finger in shifting sands.

And that, at least, is nothing new.
Posted: Tuesday - March 09, 2004 at 07:47 AM         | |

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