the relationship between civility and doubt

This past Friday I was lucky enough to have share breakfast with Gregg.  I love these meetings as we cover a large amount of space in the hour or so we have and I leave wishing they were more frequent and longer.  Many things come up, but this time he asked why I had given up on the book.

 

Sigh - that has been painful to sort out.  One of my core beliefs over the years is that education is fundamentally important.  Over the past decade I've spent a considerable amount of time and money attempting to deal with global warming, but can only describe the efforts as a learning experience.  The scientific evidence for the problem having a human origin is extremely strong and, silly me, I expected that to be sufficient to spur people into action as the impact of a rapid climate change is potential devastating.  

 

I started to give popular talks on the subject as well as work with some businesses and found that the level of understanding people have about energy is very limited.¹  This isn't surprising as we all have very different backgrounds - I'm sure I can come off as very clueless in deep conversations with many of you.  What did surprise me is that so many people refuse to believe the consensus of experts.²  I initially thought that education was the key and started on a non-technical energy book as most of the books I've looked at didn't provide enough information or were far too technical.  

 

As I'm a poor communicator I managed to conscript a friend into the project.  She served as something of a gauge of the level to aim for and she writes and tells stories better than I can.  We produced a lot of material over a two year period, but it was very difficult to walk the line of what people needed to know and could understand without a more formal background of physics, chemistry, biology and math.  There are a few bits that might fire the imagination a bit and I have used them in talks as well as in this blog and will continue to roll out more over time, but it didn't make sense to us to move forward.

 

I live in a world of confidence levels and probability - I now only have a small amount of confidence that this approach could be effective.  I was beginning to have serious doubts about the role of education in precipitating change.

 

It is striking how uncivil public discourse is on the subject.  Tonight is the last of the Presidential debates.  It is likely that global warming will be almost completely ignored by both sides.  It is impossible to solve a problem without some kind of understanding of mutual positions and reasonable discourse.  

 

How to you begin a civil discussion?  How can we agree to understand what the other side's position is?  Is there a common ground?

 

Six years I participated in a workshop series that tried to mix natural scientists and theologians.  About a half dozen groups formed around the country.  Only one lasted more than three sessions and broke up in bitter disagreement.  The one that lasted was built on a somewhat different foundation.  

 

I started to think about storytelling as not only a part of basic education, but to bring some civility to the discussion. It may take another generation or so to change minds, but a listening process to understand the other side and to recognize the issues of the masses who are unconvinced and unmotivated is necessary.  My education to date has not equipped me well for the task, so I've been listening and learning at the feet of people who make movies, advertise, write children's stories, create art and music and any other non-technical communication that can aim for the heart I can find.  There are a few people who are worried fundamentally about how to communicate science and some of their insight has been very important to me.³

 

Up until about five years ago my belief was that one had to deal with doubt through reason and education.  My own doubt about that old core belief increased to the point where I abandoned several thousand hours of effort and have switched course.  Now I believe civility may be a more important path here and in other major social changes.⁴ 

 

I wish the meeting with Gregg would have been longer as, with his perspective from psychology and technology, there is probably some deep insight that might help me.  So Gregg - next time! I also suspect many of you have important things to say on the subject.

 

It is fascinating that science can have a rapid impact on technology and our standard of living, but the impact on society's core beliefs seems to be much slower ... perhaps lagging by a few centuries.  It is my belief that this is increasingly unhealthy as the impact of technology has become so dominant.  

 

I still believe education is very important, but I'm not clever enough to use it effectively.  I need to begin to talk and learn where the common ground is in the disagreement  I have.

__________

¹ This is even true among some people who are normally considered technical.  Many computer scientists have much less understanding than a freshman physics major.

² In retrospect this isn't surprising as there is an extremely well funded effort to discredit science and stir up serious doubt.  These efforts invoke laughable "science", but they are extremely effective nonetheless as the audience is not well equipped to sort out the issues.  It has created a huge distraction and that is sufficient to lead to confusion and inaction.  An excellent read on the subject is Merchants of Doubt by Erik Conway and Naomi Oreskes.

³ Folks like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Alan Alda and organizations like RadioLab and the Stony Brook Center for Communicating Science.  There has probably never been a better time with better people working on the problem.

⁴ Gay marriage is an excellent example.  People are enormously uncivil and know the other side is wrong.  It strikes me as though there is an excellent middle ground that would allow some movement forward.

 

__________

 

Recipe Corner

 

I recently had need for a celebration and what better way than a cherry pie.  People can be religious about crusts and I won't to into that is this post so I made a quick one with half butter and half vegetable shortening and put together an ugly quick lattice top because a proper cherry pie needs a lattice top and they aren't terribly difficult to make.  So use whatever pie crust you prefer or even thaw out a store-bought double crust and find a 9" pie pan.

Finding proper tart pie cherries in NJ is extremely difficult.  I source mine (canned) from Oregon Fruit Products - the quality is very good and I go through a half dozen cans at least twice a year.

 

Tart Cherry Pie 

 

 

Ingredients

 

Crust

 

° I punted here and won't go into detail as I don't have much time to write.  Eventually I'll post on proper crusts, but don't take my word for it and make your own favorite or buy commercial pie crust dough

 

Filling

° 1-1/4 cups white cane sugar

° 1/4 cup cornstarch

° 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

° 1/8 tsp un iodized salt

° 6 cups pitted sour cherries

° 1/4 tsp almond extract

 

Technique

° Set oven to 475°F

° in a small bowl whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and salt and set it aside

° put the cherries into a large bowl, add the almond extract and gently mix in the sugar mixture with a spatula

° pour the cherry mix into a dough lined 9" pie pan and then add the top sheet or work on the lattice.

° put the pie on a baking sheet (it can boil over) in the middle of the oven and cut the temperature back to 425° until the pie begins to brown (about 25 minutes).  Now cut the oven to 375° and cook the pie for another 25 to 30 minutes until the crust is a golden brown and the juices are bubbling.

° transfer the pie to a cooling rack and let it cool for a few hours minimum.  During this time think about getting or making some vanilla or vanilla almond ice cream.  (I did vanilla almond and shaved a bit of bittersweet chocolate onto it.)

 

Few things are as wonderful as a fresh homemade cherry pie!