WongonWork: Knowledge - Truth, Fact & Fantasy (Part 2)

RECAP: In Knowledge – Truth, Fact and Fantasy (Part 1) I discussed whether we are facing an epistemological crisis. Part 1 examined the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge and highlighted the challenges posed by the sheer volume of information, rapid technological advancements, and globalisation, which have led to diverse interpretations of what knowledge and truth means. The blog also addressed the erosion of trust in experts due to past failures and the complexity of contemporary issues.

In Part 2, the blog concludes by emphasising the need in a complex, chaotic reality to align belief, truth, and justification in assessing the credibility of expert knowledge and presents a way to ‘triage’ the quality of the knowledge presented.

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How can we better align belief, truth, and sound justification in our body of knowledge?

Blind, unquestioning deference to experts as authority is long over. The successes of modern science through the judicious use of empirical methods have resulted in tremendous advances in scientific knowledge and have transformed our understanding of reality and shaped our worldview. But the beauty and challenge of empirical knowledge is that it is contingent on future inquiry; in time, what is understood as reality today may be overturned or re-interpreted with new evidence. We have witnessed this in the discovery of new findings in medicine, physics, and in many other disciplines. We have also witnessed this in the mainstreaming of so-called ‘alternative facts’.

As experts, the imperative to remain up to date with new knowledge is obvious. As a lay person, the reader too has a responsibility to themselves and their social context to tread carefully, especially in a world where opinion and disinformation can be amplified so easily.

But how and when can one assess the credibility of expert knowledge and opinion?

To assist us, I’ve drawn upon the noted philosopher, Julian Baggini, who offers a kind of epistemological triage in A Short History of Truth (pp25-26):

i.???????????????????? Is this a domain of knowledge in which ANYONE can speak truth? In this instance, therefore, what ‘evidence’ is there to justify that truth? Is there anything to build upon?

ii.?????????????????? What kind of expert is a trustworthy source in that domain? For example, in diagnosing the cause of unwelcome health problems, I can turn to a specialist consultant, a general practitioner, a reiki healer, or a village herbalist; all have skills, but who would I turn to with confidence based on evidence of successful cures?

iii.???????????????? Once you have identified a specific expert, are they trustworthy? Is their position justifiable? What is the provenance of their evidence, their sources? Even in a community of experts, some will have a better record or are acknowledged as leaders in their profession. Note, though, that too much deference to the status quo can result in dangerous groupthink.

Getting the balance right between trusting our own judgment and deference to the expertise of others is akin to navigating a tightrope across a chasm of uncertainties.

As I see it. the predicament is that the opinions and advice of genuine experts who have gained mastery of their domain of knowledge through accepted learning and practice are increasingly being dismissed. The void is filled by influencers peddling solutions based on intuition, arguments to the emotions, and seductively simple apparent solutions. ?And all too often in these times, an alternative understanding of ?‘truth’, privileging ?personal beliefs over what is generally regarded as evidence.

If we care about the truth, we have to exercise more scepticism and critical thinking as to whose expertise we grant authority, and on what basis.

Those who run foul of conspiracy theorists often fail to apply the adapted Baggini epistemological triage. But they do make two correct assumptions: that important truths are often obscured, hidden deliberately behind lies and distractions; and that such actors do so, in order to secure their own agenda and interests.

A classic case study is that of the decades old public health campaign against fats and cholesterol. Eisenhower’s chief physician, Dr Paul Dudley White, held a press conference after the US president’s heart attack pointing to fat and cholesterol as the culprit, citing the research of a charismatic nutritionist at the University of Minnesota, Ancel Keys. With Eisenhower’s endorsement, research to confirm the ‘fat hypothesis’ was funded and institutionalised, resulting in authoritative nutritional advice firstly to the U.S. nation and then to the rest of the world, where it was the accepted wisdom for decades.

This acceptance remained the main explanation, despite sound research in the UK, in particular, by John Yudkin, that sugar was the more dangerous addition to the modern diet. His work was marginalised and debunked by the ‘fat hypothesis’ camp; and nutritional advice only began to shift towards the end of the 20th century (Leslie, 2016). However, the resort to simple answers with regard to the contribution of different dietary intakes to avoidance of chronic diseases continues to fill innumerable pages of newspapers, thousands of hours of podcasts and millions of social media contributions. This is in spite of years of careful research which has pointed to significant differences in health associated with social-economic, ethnic, regional and other demographic differences (see, for example, Brown, et al., 2022 review of recent NIH funded research).

In applying Baggini’s epistemological triage, we should be wary of evidence being sold as a certainty. Those relying on the advice of such confident experts would do well to also ask: who benefits from this version of the truth? As Foucault has explained, knowledge production, its discourse, is always inextricably connected with power, for example, when it comes to decisions on what research is funded, with powerful institutional and industry interests and lobbyists influencing policy with their links to government often corrupting knowledge.

Aristotle in Ethics wrote that ‘the solution of a difficulty consists in the discovery of facts’(p. 1146b). It is, of course, not that simple. The advance of knowledge is dependent on a mix of past experience, received history, much accident and serendipity in building up some truths but also wrong turns because of prejudice, assumptions, and prior beliefs. We need only look at the history of Copernicus’s heliocentric theory of the solar system, Galileo, and the Catholic Church’s response.

The truth of scientific knowledge does not fall or is displaced independently but exists in a web of other discoveries which mutually reinforce each other. The belief in the theory of evolution rests on many millions of artefacts, discoveries, and observations of nature over long spans of time and space. For example, Mitochondrial mapping of primates supports the theory of evolution. To date no other theory has the same power to explain the ‘threads’ of evidence which have been collected. The patient accumulation of evidence and tests against alternative hypotheses takes time; it’s part of the reason changing of minds is so difficult. Changing our view of one important concept often requires us to challenge so many other beliefs of one’s existence (however tentative) at a particular time of life, after taking into account of what we (think) we know, our ‘weltanschauung’.

What of the modern professional?

All of the discussions above in restoring the truth of knowledge is very pertinent to the credibility of professions and professionals in the modern economy.

A profession is founded on a body of knowledge, truths borne of empirical research, insight from experience at the workplace and analysis of various organisational data; this has to be triangulated holistically with supporting evidence from other professions, domains, and environmental realities.

The raison d'être of a professional is to acquire and maintain the requisite knowledge and skills to perform their job effectively and honestly. A professional has to understand their role and purpose, and the standards against which their actions and assertions are judged so that they take responsibility for their decisions, and are accountable to their colleagues, clients, employers, professional bodies, regulators, and the law as well as society at large. They have to adhere to ethical standards and demonstrate integrity in their work, including a striving for excellence in their professional field and a commitment to continued improvement.

That requires a well-developed capability in Critical Thinking - the ability to analyse information sceptically (evaluating sources, such as data, facts, observable phenomena, and research findings) and to make a reasoned judgment, recognising one’s own beliefs and biases, while remaining open to other perspectives, acknowledging complexity, and understanding the holistic, interconnected nature of knowledge.

Given what was said about the complexity and the avalanche of (dis)information, is the increasingly specialised modern professional up to the challenge?

There will be any number of ways to collect potentially relevant observations and numerous ways to curate the ‘facts’ about any issue. This results in numerous perspectives on that issue, each of which may be helpful in ascertaining the truth and validating knowledge. At the present state of development of Artificial Intelligence, careful application of well-trained and tested AI models may well be one way of curating the truth of vast amounts of (dis)information on a specific subject, even while acknowledging the risks of such systems in corrupting the truth.

Returning to Sean Spicer’s assertion that Trump’s inauguration in 2017 had the largest turnout ever, from the overhead shots, it is an observable fact that more people attended Obama’s inauguration in 2009 than Trump’s in 2017. Schaffner and Luks (2018) ran a survey using both photographs to both Trump and Clinton supporters. Noteworthy was that 15 percent of people who voted for Trump reported in the survey that more people were in the image on the left — the photo from Trump’s inauguration — than the picture on the right. The researchers got that answer from only 2 percent of Clinton voters and 3 percent of non-voters. Their ‘expressive responding’ effect was replicated in Ross and Levy (2023).

Schaffner and Luks argued that Trump supporters knowingly gave the incorrect answer due to partisan loyalties.? Another explanation is based on the conformity experiments of psychologist Soloman Asch (replicated and extended by Franzen and Mader (2023)). Participants in Asch’s experiments when faced with social pressure from planted ‘confederates’ who gave patently incorrect answers, knowingly fell in line.? The nexus between (dis)honesty and truth is, of course, nuanced and the motivations in play are complex. And in the workplace, there are many justifications to be economical with the truth – even to the point of outright dishonesty – as this paper by Cooper et al., 2023 suggests.

Complexity competence

In a complex, chaotic, uncertain world, a world that professionals have long tried to define in simpler models, do you have the courage to challenge your own beliefs and to seek out the best available knowledge on which to make decisions – judgements, which could affect many other lives? Can you speak truth to power when Might determines reality? Have you the muscles to manage complexity?

A word of warning though: the Greek stoic, Epictetus, maintained that ?“It is impossible for a (wo)man to learn what s/he thinks s/he already knows.”. Wise words if the professional is to avoid hubris followed by nemesis.

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Updates

March 1st is World Futures Day. The Millennium Project in collaboration with the Association of Professional Futurists, Humanity+, Lifeboat Foundation, World Academy of Art and Science, and the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF) hosted a 24 hour global conversation to discuss issues that affect our common future. I joined in to listen and to learn. You can find out more about my work in futures and foresight here.

March 5th is World Book Day Defo one of my key significant relationships! If you have a book that you are reading that you’d like to share, feel free to post it in the comments. I’ve got several books on the go and currently reading @PatrickLambe Principles of Knowledge Auditing and @bettanyhughes #Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities. And if satire and humour is your thing, I’m enjoying @johnlithgow’s pandemic creation on youtube – Trumpty Dumpty. Enjoy!

March 8th is International Women’s Day (IWD 2025) with the theme of #AccelerateAction for gender equality. I’d like to give a shoutout to Khashabi Theatre and Abbey Theatre on their production of Milk, which I saw in Dublin. Very movingly, it unfolded the love and the pain of mothers giving life, then seeing their children desperately try, struggle and fall, again and again. A hard reality but one we mustn’t forget in sharing a common humanity. The play is on tour, and for those in the UK, it’ll be on at the Southbank Centre in May.

To all my Muslim friends, especially in Malaysia, Singapore, Middle East, India, Pakistan and UK, March 1st marks the start of fasting in Ramadan. March 5th marks the start of Lent for Christian friends. A time for reflection, for remembering, for humbly reconnecting with all of creation. But before Lent, I know some of my contacts are in full-on Carnival mode!

The blogs will be a LinkedIn NEWSLETTER soon and I’ll be inviting all my contacts to sign up for this monthly thought piece and updates. If you’re not yet a contact or would like the newsletter popping into your box, do ask to be included in our community. And if any of the issues raised in my blogs touch you or your organisation, feel free to drop me a note at [email protected]. I may be able to help.

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