A few weeks ago, I was sitting around, eating a sandwich and skimming Newsweek when an article caught my eye. It reported that Harvard, in the midst of overhauling its curriculum, had considered having a "Reason and Faith" course - in essence, having some sort of comparative religion requirement for its student body. When the proposal came to light, elements within the Harvard faculty, concerned that these courses would somehow teach "irrational" beliefs, objected to the plan, and the proposed changes were eventually dropped.
Now, I'm not here to debate the relative merits of Harvard's plan - I'm not a member of that institution, and I can't speak to their internal affairs or politics. But it does illustrate a growing debate in our society - the importance of belief in people's lives.
Belief, specifically that the scientific method is superior to religion in determining basic truths, contritubed to Harvard's decision. This same view, albeit from the other side, motivates Kansas's continuing "evolution v. creationism" (excuse me, "intelligent design") debate. Indeed, an outside observer could look at this dialogue and confuse it with an ironclad division between staunch, unchanging rationality on one side and the complete reliance on supernatural deities on the other.
But of course, that's not how the world works.
Instead, people live their lives based on a range of rational and irrational beliefs. I can look at a flounder, a snake and my cat and know that all of these species share similarities in their vertebrae, biochemistry and genomes that stem from a shared common ancestor - in other words, that they all evolved from the same original vertebrate. This claim, as "natural" as it may seem, is the result of 150 years of careful, empirical scientific research and is a true triumph of humanity.
At the same time, the world is far from rational, a fact evident to any economist who has tried, and failed, to boil humanity down to a few equations. Indeed, the sources of some of my most important beliefs come from such "trivial" sources as badly written TV shows. "Star Trek," for all its hokeyness, captures the drama of the human spirit and the value inherent in exploration and discovery, not to mention the nearly always fatal mistake of wearing a red shirt when fighting with bad guys. Curious about whether "the end justifies the means?" Watch Jack Bauer on "24" torture his first - or perhaps 50th - subject and you'll come away with an answer. Even my ideas on affordable living in Manhattan are motivated more by "Friends" than by close readings of the Proceedings of the New York City Rent Control Board.
Is it rational for me to develop answers to complicated moral issues from watching shows originally designed to sell pickup trucks and plane tickets? Probably not. And I'm certainly not following an empirical process, nor am I getting a complete picture of the evidence or the issues. But it doesn't matter - consciously or not, I make my decisions via a process filled with incomplete and self-motivated information, some based on fact and some based only on beliefs.
Indeed, in all our lives, we integrate both these views into our perceptions of the universe. I'm absolutely positive that rational empiricism is the only way to scientific truths, but I don't deny that there is something unquantifiably beautiful about a sunset, or that realizing the Moon is 4.6 billion years old is an awe-inspiring achievement. What I do know is that rational thought and irrational emotions, regardless of their original source, are fundamental to the human experience, and pretending that only one deserves study, or worse, that only one exists, is unrealistic, silly and dangerous.
Instead, we should try to synthesize both of these worldviews, which means that we must study both beliefs and empiricism or at least recognize the fundamental relevancy of both. Perhaps one should be valued over the other - that's a value question I can't answer. But pretending that one or the other doesn't exist is simply irresponsible and shows a vast ignorance in how the world truly functions.
Joey Borson '07 wouldn't wear a red shirt if he was talking to Jack Bauer
