I’m about to do a George Lucas, and start after the beginning (although it’s a race against the clock to get this done before pt 1 publishes as scheduled).
I want in this post to talk about the notion that withholding belief does not require justification or evidence – rather, belief does. I want to try to clarify the difference between absence of belief and belief of absence, as they are very different, and many people seem to conflate them – in various areas of life.
Consider for a start, the sky. I believe the sky to be blue. I believe that based on the evidence of my eyes telling me so. However, the reason I am justified in accepting such weak evidence is that (a) there’s not any compelling evidence it’s not blue (spectacular sunrises excepted); and (b) there’s not really any forseeable consequence to being wrong – who cares if it’s actually green?
Now suppose that someone were to tell you that the sky on Mercury is pink. Suppose it was someone with authority who told you so. And further suppose you chose to suspend belief pending the production of some credible evidence for the sky being pink on Mercury (or in fact there being a “sky”, I know): photos say, or even some plausible astrophysics that suggests it’d be pink. Is there anything wrong with that position? Philosophically? Logically? Rationally?
Of course there isn’t. Rather, to believe that the sky on Mercury is pink simply because someone says so – and in the absence of any evidence – would be foolish, no?
It is not that one would believe that Mercury’s sky is definitely not pink; it is simply that one doesn’t believe it to be pink. There’s an important difference. Without evidence to support the belief the sky is not pink, that belief would be no more justifiable than believing without evidence that it is.
Absence of belief, not belief of absence.
In medicine, many claims are made – by drug companies, by researchers, by alt-med practitioners, by patients and families, by advocacy groups, by politicians and bureaucrats …. Not all of these claims will be true. It would be nonsensical to maintain that as doctors our default position should be to believe these claims until they are disproven – until we can justify non-belief. At that point we have in fact justified belief of absence, and we can say, for instance, that a pill does not work.
However, the sceptical position: withholding belief in that treatment until presented with evidence that it does in fact work, is simply absence of belief – and clearly needs no justification; any other approach would be irrational, unprofessional, and potentially dangerous.
While the consequences of belief/lack of belief are different in different situations, the logical or philosophical nature does not change. Therefore I say again: it is belief, not lack of belief, that requires justification.
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