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Humble Faith in Reason
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I have always believed that one of the biggest problems facing the world/society is fear of the "other". It produces so many misunderstandings, and causes so many of those misunderstandings to turn violent. I have been thinking about the source of that fear, and I am beginning to wonder if it might also be tied into the sort if incurious worldview that (it seems to me) is becoming increasingly common.
It feels to me as though more and more people are uninterested in the world around them, or in thinking about why things happen the way they do. I even wonder if this is the source of some types of religious fundamentalism--the world seems frightening and incomprehensible, and so it becomes easier to simply explain any occurrence as "God's will" and whomp anyone who says differently. Or, to use a less extreme but more common example, to simply not care about finding out why things work they way they do, and instead watch TV. Not that I object to TV...
In any case, I am beginning to think that fear of the unknown, religious fundamentalism, and anti-intellectualism may have a common cause, which is at its core a lack of faith that the world around us can be understood. If one can say reach the point of saying "Well, I see how phenomenon B seems to arise from process A. I wonder if phenomenon C comes from something similar?", and then decide to investigate (or read about others' investigations), one can come to the conclusion that the world is not hostile and inscrutable. Rather, one might decide that the world is complex and subtle, but one can gain increasing understanding of it by study.
That gentle faith--that the natural world is something worthy of investigation and curiosity--is what I would like to inculcate in my students, because I think it leads to other beliefs. I think--I hope--that it can lead to a belief that other kinds of people or societies are not, in fact, incomprehensible and hostile, but rather comprehensible and explicable. Patience, an open mind, and the humility to start from the assumption that there are things one does not understand can go a long way toward scientific discovery and towards peaceful coexistence.
It is important to note that this faith in reason does not exclude religious faith, although if taken to far it can lead to the kind of hostility to religion that we see much of the time. When taken that far, I think that one has lost the aspect of intellectual humility; one concludes that, because one does not see how something might be, that it therefor does not exist. To me, that seems to be a logical fallacy based on the assumption that one's understanding of the universe is complete. Agnosticism and skepticism ("I don't see how God could exist, so I will behave as if God does not exist, but I concede that I might be wrong") I can respect easily, but blanket hostility to any form of religious faith seems unfounded to me. Faith in reason can coexist with explicit religious faith or religious skepticism quite easily, though.
This is the attitude I would like to teach my students. If I can show them that they can understand something about biology, it is my hope that they will decide that maybe, with humility, patience, and openmindedness, they can learn to understand and accept other people as well.
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