A Cool Analogy
I was listening to NPR on the way home yesterday about the story of racial preferences slightly influencing referee decisions in basketball. The study focused on the human trait of unconsciously being slightly biased to those who are similar to yourself. The results were pretty convincing to me, the author definitely was mature and complete with his work and how he responded to some pretty vile dissent and calls that he was a racist. Some critics claim that they have been involved with basketball for years and have never noticed any problems at all.
His response was very enlightening.
People who are very close to their subject can fail to see the whole picture. He used the analogy of humans on the planet. When we are standing on the planet, we can easily fail to see that the world is actually round because we are too close to the subject (unless we use clues such as shadows and such). But once in orbit we can easily see its true character.
That is one of the issues that I am always grappling with. I have been following many stories of corruption and problems around me for sometime now. I am always afraid that I have somehow missed a bigger connection, something that I missed that would show that things are nearly as bad as they seem. I never want to fall into the same trap as the bigots.
A good (extreme) example is the flat earthers. I'm talking about the people who really believe the earth is flat. They have allowed themselves to become so involved, to push their faces so close to the bible and the earth as to cut out all reason and logic. No matter what contrary evidence you show them, they only view the world from one angle, and fail to see the big picture.
Of course, I am pretty sure that I give all evidence a good hearing. I have evenly desperately and sometimes obsessively tried to find a model proposed by Intelligent Design (ID), and ID proponents just come up short. So even though I am always afraid of being closed to other possibilities, in the end I am pretty confident of myself. If I don't, I would hope that my peers would be honest with me and give me constructive criticism, which they usually do.
His response was very enlightening.
People who are very close to their subject can fail to see the whole picture. He used the analogy of humans on the planet. When we are standing on the planet, we can easily fail to see that the world is actually round because we are too close to the subject (unless we use clues such as shadows and such). But once in orbit we can easily see its true character.
That is one of the issues that I am always grappling with. I have been following many stories of corruption and problems around me for sometime now. I am always afraid that I have somehow missed a bigger connection, something that I missed that would show that things are nearly as bad as they seem. I never want to fall into the same trap as the bigots.
A good (extreme) example is the flat earthers. I'm talking about the people who really believe the earth is flat. They have allowed themselves to become so involved, to push their faces so close to the bible and the earth as to cut out all reason and logic. No matter what contrary evidence you show them, they only view the world from one angle, and fail to see the big picture.
Of course, I am pretty sure that I give all evidence a good hearing. I have evenly desperately and sometimes obsessively tried to find a model proposed by Intelligent Design (ID), and ID proponents just come up short. So even though I am always afraid of being closed to other possibilities, in the end I am pretty confident of myself. If I don't, I would hope that my peers would be honest with me and give me constructive criticism, which they usually do.