Like any good nineties kid in the English speaking world, I grew up eating cereal and watching cartoons on the couch every Saturday morning. Among my favourite programs was Bill Nye the Science Guy. Bill entertained my sister and I for hours with his satirical science-based songs, his accessible pedagogical approach, and his colourful experiments. Though I inevitably grew out of the show's prime demographic, I continued to like and respect Bill Nye well into adulthood. When I heard that he was doing a televised debate with creationist crackpot Ken Ham I made a point to watch, expecting Bill to mop the floor with his opponent. Unfortunately, the experience was far less entertaining and much more embarrassing than I had anticipated.
It turns out Bill Nye is a really, really, really bad debater.
Curious what Bill is up to these days - and perhaps eager for some sort of intellectual redemption - I did a bit of Googling and watched a few videos Nye had posted on YouTube responding to questions submitted by his fans. It was... well, it was not good. Actually, it was downright cringe-worthy. With every minute that Nye spoke, he dug himself deeper and deeper into the hole. And as he did so, he denigrated religion. He denounced philosophy. He disparaged opposing political views. And why? Because according to Nye, he's a rational science guy who only espouses fact-based beliefs.
Read that again: fact-based beliefs.
The claim that rationality is a superior approach to decision making - and indeed, to life in general - will not be a contentious one in the NT subforum. Emotional arguments, irrational behaviour, and antipathy for empirical facts are anathema to most self-identified INTJ's. It should therefore come as no surprise that Kiersey dubbed us the Rationals of MBTI, for that is how so many of us see ourselves.
It would be egregious to suggest that reason has no value, or that we oughtn't utilize our rational faculties to our benefit and ends. No. My criticism here is not of reason per se, but of the self-identification as a rational - outside of MBTI context - and the preposterous hubris of the term "fact-based belief". Such terminology demonstrates, at best, a misunderstanding of reason and the role of rationality. At worst, it represents a psychological erasure of axiomatic foundations. In other words, it denies the inherent nature of bias and suggests a kind of cool objectivity which is impossible in actuality. Be very suspicious of anybody - anybody - who refers to themselves in this fashion.
Yes, Bill Nye, I'm looking at you.
I wish to stress that the problem with claiming an objective high ground is not merely incidentally arrogant, but runs contrary to the foundations of epistemology. Reason is dependent on axioms, but we cannot justify an axiom without referring to another axiom - lest we invoke a paralyzing infinite regress. If we consider "rational" to be "that which can be arrived at through logical deduction or external verification", then we cannot consider these underlying assumptions to be rational in any usual sense of the word. Therefore, the foundations of our reasoning must be irrational.
Can we call these irrational values facts? Eh, maybe. But they're not scientific facts, which is what I think Bill Nye was advocating for as the foundations of our beliefs. Scientific facts differ very much from values, and the two do not fulfill the same function. For example, water is made up of H2O molecules is a very different statement than kindness is good. But nobody - not even the Science Guy - bases his beliefs, political affiliations, or philosophy on facts like the former. Even a respect for facts like "water is H20" is based on an underlying value for information or respect for a certain interpretation of objective reality.
When the Science Guy derided Pro-Life advocates for not basing their belief systems on fact - the way that he purportedly does - he was making a very serious error. First of all, based on his response to the question about abortion I can only conclude that he misunderstands the nature of the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice debate. I can think of no other reason that he would have spent half his time giving a simplistic overview of reproductive biology, without ever addressing the philosophical problem that is the crux of the issue. This is, of course, also the second problem. Bill did not address the underlying values or axioms which the two groups utilize and which are responsible for the resulting political polarity. At best, both Pro-Life advocates and Pro-Choice advocates are being equally rational and they are both equally utilizing scientific facts - they just aren't starting with the same assumptions. And they will never be on the same page until they start speaking the same language.
Many will consider my thoughts on this matter rather banal and self-evident, but if Bill Nye can get away with this level of intellectual laziness I don't find it unfathomable that there are others in need of a reminder as well. Nobody wants to consider that underlying all of their carefully reasoned arguments and heaps of empirical data are irrational assumptions, and I include myself in this camp. Absolutely. But I do firmly believe that it is important to keep in mind for the sake of intellectual integrity. When we deny the basis of our knowledge, we close ourselves off from alternative possibilities. It is really the ultimate psychological bias.
[HR][/HR]
This thread is more or less my train of thought on a topic that I think is highly relevant to INTJ's and MBTI. I've noticed a tendency for NT types to really embrace the Rational identity, and it's something I've certainly been guilty of in the past. Spending more time in the subforums lately got me thinking about this again, which in turn reminded me of Bill Nye. I'm not sure whether there is a debate to be had here, but I would be interested in hearing people's thoughts.
If not, that was just a ramble. Oh well.
It turns out Bill Nye is a really, really, really bad debater.
Curious what Bill is up to these days - and perhaps eager for some sort of intellectual redemption - I did a bit of Googling and watched a few videos Nye had posted on YouTube responding to questions submitted by his fans. It was... well, it was not good. Actually, it was downright cringe-worthy. With every minute that Nye spoke, he dug himself deeper and deeper into the hole. And as he did so, he denigrated religion. He denounced philosophy. He disparaged opposing political views. And why? Because according to Nye, he's a rational science guy who only espouses fact-based beliefs.
Read that again: fact-based beliefs.
The claim that rationality is a superior approach to decision making - and indeed, to life in general - will not be a contentious one in the NT subforum. Emotional arguments, irrational behaviour, and antipathy for empirical facts are anathema to most self-identified INTJ's. It should therefore come as no surprise that Kiersey dubbed us the Rationals of MBTI, for that is how so many of us see ourselves.
It would be egregious to suggest that reason has no value, or that we oughtn't utilize our rational faculties to our benefit and ends. No. My criticism here is not of reason per se, but of the self-identification as a rational - outside of MBTI context - and the preposterous hubris of the term "fact-based belief". Such terminology demonstrates, at best, a misunderstanding of reason and the role of rationality. At worst, it represents a psychological erasure of axiomatic foundations. In other words, it denies the inherent nature of bias and suggests a kind of cool objectivity which is impossible in actuality. Be very suspicious of anybody - anybody - who refers to themselves in this fashion.
Yes, Bill Nye, I'm looking at you.
I wish to stress that the problem with claiming an objective high ground is not merely incidentally arrogant, but runs contrary to the foundations of epistemology. Reason is dependent on axioms, but we cannot justify an axiom without referring to another axiom - lest we invoke a paralyzing infinite regress. If we consider "rational" to be "that which can be arrived at through logical deduction or external verification", then we cannot consider these underlying assumptions to be rational in any usual sense of the word. Therefore, the foundations of our reasoning must be irrational.
Can we call these irrational values facts? Eh, maybe. But they're not scientific facts, which is what I think Bill Nye was advocating for as the foundations of our beliefs. Scientific facts differ very much from values, and the two do not fulfill the same function. For example, water is made up of H2O molecules is a very different statement than kindness is good. But nobody - not even the Science Guy - bases his beliefs, political affiliations, or philosophy on facts like the former. Even a respect for facts like "water is H20" is based on an underlying value for information or respect for a certain interpretation of objective reality.
When the Science Guy derided Pro-Life advocates for not basing their belief systems on fact - the way that he purportedly does - he was making a very serious error. First of all, based on his response to the question about abortion I can only conclude that he misunderstands the nature of the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice debate. I can think of no other reason that he would have spent half his time giving a simplistic overview of reproductive biology, without ever addressing the philosophical problem that is the crux of the issue. This is, of course, also the second problem. Bill did not address the underlying values or axioms which the two groups utilize and which are responsible for the resulting political polarity. At best, both Pro-Life advocates and Pro-Choice advocates are being equally rational and they are both equally utilizing scientific facts - they just aren't starting with the same assumptions. And they will never be on the same page until they start speaking the same language.
Many will consider my thoughts on this matter rather banal and self-evident, but if Bill Nye can get away with this level of intellectual laziness I don't find it unfathomable that there are others in need of a reminder as well. Nobody wants to consider that underlying all of their carefully reasoned arguments and heaps of empirical data are irrational assumptions, and I include myself in this camp. Absolutely. But I do firmly believe that it is important to keep in mind for the sake of intellectual integrity. When we deny the basis of our knowledge, we close ourselves off from alternative possibilities. It is really the ultimate psychological bias.
[HR][/HR]
This thread is more or less my train of thought on a topic that I think is highly relevant to INTJ's and MBTI. I've noticed a tendency for NT types to really embrace the Rational identity, and it's something I've certainly been guilty of in the past. Spending more time in the subforums lately got me thinking about this again, which in turn reminded me of Bill Nye. I'm not sure whether there is a debate to be had here, but I would be interested in hearing people's thoughts.
If not, that was just a ramble. Oh well.