What Is Real Knowledge?

In my regular (though somewhat less frequent of late) perusal of internet blogs, I often find myself confronted with the smug attitudes of theists who not only think they have all the answers, but they know it with a level of certainty that gives them license (they suppose) to talk down to those who are skeptical of their "knowledge", and treat them with disdain, as if they are not only lacking in understanding, but willfully so, and thus deserving of incivility.  The expression of this attitude may be manifested as a stubborn refusal to give any consideration to what the skeptic has to say, or open hostility, including all the hatred and scorn that the theist wishes to heap upon the hapless skeptic.

This smug, cocksure attitude can be found in the Old Testament:

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” (Psalm 14:1)

St. Augustine refers to skepticism as "mental infirmity".

But this mental infirmity is now more prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to man, they hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies, either on account of their great blindness, which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which prevents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see. (Augustine - City of God)

And, of course, the attitude is echoed endlessly by so many of today's Christian apologists, who pretend to be the voice of reason itself, even as they arrogantly dismiss any and all arguments that don't agree with them, without bothering to even listen to those arguments, because they know they are right.  Who needs to listen to the arguments of a skeptic?  The problem with this stance is that they often don't respond to the argument at hand, but may instead give a stock answer to some straw man, and pretend that they have dealt a serious blow to the skeptic's argument, when in fact, they have done nothing of the sort. 

This is exactly what we see in the in the premier posting of Tim Wood, a new contributor to Christian Cadre.  Wood finds fault with Jerry Coyne's discussion of knowledge, focusing on one particular passage that Coyne wrote:

...music, literature and poetry don’t produce any truths about the universe that don’t require independent verification by empirical and rational investigation: that is, through science (broadly interpreted).  These fine arts don’t convey to us anything factual about the world unless those facts can be replicated by reason, observation or experiment. (Coyne)

Wood thinks that Coyne has an overly limited definition of "knowledge", which makes me wonder if he even read Coyne's article.  Actually, Coyne acknowledges in his article that knowledge may be defined more broadly, but his definition is focused on "verification".  Actually, it consistent with a philosophical definition.  In epistemology, something may be considered "knowledge" if it meets three criteria:

1. It must be believed.  You can't know something if you don't believe it to be the case.
2. It must be justified.  You can't know something if you don't have reason to think it's true.
3. It must be true.  You can't know something if it is not actually the case.

Of these three criteria, the first is non-controversial, and need not be discussed further.  The third is problematic, because we may never know for certain whether something really is the case.  Can one claim that he knows there are no leprechauns in Ireland?  Not really.  It may be highly unlikely, but there is some small possibility that there really are little bearded men living in some remote cave.  In general, knowledge is not absolute.  Which brings us to the second criterion: justification.  The best we can do is to have strong justification for the things we believe, and in science, that equates to verification.  And not surprisingly, that's what Coyne focuses on. 

But it's that focus on verification that Wood finds to be overly restrictive.  To make his point, he uses the illustration of a work of science fiction, The World Set Free, written in 1914 by H.G. Wells, wherein an atomic weapon is described, and this was decades before any atomic bomb had been produced.  According to Wood, it was the "knowledge" from this book that inspired scientists to actually produce the bomb.  So yes, there is knowledge to be found in literature.  But hold on.  That's not really knowledge.  It's fiction.  It was just informed speculation about what might be possible, and it later turned out to be accurate.  It's no different from the technologies of Star Trek, several of which have already been realized, while others may never be.  Can we say that we have "knowledge" of the reality of transporter beams because we saw them in Star Trek?  No.  We can say that we are acquainted with the concept, and Coyne would agree that fits with a definition of knowledge that is "broadly construed", as he puts it.  But we do not have factual knowledge of such things in an epistemological sense.

Coyne doesn't dismiss the value of music, literature, and poetry, contrary to the accusations of "scientism" that are so often leveled at him.  But in keeping with an epistemological definition of knowledge, he rightly makes a distinction between the kind of insight or inspiration one might obtain from the arts and justified, factual knowledge, which is obtained by scientific endeavors.  In fact, his article goes to considerable length to make the distinction between those two kinds of knowledge. And yet, Wood doesn't see it.  In the comments, he says:

verification doesn't change a thing. Verification only verified what was already so. Your examples point to the same thing. The act of verification didn't stop the clock or change the roll of the die. Verification doesn't change reality.

He's quite correct that the laws of physics don't change because of scientific verification.  But he's absolutely wrong to say that "verification doesn't change a thing".  What changes is our knowledge about the reality.  Wood apparently fails to distinguish between reality and knowledge of reality.

But that's what happens when you arrogantly assume that you're right and your ideological opponent, the skeptic, is speaking from a "limited" point of view.  You don't have to bother listening to what that opponent is saying, or respond to it.  I'll bet that Wood never even thought of finding out how philosophers define "knowledge", and deciding whether his own definition or Coyne's comes closer to it. 

I was hoping that Part 2 of Wood's article would shed further light on his thinking, and I waited until today for it to come out.  It can be found here.  Alas, Wood only doubles down on his assertions - mainly that fiction constitutes knowledge.  He seems to believe that without Wells there wound never have been an atomic bomb, and without Star Trek, there would never have been a cell phone.  He attributes the scientific development of those things to the "knowledge" gained from those works of fiction.  So is he willing to say that we also have knowledge of the reality of transporter beams?

Wood pulls a sleight-of-hand by equating speculation with history.  He asks the question:

While H.G Well's The World Set Free inspired the creation of the atomic bomb that ended World War II early and saved millions of lives, under Coyne's contention there is no knowledge in that book, or the millions of lives saved or in history itself. Are the events of history and mass deaths classifiable as knowledge? (Wood)

History could have turned out differently after those works were written.  Because of the fact the Wells' vision of the atomic weapon was only speculation, it might have been the case that such a weapon wasn't feasible, or perhaps some other kind of weapon would have been developed instead.  The point is that Wells wasn't recording history, nor was he presaging it.  Speculation is not knowledge.  Nobody has a crystal ball that tells them what will happen beforehand.  However, science does help us to make some predictions about what is likely happen.  And in such cases, it isn't unique to a work of literature.  Wells wasn't the only one who spoke of an atomic bomb, and radio communication devices (which already existed before Star Trek) were bound to become smaller and more portable.  But those things didn't become historical facts until they actually happened.  There are many things in fiction that don't ever come to pass.  Obviously, those things are not history.  And who can call something knowledge if it isn't true?

Wood finished up with Part 2 by asking:

If repeated experiments verify that a tree fell in the woods but no one reads the results did it really become knowledge? What is the magic moment when something becomes knowledge? (Wood)

I think that if he used the epistemological definition of the word, he wouldn't have much difficulty answering his own question.  Wood never actually gives a working definition of "knowledge" as he understands it, so we are left wondering exactly what he means.  Are the events of history knowledge?  He seems to indicate that they are.  But the truth is that there are many events in the past that we are not aware of, or that we are unsure about.  Those things are not knowledge.  Something doesn't become a historical fact before it happens (at which point it becomes true), and true facts don't become knowledge unless we actually have justification for our claims about them.

I can only guess where this discussion is heading in Part 3, which won't be posted until next week.  I'm not waiting for it, but if Wood has something meaningful to add, I'll make an update.  But I'm not holding my breath in anticipation of some earth-shattering revelation.  I suppose that if he sticks with an unclear and imprecise definition of "knowledge", he thinks he can get away with making unjustified claims about what is known - particularly as it relates to God.  At the same time, he will continue to castigate those who want to see some kind of verification.  But I don't really know, do I?  Only time will tell.