Beyond Feelings - Vincent Ruggiero [14]
Most people who are familiar with the Catholic church's official opposition to abortion assume that this opposition has always existed. The great majority of Catholics share this assumption. Yet at various times in history there have been dramatic shifts in the church's position. Before the end of the sixteenth century, Catholic ethical practice was to allow abortion during the first eighty days of pregnancy. At the end of that century, one pope (Sixtus V) decided that practice was wrong and declared that abortion was sinful at any stage of pregnancy. Then the next pope (Gregory XIV) decided that abortion was permissible any time before the fetus showed signs of movement in the womb. In 1869 still another pop (Pius IX) returned to the view that abortion was always wrong.2
Guessing is offering a judgment on a hunch or taking a chance on an answer without any confidence that it is correct. It's a common, everyday activity. For students who don't do their studying for exams, it's a last-ditch survival technique. For an example of guessing, though, let's take a more pleasant subject – drinking beer. Some time ago a professor of behavioral science at a California college conducted a beer taste test among his students. The question was whether they could really tell a good beer form a bad one or their favorites form others. Many students would guess they could. A number of participants in the test guessed that way. However, the test showed that when the labels were removed from the cans, not one student could identify a single brand.3
Speculating is making an "educated" guess, selecting an answer without any confidence that it is correct but with some evidence for believing it is probably correct. It is commonly used in matters that resist close observation. Science offers numerous examples. The traditional scientific idea of the surface of the planet Venus is one. Because that planet is usually covered with dense clouds, scientists until recently were unable to observe its surface. On the basis of their calculations of erosion rates, they speculated it was quite smooth. But with the development of new radar-mapping techniques, they learned that their speculation was incorrect – Venus is heavily pockmarked with craters.4
Each of the above examples of assuming, guessing, and speculating concerns ideas that were incorrect. It is possible of course, for the ideas to be correct. But even when they are, it is wrong to say the people knew the truth, for as noted previously, to know means not only to have the correct answer but to be aware that we have it.
ACTIVE AND PASSIVE KNOWING
We can achieve knowledge either actively or passively. We achieve it actively by direct experience, by testing and proving an idea (as in a scientific experiment), or by reasoning. When we do it by reasoning, we analyze a problem, consider all the facts and possible interpretations, and draw the logical conclusion.
We achieve knowledge passively by being told by someone else. Much of our learning comes passively. Most of the learning that happens in the classroom and the kind that happens when we watch TV news reports or read newspapers or magazines is passive. Conditioned as we are to passive learning, it's not surprising that we depend on it in our everyday communication with friends and co-workers.
Unfortunately, passive learning has a serious defect. It makes us tend to accept uncritically what we are told. Of course, much that we are told is little more than hearsay and rumor.
Did you every play