Beyond Feelings - Vincent Ruggiero [70]
The following topics were included in the applications for Chapter 1. Choose one of the topics and apply the three steps for clarifying an issue presented in this chapter. (Disregard your earlier analysis of the issue.)
Should freshman composition be a required course for all students?
Should athletes be tested for anabolic steroid use?
Should creationism be taught in high school biology classes?
Should polygamy be legalized?
Should be voting age be lowered to sixteen?
Should extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan be allowed to hold rallies on public property?
Should the prison system give greater emphasis to the punishment or to the rehabilitation of inmates?
Should doctors and clinics be required to notify parents of minors when they prescribe birth control devices for the minors?
1 "Tragedy May Haunt Mancini," Binghamton Press, November 16, 1982, p.4D.
P3-C18-5
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CONDUCTING INQUIRY
Inquiry is seeking answers to questions, investigating, gathering evidence to help us draw conclusions. It enables us to get beyond our first impressions, feelings, preconceived notions, and personal preferences.
There are two basic kinds of inquiry – inquiry into facts and inquiry into opinions. Opinions, remember, can be informed or uninformed. Except in cases where the purpose of our inquiry demands that both varieties of opinion be gathered, we should be more interested in informed opinion.
Often we will need to inquire into both facts and opinions. How much inquiry into each is needed will, of course, vary from situation to situation. If the specific issue were "Which U.S. income group is most inequitably treated by the present federal tax laws?" we would have to examine the tax laws to determine what they specify (fact) and consult the tax experts for their interpretations of the more complicated aspects of the laws (informed opinion). But to determine the degree of inequity we would have to know the amount of income necessary to provide living essentials (food, shelter, and clothing). So we would also have to examine cost of living statistics (fact) and consult economists about more subtle factors affecting the various income groups (informed opinion).
SOME INQUIRY RESULTS INCONCLUSIVE
Because the state of human knowledge is imperfect, not every question is answerable when it is asked. Some issues remain unsolved for years, even centuries. Before we traveled into outer space, no one knew exactly what the effects of weightlessness on the human body would be. Many respected doctors argued that the rapid acceleration at blast-off would increase an astronaut's heartbeat to a fatal level. (There was strong medical evidence to support this view.) Others believed that weightlessness would cause vital organs to malfunction and atrophy.1 Both dire predictions proved mistaken, but any inquiry into the issue undertaken before the first successful launch would necessarily have been incomplete.
Which mountain in the Sinai desert did Moses really climb? The Bible gives it a name (actually two names), but scholars differ on where it is located. Strong claims are advanced for three different mountains in three countries. No conclusive answer has been reached despite over 3,000 years of inquiry.2
Some questions are even more resistant to inquiry – for example, the question "Are there intelligent life forms in our solar system or other systems?" Our sun is one of billion of stars. The farthest ones we have discovered are believed to be nine billion light years away. (In miles, that's 54 followed by 21 zeroes.)3 It's conceivable that any inquiry into this question made in the next million years will be inconclusive. Perhaps the answer will never be known.
However resistant to solution a question may be, though, inquiry is still useful. Even if it yields no more than the untestable opinions of experts, those opinions are more valuable than the casual speculations of the uninformed. So we shouldn't be intimidated by difficult issues. We should merely be realistic about how complete