The Truth Imperative: What's in a name?

I used to have a blog.  I used to opine in it.  Oh those days of yesteryear before kids when I had such luxuries of time...  I let my blog languish.  It devolved into my personal bookmark tool.  It didn't have a good focus.  It was called "Juxtaposition", after all, which is by its nature not focused.  I had a missed opportunity to call it "Jaxtaposition" since my network handle was often "jaxley" -- a kind of portmanteau of my name.  But I have even found since then that neither were as unique or compelling as I had thought.

I have long wanted to have a place that could serve as my sounding board for sharing insights or tips regarding information security as well as skepticism and science.  This is the focus my previous effort lacked.  I plan to tag each post separately so if it turns out you really don't care about skepticism, you can just subscribe to the "security" tagged items.  And vice-versa, you could just subscribe to the "skeptical" tags.

I get a lot from detailed articles and in-depth insights and wanted to be able to give back to some extent.  This will be my vehicle to do so.

Coming up with a name was a combination of frustration and humility in that so many of the names I thought of were not just inspiring to me but had been used already or were too common to stand out.  I wanted something that would embody what my I've come to see is a core moral imperative:  to seek the truth, no matter where it leads, and to stamp out falsehood and ignorance as the enemies of truth.  Hence, "The Truth Imperative" seemed to embody this perfectly and was also was not crowded out in the Google search rankings.  In fact, even before I posted the first article, this blog is result number 7 on Google.

If you were on the fence about the moral angle to the truth, perhaps the analogy in this quote will make the relationship clearer:

It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it. -- Edmund Way Teale

There is something inside me that is outraged by truth injustices as much as social injustice.  Falsehoods are so corrosive to our democracy, our environment, our health, to our freedoms, our safety, our own personal growth, and our understanding of the world around us.  I came across this blog post, The reason for truth, sets out a fantastic list of reasons why the truth matters that I heartily endorse and says much of what I was going to write so go read it instead and then come back.  He lays down his position on truth which jives completely with mine that I will quote here:

1. In a strict sense, all truth is provisional and stands open to challenge on the basis of a new interpretation of the available evidence or the provision of new evidence. The key point here is that it is evidence - old or new - that is at the heart of the determination.
2. In the meanwhile, the most truthful statements explain and are consistent with all the currently available evidence.
3. On the basis of consistency and utility, the most truthful statements are likely to be consistent with the current paradigm until persuasive evidence challenges that paradigm.
4. The most useful truths are those that do simply explain past phenomena but enable consistently accurate statements about the future.

I would only perhaps add some bullets to the list regarding protection of the truth from corrosive influences, whether subconscious or deliberate.

Additionally, I would clarify that this pursuit of truth is all about truth with a small "t".  Many make the false assumption that there is (or must be) some metaphysical Truth with a capital "T" out there and even claim that skeptics or scientists think they "know the truth" or "know everything".  Not only are these flimsy straw men, but skeptics and scientists generally do not believe that such a Truth is something we are going to be able to know for certain.  Truth, and especially scientific truth, is always truth with a small "t".  It is a provisional, asymptotic approximation of the Truth with a capital "T", or at least a usable model of that Truth that works well enough to make predictions and describe and understand our world.

As humans, we are fettered by various human frailties, biases and tendencies toward rationalization that make it often times difficult to step back and be truly objective about ourselves, our beliefs, the world and the facts that we attempt to evaluate.  Our brains are constantly filtering and interpreting the information we receive via all of our senses.  We all (skeptics included) need to be aware of and constantly diligent about these limitations as well in our pursuit of the truth.  I've seen ideology trump facts and data too often in all walks of life.  Follow the evidence!

Q: "What do you call alternative medicine that works?"
A: "Medicine"

I love this joke.  It is pithy and gets to the heart of the difference between a prevalent topic where people have many rationales that lead them to relaxing the standards for reason and evidence to give something not rooted in demonstrable, testable, measurable facts a seat at the table next to something that is.

Reason and evidence are crucial as well for my vocation, information security.  I have come across so many terrible arguments, both for and against, security controls as well as people who try to use security as a trojan horse to deliver something rooted in ulterior motives that would otherwise have never been green-lighted, or who use security as a sword to strike down something they don't like for other reasons (often unjustifiable or flimsy at best).  Intellectual dishonesty, sloppy scholarship, fallacious argumentation, rationalization, cognitive dissonance all occur so often that it is useful and necessary to engage one's skills as a skeptic to get at the kernel of truth and ensure you are making the right evidence-based decisions, lest you convey a false sense of security, waste precious security budget on the wrong (or incomplete or ineffectual) solutions, or miss out on focusing on more important security problems.  I think I've made a career out of being the voice of reason calling out for demonstrable evidence where necessary to prove an assertion or in redirecting efforts to address higher risk vulnerabilities than the hack-du-jour.  I'll definitely write more about those experiences.

Wherever those pesky facts lead us is worthy of pursuit and protection from those who would undermine reality for pursuit of their own alternative agenda.  There are the aforementioned who abuse the truth about information security to push a competing agenda, religious fundamentalists who are adulterating the educational system, global warming deniers preventing real change to stem the damage and research solutions to anthropogenic forcing, ideologues, quacks and charlatans who peddle remedies that simply don't work (except to drain your bank account) or worse, are highly dangerous or keep people from continuing with real therapies, religious fundamentalists that keep their kids from receiving medical care in lieu of prayer, etc.  Visit http://whatstheharm.net/ for specific documented examples of the real harms of pseudoscience.

I leave you for now with some of my favorite quotes regarding the pursuit and importance of truth:

Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. -- Bertrand Russell

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. -- Albert Einstein

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. -- Mark Twain

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. -- Carl Sagan

I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. -- Carl Sagan

The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal. -- Carl Sagan

If I could get the world to respond to one question, it would be, Do we have the courage to let go of our beliefs in order to grab on to what is true? -- Sara Mayhew