I think that science fiction, even the corniest of it, even the most outlandish of it, no matter how badly it’s written, has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea.
–Robert A. Heinlein
Conspiracy theories by their nature are, in my experience, impossible to discredit. It is not that they are not discreditable, but rather that the difficulty and amount of time necessary are disproportional to the value, generally. For instance, there are those who believe that NASA is covering up evidence of extraterrestrials on Mars, that they have hidden the reality of the “face” on Mars and other “clear” indications of intelligence, such as massive buildings and cities. The fact that such a discovery would lead to immediate and large boosts in NASA’s budgets followed by attempts to quickly get people over to Mars—both things that NASA would like more than anything—seems to escape the understanding of those locked into the conspiracy. Finding evidence of life is something NASA scientists would be tempted to sell their souls for, both from the sheer joy of it, as well as the money their agency would get.
Most conspiracy theories, like those that argue we never landed on the moon, or that the earth is flat are benign. To refute them often requires a lot of time and effort and those who are experts in a given field rarely feel much reason to bother refuting what, in their minds, is obviously ludicrous. After all, how lame do you have to be to not realize that the Earth is round?
A few years ago I did a review of a book with some very bizarre notions relating to the ancient world and astronomy. One comment that the author made in his book stood out for me: “…after the publication of [my previous book] and the evidence therein –which has not been refuted since its first printing…” One of the most common responses of both the crackpot and the conspiracy theorist is to argue about how their positions have not been refuted, and to believe, therefore, since they have not been refuted that they must be true. The reality is something else. To refute a book requires an entire second book, usually, something that those with the ability don’t really want to make the time or take the effort for, since serious scholars ignore and are unburdened by nonsense like them.
Furthermore, publishers rarely are interested in refutations; the bizarre notions sell well, but destroying them doesn’t. Compare the sales figures of The DaVinci Code (which was only a novel!) with the several well-done refutations of it.
Working scholars simply have better things to do than worry about things that to them seem obviously wrong. And as I said, most such conspiracy theories and crackpot ideas are harmless aside from the time wasted on them and the trees sacrificed to print the books. To give a short refutation of The DaVinci Code, it was the Gnostics who would have been displeased with the idea of Jesus getting married and having a child, not the early Christians. Christianity affirms the humanity of Christ and marriage and having children would have merely been that much more evidence of that fact. Furthermore, the early Christians did not view sex as a sin or a defilement, unlike many of the Gnostics. Essentially, the author of the novel attributed the wrong beliefs to the wrong people. But then, that book is just a novel. It is surprising that anyone would assume a novel would necessarily give accurate information. It’s a story, for goodness sake, and designed to entertain. That’s all.
So, the tendency when faced with crackpot ideas is to ignore them. Since they are so ludicrous to those who know better, it seems unnecessary to waste time with them. For instance, there is a Flat Earth Society headquartered in Lancaster, California. It is unlikely that one will find detailed refutations of their point of view, not because their point of view cannot be refuted, but just because it seems not worth the effort.
But there are some conspiracy theories that, though crackpot, need to be paid attention to and actively refuted. For instance, anti-Semites argue that there is a vast conspiracy run by Jewish people to control all the world’s governments and banking. A variety of odd charges are raised, the most peculiar being what is called the blood libel: that Jews make matza for Passover from the blood of Christian children. Such libels, about controlling governments and killing children, are repeated endlessly by anti-Semites around the world and receive official acceptance in much of the Moslem world. In both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for instance, the official government daily newspaper, as well as government run newsmagazines, regularly repeat the blood libel. Syrian Television produced a mini-series on the blood libel which was played in several Arab nations during Ramadan as recently as 2003. For more details on such things and to actually watch video clips of these rather unpleasant materials, visit www.memri.org, The Middle East Media Research Institute, which tracks and documents extremism in the Middle East.
Anti-Semitism is so obviously wrong that spending the time to refute the arguments its proponents raise would seem to make as much sense as bothering with the Flat Earth Society. Like the Flat Earth Society, the anti-Semitic arguments are long, complex, and filled with so many details that it would take some time to tackle them all point by point.
However, the anti-Semites of the world, unlike those who believe in a flat earth, or the novel The DaVinci Code is accurate history have historically been dangerous, and are responsible for killing millions of people. They continue, year after year, to use the same tired arguments that they have been using for years to justify their hatred and desire to persecute the Jewish people. Ideas that in the past have led to millions of murders are not ideas that we can afford to ignore. Ideas that continue to provoke murders and terrorists attacks cannot be ignored.
Thus, anti-Semitism must be condemned. Likewise, its arguments must be refuted, point by point. The short answer, of course, is to ask the obvious question: if the Jews are running everything, then why does history record unending persecution, confiscations of their property, expulsions, and finally, in the Nazi era, their near extermination in Eastern Europe? If they’re running things, then they are incredibly incompetent. Of course, as one person commented, there are about two billion Christians and about a billion Moslems. There are only eighteen million Jews. You really think eighteen million are going to control three billion?
But people will believe odd things, despite the facts. Some will try to deny that the Nazi’s killed six million Jews, despite the fact that those responsible for the atrocity kept detailed records and freely confessed their crimes after the war. Few things are as well attested as that nightmare, and yet the conspiracists will try to pretend it never happened.
It is important to remember what happened. It is important to understand what is happening even now. And it is important to refute those who would say otherwise. We’d prefer to not see such things ever happen again. We must stop it.
It is World War II and Madge Arwell is trying to hide from her children the awful news that their father, a British bombing pilot, was lost over the Channel during a bombing mission. It is Christmas Eve and she doesn’t want to spoil Christmas for them.
“I don’t know why I keep shouting at them,” she says, bottom lip trembling as she tries to put on a brave face.
“Because every time you see them happy you remember how sad they’re going to be. And it breaks your heart,” replies The Doctor. “Because what’s the point of them being happy now if they’re going to be sad later? The answer of course, is that they’re going to be sad later.”
–Doctor Who, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe (Christmas Special, 2011 BBC)
There is a difference between crime and rebellion, as there is a difference between sin and denouncing the concept of morality. Saying let he who is without sin caste the first stone is not the same as approving adultery.
–Jerry Pournelle, The View From Chaos Manor
Teaching students can sometimes be difficult. I often make use of skills that are not so very different from what politicians, lawyers, and used car salesmen (are those really three different groups?) practice.
Students, by definition, come into a class ignorant of the subject matter. If they were not ignorant, there would be no need for them to take the class in the first place. They are sitting there with their pens posed on that blank piece of notebook paper because they want to change their sad condition. But if the students’ minds were as blank as that pristine sheet of paper beneath their pens before I start talking, then my task as a professor would be wondrously simple. All I’d have to do is talk and all they’d have to do is record my words and memorize them—thus achieving liberation from their ignorance.
But it is not that simple.
Mark Twain supposedly said, “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” Misinformation and misunderstanding often stand in the way of discovering the truth. Pre-existing wrong beliefs can, in fact, create insurmountable barriers. How do you convince someone that what they thought they knew for certain is in fact completely wrong? After all, people have been burned as heretics for contradicting cherished beliefs. Professors no longer have to worry about flames beneath their feet, but angry scowls and students dropping out aren’t much fun, either.
Changing a mind is not easy. The temptation, when I hear a student tell me something that is in error is to announce, “You’re wrong,” followed by a list off why. I’ve found that is rarely effective. As soon as the student hears the words “you’re wrong” he will usually stop listening. Pride rears its head and he will defend his position regardless of whatever facts might be brought to bear. This is especially true if the student has a emotional attachment to his idea, or if he believes that moving from his current position will undermine some other cherished belief that is critical to his world view and self-assessment.
Usually, ideas are not isolated things: they are part of a complex web of thought forming the outlook and bedrock of the student’s sense of the world. If you challenge even one critical thread, the student hears not a gentle correction or a contradiction to a single statement. Rather, the student hears an attack on his personhood, akin to telling him that his mother is ugly and dresses him funny. Those who do not believe as he believes get labeled as heretics doomed to the flames of Hell.
So how can you change a person’s mind without destroying it?
First, begin with what your student already knows and believes. Start in a familiar place, with familiar ideas. Then start showing him things—some new things that don’t directly challenge what he already believes to be true. Talk about what he already knows, and then find something else he already knows that doesn’t quite jibe with the other bit of data. Point out the apparent contradiction and ask him to explain. Listen to the explanation and ask questions about it. Drop in some new data and ask about that. And be patient.
If you manage to do it carefully enough, the student will not feel attacked. Instead, he will experience cognitive dissonance: that is, he’ll notice the contradiction between the two things he claims to believe and he will have no choice but to alter what he believes in order to resolve the contradiction he now confronts. Cognitive dissonance is painful and students will move quickly to eliminate it. The result will be that the student will wind up explaining to you that which you want him to know that is new—and contradicts what he thought he believed.
For instance, I had a student once who believed the moon landings were a hoax. I asked him if he ever watched the original Star Trek series. He was a big fan. “So what do you think about the special effects on the original Star Trek?”
“Kind of cheesy.”
“How about Lost in Space?”
He rolled his eyes.
“What did you think of Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey?”
“Kind of weird, but I liked it.”
“Special effects realistic?”
“They were good for the time.”
“But now?”
“Well, obviously not real.”
Eventually, following that line of logic, and followed by revealing to him that Apollo 11 had been followed by five other moon landings and that there were hundreds of hours of film footage and photographs from all of them, he soon decided that there was a problem in maintaining his delusion. “They didn’t have the technology to do special effects that good, and the kind they did back then were so expensive, it was cheaper for NASA to actually go to the moon than to pay for them.”
Some ideas are not so easy to undo, of course. But if one can avoid name calling and making the student feel stupid, success will usually come.
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
–Muhammad Ali
Sulky faces, morose thoughts and boring ways of thinking are intolerable in this science.
–Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, regarding theology
With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.
–Carl Sagan
My wife is a third grade school teacher. She received her bachelor’s degree in liberal studies and then went for an extra year to get her teaching credential. She goes to conferences, she takes seminars, she takes college classes, and just three years ago she completed her master’s degree in education. She works in a public school and is surrounded by teachers of varying ages, many of whom she has been teaching with ever since she began teaching. And she is surprised by some of them—most of them—who resist every change, who refuse to read any books or journals in their field, who attend no seminars. They do not alter their class room techniques; in fact, they’ve learned nothing at all, changed nothing at all, since they graduated from college—except occasionally their hair style and choice of clothing—though even then, some of them seem stuck in the decade of their college years.
I’ve noticed some of my old friends continue making the same arguments regarding certain points that they first learned in college. In fact, I had the same class they had and heard those same arguments, then. Nothing wrong with remembering what they heard in school. In fact, it’s good that they were listening. But I can’t help wondering how it is that their ideas, their outlook, their ways have developed so little since then.
Benjamin Franklin, at the end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, told the assembled delegates the following:
“Mr. President, I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error…But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said, ‘I don’t know how it happens, Sister, but I meet with nobody but myself, that’s always in the right’….In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such.”
I have learned, as Franklin did, that being a human being, there’s a very good chance that I am mistaken about a great many things. I do not, however, like to be mistaken. Therefore, I work constantly at trying to learn more, to make sure I get all the facts, and as I’ve done that, I’ve invariably changed my mind on some things, even as on other things I’ve found that my initial beliefs and thoughts are even more reasonable and right than I had originally thought. But my arguments to support my point of view have shifted to match the new information I have, or to better answer the challenges that I’ve run across over the years. And on occasion, I’ve been forced to completely undo what I thought I knew as some new bit of data forced me to realize that I’d misunderstood everything up to that point.
And I’ve discovered a lot of things that I don’t know and don’t understand. There are still a lot of riddles in the universe. Some people choose to not worry about or think about what they don’t understand. I’m never satisfied with that approach. For some reason I’m convinced that there really is a solution to any puzzle, however hard or intractable it might be. There is an optimism in that, obviously, but it is an optimism learned by repeatedly solving problems that others gave up on.
I simply don’t understand those who are satisfied with what they learned once and never reexamine what they think they believe or know, or never consider the chance that there might be new stuff out there that might make a change of opinion the wisest course. I read two newspapers every day. I read news magazines and online content from multiple philosophical and political points of view. I rehash over and over what I think I know and believe. I read two or three books a week, sometimes more. I am always learning new things as a result. And I know that I don’t believe or think the same things that I did when I graduated from college at the age of twenty-two.
I doubt that the teachers who continue to teach the same material the same way they taught it when they left college twenty years ago are really doing the best by their students—or themselves, for that matter. There’s so much to know and so much that I don’t know yet. Why would I ever want to stop finding stuff out or expanding my horizons? Why would I ever think I know it all or that I am always right? I want to be right. I am just not convinced that I am yet.
One of the keys to becoming a writer is first to be a reader. I don’t think I would have ever thought of writing for a living if I hadn’t been an avid reader. My mom would read stories to me all the time when I was very young, and once I was reading on my own, we made nearly weekly trips to the library to get books. I remember coming home with stacks and consuming them all within the week. Rather than watching television, I would read. It is a pattern that continues until today. When given the option, I would rather read than watch television, despite my enjoyment of much that appears on the SyFy channel.
Another important part of my development as a writer was very practical: I learned to type as soon as I could, which in my case happened to be in junior high—eighth grade to be specific. Although voice recognition technology has improved tremendously, and I know one author who, because of her partial blindness, uses it to do her writing—typing remains the input method of choice at the moment for most authors. Some enjoy using a tape recorder to record a book, but of course that then requires someone later to transcribe the material. There are even a handful of authors who enjoy writing the first drafts out in longhand, using pen on paper as authors did for most of the history of writing. Neal Stephenson, the science fiction author best known for Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon and the three volume Baroque Cycle, still favors that method. But most authors type their work, using a word processor. Harlan Ellison still insists on using a typewriter, a surprising thing for a science fiction author, unless you happen to know Harlan, who defines idiosyncratic.
Then there is the writing itself: Jerry Pournelle points out that an aspiring writer should plan on throwing away about a million words. This is not masochism, but simply the nature of learning how to write. It is one thing to have read extensively, it is another thing to start putting into practice what you’ve seen. It will take awhile to get to the place with your writing that anyone else will want to read what you’ve put down. Or enjoy it.
To be a successful writer, you’ll also need to develop self-discipline, along with drive, determination, and perseverance. Most writers face constant rejection of their work, especially at the beginning of their careers. It can take years of work before you start seeing any payoff and if you are easily discouraged, if you don’t believe in yourself, then you simply won’t make it. Steel yourself to long years of struggling with nothing but a stack of form letters from editors telling you “no.” Also, if you have dreams of becoming rich from writing, you should abandon that immediately. Very few authors ever become wealthy; most struggle on the edge of bankruptcy instead. You have to decide to write because it is something you need to do, not because you imagine it is a road to financial well-being.
Due to the years of, well, failure that you’ll likely have to endure, it is important that you either have a day job (or night job) to keep a roof over your head and power going to your computer—or else that you have a patient and loving spouse who is gainfully employed and who is willing to support your odd career choice. Tied to this, you need to be willing to put up with the derision or even hostility of acquaintances and relatives who will not think your choice is a good one, since it is clearly not a wise choice, if wise is defined as “likely to lead to making money on a regular basis.”
Once you do start finding publication, you’ll still have to endure rejection. Just because you’ve sold one book doesn’t mean other editors will be accept your next effort. Additionally, those who criticized your path will not be that impressed by the fact that you sold a book, especially when they learn how much you actually got paid for it. Although the popular belief that authors are wealthy people may work to your advantage for awhile, once your relatives see that you’re still driving the same five year old car and have yet to move to the Hamptons, they’ll start to suspect the truth.
Also, even if you manage to sell a book to a major New York publisher, the equivalent of landing a spot on a major league baseball team, your friends and relatives will not be as impressed about it as you are. People will not like you more or pay attention to you more just because you published a book. Since, you’re not a major league baseball player, after all.
Finally, being a writer requires recognizing that writing is no different than doing any other sort of job. You have to get up in the morning and start working, cranking out the text. Waiting for inspiration or the muse might be the fodder of movies and bad TV, but is not a part of a working writer’s experience. If you wait for inspiration you won’t get much written. If you’re a writer, you write, much in the same way that a ditch digger digs.
