Knowledge and Decisions, Thomas Sowell (Excerpt)(p4-11)
The Role of Knowledge
Physicists have determined that even the most solid
and heavy mass of matter we see is mostly empty space. But at the
submicroscopic level, specks of matter scattered through a vast emptiness have
such incredible density and weight, and are linked to one another by such
powerful forces, that together they produce all the properties of concrete,
cast iron and solid rock. In much the same way, specks of knowledge are
scattered through a vast emptiness of ignorance, and everything depends upon
how solid the individual specks of knowledge are, and on how powerfully linked and coordinated they are with one
another. The vast spaces of ignorance do not prevent the specks of knowledge
from forming a solid structure, though sufficient misunderstanding can
disintegrate it in much the same way that radioactive atomic structures can
disintegrate (uranium into lead) or even explode.
Ideas, as the raw
material from which knowledge is produced, exist in superabundance, but that
makes the production of knowledge more difficult rather than easier. Many ideas—probably most—will have to be discarded somewhere in the process of producing
authenticated knowledge. Authentication is as important as the raw information
itself, and the manner and speed of the authentication process can be crucial:
the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor succeeded despite the fact that knowledge
of the impending attack had reached the War Department in Washington hours
before it occurred. Still the bombing caught Pearl Harbor by surprise because
the information had not yet passed through the authentication process
established by the military institutions. Whatever the merits or demerits of
those institutions as they existed on December 7, 1941, it is clear that any military organization must have some
authentication process, or else any unverified idea that enters the system has
the potential to set off a war. More recently, a flock of Canadian geese set
off the American warning system to detect incoming nuclear missiles, and only
subsequent authentication procedures prevented a "retaliatory"
nuclear strike which could have ended in World War III.
Various kinds of
ideas can be classified by their relationship to the authentication process.
There are ideas systematically prepared for authentication ("theories"), ideas not derived from any systematic process
("visions"), ideas which could not
survive any reasonable authentication process ("illusions"), ideas which exempt themselves from any
authentication process ("myths"), ideas
which have already passed authentication processes ("facts"), as well as ideas known to have failed—or certain to fail—such processes ("falsehoods"—both mistakes and lies).
While these various
kinds of ideas are conceptually different, in reality a given notion may evolve
or metamorphose through several of these states. For example, we may start with
a general impression of how and why certain things happen the way they do,
without having any real evidence or any logically structured argument about it.
But after we begin with such a vision, we may proceed to systematically
determine that if this vision is correct, then certain empirical
consequences will be observable under the proper conditions. The
"vision" has led to a "theory." The proper conditions may
be created in a laboratory or observed in history or otherwise constructed or
discovered, and the validity and certainty of the results may be more or less
open to criticism. The important point here is simply to distinguish such systematic
authentication procedures from decisions based on consensus, emotions, or
traditions.
On the continuum of
human thinking, at one end is pure science; at the other end pure myth. One is sustained entirely by systematic
logical procedures, the other by consensual
verification by contemporaries, by their predecessors represented through
prevailing traditions, or by posterity for those who expect historic
vindication. The crucial distinction is one of procedures, not of end
results. Science is no more certain to be correct than is myth. Many scientific
theories have been proven wrong by scientific methods, while the great enduring
beliefs which have achieved the status of myths usually contain some important—if partial—truth.
Both systematic
authentication and consensual approval can be further broken down. Systematic
authentication involves a testing of the logical structure of a theory for
internal consistency and a testing of the theory's results for external
consistency with the observable facts of the real world.
Consensual approval
may mean the approval of the general public as of a given time, or the approval
of some special reference group—a social
class, a religious sect, an ideological movement, etc.—in the past, present, or future. Ideas which lack
logical, empirical, or general consensual support may still sustain themselves
as acceptable to a consensus of those who regard themselves as special
guardians of a particular truth—i.e., as the
consensual reference group that really matters. Sometimes the elitism implicit in such a position can be tempered by
depicting the idea in question (religious salvation, political reconstitution,
etc.) as beneficial to a broad sweep of mankind outside the group, so that the
group is only a temporary surrogate for a larger constituency which will ultimately
approve the idea. But, of course, this proposition is itself still another idea
lacking either empirical verification or general consensual
approval.
There are many
variations on the two basic ways of verifying ideas, and many combinations of
these variations are used—often
involving combinations from both systematic and consensual methods of
verification in the same argument. For example, a scientific presentation may
avoid—indeed, must avoid—unlimited verification of every incidental aspect of
its arguments by saying, in effect, "everybody knows" this or that,
and getting on with proving the things that need proving.* Similarly, beliefs resting essentially on
consensual approval—religious beliefs,
for example—may also employ logical and empirical techniques, such
as the scientific "proofs" of the existence of God, which were common
in the eighteenth century and in the early nineteenth century, before Darwin.
These more or less open combinations present no special problems. A problem
does arise, however, when one method masquerades as another—for example, when the results of essentially
consensual processes choose to present themselves as scientific, as in the case
of much so-called "social science."
This brief and
general sketch of the production of authenticated knowledge from raw,
unsubstantiated ideas must be elaborated more specifically in later discussions
of economic, legal, and political organizations. At this point, it is necessary
to consider—in equally brief and general terms—the amount and kinds of knowledge produced, and the
manner in which it is used.
It is widely believed
that modern society has a larger quantity of knowledge than more primitive
societies, that this quantity of knowledge is growing, and that the knowledge
"required" for the average citizen to live in a modern society is
also growing. Certainly the complex apparatus of modern life is beyond the
grasp of most non-modern peoples, past or present. What is not so obvious, but
true nonetheless, is that most modern peoples would find it equally—or more—difficult to
survive individually in a "primitive" or non-modern world. In short,
it is not clear or demonstrable that the total quantity of knowledge differs as
between "savage" and "civilized" man. What is more readily
established is that the kinds of knowledge possessed by the average
inhabitant of the primitive and the modern world are very different, and that
each would be at considerable hazard in the world of the other.
Consider a modern
civilized man suddenly stranded in a primitive jungle, cut off from modern
technology, and unaided by such primitive peoples as might exist in that
environment. Although the civilized man might be a well educated individual,
working in a complex profession such as accounting or electronics, it is
doubtful whether his knowledge would be sufficient to merely sustain his life
in an environment where primitive peoples have lived for untold generations.
The civilized man might often have a choice of going hungry or eating wild
vegetation which could prove either nutritious or poisonous. Finding a safe
place to sleep at night would require more knowledge of the habits and
capabilities of wild animals than he possessed. Avoiding snake bites, infected
water, and predatory beasts would be among his other problems, and ordinary illnesses
easily cured in a civilized community could be far more dangerous away from
scientific medical knowledge and without the herbal and other folk remedies
available to primitive man. In the same environment, the savage could not
merely survive, but thrive, producing housing, clothing, and other amenities.
But of course the primitive man's chances of survival if suddenly dropped down
in the midst of New York or Los Angeles might also be bleak.
What then is the
intellectual advantage of civilization over primitive savagery? It is not
necessarily that each civilized man has more knowledge but that he requires
far less. A primitive savage must be able to produce a wide variety of
goods and services for himself, and a primitive community must repeatedly duplicate
his knowledge and experience in innumerable contemporaries. By contrast, the
civilized accountant or electronics expert, etc., need know little beyond his
accounting or electronics. Food reaches his local supermarket through processes
of which he is probably ignorant, if not misinformed. He lives in a home
constructed by an involved process whose technical, economic, and political
intricacies are barely suspected, much less known to him. His home is likely to
be stocked with many devices working on mechanical and electrical principles
which he neither understands theoretically nor can cope with as a practical
matter. The chronic complaints and scandals about appliance, automobile, and
other repair services testify to the civilized man's utter lack of knowledge of
the everyday apparatus on which he depends. A primitive savage could never
survive knowing so little about the production and use of spears, grass huts,
or with such utter naivete about which berries are
poisonous, which snakes dangerous, or the ways and means of coexistence in the
same jungle with lions, tigers, and gorillas.
Civilization is an
enormous device for economizing on knowledge. The time and effort (including
costly mistakes) necessary to acquire knowledge are minimized through
specialization, which is to say through drastic limitations on the amount of
duplication of knowledge among the members of society. A relative handful of civilized people know how
to produce food, a different handful how to produce clothing, medicine,
electronics, houses, etc. The huge costs saved by not having to duplicate given
knowledge and experience widely through the population makes possible the
higher development of that knowledge among the various subsets of people in the
respective specialties.
Although the phrase
"ignorant savage" may be virtually self-contradictory, it is a common
conception, and one with a certain basis. The savage is wholly lacking in a
narrowly specific kind of knowledge: abstract, systematized,
knowledge of the sort generally taught in schools. Considering the enormous
range of human knowledge, from intimate personal knowledge of specific
individuals to the complexities of organizations and the subtleties of
feelings, it is remarkable that one speck in this firmament should be the sole
determinant of whether someone is considered knowledgeable or ignorant in general. Yet it is a fact of life that an
unlettered peasant is considered ignorant, however much he may know about
nature and man, and a Ph.D. is never considered ignorant, however barren his mind
might be outside his narrow specialty and however little he grasps about human
feelings or social complexities. We do sometimes refer to a "learned
fool," but the notion of a "fool" implies deficiencies in the reasoning
process (so that one is easily deceived or fooled), whereas it may actually be knowledge
that is lacking, so that the "learned" person has simply not learned
enough outside a certain sliver of human experience.
The point here is
not simply to deplore the use of certain words. The point is to avoid having
our own discussion of knowledge drastically shrunk, arbitrarily, and virtually
without our realizing what is happening. We need to consider the full breadth
of knowledge and its depth as well. That is, we need to consider not only how
much we know, but how well we know it.
We start with an
idea. It may be a sense impression of some sort—something that happened to catch our eye and intrigue
our curiosity. Or it may be a speculation in our mind—a daydream or a theory,
for example. As the idea or theory passes through the authentication process,
it may be verified, refuted, or transformed to accommodate additional and discordant evidence. But if the authentication process
is doing its job, whatever conclusion it is reaching about the idea is becoming
progressively more certain (even if that means that the original idea itself is
becoming progressively more dubious). Therefore, at some point in the
authentication process, the probability of a mistaken conclusion is reduced to
the point where we can say that we "know" this or that. Where that
point is varies from person to person, so that what is "knowledge" to
one is merely a plausible belief to another and only a theory to someone else.
Each of us has some point—some
probability level— beyond which we will
say that we "know" something. But all things fall short of absolute
certainty: life itself might be a dream and logic a delusion. Still, because we
act, we must decide, and how decisively we can act depends on how well we know
the consequences.
How much knowledge
there is depends on where we draw the line on the spectrum of probabilities. Within a given probability requirement for
"knowing," how much is known varies enormously from one area of human
life to another, and from one historical era to another, and of course from one
person to another. Because the arena of decision making almost always exceeds
the arena of knowledge, there must be belief—or at least hope—to fill in the gaps where there is no knowledge. This
means that the ratio of knowledge to belief may also vary enormously from one
aspect of life to another. The specific nature of the respective authentication
processes available in various aspects of human life then become crucial.
To say that a farm
boy knows how to milk a cow is to say that we can send him out to the barn with
an empty pail and expect him to return with milk. To say that a criminologist understands crime is not to say that we
can send him out with a grant or a law and expect him to return with a lower
crime rate. He is more likely to return with a report on why he has not
succeeded yet, and including the inevitable need for more money, a
larger staff, more sweeping powers, etc. In short,
the degree of authentication of knowledge may be lower in the
"higher" intellectual levels and much higher in those areas which
intellectuals choose to regard as "lower." A business which produces
a product that the public will not buy in a sufficient quantity, or at a high
enough price to cover production costs, will have its ideas validated—in this case invalidated—in a swift and painful process which must be heeded quickly before bankruptcy sets in. The results
cannot be talked away. But in many intellectual areas, notably so-called
"social science," there is neither a swift nor a certain
authentication process for ideas, and the only ultimate validation is whether
the ideas sound plausible to enough people, or to the right people. The
stricter standards and independent, often conclusive, evidence in the physical
sciences cannot be generalized to intellectual activity as a whole, even though
the aura of scientific processes and results is often appropriated by other
intellectuals. Because what is meant by "knowing" varies enormously,
according to the respective authentication processes available, it is by no
means clear that there is more knowledge in civilized countries than in
primitive countries or among intellectuals as compared to the less educated
members of the same society. It is very possible that, as more people cease being
farmers with little or no education, and increasingly acquire more schooling,
that their standards for "knowing" decline while the area of
their secondhand and tenuous knowledge expands. As a poet said, "we knew a
million things we could hardly understand."
There may be not only a qualitative decline in knowledge, but—more important—an erosion of the very meaning of "knowing":
for example, a young man might be said to know how to milk a cow if he could
write an essay on that subject, and we would no longer demand that he take the
pail out to the barn and come back with milk.
It is not necessary,
at this point, to insist that the average amount of personal knowledge has
declined over time. It is sufficient that we realize that conflicting trends
are at work, and that the net result is an open question, rather than the
foregone conclusion often assumed by those who depict an ever more
knowledgeable society needing ever more years of schooling for its citizens.
The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual
complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite. Matthew Brady required far more knowledge of photographic processes to take pictures with his
cumbersome equipment during the Civil War than a modern photographer requires
to operate his automated cameras. Science and technology lead to far more
complexity in producing cameras and film today, but that growing
complexity among a handful of technicians permits far more simplicity (and
ignorance) in the actual use of modern
photographic equipment and materials by a mass of people. Similar trends are
discernible in a wide variety of fields. Automobiles are much more complex to
build, but far simpler to operate, than in the days before automatic ignition,
automatic transmissions, automatic chokes, self-sealing tires, etc. The
technology available in the modern home reduces not only the time but the knowledge
required by a modern homemaker. Even a mere man can
now perform some chores for which girls and young women were once trained for
years.
The growing
complexity of science, technology, and organization does not imply either a growing knowledge or a growing need for
knowledge in the general population. On the contrary, the increasingly complex processes
tend to lead to increasingly simple and easily understood products. The genius
of mass production is precisely in its making more products more accessible,
both economically and intellectually to more people. Electronic
calculators enable mathematical illiterates to perform operations which only
highly trained people could perform with ease in earlier times. The printing
press performs daily communications miracles beyond the ability of an army of
the most highly trained and dedicated scribes of the Middle Ages.
Organizational
progress parallels that in science and technology, permitting ultimate simplicity
through intermediate complexity. An ordinary individual can easily arrange
travel across thousands of miles through cities he has never seen by tapping
the knowledge of travel agents and/or the American Automobile Association. Or
he can weigh the relative merits of commercial products whose individual
mechanisms are wholly unknown to him, by reading the (simple) results of highly
complex tests conducted by general consumer magazines or by publications
specializing in particular items such as audio equipment or motorcycles.
Knowledge may be enjoyed as a speculative diversion,
but it is needed for decision making. The genesis of ideas and the
authentication of knowledge are part of a continuous process which ultimately
brings knowledge to bear on decisions—when the system is working ideally. In real life, the process
may, of course, fail to bring knowledge to bear, when accurate
knowledge is” available somewhere in the system.
What matters, then, is the knowledge actually used at the decision-making
point, not the knowledge in process of development or authentication, nor even
the knowledge clearly apparent to particular individuals or organizations
somewhere in the society. And while decisions may be thought of as made by
specific individuals at specific points in space
and time, the decision-making process is more usually structured so that
various combinations of individuals repeatedly and habitually make certain
classes of decisions, so that they form continuously functioning
decision-making units, which may range from a married couple to a police
department to a national government. A single individual may also form a
decision-making unit for some purposes, or—more likely—he may be part of several decision-making
units simultaneously, and the set of such institutions may change over time.
The emphasis on specific decision-making units is
especially necessary in an era given to metaphors about an amorphous
"society" deciding to do this or that: "Society" doesn't
keep its air or water clean; "society" is punitive, permissive,
frivolous, uptight, generous, uncaring, etc. While metaphors may sometimes be
useful shortcuts, like other shortcuts they can also take us further away from
our destination and delay or even prevent our arrival there.