I read Dr. Peter Gleick’s review of Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist. I recommend it (the review) to everyone. Dr. Gleick writes in an engaging style – it is neither dry nor obtuse and it is very informative – even eye opening. The review can be found here.

What has always struck me about people making arguments (and I’m not just talking about global warming skeptics) is their tendency to gloss over unwelcome facts and to use statistics selectively to prove a point. It’s not at all uncommon. Everyone has a point of view, a context, and our context shapes our understanding and approach. For some this is incidental; for others it is willful.

The dangers, of course, are obvious. As Dr. Gleick points out, “By selectively using data, it is possible to support almost any conclusion.” So true. And I’m sure we’ve all seen examples of that. It’s true of any discipline. It’s perhaps more egregious when it comes to something as critical and potentially catastrophic as anthropogenic global warming. And it’s another case of letting theory determine evidence. If we’re going to bother with statistics or an appeal to data in the first place, doesn’t it behoove us to make thorough use of them? It seems to me self-defeating to use only part of the evidence in order to support a theory that, if exposed to ALL the evidence, would fall apart (and how much worse to cling to it in the face of all evidence to the contrary!). Why would anyone even wish to do something so blatantly dishonest?

Obviously, there are ideological considerations. Some people simply don’t want to accept that the world might be other than their ideology (political or religious) demands. Marxist views of history are an obvious example of this. If you accept the basic tenet of Marxism – class struggle – then all of history must be understood in this context. The problem is that not every even in history had anything to do with class struggle. Attempting to twist every historical event to fit the ideological framework has some truly laughable results. Unfortunately, our understanding of history suffers as a result.

I’ve laughed out loud at some of the Marxist interpretations of American history where the U.S. Cavalry is likened to the Nazi SS and the Reservations are extermination camps like Auschwitz. There will be people who read this and say “But of course they were!” but I will point out, with all due respect, that these people have probably not consulted the primary source material, and have made little or no attempt to understand the past within its own context. Their cry is simply a knee-jerk reaction based upon ideology. Anyone bothering to study the primary source data (as I have, and in great depth – Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, anyone?) will know this is absurd. But you won’t convince a Marxist of this because ideology demands its truth in the face of any and all evidence to the contrary.

Truth, of course, is a sticky issue. Dr. Gleick has this to say of truth:

“truth” is an elusive concept in environmental and ecological science. Environmental scientists know that uncertainty is a fundamental part of many of these
issues—uncertainty due to inadequate data collection, or the complexity of ecological relationships, or the inability to know the future. As a result, much of what we know is estimation or expert judgment and should be described as such. Anyone claiming to know the “truth” is grossly overconfident and underinformed.

I would say that truth is far more elusive than people recognize. Based on very little evidence or understanding of any issue, people will assume they know the “truth” about it. This falls under the category of “everyone knows.” No, everyone doesn’t know. What you learned in grade school or from mommy or daddy or from your friends doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Even well-meaning parents can misinform their children and I won’t even get into the number of parents who do so with malice aforethought. “Common knowledge” is no knowledge at all.

When I was growing up, “everybody knew” that General George A. Custer had led the 7th Cavalry into an ambush and gotten himself and everyone else killed. The problem is, of course, that this isn’t true. Not even close. It is difficult to arrange an ambush if you don’t know the enemy is coming, and the native encampment had no idea the 7th Cavalry was on its way. It was not the Native Americans who surprised Custer, but Custer who surprised them, and not just once, but twice. Yes, he approached a large enemy encampment in broad daylight and caught them by surprise. What is often claimed to be a terrible blunder was actually quite an accomplishment if you bother to study the facts.

In the same way it’s easy to accuse Custer of being a “glory hound” or superabundantly arrogant, but it’s another to actually study the man (let alone the battle itself) and have the integrity to admit that your understanding was based on nothing more than “common knowledge.” In We Were Soldiers, the Mel Gibson film about the Vietnam War, one character is made to utter some truly ridiculous words: “Custer was a pussy.” I invite you to actually study Custer’s war record and then return to me and in all honesty make that claim. You won’t be able to. And to his credit, I’ve found no evidence that Sergeant Major Plumley actually uttered those words.

I use the Little Big Horn as an example because it in many ways mirrors the debate on climate change. It is a divisive issue, first of all, one that breeds fanatics on both extremes and one that allows for little middle room. One is either “pro” or “anti” Custer, as though the event can be narrowed down to one man, who is taken completely out of the context not only of his time in history but even the Indian Wars themselves. It is also a topic that invites many of the same “truths” to be put on display, as well as a selective and contentious use of the evidence, of facts. The “anti-Custer” faction in particular remind me of global warming skeptics, eagerly making bold judgments without any support of the evidence.

I remember being told by a Native American friend that Custer engaged in genocide on a large scale, at one point killing thousands of natives. The problem with this claim, one which they repeatedly insisted was true while refusing to back it up with evidence, is that it’s demonstrably untrue. Custer was an “Indian hater” we here. Yet if you actually read Custer’s My Life on the Plains or his personal correspondence, you find no evidence of this. On the contrary, his opinion of the Native Americans is far more nuanced than is usual in the period, and is quite thoughtful and open minded. In truth, Custer, not alone among frontier army officers, was sympathetic to the plight of the Native American peoples.

People like to point to the Washita as a massacre perpetrated by the hateful Custer, but in fact, it was not Custer and his men who massacred unarmed Native Americans. It was the Indian scouts in his service. And when he was informed this was taking place, Custer ordered it stopped immediately. Yes, you can claim the village was unarmed and helpless, but if you want to take the incident out of its historical context you’re condemning yourself (and anyone who listens to you) to ignorance. The facts are that the village contained men who had recently raided white settlements and killed civilians. Only an idiot would have thought he could approach the village and force the chief to give up the culprits. First of all, the chief had no authority over his people of that kind, and secondly, the wanted men would have escaped, ridden downstream, roused the other villages, and then either everyone would have escaped or Custer would have found himself surrounded by enemies in the Washita valley, with unhappy results for the 7th Cavalry. Tell me honestly he would not have been blamed for this had the 7th been mauled there rather than 8 years later at the Little Big Horn (Doubt me? Captain Benteen, a Custer “hater” accused Custer of abandoning Major Elliot and his detachment at the Washita, but in the aftermath of the Little Big Horn had no problem condemning Custer for not abandoning the wounded in order to save his command).

History is complex. You cannot pretend to understand what happened without understanding that context. It’s easy to be an arm-chair general if you don’t mind looking like a fool. It’s easy to pretend to be an expert on anything if you don’t mind looking like a fool. That doesn’t stop people from doing it, and it doesn’t stop these people from misleading others. Hitler is a prime example of this. And Hitler is far from alone in history. Our own culture is full of such people, people who, for reasons of their own, selfish reasons, will lie in order to get their way. They’ll demonstrate an ignorance of the facts – a willful ignorance – and ignore all evidence that proves them wrong, and vilify their opponents as liars and worse the entire time.

That is why we, as ordinary people, must fortify ourselves through education. I don’t mean education in general, but in specific areas. That is why I have always urged anyone who has read my own words to not take my words at face value, but if the subject catches your attention at all, to read up on it and to form your own conclusions. I do not knowingly or intentionally withhold any facts as I come across them. I am more than willing to discuss alternative interpretations. We cannot be afraid of the truth. We cannot insist on a narrow interpretation that excludes unwelcome evidence, not and pretend to know what we’re talking about. If ideology is more important to you than truth, so be it. I cannot change that. But I can do my best to demonstrate to everyone out there what you’re about and what your game is. The biggest enemy of ideology is knowledge.

So whether the subject is religion, politics, climate change, or history, we must be willing to examine ALL the evidence. And we must then weigh and analyze the evidence and find a theory that is best suggested by that evidence. I did not go into the Little Big Horn intending to prove anything. I went into the subject wanting to learn the truth. Having been to the battlefield numerous times, I wanted to be able to stand at any point along Custer’s route and understand what he was thinking, and why. That is the only reason to study any historical subject. And the same holds true with climate and religion. What really happened, and why? What is really happening with our climate, and why? Simply assuming something is a canard and then doing your best to prove it while ignoring half the evidence is an intellectually and morally bankrupt exercise. You’re doing not only yourself a disservice, but everyone else as well.

Be intellectually honest. And demand equal honesty from those whose words you read or listen to. You may not like the truth when you find it, but it will at least be the truth, and that, for me, is worth any amount of disappointment, because let’s face it. You can pretend it’s not really cold, but that blind insistence isn’t going to save your fingers when they fall off, and burying your head in the sand won’t save you from the truck barreling down on you. At least, if you have your head up, unhappy as the sight of that truck may be, at least you’ll have a chance of doing something about it.

Remember, we create our fates. But we can also rise above them.