Keeping an Open Mind




I get asked sometimes if I should have a more open mind.

Isn't the scientific world view rather closed-minded? Isn't it better to keep our minds open to the possibilities? Isn't that more imaginative?

The short answer to this is 'no.' The long answer follows.

The universe is filled with questions. Where did we come from? Where are we going? What are those lights in the sky? Etc.

The scientific method prescribes gathering evidence in a demonstrable, repeatable way, developing theories to explain the evidence and then testing those theories by using them to predict the outcome of experiments.

In addition to keeping your theories and observations aligned to reality, this method for examining the universe is also much, much more stimulating to the imagination than mystical explanations.

When you encounter a question you cannot answer with your scientific tools, it stays unanswered.

If you want to answer it, you have to use your imagination to expand your scientific toolset while staying within the lines of evidence and reason.

Doing so will often lead to deeper insights and to the discovery of still more questions, which may require still more creative answers.

For example, early conceptions of Darwinian evolution imagined that only the single-minded pursuit of self-interest should be selected for. But, thanks to economic theories of cooperation and biological theories like the selfish gene, we can now understand why it is that nature produces creatures capable of altruism, sacrifice and other seemingly counter-productive behaviors.


Mystical explanations, on the other hand, allow you to answer questions without straining your imagination or discovering any deeper mysteries to be solved, short of the mysterious contradictions any theory based on made up mumbo jumbo will inevitably produce. Attributing altruism and sacrifice to the divine, for example, tells us nothing about why the gods should grace us with attributes that seemingly defy our survival instincts.

Keeping an open mind means keeping your mind open to where the evidence may lead you and thinking creatively about the implications of your theories. Allowing yourself one-size fits all answers to complex questions is just an excuse to stop thinking.

Consider, for example, the germ theory of disease.

Before we developed the germ theory of disease, epidemics were attributed to the wrath of the gods.

Unfortunately, once you've attributed something to the wrath of the gods, there's precious little you can do about it because the gods don't seem to behave in any kind of predictable way. The best you can hope for is to appease them with prayer, which is tough considering that they, you know, don't exist.

If, on the other hand, you study the behavior of a disease, watch how it spreads over time, look for common factors between infected persons, and otherwise, you know, gather data, you can develop a pretty good basic epidemiology even if you still don't know what the underlying mechanism is.

You can then use this theory to help control or at least predict the spread of disease, and the discoveries you make in so doing will lead you to germs, drug regimens, vaccines, quarantine protocols, prevention measures and all manner of useful things the gods never seem to mention in their holy books.

This is why no truly innovative discoveries come out of theology, astrology, feng shui, crystalography, tarot cards, the i ching or any other non-evidence-based system of natural understanding. It's not because they have too few answers; it's because they have too many.

To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, the imagination is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.