A battered piece of paper with the word 'truth' on it, against a background of rubble. Photo: By Michael Carruth on Unsplash.
Truth ache: Oliver Müller on the similarities between science and religion
‘The system has been corrupted.’
‘So what has surprised you the most in your research?’ I asked. A professor of education had just summed up the work he did, researching how people learn. After a moment’s thought he answered that it was the similarity in how we learn scientific and religious concepts. No one could re-do all the work already done by other scientists, he said, so we were forced to trust what they have done – not just specific research but whole paradigms. There is a degree of blind faith involved. Religion, too, requires this trust, usually in the form of a belief in a higher being, scripture or church authority.
As might be expected, this led us to current affairs, arguably a time when truth has never been less certain. Whom can we trust? Who is telling the truth? Who can even still know the truth?
‘We can’t do without trusted institutions,’ the professor told me. I agreed. Otherwise anyone can say anything they like with no evidence, as I believe Donald Trump is doing now. But what if we can’t trust the institutions either? In medicine, for example, ‘much of the scientific literature may simply be untrue’, according to Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal the Lancet. And in the words of US physician and author Marcia Angell, ‘It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.’
These and many other experts are clear that the system has been corrupted. With no significant funding available from anyone but industry, money often dictates the outcome of any research, or whether the research is published at all or quietly buried.
The lack of trusted sources of information leaves us adrift. We are used to a worldview of true and false, scientific fact and superstition, proven and unproven. We look for absolute truths in a world of relativity. But when early Quakers spoke of Truth, they were referring to something beyond this duality. This Truth has been described as unity with God, enlightenment, awakening, dissolution and transcendence. From this perspective all earthly truth is relative and fluid. But for worldly purposes we still need to know if we are being lied to, whether those in power act in our interest, or if research is done with integrity. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) can falsify any truth, past or present. Billionaires can influence elections, news coverage and politics. Dissenting voices get ‘de-platformed’ or censored.
The corruption in medical science has been around for decades, but Covid polarised our views more than ever. In 2020, our government told us it was following the science, but that is not how Sunetra Gupta sees it. As an Oxford professor with extensive knowledge in epidemiology, immunology and vaccinology, she has stated that those who questioned the efficacy of lockdowns were treated as ‘heretics’. She spoke truth to power, and so did Allyson Pollock, professor of public health, saying: ‘Communicable disease know-how built up over a century and more has been ignored.’
Gupta’s use of the word ‘heretic’ is telling, and gives us another parallel to religion. Hearing or reading something with which we fundamentally disagree is unpleasant. It almost hurts. So, naturally, we tend to avoid it, and we may well get angry. It then takes little encouragement for us to welcome censorship of such dangerous or heretical messages, as well as punishment of the messenger. This instinct can be exploited by anyone who wishes to manipulate public opinion and who has sufficient resources, influence or reach. We may sometimes see through the lies, but that’s not the point. The philosopher Hannah Arendt once said: ‘If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.’ Mistrust in media, politics and science is justified, but it leaves a void, and this void gets filled somehow. I would say that, instead of not believing anything any more, we are prepared to believe most things as long as they fit in with our existing views.
‘The lack of trusted sources of information leaves us adrift.’
During my time as a hospital chaplain, I often asked people if they had any faith, spirituality or life philosophy. Most people believed in something, but a common answer was also that they believed in science. My answer would normally be that I did too, but we didn’t always mean the same thing. My own answer would refer to scientific integrity and to the original open-minded, objective and unbiased scientific method.
Many people who say they believe in science mean what is sometimes referred to as ‘scientism’. Scientism is a quasi-religious worldview disguised as science. Its creed is that only matter exists, and that any other dimension is excluded by definition, regardless of any evidence. The magazine you are holding is matter, but so are your thoughts and feelings while reading. Your conscience, any intuition, love, and even consciousness itself, are all a product of matter in that paradigm. Once again, science and religion prove not to be so different. We inherit not so much facts but pre-defined parameters within which we are constrained, if we aren’t to be become heretics, and materialist science is a pretty fundamentalist faith.
Laleh Quinn of the University of California has called it cult-like, describing how a belief in God would make people question your intelligence. And yet even unsupported scientific hypotheses like the multiverse seem acceptable. In order to explain the fine-tuning of the universe without a creator, it is OK to instead believe that a vast number of parallel universes exist simultaneously, and we just happen to live in the one that supports life. This idea does not emerge from observations or measurements. It is simply there to do away with the need for a creator.
I feel the answer to ‘What is truth?’ in this bewildering world can only come from Truth – that is, from a higher, or at least more detached, perspective. We can start by recognising false prophets by their deeds, to borrow from religion again. And we can ask ourselves what world we want to live in. A prison cell, for example, can be a safe place. Maybe we live longer in a sterile world, in isolation, by living online or under constant surveillance. But no one needs music, novelty, beauty or adventure for mere physical survival. Is that what we want?
We may not be able to tell who is telling us the more accurate statistic, but we can think their messages through to the end. Where will they lead us?
Comments
It’s tempting to imagine there is an ultimate absolute truth, and it’s just a matter of finding it; however I don’t believe this to be the case. Like peace, I believe truth is a never-ending process requiring an open mind, and a realisation that what is revealed may not always be comfortable.
I also believe that the universe is in a constant state of evolution, with ever more sophisticated interactions, such that ‘The Truth’ is ever-expanding.
The same applies to our own understanding – in particular our spiritual understanding. The notion that ‘God’s Truth’ was revealed to us centuries ago on tablets of stone strikes me as absurd. I believe ‘God’ continues to reveal truth to us all, if only we will hush our noisy egos and listen.
By david@wright47.me.uk on 6th March 2025 - 12:16
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