ONE THING FOR CERTAIN

The idea that you can’t know anything for certain is popularly held, despite the fact that it is self-destructive: after all, if you can’t know anything for certain, then you couldn’t know for certain that you can’t know anything for certain.

Years ago, I was hosting a radio talk show in New York on current issues and drove down to Princeton University to interview a biology professor on the then rampaging dispute between Darwin’s theory of evolution and creationism. After completing the taping of what I thought was an hour of intelligent data, the professor volunteered something to the effect of “You know that everything I said is all made up, just a story, we never can know anything for certain.” When I asked him if he voiced that view to his students, he said “certainly.” I was shocked to see that such an illogical perspective was being promulgated at such an esteemed institution and chose not to air the “fictional” interview on my serious show.

Neil Armstrong, after returning from his historic trip to the Moon, gave a commencement address at the University of Cincinnati and echoed the noncertainty mantra this way: “Truth is seldom absolute. It’s more often dependent on the perspective of the observer…Truth can best be described as the best currently available description. And certainty is exclusively the property of the freshman.” I assume Mr. Armstrong meant “uneducated freshman.” If he is right, then I suppose it was just dumb luck rather than scientific facts that enabled Mr. Armstrong to successfully make his historic trip. And if he is right, what would be the point of having a university?

The popularity of the belief in noncertainty (buttressed by the “What’s true for you may not be true for me” slogan) likely stems from man’s general disdain of absolutes and extremes, like two plus two is four. That bit of exactitude is generally accepted as necessary in building a house, but not so in the discussion and resolution of ethical and social issues. In those areas, man does not like to feel boxed into certain rules of behavior, which absolute truths would impose, but wants the room to express his own individuality and to compromise his beliefs when the occasion suits. The price he pays for occasionally believing that two plus two is three is the loss of confidence in the correctness of his life’s choices.

The noncertainty doctrine does away with the implications of IQ tests, since if there is no certainty, no in fact reality, then there is nothing to be intelligent about and we are all intellectually equal. A view that seems to please many.

One final thought: to be consistent, those who believe in noncertainty can not logically utter a single word, for every word spoken acknowledges some truth. Merely saying “I”, affirms that there is an existence and that there is a you that exists. “I believe” affirms that you have the capacity to think and that you are thinking of something. Keeping absolutely silent is certainly the only right thing to do.

Silence is golden, isn’t it?