One day while looking for a different scripture because I had the citation incorrect, I found what has become one of my favorite retorts and my second favorite verse of scripture. After Job's friends finish suggesting that Job's trials stem from sins and errors on Job's part, they leave, and then God appears in the whirlwind and says this: "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man...and answer thou me. (Job 38:2-3)" In other words, your friends are full of crap, Job, and they're speculating without having facts, hoping to be relevant, when what they have to say lacks substance or utility. Many people make this mistake. In our desperation to be relevant, our desires to be helpful, and our ignorance and vanity, we often spout off what we think and publish editorials masquerading as truth. Special care is warranted in the things we tell other people, because the things we say may directly lead to action on their part. People act sometimes on the information given or when other information remains withheld. In class, I tell my students that everything I would change about my life comes from either incomplete or inaccurate information, and so I crusade to get the best information possible so that other people can lead better lives and be wiser than I. It is useless to theorize without facts, otherwise we start bending facts to fit theories (Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet), leading to words without knowledge in many forms, all of which create negative aftershocks in our lives.
Everyone knows about a false product or outcome in one form or another. Although most participants in pyramid schemes deny that their scheme is one, they all acknowledge the existence of such. Most of these products either don't do what they claim or don't do it the way they claim. Either their claims are not validated by the FDA or they are only validated by internal "scientists". In point of fact, science abounds in quackery. James F Watson, Nobel laureate for the DNA Double Helix wrote in his autobiography that "a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull but also just stupid". Hence, peer-reviewed journals are considered the only reliable source of trustworthy research, but the journals are only as good as the peers who review papers. One paper we reviewed while I was in graduate school touted the inclusion of trienols as a vitamin E supplement when trienols are not absorbed by humans. You have to be a critical thinker when you review and make a concerted effort to make sure that it does what it says it does the way it says it does it. In fact, it's hard enough, that there's an entire website dedicated to helping people identify pseudoscience- quackwatch.org which you should read. It will probably show you that some of what you believe isn't really science. Of course, there's also biased science where they ignore exculpatory data and corporate science where they publish only the parts paid for by the parent philanthropist. We trust scientists to tell us the truth, but they don't. Even my own principle investigator told me once to "smudge out" part of an image that I couldn't explain. Imagine how often that might be done to hide things from you that might adversely affect your life! People forget that scientists are also people, and that scientists make the same mistakes as everyone else. Plus we're also the stupidest smart people you may ever meet. Just watch the Big Bang Theory to see some "smart" people act incredibly foolishly.
In interpersonal interactions, false accusations abound. Despite the abjurement against bearing false witness, people speculate or cast aspersions to detract from their own mistakes. We can't count on eyewitnesses, and in too many cases even the victims don't tell the full truth, leading to false accusations against the incident but innocent. Remember the Duke Lacross team, members of which were falsely accused by a stripper of having raped her because she didn't want to blame the real person, who happened to be her boyfriend. Their lives are ruined. In the current news, we have accusations against Roy Moore, but we don't actually have statements from the victims, only speculation from the media. Accusations are not the same as convictions, yet the innocent go down with the guilty all too often in the court of public opinion, and everyone knew OJ Simpson was a killer before they heard the facts.
Before the advent of DNA fingerprinting, a significant number of people went to jail for crimes they didn't commit. Gentlemanly behavior once served as a bulwark against coarse behavior, but the bullish and brute now sit in leadership and consider coarse kosher and rationalize whatever means necessary if the ends even approximate something valuable. It's pretty early to know which accusers are honest and accurate, and it's difficult for juries and law enforcement to gather enough facts to know what really happen. At the end of the day, we rarely have all the facts, and some of the facts aren't really true, and so people are trashed and lives are made miserable in witch hunts like they always have been. Since becoming a professor, I have also been victim of false claims of impropriety with students and coworkers. Fortunately for me, I have come through them unsullied and undaunted, but for many, it terminates careers, hopes, and lives. Unfortunately, our society exists in such a way that we assume the accuser is legitimate so as to not dissuade victims from coming forward. No matter what we do, some innocent victims never see justice and some innocent people face punishments for crimes committed by others.
Everywhere we turn, we encounter false doctrines. A member of the department discussed with me Frederick Bastiat's deconstruction of the Broken Window Theorem. Many economists illogically conclude that, if a vandal breaks a shop owner's window, that it creates industry and wealth. Well, that's not true. The people who make and repair windows are enriched, but the shop owner must spend money to repair a breach that he would have spend elsewhere. He doesn't win, but they like to ignore those kinds of people. Far too many among us think that the ends always justify the means, that a rising tide lifts all boats, and that if they consider it a win that everyone agrees with them. In his landmark treatise Human Action Ludwig von Mises discusses that people value different things or value similar things for different reasons. Of course, we don't know them, so we erroneously conclude that other people agree with us or of a right ought to, and so we project our values on them. Well, criminals only like laws because they know victims will obey them and the indigent like welfare because they know that charitable people can be manipulated into benefitting them, but we are different people period. Rising tides don't lift leaking boats, virtuous ends only come from virtuous means, and it's only a win if what you offer is something that I value. We must be careful in the use of absolutes, because "always" and "never" are very difficult standards to maintain. Elsewhere, the unbeliever manipulates the man of faith by employing the philosophies of men mingled with scripture. They dress up their naked villainy with odd old ends stolen forth from holy writ and seem saints when most they play the devil (Richard III). In other words, beware when politicians and preachers gesture in sweeping stereotypes about faith, because all too often they do so not because they mean what they say but because they know that you do. Far too many people think it's totally fine to take advantage of their neighbor, filling their "water" cup with soda and thinking that it's ok because the company charges a confiscatory sum. You don't like it, don't buy it. Thou shalt not steal is really one of the only commandments we need, because covetousness, adultery, false witness, et al, all deal with taking something from other people to which we have no right. No man taketh this honor unto himself, yet far too many of us rationalize our miscreantism as a way to cloak our covetousness, and social justice is built on envy, demanding what other people have by force. There is no virtue in using the adversary's methods to achieve the Father's plan. Furthermore, far too many people presume to speak for God and pat themselves on the back. Despite the modus opporendi of God: Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7), people post prognostications about the end times, and leaders of churches rewrite centuries of religious tradition on public opinion rather than on divine dissemination. Despite the notion that "no man knoweth the hour" of the coming of the Messiah, people start websites, blogs, and entire churches claiming they know when the Great Green Arklesiezure will arrive. We do not reveal things to heaven. Revelation, like rain, precipitates from above.
Some people are wise, and some people are otherwise. "The wise man doubts often, and his views are changeable. The fool is constant in his opinions, and doubts nothing, because he knows everything, except his own ignorance" (Pharaoh Akhenato). How many people do you know who spout off all sorts of things that they know without providing evidence or citations or sources to corroborate their claims? Who is this that darkeneth counsels by words without knowledge? Back it up or back it off. There is a method to maturity, and it is not what fools know. We argue with them, but to no avail, because the foolish man already thinks he knows everything and cannot be taught. All too often, the news reports quote anonymous sources or other reporters or quotes on Twitter without any real source material. Nobody really ever seems to ask the right people, but they do ask self-appointed experts or people that they consider to be experts. Far too many people are not interested in the truth as much as they are interested in finding out that the truth corroborates what they already happen to believe. People are often wrong. Like Job, you may discover that you didn't do anything wrong at all. Sometimes crap happens. Sometimes your friends or counselors are wrong. It is possible to do everything right and still lose. That is not a character flaw. it is life, and life is about finding knowledge and using it wisely. Learn to listen to what people say, observe what they actually do, and what the consequences of actions really are. Just because things aren't working out doesn't mean you are doing something wrong. Sometimes, like Job, you're just surrounded by jerks.
