{"id":31959,"date":"2023-03-20T11:17:58","date_gmt":"2023-03-20T18:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=31959"},"modified":"2023-03-20T11:17:58","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T18:17:58","slug":"why-were-wrong-about-nearly-everything-everywhere-all-at-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/why-were-wrong-about-nearly-everything-everywhere-all-at-once\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we\u2019re wrong about nearly everything, everywhere, all at once"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cI hope this book will show you what a varied and extraordinary place the world really is\u201d<\/em> [1]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Some families are sports families. Some are music families. Others are into animals, or the outdoors, or food.<\/p>\n

The Clarks are film people.<\/p>\n

Movies are something we all love, so every year my family settles into our comfy couch to watch the nearly 4-hour self-congratulatory self-important overwrought celebration called the Oscars (ask me how I REALLY feel about it).<\/p>\n

This year a truckload of Oscars, including the prestigious best director and best picture awards, were given to the film \u201cEverything Everywhere All At Once\u201d. And if you ask me how I really<\/em> feel about that<\/em>, I\u2019d tell you it was a bloated, unfocused, hard to follow hot mess of a movie that had some great acting but a preachy message about… well, I\u2019m not actually sure what it was about (maybe about being kind?).<\/p>\n

It had no business being up for best anything.<\/p>\n

But according to a robust scientific study I conducted my opinion was wrong. (My study included personally interviewing 7 other people I know who watched the movie, the 95% Rotten Tomatoes score, and the fact that it did, indeed, win almost every category it was nominated for in multiple awards shows.)<\/p>\n

I still don\u2019t love the movie, but now I\u2019m starting to question myself: Was it a great film? How could I be right and 95% of critics be wrong?<\/p>\n

In the book Why We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything, <\/em>Bobby Duffy helps me approach the beginning of an answer. He describes how our minds and hearts, as well as outside influences, can deceive us; he encourages us to be aware of our own cognitive and emotional biases, and he challenges us to approach new\u2014and old\u2014information we come across with a healthy measure of suspicion, not just of the sources of the information but of our ourselves. Maybe Everything Everywhere All At Once was a great movie; maybe, as Duffy writes, my \u201cemotional response influence[d] [my] perception of reality[2]<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

This book was a companion to Thinking Fast and Slow<\/em>[3]<\/a> in many ways, such as where both authors pointed out deficiencies in how we misuse or misunderstand data to form opinions and make decisions. Why We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything <\/em>also made me think about How To Read Numbers[4]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> as it reminded me that we don\u2019t read or analyze statistics as well as we think we do, and it also suggested Threshold Concepts<\/em>[5]<\/a> because it prompted me to appreciate the fact that there is so much that still requires my crossing a threshold barrier to grasp.<\/p>\n

In fact, I\u2019m starting to think that one of the key takeaways for this semester might be about accepting just how wrong we can be. And I can readily accept that. Because I am wrong. A lot. (Just ask my kids.)<\/p>\n

However, if we\u2019re nearly<\/u><\/em> always wrong, that means we\u2019re not always<\/u><\/em> wrong. Sometimes we\u2019re right. But if wrong is such a ubiquitous condition, how do we determine when we are wrong, when others are wrong, or when everyone, everywhere is wrong, all at once? \u00a0And the corollary: If someone (or everyone) can be wrong, then there must somewhere be a right.<\/p>\n

Duffy\u2019s answer to this question of \u201chow can we determine who is right?\u201d, seems to come down to better data analysis and keener awareness of our own biases. His contention seems to be that \u201cthe spread of misinformation (accidental or deliberate) can be reduced, if not halted, through rational effort.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a nice thought, but halted? I\u2019m not so sure that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

In a rapidly changing world where there is more data generated every day than could possibly be rationally analyzed by one person in a lifetime[7]<\/a>, and in a post-modern culture that often dismisses the idea of truth, how do we blend the data that is relevant with the conclusions that are true?<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not just talking about relatively unimportant subjective opinions like which film should have won best picture, but about eternally important objective matters like whether the claims of Christ are true.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one of the lessons of this book (as well as those other books I mentioned, above) has been to call us to hold very loosely to everything that isn\u2019t rock solid essential to our faith\u2014even those things we have rock solid opinions about. Or, as the 17th<\/sup> century theologian Rupertus Meldenius said, \u201cIn essentials unity, in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity\u201d[8]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The world is indeed, as Duffy writes, \u201ca varied and extraordinary place\u201d[9]<\/a>. Part of that is because we have a diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds, we analyze and interpret facts differently, and yes, we enjoy different movies. We should embrace and celebrate that. Getting a sense of what is truth, what is open to interpretation, and what exists in a shade of grey in-between may be a good place to start.<\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s my all-important question: Am I wrong about Everything Everywhere All At Once, or is everybody else mistaken?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Bobby Duffy, Why We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything<\/em> (New York: Basic Books, 2018), 22.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 20<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow<\/em> (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011).<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Tom Chivers, How To Read Numbers: A Guide to Statistics in the News<\/em>, (Orion Publishing Group, 2021)<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Jan Meyer and Ray Land, Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge <\/em>(New York: Routledge, 2006)<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/views\/2019\/11\/01\/review-bobby-duffy-why-were-wrong-about-nearly-everything-theory-human<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> https:\/\/www.ciobulletin.com\/big-data\/how-much-data-is-created-every-day-and-how-to-collect-it<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> https:\/\/faculty.georgetown.edu\/jod\/augustine\/quote.html<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Duffy, Why We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything<\/em>, 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI hope this book will show you what a varied and extraordinary place the world really is\u201d [1] Some families are sports families. Some are music families. Others are into animals, or the outdoors, or food. The Clarks are film people. Movies are something we all love, so every year my family settles into our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2489,2640],"class_list":["post-31959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp02","tag-duffy","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31959"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31961,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31959\/revisions\/31961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}