In Search of Truth

Some time back, I was reading a religious blog and came across a post that was concerned with something not within the ordinary for such sites. The topic was curiosity and its near absence in the current academic and scientific landscape. It referred to an online article, “How Ignorance Fuels Science and the Evolution of Knowledge” which is commenting on a book by Columbia biological sciences professor, Stuart Firestein, wrote titled Ignorance: How It Drives Science. Here is a bit from that post.

In an age obsessed with practicality, productivity, and efficiency, I frequently worry that we are leaving little room for abstract knowledge and for the kind of curiosity that invites just enough serendipity to allow for the discovery of ideas we didn’t know we were interested in until we are; ideas that we may later transform into new combinations with applications both practical and metaphysical . . . .

In his book, Firestein describes how grant applications for scientific research are now routinely denied on the grounds of being “curiosity-driven” — a term used in a pejorative sense whereas, ironically, it should describe the highest aspiration of science, something many a great scientist can speak to.

One of the things that I have tried to embrace in the past few years is the search for truth and knowledge. This is not just some hobby. I engage in it at my job. I work in US tax. More specifically, the US tax rules relating to US taxpayers doing business outside of the United States.

I know that the first thing that some will say is “why waste your time on searching for truth and knowledge in such a regimented arena.” But even within the pitfalls of laws and regulations built by committee for the lofty purpose of creating a reasonable and fair tax system (often overshadowed by a more pressing purpose of raising revenues by administering rules and writing regulations so that the outcomes are lopsided in favor of the government), I find that this process helps tremendously.

But the rather large body of rules that makes up international tax practice is not simply random rules thrown together with an overriding objective of causing the taxpayer to pay as much as possible. Instead, there is a web of interlocking rules that interact. Take action to gain a better position for one rule and you find that you have changed the interaction with many other rules. Some for the better, and some for the worse.

For several years, my job in one of the large accounting firms has been to develop Excel models to recreate the relevant portions of these rules to weigh the overall outcome of proposed planning. It was useful to show the client how good an idea could be, and it allowed us to know when to bow out if it was a bust.

But more and more, the thinking is being left for the people at the top. The lower levels fill-in forms to file with the return. They know what goes where, but they don’t know why. They finish working on a complicated return and if you ask them a question about it, they have no idea.

The real problem seems to be that they don’t know the “why” for much of anything and they don’t have a drive to ask. They assume that everything that is important to know will eventually be taught to them. Until then, they work along in blissful ignorance.

Maybe it is that they do not yet see enough to realize the need for individual effort. For personal inquiry and study. I err in suggesting that they are all like this. But the number is too high.

As part of a job of doing local training, I have begun to take on this problem. I have structured training that is not ordered by an agenda, but by the realization that material is understood. A popular reference mark in accounting is “SALY” — same as last year. This means that the reason something is done the way it is this year is that the process of the prior year is followed. I advise them to “dump SALY.” It may be useful the first year you do something. But if you are not intentionally looking at what you are doing, SALY can be the wrong answer. It might even be that last year was wrong.

If you read the linked article, you will eventually come across this. “We must teach students how to think in questions, how to manage ignorance. W. B. Yeats admonished that ‘education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.’ ” This is an important key to good education, and to continued success. Learn to think in questions. It is interesting that the teaching by the earliest philosophers was often through the constant questioning of things said. For every answer given, there was another question. It was in the exhaustion of the questions that there began to be some sense that a solution might have been reached. But it was always “might have been.” There was never a sense of absolute certainty.

But in an era in which the notion of certainty is disdained, there seems to be a loss of curiosity to discover what it is you aren’t going to be certain about.

Links:
How Ignorance Fuels Science and the Evolution of Knowledge
BrainPickings: What is Science