In search of facts

Last night I went out with a couple of friends, one liberal, the other conservative.


A point came up about wolves, I commented that "there hasn't been a case of purposeful wolf attacks on humans since 1647." It was a fact I remembered, something I had read not so very long ago, about a wolf pack attacking villagers in France.



The fact I should have said was that there hadn't been a recorded case of wolves purposefully preying, as a pack, on humans, in Europe or the US, since 1647. This is in part true for a couple of reasons, first, those wolves which might have once preyed on humans were killed, Darwinian selection saved those which were shy. The wolves in the US are EXTREMELY so, you don't see them in the wild, or not very darned often.


Second, the wolves in Europe.. well they're basically extinct.



My liberal friend pulled out his computer and brought up his Internet connection and checked my comment and essentially got in my face about the fact that my "fact" was wrong. My intended point was lost. He essentially ignored the idea or "truth" about wolves not preying on humans, he ignored the idea that humans aren't the prey of wolves. I agreed with him that what I said and what I meant weren't precisely the same, but I said if we take his numbers, e.g. Wikipedia's numbers at face value, humans probably haven't been prey for at least hundreds of years if ever. He repeated his point that wolves "attack" humans by pointing out that according to Wikipedia there were wolf killings of humans as late as the 1800's in Russia. In looking at it, I commented that usning that number of roughly 1100 killings in 250 years it amounted to an average of FOUR per year among tens to hundreds of millions of people and millions of wolves. Humans are damned easy prey, we're slow, have poor senses other than sight and if wolves were preying on us, the numbers would have been astronomically higher. Bears kill far more people, so do dogs - yet we grasp that neither bears nor dogs prey on people. In my recent visit to Yellowstone, where there are dozens of wolves and bears and obviously millions of people visiting the park, the Park Service spends zero time educating visitors about wolves, and hundreds of hours and many thousands of dollars educating those same visitors about how to avoid and react to encounters with bears. The evidence is rather revealing to the point that wolves aren't an overt threat to humans. My experience, and that of my father's as an adjunct professor on the subject, is that experts in the field feel that wolf attacks on humans are cases of mistaken identity or otherwise lone, sick animals - and even those situations are so infrequent that the Park Service sees no reason to offer classes educating the public on how to avoid the potentiality.


Still my friend persisted because, "You said it so matter of factly, like you KNOW everything, and I think you're just sensitive to being wrong." I commented I have no issue with being wrong, admitted I was and was happy to admit I stated things too broadly, but I had to wonder why it was so important to him to prove me wrong. What caused him to be so over-focused on proving my statement, rather than even the intent, was flawed?


In contrast, my conservative friend commented that just because there wasn't proof of attacks, doesn't mean it's not happening. He didn't care or even question the facts, he said, by contrast, the overarching point was wrong. He "felt" humans are preyed upon by wolves. I said to him that it's idiocy to attempt to disprove negatives. First and foremost, if such attacks were occurring, they'd be reported. It wouldn't be a mystery, but what's far more important, is we are a society of proof, lacking it means you don't claim it's true. It means you say it's a feeling at best - it means you need to question yourself, your facts, it means you don't make policy about this thing you can't prove. In my case it means you don't agree to kill wolves simply because people fear them.

In DogGone's case below, it means you don't strip people of their rights without proof of fraud. In a nation of due process, and one where conservatives claim a steadfast support of individual liberty and the sanctity of self-determination, we don't take away rights without proof.


But my conservative friend, he didn't change - if you lack evidence, but have a feeling, that's enough, and asking people to prove you wrong is what you do, despite your lack of evidence and their comparative knowledge. You dismiss their facts, ignore them if they are inconvenient and don't jibe with your world view. Next time I think I'll mention that just because we don't have evidence there aren't green men on Mars, doesn't mean there aren't, it just means we haven't found them yet, I have a gut feeling.


It also showed me a couple of other things - first that both sides of the spectrum were flawed. My conservative friend used extraordinarily poor reasoning skills, insisting on proving (as if you somehow could) that it wasn't a case of "not finding the right kind of evidence" rather than recognizing that the burden of proof is always on the side alleging there is a problem. My liberal friend was too myopic, too bound up in the words, in proving his superiority with facts to see the underlying truth. To his credit, after a time he admitted the overarching point was true, namely that wolves don't prey on humans. The "conflict" with him also showed me again I should go from actual facts and be more precise with my recitation of them, or it undermines my point. The second point derives from the first, these flaws mean that neither liberals nor conservatives have a monopoly understanding the meaning of facts and both have something to teach the other. Liberals often check and qeustion facts, Conservatives often have good basic insticts. Yet each is unwilling to listen to the other or learn from the other important points which would otherwise lead to a better cognitive understanding of the basic truths the facts and their gut implies. Rather than stridently arguing pedantic points or dismissing facts which don't agree with your desires, I surely do wish my friends and the larger world would take a moment to seek the truth rather than simply the facts they prefer.