Behind the Waxy Myths

FROM THE ARCHIVES (Daily Nebraskan columns)

Behind the Waxy Myths

Jeremy Patrick (jhaeman@hotmail.com)

The Daily Nebraskan

March 26, 2001

"Truth: n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time."
--Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

I wish Ambrose Bierce were alive today. Author of "The Devil's Dictionary," he had the rare ability to see what we actually mean when we use certain words. One of the current buzzwords in academic discourse is "critical thinking." It's recited like a veritable mantra by many intellectuals. I expect if Bierce were around, he'd look at the term's current usage and give it an entry in "The Devil's Dictionary" like this: "Critical thinking: n. That which one has obviously failed to do whenever one disagrees, for whatever reason, with the views of the speaker."
But at the same time, it is clear that our society is dangerously lacking in critical thinking. When the National Enquirer makes millions, thousands call the "Psychic Hotline" and every 3 a.m., infomercial touts a new "miracle" product, something is probably wrong. If, as the textbooks say, an informed public is necessary for a well-functioning democracy, the reason for many of our country's various debacles suddenly becomes crystal ball clear.
Of course, we're all guilty of lapses in critical thinking at one time or another. The problem with such lapses is they can be terribly embarrassing and strike anyone, anytime. They are not relegated solely to the "uneducated," as shown by the fact that just about every scam in existence has had testimony from a doctor or scientist of some sort.
So as penance for my own lapse in critical thinking, I share a story: Several months ago my boyfriend, Daniel, told me about this new product called "ear candles." He told me that they were a great way to remove earwax and that he had personally seen how well they work. So with such "evidence," we trudged on down to Open Harvest and plunked down several dollars for tapered tubes made out of wax. Daniel filled me in on how they "work." First, you lie down on the couch. Second, you place the narrow end of the tube in your ear so that the other end is sticking in the air. Third, you light that end on fire.
Now, If you're picturing someone with a flaming cone sticking out of their ear and it sounds suspicious, you're right and a whole lot smarter than I was. But alas ...
Although I almost set Daniel's hair on fire, we were both amazed by what happened. After a few minutes, we snuffed the lit end and looked inside the tube. It was filled with a crumbling brown substance, obviously earwax. We weren't able to figure out how they worked, but I remember hypothesizing something about a vacuum.
So it was much to my chagrin when, a few days later, I walked into Barnes and Noble and picked up the newest issue of Skeptical Inquirer. There, on the cover in big bold letters, were the words "Behind the Ear Candle Myth." The article discussed experiments the authors had done and stated what should have been very obvious: the brown, crumbly substance found after lighting one end of the candle on fire was the remnants of the candle itself.
In reading Kant's thick, obfuscating works, there has only been one time I have ever laughed. It was when, in the "Critique of Pure Reason," he said, "Deficiency in the faculty of judgment is really what we call stupidity, and there is no remedy for that."
I hope he's wrong about that last part and that a rigorous use of critical thinking can compensate for at least some inherent stupidity. At its core, "critical thinking" is nothing more than the application of the scientific method. When it comes down to it, the method of science is even more important that the results it helps us to achieve.
As Stillman Drake said, "Facts ... constitute only a part of what science has to teach us, and they make up neither the most interesting nor the most significant ... the truly influential and pervasive aspects of modern science are not its fact at all, but rather its method of inquiry and its criterion of truth."
In his book "The Demon-Haunted World," Carl Sagan wrote about what he called a "baloney-detection" kit. In short, a few principles everyone should keep in mind when evaluating a claim. The "tools" in Sagan's baloney-detection kit are simple but effective: finding independent confirmation of facts, encouraging substantive debates by knowledgeable proponents on both sides of an issue, examining multiple hypotheses, avoiding arguments from authority and asking if the hypothesis can (at least in principle) be disproved, are all good methods of separating the wheat from the chaff.
Or at least separating the ear candles from the Q-Tips.