The Apes—Points To Ponder

Suggestibility

The basic question is: How useful is contemporary science as a source of knowledge? There are several good reasons to be cautious about its various theories and proclamations. The first of these is suggestibility.

As human beings we are suggestible. Throughout our life we have received many suggestions that originated with contemporary science. Mostly, we believed these suggestions without question.

Most of the things we think we know we simply accepted “in good faith.” For example, ask anyone who is not in the Work about “how life came to be” and you will normally be treated to a mishmash of ideas that revolve around Darwinian evolution. Most likely the person describing these ideas will not have studied the field at all and will simply have accepted “in good faith” what they were taught at school, or encountered in the media, or have read about in books and magazines. They are unlikely to provide a critical view. Even if they do provide a critical view, it is most likely that their critique will reflect something they read or heard, rather than their own thinking.

To consider the opinions of another to have any validity, one needs to know their source. If they themselves are not the source, one needs to determine who was the original source and consider how they arrived at their opinion. An agreement with the opinion requires either a review of how the original opinion was arrived at, or one’s own analysis that arrives at the same opinion via a different route.

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