Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost directs us to a website called Edge which asks 120 well-known intellectuals "What do you believe even though you can't prove it?"
As Carter says, some of the answers are intriguing, many are banal, and others just plain absurd. Here are some samples:
Evolution
"I can't prove it more than anecdotally, but I believe evolution has purpose and direction." -- DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, Media Analyst
"I believe, but I cannot prove, that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all 'design' anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection." -- RICHARD DAWKINS, Evolutionary Biologist
"That our ability to perceive signals in the environment evolved directly from our bacterial ancestors." -- LYNN MARGULIS, Biologist
"I believe, though I cannot prove it, that three-not two-selection processes were involved in human evolution. The first two are familiar: natural selection, which selects for fitness, and sexual selection, which selects for sexiness. The third process selects for beauty, but not sexual beauty-not adult beauty. The ones doing the selecting weren't potential mates: they were parents. Parental selection, I call it." -- JUDITH RICH HARRIS, Writer and Developmental Psychologist
Conciousness
"I believe that human consciousness is a conjuring trick, designed to fool us into thinking we are in the presence of an inexplicable mystery." -- NICHOLAS HUMPHREY, Psychologist
"I believe, but cannot yet prove, that acquiring a human language (an oral or sign language) is a necessary precondition for consciousness-in the strong sense of there being a subject, an I, a 'something it is like something to be.' It would follow that non-human animals and pre-linguistic children, although they can be sensitive, alert, responsive to pain and suffering, and cognitively competent in many remarkable ways-including ways that exceed normal adult human competence-are not really conscious (in this strong sense): there is no organized subject (yet) to be the enjoyer or sufferer, no owner of the experiences as contrasted with a mere cerebral locus of effects." - DANIEL DENNETT, Philosopher
"I believe, but cannot prove, that babies and young children are actually more conscious, more vividly aware of their external world and internal life, than adults are." -- ALISON GOPNIK, Psychologist
"I believe that animals have feelings and other states of consciousness,..." -- JOSEPH LEDOUX, Neuroscientist
"Strangely, I believe that cockroaches are conscious." -- ALUN ANDERSON Editor-in-Chief, New Scientist
"Your mind may arise not simply from your own brain, but in part from the brains of other people." -- STEPHEN KOSSLYN, Psychologist
"Tribal Mind." -- ALEX (SANDY) PENTLAND, Computer Scientist
"I believe, but cannot prove, that memory is inherent in nature. Most of the so-called laws of nature are more like habits." -- RUPERT SHELDRAKE, Biologist
"I believe that consciousness and its contents are all that exists." -- DONALD HOFFMAN, Cognitive Scientist
"If we believe that consciousness is the result of patterns of neurons in the brain, our thoughts, emotions, and memories could be replicated in moving assemblies of Tinkertoys. If our thoughts and consciousness do not depend on the actual substances in our brains but rather on the structures, patterns, and relationships between parts, then Tinkertoy minds could think. If you could make a copy of your brain with the same structure but using different materials, the copy would think it was you." -- CLIFFORD PICKOVER, Computer scientist
Language
"I believe this correspondence between human language and raven language is more than coincidence, though this would be difficult to prove." -- GEORGE B. DYSON, Science Historian
Universe
"I believe our universe is not unique." - LAWRENCE KRAUSS, Physicist
"That our universe is infinite in size, finite in age, and just one among many." -- JOHN BARROW, Cosmologist
Religion
"I believe in belief-or rather: I have faith in having faith. Yet, I am an atheist (or a "bright" as some would have it)." -- TOR N?RRETRANDERS, Science Writer
"I believe, but cannot prove, that religious experience and practice is generated and structured largely by a few emotions that evolved for other reasons, particularly awe, moral elevation, disgust, and attachment-related emotions. That's not a prediction likely to raise any eyebrows in this forum." -- JONATHAN HAIDT, Psychologist
Science
"I believe in science. Unlike mathematical theorems, scientific results can't be proved.They can only be tested again and again, until only a fool would not believe them." -- SETH LLOYD
Quantum Mechanical Engineer
Humans
"Human Behavior is Unconsciously Controlled." -- ROBERT R. PROVINE Psychologist and Neuroscientist
"True love." -- DAVID BUSS, Psychologist
"Progress." -- NEIL GERSHENFELD, Physicist
"I know that it sounds corny, but I believe that people are getting better. In other words, I believe in moral progress." -- W. DANIEL HILLIS, Physicist
Extraterrestrial Life
"I believe that microbial life exists elsewhere in our galaxy." -- KENNETH FORD, Physicist
"Life is ubiquitous throughout the universe." -- J. CRAIG VENTER, Genomics Researcher
"I believe that life is common throughout the universe and that we will find another Earth-like planet within a decade." -- STEPHEN PETRANEK, Editor-in-Chief, Discover Magazine
"Is there a fourth law of thermodynamics, or some cousin of it, concerning self constructing non equilibrium systems such as biospheres anywhere in the cosmos? I like to think there may be such a law." -- STEWART KAUFFMAN, Biologist
"Yet I don't believe that life is a freak event. I think the universe is teeming with it." -- PAUL DAVIES, Physicist
Huh?
"The universe is ultimately determined, but we have free will." -- MICHAEL SHERMER Publisher, Skeptic magazine
"I am convinced, but cannot prove, that time does not exist."-- CARLO ROVELLI Physicist
"I believe nothing to be true (clearly real) if it cannot be proved." -- MARIA SPIROPULU, Physicist
We would have thought that the answer to the question would have been "almost everything that we believe" since very little in life can really be proved, but then we're not intellectuals and we lack the wit to say things like "time does not exist" or that "nothing is true if it cannot be proved." With regard to this last, one of the comments to the post at EO pointed out that:
"Maria Spiropulu (a physicist, no less) has a problem: The law of noncontradiction and the law of causality, basic to the scientific method, are axioms of rationality and not provable. According to her own statement she believes nothing that cannot be proven. She has just declared herself irrational."
And Joe Carter reflects upon Daniel Dennett's contribution which says in part that "I believe, but cannot yet prove, that acquiring a human language (an oral or sign language) is a necessary precondition for consciousness". Carter asks whether Dennett would tell Helen Keller that she wasn't conscious until she had learned a language.
What makes reading the pontifications of intellectuals so much fun is that they are often so unconsciously loopy.
