SUMMARY: A number of archaeological discoveries were made in 2019 that have shifted the landscape by overturning scholarly consensus in several key areas. To end the year, this article marks the second installment in a series designed to help readers weigh competing claims and identify thinking influenced by bias and prejudice.
Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight ahead – Proverbs 15:21 (ESV)
Excavating Thought: Tools for Unearthing Bias and Prejudices
In the previous article, we began a series to finish out 2019 and launch 2020. In that article on paradigms amongst scholars, we noted three examples of archaeological findings from the past year that were paradigm shifting. These discoveries have advanced the view of Scripture as an objective source of reliable history. The findings were so significant that they are shifting scholarly consensus in some key areas.
However, they have also raised some questions. These questions include: “Why are there sometimes such strong differences of interpretation and opinion among established experts?” and “When differences show up, how can I know who to trust?” Others include, “How do paradigms develop and become established?” or “What tools can I use to identify faulty or weak thinking?”
Today’s Thinker installment is dedicated to providing readers with a few tools that they can use in their own kind of excavation – the unearthing of thought patterns. These tools will help our Thinkers identify patterns of thought that reveal sloppy, biased, or poor thinking that inevitably produce unreliable outcomes.
Understanding the Field of Archaeology
Archaeology can be understood as the study of human pre-history by analysis of the material culture left behind by past generations. The materials investigated are generally “pre-history,” or prehistoric in nature. This means that they were produced at a time prior to the widespread production of written records.
Because researchers are trying to interpret a reality from material artifacts that are prehistoric in nature, there is a lot of opportunity for individual, conflicting interpretation to arise. Recall the researcher’s statement from the previous post: “While the biblical narrative describes an early, pre-10th century kingdom … the archaeological record has been subjected to conflicting interpretations…” This was the evaluation of a major archaeological team representing the University of San Diego and Tel Aviv University.
In the course of investigation, much depends on the fundamental assumptions with which the individual researcher begins. As noted in Part 1, the best scholars try to give a straightforward account of the evidence. However, interpretation of archaeological evidence is impacted by things such as differences in individual backgrounds, political viewpoints, personal experiences, philosophical outlook, and more.
To help our readers understand how biases and poor thinking can surface, below are four kinds of problematic patterns of thought that we all need to be able to expose, as well as avoid. They are prejudicial/personal conjecture, unargued philosophical bias, incoherent thinking, and logical fallacies.
Prejudicial/Personal Conjecture
We all have personal preferences and biases. When the issue is simply personal preference related to things that are mundane and inconsequential, like my preference for Doberman Pinschers over Chihuahuas, or harpsichords over pianos, the impact is minimal. However, bias or prejudice is very often very serious. Prejudice is an unfavorable feeling or perspective formed in advance and without good reason(s). When this shows up in research, it results in a compromised, unreliable evaluation of the evidence and tends toward conjecture.
Whereas prejudice is a feeling or attitude, conjecture is the expression of such a feeling as a possible solution or explanation. It is the result of speculative reasoning formed from insufficient evidence so as not to be reliable. When one’s prejudice drives conjecture in research, it is known as prejudicial conjecture and is a problem that needs to be exposed. So, the first tool our Thinkers need to have, is the ability to spot this kind of thinking. Here’s how.
Be alert to criticism of the biblical record based on prejudice. It is often expressed in terms of what “seems likely” to the critic, rather than based on facts or evidence. This kind of criticism is influenced by the feeling, intuition, or prejudice of the researcher, rather than based on an objective evaluation of research itself.
Unargued Philosophical Bias
A second kind of thought pattern that lies beneath the surface and is a major problem in the area of research, is that of unargued philosophical bias. In this situation, the individual’s own philosophical pre-commitments determine what will be accepted as evidence, in advance. In the world of ophthalmology, for example, if an eye doctor believes that a certain kind of eye problem is impossible, though his colleague believes that the ailment is in fact possible, how might their respective interpretations of relevant symptoms differ?
Consider how this works out in the area of biblical studies and related disciplines, where at the deepest level, a person’s worldview informs his evaluation and acceptance of evidence. A minimalist, materialist, critic may dismiss the biblical record as unreliable because of its numerous accounts of miracles, assumptions about the theological agenda of a given writer, or views about its composition history.
For the maximalist, however, miracles may be possible because an all-powerful Creator of the cosmos can certainly do things which are out of the ordinary and contrary to human experience. Additionally, the maximalist is likely more willing to take the theological goals of the writer at face value and will likely be more suspicious of theories about composition history that are inconsistent with Scripture’s self-witness.
After all, the Bible has a recognized uniqueness in terms of the history of its transmission that sets it apart from the rest of literature. Its reliability has been demonstrated time and time again, including over the course of 2019, as noted in our last post. Occasionally, even its toughest critics acknowledge this fact. For example, in a now famous 1974 Time magazine article entitled, “How True is the Bible,” the publication admitted the following:
“After more than two centuries of facing the heaviest scientific guns that could be brought to bear, the Bible has survived—and is perhaps the better for this siege. Even on the critics’ own terms—historical fact—the Scriptures seem more acceptable now than they did when the rationalists began the attack.”
There are a variety of reasons why individuals may reject the Bible’s reliability. However, it gets very personal for individuals who reject the Bible’s ethical and moral perspectives. Sometimes this biases researchers against it in advance. As time goes on, though, the Bible’s historical record proves to be increasingly resilient. (See a dig that supports the biblical story of the destruction of Jerusalem)
Incoherent Thinking
Incoherent thinking reflects a situation where an individual holds to competing or irreconcilable positions at the same time. At a basic level, it may look like an arbitrary or inconsistent acceptance or use of evidence or logic. That is, evidence may be used in an arbitrary way to support an individual’s preference or convenience, rather than consistently and honestly. For example, an individual may utilize the Bible’s historical record to promote a political agenda, but then argue against the biblical record to secure funding for academic interests.
In another example, some minimalists may feel that all of nature operates in a predictable or law-like fashion – absolutely. The result is that the Bible or parts of the Bible referencing miracles are dismissed as baseless superstition, myth, or fairytale. They may go on, however, to argue that evolution is the one great exception to the second law of thermodynamics, resulting from unknown causes that have yet to be discovered. This appears to be a position held inconsistently and accepted on faith. In this case there are two approaches, but do not appear so different after evaluation.
Logical Fallacies
The fourth and final pattern of thought for consideration is that of logical fallacies. In order to reason well, the researcher must do so according to certain rules, that is laws of logic. The researcher who violates these rules engages in a flawed form of reasoning and a pattern of thinking that is not reliable. There are many kinds of logical fallacies and many locations on the internet where complete lists with explanations can be found.
A basic list that readers will want to familiarize themselves with include the following:
- Ad Hominem
- Appeal to Ignorance
- Appeal to Authority
- Argumentum ad populum (bandwagon fallacy or appeal to the masses)
- Strawman Argument
- False Dilemma
- Slippery Slope Fallacy
- Circular Argument
- Hasty Generalization
- Red Herring Fallacy
Conclusion
As thinkers, we need to continually sharpen our tools at identifying the sloppy or biased thinking of researchers or others wherever shows up, in humility. Sometimes it shows up as prejudicial/personal conjecture. At other times, unargued philosophical bias lurks just below the surface. Occasionally, it may be recognizable as incoherence in thought or even logical fallacies.
We all have preferences and biases, but even if we can’t stop others from engaging in poor thinking, we will want to do our best to sharpen and refine our own. Next time, in our final article on this topic, we will learn some of the indicators that give evidence of the above problems. Until then, KEEP Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Tim Mahoney thinking over the pattern of evidence in Jordan. (© 2018 Patterns of Evidence, LLC.)
NOTE: Not every view expressed by scholars contributing Thinker articles necessarily reflects the views of Patterns of Evidence. We include perspectives from various sides of debates on biblical matters so that readers can become familiar with the different arguments involved. – Keep Thinking!
