Inferring and Explaining

5 its core. Furthermore, a lot of your teachers and other intellectual authority fgures are products of this academic culture, and I think you need to know where they’re coming from. Finally, these theoretical considerations have found their way into the popular epistemological culture. A lot of my students are unapologetic rela- tivists in two very diferent ways. One is quite laudable. Many of you embrace diversity. You admire the fact that we bring diferent perspec- tives to discussions and investigations. You are loath to disparage those who think diferently about religion, politics, or other things that matter deeply to you and your peers. You rec- ognize that lots of thoughtful and decent people see things very diferently than you do when it comes to abortion rights, the death penalty, or even climate change. One very understandable reaction to this is to think everyone has a right to his or her own beliefs. In the sense of a First Amendment right to freedom of thought and speech, I completely agree with this sentiment. It’s one thing, how- ever, to have the right to think what you think or believe what you believe; it’s quite another to have the right to be correct about what you think and believe. My students sometimes say things that I fnd paradoxical. Tey tell me that their truth is simply diferent from mine. Sure, I believe that natural selection is spot-on, so it’s true for me. But they believe that it’s god- less and silly to think that “man came frommon- keys,” so evolution is false for them. Tat’s just another discussion stopper. It forecloses any real shared dialogue and investigation of which one of us is right. We won’t spend much time in this book (though in another book I hope to write, it will be central) on purelymoral disputes such as the pro-life/pro-choice controversy or the case for and against animal rights. We will spend some time a little later on the constitutionality, if not the morality, of the death penalty. And we will spend a fair amount of time looking at the evidence for descent with modifcation by natural selection. Consider the disagreement about climate change. Tere’s a lot of passion on both sides. Tat’s obvious. People certainly have a right to not be persecuted because of their beliefs on questions such as these—not to be downgraded by their professors. But do these rights mean that there’s no correct answer to the ultimate question of whether human cultural and industrial practices are contributing to cli- mate change? Or evenwhether climate change is really occurring? Being tolerant of other’s views is a good thing, but being unwilling to seek some common ground or even fnd a correct answer is either laziness or intellectual cowardice. Truth and the Popular Culture: “Fake News” and “Alternative Facts” Tis leads to my students’ second reason for their relativism, if not outright skepticism. None of us are climate scientists, so we are reli- ant on outside sources for most of our informa- tion. But outside sources seem to tell us diferent things. Te “liberal” press tells us one story about climate change, while “conservative” media tells a very diferent one.Te president of the United States tells us that mainstreammedia are guilty of feeding us “fake news.” I believe he is very wrong about this. But whom should you believe—your philosophy professor or the presi- dent? My guess is that the way you answer this question has relatively little to dowithwho I am, ValuIng truth