In the 19th Century a new a philosophical perspective started by Charles Sanders Peirce: Pragmatism. It is the position that truth is a function of what is practical and useful to believe, rather than truth being an accurate copy of some external, objective reality. Its perspective allows human beings to understand their misconceptions about reality and begin to correct them.
Pierce Pragmatism and the Great Collision
All human beings must inevitably see things from their own point of view. This point of view includes the many experiences and biases accrued over their lives. Beliefs and opinions are shaped by membership in religious groups, political parties, geographic locations, education levels, and even membership in the human race. This means that human beings are incapable of ever having purely objective experiences. Because of this, there will always be a clash between a human being's perception of reality and their preconceived notions of reality. This great collision can sometimes cause serious problems in human thinking.
Rationalism and Empiricism
Empiricism and Rationalism are alternative philosophies to Peirce's Pragmatism. To grossly oversimplify, Empiricism states that the truth value of a proposition relies on external evidence, whereas Rationalism states that the truth value of a proposition relies on reasoned intuition. Both theories fail to explain why some small minority of American scientists -- some of whom have PhDs in biology -- have devoted their professional careers to castigating the theory of evolution. Through their studies, these individuals have demonstrated that they are in possession of both reason and evidence. Neither philosophy can account for their way of thinking.
The Pragmatist Solution
The Pragmatism of Peirce states that the truth value of a proposition depends solely on the practical value it has to the individual. When one thinks pragmatically, it becomes obvious why the aforementioned scientists are opposed to the theory of evolution -- they see conflict between it and their religious beliefs. These individuals value the cohesiveness of their religious ideas more than they value evidence for evolution or the reasoning that affirms it. The great collision takes place in their mind, and because of their subjective biases, they reject the truth value of evolution. To be clear, this is not because these renegade scientists are pragmatists -- the concept of no ultimate truth is contrary to the teachings of many religions -- it is because they are thinking the normal, fallible way all human beings think.
Pragmatism and the Scientific Method
Because Peirce pragmatism posits that truth is inherently subjective, many have misunderstood and misconstrued it to mean truth is meaningless. Pragmatism does not mean people may simply believe to be true whatever they might wish to be true. Pragmatism instead recognizes that truth can only be a function of value for everyone because everyone thinks subjectively. Therefore, a Pragmatist recognizes that the value scientific method is that through it, scientists are able to discover and create so many valuable things.
A Pragmatist Proposal
Currently, many evolution-accepting scientists believe that the theory can win more adherents through the better dissemination of evidence and the reasoning behind it. In other words, more Rationalism and Empiricism. An alternative, Pragmatist approach would entail emphasizing the practical value of the theory of evolution. For example, scientific understanding of DNA and natural selection has been crucial in the development of new medicines to fight deadly diseases.
Our understanding of the theory of evolution is just one area in which the Pragmatism of Peirce helps us understand flaws in human thinking. Its genius, however, lies not in recognizing errors -- it is in explaining why we have errors in the first place.
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