On certainty, security and risk

Science gives us hope that one day we can be sure of the truth and all risk.

When someone says "I'm sure," expressing two ideas are very different: 1) "I know what I'm talking about, what I say is exactly true, I have no doubt," and 2) "I am safe and not take risks, I fully protected. "

From this confusion, we often have fantasies that:

- "Knowledge saves us";
- "The truth, not only there but at the end our fears possess hazards";
- "Know the truth is a matter of life or death."

Those who are possessed by the confusion arising from a linguistic ambiguity (confusion between certainty and security), is likely to be devoted to study some science and is likely to flee from any intellectual discipline that dispenses a desperate search for "the truth".

To earn money for sure, we have more difficulties to make money by being attentive to a changing reality and quite unpredictable.

Indeed, the certainty is associated with reasoning, objective findings, with positivism (philosophical belief according to which the scientific method is the only valid to know the reality).

However, it is not always possible to understand human phenomena using scientific experimental methodology for social phenomena can not be reproduced artificially in a laboratory and in other cases, experiment with living things require a cruelty that universal human rights would not allow.

Although the "dream of truth itself" encourages many humans who rely on the knowledge that there are sure to complete security (no uncertainty), it seems impossible in fact.

Contrast is still more reliable (though not as safe as those who need long to live without risk), self-knowledge to empathize with those who do profitable business.

Note: Original in Spanish (without translation by Google): Sobre certeza, seguridad y riesgo.

(This is the Article No. 1719)

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