Found this book by The Brain Science podcast host Virginia “Ginger” Campbell, MD, “Are You Sure? The Unconscious Origins of Certainty” and her podcast interviews with Dr. Robert Burton (On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not (2008) full of relevant neuroscience evidence and well-reasoned discussion about this whole topic of scaffolding towards certainty (or not).
Formal learning doesn't often handle uncertainty, as it builds certainty into its courses and content. This is why I abhor the move towards courses in areas with lots of uncertainty, diversity of views , complexity and a range moral and political views. The certainty of courses in DEI, for example, peddle a sort of absolute moral certainty that makes many feel uncomfortable, accused and suspicious. Diversity of thought is now crushed by an orthodoxy that will brook no challenge. Employees are now forced to conform to moral strictures, rather than the simple expectation that they do their jobs well.
I like this analogy of a staircase of uncertainty. For me, underlying assumptions and values are the baseline for certainty, and also conversely the key to unpacking behavioural change. How entrenched our values are could be connected to our levels of certainty on ideas and concepts that are related to those intrinsic values. Connected to that is our intrinsic biases that reinforce or make concrete things that are important to us that move things into 'facts' territory vs. what is really an assumption or guesswork.
Found this book by The Brain Science podcast host Virginia “Ginger” Campbell, MD, “Are You Sure? The Unconscious Origins of Certainty” and her podcast interviews with Dr. Robert Burton (On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not (2008) full of relevant neuroscience evidence and well-reasoned discussion about this whole topic of scaffolding towards certainty (or not).
Hey Judy - thanks so much for sharing resources for everyone in this community - i’ve not come across Virginia’s work and will take a look!
Formal learning doesn't often handle uncertainty, as it builds certainty into its courses and content. This is why I abhor the move towards courses in areas with lots of uncertainty, diversity of views , complexity and a range moral and political views. The certainty of courses in DEI, for example, peddle a sort of absolute moral certainty that makes many feel uncomfortable, accused and suspicious. Diversity of thought is now crushed by an orthodoxy that will brook no challenge. Employees are now forced to conform to moral strictures, rather than the simple expectation that they do their jobs well.
I like this analogy of a staircase of uncertainty. For me, underlying assumptions and values are the baseline for certainty, and also conversely the key to unpacking behavioural change. How entrenched our values are could be connected to our levels of certainty on ideas and concepts that are related to those intrinsic values. Connected to that is our intrinsic biases that reinforce or make concrete things that are important to us that move things into 'facts' territory vs. what is really an assumption or guesswork.