In popular culture there is a rather constant urge to offer something new. So the former music must be replaced by the current style, which may or may not be better than that which it replaces. The point of virtue for the new is acceptance by the public, not to be measured by the literary quality of the lyrics or the nature of sound in the music. In style of dress, the year must be changed by the hemline, the fabrics, the color, the current perception of sexual charm, the oddities of jewelry and hair styling. Currently the style shows are offering models, not dressed for every-day life, but in costumes that are bizarre more fitting for secular parties. I understand that the designers have a more practical wardrobe to offer the persons who dress for comfort, for practical daily life, and to be taken seriously for who they are. This morning’s paper discussed a certain model of an automobile, as to its manliness, so to permit a hairy chested man to sit in the driver’s seat. This pattern of review might be continued for numerous popular cultural influences from the way dogs are kept in homes and ladies’ arms, to the architecture of houses. New and change are key words.
The academic world is sometimes taken with the new. How can I as a researcher find something new that puts my name in the books as a true scholar, an innovator, perhaps a genius? Out of such motivation, recognized or unrecognized, emerge numerous oddities that would not make that much difference if they did not take so much time, and resources – and give false reputation to true research and discovery. The results may, in fact, cause considerable harm. For example, consider the matter of multiple personalities. I remember well the emergence of the idea about fifty years ago. At first there were three in the story, and the concept was made a national matter in a publication and film entitled, All About Eve. The fad idea was followed with alleged increasing numbers of personalities in a single individual. Several therapists had to keep the theory going, at some cost to themselves, some patients, and with variant ruses. The story is just now unfolding to the public, and is an undeserved blot on the field of legitimate psychiatry. This chicanery is common enough that sincere scientists in research insist on openness in procedures, and replication of studies to verify what is claimed, and what somewhat sophisticated amateurs have done in the name of rigorous research. I am now grateful that in counseling I never bought into the idea, so popular for a few years – that one might have multiple personalities. The variants in a personality may imply different personalities to some, but these variants belong in the one confusing personality, whose personality distortions appear to be brand new or multiple personalities to some observers.
One must be careful in the treatment of evidence, or what appears to be evidence. The nature of the universe says to me, as it did to David and Isaiah that God is the author of it all. (Psalm 8:3; 19:1; Isaiah 40:22) To many persons the nature of the universe seems so magnificent that it took care of itself and arrived in its present context through its own forces. From this last theory of self-origin, many theories are developed. They may be wrong, or they may be right, and serve mankind even if the origination is in dispute. The excesses in the desire to line up to current belief and popular backgrounding lead to speculation. Having just read an article on the domestication of dogs, I learned that it began about 35,000 years ago, and the change in the dog (from wolfdom) and in mankind (from evolutionary beginnings) contributed to make the modern dog and mankind. Now, the dog is man’s best friend. The article seems speculative, needing evidence for persuasive truth. The story remains for mankind to continue search (a value honored in the Christian Scripture). One is comfortable in finding truth, God’s or nature’s, to conclusions. There is a difference in holding to a conclusion and then seeking theory and evidence for it; and holding to acceptable theory and evidence to find proper evaluation for them. One may find a way through induction or deduction, or miss everything because too little is given to all methods that advance search for truth. Jesus told the story in parables, and challenged the disciples to make experience to fit the meaning. They asked that he speak plainly which is another way of asking for laws by which they might abide. The evidence of Israel’s history shows that we, free in spirit, don’t follow laws, unless we do so by choice in freedom. It is in this commitment that God finds fellowship with his children – free to choose. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020