Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Worldview Matters II - Experiential Accommodation

Why Does Worldview Matter? The Impact of Worldview II – Experiential Accommodation


Worldview is the conceptual lens through which we see, understand, and interpret the world and our place within it. Worldview develops in and flows through the heart, the center of the human person, and necessarily involves answers (propositional or narrative) to four questions: What is our nature? What is our world? What is our problem? What is our end? Every person possesses a worldview that provides an answer or set of answers to these core worldview questions, but these individual worldviews can be compiled under broad categories.

But why does worldview matter? How does worldview affect us? Why bother learning about it as a concept, and one’s own worldview specifically? What does it have to do with life? Simply put, worldview matters because one’s worldview affects everything that one thinks and does, through confirmation bias, experiential accommodation, the pool of live options, and life motivation. Last week, I considered confirmation bias – today I want to take a look at experiential accommodation.

Worldview and experiential accommodation.

Worldview influences us by driving us to interpret new data or arguments in a manner that affirms or fits within our existing worldview. Whenever possible, we interpret new data in a worldview-affirming manner.
One example is the various strata of rocks evident in the Grand Canyon. Mainstream geologists look at the data, carbon-date the rocks within the layers, and conclude quite logically that the various layers consist of sediment laid down one layer atop the other over millions of yearsa conclusion that fits quite nicely within their basic belief that the earth is billions of years old and that events on earth have progressed over time through predictable and lengthy physical processes (thus answering the worldview question, what is our world?).

A minority of geologists, however, look at the same physical data and come to radically different conclusions about what these data mean. From these geologists perspective, the layers and even the ancient appearance of the Grand Canyon are not the result of millions of years of erosion but rather represent the catastrophic effects of the global flood described in Genesis 6. The dire consequences of the flood, in their view, explain the inaccuracy of carbon-dating the rocks in those sediment strata: the flood changed the composition of the atmosphere, thereby rendering long-term past carbon-dating useless. Young-earth geologists begin with a radically different set of assumptions and thus interpret the same physical data in a radically different way.

It must be emphasized that both groups of geologists cannot possibly be right. The data of the Grand Canyon cannot mean both that the earth is billions of years old and the rocks are layers of sediment laid down over millions of years and that the earth is only thousands of years old and the evident layers are the result of a single catastrophic flood. One camp is correct in its interpretation and the other is incorrector, perhaps, both camps are incorrect and some other explanation is the right one.

The point is that we inevitably seek to interpret new data, evidence, or arguments in a manner that fits within our existing worldview. Young earth geologists accommodate the data to fit their prevailing worldview; old-earth geologists do the same. Most often, people will accommodate
new data within their worldview rather than altering their worldview to suit new data.

In another Monk episode, Monk suspects a publisher of murder. However, the publisher has an alibi for the night of the murder: he was with a young woman. The woman confirms the alibi, insisting that they were together all night. Someone who believes the man was (or could be) innocent would take the alibi as conclusive proof that he could not have done it. But Monk is not convinced. Rather than allaying his suspicion, he seeks to understand how this new datum could fit within his preexisting hypothesis. He still believes the publisher to be guilty but has to explain why the woman would lie to protect him. He concludes that the man has to be paying off the young woman to provide a false alibi for hima suspicion that is eventually proven correct. The point, again, is that we naturally seek to accommodate new data or information within our existing worldview.

Consider again the relative lack of transitional species in the fossil record. What does one do with that? It depends on the underlying worldview. The creationist simply points out that Darwin proposed a way of falsifying his theory: if the fossils were not there, his theory would be false. The fossils are not there; ergo, Darwinian evolution is false. The Darwinist is not so easily swayed. Perhaps fossils are not retained with equal frequency in various geologic ages such that most transitional fossils have simply not been preserved. Or perhaps Stephen Jay Gould was correct in proposing punctuated equilibrium as a way that Darwinian evolution could be maintained despite the absence of fossil evidence. The point is simply that the new evidence is dealt with differently, and the difference is determined by the underlying worldview.

I am not suggesting that the data have no impact on worldview. During the stage of worldview formation, such data can play a determinative role in answering the second worldview question (what is our world?). Indeed, there is a reciprocal relationship between the young worldview and the data, each influencing the other. Once the worldview becomes established, however, influence flows predominantly one way—worldview directing the interpretation of data. Awareness and conscious examination of worldview can help us be more aware of this process.

Being aware of ones own (and others) worldview, then, can help identify when and where one is being affected by experiential accommodation. Am I rejecting the implications of the fossil record because it conflicts with my evolutionary understanding of the world? Am I unduly
emphasizing the paucity of transitional fossils solely because that supports my understanding of divine creation?

For more on experiential accommodation, and all things worldview, check out:


Tawa J. Anderson, W. Michael Clark, and David K. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World. IVP Academic, October 2017. 384 pp. Amazon link

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