Conclusions: a fun place to stay

In the newspaper the other day, there was an article about the use of cosmetics in ancient times, and by ancient times, I don't mean ancient Greece of Egypt sort of ancient times, I mean prehistoric times. Now, it may be surprising, but I don't actually want to talk about the article at all. "Why did I bring it up then?" I hear you ask. The answer is what happened in the pull out quote. They quoted an archaeologist as saying essentially that the conclusion that they had drawn was the only feasible one that could be had. Do you see what he did there? He made a conclusion based on minimal information, some evidence, and his interpretation of these two. This is what I want to talk about.

In the book The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, the three main characters all come to conclusions quite independently. This results in them literally jumping to a place called Conclusions (due to the nature of the book, this makes sense). Nothing can possibly go wrong now, We have plenty of time, and It certainly couldn't be a nicer day are the three conclusions in question. These seem to be fairly minor, but it's worth noting that even these are unprovable claims; conclusions that have been 'jumped to'. Things like a man sits down at a piano, you make the conclusion that he can play it or a woman holds a baby on her own you assume that it is hers.

This is a danger that we all succumb to. We twist facts to fit theories instead of twisting theories to fit facts. This means that we give ourselves blind spots in regards to facts that have been proven wrong (because they once 'proved' the theory) and won't allow ourselves to accept facts that don't fit our theories. In this case, mineral pigment was found in 2 half oyster shells therefore, they must have been used for cosmetics. Now aside from the fact that they have only found two or they might have been used as paint palates for the much touted cave paintings, there is still the fact that we don't actually know and yet, it obviously means this. Like I said earlier, minimal information, even less evidence and an interpretation.

This often happens with history. In the future, archaeologists will jump to the conclusion that all anyone ever did now was to sit on the internet watching cats and talking about not sitting on the internet (even though this is fairly true). This is because they weren't here, they don't know but they have some evidence that points to these facts.

The saying goes that "when you assume you make as ass out of u and me" and this holds in most cases like this one. The problem with assumptions is that most times once it is made, it is much harder to change your mind about it later.

Now there is a danger that is less prevalent and in most cases not as bad, but can still often have negative results. This is the danger of NOT drawing a conclusion despite the fact that there is only one possible conclusion to make. The theory behind this is that there could be more information that will have to change the theory. While I can understand this, it also is a problem. The issue between the two is finding a balance, not jumping to conclusions too soon, and not getting left behind the three corollaries of the aforementioned (correct) conclusion.