Self-Correcting Vs. Self-Certainty: Is Order Preferred to the Truth?

When the truth is viewed as a threat, society and progress grind to a halt.

Are you ready for some chaos? Image by Jeff x Image Generator 4o

He grew up barefoot on a dirt farm and couldn’t read until he was 13. But he was loyal—to the land, to hard work, and most of all, to the Communist Party. When the Russian Revolution came, he got into agriculture school. He experimented. Tested new methods. Tried to grow wheat in snow.

But the party came first. Always the Soviet Communists. Science be dammed. But round the world, scientific advancements - especially in genetics and agriculture - were making huge gains in productivity throughout the West. Marxist’s beliefs dictated that only the environment could impact plants and animals. Genetics was bullshit and didn’t align with the beliefs of the party.

Party first.

So, he designed experiments like soaking seeds in freezing water to ‘educate’ them on Soviet winters. He wanted seeds to adapt to their environment. Get use to the cold. Lysenko believed that he could conform biology to ideology. He believed that party would prevail over science.

The Lysenko story played well with the party. He had little formal education and a hardscrabble, fingers-in-the-dirt backstory. State run newspapers began to sing his praises. He hated the West and the science-backed approach to problems. This all made him very popular with the party. They continued to promote and hype Lysenko and his work.

Lysenko often published fabricated pseudo-science experiments and falsified results to support his theories.

The results?

Biology did not adapt to ideology. The seeds did not acclimatize themselves to cold winters. Ideology did not conquer the truth. It did create a national famine that killed millions. His radical ideas, such as planting seeds very close together and banning the use of fertilizers and pesticides, led to widespread crop failures. These failures amplified famines that killed millions of people in the Soviet Union. Stalin's unwavering support for Lysenko (ideology over science) meant that his methods were implemented on a large scale, creating, prolonging and worsening food shortages.

And China adopted the Lysenko principles in the 1950’s, under the leadership of Mao, and up to 30 million more humans died of starvation.

Today, Lysenko is known as the scientist that killed more human beings than any other single scientist throughout history.

Why is any of this important to us today?

Well, to simplify things, there are two types of organization in the world. There are self-certain organizations and self-correcting organizations. This distinction is critical.

Self-Certain Organizations: clings rigidly to established beliefs or authority, often rejecting evidence that contradicts its views. Such systems are characterized by a lack of willingness to adapt or change, even in the face of new information.

Examples:

1. Dogmatic Science: Unlike the self-correcting nature of mainstream science, dogmatic science resists change and clings to outdated theories despite new evidence. This rigidity can stifle innovation and progress. For example, the initial resistance to the heliocentric model by the scientific community and the Church is an instance of self-certainty.

2. Dictatorial Regimes: Dictatorial regimes often exhibit self-certainty by assuming the infallibility of the central authority. The party is always right. You must pay allegiance and adhere. If the facts do not align with the party then the facts are wrong. It’s fake news. It’s a fabrication by the inept. For instance, Soviet propaganda depicted Stalin as an infallible genius, and any challenge to his decisions was suppressed. This lack of self-correcting mechanisms led to disastrous decisions that could not be rectified

3. Religious Fervor: the moment the group pledges to the unwavering belief in the infallibility of religious doctrines or leaders or text, you are creating a self-certain organization. If it comes from God it cannot be questioned. Then what of the science that proves those beliefs wrong? It’s flat-earth, the earth at the center of the universe, it’s God’s will be done and ignoring modern medical practices that save lives.

Self-Correcting Organizations: actively identify and rectify its errors, adapting beliefs or practices based on new evidence. This process involves continuous feedback loops that help the system improve over time by learning from mistakes. And the most successful organizations actively try to prove themselves wrong. Each fact builds upon the next. Each fact tested and proofed or amended or corrected. Or disproven. But in this method our knowledge grows. Society and science can move forward because we can trust the work of the organization. And if they get it wrong, they will correct it through further experimentation until theory becomes fact.

Examples:

1. Science: The scientific method is a prime example of a self-correcting system. Scientists develop hypotheses, conduct experiments, and subject their findings to peer review and replication. Errors and false theories are gradually weeded out through this rigorous process. For instance, the shift from the geocentric model to the heliocentric model of the solar system, championed by Copernicus and Galileo, exemplifies how science self-corrects over time despite initial resistance.

2. Human Body: The human body employs numerous self-correcting mechanisms to maintain homeostasis. For example, if blood pressure becomes too high, the body activates mechanisms to lower it, and vice versa. This constant adjustment ensures that critical parameters like blood pressure, temperature, and sugar levels remain within safe limits. These occur naturally when the body is healthy. But a body that is not healthy needs support to be able to correct itself.

3. Democratic governments: are by design self-correcting. They incorporate self-correcting mechanisms such as checks and balances, free press, and regular elections. If society makes a mistake they can correct it through the next election. These mechanisms allow for the identification and correction of policy errors and maladministration. The United States' system of checks and balances, inspired by ancient Rome, was designed to prevent any single branch of government from becoming too powerful, thereby ensuring that mistakes can be corrected through legislative, executive, and judicial oversight. When a powerful party begins to chip away at these controls, by gerrymandering elections, ignoring courts, attacking a free press then society loses it’s ability to self-correct. We become a ‘self-certain’ society reliant on the party to tell us how to think, and act, and how to support the central doctrine.

The Self-Correcting Model: Truth as a Process, Not a Product

This is humility as ‘ideology.’ Science assumes they’ve gotten something wrong today. They believe they will be less wrong tomorrow but always better than yesterday. It’s a constant truth seeking.

• Scientific Organizations and the Culture of Correction:

  • Peer review, falsifiability, replication studies.

  • Examples: Retraction Watch, the scientific method, CRISPR development, climate science.

• Humility as Epistemology:

  • Science assumes it's probably wrong today and will be less wrong tomorrow.

  • Institutions like Wikipedia (in its ideal form) operate this way.

• Benefits:

  • Truth-seeking.

  • Long-term credibility.

  • Adaptability in changing environments.

• Challenges:

  • Short-term instability.

  • Public confusion (“science keeps changing its mind!”).

  • Vulnerability to misrepresentation or misuse of early-stage knowledge. It’s easy to pervert studies through the art of cherry-picking facts or ignoring context to create doubt.

The Self-Certain Model: Order and Control Above All

We start obeying even before we’ve been asked to. We get in line, stop asking questions. We stop taking responsibility for ourselves and we attack anyone and anything that threatens the accepted ideology.

• Religious and Ideological Certainty:

  • Sacred texts, unchangeable doctrines, loyalty to first principles.

  • Examples: creationism vs. evolution debates, flat-earth movements, some political ideologies.

• Order as a Virtue:

  • Certainty provides community cohesion, identity, moral clarity.

  • Truth becomes a threat to the system—heresy, apostasy, blasphemy.

• Costs:

  • Rigidity.

  • Resistance to new evidence or changing environments.

  • Dogma can supersede lived reality (e.g., banning books, rejecting science).

Truth is a Disruptive Force. Chaos is its Friend

Truth sounds noble - until it collides with power. Most people say they want truth. But then it threatens their beliefs and they immediately revert to lies and old beliefs that are no longer valid. The truth will threaten your ideology. It’ll threaten your tribe.

It destabilizes.

And when truth challenges the established order, chaos often follows.

Take Galileo. He found moons orbiting Jupiter—evidence that not everything circled Earth. The Church felt its authority threatened. Galileo recanted under threat. But the truth waited.

Or Darwin. His theory of evolution challenged religious creation. The chaos was intellectual, cultural, moral. It reshaped humanity’s view of itself. It is still fought over today. It’s evolution vs. creationism. Accepting evolution goes against the ancient doctrine of many religions. It’s the same battle fought by Galileo.

Even COVID-19 science created chaos. New data about masks, transmission, vaccines— triggered battles not just of policy but of identity. Science showed masks helped. Science showed vaccines worked and were safe. These scientifically proven facts attacked beliefs of conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxers.

Why? Because truth forces reorganization. It dismantles hierarchies, dogmas, and trusted narratives. Accepted truth is hard to control. It is self-evident. It is self-correcting. And so, institutions suppress it. People recoil. Not because truth is evil—but because it’s chaos to anything built on a different foundation.

It forces us to examine ourselves and our beliefs.

But truth is also the test of whether a system was built to evolve or only to endure.

The Balance Between Truth and Order

Truth is disruptive. It exposes weaknesses in systems, calls leaders to account, and breaks brittle ideologies. But pure, unchecked truth can be destructive too—a flood with no levees.

Order is structure. It holds society together. But when order fears truth, it becomes tyranny. It clings to myths, silences dissent, and builds illusions that collapse under pressure.

Or worse, don’t collapse. They grow and build until everyone is forced to ignore the truth or stand up and fight. This leads to chaos.

The most enduring systems allow for both:

• Constitutional democracies.

• Scientific communities.

• Open-source platforms.

• Reformed religious traditions.

These are hybrid systems that evolve without collapsing. They understand that correction isn’t failure; it’s the cost of being real.

It’s the only path that develops honesty.

Is There a Middle Path? Adapting Without Collapsing

There are organizations that blend stability with growth. These hybrid systems find a way to honor tradition and structure without becoming imprisoned by them. They evolve by design.

Some religious groups, for instance, have reinterpreted sacred texts through progressive theology. Rather than deny scientific evidence or modern ethical insights, they integrate them—allowing ancient beliefs to stay relevant in modern times. They survive not by rigidity, but by renewal.

Likewise, scientific institutions are learning to communicate uncertainty better to the public. By admitting what they don't know while showing how they learn, they build public trust instead of confusion. The COVID-19 pandemic showed how hard this is—but also how necessary.

The best political models, like constitutional democracies, bake self-correction into their design. Courts can overturn unjust laws. Amendments can modernize founding documents. Citizens vote. None of this is perfect, but it keeps the system breathing.

Even in technology, open-source software communities demonstrate this principle. Codebases are publicly maintained, bugs are reported and patched in real-time, and better versions are always emerging. Agile development methods mirror the scientific method: test, iterate, adapt. This is ideology turned flexible.

This is Collective Intelligence. It’s multiple minds with a common mission focused on a singular problem. There is no room for anything but the truth.

And what underpins all of this? Narrative.

Humans run on story. If truth is going to cause disruption, we need to be able to frame that disruption as growth. Storytelling doesn’t just change a smack in the face to a nudge in the right direction — it makes change meaningful. Whether in the pulpit, the lab, or the legislature, truth only becomes transformational when it’s told well.

Yes. Polish it up. Put a bow on it. But don’t distort the truth.

Truth or Order? Or Something Stronger?

Lysenko shows us what happens when ideology overrules inquiry.

When correction is replaced with allegiance and considered heresy.

The dangers of Lysenkoism—subsuming biology to ideology—continue to lurk. This perversion of science to promote ideology is not just a historical issue but a contemporary one, as seen in various modern-day examples of science being distorted to suit a narrative or maybe just to create a new voting bloc.

Maybe the real question isn’t truth versus order.

Maybe it’s whether we can build durable systems that value truth enough to survive its consequences. Maybe it’s whether we can create systems that understand that the status quo does not exist.

The world spins onwards.

Because truth without order is chaos. But order without truth is delusion.

So:

• What are we willing to sacrifice for comfort?

• What kind of institutions do we want shaping our future?

• Do we have the courage to be wrong?

• Do you want an institution that can correct itself?

Because the systems that endure will not be the most self-certain. They will be the most self-aware.

Given the choice? I pick chaos—because from chaos, we can learn. But I hope we keep building smarter systems. Systems that don’t fear the truth.

Think About it…

I had a little lag here between stories. I’ve just been frustrated at the direction we seem to be going in. A direction which is tearing down our abilities to self-correct ourselves. So I just kept reading. Trying to understand.

I started asking myself questions (quietly and with a tequila shot sitting next to me):

1. When was the last time I changed my mind about something important—and why?

If you can’t remember, or if your reason was emotional loyalty rather than new evidence, you’re probably screwed. The world is evolving faster, and faster. Don’t get left behind. Educate yourself.

2. Do I seek out information that challenges my beliefs—or just confirms them?

Self-correcting individuals invite discomfort. And in discomfort, growth is found. Self-certain ones crave comfort. Yes, sitting your butt down on the couch and streaming podcast dudes without further thought is comforting.

3. If I’m proven wrong, do I feel relief, curiosity… or shame and anger?

Correction isn’t failure—it’s progress. It’s the path to learning and understanding. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. (and yes, I know this is all zenny but get over it.)

4. Would I rather protect my identity or pursue the truth, even if it costs me belonging?

Self-certainty often masquerades as community. These communities like to create an us-against- them environment. Either you’re with us or against us. Stand up. Be heard. Don’t just obey.

5. Am I building beliefs that can be tested—or ones that must be defended at all costs?

Dude, I get it. I’m as competitive as the next guy. Hit me and I want to hit back. But Science tries to build systems meant to fail safely. An idea is a starting point not a brick in a wall.

Do it…

Read: I’ve been re-reading a lot of older books during this crazy time. Just finished the existential novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It’s sexy, though-provoking, and ever so timely. Give it a shot. And, as a nod to my son, I read one of his favorite authors. The Rebel by Albert Camus. It’s simply stories of fighting back. Something we can all use for inspiration.

Watch it: It’s always uplifting to watch people making a difference in the world. Plus Mossy Earth has a great mission. We create a coral reef and the results are amazing!

And I really miss going to the movie theater. I’m going to give it a whirl this weekend. I’ll be checking out either: Thunderbolts (yeah, I’m tired of the commercials as well but I’m due some light-hearted fun.) Or the Accountant 2 (brainless, violent, action packed fun. What’s not to like?)

Eat it: It’s breakfast made easy. My fav smoothie. Breakfast Just Got Easier - Cherry Almond Protein Smoothie

---

---

If you want to check out some great reading list and see which books have influenced, surprised, educated, and entertained me, check out my book shop here. The lists grow monthly and I don’t recommend any books I haven’t personally read. Yes, I get a little commission but if you’re going to buy a book anyway, please buy it here. It may be a buck or two more than Amazon but a part of every purchase goes to support local book stores. Independent book stores are a center for independent thought. Help keep them alive. You can also check out my book recommendation engine. It’s fun. And I just started a new book list. Books to Help You Fight the Power. Any suggestions?

---

P.S. This is my 100th post. Congrats to me.