A neutral question is an open question that is not influenced by personal belief, opinion or judgement and therefore does not suggest an answer when being asked.
It may seem that there are truly neutral questions. After all, in the natural sciences there seems to be no personal bias. When we ask what the result of 4x4 is, we would expect the answer to be universal and it would neither matter what the questioner’s emotions are, nor would it even require empirical verification, as we are able to simply work out the result using the rules of natural sciences. Therefore it would seem that initially, neutral questions do exist. On the other hand, it appears that in areas such as religion, there can never be a neutral question because we willingly accept that it is a personal belief influenced by personal bias and emotion. So it seems that, in religion, neutral questions do not exist. However, when we examine this more closely, neutrality may neither be as evident in the sciences as expected, nor is it so far missing, that a rational debate cannot take place in religion.
1. There is no such thing as a neutral question. Evaluate this statement with reference to two areas of knowledge.
A neutral question is an open question that is not influenced by personal belief, opinion or judgement and therefore does not suggest an answer when being asked.
It may seem that there are truly neutral questions. After all, in the natural sciences there seems to be no personal bias. When we ask what the result of 4x4 is, we would expect the answer to be universal and it would neither matter what the questioner’s emotions are, nor would it even require empirical verification, as we are able to simply work out the result using the rules of natural sciences. Therefore it would seem that initially, neutral questions do exist. On the other hand, it appears that in areas such as religion, there can never be a neutral question because we willingly accept that it is a personal belief influenced by personal bias and emotion. So it seems that, in religion, neutral questions do not exist. However, when we examine this more closely, neutrality may neither be as evident in the sciences as expected, nor is it so far missing, that a rational debate cannot take place in religion.
In the natural sciences, empirical data is collected and processed by inductive reason and the questions involved may appear more neutral than anywhere else. Natural scientists believe in the uniformity of nature, and on this basis assume that all scientific questions are neutral and therefore the outcome is considered to be a fact.
The question: “What happens to water at 0°C?” is a generally open question, free from personal bias or opinion and does not suggest an answer. Using the scientific method – so without the influence of emotion – scientists were then able to observe that water freezes at exactly 0°C, and will always behave in that way, assuming that the uniformity of nature holds. Therefore it seems like all questions asked in the natural sciences are truly neutral.
However, when we look more closely, we might find that this is not the case. Someone in the time of Aristotle who was observing an event would probably ask a different question and give a different answer than someone who is seeing it after Galileo Galilei and Newton or even in the modern ages. It was not that the phenomenon of water freezing at 0°C wasn’t known, rather that the knowledge was not expressed in that way. It was different “knowledge”.
This is because science is, in fact, very deceptive and what appears to be a neutral question relies on assumptions, empirical data and set paradigms. When we talk about force in physics, we already have a specific definition and understanding of force: it does not exist in isolation but with a whole series of other elements. Therefore, further questions can no longer be neutral as they are already influenced by the paradigm within which the term has meaning.
It is a scientific belief that human concepts correspond to non-human realities. However, if you investigate the neutrality of the natural sciences and indeed Mathematics, you will find that this is not the case. In Geometry, we learn for example that there are straight lines and that two parallel lines never cross. However, as Gaudi stated “there are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature”1. Thus, the neutral question has been limited by the axiom that lines are straight and two parallel lines never cross; and it is false in the real world. Therefore, it can be assumed that the idea of a neutral question – the idea that somehow information comes to you without being processed either through language or through the beliefs and axioms of the system that is being used – is false.
Above all, science uses metaphor, which undermines the metaphysical presupposition that human concepts correspond to non-human realities and therefore shows that natural sciences are not neutral. This becomes very obvious when you look at the “selfish gene”, itself a personification that was proposed by Richard Dawkins. He uses a metaphor to illustrate that “alleles increase their frequency at the expense of other alleles”2. It already implies and assumes so many paradigms that it obviates questions and therefore inhibits neutrality.
These deceptions like the ”selfish gene” and the lack of scientific neutrality are one of the reasons why we get paradigm-shifts such as the shift away from the Aristotelian view. Scientists discovered that they had to make so many adaptations to make their answers fit into the old system that they had to try a different view. This shows that the questions asked in the natural sciences are conditioned by our own perception and therefore not neutral. Kepler asked: “What if it is not the case that the earth is at the centre of the universe?” Suddenly, scientists got better results; but even that is a presupposition.
Whilst in the natural sciences, we have been taught to assume neutrality, in religion we are usually more aware of the fact that it is not neutral because we consciously accept that it is based on personal belief and faith. Therefore, we assume that it comes from the individual person rather that from deductive reason, and religious questions are considered to be more subjective than questions in the natural sciences.
There have been many occasions when the neutrality of questions was obviated by religion. In the Renaissance period, when scientists such as Galileo Galilei, asked questions that did not in conform to the Bible, these suggestions were hotly debated. Although the widely propagated view that Galileo was condemned for his teaching has now been shown to be false – several high Churchmen admired his work – it is true that questions that did not fit into the presuppositions of the church were inhibited by religion.
It was often asked why children of Muslim families become Muslims, children of Jewish families become Jews and children of Christian families become Christians3. In order to answer this, the different perceptions of the world of different religious knowledge systems have to be considered. One will find that religious knowledge is usually conveyed from the parents to the children through language and more importantly through emotion. Therefore we can conclude that because religious knowledge originates from cultural heritage, which is passed on to the next generation through families, people are influenced in what they believe and no longer have a neutral, detached view of the religious world. Hence, it seems that there will never be a neutral question in religion because religious knowledge is a product of a culturally specific understanding of the world and the questions of a Jew would be based on very different presuppositions than the questions of a Muslim. Thus, even though the people in our environment shape our understanding of the world, religious questions are very personal and subjective as they depend on personal emotions and beliefs.
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1 Gaudi, Antoni, Technical Nature: The Nature of Gaudi, http://technicalnature.org.uk/2014/10/21/the-nature-of-gaudi/ [Visited: 22.2.2015]
2 Hagen, Edward: Department of Anthropology University of California, The Evolutionary Psychology FAQ: Why are genes selfish?: http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/epfaq/selfishgene.html [Visited: 22.2.2015]
3 cf.: Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad (2004): The Savior from Error: Oakland Park, Al-Baz Publishing, Inc.
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- Anonymous,, 2015, There is no such thing as a neutral question. Evaluate this statement with reference to two areas of knowledge, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/383581
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