Beyond A Reasonable Doubt
Not everything can be explained by science and research. Sometimes we need to venture into the unexplainable to make sense of it all.
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Confession: I still read to my middle schooler every night, and I love it.
He has not asked me to stop; I think he likes it as much as I do (or maybe close). I’ve now gotten to read all the Percy Jackson books, got deep into some dystopian fiction, and we started Incredible Creatures last night.
Reading aloud?
It’s like meditation, mixed with emotion and connection. It soothes my soul.
“When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.” ― Mem Fox, Reading Magic
He and I are on a tear lately with all things mythical creatures. Unicorns, griffins, basilisks, dragons. There is something sweet and beautiful about the mythology of childhood, always primed for the arrival of magic.
But also, there is something beautiful about belief in things like magic ourselves.
And I am not sure if it’s the reading aloud as a bedtime routine, or the mythical element of the stories that keep us going. Or maybe we are so committed because of the simple act of our getting to wind down together. It’s all magic.
We forget about the magic of belief and connection as we grow. So many things don’t need explanations to justify thinking them. But as we let go of the things we once simply "believed in," our understanding of truth becomes more rigid and confined.
We live in a world increasingly driven by data, where every question demands an answer and every mystery begs to be solved. Yet not everything can—or should—be reduced to logic, facts, or science. Some things are meant to be felt, experienced, and believed in without proof.
And that’s what I want to talk about today.
The Big Idea
Science, with its rigor and replicability, has given us vaccines, space travel, and instant communication. It has given us a better understanding of the brain and learning, medicines that cure diseases, helped us grow better vegetables.
But only some truths of life fit in this framework. Other experiences resist quantification; most lie far beyond the reach of peer-reviewed journals.1
This isn’t to undermine science. I still think of myself as a research scientist. I am evolving into my own definition of what research and being a researcher means. Multi-sourced, multi-storied, multi-modality.
My intention here, however, is to recognize that the boundaries of science and research don’t encompass all of human existence.
So when I read recently about the Woo Spectrum, a beautiful and useful framework created by Anne-Laure Le Cunff from the online community she started, Ness Labs, I was intrigued.
What I love about the spectrum she describes is its resonance. I love living in the space between hard evidence and personal belief. And also, I want a name for it.
The goal of the Woo Spectrum is not to dismiss science; instead, to suggest that not all meaningful phenomena require an exhaustive hard data explanation to have value. By acknowledging the limits of empirical evidence, we create room for intuition, subjective experience, and open-ended curiosity.
I love this, but might suggest we embrace the WOO by not calling it WOO.♥️2
So I created a visual to represent my own version of knowledge across a spectrum of sources. It needs a name, but holds a similar goal as the Woo Scale.3
Science and research thrive on precision, replication, validity and falsifiability.
They ask questions like “Which works best for whom?” or “What causes that outcome?” I spent a lot of time working on questions like this when I was doing large scale research.
But what about questions like, “Why does music move us?” or, “What’s the purpose of reading aloud?” I love these, too. They might come more from belief and other truths.
While cognitive neuroscience might explain the brain’s response to music or comfort, it doesn’t capture the depth of subjective meaning we attach to these experiences. Research across fields, from medicine to education, underscores the value of personal beliefs and truths in shaping our reality. For example, take these fairly well known belief based understandings:
The Placebo Effect: Studies have shown that believing in a treatment (even when it’s a sugar pill) can trigger measurable physiological changes.4 The power of belief, independent of material intervention, is undeniable.
Growth Mindset: Carol Dweck’s research on mindset reveals how beliefs about one’s learning and ability influence performance more than innate talent alone. If one believes that intelligence is something one can influence, it influences their intelligence. It’s a belief that drives this mindset.
These examples highlight phenomena where subjective experience takes center stage, challenging science’s tendency to sideline the intangible. These are truths we accept without saying they are ‘woo’.
These are beliefs, along a belief spectrum. Or Truths. Or Intangibles. Or…
So what can we do with this insight? (Aside from change the framework’s name.)