This week on the local group bike ride I had the opportunity to meet a lady that is doing her PhD on moose. At one point I asked her what the most interesting thing in the research was. Evidently logging is neither good nor bad in absolute terms for moose habitat and survival.
While we didn't get into details, logging is both good and bad for moose. It changes their living environment in both good and bad ways.
She went on to tell me that when she talks about logging and moose most people figure it's a binary result. It's either good or bad and they have a hard time believing that there is any argument for the side they don't believe to be true.
Most of the things we believe are actually in this category. The answers aren't easy. There are arguments on both sides1 that are valid.
The most interesting things I think about regularly fall into the grey area though. They don't have easy answers and my overall thoughts may shift between the two ends of the spectrum over the course of week/months/years.
- Yes there are fields like abuse and racism, where we have fallen into "both sides" and it's harming many. In these fields we need to stop doing the "Yes...but" thing. ↩