Traditional Belief? Or Observational Data?

One on the enduring sources of conflict in the world is between people who view the world through the prism of traditional beliefs (religious or cultural) handed down from generation to generation, and those who build a world view from observation and evidence.

Although the above paragraph suggests a clear dichotomy between belief and evidence, reality is messy.  Traditional belief is usually derived from observations made by ancestors, from which they drew conclusions, then passed on the conclusions to the next generation.  As long as the conclusions seem to provide a useful framework for navigating decision making in the world, some of those members of later generations will put more faith in their ancestors beliefs than in their own observation.  

That approach can be useful when the decision to be made relates to those aspects of life that are unchanging - relationships, how we interact with others.  Many of us who reach a certain point in life can look back at conclusions we reached that led us to reject a more traditional view of the world that later turned out be not the wisest choice.

But the down side of belief rooted in tradition is it is very poor at adapting to changing circumstances.  Persons who rely exclusively on traditions can be manipulated by clever folks who can make the tradition a tool to advance their personal agenda.  They can also be misled by folks who just lack the ability to respond to changing conditions but are very vehement in their defense of tradition.

I would put myself in the Observational Data category, but observational data is also not always reliable.  Even Science - the holy grail of the observational data folks - makes mistakes - constantly.  Yesterday's scientific certainty becomes todays ooops.  Or the logic of current observation is constructed on recent experience that does not take into account the fact recent observation may just be one phase of a cycle of different outcomes.

"Moderation in all things" Aristotle is reputed to have said.  It seems to me that is the ultimate definition of what our basic test should be when we construct our view of reality.