In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

Evidence rarely settles the largest questions on its own. There is usually enough on both sides that what tips you is your disposition, what you are hoping to find, what you are willing to see. That reaches well past questions of belief: it shapes how you read a person’s motives, a marriage, your own past. Recognising it is not a reason to stop thinking, only to notice the hand you have on the scale.

Pick a conclusion you feel certain about and ask what you wanted to be true before you looked. Then read the strongest case against it once, slowly.