Maybe Han is Not an Idiot.

"Kid, I've been flown one side of this galaxy to the other; I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all powerful force controlling everything."

-Han Solo

I saw The Force Awakens earlier this week, and noticed that the new film borrowed a trope (well, several tropes) from the original. Specifically, as in A New Hope, it seems common for inhabitants of the Force Awakens galaxy not to believe in the Jedi or the Force. After the release of the prequels, it was pointed out by many fans (as in this Cracked video) that Han Solo's reluctance to believe in the force is a little weird, given that the prequels featured (a) a Jedi Order that was quite public and integrated into the Republic's governance, and (b) midi-chlorians, which provide a "scientific" explanation for Jedi abilities.

Whereas in the original trilogy, as far as we knew, the Jedi were a small group of mystic-hermits with conventionally inexplicable powers, in the prequels the Jedi were widely known, and their powers were scientifically explicable. So, it seems that either Han is a dolt for doubting the Jedi (as, perhaps, is Rey in The Force Awakens), or that the writers of the prequels did a botch job of making those films cohere with the original trilogy.

The trouble is that "bad writing" is rarely a satisfying in-universe explanation for anything, while thinking of Han as an idiot also doesn't fit very well with the character. At any rate, flying starships, and repairing them on the fly, both seem like activities that involve a modicum of intelligence. So perhaps we can muster some sensible in-universe justification for Han's skepticism about the force.

One thing to note is that I'm keeping my argument to evidence presented in the films themselves, for two reasons. Firstly, I just don't know the expanded universe very well. Secondly, from what I understand, the expanded universe is no longer considered part of the primary Star Wars canon.

The key to making sense of Han's doubt, I think, is to separate different degrees of skepticism about the Jedi. We could probably cut the cake differently, but I'll identify three degrees: (1) Complete disbelief in the Jedi; one doesn't believe that the Jedi, the Jedi order, or the force ever existed. (2) The Jedi existed, but their powers were exaggerated; one might believe that a bunch of warrior-monks with energy-swords were running around the galaxy, but not that they had superhuman powers such as telekinesis or force-lightning. (3) The Jedi and their powers were both real, but the Force was not; in this version, one thinks that the Jedi did exhibit unusual powers, like telekinesis, but doesn't accept the religious/metaphysical claims by which the Jedi explained their own powers.

Now, let's take a closer look at what Han says in A New Hope. So, glance back to the quotation at the top of this article. Han really only explicitly commits himself to the third of the options I've just presented. A little later, Han attributes Luke's deflection of laser-bolts to "luck." So, maybe he's also doubtful about the superhuman powers attributed to Jedi, which would place him in the second camp. I think it's implausible that Han takes the first position, that the Jedi never existed. If so, he might exhibit a little more surprise at the presence of Luke's light saber. Add to this that he never expresses doubt that Obi Wan was a Jedi. Han simply says nothing to indicate that he doesn't believe the Jedi Order existed.

So, Han probably accepts that the Jedi were real people, but may think that some of their feats were exaggerated, and definitely thinks that the Force doesn't exist. Is this so unreasonable? As my rhetorical question suggests...I don't think so. We may, after all, believe that Tim Tebow has accomplished some remarkable athletic feats, while doubting his attribution of those feats to the will of God. But that's sort of a silly analogy. The point is that, because the Force is invisible and seems to work exclusively through the actions of other beings, by some version of Ockham's razor, it's easy to attribute the actions and powers of Jedi to their own inborn traits, rather than to the Force. As far as we know, too, Han has never actually witnessed any of the Jedi's most remarkable powers. So, aside from hearsay, he has very little reason to think that the Jedi were more than warrior-monks with special swords.

"But what about the midi-chlorians?" you ask.  Don't they provide scientific evidence that the Force is real, so that you'd have to be either foolish or uneducated in order to doubt the reality of the Force?

Well, we might reply in a few ways:

(a) It's not clear how widespread knowledge of midi-chlorians was. Force-science may have been something everyone learned in middle school galactic biology. Alternatively, knowledge of midi-chlorians may have been kept mostly within the Jedi order, and this would make some sense: If there's an underlying physical property possessed by Jedi that allows them to use their powers, then they wouldn't want that knowledge to proliferate, since knowing how to neutralize a Jedi's midi-chlorians would enable someone to neutralize a Jedi's powers.

(b) It's also not clear how widely accepted the science behind midi-chlorians was outside of the Jedi order. We don't really know whether measuring midi-chlorians was more like measuring white blood cells or measuring thetans.

(c) Finally, one might accept that a high midi-chlorian count correlates with strong supernatural powers, but we could still doubt the religious meaning attributed by the Jedi to their powers. It doesn't seem unreasonable to think that the midi-chlorians themselves were the cause of the Jedi's abilities, rather than intermediaries between the Force and the Jedi. Just as white blood cells protect us from disease without channeling a mystical force, so might midi-chlorians give the Jedi unusual abilities without channeling anything outside themselves. The force, as far as we know in the beginning of A New Hope, could just have been a layer of mystical hokum super-added to solid science by the Jedi. Alternatively, the Jedi could have believed in the force as part of their religion before the science behind their powers was understood. When the midi-chlorians were eventually discovered, then the Jedi may have said, "Ah well, but it's really the force behind the midi-chlorians," in the same way religious believers in our own world still see the Will of God behind phenomena for which we now have conventional physical explanations. (I.e. Many theists now accept that the big bang began our universe, but keep God in the picture by placing it unverifiably behind the big bang). Admittedly, this kind of force-denial becomes harder to maintain by Return of the Jedi, when we've seen force ghosts and the like, but Han's remarks preceded those events.

If any one of these replies is plausible, then the discussion of midi-chlorians from the prequels may not, in fact, make it absurd for Han to doubt the existence of the Force. Midi-chlorians may not have been part of his education, Midi-chlorians may have been psuedo-science, or Midi-chlorians may have provided a sufficient explanation of Jedi's powers without any discussion of the Force. With this in mind, I think Han actually displays a sensible level of skepticism about the mystical components of Jedi doctrine. (This is not to say that Han was right, only that his belief was reasonable).

Have a magic sword, kid.

I'd note, too, that it makes sense for Rey, from the new movie, to doubt the reality of the Jedi and the Force. As far as we know, she has grown up on a remote desert planet without any formal education, and was born decades after the destruction of the Jedi order. She would have never seen a Jedi, probably never met anyone who had seen a Jedi, and would never have been taught about either the Jedi Order or about midi-chlorians.

...Over-thinking complete.