Ok, fair warning: I have no big or clever ideas here, I'm just annoyed and need to try and work out what I think, as such this will be a kind of stream of consciousness thing. Dont read looking for any great insight, you wont find it.
Note after having written this: this is not me on form, ignore if you're not really desperate to read every word that falls off my keyboard.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Friday, 24 September 2010
Science funding
The UK is having a severe series of cuts. 25% will be cut over the next five years, ie 6% per year across all government departments except the NHS. I'm not going to comment on the economic wisdom of this because I dont know and I dont think most economists do either. However, given that fact we must decide how to lobby our government. So for the month leading up to the spending review (October 20th) lobbyists from everyone with a stake in government will come to plead thier own particular band of exceptionalism. The resounding message from across the land will be "there should be cuts, just not this ... or that ... or that ... and while you're at it can I have some more?"
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Science and art
I've always been astonished by artists, not by their ability to create, that is very great, but not astonishing. What I find amazing is that a group of people with such amazing empathy and understanding of their fellow humans, indeed, a group of people who pride themselves on it, can so fail to understand how the other half live.
Friday, 13 August 2010
Philosophy - philosophy of science
Heuristics
Science works by testing theories. But I (and philosophy of science as written by scientists generally) have been tight lipped on the subject of where these theories come from. Some say that theories are essentially random, some that they are artistic and require genius to understand. All say that it doesn't matter where they come from. The problem with this kind of philosophy of science is that it's totally false. Scientific theories are not random, they dont require genius, and it does matter where they come from. For easy example I'll take Newtonian gravity.
The distinction between scientific theories and metaphysics is important here. If you generated theories at random (whatever that would mean) you would almost defiantly never generate even a simple understanding of the world. Perceptions are just too complex, you cant hope to get a good approximation of them randomly, there's just too much going on. So we need a way of testing theories that are likely to work better than by chance. The way you do this is to imagine an “ultimate reality”, some version of the world that is metaphysical, but tied to perceptions.
So, Newton is sat at his desk working out the force of attraction between two point masses. He is now 90% of the way to solving the problem. Because asking that question needs a conceptual framework, you need to imagine that there are such things as point masses, you need to imagine that these accelerate due to force, you need to imagine that forces can happen in the gaps between them. This framework cannot be directly tested, because there's nothing in it that makes predictions. You cannot deduce from this how large objects act, what the relationship between acceleration and force is, and what forces act in the gap. But just because it cannot be tested itself doesn't mean it's as good as any other metaphysic.
Because the possible answers to these questions are quantitatively very few, and are suggested by the metaphysic. Once you have this conceptual framework to act as a heuristic the answers (like a point mass at their centre of mass, Newton's Second, and Newtonian Gravity respectively) are reasonably obvious, (that is, if you're the greatest mind to have existed). Without this kind of a framework minds as as good as Newton in the Classical age would never have thought of Newtonian gravity, because guessing it randomly is next to impossible.
Comparing models
So, given that it is possible for a heuristic to exist that will give you very good theories far better than chance. (Why this is so is a metaphysical question, “because that's what the universe is really like” is one answer, “because such conceptions tap into a subconscious understanding of our perceptions we already have” is another). The question is which do we go for. Do we keep dogmatically with a static eternal idea of the universe and expand and refine Newtonian Mechanics. Or do we shift to a new paradigm, an Einsteinian paradigm. Now this is not a question of one theory verses another. You can formulate General Relativity in Newtonian terms, (you just say that point forces exert a force on each other given by a hideous formula that looks very similar to one you use for dealing with curved space). The reason nobody does this is that it makes no sense. The theory does not follow from the paradigm.
The real question is not which theory is right, the question is which paradigm generates it. Newton's Law follows from his paradigm just as obviously (if you're a genius) as Einstein's does from his. The way you test what paradigm you use is to see which generates the best theories. We can even refine this idea. Sometimes theories are very general and take a lot of work to particularise. Consider the moon landings. At the time computing power was a scarce resource. So when the question arose, do we calculate using Newton or Einstein Newton won. Now General Relativity is the better theory, is makes predictions that are closer to reality. The problem is that these predictions are hard to compute, Newton is easy to compute with and well understood. Because of resources Newton's calculations could be done to far more decimal places, so whilst Einstein would have eventually beaten him, Newton won the race to the moon.
So I'd like to suggest that we think about predictions a different way. I'd like to suggest that it isn't the case that if one theory beats another it does so everywhere. If one theory makes one kind of prediction well (eg prediction the bending of light by gravity) that doesn't mean it will make another sort (eg low resolution predictions) just as well. So, we must always pick the right theory for the job, bearing in mind the situation. And we must always keep the right paradigm in mind, considering its results.
Science works by testing theories. But I (and philosophy of science as written by scientists generally) have been tight lipped on the subject of where these theories come from. Some say that theories are essentially random, some that they are artistic and require genius to understand. All say that it doesn't matter where they come from. The problem with this kind of philosophy of science is that it's totally false. Scientific theories are not random, they dont require genius, and it does matter where they come from. For easy example I'll take Newtonian gravity.
The distinction between scientific theories and metaphysics is important here. If you generated theories at random (whatever that would mean) you would almost defiantly never generate even a simple understanding of the world. Perceptions are just too complex, you cant hope to get a good approximation of them randomly, there's just too much going on. So we need a way of testing theories that are likely to work better than by chance. The way you do this is to imagine an “ultimate reality”, some version of the world that is metaphysical, but tied to perceptions.
So, Newton is sat at his desk working out the force of attraction between two point masses. He is now 90% of the way to solving the problem. Because asking that question needs a conceptual framework, you need to imagine that there are such things as point masses, you need to imagine that these accelerate due to force, you need to imagine that forces can happen in the gaps between them. This framework cannot be directly tested, because there's nothing in it that makes predictions. You cannot deduce from this how large objects act, what the relationship between acceleration and force is, and what forces act in the gap. But just because it cannot be tested itself doesn't mean it's as good as any other metaphysic.
Because the possible answers to these questions are quantitatively very few, and are suggested by the metaphysic. Once you have this conceptual framework to act as a heuristic the answers (like a point mass at their centre of mass, Newton's Second, and Newtonian Gravity respectively) are reasonably obvious, (that is, if you're the greatest mind to have existed). Without this kind of a framework minds as as good as Newton in the Classical age would never have thought of Newtonian gravity, because guessing it randomly is next to impossible.
Comparing models
So, given that it is possible for a heuristic to exist that will give you very good theories far better than chance. (Why this is so is a metaphysical question, “because that's what the universe is really like” is one answer, “because such conceptions tap into a subconscious understanding of our perceptions we already have” is another). The question is which do we go for. Do we keep dogmatically with a static eternal idea of the universe and expand and refine Newtonian Mechanics. Or do we shift to a new paradigm, an Einsteinian paradigm. Now this is not a question of one theory verses another. You can formulate General Relativity in Newtonian terms, (you just say that point forces exert a force on each other given by a hideous formula that looks very similar to one you use for dealing with curved space). The reason nobody does this is that it makes no sense. The theory does not follow from the paradigm.
The real question is not which theory is right, the question is which paradigm generates it. Newton's Law follows from his paradigm just as obviously (if you're a genius) as Einstein's does from his. The way you test what paradigm you use is to see which generates the best theories. We can even refine this idea. Sometimes theories are very general and take a lot of work to particularise. Consider the moon landings. At the time computing power was a scarce resource. So when the question arose, do we calculate using Newton or Einstein Newton won. Now General Relativity is the better theory, is makes predictions that are closer to reality. The problem is that these predictions are hard to compute, Newton is easy to compute with and well understood. Because of resources Newton's calculations could be done to far more decimal places, so whilst Einstein would have eventually beaten him, Newton won the race to the moon.
So I'd like to suggest that we think about predictions a different way. I'd like to suggest that it isn't the case that if one theory beats another it does so everywhere. If one theory makes one kind of prediction well (eg prediction the bending of light by gravity) that doesn't mean it will make another sort (eg low resolution predictions) just as well. So, we must always pick the right theory for the job, bearing in mind the situation. And we must always keep the right paradigm in mind, considering its results.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
A nice proper rant.
Thankyou Ann Widdecombe. I've not had chance for a proper rant recently, so your article was a great help.
Ok I wont.
I would have thought opponents of religion would want far more than that, namely that all religions stop existing, not much point be an opponent of something if you're quite happy with it. But I'm sure you're going somewhere with this, carry on.
Quite accurate, I got a link to the article myself via their email newsletter.
It is doubtless a fun place to go and one can learn a lot about modern animals, just as with any zoo. However:
Here is a first problem.
This is not an organisation which can be regarded as anything other than extreme. The clue is in the name. The Noah's Ark Zoo contends that Noah's Ark literally existed, all life is descended from a boat full of animals fully formed in their modern species. See several pages from their website. Admittedly they dont openly claim that the Earth is 6000 years old. An age for the earth is conspicuous by its absence. However their "sister website" does claim that the Cretaceous period lasted "around 4,000 years", this is like claiming the Empire state building is "around 2cm" tall, ok so you've not claimed the earth is 6000 years old, equivalent to it being half a millimetre tall, but it's still really very wrong.
Umm. No, not really. It's an organisation that promotes false science by pointing at misleading evidence including gaps in the fossil record that simply do not exist. Challenging children's mind on issues that are unclear or controversial is a great idea, it's important to make kids think about evolution in a critical way. But doing this with things that are simply empirically false is not critical thinking, it's just lies.
Yes. It's inappropriate for an award for education to be awarded to a religious organisation pushing a religious (and false) view of the world. Schools shouldn't go here anyway. If you want to go there yourself that's fine, if you want to take your kids that's fine, but you do not send school kids to a religious institution to be taught a false religious theory about the world using government money. That's not an extreme view, it's called church state separation and it's one of the most important ideas the enlightenment brought us.
Yeh. Creationism is a religion. It is not a fact. It is a purely empirical question and on a purely experimental observational basis it is false.
Yeh, because if you're thinking of the study I am it's a load of crap. It's been Phyrangualted pretty well, but in short, the study shows that a small group of people who believed in the power of prayer and wanted to prove as much to others said that they felt better after being prayed for in a very dramatic and obvious way. In short this study proves only the stupidity of the people who designed it.
For example those selling magic medicine to cure AIDs in sub-Saharan Africa.
Non sequitur. There is no contradiction between faith healing groups exploiting poor people and your rich mother experiencing a miracle. (One could argue there is a contradiction between receiving "all the medical care the NHs could provide and her private insurance could buy" and still calling the healing she got miraculous, but I digress).
I totally agree. So when there is a situation with two sides and valid arguments on both then children should be shown both sides. But that's not the case with evolution is it? It's not intolerant to say that when every sane intelligent person who examines something (including the majority of religious people in this country) concludes one thing, and people with an anti-scientific world view who deliberately falsify evidence and peddle lies to kids conclude another, that maybe there's no controversy. Teach the controversy, but not if it doesn't exist.
Damn right people are going to be vocal when the head of an anti-gay, anti-women, anti-science, anti-medicine, anti-choice, anti-freedom, anti-everything-that's-bright-and-happy-in-the-world organisation comes to the UK at taxpayer's expense. Damn right there's going to be protests against the head of an organisation that has covered up rape on an industrial scale. Damn right there's going to be protests against a bigot who speaks against the equalities bill not, as many (myself included) did, because its approach was heavy handed and unworkable, but because he is genuinely opposed to equality. Damn right we're going to protest, the man is a bigot.
Umm, no. Intolerance and bigotry means an irrational rejection of an idea and a demand that it shut up. Seeing that demonstrably evil groups (the Catholic Church) are attempting to spend taxpayers money and campaigning against that is not bigotry. Seeing that organisations that wish to lie to children about empirical facts (Noah's Ark Zoo) are recommended as a place for school trips and campaigning against that isn't bigotry. Seeing that academics wish to present the kind of stuff that would be thrown out of a year 9 science fair as novel research and telling them they need to seriously consider a new career isn't bigotry. And writing this article for the Daily Express isn't bigotry either, it's just stupidity.
DON'T CONDEMN ALL DEBATE AS RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA
Ok I wont.
Has anyone noticed that what the opponents of religion really want is that Christianity should be silent?
I would have thought opponents of religion would want far more than that, namely that all religions stop existing, not much point be an opponent of something if you're quite happy with it. But I'm sure you're going somewhere with this, carry on.
Last week it was reported that the British Humanist association has condemned an award given to Noah’s ark Zoo, a creationist centre near Bristol.
Quite accurate, I got a link to the article myself via their email newsletter.
The zoo has put on such an imaginative and educational display that the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom has issued it with a mark of recognition.
It is doubtless a fun place to go and one can learn a lot about modern animals, just as with any zoo. However:
Those who run the zoo have established workshops which cover the national science curriculum but do not include discussion of religion and do not promote the extreme creationist view that the world was created 6,000 years ago.
Here is a first problem.
This is not an organisation which can be regarded as anything other than extreme. The clue is in the name. The Noah's Ark Zoo contends that Noah's Ark literally existed, all life is descended from a boat full of animals fully formed in their modern species. See several pages from their website. Admittedly they dont openly claim that the Earth is 6000 years old. An age for the earth is conspicuous by its absence. However their "sister website" does claim that the Cretaceous period lasted "around 4,000 years", this is like claiming the Empire state building is "around 2cm" tall, ok so you've not claimed the earth is 6000 years old, equivalent to it being half a millimetre tall, but it's still really very wrong.In other words it is a moderate, education-focused organisation that challenges children’s minds and produces evidence from fossils.
Umm. No, not really. It's an organisation that promotes false science by pointing at misleading evidence including gaps in the fossil record that simply do not exist. Challenging children's mind on issues that are unclear or controversial is a great idea, it's important to make kids think about evolution in a critical way. But doing this with things that are simply empirically false is not critical thinking, it's just lies.
The British Humanist association says the award is inappropriate merely because the zoo concentrates on creation.
Yes. It's inappropriate for an award for education to be awarded to a religious organisation pushing a religious (and false) view of the world. Schools shouldn't go here anyway. If you want to go there yourself that's fine, if you want to take your kids that's fine, but you do not send school kids to a religious institution to be taught a false religious theory about the world using government money. That's not an extreme view, it's called church state separation and it's one of the most important ideas the enlightenment brought us.
In short the British Humanist association does not believe that children should be allowed even to discuss creation or to be exposed to any evidence that might support it.
Yeh. Creationism is a religion. It is not a fact. It is a purely empirical question and on a purely experimental observational basis it is false.
Also, academics carry out a study of the effects of prayer on the blind and deaf and finds evidence people’s sight and hearing have improved as a result of faith healing. Immediately the National secular society brands the findings “religious propaganda”.
Yeh, because if you're thinking of the study I am it's a load of crap. It's been Phyrangualted pretty well, but in short, the study shows that a small group of people who believed in the power of prayer and wanted to prove as much to others said that they felt better after being prayed for in a very dramatic and obvious way. In short this study proves only the stupidity of the people who designed it.
Its president Terry sanderson says faith healing groups “exploit the desperation of people living in extreme poverty who are unable to access proper medical care”.
For example those selling magic medicine to cure AIDs in sub-Saharan Africa.
Really, Mr sanderson? My mother lived comfortably and had available to her all the medical care the NHs could provide and her private insurance could buy and she still experienced miraculous healing.
Non sequitur. There is no contradiction between faith healing groups exploiting poor people and your rich mother experiencing a miracle. (One could argue there is a contradiction between receiving "all the medical care the NHs could provide and her private insurance could buy" and still calling the healing she got miraculous, but I digress).
Forbidding children to examine both sides of an argument is to substitute propaganda for education and dismissing as propaganda properly conducted surveys is a mark of intolerance.
I totally agree. So when there is a situation with two sides and valid arguments on both then children should be shown both sides. But that's not the case with evolution is it? It's not intolerant to say that when every sane intelligent person who examines something (including the majority of religious people in this country) concludes one thing, and people with an anti-scientific world view who deliberately falsify evidence and peddle lies to kids conclude another, that maybe there's no controversy. Teach the controversy, but not if it doesn't exist.
We can expect the British Humanists and the National secular association to be pretty vocal during the Papal visit.
Damn right people are going to be vocal when the head of an anti-gay, anti-women, anti-science, anti-medicine, anti-choice, anti-freedom, anti-everything-that's-bright-and-happy-in-the-world organisation comes to the UK at taxpayer's expense. Damn right there's going to be protests against the head of an organisation that has covered up rape on an industrial scale. Damn right there's going to be protests against a bigot who speaks against the equalities bill not, as many (myself included) did, because its approach was heavy handed and unworkable, but because he is genuinely opposed to equality. Damn right we're going to protest, the man is a bigot.
It is as well therefore to understand their bigoted approach from the outset.
Umm, no. Intolerance and bigotry means an irrational rejection of an idea and a demand that it shut up. Seeing that demonstrably evil groups (the Catholic Church) are attempting to spend taxpayers money and campaigning against that is not bigotry. Seeing that organisations that wish to lie to children about empirical facts (Noah's Ark Zoo) are recommended as a place for school trips and campaigning against that isn't bigotry. Seeing that academics wish to present the kind of stuff that would be thrown out of a year 9 science fair as novel research and telling them they need to seriously consider a new career isn't bigotry. And writing this article for the Daily Express isn't bigotry either, it's just stupidity.
Friday, 6 August 2010
Philosophy - Science part 2
Metaphysics
This seems a natural point to consider a few odd topic together. Firstly, equivalent theories. Consider the two theories “in front of me is a laptop made of plastic made of atoms” and “in front of me is an infinite number of infinitely small holographic projectors that act like a laptop no matter what I do to them or how I change them”. These make exactly the same predictions. I have no way of determining then which theory I should accept. I dont believe this to be a problem, I think that I'm not here talking about two theories. To my mind this is one theory expressed in two sets of words. We could just as easily say “en face de moi est un ordinateur portable”.
To a natural interpretation this is quite strange. Surely it makes all the difference in the world if the laptop is real or an illusion, but I would ask, what difference. Science tells us about perceptions, if there is a “way things really are” and it is not a perception, we can never know about it. Not in the sense that it's a hard problem or that we'll never be 100% sure. I mean we have exactly no clue, we cant even have an informed guess, because we have no information to base any ideas on.
We can know nothing that is beyond our sense data (I'll get onto metal constructions like logic later). It might be helpful to point out that my idea of what is metaphysical is a lot wider than normal. Normally it is said that the existence of gods is metaphysical, but that of chairs is not. I dont accept that we can have knowledge of chairs. Take my laptop, I can see patches of white and black that are explained almost perfectly by the scientific theory “in front of me is my laptop”, but also by the theory “I am a brain in a vat being fed sense data identical to those I would experience according to the laptop theory.” I dont claim that I can prove, or indeed that I have even the ability to think it probable, that my laptop is real.
We all have metaphysical beliefs. For instance, I believe my laptop exists. This is not true, nor is it false. It is better thought of as a statement about my emotions than about things in a “world out there”. If someone says that my laptop does not exists I dont think we really have any means of arguing about the fact, because there is no question of being right or wrong in the matter.4
Gods
Gods are tricky ideas. Many gods are purely metaphysical ideas with no scientific component at all. A god who starts the universe or who sits outside of it to judge or just to observe is totally metaphysical, a universe with him would look exactly the same as one without him. So we must be agnostic about such gods, we cannot have proof of them, but far more than that, we cannot even have an educated guess, there are no arguments for or against. So when I say “I dont believe in such a god” I am not right or wrong any more than I would be if I said “colourless green ideas sleep furiously”. There is no right and wrong because there is no truth in the matter.
Some gods however stray beyond this. A god that acts in the world is, by that fact, a part of the world. So we can distinguish a god that creates the world but has no more influence on it from a god who creates the world and then sets about populating it over a period of 6 days. This kind of intervening god is far more simple from a philosophical perspective. We can simply get a scientist to do an experiment and tell us with high levels of certainty if such gods exist. And, to my knowledge, none of them do, all stories of interventions by gods have been shown to be without evidence. The important problem for philosophy is how to combine rejection of aspects of supposed divine action which are false from ones which are metaphysical. Almost all religions combine both aspects.
The internal world
When I defined science I said we make theories about perceptions. Thoughts and emotions are perceptions. So in this sense we can expand the domain of science to include “subjective” ideas. The key idea is theory of mind. Normally the term theory of mind is used in the context of autistic people or children and used to discuss the idea that they cannot understand the behaviour of others. But I think we can interpret it far more literally.
Considering the object near our centre of perception (I.e. ourself), we consider as a scientific theory the idea that we can control our actions. The first theory is that motions of our bodies are exactly the things we think of doing. Then we observe ourselves breathing or our heart beating or some other automatic action. We also observe an imagined action that feels much like our feeling before acting which doesn't actually result in anything. So we have to slightly elaborate our theory, and this elaboration is going on right now in every neuroscience department and I'm not going to try and pre-empt this.
Looking at other people we see they act in similar ways to us. We observe that there are perceptions that look like . We also observe that these objects do things that are similar to how we act in a similar situation. Then we can propose that they, like us, have minds, memories etc which can be predicted based on their past. This theory works quite well and is the basis of almost all our knowledge of others. We simply ask “if I were standing where they are, and knew what they knew, and had their history and characteristics what would I do?”, this is normally a good prediction.
Other people and science
One problem that a lot of people have with a sceptical5 approach to the world is that we cannot possibly examine everything in the world. So suppose I am deciding if I should accept Newton's law of Gravity or General Relativity it's just not reasonable to expect me to wait for a solar eclipse, probably travel thousands of miles, and do the experiment myself. So we must postulate the theory of the reliable scientist. This states that we can, under some situations, expect that others are telling the truth about their own experiences, and that we can deduce from this things about our own perceptions. We can test this theory and compare it to the opposing theory that we should ignore other people in discussing scientific theories by doing experiments and comparing our results with those of others. This gives us a list of people who can, in general, be relied upon. We can go further, it is perfectly scientific to believe someone we know nothing about if they are recommended as reliable by someone whose past recommendations have been reliable. In this we we can build up and produce such concepts as peer review and repeated reproducible experiments.
Free will
The question of the existence of free will is an ancient one. And one that I believe will never be resolved. The question is, given how the universe is now and everything that has happened in the past. Is it possible that some of our actions are freely determined so that we could in theory do more than one different thing? Or are future events totally pre-determined? This I believe is metaphysical. Because there is only one direction of time, we only experience one version of events. If events are pre-determined then we experience just this one set of events, if other things could in theory have happened then there is some means by which exactly one outcome is selected and that happens. Either way our perceptions are exactly the same. There is literally no difference between a deterministic universe and a universe in which free will exists but which just happens to do the same thing.
Notes
4) I'm going to end up being loose with language. I'll probably say something stupid like “my laptop exists” is true when I mean to say that it is an accurate theory. You'll have to forgive me, and agree in advance to interpret that kind of thing in the context of the entire theory.
5) I mean philosophical scepticism. One of the most uninteresting and damaging things a first year philosophy student can be taught. There are different realms of epistemology and if you dont respect this you're just going to end up standing around like a nutter not knowing anything. "I know that I know nothing" is not indicative of wisdom, it means that your concept of knowledge is useless.
This seems a natural point to consider a few odd topic together. Firstly, equivalent theories. Consider the two theories “in front of me is a laptop made of plastic made of atoms” and “in front of me is an infinite number of infinitely small holographic projectors that act like a laptop no matter what I do to them or how I change them”. These make exactly the same predictions. I have no way of determining then which theory I should accept. I dont believe this to be a problem, I think that I'm not here talking about two theories. To my mind this is one theory expressed in two sets of words. We could just as easily say “en face de moi est un ordinateur portable”.
To a natural interpretation this is quite strange. Surely it makes all the difference in the world if the laptop is real or an illusion, but I would ask, what difference. Science tells us about perceptions, if there is a “way things really are” and it is not a perception, we can never know about it. Not in the sense that it's a hard problem or that we'll never be 100% sure. I mean we have exactly no clue, we cant even have an informed guess, because we have no information to base any ideas on.
We can know nothing that is beyond our sense data (I'll get onto metal constructions like logic later). It might be helpful to point out that my idea of what is metaphysical is a lot wider than normal. Normally it is said that the existence of gods is metaphysical, but that of chairs is not. I dont accept that we can have knowledge of chairs. Take my laptop, I can see patches of white and black that are explained almost perfectly by the scientific theory “in front of me is my laptop”, but also by the theory “I am a brain in a vat being fed sense data identical to those I would experience according to the laptop theory.” I dont claim that I can prove, or indeed that I have even the ability to think it probable, that my laptop is real.
We all have metaphysical beliefs. For instance, I believe my laptop exists. This is not true, nor is it false. It is better thought of as a statement about my emotions than about things in a “world out there”. If someone says that my laptop does not exists I dont think we really have any means of arguing about the fact, because there is no question of being right or wrong in the matter.4
Gods
Gods are tricky ideas. Many gods are purely metaphysical ideas with no scientific component at all. A god who starts the universe or who sits outside of it to judge or just to observe is totally metaphysical, a universe with him would look exactly the same as one without him. So we must be agnostic about such gods, we cannot have proof of them, but far more than that, we cannot even have an educated guess, there are no arguments for or against. So when I say “I dont believe in such a god” I am not right or wrong any more than I would be if I said “colourless green ideas sleep furiously”. There is no right and wrong because there is no truth in the matter.
Some gods however stray beyond this. A god that acts in the world is, by that fact, a part of the world. So we can distinguish a god that creates the world but has no more influence on it from a god who creates the world and then sets about populating it over a period of 6 days. This kind of intervening god is far more simple from a philosophical perspective. We can simply get a scientist to do an experiment and tell us with high levels of certainty if such gods exist. And, to my knowledge, none of them do, all stories of interventions by gods have been shown to be without evidence. The important problem for philosophy is how to combine rejection of aspects of supposed divine action which are false from ones which are metaphysical. Almost all religions combine both aspects.
The internal world
When I defined science I said we make theories about perceptions. Thoughts and emotions are perceptions. So in this sense we can expand the domain of science to include “subjective” ideas. The key idea is theory of mind. Normally the term theory of mind is used in the context of autistic people or children and used to discuss the idea that they cannot understand the behaviour of others. But I think we can interpret it far more literally.
Considering the object near our centre of perception (I.e. ourself), we consider as a scientific theory the idea that we can control our actions. The first theory is that motions of our bodies are exactly the things we think of doing. Then we observe ourselves breathing or our heart beating or some other automatic action. We also observe an imagined action that feels much like our feeling before acting which doesn't actually result in anything. So we have to slightly elaborate our theory, and this elaboration is going on right now in every neuroscience department and I'm not going to try and pre-empt this.
Looking at other people we see they act in similar ways to us. We observe that there are perceptions that look like . We also observe that these objects do things that are similar to how we act in a similar situation. Then we can propose that they, like us, have minds, memories etc which can be predicted based on their past. This theory works quite well and is the basis of almost all our knowledge of others. We simply ask “if I were standing where they are, and knew what they knew, and had their history and characteristics what would I do?”, this is normally a good prediction.
Other people and science
One problem that a lot of people have with a sceptical5 approach to the world is that we cannot possibly examine everything in the world. So suppose I am deciding if I should accept Newton's law of Gravity or General Relativity it's just not reasonable to expect me to wait for a solar eclipse, probably travel thousands of miles, and do the experiment myself. So we must postulate the theory of the reliable scientist. This states that we can, under some situations, expect that others are telling the truth about their own experiences, and that we can deduce from this things about our own perceptions. We can test this theory and compare it to the opposing theory that we should ignore other people in discussing scientific theories by doing experiments and comparing our results with those of others. This gives us a list of people who can, in general, be relied upon. We can go further, it is perfectly scientific to believe someone we know nothing about if they are recommended as reliable by someone whose past recommendations have been reliable. In this we we can build up and produce such concepts as peer review and repeated reproducible experiments.
Free will
The question of the existence of free will is an ancient one. And one that I believe will never be resolved. The question is, given how the universe is now and everything that has happened in the past. Is it possible that some of our actions are freely determined so that we could in theory do more than one different thing? Or are future events totally pre-determined? This I believe is metaphysical. Because there is only one direction of time, we only experience one version of events. If events are pre-determined then we experience just this one set of events, if other things could in theory have happened then there is some means by which exactly one outcome is selected and that happens. Either way our perceptions are exactly the same. There is literally no difference between a deterministic universe and a universe in which free will exists but which just happens to do the same thing.
Notes
4) I'm going to end up being loose with language. I'll probably say something stupid like “my laptop exists” is true when I mean to say that it is an accurate theory. You'll have to forgive me, and agree in advance to interpret that kind of thing in the context of the entire theory.
5) I mean philosophical scepticism. One of the most uninteresting and damaging things a first year philosophy student can be taught. There are different realms of epistemology and if you dont respect this you're just going to end up standing around like a nutter not knowing anything. "I know that I know nothing" is not indicative of wisdom, it means that your concept of knowledge is useless.
Friday, 30 July 2010
Philosophy - Science.
Predicting future sense data
It seems that there is a past, present and future. Unlike the obvious irresistible truth of there being perceptions this sense is not sure. It is perfectly consistent to believe that there is only the present instant, that all perceptions of the past in the form of memories are simply perceptions without any past for them to reflect. I can find no argument quite strong enough to cover the purpose I'm about to put it to, this will need more thought.
We have the present, we can be certain of these perceptions, (they are all we can be certain of). We have the past, we have some memories of these (the memories are present perceptions so are certain, their relation if any to past perceptions is a question for science). There is also the future, and predicting that is the task of science.
Science
Science is the only way to get beyond perceptions. This allows us to synthesize ideas, perceptions, memories etc and predict new things.
The scientific method is simple. First, generate several theories, a theory is a model or set of ideas that allow us to make as many future predictions as we like about perceptions of a particular kind. Then observe some perceptions. The theory with the predictions that best fit the perceptions is the best theory. This is the best approximation we have to the perceptions of the future. This does not give us knowledge in the sure and certain sense of the last post. We have to extend our epistemology (study or discussion of knowledge) and add a realm for scientific theories.
We can see clearly that this domain of scientific knowledge must be some kind of continuum. Predictions of future perceptions can be fulfilled more or less well, for example, if my best theory predicts the reading from some dial will be 1.5 and the true (observed) reading is 1.4 then my knowledge of the future movement of the dial is clearly good, but not nearly as good as it would be were my best theory to predict 1.37. Note also I've picked a numerical example for convenience, we might just as well predict seeing something blue or round. All that matters is that it should be possible to tell how well our prediction has come true. But we see that the notion of “correct” in science cannot be binary. If it were then we would consider the 1.5 theory to be just as wrong as the 1.37 theory, we cannot have improved theories, only the binary right and wrong.
Time
The fact that this is a prediction and not a postdiction is important. We can gain nothing from knowing that a postdiction has come right. For instance, we can simply come up with the theory that all our prior observations will happen, with any prediction for the future, this will always be perfectly right. So, we require at least that the prediction not be influenced by the thing it is trying to predict.
Science as I have described it rests on the assumption that there is an arrow of time, I need a solution to this problem. I have not yet proved (at least, not to my satisfaction) that we are entitled to believe that there is a past and a future. There are two solutions to this.
Can I separate the idea of a prediction from the idea of time? In order to have science we must be able to test predictions, so we must have a notion of prediction, but can I rigorously construct an idea of predicting without having a safe idea of time? Or secondly: Can I defend the idea of time? I've no idea. If anyone can help me here please comment.
The past
It's not a big point, but a clarification. History is part of science, we can have predictions of the past as opposed to postdictions. A postdiction is a statement about past sense data, a statement about the past is a statement about future sense data that are best interpreted by talking about objects that existed in the past. For instance, I may put forward the theory that there was a Roman burial site in some location. This can make predictions, say that we could in future observe documents that refer to this site, or we could observe remains when digging there. Predictions are always about future sense data, but the best explanation for these may well be the past universe.
The world
Science gives us the world. All we can know for certain is our own perceptions, we need to construct the world “out there” based on this. The most fundamental kind of theory in science is the idea of an object. I see in front of me a black oblong shape with a large irregular patch of light in the middle. I construct the theory that this perception is caused by me seeing an object. In this case, my laptop. Please note, this is a theory, we can have sure and certain knowledge of no objects. (Brain in vat, illusion, hologram etc). But we can (and almost always do find) that this is the best explanation. The idea of an object is a theory as I described it above, because it makes predictions. For instance, an object continues to exist until something dramatic happens, and the perceptions I have “of” my laptop are reasonably constant. There is also the fact that objects continue to exist in much the same way if I move, so I predict that moving to the left will produce a different but related set of perceptions in a predictable way. And this works. The theory that objects exists is an extremely good one.
This gives an outline idea of what science gives us as good and accurate theories. I'll try and hash out in a bit more detail things like the limits of science, metaphysics, heuristics behind generating good scientific theories etc next time. But for now I'd like to suggest something that I'll try and develop later. The idea we have of science commonly is that it deals with objective things, where objective means what I identified before as perceptions of sense data or of the external world. I've deliberately defined this idea of science in a more general way, I have not mentioned other people or peer review, but I have included in "things we can have scientific theories about" such perceptions as our thoughts, imaginations, memories, emotions etc. I'm going to try and suggest later that the normal processes of science, peer review, arbitration by independent experimenters etc can be shown to be fitting with my definition. But I'm going to say from the outset that this is true for physical sciences, for a more broad idea of this second rank of knowledge we must allow for psychology, logic and other ways of predicting future mental perceptions a real place in the tent of science.
This gives the best theory
Just one last thought because I like it a lot. To the objection that science may not be the only way to gain knowledge about the world. Let us first say that we can never directly experience any object or have any form of knowledge of them except by means of perceptions. Now, suppose that some other means of discovering truth exists (be it tea leaves, holy texts, marxism or whatever), and claims that it does a better job of generating knowledge than science. Now to tell us anything that we dont already know this must make predictions about future perceptions. But, the understanding we get from science is the best prediction we have out of all the theories we have tried. Why cant we then just have as a theory "the predictions of marxism (or whatever) are correct". This is a scientific theory, if the other means really can give us knowledge then it must predict perceptions, because that is all we can ever experience that we dont already know. So then the best scientific theory must logically be at least as good as (if not better than) the tea leaves. So we can conclude (unless I've messed up this "proof") that science *must* generate the most accurate predictions that it is possible to make and that the correct way to gain knowledge is through science.
It seems that there is a past, present and future. Unlike the obvious irresistible truth of there being perceptions this sense is not sure. It is perfectly consistent to believe that there is only the present instant, that all perceptions of the past in the form of memories are simply perceptions without any past for them to reflect. I can find no argument quite strong enough to cover the purpose I'm about to put it to, this will need more thought.
We have the present, we can be certain of these perceptions, (they are all we can be certain of). We have the past, we have some memories of these (the memories are present perceptions so are certain, their relation if any to past perceptions is a question for science). There is also the future, and predicting that is the task of science.
Science
Science is the only way to get beyond perceptions. This allows us to synthesize ideas, perceptions, memories etc and predict new things.
The scientific method is simple. First, generate several theories, a theory is a model or set of ideas that allow us to make as many future predictions as we like about perceptions of a particular kind. Then observe some perceptions. The theory with the predictions that best fit the perceptions is the best theory. This is the best approximation we have to the perceptions of the future. This does not give us knowledge in the sure and certain sense of the last post. We have to extend our epistemology (study or discussion of knowledge) and add a realm for scientific theories.
We can see clearly that this domain of scientific knowledge must be some kind of continuum. Predictions of future perceptions can be fulfilled more or less well, for example, if my best theory predicts the reading from some dial will be 1.5 and the true (observed) reading is 1.4 then my knowledge of the future movement of the dial is clearly good, but not nearly as good as it would be were my best theory to predict 1.37. Note also I've picked a numerical example for convenience, we might just as well predict seeing something blue or round. All that matters is that it should be possible to tell how well our prediction has come true. But we see that the notion of “correct” in science cannot be binary. If it were then we would consider the 1.5 theory to be just as wrong as the 1.37 theory, we cannot have improved theories, only the binary right and wrong.
Time
The fact that this is a prediction and not a postdiction is important. We can gain nothing from knowing that a postdiction has come right. For instance, we can simply come up with the theory that all our prior observations will happen, with any prediction for the future, this will always be perfectly right. So, we require at least that the prediction not be influenced by the thing it is trying to predict.
Science as I have described it rests on the assumption that there is an arrow of time, I need a solution to this problem. I have not yet proved (at least, not to my satisfaction) that we are entitled to believe that there is a past and a future. There are two solutions to this.
Can I separate the idea of a prediction from the idea of time? In order to have science we must be able to test predictions, so we must have a notion of prediction, but can I rigorously construct an idea of predicting without having a safe idea of time? Or secondly: Can I defend the idea of time? I've no idea. If anyone can help me here please comment.
The past
It's not a big point, but a clarification. History is part of science, we can have predictions of the past as opposed to postdictions. A postdiction is a statement about past sense data, a statement about the past is a statement about future sense data that are best interpreted by talking about objects that existed in the past. For instance, I may put forward the theory that there was a Roman burial site in some location. This can make predictions, say that we could in future observe documents that refer to this site, or we could observe remains when digging there. Predictions are always about future sense data, but the best explanation for these may well be the past universe.
The world
Science gives us the world. All we can know for certain is our own perceptions, we need to construct the world “out there” based on this. The most fundamental kind of theory in science is the idea of an object. I see in front of me a black oblong shape with a large irregular patch of light in the middle. I construct the theory that this perception is caused by me seeing an object. In this case, my laptop. Please note, this is a theory, we can have sure and certain knowledge of no objects. (Brain in vat, illusion, hologram etc). But we can (and almost always do find) that this is the best explanation. The idea of an object is a theory as I described it above, because it makes predictions. For instance, an object continues to exist until something dramatic happens, and the perceptions I have “of” my laptop are reasonably constant. There is also the fact that objects continue to exist in much the same way if I move, so I predict that moving to the left will produce a different but related set of perceptions in a predictable way. And this works. The theory that objects exists is an extremely good one.
This gives an outline idea of what science gives us as good and accurate theories. I'll try and hash out in a bit more detail things like the limits of science, metaphysics, heuristics behind generating good scientific theories etc next time. But for now I'd like to suggest something that I'll try and develop later. The idea we have of science commonly is that it deals with objective things, where objective means what I identified before as perceptions of sense data or of the external world. I've deliberately defined this idea of science in a more general way, I have not mentioned other people or peer review, but I have included in "things we can have scientific theories about" such perceptions as our thoughts, imaginations, memories, emotions etc. I'm going to try and suggest later that the normal processes of science, peer review, arbitration by independent experimenters etc can be shown to be fitting with my definition. But I'm going to say from the outset that this is true for physical sciences, for a more broad idea of this second rank of knowledge we must allow for psychology, logic and other ways of predicting future mental perceptions a real place in the tent of science.
This gives the best theory
Just one last thought because I like it a lot. To the objection that science may not be the only way to gain knowledge about the world. Let us first say that we can never directly experience any object or have any form of knowledge of them except by means of perceptions. Now, suppose that some other means of discovering truth exists (be it tea leaves, holy texts, marxism or whatever), and claims that it does a better job of generating knowledge than science. Now to tell us anything that we dont already know this must make predictions about future perceptions. But, the understanding we get from science is the best prediction we have out of all the theories we have tried. Why cant we then just have as a theory "the predictions of marxism (or whatever) are correct". This is a scientific theory, if the other means really can give us knowledge then it must predict perceptions, because that is all we can ever experience that we dont already know. So then the best scientific theory must logically be at least as good as (if not better than) the tea leaves. So we can conclude (unless I've messed up this "proof") that science *must* generate the most accurate predictions that it is possible to make and that the correct way to gain knowledge is through science.
Saturday, 8 May 2010
A response to the loss of Evan Harris.
This is a comment I wrote in response to this article condemning Dr Evan Harris, the Lib Dem MP for Oxford West who sadly lost his seat in the election after a sustained attack by the religious conservatives in the press.
One doesn't know where to start with this. For instance, is Dr Harris "A stranger to principle" or is he a " dogged secularist"? Secular principles are still principles no matter how much you dislike them.
The idea that "his true love was the National Secular Society" shows a real misunderstanding of what politics is. People come into politics in order to change the country. Either they know what that change is in advance and they hope to persuade people to agree, or they plan to listen to the people and decide based on that. Almost all politicians are of the first kind, this is why we need elections. Dr Harris got into politics because of a belief that secular, rational principles are the best way to run a country. He evidently managed to persuade a lot of people of that at the last election. The idea that these principles made him illegitimate is as mad as saying that Ann Widdecombe should have been bared from standing because she was simply a shill for the Catholic Church. One can argue whose principles are better, I for one would argue that a secular, rational approach to the ethical concerns of politics is far better than most of the flatly immoral principles Ann pushes. But neither makes the candidate illegitimate.
"campaign to have people of faith – any faith – swept from the public sphere" You have fundamentally misunderstood the concept of secularism. The principle of secularism is the belief that the state should not have any connection with the church. This was historically a religious movement. If we have a state which is blind to religion, that does not feel itself legitimate in acknowledging the existence of religion or irrelgion, then that state cannot attack minority faiths. The belief that people should not be penalised for their religion is one that can only be recognised by a secular state. If we have a state, such as ours, where some religions are recognised, respected, and have the ability to get laws drafted in their favour, then ipso facto members of all other religions are penalised. For instance, there are specific privileges given to Muslims in this country to wear a mask in public in situations where that would not otherwise be legal. To have this system is to penalise anyone who, for whatever reason other than Islam, wishes to wear a mask in public in an otherwise unacceptable situation. Religious people should celebrate this. If we remove the bishops from the house of lords then we promote the interest of every religion other than CoE by giving them an equal footing (note, nobody is proposing that bishops should not be allowed to stand in their own right, simply that being a bishop in and of itself is not sufficient reason to become part of the legislature). If we promote the interest of one religion we must do down the interest of all others, and if we promote religion per se we must do damage to the interest of the irreligious.
Note that this does not mean religious people should be removed from public any more than the irreligious. Neither Dr Harris nor any other secular person demands this. The point of secularism is that a religious and irreligious person should be treated equally. So when a moral issue comes up from debate religious leaders should only be asked to contribute if they are widely recognised as being moral experts in their own right, not just for their religious status. Each person has the capacity to be wise, religion in and of itself does nothing to this. We should not ask what the clergy think but what those who are morally wise think. If the clergy are worth their salt they will be in this latter category. But the Catholic Church in particular, and the socially conservative wing of religions in general have shown themselves to be very inexpert in morality. Any organisation that can can oppose the spread of condoms is one which should not be listened to on public health issues, this is not a judgement about Catholicism, there are many Catholics who have a morally good attitude to condoms, but rather it is a judgement about the moral expertise of those who claim to be the conscience of the nation. You may notice that this belief that we should not accept the word of the clergy but instead accept the ability of each person to decide for themselves has a name, it's called protestantism. To assume a protestant wants to remove people from the public sphere for being religious is mad, but when the same claim is levelled against a secular person, somehow it seems sensible.
“he supported the strange idea that terminally ill people should be helped to kill themselves.” That's really not such a strange idea. It is supported by the great bulk of the population of this country. If someone wants to die I for one belief that it is profoundly evil of us to deny them that. To represent the view of many doctors and many of his constituents in this way is not surprising. The reason you find it surprising is your profoundly backward concept of morality. Your beliefs on this are presumably either explicitly religious or based on religious principles. I dont think this makes for good judgement on issues of life and death, it doesn't recognise that the goodness of human life is not an absolute, nor is it universal. People do not all have the same sort of a life, not all of them regard their own life as precious, some are capable of enormous self-sacrifice because they regarded others as more important than themselves. I dont think one can be a martyr and not accept that some things are more important than ones own life. If we then accept that some things are more important than life, and if we accept, as I do, that the desires of people and those things that make them feel independent and free are examples of those things then we must accept that people should be able to kill themselves. It is not hard then to argue that people should be able to ask (not to demand, of course not to demand) that others help them if they are physically unable to do it themselves. This is not a strange idea, it only seems strange to your profoundly odd concept of morality.
“A drab, secular determinism was his sole motivation” determinism cannot, by definition, motivate anyone. If you believe that your actions are determined then you cannot make any decision, you believe your actions are independent of any decision you make. Also, drab? Really? Secularism is drab? Science is drab? You need to go away and watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Watch Prof. Brian Cox's Wonders of the Solar System. Learn anything about the joy and wonder of a world seen through scientific eyes. The natural world is full of joy and wonder and can only be considered drab by someone profoundly ignorant of science.
“His political demise will be mourned only by those with a strange fascination for death,” No. Once again you've not understood. Yes, he is praised by the many many people who support euthanasia. But more importantly he will be sorely missed by anyone who thinks that the best running of the country is best answered by people who are scientifically literate. Someone deciding on NHS policy should decide based on evidence, not on superstition, and Dr Harris was a hard-line opponent of magic beans like homoeopathy and chiropractic on the NHS. Those who believe that no-one should be censored if they want to present evidence about fraudulent claims have lost a vital supporter in the case for libel reform. Those who want sex education to be about reality not outdated dogmas have lost a firm advocate for universal sex education. Those who want equality for gays and lesbians have lost. Those who want a decent society run by reason no the church have lost. Those who dont want children being indoctrinated in faith schools have lost. Those who think that public institutions should not be allowed to be bigoted have lost. Parliament has lost. Mourn the loss of a scientist at your peril, you loose things that you literally do not understand.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Darwin was wrong.
This headline, or something like it, is a staple of lazy sensationalist journalists. It seems that every time something interesting about biology or evolution (I dont think there's a difference between the two but that's by the by) crops up in some study there's a semi-literate hack waiting in the wings to say that this proves Darwin wrong. Normally this just reflects a lack of understanding of the complexity of living things (which is of course evidence that evolution is true, no other mechanism can produce organic complexity). However sometimes it reflects a real lack of understanding of how science works.
We see the same bad reasoning whenever someone says something like “Einstein proved Newton wrong” or that “scientists are always changing their minds, one day they say one thing, the next they might say the opposite”. I think this reflects a real misunderstanding of the nature of the word wrong and does not reflect the historical reality of scientific progress. I dont think a scientific Theory is simply right or wrong as an absolute, nor do I think that future Theories are totally unpredictable.
I'm a mathematician and as such I think about everything as a mathematical analogy. To me science is a line of best fit. We are presented with data and observations. Given that we are required to predict what will happen in the future. All of science works like this, even history or other apparently non-predictive subjects work like this. When we say that there was a iron-aged fort at location X, we can interpret that as a prediction: “if more artefacts are uncovered from this site they will follow the distribution we expect from a fort of this size”. This is a prediction about future observations. Without future observations science is a meaningless task. Science is about constructing Theories, a scientific Theory is a (generally mathematical) model into which we can feed an experiment and from which we get a prediction. Any other sort of claim about the world is metaphysics, which bores me rigid so I wont talk about it.
So, given that, let us analyse what happened with gravity. Everyone knows things fall, the ancients said that the elements of earth and water tried to return to the ground and to the sea respectively. This is a scientific Theory. It makes predictions, and most of the time those predictions are pretty good. Rivers do flow towards the sea not away from it, rocks fall towards the earth not the sky. But then along came the Renaissance, then it was claimed that things fall towards the centre of the spherical earth at a constant rate of acceleration and that fire etc rise due to buoyancy. This is a very accurate prediction, it gives you much more detail than the ancient theory, if you've done any kind of mechanics with gravity in school, this is the theory you used. Newton then came along, and said that the force of gravity on earth was the same inverse square law that was known to rule celestial mechanics. This meant that very accurate predictions could be made for the force of gravity almost anywhere in the universe. And finally, Einstein shows up and yacked about bent space for a bit and allowed us to predict the precession of Mercury better than Newton.
What has happened here? I'm going to take some daft numbers for sake of example but they're not important. Let us say that the Ancient theory gives predictions that are as accurate as our instruments 50% of the time, this is very generous. Then let us suppose that the Renaissance model is as accurate as we want 90% of the time. What has happened to the ancient predictions? They're still just as valid. They're still easy to do and intuitive. They're still right with exactly the same accuracy. The Renaissance did not change the accuracy of the ancients. What it did do is provide a new theory that is more accurate. Anyone who stuck with the old theory ends up with worse results and is more likely to have things blow up in their face.
I claim that Einstein didn't prove Newton wrong. Before 1915 it was well known that Newton was accurate to within (made up figure) 1%, but it was also well know that this 1% error wasn't going away. Anyone who claimed that Newton's laws were perfect was either hopelessly optimistic or really out of touch with experimental results. After 1915 it was well known that Newton was accurate to within 1% and that whilst this is far from perfect it was used in the Apollo missions and almost all space-flight without too much worry. Einstein did not change this fact. One thing he did do that was important was knock down any notions that Newton was a god or had direct dealings with a god. This is very healthy. We need to remember that Einstein's Theory is more accurate than Newton's only quantitatively, it is accurate to within 0.1% not 1%. This is not the same thing as being right in an absolute sense. Relativity makes predictions about black holes and about the subatomic universe that just aren't right. All we say for Einstein is that these cases are rare so he's very accurate on average.
My point here is we need to get away from the notion that a Theory exists in one of two states, right or wrong. A simplistic version of the principle of falsification runs like this: we propose a Theory, provisionally accept it, then run tests, and if it fails them then it is wrong. I hate to disillusion you, but by that definition all Theories are equally wrong. Not one scientific Theory ever proposed has made 100% accurate predictions. Relativity goes all to hell near black holes, quantum theory is great, gets predictions right down to the 12th decimal place, but the 13th? Totally wrong.
We see the same bad reasoning whenever someone says something like “Einstein proved Newton wrong” or that “scientists are always changing their minds, one day they say one thing, the next they might say the opposite”. I think this reflects a real misunderstanding of the nature of the word wrong and does not reflect the historical reality of scientific progress. I dont think a scientific Theory is simply right or wrong as an absolute, nor do I think that future Theories are totally unpredictable.
I'm a mathematician and as such I think about everything as a mathematical analogy. To me science is a line of best fit. We are presented with data and observations. Given that we are required to predict what will happen in the future. All of science works like this, even history or other apparently non-predictive subjects work like this. When we say that there was a iron-aged fort at location X, we can interpret that as a prediction: “if more artefacts are uncovered from this site they will follow the distribution we expect from a fort of this size”. This is a prediction about future observations. Without future observations science is a meaningless task. Science is about constructing Theories, a scientific Theory is a (generally mathematical) model into which we can feed an experiment and from which we get a prediction. Any other sort of claim about the world is metaphysics, which bores me rigid so I wont talk about it.
So, given that, let us analyse what happened with gravity. Everyone knows things fall, the ancients said that the elements of earth and water tried to return to the ground and to the sea respectively. This is a scientific Theory. It makes predictions, and most of the time those predictions are pretty good. Rivers do flow towards the sea not away from it, rocks fall towards the earth not the sky. But then along came the Renaissance, then it was claimed that things fall towards the centre of the spherical earth at a constant rate of acceleration and that fire etc rise due to buoyancy. This is a very accurate prediction, it gives you much more detail than the ancient theory, if you've done any kind of mechanics with gravity in school, this is the theory you used. Newton then came along, and said that the force of gravity on earth was the same inverse square law that was known to rule celestial mechanics. This meant that very accurate predictions could be made for the force of gravity almost anywhere in the universe. And finally, Einstein shows up and yacked about bent space for a bit and allowed us to predict the precession of Mercury better than Newton.
What has happened here? I'm going to take some daft numbers for sake of example but they're not important. Let us say that the Ancient theory gives predictions that are as accurate as our instruments 50% of the time, this is very generous. Then let us suppose that the Renaissance model is as accurate as we want 90% of the time. What has happened to the ancient predictions? They're still just as valid. They're still easy to do and intuitive. They're still right with exactly the same accuracy. The Renaissance did not change the accuracy of the ancients. What it did do is provide a new theory that is more accurate. Anyone who stuck with the old theory ends up with worse results and is more likely to have things blow up in their face.
I claim that Einstein didn't prove Newton wrong. Before 1915 it was well known that Newton was accurate to within (made up figure) 1%, but it was also well know that this 1% error wasn't going away. Anyone who claimed that Newton's laws were perfect was either hopelessly optimistic or really out of touch with experimental results. After 1915 it was well known that Newton was accurate to within 1% and that whilst this is far from perfect it was used in the Apollo missions and almost all space-flight without too much worry. Einstein did not change this fact. One thing he did do that was important was knock down any notions that Newton was a god or had direct dealings with a god. This is very healthy. We need to remember that Einstein's Theory is more accurate than Newton's only quantitatively, it is accurate to within 0.1% not 1%. This is not the same thing as being right in an absolute sense. Relativity makes predictions about black holes and about the subatomic universe that just aren't right. All we say for Einstein is that these cases are rare so he's very accurate on average.
My point here is we need to get away from the notion that a Theory exists in one of two states, right or wrong. A simplistic version of the principle of falsification runs like this: we propose a Theory, provisionally accept it, then run tests, and if it fails them then it is wrong. I hate to disillusion you, but by that definition all Theories are equally wrong. Not one scientific Theory ever proposed has made 100% accurate predictions. Relativity goes all to hell near black holes, quantum theory is great, gets predictions right down to the 12th decimal place, but the 13th? Totally wrong.
As someone who's excited by physics I'm quite glad that a 100% accurate Theory Of Everything doesn't exist. A world where there was nothing left to do but measure some constants ever more accurately (as was thought by some at the start of the last century) would be a very boring one to live in.
Another suggestion that annoys me is that Theories change, so tomorrow a Theory may be discovered that is completely the opposite of the current one and that might be accepted. Remember the analogy of the line of best fit? I've got an extension of the idea. To me, Theories of science are a Taylor expansion of reality. A Taylor expansion is a sequence of curves of best fit that get closer and closer to the true value of some curve as time goes on.
Here we have a sequence of Theories, each one is an approximation of the real observation, each one is very close to right in a small area, and very far from right as you go away from there. I want to claim that these sequences of Theories have a very important property. As you go forward in time I want to claim that the numerical predictions made by a Theory will tend to get ever closer together before ending up very near some point.
I want to suggest that if you look at the history of mainstream Theories in one area of science you will see that over time the Theories become ever closer in predictions, until (as with current Quantum Theory) it is very very hard indeed to do an experiment where the difference between an old Theory and a new one is measurable. The red dots represent different Theories that are the most accurate available at different times. They fluctuate wildly at the start, then gradually settle down towards a definite value. What is that value? No way to tell, the best approximation we have is the most accurate Theory we have.
Another suggestion that annoys me is that Theories change, so tomorrow a Theory may be discovered that is completely the opposite of the current one and that might be accepted. Remember the analogy of the line of best fit? I've got an extension of the idea. To me, Theories of science are a Taylor expansion of reality. A Taylor expansion is a sequence of curves of best fit that get closer and closer to the true value of some curve as time goes on.
Here we have a sequence of Theories, each one is an approximation of the real observation, each one is very close to right in a small area, and very far from right as you go away from there. I want to claim that these sequences of Theories have a very important property. As you go forward in time I want to claim that the numerical predictions made by a Theory will tend to get ever closer together before ending up very near some point.
I want to suggest that if you look at the history of mainstream Theories in one area of science you will see that over time the Theories become ever closer in predictions, until (as with current Quantum Theory) it is very very hard indeed to do an experiment where the difference between an old Theory and a new one is measurable. The red dots represent different Theories that are the most accurate available at different times. They fluctuate wildly at the start, then gradually settle down towards a definite value. What is that value? No way to tell, the best approximation we have is the most accurate Theory we have.
I suggest that if we observe one Theory to be very accurate then any more accurate future Theory will fall roughly within the error bar of the first. In short, I suggest that the green Theory could never be more reliable and accurate than the cluster of reds. Simply because if the green Theory is accurate you have a lot of work to do to explain why it is that all the red Theories work so well.
The Darwin example: Darwin wasn't a god. Of course he made predictions that have turned out to be false. And of course the core Theory of biology hasn't been left lying around for the last 150 years. We have new Theories of evolution all the time. Darwin's was simplistic, not very quantitative. It was an improvement on Lemark. It wasn't as accurate as the Neo-Darwinian synthesis. In the same way Richard Dawkins didn't show that evolution was wrong when he proposed his gene-centric version was more quantifiable and more accurate than group-selection theories. In the same way the latest improvement or refinement of the theory does not show that evolution isn't true. It is. Just now we have a better understanding of it.
The Darwin example: Darwin wasn't a god. Of course he made predictions that have turned out to be false. And of course the core Theory of biology hasn't been left lying around for the last 150 years. We have new Theories of evolution all the time. Darwin's was simplistic, not very quantitative. It was an improvement on Lemark. It wasn't as accurate as the Neo-Darwinian synthesis. In the same way Richard Dawkins didn't show that evolution was wrong when he proposed his gene-centric version was more quantifiable and more accurate than group-selection theories. In the same way the latest improvement or refinement of the theory does not show that evolution isn't true. It is. Just now we have a better understanding of it.
It is of course always logically possible that anything could happen and any new theory could in principle be successful. But anything that seriously contradicts previous theories has an awful lot of explaining to do about why all the evidence of the past showed something different. I wouldn't dare suggest that it is impossible that evolution or some other well tested Theory will ever be replaced by a Theory that is substantially different. But it is a good prediction that this wont happen. I'm defiantly more confident than 1 in 2 million and would thus happily stake my life on it being true. (And so would you, you've taken a 1 in 2 million bet with your life if you've ever been on a plane for more than an hour).
Please note here I'm talking only about the predictive element of the theory. The metaphysical and philosophical differences between theories can be immense. The shift to a non-absolute time was enormous and totally contradicted all previous theories. But the change in predictions was very very small. The metaphysical difference between absolute time and relative time is vast, the predictive difference is billionths of seconds in any reasonable case.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
A lie told often enough.
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." ~ Charles Darwin
Just a quick note to say that evolution is all a lie and even Charles Darwin, the god of atheism, thought so. And also to say a few things.
Dont trust authority, just because a respected scientist says something doesn't make it right.
Respect evidence, dont assume your opinion is valid just because it makes you feel happy or you have money riding on it. If you've not got reasons you've got nothing.
Read the whole paragraph. Sometimes quotes are misleading.
The quote above can be found in 46,300 websites. The next sentence, 7,670. This happens all over the place, not just science, but in politics, friendships, art, everywhere. It's a common trick that is used too often, and one should always be on guard for this kind of deception, as with any other kind.
With this in mind, here's the context to the above quote.
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.
When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility.
In searching for the gradations through which an orgain in any species has been perfected, we ought to look exclusively to its lineal progenitors; but this is scarcely ever possible, and we are forced to look to other species and genera of the same group, that is to the collateral descendants from the same parent-form, in order to see what gradations are possible, and for the chance of some gradations having been transmitted in an unaltered or little altered condition. But the state of the same organ in distinct classes may incidentally throw light on the steps by which it has been perfected.
The simplest organ which can be called an eye consists of an optic nerve, surrounded by pigment-cells, and covered by translucent skin, but without any lens or other refractive body. We may, however, according to M. Jourdain, descend even a step lower and find aggregates of pigment-cells, apparently serving as organs of vision, without any nerves, and resting merely on sarcodic tissue. Eyes of the above simple nature are not capable of distinct vision, and serve only to distinguish light from darkness. In certain star-fishes, small depressions in the layer of pigment which surrounds the nerve are filled, as described by the author just quoted, with transparent gelatinous matter, projecting with a convex surface, like the cornea in the higher animals. He suggests that this serves not to form an image, but only to concentrate the luminous rays and render their perception more easy. In this concentration of the rays we gain the first and by far the most important step towards the formation of a true, picture-forming eye; for we have only to place the naked extremity of the optic nerve, which in some of the lower animals lies deeply buried in the body, and in some near the surface, at the right distance from the concentrating apparatus, and an image will be formed on it.
In the great class of the Articulata, we may start from an optic nerve simply coated with pigment, the latter sometimes forming a sort of pupil, but destitute of a lens or other optical contrivance. With insects it is now known that the numerous facets on the cornea of their great compound eyes form true lenses, and that the cones include curiously modified nervous filaments. But these organs in the Articulata are so much diversified that Muller formerly made three main classes with seven subdivisions, besides a fourth main class of aggregated simple eyes.
When we reflect on these facts, here given much too briefly, with respect to the wide, diversified, and graduated range of structure in the eyes of the lower animals; and when we bear in mind how small the number of all living forms must be in comparison with those which have become extinct, the difficulty ceases to be very great in believing that natural selection may have converted the simple apparatus of an optic nerve, coated with pigment and invested by transparent membrane, into an optical instrument as perfect as is possessed by any member of the articulate class.
He who will go thus far, ought not to hesitate to go one step further, if he finds on finishing this volume that large bodies of facts, otherwise inexplicable, can be explained by the theory of modification through natural selection; he ought to admit that a structure even as perfect as an eagle's eye might thus be formed, although in this case he does not know the transitional states. It has been objected that in order to modify the eye and still preserve it as a perfect instrument, many changes would have to be effected simultaneously, which, it is assumed, could not be done through natural selection; but as I have attempted to show in my work on the variation of domestic animals, it is not necessary to suppose that the modifications were all simultaneous, if they were extremely slight and gradual. Different kinds of modification would, also, serve for the same general purpose: as Mr. Wallace has remarked, "if a lens has too short or too long a focus, it may be amended either by an alteration of curvature, or an alteration of density; if the curvature be irregular, and the rays do not converge to a point, then any increased regularity of curvature will be an improvement. So the contraction of the iris and the muscular movements of the eye are neither of them essential to vision, but only improvements which might have been added and perfected at any stage of the construction of the instrument." Within the highest division of the animal kingdom, namely, the Vertebrata, we can start from an eye so simple, that it consists, as in the lancelet, of a little sack of transparent skin, furnished with a nerve and lined with pigment, but destitute of any other apparatus. In fishes and reptiles, as Owen has remarked, "the range of gradations of dioptric structures is very great." It is a significant fact that even in man, according to the high authority of Virchow, the beautiful crystalline lens is formed in the embryo by an accumulation of epidermic cells, lying in a sack-like fold of the skin; and the vitreous body is formed from embryonic sub-cutaneous tissue. To arrive, however, at a just conclusion regarding the formation of the eye, with all its marvellous yet not absolutely perfect characters, it is indispensable that the reason should conquer the imagination; but I have felt the difficulty far too keenly to be surprised at others hesitating to extend the principle of natural selection to so startling a length.
It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye with a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with spaces filled with fluid, and with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly changing in form. Further we must suppose that there is a power, represented by natural selection or the survival of the fittest, always intently watching each slight alteration in the transparent layers; and carefully preserving each which, under varied circumstances, in any way or in any degree, tends to produce a distincter image. We must suppose each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; each to be preserved until a better one is produced, and then the old ones to be all destroyed. In living bodies, variation will cause the slight alterations, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let this process go on for millions of years; and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds; and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man?
Just a quick note to say that evolution is all a lie and even Charles Darwin, the god of atheism, thought so. And also to say a few things.
The quote above can be found in 46,300 websites. The next sentence, 7,670. This happens all over the place, not just science, but in politics, friendships, art, everywhere. It's a common trick that is used too often, and one should always be on guard for this kind of deception, as with any other kind.
With this in mind, here's the context to the above quote.
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.
When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility.
In searching for the gradations through which an orgain in any species has been perfected, we ought to look exclusively to its lineal progenitors; but this is scarcely ever possible, and we are forced to look to other species and genera of the same group, that is to the collateral descendants from the same parent-form, in order to see what gradations are possible, and for the chance of some gradations having been transmitted in an unaltered or little altered condition. But the state of the same organ in distinct classes may incidentally throw light on the steps by which it has been perfected.
The simplest organ which can be called an eye consists of an optic nerve, surrounded by pigment-cells, and covered by translucent skin, but without any lens or other refractive body. We may, however, according to M. Jourdain, descend even a step lower and find aggregates of pigment-cells, apparently serving as organs of vision, without any nerves, and resting merely on sarcodic tissue. Eyes of the above simple nature are not capable of distinct vision, and serve only to distinguish light from darkness. In certain star-fishes, small depressions in the layer of pigment which surrounds the nerve are filled, as described by the author just quoted, with transparent gelatinous matter, projecting with a convex surface, like the cornea in the higher animals. He suggests that this serves not to form an image, but only to concentrate the luminous rays and render their perception more easy. In this concentration of the rays we gain the first and by far the most important step towards the formation of a true, picture-forming eye; for we have only to place the naked extremity of the optic nerve, which in some of the lower animals lies deeply buried in the body, and in some near the surface, at the right distance from the concentrating apparatus, and an image will be formed on it.
In the great class of the Articulata, we may start from an optic nerve simply coated with pigment, the latter sometimes forming a sort of pupil, but destitute of a lens or other optical contrivance. With insects it is now known that the numerous facets on the cornea of their great compound eyes form true lenses, and that the cones include curiously modified nervous filaments. But these organs in the Articulata are so much diversified that Muller formerly made three main classes with seven subdivisions, besides a fourth main class of aggregated simple eyes.
When we reflect on these facts, here given much too briefly, with respect to the wide, diversified, and graduated range of structure in the eyes of the lower animals; and when we bear in mind how small the number of all living forms must be in comparison with those which have become extinct, the difficulty ceases to be very great in believing that natural selection may have converted the simple apparatus of an optic nerve, coated with pigment and invested by transparent membrane, into an optical instrument as perfect as is possessed by any member of the articulate class.
He who will go thus far, ought not to hesitate to go one step further, if he finds on finishing this volume that large bodies of facts, otherwise inexplicable, can be explained by the theory of modification through natural selection; he ought to admit that a structure even as perfect as an eagle's eye might thus be formed, although in this case he does not know the transitional states. It has been objected that in order to modify the eye and still preserve it as a perfect instrument, many changes would have to be effected simultaneously, which, it is assumed, could not be done through natural selection; but as I have attempted to show in my work on the variation of domestic animals, it is not necessary to suppose that the modifications were all simultaneous, if they were extremely slight and gradual. Different kinds of modification would, also, serve for the same general purpose: as Mr. Wallace has remarked, "if a lens has too short or too long a focus, it may be amended either by an alteration of curvature, or an alteration of density; if the curvature be irregular, and the rays do not converge to a point, then any increased regularity of curvature will be an improvement. So the contraction of the iris and the muscular movements of the eye are neither of them essential to vision, but only improvements which might have been added and perfected at any stage of the construction of the instrument." Within the highest division of the animal kingdom, namely, the Vertebrata, we can start from an eye so simple, that it consists, as in the lancelet, of a little sack of transparent skin, furnished with a nerve and lined with pigment, but destitute of any other apparatus. In fishes and reptiles, as Owen has remarked, "the range of gradations of dioptric structures is very great." It is a significant fact that even in man, according to the high authority of Virchow, the beautiful crystalline lens is formed in the embryo by an accumulation of epidermic cells, lying in a sack-like fold of the skin; and the vitreous body is formed from embryonic sub-cutaneous tissue. To arrive, however, at a just conclusion regarding the formation of the eye, with all its marvellous yet not absolutely perfect characters, it is indispensable that the reason should conquer the imagination; but I have felt the difficulty far too keenly to be surprised at others hesitating to extend the principle of natural selection to so startling a length.
It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye with a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with spaces filled with fluid, and with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly changing in form. Further we must suppose that there is a power, represented by natural selection or the survival of the fittest, always intently watching each slight alteration in the transparent layers; and carefully preserving each which, under varied circumstances, in any way or in any degree, tends to produce a distincter image. We must suppose each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; each to be preserved until a better one is produced, and then the old ones to be all destroyed. In living bodies, variation will cause the slight alterations, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let this process go on for millions of years; and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds; and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man?
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Shift of perspective.
A few neat easy ways to shift perspective for you to try.
Have a profound day.
- Look at the night sky, find the moon, work out (by looking at the side of the moon that is lit up) where the sun is, try and visualise the sun, the earth, the moon, particularly the orbits of the moon and earth. Focus on this image as hard at you can while looking at the sky. If you relax your eyes you can sometimes see the earth and the moon as they really are. This works even better if you can also see a planet. Mars is very visible at the moment so give that a try. http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ is good for looking these things up.
- Next time you're on a plane, look at the horison, this is the kind of sight you've seen before many times. Next time tilt your head.
The world is a planet. It's really round.
Have a profound day.
Monday, 14 December 2009
denialism
If you've been anywhere near the parts of the internet where I live recently you will be all too familiar with a new word that is sweeping the world and making a lot of liberals self-righteous and a few of them ever so slightly nervous. That word is the great curse-word of the 21st century: “denialist”. … which I just want to start by saying is a fucking stupid word. Just from a standpoint of grammar, surely if you're going to say someone denies things then they are a denier, denialist just sounds such an ugly word, but that's not my point.
This word is used to mean someone who refuses to accept the clear line of the scientific community. It is quite common to hear people named as evolution denialists, anthropogenic global warming denialists, AIDs denialists etc etc. and it is common to hear these people being attacked for the reasons that make them a denialist. This is starting to scare me. I think a bit of separation might help here before we turn science into an unquestionable religious dogma and we start burning heretics.
The point of science is to subject every hypothesis to rigorous empirical testing, to trust no authority and to believe exactly what the evidence says. Science is the best, if not the only, possible way to understand the physical world and needs masses and masses of respect. But it needs respect as a process, not as a set of results.
When we attack someone or call them deluded for not believing that all organisms alive today share common ancestors whose offspring differentiated and changed by means of natural selection before becoming distinct non-interbreeding species, we are not (or at least shouldn't be) attacking the lack of belief itself. Many intelligent people lived before there was good evidence for, or a consistent theory of, evolution. They did not believe in evolution and this is no reason to dismiss them intellectually. What people need to be opposed to is wilful ignorance and refusal to accept fact. To fail to believe in the theory of evolution today means one of two things: Either that you haven't heard the endless arguments to support it, heard about the endless fossils, DNA analyses, geographical comparisons, real world real time examples etc etc which have been all over the TV, internet and bookshops ad nausiem, in which case you are wilfully ignorant and I would ask that you please never ever vote, not even for x-factor, your opinion really doesn't count, nobody cares what you think, because you dont think. OR you have looked at all the evidence and have said “…. nah, my 4000 year old book of Jewish fairytales is better than all this science rubbish”, in which case you simply are not connected to the physical world the rest of us share, this is genuinely a form of psychosis and again, please dont vote, for the sake of the rest of us, I'm begging you, seek medical help. In the case of evolution the evidence is so strong that no rational couter-arguments exist, we must be open the the possibility that they might, but the first person to find me such an argument can have my right leg as a prize.
It is important to distinguish these two cases, one is simply an act of laziness, which can be remedied by better public outreach from science and by simple effort on the part of the denier. The second case is someone who says “if all the evidence in the world is placed against my pre-existing belief I will not change my beliefs”. This second case is a really dangerous sort of person: their certainty in spite of, not because of, the evidence means they can very easily be made to believe very bad things, or when they do believe such things it is hard to correct them. Someone who doesn't accept that his senses and the evidence provided indirectly by them provide a real way of analysing the world are simply beyond rational discourse and persuasion, so if they get it into their heads that they want to do something stupid there is no easy way to talk them out of it.
So it is right that we complain long and hard at and generally disrespect this second type of person, it's bad enough to have one person who is disconnected from reality, it's a problem of a different order if people start listening to them. The pope himself is not all that dangerous, his legions of gay hating followers on the other hand are. The more a given proto-pope's arguments are refuted and their idiocies opposed the better for the rest of us.
I have a problem with how this is done in the liberal blogosphere, and it's climate change. I read blogs and newspaper columns from every respected scientist in the world and I hear unambiguously that the climate is changing and that human CO2 is responsible and we need massive cuts in everything to save our asses. And my soft-hearted liberal side says yeh, lets listen to the scientists, Sarah Palin disagrees so they must be right, people opposed to this are all doing it for the oil. And when people start disagreeing on blogs I think, well you're just running scared and you're using bad arguments to prop up your need for petrol. And then I see others on the same blogs wanting to shut these people up, or calling them denialists, and saying they have the blood of polar bears on their hands and other reckless stupid things. I see all criticism of the genuinely bad science of the guys at UEA ignored or shouted down by people assuming bad faith. I hear people arguing by presenting a list of names of scientists who agree, I hear people shouted at for asking to see the raw data. And it makes my blood chill.
Science is not a religion, you get no points at all by having the president of the royal society on your side, you get points for having evidence, evidence that others can see and examine, with clear methodology and error bars. The motto of the royal society, which I have adopted as my own, is nullius in verba, on no-one's word. When arguments in public go along the lines of “scientists say x, those who doubt x are evil and wrong” then something has gone very badly wrong.
And in climate change this isn't just a matter of pedantry about exactly what we are attacking. I have no reason at all to doubt that all the competent scientist studying the climate have good evidence to suggest that CO2 humans put in the atmosphere has caused a raise in global average temperature. I have no reason at all to doubt this evidence is complex and detailed, and very compelling. But yet, when I go looking around for it, can I find it? Damned if I can. A good proxy of what the public knows is wikipedia, for many people no other source of information exists. If I go on wikipedia and look for evidence of climate change, what do I find? Stupid Al Gore style graphs. Charts of CO2 and temperature which prove nothing about climate change because correlation does not imply causality, but which do prove that the various proxy measurements we have of past temperature disagree with each other by huge amounts, often more than the range of temperature. We learn from wikipedia then that the science behind global warming is not only shockingly inaccurate, it also uses logical fallacies, all the time.
I say again, my liberal conscience compels me to say that scientists say the evidence is good, and anything that gets through peer review must be good, peer review is tough. But it's really not right to attack people for doubting the word of the all high science. If they doubt you, and they are playing by the rules of only looking at what the evidence says and they aren't purely driven by an ideological agenda, then the problem might not be with them. The problem might be that the way the evidence is presented to the public on this is shockingly bad, really awful. And if that is the evidence in the public conciousness I'm glad the public dont believe in global warming, I'm glad they dont just take the word of science as revealed unquestionable truth. Let's have some of the vast body of evidence (which really does exist and is of good quality) out in the public domain and more importantly in the public conciousness and in a language people can understand without having to struggle. And even more importantly, let's have a differentiation between people who reject the scientific method and who must be attacked and opposed, and those who reject some common belief without being shown some good evidence for it, such people are quite the opposite of a denialist.
Monday, 7 December 2009
wonderful Asimov essay
It turns out that my plan to give you a complete foundational theory for all of morality today may have been a tad optimistic, I'll need until tomorrow morning at least. So in the meantime please have this lovely essay from that great genius Isaac Asimov on the tyranny of absolute judgements of truth.
continued at http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htmThe Relativity of Wrong
The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.
My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that "right" and "wrong" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.
However, I don't think that's so. It seems to me that right and wrong are fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I think so.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Galaxies
Have a look at some of these beautiful galaxy images:
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Many more images like this can be found at http://stevenbamford.com/gz2/beta/examples.html
I spend a fair amount of time on galaxy zoo, it's a website that asks you to classify galaxies, are they boxy? do they have spiral arms? do they have a bar? etc.
It's great for wasting a few hours and helping science out (they use the data on what sorts of galaxies are in what parts of the sky in what distribution to publish real scientific papers that do get used to stimulate research) but mainly it's so damned pretty. It's taught me a lot about the universe, we always think that galaxies look like those above, because that's the sort of thing that gets shown. I put those images up because pretty sparkly lights. But real galaxies when you look at them almost all look like this guy:
A smudge of beige against a black sky, mostly galaxies like this aren't making new stars or doing anything terribly exiting really, they're lumps of gas in deep space. But even though they dont look like a fantastic sci-fi fireworks display and they dont have sparkly spirals or anything like that, there's something majestic about that, something grand about a ball of gas larger than you can imagine that's so cold and distant you have to squint to make out it's very dense at the centre and thins out towards the edges. I recommend GalaxyZoo to everyone, it's a great project and you do get to look at some truly amazing images.
Many more images like this can be found at http://stevenbamford.com/gz2/beta/examples.html
I spend a fair amount of time on galaxy zoo, it's a website that asks you to classify galaxies, are they boxy? do they have spiral arms? do they have a bar? etc.
It's great for wasting a few hours and helping science out (they use the data on what sorts of galaxies are in what parts of the sky in what distribution to publish real scientific papers that do get used to stimulate research) but mainly it's so damned pretty. It's taught me a lot about the universe, we always think that galaxies look like those above, because that's the sort of thing that gets shown. I put those images up because pretty sparkly lights. But real galaxies when you look at them almost all look like this guy:
A smudge of beige against a black sky, mostly galaxies like this aren't making new stars or doing anything terribly exiting really, they're lumps of gas in deep space. But even though they dont look like a fantastic sci-fi fireworks display and they dont have sparkly spirals or anything like that, there's something majestic about that, something grand about a ball of gas larger than you can imagine that's so cold and distant you have to squint to make out it's very dense at the centre and thins out towards the edges. I recommend GalaxyZoo to everyone, it's a great project and you do get to look at some truly amazing images.
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Happy Carl Sagen Day.
Beautiful, profound, wonderful. Thankyou Carl Sagen, thankyou.
Find out more about one of the great men of the 20th century. http://www.examiner.com/x-21239-Oakland-Skepticism-Examiner~y2009m11d6-Carl-Sagan-tribute-and-memorial
Thursday, 5 November 2009
REPOST Some rather interesting questions
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php?topic=10217.0 has this rather interesting first post that I'd rather like to go through and answer because behind the silly misunderstandings there is some real science to be explained here. So here we go, original in bold as ever:
I just want to ask you some questions. I'm assuming you're an evolutionist.
A what? I'm not an evolutionist, it's not a creed to believe the theory sported by the most evidence.
By the way, I'm not a Christian, I'm just arguing for the sake of rationality.
Wouldn't mind if you were, if you're intelligent, have done basic research and can construct a coherent argument then you can debate no matter what you believe.
1. The law of Physics says Energy cannot be created or destroyed, how therefore can you justify the Big Bang?
This is a fantastic question. It's really deep to ask how something can come from nothing. And the answer is from quantum physics. We have observed in accelerators and similar experiments, that not only can you make something from nothing but it happens all the time. Empty space creates particles all on it's own. Which Raises two questions, why isn't the universe full of these things, and what happened to the conservation of energy? Well these particles dont hang around for long, one of them is made of anti-matter, it's basically the opposite of a real particle, they will destroy each-other if they meet (insert sci-fi/fatasty analogy of your choice). What about energy, they both have energy, so where did it come from? Simply speaking one is totally the opposite of the other, including energy, so all that's happened is that some energy has been made, with some anti-energy to balance it out. Author's note, the correct scientific term for this is negative energy... but I just cant make myself write that, it just sounds too New Agey, so I'm going to call it anti-energy, but if you ever hear a real scientist talking about negative energy, that's what they mean. We've seen this loads of times in experiments. But how does this help us.
Well, the universe acts in the same sort of way, there aren't particles of anti-energy waiting to destroy everything, but there is a very large amount of negative energy in the fabric of space. Do you remember from school that gravitational energy, the energy from being high up, is negative? If two things are near by they have some anti-energy because of gravity. If you let them fall they dont get all their kinetic (movement) energy from nowhere, they gain even more anti-energy from gravity. So: in the beginning there was no space and no time and no matter and no energy. This is the big bang, it's not a flash of light in a dark room you should imagine, you should imagine being inside a room smaller than a pea that explodes out, except there's nothing outside the room. The point is that this doesn't violate conservation of energy, because for all the energy you put into making matter and making it move and be hot and all that kind of stuff, an exactly opposite amount of anti-energy is made from the gravity and bending of space and a few other exotic things I dont really understand. The message is that the universe was made on credit, and unless there is a big crunch the debt isn't really going to be paid off. Like a lot of people all the debt gets shifted from one form to another so much that it never really gets paid off for good. So good question, long answer.
2.The probability of Earth being created by Chance is so astronomically small, that it is too improbable to count as evidence.
Evidence of what? I'm not quite sure what you mean here. So I'm going to answer a similar question that gets asked a lot. The odds by chance of the universe being arranged in such a way as we could be here right now doing this is minute, is it not sensible to think that it was therefore rigged? To answer this we have to think a bit about probability and specialness. For me to win the lottery is very very improbable, it's so improbable that if I buy one ticket and win it is more sensible to suggest that I rigged the lottery than that I won for real. There is a problem though when we talk about things that happened in the past. The odds of the lottery numbers being 12 18 26 35 40 44 49 last week were the same 587,320,272 to one as they were every other week. Just this time they came out. We shouldn't be shocked when improbable things happen, they must happen, otherwise they'd be impossible things. Never confuse what is impossible with what is merely very improbable, said someone very wise, no idea who, might have been me … might have been Jack Sparrow now I come to think of it, but whoever they were they were very smart. What makes the two examples different is that one is special and the other is not. Me winning the lottery is something we should doubt because there's some significance to it happening that does not apply to any other similar event, me winning the lottery has a significance that Dave from Milton Keynes winning it because you're talking to me. To Dave's friends of course him winning the lottery should doubted but mine is entirely believable. This difference is because it's easy to spot any particular thing in the past, to find Dave from Milton Keynes AFTER the result, but to predict it before? That's hard. So we shouldn't be surprised when we see improbable things in the past, everything has a small chance of happening, it's only surprising if it's in some way special or predicted.
So the universe earth etc. The existence of a planet here that could harbour life with 2 arms and twitter is shockingly small, I mean tiny. No really think of the biggest number you can, now think ten to the power of that number and then say … factorial (thanks to PBH), that much to one is how improbable this life is. But, that's like saying it's improbable that Dave won the lottery, we only noticed life it after life began … sort of by definition. Imagine we wound the universe back and started it up a stupid number of times, most of them would collapse in a second, most of the rest would never get galaxies and stars, most of the rest would be so inhospitable to life that it didn't evolve. So we want to ask is the universe something we should be surprised by. Is it special in some way. Now the fact that we are here now isn't special, we'd think the same thing if we were a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, same for being 2-armed apes, we'd think we were just as special if we were caterpillars with the power of thought. The only thing to ask is – is the existence of conciousness special, does it need an explanation or is it just something we noticed after the fact that we wouldn't have predicted before.
The idea that humans are vital to the universe is a natural and pervasive one. But life is so small and the universe is so vast that we really are insignificant, the universe does not require us for any of the day to day running of the place, leaving weird quantum stuff aside, the universe did fine before life and will do fine after it ends. So do I think life is significant? Not really, but that's not a very strong argument. There is however another suggestion from the many world's theory, not a scientific fact by any means, but a very real possibility, if I was a betting man I'd take … 10 to 1 odds on it being true, but I've no evidence of any strength to back up that instinct. This is the idea that there are many universes and that each one is slightly different. So there are unimaginably vast numbers of universes without life, and every once in a while, an impossibly rare universe has life, and that universe gets noticed, and the others dont. So it's not surprising that the universe is fine tuned to include us, if it didn't, we wouldn't notice.
This post is too long as it is so here's a sneak preview of the questions I'll answer later.
3.Even Darwin said, If there are not hundreds of transitional fossils found, my theory is incorrect, and today, we have even less transitional fossils than in Darwins time.
there are
4.Evolution cannot create complex objects or facilitate the change from a simple organism to a complex organism because small and random changes are insignificant unless they are part of a whole.
it can
5.Evolution is a constant process, so why are things not evolving today?
they are
6.If Evolution is not a constant process, and we have reached the climax of organisms and will not evolve further, what determined our stage to be the last stage?
false premis
7.The process of Carbon Dating is unreliable because so many assumptions are made that affect calculations.
it's backed up by many other tests.
8.Archaeological layers in the earth, as defined by Evolution are incorrect due to the fact that they are based on Carbon Dating, and the process of cyclic layers is not taken into account.
we have many many tests, and wtf are cyclic layers?
9.There is not one example of genetic mutations that add and enhance a species, therefore evolution is unfounded.
there are many, e. coli and nylonase are examples
Oh, and by the way, I answered each of your questions. Used logic. Maybe you should consider it. Your main incorrect assumptions were: You know better than God, You know the entire human race and all of their deeds, You are not taking responisbility for what we have done oh and You havn't done your research.
It's been interesting but logically unchallenging.
Thankyou
Irrelevant
BTW, comment plz as ever. How is my writing? I'm doing this stuff for two reasons, first I enjoy it, but I'm publishing because I love telling people about science. So how am I doing for explanation? Too much jargon? Too little jargon? Not accurate enough? Not clear enough? Inconsistent? I really appreciate all feedback.
I just want to ask you some questions. I'm assuming you're an evolutionist.
A what? I'm not an evolutionist, it's not a creed to believe the theory sported by the most evidence.
By the way, I'm not a Christian, I'm just arguing for the sake of rationality.
Wouldn't mind if you were, if you're intelligent, have done basic research and can construct a coherent argument then you can debate no matter what you believe.
1. The law of Physics says Energy cannot be created or destroyed, how therefore can you justify the Big Bang?
This is a fantastic question. It's really deep to ask how something can come from nothing. And the answer is from quantum physics. We have observed in accelerators and similar experiments, that not only can you make something from nothing but it happens all the time. Empty space creates particles all on it's own. Which Raises two questions, why isn't the universe full of these things, and what happened to the conservation of energy? Well these particles dont hang around for long, one of them is made of anti-matter, it's basically the opposite of a real particle, they will destroy each-other if they meet (insert sci-fi/fatasty analogy of your choice). What about energy, they both have energy, so where did it come from? Simply speaking one is totally the opposite of the other, including energy, so all that's happened is that some energy has been made, with some anti-energy to balance it out. Author's note, the correct scientific term for this is negative energy... but I just cant make myself write that, it just sounds too New Agey, so I'm going to call it anti-energy, but if you ever hear a real scientist talking about negative energy, that's what they mean. We've seen this loads of times in experiments. But how does this help us.
Well, the universe acts in the same sort of way, there aren't particles of anti-energy waiting to destroy everything, but there is a very large amount of negative energy in the fabric of space. Do you remember from school that gravitational energy, the energy from being high up, is negative? If two things are near by they have some anti-energy because of gravity. If you let them fall they dont get all their kinetic (movement) energy from nowhere, they gain even more anti-energy from gravity. So: in the beginning there was no space and no time and no matter and no energy. This is the big bang, it's not a flash of light in a dark room you should imagine, you should imagine being inside a room smaller than a pea that explodes out, except there's nothing outside the room. The point is that this doesn't violate conservation of energy, because for all the energy you put into making matter and making it move and be hot and all that kind of stuff, an exactly opposite amount of anti-energy is made from the gravity and bending of space and a few other exotic things I dont really understand. The message is that the universe was made on credit, and unless there is a big crunch the debt isn't really going to be paid off. Like a lot of people all the debt gets shifted from one form to another so much that it never really gets paid off for good. So good question, long answer.
2.The probability of Earth being created by Chance is so astronomically small, that it is too improbable to count as evidence.
Evidence of what? I'm not quite sure what you mean here. So I'm going to answer a similar question that gets asked a lot. The odds by chance of the universe being arranged in such a way as we could be here right now doing this is minute, is it not sensible to think that it was therefore rigged? To answer this we have to think a bit about probability and specialness. For me to win the lottery is very very improbable, it's so improbable that if I buy one ticket and win it is more sensible to suggest that I rigged the lottery than that I won for real. There is a problem though when we talk about things that happened in the past. The odds of the lottery numbers being 12 18 26 35 40 44 49 last week were the same 587,320,272 to one as they were every other week. Just this time they came out. We shouldn't be shocked when improbable things happen, they must happen, otherwise they'd be impossible things. Never confuse what is impossible with what is merely very improbable, said someone very wise, no idea who, might have been me … might have been Jack Sparrow now I come to think of it, but whoever they were they were very smart. What makes the two examples different is that one is special and the other is not. Me winning the lottery is something we should doubt because there's some significance to it happening that does not apply to any other similar event, me winning the lottery has a significance that Dave from Milton Keynes winning it because you're talking to me. To Dave's friends of course him winning the lottery should doubted but mine is entirely believable. This difference is because it's easy to spot any particular thing in the past, to find Dave from Milton Keynes AFTER the result, but to predict it before? That's hard. So we shouldn't be surprised when we see improbable things in the past, everything has a small chance of happening, it's only surprising if it's in some way special or predicted.
So the universe earth etc. The existence of a planet here that could harbour life with 2 arms and twitter is shockingly small, I mean tiny. No really think of the biggest number you can, now think ten to the power of that number and then say … factorial (thanks to PBH), that much to one is how improbable this life is. But, that's like saying it's improbable that Dave won the lottery, we only noticed life it after life began … sort of by definition. Imagine we wound the universe back and started it up a stupid number of times, most of them would collapse in a second, most of the rest would never get galaxies and stars, most of the rest would be so inhospitable to life that it didn't evolve. So we want to ask is the universe something we should be surprised by. Is it special in some way. Now the fact that we are here now isn't special, we'd think the same thing if we were a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, same for being 2-armed apes, we'd think we were just as special if we were caterpillars with the power of thought. The only thing to ask is – is the existence of conciousness special, does it need an explanation or is it just something we noticed after the fact that we wouldn't have predicted before.
The idea that humans are vital to the universe is a natural and pervasive one. But life is so small and the universe is so vast that we really are insignificant, the universe does not require us for any of the day to day running of the place, leaving weird quantum stuff aside, the universe did fine before life and will do fine after it ends. So do I think life is significant? Not really, but that's not a very strong argument. There is however another suggestion from the many world's theory, not a scientific fact by any means, but a very real possibility, if I was a betting man I'd take … 10 to 1 odds on it being true, but I've no evidence of any strength to back up that instinct. This is the idea that there are many universes and that each one is slightly different. So there are unimaginably vast numbers of universes without life, and every once in a while, an impossibly rare universe has life, and that universe gets noticed, and the others dont. So it's not surprising that the universe is fine tuned to include us, if it didn't, we wouldn't notice.
This post is too long as it is so here's a sneak preview of the questions I'll answer later.
3.Even Darwin said, If there are not hundreds of transitional fossils found, my theory is incorrect, and today, we have even less transitional fossils than in Darwins time.
there are
4.Evolution cannot create complex objects or facilitate the change from a simple organism to a complex organism because small and random changes are insignificant unless they are part of a whole.
it can
5.Evolution is a constant process, so why are things not evolving today?
they are
6.If Evolution is not a constant process, and we have reached the climax of organisms and will not evolve further, what determined our stage to be the last stage?
false premis
7.The process of Carbon Dating is unreliable because so many assumptions are made that affect calculations.
it's backed up by many other tests.
8.Archaeological layers in the earth, as defined by Evolution are incorrect due to the fact that they are based on Carbon Dating, and the process of cyclic layers is not taken into account.
we have many many tests, and wtf are cyclic layers?
9.There is not one example of genetic mutations that add and enhance a species, therefore evolution is unfounded.
there are many, e. coli and nylonase are examples
Oh, and by the way, I answered each of your questions. Used logic. Maybe you should consider it. Your main incorrect assumptions were: You know better than God, You know the entire human race and all of their deeds, You are not taking responisbility for what we have done oh and You havn't done your research.
It's been interesting but logically unchallenging.
Thankyou
Irrelevant
BTW, comment plz as ever. How is my writing? I'm doing this stuff for two reasons, first I enjoy it, but I'm publishing because I love telling people about science. So how am I doing for explanation? Too much jargon? Too little jargon? Not accurate enough? Not clear enough? Inconsistent? I really appreciate all feedback.
REPOST What's wrong with science
Science is my passion. In order the things I passionately care about are: sex, maths, science, freedom, fairness, alternative medicine, religion, tea, radio 4 and astrology. I love science, I dont just mean that I'm interested in a few things about space or evolution or whatever, I mean that I really really love it and get a huge amount of pleasure from it in the most profound way I have ever experienced.
Why am I saying this? I'm saying it because I think other people who feel similarly should say the same thing too. And I think that because there's a danger, not that science will stop happening, but that it will become separate from the real world. Too often I read things in the paper that start with “scientists have announced” or “a world expert in such and such today said that”, I was watching an interview with a scientist, possibly Marcus Chown, and the interviewer described scientists as the new priesthood. This scared me a lot. If this is the way things are going it needs to stop now. Scientists should not be allowed to claim infallibility just for being scientists just as a priest should not be able to claim infallibility for being a priest (whatever the pope says no human is without error).
Why is this a problem? If things go on like this people wont be able to do basic science themselves, everyone will start to assume that Science with an upper-case S is this big holy thing done by people in white robes in special cathedrals of knowledge. And that means that people wont use science in their day to day life, and I believe that this is vital for staying alive in the world. We live in a technological society, things rest on knife edges, if people cant use critical thinking disasters happen. If you give your child a homoeopathic remedy instead of real medicine the child's death is not due to you rationally considering the medical literature and experiments to compare results. It's because you've rejected the cult of science and gone for something that feels better. People who reject science in this way and buy into whatever nonsense seems good to them (watch out for the phrase 'western science') are feeding off this feeling of being rejected or alienated by science. So we need to make sure there is no cult of science for people to be turned off by.
What do I think should happen? I think that everyone, whatever they do and however well educated, can be and should be a scientist. This doesn't mean doing complicated research, it means thinking about the evidence for important beliefs and testing things in some limited way. It means not accepting what experts say because they are experts, but because they have done a good experiment to show they are right. It means not risking your health on the advice of people living centuries ago, but trying to be healthy in the way that the evidence shows is best. In the case of MMR for instance, it is in my opinion immoral for someone to make a decision about whether their child should get this jab without using science, few people have the time to analyse the research done for sure, but everyone has time to go to their doctor and ask him what the research says. And if he doesn't know, get a new doctor, medics who dont follow research on important topics like this should not be trusted.
What stops everyone being a scientist in this way? Society makes it so damned hard! Newspapers never publish examples of experiments, so much is done on what one or other group of scientists say, their word is taken as evidence. Why? Because science is hard, nobody wants to try and do it because it makes your head hurt. This is a double failure, of society and of education. Science classes that I have been to are massively unfit for purpose, pupils are made to spend years memorising facts without the faintest idea where they come from. We all learn at school that science means labelling a diagram of an eye, with little understanding of why the various fluids are there, we learn that chemistry is about manipulating horrid chemical equations without really understanding why the reactions happen, we are told that f=GmM/d^2 but are never told how this was found out. This makes science seem like it is a dry complicated academic mess, and so the media tells us that it's far too hard for us and so tells us something it thinks we can understand, irrespective of whether this is true or not.
My final point is that there is no need for science to be like this. Science as a method is easy, you look at some event, generalise what you see, predict from this something you haven't seen yet and then see if that happens. If so the generalisation survives this round, but if not we find a new one. There is no reason for this to be hard to do. In every day situations: if you think that crystals make your plants grow well, try it out, put two identical plants next to each other, one with a crystal and one with out, simple things like this mean either that you can confidently harness the power of the crystals knowing they work, or that you can stop wasting money on useless ornaments. But even in the profound things there is still a lot of science people dont get exposed to. A lot of deep science can, with a bit of thought, be said in such a way that you keep all the ideas, but make it seem much easier. I'd be prepared to bet that there would be far fewer “debates” on evolution if everyone were told that “there is a species of bacteria that eats, and can only eat, a by-product of nylon, as nylon was invented in the 40s, bacteria like this could not have lived before then, so they must have gradually come into existence since as the descendants of a very similar bacterium that ate something else” and yet if this is presented anywhere it is either written in such a dumbed down way “scientists say bacteria can eat plastic” or in the full horrors of a stream of incomprehensible Latin words so that nobody really understands why it is important. Science is easy, there's no reason why you should do something important without testing your ideas, and there's no reason why you should believe experts without testing their reliability.
Just a quick question: is anyone at all interested in this essay? I just wrote it because I've been irritated recently and wanted this idea off my chest, if nobody wants it feel free to say so and I'll write them but not publish in future.
Why am I saying this? I'm saying it because I think other people who feel similarly should say the same thing too. And I think that because there's a danger, not that science will stop happening, but that it will become separate from the real world. Too often I read things in the paper that start with “scientists have announced” or “a world expert in such and such today said that”, I was watching an interview with a scientist, possibly Marcus Chown, and the interviewer described scientists as the new priesthood. This scared me a lot. If this is the way things are going it needs to stop now. Scientists should not be allowed to claim infallibility just for being scientists just as a priest should not be able to claim infallibility for being a priest (whatever the pope says no human is without error).
Why is this a problem? If things go on like this people wont be able to do basic science themselves, everyone will start to assume that Science with an upper-case S is this big holy thing done by people in white robes in special cathedrals of knowledge. And that means that people wont use science in their day to day life, and I believe that this is vital for staying alive in the world. We live in a technological society, things rest on knife edges, if people cant use critical thinking disasters happen. If you give your child a homoeopathic remedy instead of real medicine the child's death is not due to you rationally considering the medical literature and experiments to compare results. It's because you've rejected the cult of science and gone for something that feels better. People who reject science in this way and buy into whatever nonsense seems good to them (watch out for the phrase 'western science') are feeding off this feeling of being rejected or alienated by science. So we need to make sure there is no cult of science for people to be turned off by.
What do I think should happen? I think that everyone, whatever they do and however well educated, can be and should be a scientist. This doesn't mean doing complicated research, it means thinking about the evidence for important beliefs and testing things in some limited way. It means not accepting what experts say because they are experts, but because they have done a good experiment to show they are right. It means not risking your health on the advice of people living centuries ago, but trying to be healthy in the way that the evidence shows is best. In the case of MMR for instance, it is in my opinion immoral for someone to make a decision about whether their child should get this jab without using science, few people have the time to analyse the research done for sure, but everyone has time to go to their doctor and ask him what the research says. And if he doesn't know, get a new doctor, medics who dont follow research on important topics like this should not be trusted.
What stops everyone being a scientist in this way? Society makes it so damned hard! Newspapers never publish examples of experiments, so much is done on what one or other group of scientists say, their word is taken as evidence. Why? Because science is hard, nobody wants to try and do it because it makes your head hurt. This is a double failure, of society and of education. Science classes that I have been to are massively unfit for purpose, pupils are made to spend years memorising facts without the faintest idea where they come from. We all learn at school that science means labelling a diagram of an eye, with little understanding of why the various fluids are there, we learn that chemistry is about manipulating horrid chemical equations without really understanding why the reactions happen, we are told that f=GmM/d^2 but are never told how this was found out. This makes science seem like it is a dry complicated academic mess, and so the media tells us that it's far too hard for us and so tells us something it thinks we can understand, irrespective of whether this is true or not.
My final point is that there is no need for science to be like this. Science as a method is easy, you look at some event, generalise what you see, predict from this something you haven't seen yet and then see if that happens. If so the generalisation survives this round, but if not we find a new one. There is no reason for this to be hard to do. In every day situations: if you think that crystals make your plants grow well, try it out, put two identical plants next to each other, one with a crystal and one with out, simple things like this mean either that you can confidently harness the power of the crystals knowing they work, or that you can stop wasting money on useless ornaments. But even in the profound things there is still a lot of science people dont get exposed to. A lot of deep science can, with a bit of thought, be said in such a way that you keep all the ideas, but make it seem much easier. I'd be prepared to bet that there would be far fewer “debates” on evolution if everyone were told that “there is a species of bacteria that eats, and can only eat, a by-product of nylon, as nylon was invented in the 40s, bacteria like this could not have lived before then, so they must have gradually come into existence since as the descendants of a very similar bacterium that ate something else” and yet if this is presented anywhere it is either written in such a dumbed down way “scientists say bacteria can eat plastic” or in the full horrors of a stream of incomprehensible Latin words so that nobody really understands why it is important. Science is easy, there's no reason why you should do something important without testing your ideas, and there's no reason why you should believe experts without testing their reliability.
Just a quick question: is anyone at all interested in this essay? I just wrote it because I've been irritated recently and wanted this idea off my chest, if nobody wants it feel free to say so and I'll write them but not publish in future.
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