The Borderlands Of Science 397
| The Borderlands Of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense | |
| author | Michael Shermer |
| pages | 360 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press |
| rating | 7 |
| reviewer | john |
| ISBN | 0195157982 |
| summary | Explaining belief in things that seem silly. |
Michael Shermer's background is psychology and ultra-long-distance cycling; he's written a number of books on cycling and analysis of (and refutation of) Holocaust deniers. He's also president (apparently for life) of the American Skeptics society and a reasonably good writer. In this book, Shermer spends a lot of time talking about the scientific method, its strengths and potential flaws -- and, more importantly, its system for dealing with its flaws (which he claims "sets science apart from all other knowledge systems and intellectual disciplines" -- a heady claim I wish he discussed more).
Since this is supposed to be a review of The Borderlands Of Science and not Weird Things, I'll just say that if you like one, you'll like the other as well. In Borderlands, Shermer analyzes beliefs that are defensible, beliefs that could (or were once thought to) be scientifically accurate. Among these are, for instance, ramifications of cloning, confirmation bias in explaining racial differences in sports (about which Malcolm Gladwell has also written), and a whole, whole lot of discussion of Alfred Wallace. Wallace and Charles Darwin were both responsible for the theory of evolution. Wallace is not remembered as widely for a number of reasons, which are explored in frightening detail in roughly three and a half of the 16 chapters of this book. Not coincidentally, Shermer did his doctoral thesis on Wallace. The ratio of stuff-about-Wallace-or-Evolution to everything-else, by chapter, is 3:7; Shermer is pretty focussed on this specific discussion.
The book has four sections: a short introduction (which is quite heavy in skeptical theory, exactly what I wanted) and the main body, discussing borderlands theories, people, and history. In "Theories," Shermer tends to stray a little from 'why people believe weird things' into 'why stupid people believe weird things' (as he did in the book of the same title) and that's fun. He covers a lot of quite current topics (like cloning, Wacky Unified Field Theories, and the importance of Punctured Equilibrium in the evolution of evolutionary theory).
In section two, "People," he discusses the Copernican revolution and its effects, then goes off about Alfred Wallace. Here, he does something weird that needs more discussion. In analyzing Wallace, he constructs a psychological profile, which he derived by having a large number of Wallace experts fill out a survey of the "strongly agree, 9, 8,.. 3, 2, strongly disagree" sort, and then uses the results of these surveys to fill in his discussion of why Wallace became a scientific spiritualist, for instance. It's an interesting technique that he also uses with Steven Jay Gould and Carl Sagan. It is tempting to ask how much confirmation bias exists in a survey of this sort, though. Since I've already let the spoiler out of the bag, Shermer discusses Gould and Sagan, spends some time doing a statistical analysis of Sagan's greatness as a scientist (by comparing published papers by topic with a number of other contemporary, canonically great scientists) and pauses briefly to smack Freud upside the head in a somewhat snarky comparison of Freud and Darwin.
Finally, in section three, "Histories," he does a lovely discussion of the myth of pastoral tranquillity, including a quick summary of four ancient civilizations that probably managed to destroy themselves through environmental stupidity without (as he puts it) any need of Dead White European Males coming in and inflicting devastation from outside. Shermer then analyzes (and debunks) the theory of transcendent genius, the Mozart Myth, as he calls it, and goes back to two more chapters on Wallace and evolution, in a discussion of the Piltdown Man hoax and why that should have (but doesn't seem to have) supported the idea that science can be self-correcting and learn from its mistakes.
I like what Shermer is doing, and he writes well and readably. If I sound a bit impatient, it's because I want him to be writing about the application of critical thinking rather than case studies, and when he starts out writing just what I want to read, then goes off in a different direction, he leaves me standing at the intersection saying "hey, wait, this isn't the bus I wanted." The book could stand to be either edited down into two books (a Wallace analysis, and a case-studies book on how science inspects itself), or edited up with a clearer discussion of the math involved in his statistical analysis of Sagan or his psychological profiling of people.
In the end, I liked this book, I learned a fair bit from it, and I would recommend it to people who want to learn more about both critical thinking and science history.
You can purchase The Borderlands of Science from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I'd also recommend (Score:5, Informative)
he's a magician, not a scientist and has a good sense of humor.
(Also don't miss out on his $1 million dollar prize [randi.org] or his weekly newsletter on what the kranks are up to..)
Re:I'd also recommend (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'd also recommend (Score:2)
Seems fair enough. If you get involved with someone who wears a sign saying `scam artist' around their neck,or `reverand' before their name, you are volunteering to be shafted, so I don't see where the courts would have a way in.
Re:I'd also recommend (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'd also recommend (Score:2)
I disagree. Clergy should only be held to the same standard of law that any other citizen is. This is one of the reasons I am so dissappointed with the Catholic Church. They try and "solve" their problems internally (even when it is a criminal problem). I understand that Catholic faith dictates that priests should be forgiven once they complete the sacrament of confession; however they should be made to answer to civil authorities. Just because they have made peace with their God, church, and faith, doesn't mean that they are free from criminal prosecution.
In the same sense, a preacher should be made to answer to civil authorities if he knowingly commits fraud (as in the case of a great many "born-again," bible-thumping, hellfire & brimstone, tent preachers & TBN).
Re:I'd also recommend (Score:3, Informative)
This is exactly true, and the official teaching of the Church is that the Sacrament of Reconciliation grants forgiveness of sins. It does not grant immunity from the consequences of the sins.
That said, if a priest (or anyone else) confesses a heinous crime within the Sacrament, the priest hearing the confession may not reveal the confession to anyone. They may, however, strongly suggest that the perpetrator turn himself in to the authorities. In fact, I suppose they could make that part of the penance, and the penitent would be obligated to do so in order to receive absolution.
The sinner-priest confidence of Reconciliation was never an issue in the scandal, though. These were all cases where the Church knew of the wrongdoing through other means, and took it upon itself to cover up the incidents.
In the same sense, a preacher should be made to answer to civil authorities if he knowingly commits fraud (as in the case of a great many "born-again," bible-thumping, hellfire & brimstone, tent preachers & TBN).
Agreed. The First Amendment is intended to keep religion out of government, not to provide a legal defense for charlatans. There's no way a reasonable person could interpret "shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion" to mean "shall let anyone who claims himself to be a holy man do whatever he wants".
Re:I'd also recommend (Score:2, Insightful)
They've done that for years just by letting such people exist. Seriously- if anyone else told you to give them money because it gratifies an invisible, all-powerful being, would you consider that a reasonable request? It's a scam from one end to the other. The use of a small radio to enhance the scam is only a matter of how complex the scam is.
Wow. (Score:2)
If you can't prove anything (supreme beings, distant historical miracles, etc...) leave it alone-- but for the court to ignore blatant trickery and lying under "separation of church and state" is ridiculous. If I want to rob people, all I have to do now is to do it in the name of God through some mystical-ish technology-assisted cheating.
This outrages me too (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do I believe in miracles? I'll just say: personal *private* experience, supports it -- but I did believe that they occur, long before I had such personal experience.
Is that a reason for you to believe in miracles?
No.
Nonetheless, one place where I don't think there was a scam involved, was the formation of Youth Challenge (or was it Teen Challenge), as written in the story "The Cross and the Switchblade." Do I know that to be a true case of miracles?
No. I was not there.
Do I believe it to have been a case of miracles? Yes. The patterns all indicate to me that it was probably real.
Should the government get involved, and prosecute the pastor who did this? I dunno -- I tend to be pretty libertarian.
Re:I'd also recommend (Score:2)
Hmm.. interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
100 years ago they would not have believed aspirin works. (Heck.. medical science STILL cant tell you _why_ it works, just that it does.)
1000 years ago, they probably would not have believed in Lions or a round earth or some magical force that cannot be explained like gravity.. but they all exist.
I worry about anyone who feels the need to debunk and be skeptic just because.. faith is somewhat required in daily life, even if it is faith in the traction of your tires while going around a corner. And the fact that we keep finding scientific reasons for things that have been based on "faith" in the past works both ways.
Just my opinion, though far from humble.
Maeryk
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Jee-e-e-bus. Seriously. Let me add that they would have also not believed in dragons, griffins, or Invisible Pink Unicorns.
As a self-professed Skeptic, I have to say that the thing that I utter the most often is "I don't know. And you know what? Neither do you." So many people believe in so many things without any sort of examination, it boggles the mind.
Sure there are cranks, but there are cranks everywhere, with everything. Don't turn into a sheep simply because you disagree with the hardliners.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainly! I agree 100%. Now, I must admit, Im a member of a rather large religion. So Faith has a good amount of sway in my life. But what it boils down to is proof.. what I consider proof may not be what you consider proof. So it is *still* rather subjective.
A lot of my opinions on this sort of thing have been formed in a sort of reverse way. I belong (and have for 10 years) to a group that does medieval recreation.. and in just 10 years, the amount of things "discovered" (re-discovered, really) from that period has changed the way a lot of people look at it. Things that 10 years ago "did not exist" have been found, mostly intact, and have changed some of the theories about life back then (tm) and how people went about it.
This, of course, doesnt stop school textbooks from claiming that "castles didnt have windows" and "houses were drafty all the time because they didnt have glass" (both of which are untrue for most of the middle ages.. just because they didnt have glass doesnt mean they didnt have wooden shutters or thick paper or a number of other solutions, and they also _did_ have glass for a pretty good amount of the later period.)
But any time someone states something as "concrete" either A) exists or B) doesnt exist
without having some form of proof one way or the other, (and absence of proof does not neccesarily mean absense of existance.. which seems to be the rule a lot of the "debunkers" run on, at least the hard line ones), I tend to take exactly the same attitude you stated above. "I dont know and neither do you."
Maeryk
What? (Score:4, Interesting)
True, not every proof begins with an absolute baseline, but it can always be traced back to one. Your argument about school textbooks illustrates only that without complete data sets, conclusions can be wrong. Wow.
And just which "debunkers" are you referring to? Debunkers of creationism, or debunkers of evolution? They have fairly different arguments. On the one side you have observed (the flu evoles to survive, you know) and inferred evolutionary occurances, both of which are willing to incorporate new data to smooth out the edges, or move entirely as appropriate. On the other you get twisted logic (the world is too ordered to not be created) and egotism (we are not related to monkeys!). I don't see either of these using absense of proof.
Or are there other debunkers your referring to? Debunkers of Holocaust? Debunkers of Santa Clause? Debunkers of the moon landing? Granted none of these may be the ones you were generalizing, but I'm guessing the first two were the ones from how you openned your post.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
They have both decided that all things must be proven. The unstated caveat is that all things must be proven, given a base set of axioms with which to prove things. Their base sets are different. They use the same method.
Your FAITH in the Scientific Method is fine, but it stops at the end of your nose. You don't know anything you can't base on a few precepts-including your Scientific Method.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Having an "all seeing all powerful invisible god" seems a little larger an axiom.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
I exist. The universe exists in the same sense that I exist. Observations of phenomena are valid within the limitations of the apparatus making those observations.
The first statement is provable. The last two can not be proven but can be assumed to be correct based on incomplete information. Based on all three, you can build up a set of knowledge magnificent in scope and majestic in wonder about the universe and your place in it.
Without these statements as fundamentals, however, you have only the existentialist quandry (I can only prove that I exist so there is no purpose in a discussion of anything more). Even so, they are not accepted on faith. Your senses return information to your conciousness that can, with sufficient careful observation, be determined to be consistent and therefore useful. The utility of your sensory observations further provides a basis for future trust of those senses (within their limitations) and additional exploration of the universe around you.
Religionists would have us believe that accepting these two statements on incomplete evidence is the same as accepting statements as true that have no (absolutely none) supporting evidence. Such a conclusion is clearly incorrect and indicates a complete lack of comprehension of what knowledge really is. If you choose to believe in statements that have no evidence, you will not harm me and I will raise no objection. But don't claim that everyone does the same because it just isn't true.
Regards,
Ross
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
What? in the arena of skeptics, proof means scientific proof. Period.
My experience is a lot of skeptics are, in fact, religous. there is a difference in faith in a God and a bending spoon.
Clearly, you have no scintific training, so you can go back to wacking your friends with duct tape and rattan.
EOL.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are the hardest words for many people to say. For many (a majority, I believe) of, the place where "I Don't Know" is kept is a very scary place. Most people will grasp any idea that comes along just so they can cram it into that empty place.
Witness the common "Well, do you have a better explanation?" argument. Amazingly, this argument is convincing to many otherwise reasonable people!
"I Don't Know". Cherish it. Consider your understanding of your world a project. "I Don't Know" is your TODO list.
Here's a couple of my favorites. The first is from Indiana Jones The Last Crusade. I don't know where the second is from:
Indy: ... the search for fact. Not truth.
If it's truth you're interested
in, Doctor Tyree's Philosophy
class is right down the hall.
The man who knows and knows he knows is wise. Follow him.
The man who knows not and knows he knows not is ignorant. Teach him.
The man who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool. Shun him.
Re:The Meta-Skeptic (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you forget the big wings, breathes fire, coexisted with humans part?
Might griffins and unicorns be extinct species?
Griffins? There's no way you could have a flying lion. Simple lift calculations prohibit it (the same lift calculations that get thousands of airplanes in the air everyday.)
Is it possible that unicorns are extinct species? Sure. But it's possible the pushme-pullme is an extinct species. In either case, it'd be nice to see just the least bit of hard evidence.
In 1799, the platypus was first described by a British scientist, Dr George Shaw.
Why was he a fool? Come on, he probably got a dozen of these type of things a week. Was he supposed to believe in every furred fish and other bizzare creature that went across his desk? He responded in exactly the correct way - he took the time to investigate the reality of what he was faced with when faced with doubts, instead of trumpeting it to the stars everytime someone tossed a hoax across his desk.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:5, Informative)
Urban legend. Try googling "How Aspirin works" The entire line of COX-2 inhibitors came about because someone finally did figure out aspirin works a couple of decades ago. Before that time, there wasn't much need to. Aspirin was on the FDA's GRAS list, so it was not a big candidate for major research dollars.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
There certainly is a lot more known about how it works than there was a even couple of years ago. They may soon even come up with a substitute that doesn't upset the stomach.
However...
If you follow the process back far enough, you reach the point where you loose the clarity that you had earlier. OK, it affects the prostaglandins, and one of the kinds is what controls inflamation (presuming that's why you are taking the asprin). Now how does it control the inflamation... and keep going back fartherer and farther... but you've already run into reactions that have unknown global effects within the body, so you don't really know, e.g., what would be the result if you only suppressed one of the kinds of prostaglandins. You can experimentally determine the local effects, but finding all of the results of global changes... well, you can only hope that you detected everything significant.
For that matter, you couldn't tell me why water molecules stick together. Why is a question that quickly leads to appearantly infinite recursion.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2, Funny)
For the sake of the kids.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
A better question would be why like charges repel, and opposite charges attract. But then a physics wise-ass would describe the electroweak theory...
Eventually, all theories boil down to physics, and physics boils down to "we don't know; that's just the best fit with the experimental data".
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:3, Informative)
Water molecule 'stick' together because they are asymmetrical, which cause them to be polar: the positive regions in one water will attract the negatively charged regions in other waters. This leads to the formation of hydrogen bonds. In a hydrogen bond a hydrogen atom is shared by two other atoms. The donor is the atom to which the hydrogen is more tightly linked. The acceptor (having a partial negative charge) is the atom which attracts the hydrogen atom. There is also a more complete quantum chemical explanation, which takes to long to explain. Google it. Stop pulling shit out of your ass.
-PCB
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2, Informative)
The articles which did talk about the prostaglandin/COX-2 inhibitor relationship STILL didn't explain HOW it works. They gave much more detailed observations about the links in the chain but they did not explain the WHY of it. Moving from "aspirin relieved the headache" to "salicylic acid is a COX-2 enzyme inhibitor and therefore reduces the production of prostaglandin" is a more detailed observation, not an explanation, Nobel prize not withstanding.
Making detailed observations is not the same as producing an explanation. Failure to recognize the difference is a classic oversight in science. Giving names to things you've seen but can't explain gives them names, not explanations.
There are plenty of highly detailed observations on how natural processes work but darn few real explanations. Gravity? Sure, there are lots of observations which allow detailed calculations but nobody has a clue what's really at work. Electricity? Magnetism? Light? Cancer? Nutrition? All the same. Observations, not explanations.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Skeptics in history like Gallileo and Copernicus who didn't want to believe in a flat Earth, around which the Sun revolved, just because thats what religion told them to do.
Most of what we know was only learned because someone said "prove it"
The skeptic is once again playing an increasingly important role in the TV age.
Watch any of the 'educational' commercial channels (Discovery, TLC, Science) and see the 'documentaries' on complete horse-pooey like ghost-hunting, bigfoot, loch ness monsters, ufos. The amount of air-time this stuff gets is enormous, because it's entertaining. But people are buying it - people think this is science.
Having someone pop up and remind us that it's all fantasy, theory and unproven is healthy for our society.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
Hehe. Well, Im not so sure. My Great Uncle (in the way that you have an "uncle" who isnt actually related to you but is a great friend of the family) spent _years_ searching for Bigfoot. His name was Dave Hassinger. (Incidentally, he was the guy who brought back that huge Bengal Tiger that used to be on display at the Smithsonian.) He spent a lot of time in the woods and all over the world, on hunting and research expeditions, and he believed, concretely, one hundred percent in Bigfoot. Didnt believe in aliens, UFO's, or ghosts, to my knowledge, but claimed to have actually seen bigfoot. (Of course, he didnt carry video cameras or anything, and was highly suspect of anyone who claimed to have "video" proof of it, because he had had such a hard time even getting a glimpse.)
Now.. Im not saying he was right, wrong, justified or delusional. Just that this was a very intelligent man, who had spent years in the remotest locations in the world bringing back hard to find animals for the Smithsonian, among other things. He knew a heck of a lot about nature, and truly, deeply, believed what he had seen. I have no idea what happened with his group since he passed on.
Maeryk
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2, Insightful)
The popular opinion is that bigfoot doesn't exist. If your great uncle spent years searching for concrete evidence that it does exist - then I'd say he was the skeptic looking to debunk a popular theory.
Is it possible there's another large ape that we haven't discovered? Sure. The lowland gorilla was a fable not too long ago - until someone found it noone believed it existed.
Myself I tend to believe it doesnt exist, though it's possible, until someone proves otherwise. This is just because it's nearly impossible to prove a negative. You could prove it does exist easily - by showing me one, but how do you prove it doesnt? You can only really say it's doubtful because we haven't seen one.
I only brought up Bigfoot because of the ridiculous show I watched on Discovery last night.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong, completely wrong. A skeptic is the very definition of an open mind. Many laugh, but that's just because they don't understand the difference between an open mind and an uncritical mind.
I will explain:
A skeptic is one who accepts no statment without reason (evidence, backing, logic) to support it. The skeptic never needs to disprove anything, because the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim. Once the claim is demonstrated or proven to the skeptics' satisfaction, then the skeptic has no choice to accept it.
The person with a close mind might appear to be a skeptic at first glance, but after the claims and closed-minded person's objections have all been addressed, the closed minded person will still refuse to accept something. Think of it like an issues list on a project. After the work is done and the issues are resolved, the project should be done. When proving your claim to a skeptic, all the issues have to be resolved and closed. If your debate partner acknowleges that all his questions have been answered, yet still refuses to believe, that's a signal that the person might be closed minded.
Never confuse a closed mind with a skeptical one. And never confuse an open mind with a credulous one.
"the skeptic" (Score:2, Insightful)
That is a rather romantic depiction of a skeptic. However, as skeptics tend to be humans they tend not to live up to that idealized depiction.
Not to mention that the skeptic bears as much onus to prove the foundations of the skeptical worldview as a constituent of any other belief system has for his or hers. Unfortunately for the consistent skeptic, many of the axioms of the skeptical worldview are improvable.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
The "paranormal": big foot, lochness monster, vampire rodent beasts in Puerto Rico, ghosts, monkey men with claws, and religion is basically adults playing pretend. You might be too detached from reality to just say "my great uncle whatever was chasing phantoms because he lacked a basic foundation of scientific knowledge, and therefore was prone to buying into psuedo-science and superstition", but I am not.
So, your great uncle whatever was chasing phantoms because he lacked a basic foundation of scientific knowledge, and therefore was prone to buying into psuedo-science and superstition.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:5, Informative)
What Buddhists are interested in is ending personal suffering, or rather becoming dissociated with the causes of suffering. That is the basis of Buddhist philosophy and is the entire purpose of the religion and system of beliefs. It is internal and scientific (yes, scientific). Many of the concepts and recent findings of modern psychology were known to Buddhists thousands of years ago because they thought about the mind and behavior in a scientific way. Evidence is required for all beliefs. The Dali Lama has even stated that elements of classical Buddhism should be abandoned if science disproves them. Buddhists are not threatened by science, they embrace it. BTW, Buddhists have been teaching that you rot when you die for a very long time. Buddhist reincarnation is not what you think it is.
Please learn something about a philosophy before you disparage it.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
1. To sustain a population of organisms a decent gene pool must be available. This means that there must be a sufficient number of these animals in the wilds to continue fostering the species, and a sufficient number must have existed in the recent past. Populations of animals leave behind obvious evidence. The larger the organism and it's population, the more evidence it leaves behind. Even the rarest forest mouse can be detected and revealed by a week-end naturalist. Why in all of the history of the world has not a single piece of verifiable evidence been found? Bones, waste, etc, etc. Here is a hint: Aliens don't leave evidence, either ;)
2. In addition to obvious physical evidence that should be available is the lack of evolutionary evidence. Scientists haved exhaustively catalogued much of the life that has evolved up to this point in North America and Asia. Why is there nothing, not one single shred of evidence, that would in any way conclucde that such a primate ever existed in the earth's recent past. Heres a hint: the same reason that no scientist can find any physical proof or evolutionary justification that a beast that exists solely on goat's blood resides in Puerto Rico. (Especially considering that goats were introduced recently to that island, but I digress)
I could go on, but you get the point. It will take a lot more then the stock "a thousand years ago scientists said that we would never bla bla bla" or "just because we haven't found one bla bla bla" arguements to make a valid point against a seasoned pupil of Shermer and Sagan. You might do better disproving the existance of Santa to a 10 year old. Go give it a try, you will see how I feel in this circumstance. :)
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
"Watch any of the 'educational' commercial channels (Discovery, TLC, Science) and see the 'documentaries' on complete horse-pooey like ghost-hunting, bigfoot, loch ness monsters, ufos. The amount of air-time this stuff gets is enormous, because it's entertaining. But people are buying it - people think this is science..."
It may not be -- but then again, it just may be "science" of a different color.
Can you conclusively prove to me, right here and now, beyond ANY shadow of doubt, that things like UFOs, ghosts, Nessie, etc. do NOT exist?
I didn't think so. Guess what? I can't prove that they DO exist either!
I'm not saying I believe everything on TV, nor do I believe the stuff that's published in rags like the 'Weekly World News' (though I will say that I got a great deal of amusement out of their photo-headline that Edgar Cayce had been reincarnated as a psychic fly).
What I'm saying is that skepticism and critical thinking are both very healthy, but keeping a closed mind to ideas that may not fit our current perception of science, just because we don't like the idea itself, is downright dangerous.
Where does that leave us, then? Right back at "I don't know." It's that little factor of not knowing that keeps us searching for answers. The kicker is that our knowledge and our science merely describe the world around us in terms that fit our senses, perception, interpretation of observations, and our culture.
I don't see how that same science can possibly define the full and true nature of any object, event, or living critter, especially if it has some sort of effect in an area that none of our senses or current instruments can detect.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Both of these men were firm Christians, the latter being a Monk and the former often discussing interpretation of the scripture, believing that an English or Latin interpreation--not being of the original form--should certainly be taken symbolically.
Galileo was also not exactly what you would call a "bastion of scientific reason": he firmly believed that the tides confirmed the heliocentric theory and ridiculed Kepler (also a devout Christian) for saying that *moon* might have a serious contribution to the tides. His argument was more philosophical than mathematical and he used such childish techniques as calling the Pope (Urban VIII) "Simpleton" and portraying him as a bufoon.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Yes, that kind of thing can make you very bitter. Heck, a lot of slashdot discussions are like that. The compulsion to disagree with others makes one extremely conservative (and annoying).
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
So? Once compelling evidence provided proof, they believed!
Without evidence, if you end up not believing things for a while even though they happen to be true, that is not a bad thing. Sure, you might "get lucky" and have faith in something that turns out to be proven true later on. Nice when it happens to work out, but if you subscribe to that philosophy you're going to end up believing 1000 false things before you win that lottery.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Faith aside, a lot of skeptics/debunkers I've encountered are people who are not skeptical, but merely believe the opposite of other people. However, they call themselves skeptical in order to wear a veneer of rationality. There are Creationists who think they're debunking evolution just as sure as there are materialists debunking spiritualism.
I go with Robert Anton Wilsons idea - be so skeptical you're skeptical of skepticism. Then you live in a mindset where anything can happen.
Id say its a far more interesting and productive world than ours, where people are constantly trying to one-up each other's belief system.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
The problem here is that is impossible to present prove for most of the things, even scientific proven stuff. How can you prove to your budy that men actualy steped on the moon? You can give convincing arguments, but those can be faked.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:3, Informative)
Well.. mostly I can. The moon rocks. According to the analysis of a buttload of geologists, there is *no possible way* they could have come from earth, and an equally impossible chance they fell through the atmospehere to get here. I wont even get into my standard "debunking of the moon landing debunkers" rant.. (I can usually plausibly answer every "then why does..." question off the top of my head) but just tell people to check out the analysis of the rocks, if they *really* wanna know. And its something over 100 LBS of rocks, if I remember correctly, brought back over the life of the missions.
Maeryk
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Actually more than 1000 years ago the Greeks knew the earth was round (based on several simple observations eg: ships coming over horizon, shadow of the earth on the Moon during lunar eclipses). And even measured it's size - suprizingly accurately.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Actually more than 1000 years ago the Greeks knew the earth was round (based on several simple observations eg: ships coming over horizon, shadow of the earth on the Moon during lunar eclipses). And even measured it's size - suprizingly accurately.
This was not 1000 years ago
1000 years ago, this "knowledge" was allready lost again and people again believed to live on a flat plate.
Eratosthenes measured the length of a shadow of a stick in Alexandria and in an other north african city at the same time. By that perimeter of earth was measured to an accuracy of about 5% of the real value.
angel'o'sphere
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Yes, but if you had shown them a lion, then they would have believed. The problem is people who are confronted with evidence but close their minds to it.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
1000 years ago, they probably would not have believed in Lions or a round earth or some magical force that cannot be explained like gravity.. but they all exist.
You utterly misunderstand skepticism.
faith is somewhat required in daily life, even if it is faith in the traction of your tires while going around a corner.
You utterly misunderstand faith.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Rationality has nothing to do with skepticism or faith. Rationality is whether or not the tools of logic are being used for the particular activity. One can have irrational skepticism, and one can have rational faith.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
1000 years ago, they probably would not have believed in Lions or a round earth or some magical force that cannot be explained like gravity.. but they all exist."
You seem to be confusing skeptics with cynics. A cynic would have not believed that aspirin worked no matter what. A skeptic would have said, "Prove it." If one was able to prove that it worked, a true skeptic would have accepted it and moved on. Skeptics aren't anti-anything save blind faith.
And apparently, we DO know how aspirin works [howstuffworks.com].
You mention faith as something that is "somewhat required in everyday life." But you have used faith in a somewhat inaccurate definition (or at least in an alternate definition from the blind faith connotation). True faith can be summed up as the belief in things for which there is no evidence. Believing that your tires will grip the pavement is not a matter of faith, but a matter of physics. The faith you're expending in this situation is the belief that, given that there is a chance that, for some reason or another (bad tread, oil on the pavement, etc...), they will slip, they will, in fact, grip. This is more of a hope that you will beat a given set of odds. Not faith.
So in summary:
Skeptic: Show me.
Cynic: I'll never believe that.
Person of faith: I don't care if you can show me, I believe it.
Re: Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
> Yes, the majority of them are anti religion, anti creation
FYI, creationism is a 20th Century political movement based on beliefs that were refuted by the evidence two generations before Darwin. IMO any scientist with relevant knowledge ought to be speaking out against it.
> And the fact that we keep finding scientific reasons for things that have been based on "faith" in the past works both ways.
Your example doesn't support this claim. People used aspirin because it was observed to work. Now if people had used it when it was observed not to work, but then science came along and said... er, like I said, your example is kind of screwed up.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2, Insightful)
This is an equivocation on the word faith that is frequently used by believers. Believing that friction works or that the sun will rise in the morning or that gravity won't suddenly stop working and cause us to fly off the earth is considerably different from the sort of faith required to believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator god or even to believe in the powers of self-proclaimed psychics.
One good way of telling the difference between the two is to consder the response of a believer when faced with clearly contradictory evidence. The true believer with religious faith will immediately ignore it. The skeptical thinker will think "Hmm, that's interesting...."
Regards,
Patrick
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Setting aside for a moment the fact that medical science is getting a handle on many of aspirin's properties, most skeptics would still have accepted that aspirin works. Why? Perform a clinical trial. Note that in a statistically significant number of cases, ASA lowers fever and acts as an anti-inflammatory and analagesic.
Yes, it's pure phenomenology, and not particularly satisfying. But there's a very obvious relationship--give aspirin; headache goes away. Give a sugar pill; headache may go away spontaneously, but it is appreciably less effective.
There exist a significant number of drugs in use today for which their full mechanisms of action have not been completely elucidated. Nevertheless, these drugs are used frequently and safely because their effects have been carefully studied. Could they be improved--in safety or efficacy--if we better understood their mechanism? Very likely, yes. Should we abandon them because we can't "believe in" a drug for which we don't know its mechanism? Don't be absurd.
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to subscribe to (and read) the Skeptic Observer at one point. It was interesting.. but I think in some cases the dyed in the wool "skeptics" swing too far on the other side. Yes, the majority of them are anti religion, anti creation, anti anything that cannot be proven, but if you extrapolate a bit, you realize (or I realize, anyway, YMMV) that its very very subjective. -- maeryk
That isn't skepticism you are describing, but cynicism. Yes, without evidence supporting an idea or its antithesis, one should be wary of mistaking wishful thinking for proof. However, a skeptic only reserves his belief until such time as someone can devise an experiment that provides evidence. The skeptic would never say, "I'll never believe in x." He would say, "I can see that no one has thought of an experiment to test this idea, but I'll not be so arrogant to think that no one can devise one in the future."
Skepticism goes hand-in-hand with the conditional acceptance of an idea that has been verified by experimentation. Any idea, model, or theory in science is continually tested; if a subsequent experiment trying to test a prediction made by one theory fails to conform to expectations, it provides new insight into how scientists should revise the old ideas.
As for religion, for the most part, I don't think anyone has devised a satisfying experiment that shows us if there is a god, and what type of god it is (Jesus? Jehovah? Allah? The Tao?!). The skeptic should say, "Well, there isn't much evidence now for god, so I'll just say, until such time as someone comes up with a great experiment, I'll say, for now, there isn't a god."
On the subject of experiments, I believe that's what most people mean when they say that "proof" is subjective. Even the results of an experiment aren't ambiguous: the question becomes, How does one know when an experiment is the best one allowing the researcher to answer the question? If you are in science, you'll know that it is never one experiment that proves the case. Usually, one experiment comprise one figure, in a scientific paper (I say this for systems neuroscience, specifically, but looking at cell and molecular biology, neurobiology papers and papers from other fields in the journals Science and Nature, I think that it's true that the experiment:figure ratio is greater than 1.) Most scientists must use multiple techniques (basically, if something holds true, then no matter what angle you view it from, you ought to be able to see that it's the same thing -- only from a different perspective.)
The scientifically amenable idea is one that can be tested, and continually. The subsequent tests may not be direct; the tests address a specific fall-out from that first idea. I can think of no better explanation of how science works than to suggest the case of Newton and Einstein. 300 years after Newton, Einstein devised a theory that's even better at explaining natural phenonmena than Newton's. Wait long enough, and scientific ideas and techniques improve. Until better observations came along, there would have been no reason to supplant Newton with Einstein. However, Newton isn't wrong -- his theory encompasses objects that travel at less than 70% of the speed of light; Newton was only... imprecise.
To all the other readers who think validity and worth of evidence is subjective, how do you mean? Scientific evidence proscribes many specific details: if we dropped a weight of a certain range of masses from a height of 100 m, they will all reach the ground at the same time. How would this experiment, and its results, be subjective or ambiguous? Can you provide some examples and why you think certain experiments show subjectivity? In my experience, there are many such papers that do not answer a question in a satisfying way -- and many researchers come to the same conclusions about why and how the paper is bad, regardless of whether one is disposed towards a hypothesis or not! (Hey, science isn't infallible -- it just tells us what's broken and needs fixing, and we can only do the best we can.)
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:2)
-Acetylsalicylic acid was first produced in pure form by Charles Frédéric Gerhardt in 1853, first produced commercially in 1867. It became part of the Bayer product line in 1899 as Apirin.
-Aspirin works by inhibiting the the body's production of prostaglandins
-The first measurement of the circumference of the earth which was accurate to within a couple of percentage points was done by Eratosthenes in 230 BC. That this got very little publicity, to say the least, during the Middle Ages should be blamed on religion, not science.
-Lions were actually shown throughout Europe since Greek times. And are pictures in lots of middle age beastiaries. One of the oldest surviving images is probably the Lion Gate at Mycenae from about 1400BC
Re:Hmm.. interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't accept acupuncture, or homeopathy, but were a reputable institute to do a double-blind study where some people were stabbed randomly, versus in the "right" areas, and some people got water and other got "magic" water, and the magic water and guided stabbing worked better, I'd pay attention.
I accept that a ball will drop when I let go of it, even though nobody can definatively explain why.
I don't have to have faith that it will drop every time, I just have to believe that it's much more likely than the alternative. You can call that faith, on the level of believing in a supreme being based on absolutely no evidence, and in the light of many reasons not to believe, but nobody reasonable will agree. If both are faith, which I don't accept as a given, there's still the extremely large issue of magnitude.
So those skeptics would likely believe asprin worked because it was testable.
They'd believe the Earth was round because it's pretty simple to prove to someone with an open mind and a basic knowledge of mathematics.
They'd simply examine the hypothesis offered to them, discounting ones that were impossible to test.
Carl Sagan's Book (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Carl Sagan's Book (Score:2)
I'm glad Sagan put in the marker 'Special plead:' At first, I thought the example of special pleading was the bit beginning 'How can a merciful God...'
But that's an example of 'argument from adverse consequences' of course (with a bit of 'straw man' thrown in for good measure). How silly of me.
I think he makes some good points. But I'd disagree with the 'special pleading' point in principle because he is basically making ignorance a justification for skepticism. I.e. if you can't understand something, you shouldn't believe it (even if you trust the person who tells you it - after all, that would be 'argument from authority'!)
But I strongly suspect that anyone who rigerously applied all of these guidelines would never get out of bed in the morning anyway.
Re:Carl Sagan's Book (Score:2)
IMO, Sagan was not a very good skeptic. I think he started too late in life and did not have the practice of dealing with counter claims.
His biggest flaw was "over thinking" the situation. For example, "If there are aliens, then they would not look anything like us because blah blah blah.....".
But I can think of several possible situations that could result in aliens (or beings) somewhat resembling humans. (I am not saying it happened, but his dismissal reasoning is still flawed.)
Further, the level of evidence required to justify further study is a much lower threashold than that required to justify a conclusion. He seemed to mix these up.
Also, he focused mostly on the nuttier claims rather than the "best stuff". It is easy to make the whole subject look tainted if you emphasize the extremists. There have been extremist skeptics also. Should we dismiss all skeptics because a few got carried away? Even the title, "Demon-haunted World" is suggestive of extreme claims.
In fact, in the early 1800's, it was mainstream science to dismiss accounts of rocks falling from the sky (and crashing to the ground) as superstition and drunk farmers. They eventually ate crow on that one.
The biggest problem is that both sides are too quick to draw conclusions about both the evidence and the motivations of the participants. If people would just collect evidence and keep their mouth shut we might get further. The best researchers on both sides are usually those who spend their time collecting and describing the evidence clinically instead of calling the other side names and over-speculating. Unfortunately, we rarely hear from those kinds of people. Their books are too boring to sell.
Why people believe weird things. (Score:2, Interesting)
Simply put people are afraid of the unknown. If you play to those fears you'll sell anything you want. Sad really.
Re:Why people believe weird things. (Score:3, Insightful)
If this were true, only stupid or unreflective people would believe in and all smart people would believe the same things about stuff like UFOs and a lot of other "debatable" issues.
And the problem is that is just patently not true. The list of people far more intelligent than me and (I'll intuit from your ill-considered response) you, BoomerBuddy, who also believe in some aspect of spirituality, goes on and on. Great writers, politicians, mathematicians, logicians, and scientists can be found among the ranks of believers of various creeds.
What's more, there is tons of (sometimes very acrimonious) discord in the hallowed ranks of science over what is true and what is not true, what is possible and what is not possible. I am not slagging science here - I am a believer in, and fan of, and a former student of science - and I probably know more about it than 90% of people (and believe me, that's not pride talking because it really isn't saying a hell of a lot).
But I'm sick of people that treat science like the end-all be-all of human reason with a dogmatism that would do the least reflective religious zealot they despise proud and seem incapable of grasping that there are wider philosophical issues (like consciousness, free will and morality) that science has little or no grasp on - and which metaphysical and spiritual disciplines provide sophisticated and elegant treatments of.
So yeah, big deal, your parents dragged you to church every Sunday for fifteen years and then you went to college and "got over it" because your intellect is so superior to all the schmucks. "Sad really." Spare me, pal - I don't need your sympathy for my beliefs, which I maintain and practice with my eyes wide open, and with my intellect, doubt, skepticism, spirit of inquiry and open mind intact. It's an attitude you would do well to work on, because if the history of science is any indication, a whole bunch of the stuff you believe in is wrong.
Re:Why people believe weird things. (Score:2, Insightful)
What a crock of shit. This very statement is a contradiction in terms. Neither metaphysics or spirituality are disciplines of any kind, as neither has to adhere to any set of logical rules which can be tested in the real world.
Metaphysics, spirituality, whatever you want to call it, is just another way of believing in the Tooth Fairy. Only you sound slightly less like an idiot doing so.
Slightly less.
Max
Re:Why people believe weird things. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm an atheist, and I don't deny spirituality at all. The feeling I get when 60 million year old photons from a galaxy far far away bounce off a parabolic mirror onto my retinas is intensely spiritual, though there's no god involved in that.
Re:Why people believe weird things. (Score:4, Funny)
Okay, I'll bite this troller's bait. This review, and probably the book (I won't actually review something I haven't read, so a caveat here that I'm just going off the reviewer's obviously biased sentiment) and certainly this comment are all typical of a particular (and if I may say so, garden variety and dime a dozen) variety of "skeptic." This smart guy has everybody figured out - they are slaves of their childhood training, not liberated minds like ol' Boomer here.
You're just bitter because you have chosen to waste your life grovelling, while the rest of us can do as we please. You probably also suspect in your heart of hearts that we're going to get away with it. Poor, afraid sucker.
Re:Why people believe weird things. (Score:2, Insightful)
> discord in the hallowed ranks of science over
> what is true and what is not true, what is
> possible and what is not possible.
Welcome to Science 101! That's what science is all about: a continuous debate about the nature of things. It seems that you did not learn much about science when you were a student thereof.
> if the history of science is any indication, a
> whole bunch of the stuff you believe in is
> wrong.
Bzzt! Wrong again! In science you don't have to believe. You just make your hypotheses, build your theories and subject them to the judgment of experimental confirmation (or axiomatic logical proof, in the case of mathematics.)
As long as your theories are not rejected by experiments, you heuristically accept them as true. Even when rejected by experimental evidence, and obsoleted by more refined ones, scientific theories can remain useful - the best example being Newtonian gravity, still used on a daily basis world over, and with excellent results.
That's the core issue: in science, you don't have to believe. In religion, that's all you have.
I, for one, do not care about people having their own set of religious beliefs - as long as such beliefs do not encroach the scientific realm. That's the tragedy with religion, for it has seen its domain consistently eroded by science, especially during the last 1,000 years, making it look more and more ridiculous.
Hence the fear and defensive attitude all too frequently seen among religious believers everywhere for, more and more, religion is being exposed as a collection of unsubstantiated myths, all too often used to subjugate and enslave millions - witness the history of Europe during the Middle Ages, or the moslem world today.
Re:Why people believe weird things. (Score:2)
Re:Why people believe weird things. (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps. But then why did Madeleine Murray O'Hare's son become a Baptist preacher? Why did Dr. Robert Funk go on to found the anti-Christian Jesus Seminar after being raised as a "born again" believer?
I'll grant that statistically speaking, the majority of people will continue to believe what they are raised to believe by their parents. However, there is a significant number of people that convert to other belief systems for one reason or the other.
Perhaps you should ask one of the the Babis, Christians, Gabars, Manicheas, or Sikhs that live in Iran.
There are three problems with this line of reasoning.
First, it ignores the fact that there are other reasons for believing in a given system than being raised to believe that system. If this were the only reason to believe in any given system, there would only be one world-wide religion and new religions would never develop and if they did they would never spread faster the the growth of their original consituents.
Second, not believing falls to the same sword. If one is raised to not believe in any religion, why should one accept not believing in any religion?
Third, it ignores that in absence of evidence to the contrary, it is eminently reasonable to trust that which has been taught by a trustworthy source. Honestly, if a tribal member is taught how to farm, how to hunt, how to store meat for the winter and that "God was a giant turtle holding the world on its back" by the same people (tribal parents and elders), what reason is there for a person to disbelieve the last of these when the source of information has proved to be reliable on the other items?
It seems to me that such disbelief is only warranted in light of evidence of one sort or the other that "God is NOT a giant turtle holding the world on its back." So the important issue is what that evidence would consist of.
Perhaps better questions would be:
By all means, we should think critically about what we would believe. Many belief systems have excellent reasons for which we should disbelieve them. But thus far, the reasons you've given to not believe don't really stand up to scrutiny.
Re:Why people believe weird things. (Score:3, Insightful)
From Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit (linked above), your question "Why the else would anyone believe in god?" falls under the category of "begging the question, or assuming the answer". What evidence do you have that all adults that believe in God only do so because of childhood teachings?
Re:Why people believe weird things. (Score:2)
your question "Why the else would anyone believe in god?" falls under the category of "begging the question
Well, I don't speak for the poster, but I read it as a rhetorical question. Rough translation: at least people who believe in god because of their upbringing have an excuse.
Re:Why people believe weird things. (Score:3, Insightful)
One rule of thumb that I have come to believe is: given a sufficient lack of evidence on a given subject, people will invent beliefs.
A simple example: imagine a small village next to a large mountain. The mountain is steep and treacherous so no one has ever climbed the mountain. Telescopes don't exist so no one can see the mountain in detail and there exist parts of the mountain that are completely out of view. Given time you can bet that various dreams/imaginings of the nature of the mountain would turn into stories which would become myths and eventually some people would believe that these well aged stories are true. We would look at this and say "No, believing those stories are silly. The real answer to What is on the mountain? is I don't know." but given an absense of answers people would rather invent answers than face the troubling prospect that they don't know the answer.
Which is a shame since admiting I don't know is a necessary precondition for learning.
Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I'm not sure you can do a "generic" how-to debunking book: eventually, you have to apply those tools to real-life situations. Shermer sets out the tools in the first section, then shows how they apply to specific cases: I think that's an excellent way to do it.
I did enjoy Borderlands, though not as much as Weird Things (perhaps because Weird Things was more "fun").
With all the current cloning fun going on, a book like Borderlands becomes even more important.
Punctuated NOT Punctured (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Punctuated NOT Punctured (Score:2)
Perhaps if he covers debunking Punctuated Equilibrium, then Punctured Equilibrium might be a good name for it? :^)
Bogusity detection: All of the simple rules fail (Score:4, Interesting)
People who are certain are a large part of the problem. WHENEVER you are certain, you've made a mistake. You may have mistaken a high probability value for truth (which usually works quite well), but you've made a mistake.
That said, there are definitely a lot of scams out there. If something looks unreasonable, then you need to insist on a higher degree of proof than if it seems reasonable. In either case you may be wrong. But it's better to live with the knowledge that you may be wrong than to fool yourself into certainty.
And also, much knowledge is time-bound. When I was a kid the idea of people going to the moon in my lifetime was laughed at. Now what they laugh at is the idea of people going back to the moon. But they are laughing for very different reasons, and in a very different way. (I happen to think that the second group of people is as wrong as the first, but it looks like it will be China or Japan that proves this.)
If something contradicts experience, then it may be either wrong, or misunderstood. Don't doubt your experience, even though you KNOW you left your sock on top of the dresser, and then it wasn't there. (I tend to model this [humorously] as parallel universe slippage.) Your memories of your personal experiences are all that you have to work with. But doubting that you understood what you saw is quite reasonable. And doubting the truth of what you were told is quite reasonable.
Telepathy... I have not seen either a proof or a disproof that met my standards. I also have a lot of trouble with defining it. E.g.: If I were to have an implanted cell phone that operated by direct neural connection, and someone else had a corresponding model, would this be telepathy? If so, then it's just a few years away. But the crucial point here is that I don't see any reason to decide. And I don't see any way to decide in general, though certain special cases are decideable. Of course, an existence proof would be a "sort-of" proof. But one might wonder exactly what was prooved. I saw one claim that there was a repeatable experiment that could transmit about one bit per day via telepathic channels... I never bothered to investigate this much, but 1) special setup was required (e.g., isolation rooms for both the sender and the receiver, and the willingness of both of them to be confined for the months that the test message required). and 2) it didn't seem useful for anything short of interstellar messaging, presuming that it would work in that situation (HAH!). So it may be true but worthless. (So much is.)
Also, something doesn't have to be valid to be useful. Newton's mechanics are known to be false. But that's what NASA uses for orbital calculations.
Of course, Newton's mechanics are exactly bogus... but then what does bogus mean, precisely?
etc.
Re:Bogusity detection: All of the simple rules fai (Score:2, Interesting)
Laugh if you want, but I have seen it, and I believe it. Maybe not everyone.. but I know a set of identical twins, and have watched them both together and with one or the other and seen it pretty much in action.
They finish each others sentences and stuff, and I doubt that counts as telepathy, probably counts much more as a "we think along the same lines". But if anyone can explain why one gets stuck for a word and the other calls from two states a way and says "the word you are looking for is X" totally unbidden, I would like to know.
I know a lot of studies have been done on "twinning" and they have pretty much come up with "it works for some people, we have no idea why, but we suspect it has to do with sub-verbal cues". Thats great.. face to face.. but two states away?
To me, thats enough proof that at least these two have some immeasurable link between them. Will we be controlling the android GURT on Mars with telepathy in five years? I dunno. (G)
Maeryk
Re:Bogusity detection: All of the simple rules fai (Score:2)
If you know any twins like this, send them to take James Randi's test [randi.org] and collect $1,000,000. Maybe they will give you a cut!
Re:Bogusity detection: All of the simple rules fai (Score:2)
The absence of a plausible model than could be tested for telepathy is what is the big problem.
People thought that the idea of moving continents were stupid, until a mechanism was proposed and then earth crust plates were discovered.
Additional resources (Score:4, Informative)
"... If you are studying criminal behavior, reading books by crooks is probably a good idea. But if you want to know about cons, far better books are:
"Flim-Flam" by James Randi
"Scam School" by Chuck Whitlock
and "Rip-Off" by Fay Faron
All three are by legitimate researchers who present results taken from scores to hundreds of incidents and present how and why scams work, the
techniques used, the different plots, and so forth. They present many excellent examples of how these sorts of crimes work, how they impact
the victims, the psychology of the criminals, and so forth.
[snip]"
This quagmire... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ultimately, these theories gain respectability in large part due to the people backing them, and a desire to look at the world through a desire to achieve particular goals. This is no surprise but it does limit critical thought. Critical thought is in many ways impossible without trustworthy evidence, and a desire by a majority to look at evidence critically, but this leads to a conundrum - where do you start believing? If contrary evidence exists, who do you trust? Is there time in the universe to actually examine every claim critically, or examine every piece of evidence? Is it surprising people lock themselves into belief systems and attempt to examine only that that is related to that system?
Skewing this problem further is the not insignificant fact that people's perspectives are shaped by the evidence provided to them and their educations. This begins at school age, where any number of factors may skew how a person develops their own belief systems. State education is dying in the US, and many would argue that such schooling is unduly influenced by governmental factors. Private education however, creates equal and opposite horrors, with parents likely to choose schools that promote their own belief systems and hang-ups, and such schools looking more attractive than those that at least make an attempt to promote critical thought. And a parent's choice is only part of the problem, a school that is inherently designed to promote a specific belief system will attempt to promote itself to a wide range of groups; this leads to a situation where a relatively small number of groups can encourage particular ideologies and ways of looking at the world.
It doesn't stop at schooling. An explosion of information sources, and a lack of accountability where TV networks, publications, and other heavily promoted sources of information have become little more than pulpits for what the proprieters believe is a reasonable balance between the views they wish to express and what the public will stand, has lead to a situation where a huge amount of information presented is unfair, inaccurate, and promotional of particular belief systems. As competition has increased, quality has decreased. A "liberal", ie largely accurate, fair and balanced, media has become used to promoting views of the world that fit a less liberal agenda, lead by Fox, and groups playing catch-up to Fox's brand of popular illiberalism.
Belief systems feed off belief systems. Critical thought takes a back seat as assumptions become treated as facts, and the sheer volume of dubious and inaccurate information wieghts so heavily that more accurate pictures of the world look less and less likely. People believe because someone who says things that repeat other things they believe are saying these things.
And, frankly, there's bugger all anyone can do about it. [slashdot.org]
Re:This quagmire... (Score:2)
Wake up and smell the coffee, boy. This has always been the case. Every promoter of information outside of an accredited, peer-reviewed journal is driven by factors other than that of presenting truth backed by independently verifiable evidence. There has never been a time when this wasn't the case, although you certainly seem to imply that such a 'Golden Age' existed at some point.
The only difference between today and the world 20 years ago is that you have a better chance of getting some particular version of the truth that isn't controlled by the state, powerful people, or powerful corporations. And with all the different sources that abound, one can access 20 or 50 of them and then 'average' the lot to get what's probably a more accurate representation of the situation than any single source can provide. This sure as hell wasn't true prior to the establishment of the internet. In case it hasn't occurred to you, more sources of information is *always* a better thing, not a worse one.
Unless you a totalitarian freak, that is. Or someone promoting a personal agenda who's upset that others don't agree with him and dare to publish their opposing view publicly.
As competition has increased, quality has decreased.
Bullshit and bullshit. Quality has remained pretty much the same, or if anything gotten better, because the filtering process is no longer under the control of a few powerful people or groups.
A "liberal", ie largely accurate, fair and balanced, media has become used to promoting views of the world that fit a less liberal agenda, lead by Fox, and groups playing catch-up to Fox's brand of popular illiberalism.
Get off the 60's train, you yack. Liberals are just as much lying little sacks of shit as conservatives are. Neither group is interesting in truth or accuracy, but power - especially the power to impose their views on the unwilling, in an attempt to convince themselves that they're 'important people' with the One True Belief (TM). The 'liberal' media has never been more accurate than the 'conservative' media; it's just that one group of vicious little powermongers and malicious pricks with a penchant for screwing with their neighbors lives tends to agree with them more than the other group.
Max
Re: (Score:2)
Re:This quagmire... (Score:2)
Competition has lead to a situation where instead of the media being liberal in its approach - that means listening to all sides, trying to be fair minded, etc - it's gone for a "squarking heads", unbalanced and generally "promote what people want to hear" view. I think that's in large part because of what you yourself believe - that media will, somehow, be more reasonable if there's more of it. But that doesn't really work, because as people assume the method improves all by itself, they tend to let go of their own responsibility in that area. It's ok to promote a viewpoint and ignore the facts because someone else out there will provide the correction. And that's doubly untrue and unlikely to happen when, while there's a lot of media, it's generally owned by the same types of group.
What the solution is... well, there isn't one. I said that. You can write to your rep or senator but there's nothing they're going to do about it. You can let them know that you're concerned about the issue, you can even say that you appreciate the positive effects competition has brought but that if all these extra voices continue to have the same agendas, you'll be forced to go to less reliable and intelligent news outlets instead, but I doubt they'll really care much. You can let them know that SMP support in OpenBSD will make or break your ability to deploy that OS on your workstations and servers, but I doubt that they'll care. You can tell them that you care about freedom and such, and they'll probably agree with you, but it's not like they have anyway of helping. You can let them know you vote, and your vote will be dependent on their policies on the promotion of critical thought, but I seriously doubt they'll do anything but throw their hands up in frustraition and say "But what can I do about it?"
Ultimately, you can't make a difference. Attempts to keep informed will ultimately fail, attempts to encourage your democratic representatives will fail because there's nothing they can do about it. You may as well give up.
John Baez's Crackpot Index (Score:5, Funny)
A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics. A -5 point starting credit.
© 1998 John Baez
Re:John Baez's Crackpot Index (Score:3, Interesting)
Micheal Shermer is my second favorate author (Score:2)
Historical Note (Score:3, Informative)
Favorite Logical Fallacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Classic debunker examples include:
-
Nobody saw that rock fall out of the sky,
therefore your claim that rocks (ice balls,
frogs) fall out of the sky is false.
-
Your airplane prototype crashed, therefore
men will never fly.
-
You haven't produced a half-man/half-ape
fossil, therefore Man is a special creation.
The pattern is that incomplete evidence or faulty reasoning is taken to disprove the conclusion, instead of the correct result: that the status of the conclusion is (was) unknown. Rocks might or might not fall, Man might or might not fly, humans and modern apes might or might not have evolved from a common ancestor. We don't know if life originated "elsewhere", We don't know if antimatter repels matter gravitationally, we don't know if some people can sense the death of relatives from afar. We might never know.Scientists are prone to this fallacy, perhaps because they are temperamentally uncomfortable with uncertainty. That's why they became scientists in the first place. That's also why saying "I don't know" is considered, among scientists, so virtuous; it's hard to bring themselves to say it.
Among scientists, the fallacy manifests most harmfully when the conventional theory for a phenomenon is no better supported than the alternatives. Careers are blighted. Recent examples from biology that suffered "debunking" for decades include:
Re:Favorite Logical Fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
the first place. That's also why saying "I don't know" is considered, among scientists, so virtuous; it's hard to bring themselves to say it.
That's one of the worst pieces of BS I've heard in a long time!
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
To quote Richard Feynman (a bona-fide, real scientist(TM), and a Nobel laureate at that..)
I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing - I think it's much
more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be
wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees
of certainty about different things but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and
there are many things I don't know anything about such as whether it means
anything to ask "why are we here?" But I don't have to know an answer -
I don't feel frightened by not knowing things.
This the view most scientists share, although most did not put it as well as ol' RPF.
Re:Favorite Logical Fallacy (Score:2)
You can't quote the best scientists on this. They're the ones least subject to the failing. (That's a good part of why they're the best, Sagan aside.) Furthermore, this is part of scientists' training; all scientists will agree with it as expressed, even when their behavior contradicts it.
That Feynman had to express this at all is telling.
Re:Favorite Logical Fallacy (Score:2)
Apparently you aren't a scientist, else you'd know just how far you have your head stuck up your ass.
Most scientists have no problem whatsoever living with uncertainty. It's part of their freakin' job, to examine the uncertain in an attempt to find an explanation, backed by proof, which turns the uncertain into the known. Dealing with this very uncertainty is why you now have electricity, and the computer in front of you, and the internet to which you've posted this horseshit.
On the other hand, people who're bloody morons who believe in the most idiotic of things often take any opportunity they can to run down science, and scientists, because they know that some day their stupidly inane beliefs will most likely be buggered by an enterprising scientist, examining the uncertain.
Max
Inductive reasoning? (Score:2, Insightful)
I've seen many theories postulated that are based on inductive reasoning (i.e. the Sun has risen every day in history, so it will rise again tomorrow) or a building of theories based on proof of other theories.
A lot of science is based on things we can't prove or haven't proved yet, but are are given credibility by the accepted theories on which they are based.
However, I do agree that when I hear someone say "Foo happens because of Bar, and that's a fact!", I tend to cast a skeptic's eye until I can see why they believe this to be the case.
From the title (Score:2)
chicken and the transhuman condition", but sadly
this doesn't look anything like as interesting as
that great book.
Ignorance of science as bs detection. (Score:3, Interesting)
Examples that spring to my mind:
Crystals storing healing "energy".Quartz is piezoelectric, 'nuff said.
Homeopathic cures. Anyone heard of Avogadro's number?
"Natural" cures being better than pharmacuticals. Lead and Radon exist in nature, should we take those too?
"Faith" healing. Confirmation bias [skepdic.com] anyone?
Aromatic healing. No comment needed.
Re:Ignorance of science as bs detection. (Score:2)
Just because you think something shouldn't work, and that there is no scientific basis to something doesn't mean it isn't possible. In particular with anything to do with humans - humans are wierd and wacky things.
Bad science near the noise threshold (Score:3, Interesting)
Cold fusion, where neutron counts around 2x background were detected, is a good example. Effects of power-line RF on humans fall into this category. The FDA's insistence that medications be proven "effective" above the noise threshold causes many drugs to be rejected.
Mainstream science isn't immune to this problem. Some papers in particle physics reflect a very small number of recorded events. It's worse in the life sciences, where there's more noise and less ability to control it.
"If you need statistics to interpret your experimental results, that indicates that your experiment is badly designed" - Rutherford
Voodoo Science (Score:2)
While it's not a field guide to identifying bad science (he mostly covers stories that were or are popular in the media), he periodically takes a break from storytelling to identify the common threads shared between the cases. Basically, anyone making claims that fly in the face of conventional knowledge is suspect, doubly so if they refuse to submit their ideas to peer review or confirmation. Clonaid anyone?
Funny, t hat.... (Score:3, Funny)
1/8th complain that "skeptics" are too eager to shoot down any new/unpopular idea (paraphrased VERY heavily)with various and sundry reasons.
7/8ths dog pile on the 1/8th with quite a bit of name calling - referring to "head up your ass", "religious zealot" and my favorite "just a loony".
There are huge holes in arguements on BOTH sides, and typically - the people who posted to this topic really should read up on logical thinking and practice it some more.
Shouting "Think logically, retarded bitch!" is just plain dumb.
Insulting someone for religious beliefs is just plain dumb.
Besides - the world is alot more fun if you just DON'T ask for proof. Believe anything anyone says to you. It makes life oh-so-much more exciting.
I'm the guy that when he heard the old kids story about "step on a crack, break your momma's back" was found on the playground stamping on the broken sidewalk screaming "That's for beating me when my sister broke the car windshield and blamed it on me, you insensitive harpy!!!"
Re:"Weird things" (Score:2)
It's easy to reconcile science and religion.
Religions are memes in culture; someone (a jesus, a joseph smith, a mohammed, a l. ron hubbard, a david koresh) somewhere starts a religious idea (or, extremely commonly, mutates an earlier religious idea), and spreads it around. Those religious traditions that appeal to people more spread more efficiently, and become dominant in the thinking of those people infected by it, such that one's spiritual feeling (and that of one's co-religionists) is taken as affirmative evidence for the dogma in question. It doesn't matter that other people believe other things upon equal evidence, as they are simply considered 'other'.
That's one scientific (or at least rationalist) description of religion. Nice and reconciled, makes perfect sense.
You can go the other way as well.. Jehovah/Jesus Christ/Allah/Xenu created the world and set everything up as a test to see if the little people on the ground would believe the right thing and live forever minus their bodies/pay money and get Clear. Skeptics are nothing but cynics, trying to ruin a beautiful thing for everyone, hell-bound, forces of the devil, whose greatest trick was convincing people that lack of evidence for him might imply that he didn't exist, and etc.
That's also reconciliation of a sort.. certainly anyone who holds that sort of belief has a place for skeptics (cynics), and is happy with that place for them.
Asking the scientist/rationalist to accept that feelings are a reliable basis for making factual statements about the world is asking too much. Asking the religious to accept that feelings are not a reliable basis for making factual statements about teh world is often asking too much as well.
How therefore shall they be reconciled?