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The Undergrowth of Science
A scientist once wrote that all truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, then violently opposed and eventually, accepted as self-evident. Charles Kettering, the legendary former head of General Motors, once lamented: 'First they tell you you're wrong and they can prove it; then they tell you you're right but it isn't important; then they tell you it's important but they knew it all along.'
Both of these notions are quoted in Walter Gratzer's excellent new book, "The Undergrowth of Science: Delusion, Self-Deception and Human Frailty." Gratzer writes exceptionally well. He teaches at the Randall Institute, King's College London. His books include the "Longman Literary Companion to Science" and "The Bedside Nature."
Gratzer examines the underbelly of scientific theory, namely how some of the most delusional and outrageous scientific theories -- Russian water that could congeal oceans, Monkey testis implants that restore declining sexual powers, "truths" about genetics and the discovery of matter -- occur and are widely accepted in the scientific community. This book is equal parts science and history, a collection of gripping tales that remind us to take even the most high-minded and supposedly scientific discoveries with some caution.
Science makes much of its rules and legendary peer review procedures, but personal vanity, contemporary politics, greed, stupidity, and incompetence all pop up in these shocking episodes. Gratzer details how intelligence and reason don't necessarily exclude irrationality. One chapter takes us to eighteenth-century France, where Franz-Anton Messmer persuaded a gullible public of the existence of animal magnetism and harnessed it to cure diseases. (Messmer didn't actually invent the theory of animal magnetism, he learned it from a notorious Austrian priest known as Father Hell.)
One powerful chapter details the tragedy of Soviet genetics, the history of Russian biology in the period between the Revolution and the death of Stalin in l953, a time the author calls "a woeful chronicle of wanton destruction of both a scholarly discipline and the lives of many of its most respected practioners." Gratzer also explores the misuse of science in the Third Reich, and the rise and fall of Eugenics.
This isn't just ancient history, though. Misguided scientific theory is all too contemporary.
"Most remarkable," writes Gatzer, "is the way that false theories and imagined phenomena sometimes spread through the scientific community. A kind of mass hysteria, which parallels in the world at large, such as UFO sightings alien abductions, 'recovered memory' and probably chronic fatigue syndrome, takes possession of a hitherto rational population, like a virus of the intellect. On such occasions scientists in some area of research throw aside, to the amazement of their colleagues, the intellectual constraints that had until then guided their working lives. They become selectively uncritical and intolerant of any unsought evidence. Sometimes such a perversion of the scientific method results from external, especially political, pressures, but at other times it is a spontaneous eruption."
In the media age, these scientific stumbles are particularly dangerous, as they become powerful memes that are rapidly and virally transmitted to the general population by information technologies like TV and the Net.
In this era, science and technology are central to contemporary political, social, economic and cultural lives. How science can sometimes go awry is thus an important story. Despite the fact that Gatzer tells it entertainingly and with enormous authority, this is a disturbing book. Science in the wrong hands, used for the wrong reasons, is scary stuff.
Purchase this at ThinkGeek.
Lessee, Mr. Katz, you're saying that science is dangerous because it's unscientific. Obviously, then, we have nothing to worry about, because, therefore, science is not scientific at all and thus not dangerous.
Thanks for explaining it all. All that hard science stuff was making my head hurt, anyway. Now I know I don't have to worry about it, because you've shown me it doesn't matter a bit. I can just believe whatever I want to, and it's just as valid as anything a scientist has to say.
Rogue Bolo
"In the wrong hands, scientific discovery can be scary stuff".
How observant!
No kidding, Jon! So can smoking while pumping gasoline into your fuel tank!
Thank you and have a day!
Is not being responsible for your own behavior because you're insane or drunk or "weak" a defence for having done something bad?
a re-a-public-menace-you-might-as-well-be-dead philosophy.. I bet fewer people would drink too. Hell, it's one of the reasones I don't.
The way I have always seen it is that if someone is prone to violence or drunkeness, then this should be an additional insentive to remove this persone from sociaty. What I'd like to see is a criminal lawyer work really hard to proove his client is sane to avoid being condemended as a lost cause (and turned into soykent green or soimething).. I mean that would be nice because it would make being responsible for your actions important.. Sort of a if-your-not-responsible-for-your-own-actions-and-
You are bascially implying that facts don't exist with a second more dagerous implication that therefore you can believe anything you want... (I'll leave this as an exercise to the reader. Note the use of the word implying)
What seperates a science from pure voodoo is a rigerous method of proof. Concequently you can say any one of these things is true within that context. Math for example has the most rigorous proof method.. As a result math people react quite badly when you say that pythagrous is just a theory. (He's a greek and it's a theorem not theory.. Slight difference there).
NOTE: there are also implicit bounds on scientific claims. We assume that relations hold true for all *measurable* situations. IT MAKES NO SENCE TO MAKE A CLAIM ON A NON MEASURABLE PHENOMENON. These types of claims are called none scientific, just BTW... There are other implicit bounds to do with causality and making sure you've rigorously defining things as well. But anyways..
Conclusion: You can accept theories as fact so long as you're aware of how they've been prooven, the scope (or bounds) of the claim and the measurability / amount of valid data availible for the claim.
Evolution: Evolution is a perticularly fun one. People are always bitching that it's just a theory.. Geeze, everything is science is a theory. No surprises there.. The thing is science is unbelivably sure that evolution happens. I mean scientists simply cannot see how you can stop it happening.. The thing is there's not sure about some of the specifics or if evolution, as it's currently understood, is responsible for all the life we see. The thing is the answer is surely in this direction. Probably involving meta-evolution.
The problems come when people don't understand.
I believe it would be:
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." - Carl Sagan
other places say the quote was Newton/Einstein/Bozo. who knows? never heard Groucho Marx in there though, so I'm pretty sure that's wrong.
If the Universe behaves in mysterious ways, you explain them by unseen uber-beings in various forms. In the public eye, the legacy of German romanticism sentimentalizes primitive religions by reducing all their myriad mythologies to one or two gently loving, completely nonjudgmental super-Deities (Earth and/or Sky), but this isn't even close to the truth. Most indigenes have historically posited a range of deities, sprites, demons, spirits, and totems, whose relationship to their faithful can only be described as moody. Bluntly, disaster is natural, good-fortune can only be achieved by some kind of intervention: folk magicks of all nations are the application of human psychology to these beings, who must be flattered, bribed, tricked, or even threatened into providing for the supplicant. Even if the Gods decree that all buffalo in a herd must be killed at once, or every beaver in a dam, or irregation ditches are dug in alkali flats, if the proper formulae are said, if the taboos are observed, the Gods will provide.
Evangelical Christianity is a prime example of this. Although, in theory, the message is one of salvation and peace of mind, one need only read a Jack Chick tract to realize that the true message is that God the Father can and will visit humanity with earthly doom en masse and supernatural torments individually if he is not placated by the interference of his Son. (It's interesting to deconstruct John 3:16 in this regard: it's almost as if God cannot prevent humanity from perishing on His own...) Traditionally, evangelicals have been drawn from the poorer strata of society, the ones who are most likely to be devastated by an unforseen illness or stroke of bad luck, who live in the most crime-ridden neighborhoods, and who see the worst of life, and it's for this reason that they'll cling to Creation Science with the militancy of an anti-WTO rioter: Jesus is the only bulwark against a world they see as spiralling wildly out of control. It make no difference if you try to show them fossils, explain natural selection, or even point to the various ecological niches of birds in the Galapagos: it's all outside their ken, while proof is to be found of their hypothesis on every street corner. (At the same time, there is a strong love/hate relationship with the wealthy, who are alternately seen as being blessed and as false prophets: how else can one explain the near-veneration of such people as Princess Diana and Michael Jordan, or the strange ambivalence accorded Bill Gates?) If and only if humanity, individually and as a mass, understands this and is willing to accede to His promptings, then, we may pass through the coming Tribulation without harm and live forevermore in a fantastic City where everyone is healthy and rich beyond all comprehension. (cont'd)
teleny, friend of cats.
Sorry, evolution is an idea, not a belief. Subtle difference. I don't believe in evolution -- that would imply some random force I can't control inside my mind makes me just "know" it's correct. Instead, I found this nifty switch in my head marked "On/Off" when I was much younger, and flipped it on. When that happened, and my mind pondered "god" versus evolution, well, evolution seemed to make at least a *little* more sense to me. And yes, I check frequently that the switch is left in the "On" position. Although it'd be nice to find a "More Magic" position. :)
<SARCASM> Perhaps it's just because "god" never loved me. </SARCASM> But it seems to me there's lots more convincing evidence supporting evolution than there is supporting "god." I will admit, though, that for me, the biggest hole in the evolution theory is that "survival of the fittest" bit -- if that's supposedly going on, where in the name of smeg did all these complete MORONS come from? No, I'm not addressing you, just pointing out that hair dryers must ship with labels insisting folks don't use them in the shower.
And yes, you're right, that evolution is a theory should be taught right alongside the concept that "god" is a theory too. The assorted religions of the world have had *far* too much access to children throughout human history. "God" presented as fact, with this fledgling idiot Darwin prancing around talking about fish all the time.
Don't even start on the "evolution has lots of plot holes" thread, because there's a veritable army of people out there with whole books describing the plot holes in your beloved bible.
I'd try to put a disclaimer here, but avoiding people's hatred, particularly when it comes to religious discussion, is impossible. I will go hide the broom before anyone spots it, though. :)
Read my stuff.
opinions are like assholes my friend... Personally, I don't tend to agree w/anything that Katz says (or any reviewer for that matter -- remember a lot of people said Eyes Wide Shut was great, the only good part was Kidman naked). Thus his opinion is worthless to me. If you like what you read about book, buy it and see.
If you go back and look, PFactor did not use the word "debunked," he used the word "questioned," and you're already harassing him for pointing out how religions have historically harassed scientists and other freethinkers. You're exhibiting the same knee-jerk defense of an irrational position as the Roman Catholic Church. Congratulations for illustrating PFactor's point so well.
I can see the fnords!
Oh yeah, right. Blame Aristotle and Ptolemy for the catholic church's mistreatment of people like Galileo and Copernicus. How much more evasive and hypocritical can you get??
"Please don't blame us for being small minded and intent on torturing and killing to defend our precious world view from the influence of curiosity, rationalism, and other evils. It's not our fault that we are so repressed we'd rather murder than see the spread of enlightenment. It's the fault of those mischievous Greeks who came up with the pagan ideas that we adopted centuries ago when we stopped thinking for ourselves."
And then there's this:
It is a mistake to do do.
My God... talk about retentive!
I can see the fnords!
Well, learning the difference between the concepts of "spelling" and "grammar" can also come in handy. :-P
Ah, so if I'm reading this correctly, Katz indicates that this book describes scientists as PEOPLE!
People are all biased based on their answers to the following questions:
1. Where did we come from and who are we?
2. What went wrong with the world?
3. How do we fix it?
These questions describe your "world view" and that affects all aspects of how you make decisions.
So, the issue in the ongoing "debate" about religion and science is not about "those biased religious people" versus these "unbiased scientists" but rather biased religious people versus biased scientists.
When it comes to the question of origins (universal) the question that you have to answer is not "Who is biased?" it is instead "Which bias makes the most sense?"
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
..to quote Einstein apropos Quantum Theory:
"God doesn't play dice with the Universe".
Now we know that not only does God play, he uses loaded dice !!
All new theories have to face a battle to be accepted, and that is as it should be, for without rigorous checking it is almost impossible to determine the true from the ridiculous. Anyway even "true" theories are not necessarily correct, but often just a more accurate model for what is really going on. e.g Newtonian physics works very well for normal velocities and motion etc, its only when you get significant speed, distance and/ or mass that the effects of relativity start to affect your calculations.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
It was not so much Pons and Fleischman going to the media as much as it was the administration at the time. The University of Utah wanted so bad to be at the forefront of science that they completely jumped the gun and pre-announced the results before they went in for proper review. As I understand it, where Pons and Fleischman erred was allowing the University of Utah to dictate to tenured professors the media schedule.
Additionally, I should state that several journals have published articles indicating that something unknown is going on at the nuclear level, but they do not believe that it is fusion per se. I wish I could quote you articles, but nuclear chemistry is not my chosen field of study. I am sure that a search of Nature or Science should pull some of those articles up.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
He should have snipped off his introductory and concludatory sentences, and saved them for his next headline-grabbing hellmouth techsploitation novel. Book reviews should actually be about the book.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> "personal vanity" skews the scientific process so much that it deserves two mentions in the same list?
\methinks Katzie gets paid by the word.
Or maybe his freud was just trying to tell us his motivation for wanting to be a writer.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> There's a lot of stuff we don't know, and a lot of people trying to discover that.
Yeah. I have used Alien Technology to prove that UFOs Exist, and I can't get published anywhere!
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Well, I think that's a missunderstanding of those theories.
Of course everyone is responsible for their actions, but sometimes (very often...) the individual are to "weak" to behave better. Or maybe he doesn't have the proper understanding of how and why he should behave in a certain way.
Everyone has done bad things, that in a "perfect world" probably could have been avoided, and of course we must take responsibility for these actions, but because we doesn't live in this perfect world we didn't manage to avoid them.
I did some digging on google, and managed to find (amidst all the alt.science conspiracy theories) a few interesting things:
For all the noise and fury around CF, the one thing that seems really clear is that a) no one really understands what's supposedly going on, and b) the results are not reproducible in any kind of reliable fashion.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
Do you have any handy links to articles on the furour surrounding cold fusion? I did some quick searching on google and found some information on the experiments themselves (see my reply to the other post below), a whole lot of "cold fusion is real! The Man is keeping it down!" stuff and nothing about what was going on with F&P, the University of Utah, etc. I remember reading a Time article a long time ago on it, but the memory isn't what it used to be...
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
Science in the wrong hands, used for the wrong reasons, is scary stuff.
Not nearly so scary as the people who prompte ignorance, superstition, fear, and confusion.
In the media age, these scientific stumbles are particularly dangerous, as they become powerful memes that are rapidly and virally transmitted to the general population by information technologies like TV and the Net.
Like you, Mr. Katz. These kinds of screw ups do not happen in a cultural vacuum, as they generally fill an existing need to justify self-delusion, rather than create that delusion. The danger starts primarily with the ideologue and the sensationalist journalist, not with the errant scientist.
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Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
These folks' ideas are about nothing but politics, the politics of resentment, of entitlement, of discrimination, of [...] advancement.
I don't disagree with you, but I want to point out that these are the primary foci of politics and philosophy since both were established as disciplines. For a brief moment, these people cleared away all the crap we've created to justify our own stupidity. But they then proceeded to shovel in their own smelly dogma to fill the vacancy.
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Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
People have an extraordinary capability of thinking that what they believe is the Truth. Add to that the ego and hubris and the pressure to publish and get money that is required to be a top scientist, and you have lot of ways that things can go wrong. The scientific method eventually wins out in the end, but it is a typical human mess along the way.
You need your head examined with a ballpeen hammer! There is no god; no one`s looking at you from on high!
I don't think so:
Galileo Galilei, known as Galileo, lived from 1564-1642.
James
couple of quick points :
1) there's no indication that any 'traditional scientist' thinks you're a loony for thinking the way you do, you'll also notice that no 'traditional scientist' has any plans on proving god doesn't exist either - your beliefs are your beliefs and science has nothing to do with them.
2) if you can't reproduce something then how on earth are you going to study it ? did you want the answer to your questions or a nice guess based on a single occurrence where the description of events is hearsay ?
3) science has to have strict rules controlling it's boundaries to avoid or at least minimize everything mentioned in the above article. without restrictions on what & how science can look at things (like say that it has to occur more then once) you'd get no theories at all that you could trust. science has done its damndest to isolate itself from societal pressures and you want to drag it back into an discussion it can't help clear up anyways.
so to close : there's no scientist worth his salt that's going to dismiss your pseudo-scientific theories, all he's going to do is explain to you that he can't study them & that they can't be called science. that's all.
cjmilne
Personally, from reading the book "Alternative Science" by Richard Milton (he's an Darwinism-skeptic, which unfairly prejudices some people against him!) I don't think the cold fusion debate is so open-and-shut as you make out.
Female Prison Rape in NY
Female Prison Rape in NY
Yes, it can be, but it's also much more than that. I read an insightful analogy explaining it in "rational" terms recently. Basically, the idea is this (I've embellished it to make it life-threatening): Imagine you have only two plausible theories on which to base a life-critical decision. If you make a wrong decision you and your family will all die slowly and painfully. The two theories predict all the experimental evidence equally well, and both seem equally plausible (you can't rationally decide). The only difference is, the first theory has two fundamental assumptions which aren't independently verifiable, whilst the second theory has ten.
I know which one I'd choose - and I think this says something fundamental about rationality.
(Where the above argument is weakest, though, is the idea that the number of assumptions is independent of the plausibility - I guess what I really mean is "plausibility except for the number of assumptions".)
We are model builders and not Truth finders. Truth is unacessible.
Postmodern claptrap (taken in context). I advise you read some of the many excellent books critiquing these kinds of ideas:
Female Prison Rape in NY
Katz just described the true essence of Slashdot, especially himself!
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+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
You wrote, "Humility, a value of many religions scoffed at by scientists, is still the paramount character trait to seek."
On the contrary, humility is an intrinsic part of science, far more so than in religion. ("This just in: Pope admits Catholic church is wrong; mass conversions to Wicca are expected.")
I think this quote from Carl Sagan sums it up best:
I also like this one by Jean Rostand, writing in writing in "Penspes d'un Biologiste" (1939):
P.S. If you want more science vs. pseudoscience discussions, you might consider visiting Skeptic News.
Can you please submit your scientific proof of any biblical events? I think a good proof of 'the flood' or the red sea being parted, or maybe that walking on water thing...
Or to sum up my basic argument against you, YOU CANNOT DISPROVE SOMETHING THAT DID NOT HAPPEN.
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
"personal vanity" skews the scientific process so much that it deserves two mentions in the same list?
heh, those wacky scientists.
-steve
--- "We also were guided by the unlikelihood that anyone would face supernatural evil armed only with technology."
However, I am aware of no evidence to support this. Can you please point us to primary literature that indicates that Sir Newton was outwardly anti-catholic? Claims are great and all, but without any sort of linkage or documentation, you might as well be claiming that the earth was flat.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
http://www.donarmstrong.com
OK, OK, Katz sucks, evolution vs. bible blah blah blah... Never mind all that -- the Russians have ice-9!!! (Well, "congeal" sounds kind of jelly-like, maybe it's ice-6 or 7.) We must all bow down to our new masters before they make the earth all squidgy! Seriously though, what the hell!?
What is your point exactly? Do you want more people to try to research the paranormal? I don't see what good that would do considering the huge number of people trying to gather evidence already. There has been a GREAT DEAL of people trying to prove the existance of the things you talk about for many many years, some scientists, some not. I'm sure you are aware of this, so I guess that probably isn't your point. You have no real need of getting more people to look into the paranormal.
Hrm, so whats left. I guess your point is that you want people to have an open mind, and by open mind you mean "Agree with me that these things are paranormal even though the thousands of people researching it can't support that claim."
Sorry bud, I guess I just can't have an open mind.
Look, I realize nobody has proved it yet, but that doesn't mean nobody is looking, lots of people are.
On the other hand, since lots of people are looking, and have been for many years, I guess maybe you should consider the possibility that they aren't finding anything because there is nothing to find?
Are you sure you are the one with an open mind?
I used to think these things might be true, or possible. I used to read all the books, watch all the shows, trying to find out the truth. Then I found out that crop circles were hoaxes. All of the information I had read about them, all kinds of things about the strange lay of the crops, or the way it wasn't possible for humans to make them because none of the stalks were broke, or because the germs didn't seem quite right, all of that went out the window when I saw films of 2 men making one crop circle. The next day I saw another film of these so called "experts" all saying that this was a "geniune crop circle" and going through their usual routines about why it couldn't have been man made. Blah blah blah. At that point I came to realize one thing: "If it is possible for people to hoax something then they will."
Couple that with the fact that a large percentage of the population will just casually lie about any given subject and you have a good explanation for the widespread belief of extraterestial encounters.
"But what about all of the people who saw them, are they liars?"
You know that guy at work or the bar who always has a story to tell? You know the one who, it doesn't matter what the subject is he has been there and done it better or seen bigger? Yeah, everybody has one or two of those around. If someone starts talking about the possibility of UFO's what do you think he is going to say?
How can so many people be wrong? Easy, in fact it's quite common. What religion are you? Christian? Muslim? Catholic? It doesn't matter, whichever one you are, there is another group of many millions of people who believe you are wrong with all of their being, and another group that you believe is wrong with all of yours. A good example that a great many people will believe foolish things if given a reason.
Now that I understand these things about human nature, I cannot possibly believe any paranormal claims without extremely strong evidence. It's not that science forces people to be closed minded, it's the science forces you to be open to every possibility, even the possibility that everyone else is flat wrong.
Sigs are awesome huh?
Then there is the "modern truth" of c-space. It is impossible to ever pass the speed of light. Just like it is impossible to pass the sound barrier? Or just like humans won't be able to breath when the pass 30 miles per hour? I don't know, I think it is ridiculous to assume that just because we haven't found a way to do something, that automatically means it is impossible.
There is a fundamental difference between the modern result that seems to imply that it is impossible to travel faster than light and the early 20th century belief that humans could not travel faster than sound. The latter was not scientifically grounded, but rather supported by "common sense." The former is not an aesthetic judgement or common sense, but the result of equations derived from a very few assumptions Einstein made about the Universe; i.e., the result follows from axioms, and is thus in a completely different class than the latter. Additionally, there are no claims by modern physicists that because "we haven't found a way to" travel faster than light, it is therefore impossible to do it. There are many instances in which Math. has predicted the ability to do something, such as create a new element, etc., that at the time was impossible to do. Later advances in technology were able show that the predictions were correct; in the case of faster than light travel, the math seems to say that it would require an infinite amount of energy. One interpretation of this is that this travel is then impossible, others say that there are ways around this, but very few are saying anything like "just because we haven't found a way to do something, that automatically means it is impossible."
Academia is mired in fear. The nail that stands up gets hammered. The researcher who discovered that ulcers could be cured is ridiculed. I have had researchers at Fermi and two universities candidly talk about areas they cannot explore; e.g., checking if Saint Einstein's theories would be sufficient with time dialation limited to gravity effects. One had a clear warning that this would put them on "the radical fringe, clearly not tenure material".
So how do we get back to courage?
The obvious part of K-12 science education to cut is the teaching of evolution. Fundamentally, we need more roboticists, computer scientists, physchologists, and geneticists than folks who study evolution, so it is better to cut this class than any math, chemistry, or physics. Let's gut this class in one fell swoop and blow the minds of a couple students. Here's what I propose...
A class that starts with Creationism, Theory of Evolution, and the Prachet giant turtle theory. Compare and contrast the beliefs, examine the evidence and consistency, look at the scientific method and places it falls down, study some famous mistakes and some radical breakthroughs. Explore the accidental discoveries and the effect on society. Get students to think about where they get their information.
Maybe we could get our courage back.
Profit motivates invention.
Never has anything spread so fast with so little proof.
www.oop.ismad.com
Table-ized A.I.
Also, the pressure at 20,000 feet below is enormous. Certainly enough to crush all the trees and such.
And where did all that water go?
but personal vanity, contemporary politics, greed, stupidity, personal vanity and incompetence all pop up in these shocking episodes.
bad memory?
End of line
Take it outside, godboy.
XML causes global warming.
XML causes global warming.
It doesn't matter which came first, the secret government helicopter landings in the corn fields or the bored youth out fabricating DIY crop circles, the imaginings of whomever has the most feasible or just plain convincing story are going to propagate.
Can you get vaccinated against grocery store tabloids?
Science leads to Microsoft? What science? Voodoo or witchcraft is more accurate. A touch of this, a touch of that, dance around the mainframe naked and viola! MS Office came forth.
Of course scientific progress is important, anyone who has ever played civilization knows that. If you don't put enough resources into science, you will sooner or later be conquered by the evil Aztecs or Russians. :)
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
What the world need is metamoderation of reviewers!
Seriously, you can always look around and trying to find some reviewers that share your opinions in movies, books, music or whatever, and hope that they will review the item you are interrested in.
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
First off, a scientific theory is a very different beast from a theorem in mathematics. So the Pythagorean theorem doesn't belong on your list.
Second, the notion of Fact and Theory are intricately tied together; truth is relative. Sorry.
Ahem. Pythagoras was a philosopher and mathematician. Not a theory.
The Pythagorean Theorem has been proven by countless high school geometry students throughout time using basic geometry and logic.
And the problem is when people reject what they don't like in the face of a great deal of evidence.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Perhaps *you* are the one preaching bad science, eh? After all, you're categorizing a (n extremely large) group of people without proper understanding.
For the sake of rational discussion, let's narrow the group you criticize to fundamentalist "young earthers." What is the statement of these fools? That nothing is proven in science and that teaching natural selection as fact undermines good science as well as promotes a world view.
The simple fact is that science cannot prove anything -- it can only disprove. And, if you're honest to yourself, you'll realize that believing in something to be true that cannot be proven (and cannot be observed) is faith. Yep, faith. You know, the stuff you criticize those Christians for practicing. Now, if you would like to have a rational comparison of your faith to the young earthers, please proceed. I just wanted to make sure you saw things in the correct context.
Specifically, most scientists who have theorized about things that question the biblical account of things are ridiculed, shunned, blackballed, and/or drawn and quartered :)
The church has always been society's moral compass. Sometimes true north isn't...
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
Its society. Witness poor, ridiculed Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). He advanced the theory that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun, disrupting the Ptolemaic system of astronomy.
He wasn't at fault, the society that shunned his discoveries and theories is.
There are countless others that suffered the same fate throughout history.
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
Not in the UK, where the digit 1 was originally pilfered to make space for the pounds sterling sign, because, of course, it wouldn't matter using a lowercase ell for a digit, now, would it...
I think Jon Katz is kind of hoping for us to pass through the ridicule stage and going straight to acceptance of his writing. Looks like he's hoping to skip the violence part, anyway.
Not gonna happen.
But, I'll give him credit for this: the book does look interesting.
John
John
No, Katz *IS NOT* a founder of Slashdot. He was hired to be a writer here. Check out this link for the beginning. I wasn't here but I have read that there were some *loud protests* when he was signed on.
This is another view of the world.
The problem I have with this sort of rant is that it offers no alternatives.
Sure science has its blind spots and shortcomings (like democracy), but it's still the best proven method for increasing human knowledge.
As another poster pointed out, the lack of reapeatability and controlled conditions make any explanation mostly untestable, and therefore useless.
Ubi dubium ibi libertas: Where there is doubt, there is freedom.
All the arguments from Creationists against evolution that I've heard are fallacious and based on some assumption that is a distortion of the truth. Some things I've heard are down right lies. Will you be refuting the liars? Eg, the claim that Darwin expressed doubts about his theory on his deathbed (absolute rubbish, BTW).
All or nearly all scientists accept natural selection. What they argue about is the mechanism. I would be very interested to hear of independent research (ie, not associated with Creationism) that suggests the species haven't evolved.
Not to downplay the importance of good science and its reasonable application, I would just like to note that the various theories of constructionism and deconstructionism can be applied in nefarious ways with equally horrific results.
Witness the genocide committed by Stalin and later Pohl Pot and the Khmer Rouge. They attempted to erase generations of conditioning and social construction by executing the educated. It was their belief that this way they could introduce a pure society. Everyone would be conditioned, ie constructed, into the ideal citizen, with some sort of utopia being the result.
(I got this idea from Stephen Pinkers' book, How the Mind Works. Very interesting reading if you'd interested in a Darwinian and computational explanation of behaviour and intelligence.)
Some or even a majority of scientists may scoff at religion, but very few scoff at humility, as you claim.
Scientists are attracted to science because they share an awe of nature and the universe.
There have been many mis-applications of religion as well. Consider the Inquistions, the Crusades,etc.
I would encourage you to read some popular science books. I think you will be surprised to learn that scientist look for elegance and beauty in their theories and are not nearly as narrow minded as you seem to believe.
And Constructionism in the wrongs hands is scary stuff!
As I said, it was an example of a mental barrier, more than of a real one.
This is the truth in the legend. I also expect that we will someday find a way to travel the cosmos. I do not think that it will be with a conventional spaceship hurtling through spacetime at faster than light speeds. One would have to find an exception to Maxwell's equations (which lead to Einstein's e=mc^2) and these have been proven to be extremely reliable. It will likely be from exploiting the rules of quantum physics, but I doubt that such a loophole will be incompatable with e=mc^2. Our situation may be similar to that of the 1920's and 30's aeronautical engineers. We need a new method of propulsion, but we do not know how to achieve it.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Just like it is impossible to pass the sound barrier?
Comparing the sound barrier problem to the speed of light problem is not an entirely accurate comparison. According to my grandfather, who worked on jet engines back in the early days, the sound barrier was not percieved as a true barrier. Everyone knew that bullets flew faster than sound, so the barrier had been broken. The question was, could we develop a machine to propel a man faster than sound? The "sound barrier" was more of a power barrier. Piston engines simply lacked the power to propel a plane faster than sound. My grandfather mentioned that there were all kinds of stories about the latest prop fighters of WW2 breaking the sound barrier in powerdives. Most people in the field knew it was possible to break the sound barrier. What they did not know was if they could control the plane or generate enough power to sustain supersonic flight. Jet engines were eventually developed that were able to deliver enough power for sustained supersonic flight and a little aerodynamic tweaking solved the control problems.
This actually sounds like something that may be discussed in the book.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Er, strongly. Sorry. :)
And who discovered the mistake? Surely not another one of those deceitful paleontologists?
The open hostility the members of this board show any Christian (flamebait???), is similar to the scientific community's hatred of Christianity (or God, for that matter).
You seem to equate science and education with rejecting God. I like to look at things differently, and believe quite the opposite.
Science cannot discover absolute truth because science is always changing, and any scientific finding or theory may be discarded or revised tomorrow or a hundred years from now. All scientific observations and theories must be open to criticism and to possible correction or rejection. No scientific theory should be protected from criticism, because it may some day be proved to be wrong. This is the central policy of the scientific method.
Do you fear that your scientist's conjectures would not stand up to any criticisms? Rightfully so! For much of their "science" has ben refuted over the years!
In 1956 W.R. Thompson, a Canadian entomologist (entomology - study of insects) of international repute, wrote in his introduction to the centennial edition of Darwin's Origin, "...Darwin did not show in the Origin that species had originated by natural selection; he merely showed, on the basis of certain facts and assumptions, how this might have happened, and as he had convinced himself he was able to convince others."
But because I disagree with you, I should leave? Is that your way of thinking?
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
... Not I.
1 Pet.3:15
But sanctify the Lord God in you hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
... Quite telling.
Many have been led to believe that it is easy to point out fatal errors in Creationism and that Evolution is an air-tight case. Many of them also believe that Creationists are hopelessly ignorant. I find that when I prove otherwise to them, it is a major shock to their sense of well-being, shaking their most basic beliefs, perhaps for the first time in their lives.
Jesus Christ himself was despised and rejected of men. We believe the creation message to be the truth. Whether or not it looks good in the eyes of men does not matter. I am certain that if Jesus Christ were to appear before a panel of scientists, he would not adjust his answers to appear scientific; he would speak the truth. "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God" (I Cor. 1:18).
In other words, your faith is not evidence. Why don't you go away.
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
No, in fact... I am not a pentecostal.
The pentecostals are another cult which has grossly misinterpreted the Gospel. I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture and that we are Saved by grace through faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Does that deserve your mocking, as well?
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
Perhaps it is you who should step outside. Outside of the binds of secular society. There is more than this world, my son --- I wish you could see it!
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
Please, do not blame True Christians for their over-sight and corruption of Scripture.
With regards to Galil, the Roman Church made many mistakes:
1. The Church leaders had accepted as dogma the belief system of the pagan (i.e. non-Christian) philosophers, Aristotle and Ptolemy, which had become the world view of the then scientific establishment. The result was that Church leaders were using the knowledge of the day to interpret Scripture, instead of using the Bible to evaluate the knowledge of the day.
2. They clung to the "majority opinion" about the universe and rejected the "minority view" of Copernicus and Galileo, even after Galileo had presented indisputable evidence based on repeatable scientific observations that the majority was wrong.
3. They picked out a few verses from the Bible which they thought said that the sun moved around the Earth, but they failed to realize that Bible texts must be understood in terms of what the author intended to convey. Thus, when Moses wrote of the 'risen' sun (Genesis 19:23) and sun 'set' (Genesis 28:4), his purpose was not to formulate an astronomical dictum. Rather he, by God's spirit, was using the language of appearance so that his readers would easily understand what time of day he was talking about. And it is perfectly valid in physics to describe motion relative to the most convient reference frame, which in this case is the earth.
Do not lump all denominations together. It is a mistake to do do.
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
... But the fact remains, evolution is ONLY a theory (one with many holes, at that). Those who would claim it as fact are doing so on FAITH (just as I believe, through faith, in creation) and whatever evidence may lean their way.
I disagree with it being taught in public schools, as FACT.
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
... If your reading comprehension was a little more developed, you would see I was blaming the catholics for the unjust persecution of Galileo and Copernicus (as well as many other atrocities), and then gave the reasons why they were at fault.
Try again.
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
There is a long history of this I think. My favorite example I think has to be Francis Galtons pioneering working into the link between intelligence and shape of the buttocks. Galton, you will be interested to know, had extremely intelligent buttocks. I think he also one of the first to work on fingerprints. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
When you get right down to it though, people have never really need science to support racism. Its just such a handy way to enforce the divide and conquer tactic, that its hard to ignore. I didn't know the about the example of the native american tribes, although its an interesting case. Ultimately though we all share a common ancestor with any human remains that are found, so I'm not quite sure that I understand the position. Still given the general treatment that the Native Americans recieved (along with many other indigineous populations!) I can see a case for erring on the side of caution...
Phil
You, in turn, "speak" as if you weren't one of the most gullible morons on the planet!!! I AM GOING TO PRINT THIS OUT FOR USE AS TOILET PAPER!!!!
While I appreciate the unusual brevity of Katz's article, I'd like to know whether or not the book is worth reading.
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You are a fucking moron.
Here's hoping you meant it like you said it, and that "the reverse is opposite", because if you meant to say "it seems to me the reverse is *true*", you've got a problem, because you've just rattled off a list of instances of "false theories" and "imagined phenomena" that spread through and were persistent in the scientific community and had to be cast out by people like Galileo, Einstein, etc. It seems you just proved the point you started out by refuting...
JonKatz can't be fired. He's one of the founding members of Slashdot. It'd be like Linus Torvalds ostracizing or castigating Richard Stallman, but you know that'd never happen.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Where is this so-called "Rational Population"? I'd like to meet them.
Human society likes to view itself as populated by rational thinking beings with a little bit of animal instinct left over from evolution. I think the reverse is true: our behaviour is for the most part instictive, with a dash of rationality thrown in. Apparently just enough rationality to get us into a lot of trouble.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Watch your back, though. I've got a Fresnel lens.
information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
This is one of the hardest things for most writers of the history of science to accept. Scientists are people, and like all people, they are very much a product of their upbringing and are always heavily influenced by their peers. One scientist to study as a perfect example of this is Isaac Newton. In addition to his incredible mathematical genius, Newton was also a religious fanatic who beleived in the Aryan religion, a virulent anti-catholic bigot, an incredible egomainiac who held personal grudges for decades, an man who harbored intense professional jealousies and who would become furious at any criticism of his own work, and an extemely clever politician who used his postion in the Royal Society to reward his friends and punish his enemies. Despite all these very human defects in his personality, he was above all a rational scientist who never published anything until it had been proven to his own satisfaction that it was absolutely true (which is why he always won scientific debates). The idea that any class of people, scientists, clergy, cops, lawyers, politicians, teachers, whatever, will act as anything other than the self-centered humans they all is rediculous.
I first read about this on Salon and my dad got it for me for Christmas. It's an excellent read (bounced through it in 2 days) especially on the farce of cold fusion. I love how the author describes the scientists' excitement at having a "meltdown" when they should have been concerned about all of the fun with the radiation.
The footnotes are also excellent at explaining the basics of the scientific theories in good layman's terms.
The most interesting chapter has to be that of the Stalin era, lead by that lunatic Lysenko (who's deeds have lead to the word lysenkoism meaning pathological science). Its wonderful when a doctrine promotes a scientist who leads to the death of millions through famine and blight.
What is music when you despise all sound?
But look at what caffiene did! <voice tone="sarcastic">This means that LSD and other drugs are safe, but we should never, ever drink coffee.</voice>
This is probably the junk science that the book was warning about, but who ever proved the dinosaurs were extinct? Is it possible that some species of large "lizard" out there is really a dinosaur that has been misclassified? It seems rather odd that dinosaurs were the most successful creatures of their time, and yet died off without a trace.
Science will move us into the direction that we want to go...but where do we want to go?
I look forward to the day when there is enough human activity "out there" (in space) that there are similar stories of c-space craft breaking the speed of light by slingshotting around huge gravity wells (large planets, or black holes) but I am quite aware that that won't happen in my lifetime.
But, if we don't wipe ourselves out, or do something equally stupid that prevents us from going further into space (or actually living permanently in space), I hope that these stories are the precursors, in whatever era they take place, of controlled faster than light 'flight' through space.
Everything is just a matter of time, as they always say. Sorry I equated sound-barrier to light barrier, but I still think the same basic philosophy applies to both. Someday, when the light-barrier is broken, there will be similar stories about both. As I said, it was an example of a mental barrier, more than of a real one.
------------
My point exactly. And you're right, the fundamental problem is a misunderstanding of the original theories themselves. And of course, lawyers love to use the misunderstanding of those theories to their client's advantage. It's funny how the law allows "insanity" as a "not guilty" plea. In my mind, admitting to insanity just means you are guilty, and you are fucked up. Instead of saying, "Oh you poor baby, we should really pamper you.", we should say, "Well, you screwed up, and we understand that you aren't mentally capable of realizing why you screwed up. So, you are sentenced to mental care."
I realize that happens more often than what TV dramas would want you to believe, but I think the concept of "not guilty by reason of insanity" is the start of the misunderstanding of the basic theories.
Now that I'm completely off-topic....
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True enough, but you can pour blood, sweat and math into a project and "prove" something that is one hundred and twenty-five percent wrong if you do not use common sense along the way as well. Common sense seems to be seen as a great evil a lot of the time anymore. It isn't evil, but I'm sure there are a lot of people that think it is (because, common sense often leads in directions that aren't instantly profitable. And everyone knows that the "instant" part is a lot more important than the "profitable" part. Never mind if your path will lead to bankruptcy in four years, we need money today!)
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"Most remarkable," writes Gatzer, "is the way that false theories and imagined phenomena sometimes spread through the scientific community. A kind of mass hysteria, which parallels in the world at large, such as UFO sightings alien abductions, 'recovered memory' and probably chronic fatigue syndrome, takes possession of a hitherto rational population, like a virus of the intellect. On such occasions scientists in some area of research throw aside, to the amazement of their colleagues, the intellectual constraints that had until then guided their working lives. They become selectively uncritical and intolerant of any unsought evidence. Sometimes such a perversion of the scientific method results from external, especially political, pressures, but at other times it is a spontaneous eruption."
Hmm, that's sounds a lot like the way that the theory of evolution has been blindly adhererd to and taught for so many years with it's only proof as Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. I'm not advocating that it's an incorrect theory, I'm just saying that proof is quite a bit on the light side for it.
"Sometimes such a perversion of the scientific method results from external, especially political, pressures, but at other times it is a spontaneous eruption." Unfortunately, our severely misguided critical theorists are in less danger from the truth. These folks believe that no idea is worthy if it didn't originate in the last 50 years. These folks' ideas are about nothing but politics, the politics of resentment, of entitlement, of discrimination, of academic advancement. They reject human nature and biology. They pander to fuzzy thinking. If only these very intelligent folks had chosen hard science as a career, we'd suffer less from misguided social theory masquerading as science.
Just been learning in Intro to Psych that this Mesmer's techniques, is how we got the verb to "Mesmerize". These days the technique (minus the theoretical aspects of animal magnetism) is called Hypnosis.
I find it unfortunate that this book has resorted to feeding the flames of anti-science sentiment in an era when one of our greatest problems is the public's ignorance, and subsequent fear, of science and technology.
Capitalizing on society's fears may be a good way of selling copies of your book, and the book may actually be informative for those of us who have received a decent scientific education, but the most likely result is that a lot of people who know little about science, or who are activly opposed to the scientific enterprise will buy copies of this book and use it as ammunition to oppose researchers who are not, in fact, doing anything unethical or dangerous.
It's true that excessive faith in the infallibility of science cannot be a good thing. Among certain segments of the high-tech and scientific communities this may actually be a problem. But the public at large is experiencing a much different and far more severe problem with scientific ignorance. Everyone is aware of the dismal scientific education that most people in our society receive. That lack of education leaves the public without the skills to understand what is good science and what is bad science. This allows people with political agendas to manipulate public sentiment with skewed statistics and studies that masquerage as being scientific, when in fact they would not even be considered for publication in a scientific journal. I am not solely referring to UFOlogists, ESP, the paranormal, and astrology. I am also including a large amount of dubious pop psychology, relgious based research such as "creationism", and quasi-religious beleifs such as faith healing, "alternative" medicine, and certain aspects of the environmental movement that blend mysticism and spiritualism into their "science".
It is especially problematic in areas where there may be some scientific truth. Some alternative medicines and herbal remedies probably do work, but they need to be evaluated in an objective way. A lof of people out there currently don't have the knowledge to be able to tell the difference between a properly controlled scientific experiment, and the anecdotal and unscientific methods used by many of the promoters of these therapies. They are having a hard enough time telling the difference as it is, and this book will likely be used by the promoters of dubious "alternative" therapies to argue that their methods are no worse than the methods used by scientific studies. Those who profit from unproven and unverifiable remedies have a lot to gain from attempts to "de-legitimatize" the scientific enterprise.
Similarly, there are genuine environmental problems that need to be addressed, as scientificly as possible, but there is also a strong strain of mysticism in the environmental movement, and many groups that promote causes based not on scientific evidence, but on spiritual or mystical beleifs. One prime example is the common beleif that "natural" things are inherently preferable to "artificial" things. This is not a scientificly grounded belief. It is fundamentally a religious, moral, or (in some cases) asthetic position. I have no objection to people having such moral beleifs, as long as they admit when they are moral or religious, and don't attempt to pass them off as science. Unfortunately, due the the horrible scientific education in our society, many people are unable to understand the difference between scientificly based theories and religious or morally based theories. They consider them equivalent.
In addition, those who are advocates of certain religious or moral positions (such as creationism or luddism) often advance the beleif that the scientific process is no better a means of determining the nature of reality than religion. Beleive it or not, there are those who think that science is a racist, even sexist, western concept that is inherently oppressive to the third world and destructive to the environment. The actually prefer mythological and religious systems of thought. The "de-legitimization" of science is one of their primary goals, and they will undoubtably use this book as ammuntition.
A case in point is the current protest movement against geneticly modified foods. The vast, vast majority of the scientific community supports the consensus that there are no risks unique to the process or techniques genetic engineering, and that the risks that do exist can be effectivly regulated and controlled, which is what the current regulatory policy does. In fact, most of those involved in the study of plant genetic think the current process is excessive. The fear of geneticly modified foods is based almost entirely on fears of the unknown. i.e. "What if there is something that hasn't been tested for?", "What if we don't fully understand DNA?" These kinds of questions can be raised in opposition to any new technology, and often have been. Overall, the pattern is similar. Irrationally extreme apocalyptic scenarios are proposed, which are later shown to be of virtually nil probability. The oppoents of the technology concoct their own research to "prove" the technology is too dangerous to use, and cite individual "unorthodox" scientists who support their beleifs, often who are operating outside their specialization. The argument is made that unless scientists can ensure "zero risk", that the technology should not be used. And finally, scientific objections to the validity of their arguments are met by attacks on the validity of the scientific process. In short, "Heres my fantastic speculation, here are three scientists (picked by me), who think it might happen, you can't prove it won't, and besides that, you get paid by Monsanto/the FDA/the establishment, so you are obviously biased anyway."
I understand what the book is trying to say, and there are undoubtably some valid points in it. The book is trying to point out flaws in the current scientific process, which we need to be aware of, not to claim that the scientific process itself is invalid. However, I think this book addresses a problem which is not really a serious concern in our society, quite the opposite. Our society suffers from an inability to tell good science from bad science as the most basic levels. The finer points of scientific credibility are way beyond the public's ability at this point. As a result the book will only serve to cast blanket suspicion on the entire scientific community. For many people, all they are going to get out of it is a blanket suspicion of the entire scientific enterprise.
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Ever since the first proto-human used a stick to stir up a hill of termites for a snack, tools became weapons.
The next thing that happened was his buddy tried to grab a few termites, and was promptly wacked with the stick. Nothing new here.
To the Moon!
http://www.beefjerky.com
Okay back to some actual concepts behind science instead of this inane discussion that just rehashes years of net creation vs. evolution debate...
In the context of scientific vocabulary, the claims of your average human religion are not theories, but untestable conjectures, not even attaining the rank of hypothesis due to the fact that they are not capable of being disproved.
Neo-Darwinian evolution isn't called a "theory" because it is just another idea about how life developed. It is given the label precisely for the opposite reason. It is a hypothesis that is consistent with extensive empirical data, unlike a mere conjecture or hypothesis.
Science thrives because it uses what Sagan referred to as a "boloney detector", sieving out the far-fetched idle conjectures and starry-eyed tales, leaving behind demonstrable phenomena and ideas on how they work. It's a hierarchy:
Law
(long-standing theory)
Theory
(hypothesis 'proven' by empirical data)
Hypothesis
(disprovable conjecture)
Conjecture
(any old possibility you can dream up)
It's a shame when scientifically-educated people forget the fundamental paradigms, methods, and procedures that make science. If you forget what sets ideas apart from each other, then calculating the energy of a falling object by counting flying pink unicorns is as valid as using Newtonian calculations.
Well, of course the reverse is the opposite! ;-)
One thing does not exclude the other: bad science gets far too much credit thanks to the media (crystals, horoscops, pyramid's powers, alien abduction, etc.) and good science can be cornered by sckeptic scientists. But the results are far different: bad science accepted at face value is useles at least, harmful at worst.
Real science in the other hand has to be rigurously proved before it is accepted as truth. Einstein had to write down E=m*c*c (with all the analysis) before making ludicrous claims!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What I meant was, "Even though many scientists scoff at religion, humility, a value common to religious belief systems, is something we could all use." I was not saying that science scoffs at humility ;-)
Sorry for any misunderstanding! :-) I know that science treasures both humility and skepticism. The ability to admit you are wrong is key to scientific endeavors. I was just trying to point to an irony, in that despite the open hostility between religion and science, they often have shared values :-)
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
A more honest description would have been along the lines of: "There's something really odd going on here guys, something not explained by any known physics of materials, and we've been running experiments to try to figure out what's going on."
Calling the unexplained phenomenon cold fusion at that stage (or even at the current stage) was pretty damn silly --- despite the fact that whatever is happening is very real and very unexplained by current theory, it is not fusion as we've known it for decades and may not be fusion of any kind at all. This could have led to an excellent area for loads of well-funded pure science and maybe by now even some solid engineering, instead of the media circus that was. Shame on everyone.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
In high school, I read Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man . That's what opened my eyes to how scientists are just as prone to wanting to advance their causes as the next guy (or gal).
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
...but there is no guarantee for how long it will take. Bad science can survive for a generation or two and cause much grief on the way.
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Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Personally, I expect a book reviewer to tell me something about the book, its strengths and weaknesses, and maybe some biographical info about the author. Silly me.
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Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Hey, Katz, you oughta read " The mac is not a typewriter ", by Robin Williams. That'll teach you how to type properly.
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If you ask me the guys who came up with repeated reports of cold fusion after it had started being debunked should be dragged through the streets and forced to repay every penny of taxpayers' money that they got in grants
If that's an example of your opinion, I wont' be asking.
So it's okay to follow a line of research as long as no-one's debunked it? That'd be great for the idiots who spend their lives debunking evolution, and it also pretty much puts paid to extra-solar planets, cloning, relativity and... well, pretty much everything. Look back far enough and you'll probably find someone grunting the caveman equivalent of 'fire? load of bollocks, that'.
> The problem I have is this: traditional science is only set up to understand that which is easily and repeatedly observable under controlled conditions.
If that were true, we wouldn't have any astronomy. As it happens, astronomy is one of the oldest of sciences.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Screwball theories taking hold is the scientific equivalent of Dave Rhodes and "Make Money Fast". . .
You must also remember, being a Scientist does NOT give you a corner on every single aspect of reality. Hence, ideas that appear plausible to one scientist on a general basis may be obviously bogus to another with specific and detailed knowledge of that particular field of study: things are WAAAAAAY too broad for any scientist to have much more than an informed laymans' level of knowledge of most of it. . .
1) Skepticism is what untestable claims should be greeted with.
2) Scientists are very good at testing claims that something happens very rarely.
Ok, more detail....
For #1, many more things don't happen than do happen. For every time a bird flies by, an uncountable number of UFOs and invisible dragons DON'T fly by. If someone says that an invisible dragon flies by, only when nobody capable of testing for it is nearby, it MAY be true, but very probably is not.
Also, if that claim is testable but always produces negative results, out of line with those reported, it's reasonable to believe it's false. If your phone line had static during all calls, except that the telco people could never hear static even when placing a call from your house, they'd be justified in thinking it didn't exist. If however they merely try a few tests and don't find anything, they're being lazy in presuming it's nothing.
And as for #2, how do you think doctors discover that a drug causes side effects to one in two-hundred thousand people?
Similarly, when scientists are looking for something they have reason to believe is uncommon, they perform very many tests.
But if they're testing for something that they are told happens very often, they can conclude that (if the event is independent of their testing (ie, the static doesn't go away just because test equipment is hooked up)) the event isn't happening, or at least, not as reported.
What you attribute to the inability of science to deal with uncommon events is merely the laziness of people who don't want to investigate something that might mean them making a hundred tests over a long period of time. That's not bad science, that's bad tech support.
There are two different arguments in here Phil, both of which are important:
:-)).
Firstly, how 'truth' is pursued within the boundaries of a particular scientific community, and secondly, how those outside the community try to manipulate the work for their own benefits.
What you refer to with reference to your own field is the tension that arises when the boundaries become blured - and, I agree, commercial funding of academic research labs can result in unfortunate situations.
Reading some of the other posts, it is interesting to see people complaining that the scientific establishment, which controls funding and publications, is intransigent and guided by vanity and personal ambition. At the same time, others are complaining about quite the opposite - fraudulent, or faulty, science that claims exciting new breakthroughs, is too easy to sell to an uneducated, gullible public. This suggests to me that the current peer-review process, coupled with scientific method is probably the best compromise we can come up with at the moment. The intransigence of peer review at least provides a level of hysteresis, and, I think I'm right in saying, most of the most embarassing 'scientific' cock-ups were as a result of people not publishing under peer-review (e.g. Arpad Puztai and his Genetically Modified Potatoes - I notice that sounds like a fairground act, which seems quite appropriate really
As far as outside manipulation goes, you are right that science tries to build a self-sustaining edifice, that industry and politics try to manipulate it, and that academic scientists have a duty to be aware of these pressures and resist them.
The thing that irritates me the most is the use of the phrase 'there is no scientific evidence that...' (insert Mad Cow disease and BSE, uranium tipped shells, Genetically Modified anything...). Generally, this is because no one has done the experiment. This is the same problem that predicate calculus has - True and False aren't enough to represent incomplete knowledge.
There is no scientific evidence that I am not a teapot. It would be foolish, however, to assume that, as a result, I am one.
Often, these arguments are combined with the use of spurious statistics - Children in single parent families are more likely to commit crime, therefore divorce should be made harder. Creative people are, apparently, more accident prone, therefore if you're accident prone, you're likely to be creative. People that wear skirts to school do better in exams, therefore, we should oblige all children to wear skirts so that their academic grades improve. Fire engines are associated with fires, therefore we should ban fire engines...etc... All these statements are equally ridiculous, it's just that some appear less so than others.
It seems to me the *reverse* is opposite. The scientific community seems very resistant to new, strange ideas. Otherwise totally rational people, having gotten a certain meme stuck in their head about how implausible or silly something is, totally discount it, refuse to rationally look into it, for fear of being considered a fool by peers. Shouldn't we have gotten over this by kindergarten? Remember, a lot of science is people's egos and careers. Galileo wasn't too popular for his ideas of the earth revolving around the sun, and it took Columbus and Magellen to dispell the stigma on the notion that the world was a sphere. Einstein also shook up those adamant that the entire universe was based on simple Euclidean geometry. New ideas have to fight every way to be recognized. A lot of the "common sense" we take for granted was vehemently opposed by the scientific community at one point.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Can lead to Microsoft.
Screw the grammar. I just wanna see Katz learn the difference between a "1" and an "l". "l953"?
DUDE! It's a computer, not a typewriter! And the Courier font's "1" has been different from the "l" for decades!
that should read:
biophysicist
/me wonders why katz doesnt take the time to make sure his grammar is correct.
how can journalistic integrity be maintained without correct grammar as a basis?
signatures are for fools with hands
The *problem* is Pons and Fleischmann had that huge announcement, and were debunked (proper scientific theory, a success). However - now people scoff at the idea of "cold fusion". (A misnomer)
But there's a lot of reseach in the same fields going on. Its not bogus, and they're not trying to save the world and make a huge announcement.
You're letting the 1 big event color your perception of the the entire field - which isn't correct. There's a lot of stuff we don't know, and a lot of people trying to discover that.
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/SocialConstruc
(Google is your friend!)
Addison
Granted, this book is probably a fun an interesting read. But one of the best things about the scientific process is that eventually, after all of the human frailties have burnt out, truth does prevail. It may take years or decades or even centuries - but truth is truth, and no amount of human greed, bigotry, or censorship can ever change it.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
A SlashDot login in the wrong hands is.... um... OK, I guess *that's* harmless :-)
It never fails to amaze me how people cannot fathom that such things as history, science, government, education, religion, art, etc. are directly influenced by those who practice it. Nothing, I repeat NOTHING, is free of the influence of people no matter how much we wish it to be (or, to be more accurate free of influences other than our own). No perfect system will ever be put into place. But, what you can do is have a) acknowledge that bias exists and b) have a free and open society where alternate ideas can at least be expressed. It doesn't guarantee that what is "right" or what is "true" will come out on top, but it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
Every one of these has been stringly refuted. You should read the talk.origins archive, but you probably won't.
You really should read The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. Not that I think you wrong, exactly, but to paraphrase Sagan's example, if you say you have a dragon in your garage, but it's invisible, leaves no footprints, can't be touched, can't be covered in paint, makes no noise, and breathes invisible fire without heat; then your neighbors are going to have doubts. :)
It's the easy to say "Blame the society/system"
In many cases when a revolutionary new view of things was introduced by someone, it wasn't the public that ridiculed and humilated him, his peers, the other scientists were the ones that fought against those new ideas(of cource thereby forming "Public" opinion
Not even the greatest minds(think about how long the academie francaise denied to accept any evdience for meteors, think abouts Einsteins constant tries to "defeat" quantum mechanics, think about simon newcombe mathematically "proofing" that a body that is heavier then air can never fly).
"Mommy, mommy! The garbage man is here!" "Well, tell him we don't want any!" -- Groucho Marx
Money in the wrong hands, used for the wrong reasons, is scary stuff.
Power in the wrong hands, used for the wrong reasons, is scary stuff.
Coke and Pop-Rocks in the wrong hands, used for the wrong reasons, is scary stuff.
Religion in the wrong hands, used for the wrong reasons, is scary stuff.
Fresnel lenses in the wrong hands, used for the wrong reasons, is scary stuff.
Computers in the wrong hands, used for the wrong reasons, is scary stuff.
A nation in the wrong hands, used for the wrong reasons, is scary stuff.
Dude, that's seven more aritcles for you, right there.
information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
For those of us geeky enough to care about what the cold fusion claim was about:
Fusion is what happens when two atoms' nuclei fuse, or join, into one nucleus. Its simular to fission, which involves one atom's nucleus splitting into two. Both fusion and fission turn a small amount of matter directly into energy, and even though the amount of matter involved is almost miniscule, its far more efficient then chemical reactions (such as burning coal), which only involved harvesting energy from breaking chemical bonds. Fusion is what powers the sun, which transforms 2 hydrogen atoms into one helium atom. It requires very high temperatures to strip the electrons away from the nuclei so that the nuclei can react. Although fusion is a form of nuclear power, no nuclear power plant that I'm aware of uses fusion as a source of commercial power generation. All fusion power generators that have been built (such as the tomahawk) have been experimental machines. Due to the heat involved, fusion is a tad difficult to harness. Quite literally, its like having a piece of the sun on the earth.
Now cold fusion is the dream of a fusion reaction that runs at around room temperature, making a simpler, more easily controlled reaction. Although its a nice dream, in reality, there is no theoretical framework for cold fusion.
People, being people, still tried. One group of researchers came forward and said that they finally discovered a method for cold fusion. However, their results were never reproduced in other experiments. (See the parent post for more information about this.)
If I understand the science behind it, they were claiming that something at the chemical level could affect something on the atomic level and generate "cold" fusion, by acting as sort of a catalyst. Now chemical reactions can change electron orbits, but they (AFAIK) cannot change anything in the nucleus, therefore, their cold fusion claim was rather remarkable, since nothing in chemistry ever indicated it was possible. Chemical reactions don't care about the nucleus, if they did, it would be possible to do stuff like seperate different isotopes of uranium chemically. (When the US government seperated U238 from U235 during the second world war, they *did* combine it with florine into a chemical gas (UF6), but only so that they could seperate the isotopes due to U238's slightly heavier mass. The florine did nothing but made it into a gas for easier seperation. I haven't doublechecked this fact, but I believe it was through diffusion, which was allowing the gas to escape into another chamber through a small hole, due to U238's weight, it didn't diffuse as fast, repeating this step many times led to higher concentrations of U238.)
Therefore, any cold fusion claim is like a claim of discovering little green men on Mars, or that the earth is actually flat. Its just bad science.
We are not discussing societal or cultural pressures forcing a scientist to recant against his will or better judgement. That is well documented, and actually is still happening today.
What we are talking about here is that scientists, trained and immersed in the discipline of skepticism and doubt, are often blind to their own propensity for making assumptions. This, coupled with believing you are being scientific leads to moronic theories at best. At its worst, it brings us mass extermination and eugenics.
Humility, a value of many religions scoffed at by scientists, is still the paramount character trait to seek. If you are seeking truth, you must first realize your own limits and your own propensity to think of yourself more highly than you ought.
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
Science is knowledge that survives testing.
However, it may take a generation or two to get
past some wrong or evil idea if controlled by a
dogmatic group.
The opposite of science is dogmatism and revealation.
By definition, their body of knowledge is presumed
correct, albeit errors in transmission.
All new data has to fit their world view or be
rejected.
The problem with the cold fusion fiasco wasn't a credulous scientific establishment, it was that Fleischman and Pons went to the media instead of publishing for peer review first. There's a reason that major discoveries show up in Nature before the New York Times - the editors and readership of the former are equipped to examine claims critically. The general media is not.
Once other labs started trying to duplicate the cold fusion experiments of Fleischman and Pons, it quickly became evident that they hadn't discovered anything except poor experimental procedure. There was some brief noise about a couple of labs that said they had seen something that might, maybe, have been evidence of a cold fusion reaction, but that it wasn't reproducable and didn't produce statistically significant results. Again, the media broadcast this all over the place as collobarative evidence.
Now, I'm not saying that cold fusion shouldn't be researched further. I'm not qualified to make that judgement. What bothers me about this is how frequently I hear this particular incident cited as an example of why we shouldn't trust the scientific method. The damage that was done to public perception of the scientific establishment, and the methods of scientific inquiry, was inexcusable.
The ignorant are always looking for an excuse to remain so.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
gives a wonderful lecture that starts with the staement "Science runs on incompetance."
And yes, he is a scientist-- a systems-science approach botanist.
Ironicly, after showing how the scientific structures basically prevent most truely new dieas from gaining the wide audiance the need for acceptance, he concluded with the observation that this is necessary. Withotu such constraints science would be TOO creative and nothing woudl get explored in depth.
A moment of philosophy:
The world is what it is and is ultimately unmeasurable by us in any direct way. All we have are the inputs of our flawed senses and the arbitrary pattern matchign of our intellect. We are model builders and not Truth finders. Truth is unacessible.
What's left to judge our models by are just the dual criteria of utility and esthetics. (Predictive cability is a utility measure. Occam's razor is an esthetic measure.) All real scientists know this, unfortunately they usually aren't terribly good at communciating this to the common man.
The problem I have is this: traditional science is only set up to understand that which is easily and repeatedly observable under controlled conditions. Traditional science is unlikely to be able to investigate paranormal phenomena because many of these phenomena are transient and almost impossible to produce on demand. This doesn't mean such phenomena don't exist; it simply means that traditional science is ill suited to the study of such phenomena.
Another factor enters in at this point: ego. Traditional science is conducted by PhD's at universities and research institutions. Most of us have gone to college or are at least familiar with the academic environment. The egos, narrow-mindedness and short-sightedness of some of these experts is unbelievable! They're as dogmatic as the most fanatical religious fundamentalists. They worship knowledge rather than question it. If something doesn't fit their picture of how things work, it's discarded, ridiculed, and those who proposed the idea are ostracized and regarded as fools. Only the smallest, most obvious new ideas, or those with overwhelming evidence in their favor, are accepted by the traditional scientific community. The problem is that this leaves little or no room for quantum leaps forward in understanding.
I know a lot of you must think I'm full of shit by now, so let me give you an example most of you can relate to. Have you ever had a transient problem with a piece of equipment and the manufacturer/vendor/whatever refused to admit the problem existed? Most of us have. I remember having a problem with static on a phone line once. It was so bad that my modem wouldn't stay connected, and often couldn't connect at all. It wasn't always like this - some days it was almost okay, and others it was terrible. The telco insisted that there was nothing wrong with the line. They tested it from the central office - "looks okay from here!" They sent a tech out to my house. He hooked up some piece of equipment that tested the voltage, impedence, and other line characteristics. "They all look normal." They told me the problem was with my in-house wiring (even though the static was still there when I disconnected the indoor wiring and tapped in directly at the telco interface). After many days of calling and complaining I finally got a competant tech who started at the house and traced the line step-by-step back toward the central office. He found a bad splice a couple hops down the line, in a junction box on another street. Well, what do you know - I was right all along!
Sounds a lot like how the traditional scientific community works, doesn't it? Now, imagine if the telco worked even more like the scientific community. Imagine if, when I first called to report a problem, they not only denied the problem's existance but cancelled my phone service and refused to speak to me ever again on the grounds that I spoke heresy. I would have been right all along, but proving it would have been damn near impossible. That is how the scientific community works. It's roughly on a par with the Catholic church in open-mindedness.
Just because paranormal phenomena are difficult to observe under controlled conditions, that does not mean they don't exist. The explanations for them may be other than what people think (strange lights in the sky being aliens from outer space vs. secret military aircraft, for example), but the phenomena themselves are quite real and quite explainable for those who are willing to open their minds to possibilities and just look.
There really have been some cool experiments with spiders on drugs, and how that impacts their work. Check out this page. And this page, which includes a picture of a web spun by a spider on LSD -- it's more precise than the work done by a straight spider. Pretty damn weird.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
If you ask me the guys who came up with repeated reports of cold fusion after it had started being debunked should be dragged through the streets and forced to repay every penny of taxpayers' money that they got in grants. OK, the guys who did it initially made a mistake, you can only prush boundaries if you step outside them. I'm thinking of the bloody bandwagon that followed.
FP.
-- Real Men Don't Use Porn. -- Morality In Media Billboards
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
I think more interesting though are the examples of where science is manipulated in a more subtle way. Namely by emphasis of funding. A good example would be the maniuplation of entomology by the large agrochemical companies. By extreme selectivity of funding, science can be used to prove anything. I think that within my own field, the large scale commercial pressures are pushing things in the same way.
Phil
There were, however, some problems. First, the dinosaurs didn't die off in a few years; they became extinct over a period of millions of years. Second, there was never any palaeoecological evidence of such a "winter" found. Thus, although there definitely was a large impact around the time of the dinosaur extinction, the hypothesis that it's dust caused the extinction could not realistically have been true. Moreover, there's an alternative hypothesis: massive extended flood-basalt volcanism from the Deccan Traps, in India.
Alvarez, however, was a Nobel prize winner. He used the power that gave him to discredit anyone who questioned him. He launched major attacks in the media. And he pressured the chairpeople of academic departments to fire departmental researchers who tried to show the flaws in the hypothesis. Some careers were severely damaged. Read all about it, and the science, here.
The impact crater was eventually found, in Yucatan, Mexico. Research has shown, however, that the amount of dust injected into the atmosphere, by the impact, was far too small to have forced cosmic winter. With Alavarez dead, there is now at least some reasoned debate. Recent work by Sharpton at the U of Alaska speculates that the impact might have vaporized enough rock to make the atmosphere very acidic--and that this might have led to long-term ecological changes that forced dinosaur extinction. (This research was presented at last month's meeting of the American Geophysical Union; abstracts available online via http://www.agu.org/meetings/waisfm00.html.)
Maybe, in the end, it will turn out that Alvarez was right. Or maybe not. For the integrity of the scientific process, though, it makes no difference. A powerful scientist used his political power to squash any scientific debate.
__________________________________
"... the microkernel approach was essentially a dishonest approach aimed at receiving more dollars for research. I don't necessarily think these researchers were knowingly dishonest. Perhaps they were simply stupid. Or deluded." --Linus Torvalds on kernel research by Computer Scientists (in Open Sources)
"They laughed at Newton.
They laughed at Einstein.
But they also laughed at Groucho Marx."
--Carl Sagan
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
I recall quite a bit of misinformation being spread around in the 60's when those scientests were exposing every creature under the sun to LSD.
IIRC, one scientist postulated that exposing spiders to LSD ruined their depth perception, when later is was realized that spiders have no depth perception. This was later made into an open source truism:
Many eyes makes bugs shallow.
And people like you and your colleagues are one of the biggest reasons why our citizens are so susceptible to people selling bad science. At every turn you oppose the teaching of any scientific fact that doesn't agree with your precious world view. The Jihad against the theory of natural selection is just the worst example, but across the board, Christian's intolerance of any disagreement with their dogma has stifled the science education of the average person to the point where they can't reliably sort out the wheat from the chaff when it comes to scientific claims.
And then you turn around and point at the resulting niches and cracks where pseudoscience has gained footholds and you use that to support your claim that science in general is unreliable and deceitful. THAT is the ultimate deceit. Those crackpots might just as well be your direct agents for all the mileage you get out of them.
Go away already and let us educate our people so that they can function in a modern society. God knows they can't even program their VCRs, and before long they will have to be able to program their refrigerators just to be able to eat.
I can see the fnords!