Slashdot Mirror
Nine Crazy Ideas in Science
Here's the deck of nine ideas under consideration:
- More Guns Mean Less Crime
- AIDS is Not Caused by HIV
- Sun Exposure is Beneficial
- Low Doses of Nuclear Radiation Are Beneficial
- The Solar System Has Two Suns
- Oil, Coal, and Gas Have Abiogenic Origins
- Time Travel is Possible
- Faster-than-Light Particles Exist
- There Was No Big Bang
So in this review I'm going to give you generalities first, and bury "the butler did it" type information after a SPOILER warning.
One of the problems with the execution of this work is that you can pretty often tell when Ehrlich is enthusiastic about an idea just from his general tone as he writes about it... and conversely, in retrospect I think I should've been able to spot when he disagreed with, because the writing in those chapters was a little confusing.
Part of his schtick is that at the end of each chapter he rates the idea on a scale of 0 to 4 "cuckoos". Oddly enough I often find that I strongly disagree with his cuckoo ratings even just based on the evidence that he presents. But the absolute magnitude of my disagreements are typically no more than a single "cuckoo".
I was worried about some of his evaluation criteria (see the introduction available on-line as a sample chapter), because he includes several points that strike me as fairly dicey: "Who proposed the idea?"; "How attached is the proposer to the idea?" and "Does the proposer have an agenda?" These all relate to judging the person rather than the idea itself. (Consider that "consider the source" and "ad hominem argument" are pretty much the same as far as logic goes.) But he does clearly understand that these are just rules of thumb, and I note with some amusement that he doesn't resort to these particular rules anywhere in the later chapters. He's more interested in the logic of the arguments, which is as it should be.
I could bring up lots of quibbles (and I probably will after the spoiler warning), but overall I found this to be a great breezy read. I learned quite a bit from it. While nothing here made me do a reversal of my beliefs, I was often surprised that the evidence for something was stronger or weaker than I'd supposed.
Here we have an educated, astute, person doing a relatively independent review of some controversial, interesting technical subjects. Why aren't there more books like this?
Ah, but at least there's one more! I see that a sequel has just come out: Eight Preposterous Propositions: From the Genetics of Homosexuality to the Benefits of Global Warming . I bet I'll be submitting a review on that one shortly ...
Anyway, now into the nitty gritty. Here's your SPOILER WARNING. Skip the following if you want to play the "guess where he's going" game with this book. Let's take it chapter by chapter:
More Guns Mean Less CrimeI'm a "right to bear arms" kind of guy myself, and I was surprised that the data doesn't seem to support private ownership of guns as a crime deterrent. Ehrlich argues persuasively that the statistical evidence for this is very weak. I appreciate the fact that Ehrlich concludes that both the pro and anti gun sides are nuts: he rates them 3 and 2 "cuckoos" respectively, where a 3 is "almost certainly not true" and 2 is "very likely not true."
But here, we come to my first strong disagreement with him. If the effects aren't strong enough to measure, why the asymmetry in the "cuckoo" rating for the pro and anti side? I might rate them both at a 2 myself.
AIDS is Not Caused by HIVI've had the impression that the the Duesberg hypothesis was pretty screwy, but I was willing to tentatively consider it might have something of value. For example, what about the possibility that multiple diseases are now being diagnosed incorrectly as one single syndrome "HIV"?
But Ehrlich's analysis satisfies me that there's not much of scientific value in Duesberg's ideas at all. I don't argue with his 3 cuckoo rating (but I wouldn't blame you if you thought it deserved the full 4).
Sun Exposure is BeneficialEhrlich concludes that this looks fairly plausible, and gives it a 0 cuckoo rating, pretty much as I would have expected. Many people might find this surprising though, certainly the popular impression these days seems to be that sunlight is deadly.
Low Doses of Nuclear Radiation Are BeneficialHere, Ehrlich lays out the case for "radiation hormesis", and I really don't think this is that fantastic a notion (the difference between a poison and a medicine is often a matter of dosage, why wouldn't this be true of radiation?). But radiation is so demonized in the popular imagination that "radiation is good for you" comes off an insane joke. Ehrlich takes it seriously, and essentially concludes that while there are reasons for suspecting that this effect exists, it hasn't been entirely established. And here we have one of my quibbles: he awards it 1 cuckoo, which translates to "probably not true, but who knows". But there is no reason for saying it's probably not true. If something is not crazy, just not established, I would be inclined to award it "0 cuckoos," aka "Why not?"
The Solar System Has Two SunsThis is the "Nemesis" hypothesis, which it will probably come as no surprise is rated at 2 cuckoos. The short version of the story: originally they looked at part of the extinction record, and it looked like there was a definite cycle. But if you look at the whole record it doesn't seem to be there.
Oil, Coal, and Gas Have Abiogenic OriginsThis is subject that's been of some interest to me, ever since I heard Thomas Gold give a talk on this idea about a decade ago. It turns out that this is now looking much less like "an intriguing possibility" and much more like a truth awaiting a few funerals before it will be declared established. The odds are good that "fossil fuels" don't actually come from fossils, rather they're from hydrocarbons that pre-existed the formation of the earth, which means we're probably not going to run out of them. (So that means we can ignore those environmental wackos, right? Nope: imagine what happens to the atmosphere if we keep ramping up the rate at which we burn this stuff.)
Ehrlich rates this at 0 cuckoos, but maybe he should have invented a "-1 cuckoo" for this one.
Time Travel is Possible2 cuckoos: no surprises.
Faster-than-Light Particles ExistEhrlich mentions in his introduction in the interests of "full disclosure" that he's actually strongly attached to one of the ideas discussed here (the existence of tachyons), but by the time I'd gotten to that chapter I'd entirely forgotten about this, and I was disappointed to realize that he was being an advocate, not an independent reviewer (it includes a picture of him wearing a "no tardy-centrism" T-shirt).
Ehrlich rates this at 0 cuckoos, but come on. Even just based on the write-up he presents, it's a clear 1 cuckoo.
There Was No Big BangClocks in at 3 cuckoos, as you might expect.
You can purchase Nine Crazy Ideas in Science: A Few Might Even Be True from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
When it was first thought of, the theory of relativity was just a 'crazy idea'.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
VeryGeekyBooks has more reviews of this book.
Read up!
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I think the non-fossil origins of oil and other subterranean hydrocarbons is just about a lock. Of course, I'm not any sort of chemist or geologist, but the idea that only biological processes can produce hydrocarbons has been in trouble ever since we found out Titan has a methane atmsophere (aka "Natural Gas").
When you consider how much biomatter would have to have been tied up in swamps and then covered in just the right ways and held at just the right pressures and temperatures to produce the amount of oil and coal we've already pulled out of the ground, and how inefficient that process would have to have been, the "fossil" explanation becomes pretty unlikely. When you look back at the history of that explanation, it becomes pretty clear that nobody cared much, then someone noticed plant leaves and bark patterns in some lumps of coal and everyone said "Oh, that must have been it." (HINT: Petrified forests weren't grown by stone trees)
Cook's theory isn't really "abiogenic", BTW. The only abiogenic "fossil fuel" under his theory would be plain methane. Rather, he believes that methane left over from planet formation is steadily separating out, and somewhere in the mantle (around 10-30 kilometers subsurface) a bacterial ecosystem based on sulfides and methane is forming it into complex hydrocarbons. Given that we already know of sulfide-based, high-temperature ecosystems in the deep ocean thermal vents, it's really not much a stretch anymore.
By that theory, the oil-richness of the Middle East becomes inter-related with the East African Rift (both being the consequence of a deep upwelling of methane-rich rock). But we're going to have to wait for those funerals before it will be acceptable for a petro-geologist to admit they have been back-asswards about it for the last century. The "Appropriate Technology" bunch is going to have a screaming fit, as well.
--Dave
The theory is there's a companion dwarf star to our Sun 1-3 light years away. Here's some info.
The "Big Bang" is rather simple, actually. We see that the universe is expanding. If you run the clock backwards, it comes to a point. So at some point in time, the universe had to expand from that single point at a fairly quick rate. "Big Bang" was a moniker given to Hubble's expanding universe by an opponent to be mocking. It was adopted and stuck around.
The M-Brane theory doesn't contradict the Big Bang, it is just a model of what might have caused the expansion to start. The "Big Bang" doesn't really address what cause the expansion, only that there logically must have been an expansion 13.5 billion years ago.
In special relativity, faster than light travel (FTL) implies time travel quite directly.
So to treat the two subjects as being significantly different means to be working in a theory other than relativity.
Special Relativity (SR) is nice and simple but fairly limited in scope, but agrees extremely well with experiments within that scope.
Its extension to cover gravity, General Relativity (GR) is extremely elegant, and also agrees well with experimental observations, but is not integrated with the rest of the infrastructure of fundamental physics (quantum physics, quantum electrodynamics, the Standard Model...)
So general relativity may eventually become obsolete, even though currently it's currently a great theory, and whatever replaces it may modify special relativity too. So this isn't some kind of absolute statement.
Still, in the absence of a theory that is trying to supplant relativity, FTL implies time travel. Presumably the author of the book knows this, despite listing FTL and time travel as two different subjects.
For more info see these two sections of the relativity FAQ: relativity: time travel and relativity: FTL , hosted by and partly written by John Baez, a quantum gravity researcher with impeccable physics background (I've done some online study under him; he's also a fantastic teacher).
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
Even now, there's substantial logical and statistical problems with the "proofs" of Evolution.
Are you refering to darwinian ideals of evolution, or the concept as a whole?
True original darwinism as the sole motivator for the changes in species over time is being challenged, but the concept as a whole - that life came from very simple beginings and has changed/adapted over time is not. The mechanisms involved are what are being challenged - such as the idea that small changes in genotype over time that favor the survival of a particular subset of a species lead to massive changes in the long-view. Fossils for the 'in-between' variants are not being found, hence it is becoming more widly accepted that large leaps are made, and that such large leaps could actualy be triggered by environmental pressure.
However, these new mechanisms being discused and discovered are just that - mechnisms. Evolution as Darwin envisioned it may be being disproven, but the idea that life evolves over time is not.
If, instead of refering to darwinian evolution, you are refering to evolution as a whole - then you are seriously mistaken. There is no creationist or other theory of life that is being pushed ahead of evolution by scientists. The logical and statistical problems you mention are about the problems with darwinian evolution and its mechanisms.
man is machine
The most intriguing explanation for the Big Bang I've seen recently come from String theory.
The idea is that the Big Bang may have been another universe colliding with our own at a single point in 11-dimension space. The energy of the collision resulting in a huge amount of mass being created.
If this is true, this means that there may be more than one Big Bang (or more in the future). For more on this read the Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, or watch tv series at here.
The correct link is http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/4855/bs.htm
;
the page is titled "A BullSh-- detection Guide"
so I hadn't found it in a google search, either
(usually my first line of defense for bad
URLs)
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
No, you're missing the point. The argument [presented by the grandparent post] is that just because some true theories were initially scoffed at, not all theories which are scoffed at will eventually be proved as true.
This is a simple logical truth, if you dont realize it already: using the Lemmon notation, you can see it as the following-
(Ex)(Sx&Tx)->(x)(Sx>Tx)
This is clearly not true, and is thus unprovable. You can demonstrate this with truth tables if you need to, but thats rather hard with quantifiers. Just remember the basic rule: the existential quantifier will almost NEVER lead to a universal quantifier (except in the quantifier inversion principle, i.e. (Ex)(A)-(x)(-A) )
"Stumble before you crawl"
But limestone is itself of biogenic origin. It is entirely made up of microorganism skeletons (diatoms, etc). The limestone, that is, not the fossil fuel.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I'm not a geologist either, but here's how I understand it.
Start with the question "what is oil & coal?" Oil is a liquid slew of organic hydrocarbon chains, coal is organic hydrocarbons that haven't had high enough pressure to liquify, and shale is oil bubbles trapped in mineralized rocks.
Then ask, "how do I get the hydrocarbons?" You can start with dead plant/animal matter who used to live on the surface, then compress it at high temperatures and pressures. The pressure breaks apart the cellular structures into base strands that we can later burn as fuel. There's a company that's proven they can liquify turkey guts and convert it into low grade fuel; there was a Slashdot article on it a while back.
Now, an alternate theory has developed from recent discoveries of life on the sea floor. Organic life can exist in oxygen starved, high pressure environment around lava vents; also, bacterium have been found that can survive at much higher temperatures (hundreds of degrees F) than previously thought.
Combine the two, and you say "what if bacterium can survive in the earth's crust close to the mantle for heat"? This organic matter would live in a high pressure environment, and when they die, their cells could also be liquified into oil. In Sweden, they have been extracting oil for a decade from depths that should pre-date the appearance of plant life in the area... Search on Thomas Gold for his theories on oil formation on this method.
Re: Evolution. Since evolution is a family of theories, I'll choose one - abiogenesis. IIRC, the smallest practically useful DNA chain is about 4,000 bases. Given that there are 4 bases, the odds of a single DNA molecule forming the smallest useful chain are about 1 in 4^4000. Since it's been a long time since I've heard this argument, my numbers may be wrong. But the basic gist of it is this: given what we know, to build the smallest useful DNA chain by random trial and error would require more atoms than the entire universe contains.
Michael Behe has covered similar problems in his writings.
I don't take issue with the theories that scientists propose (except when they lack logical consistency. The statistical problems inherent with most current theories of abiogenesis seem to indicate that the proponents didn't think through their ideas before they published them). My main objection is the unwavering credibility that the masses give to scientific theories. If a scientist says so, it must be true! If I had a dollar for every time someone said "Modern science proves..." in an argument, I'd be rich by now. Science doesn't prove anything!. It explains.
But since so few laymen are able to articulate the difference between explanation and proof, scientific theories are often used as the basis for supporting belief systems. Witness the manner in which evolution has been used by atheists to justify their lack of belief in God. When science becomes entangled with religious beliefs, objectivity disappears; those wanting to question the status quo find themselves fighting not only a battle of proof, but of politics as well. Today, the idea of evolution is as firmly entrenched in the common mind as a geocentric universe was in Galileo's time.*
And of course, the real problem is that because science has become so credible, it is often sought as an authority for legislative or social changes. Thus, the otherwise objective nature of science becomes soured when funding becomes contingent on the political ramifications of the results. Again, if you want examples, Google the Exxon Valdez disaster - after 5 years, one set of scientists said the environment had healed, and another said that it would never recover.
* - Incidentally, Galileo's publishing problems were political, not religious. In his work, he advocated a Heliocentric model for prediction purposes only, and went so far as to suggest that nothing in his model should be construed as a definitive statement regarding the Heavens.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
since the status quo is to recgonize the basic human right to keep and bear arms.
Unfortunately this is not true: "U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Second Amendment Challenge to California's Assault Weapon Ban"
the court held that the Second Amendment guarantees the collective right of the people to maintain effective state militias, but does not provide any type of individual right to own or possess weapons.
cpeterso
The reviewer doesn't really explain the theory, and his bit is kinda misleading.
The idea is that hydrocarbons, rather than being formed from rotting garbage or coming from outer space, are formed via big furnacey things in the mantle. This is supposed to explain events where oil fields appear to have refilled themselves, and the distribution of fields and the wierdities of the geology in and around them.
Personally, I don't buy it, even if I do agree that it's becoming reasonable to question whether organic matter is the only source of oil/gas/coal. The theory's missing anywhere close to a decently complete explaination of how this subterranean coal factory is supposed to work, and even if it does, it doesn't seem like any of the theories I've seen would support treating oil fields like bottomless pits. Whenever they talk about oil being superabundant, it's below a couple miles, where, unless I'm very much mistaken, your drill bit tends to melt like butter.
Later Tycho Brahe, Galileo and Johannes Kepler did the footwork that was needed to fix the problems of the Copernican system. In particular Galileo gathered data was really necessitated the sun centered theory, which got him into trouble with the church. The church then proceeded to waste vast amounts of resource prosecuting him, money that would better have been spent helping plague stickmen victims. All in all, by this time there was 150 years of evidence supporting the sun centered philosophy, and pretty much anyone who mattered accepted it as reality.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
You should check out U.S. Code, Title 10, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 13, Sec. 311. for the definition of militia. For your convenience I will post it here:
So, if you are male and choose to live in the U.S. as a citizen and are between 17 and 45 you are almost certainly in the unorganized "militia" whether you know it or not. In support of that militia you, and everyone else, has the right to keep and bear arms. As a result, a militia familiar with firearms (i.e., well regulated) is available at any moment. Perhaps you have heard of the "Minute Men"?
*Rolls up newspaper*
NO! Bad logic, BAD!
the gist of the argument is that random selection of base pairs won't result in life, except under the most exceptionally lucky circumstances.
OK, so we could be lucky. Of course, the timeframe allows for a lot of chances, and maybe lucky starts to approach inevitable. That doesn't argue for any divine intervention.
there's a mechanism by which complex strings may be built from simpler ones,
Evolution, natural process which involves absolutely no divine intervention...
it suggests that the origin of life was not merely a fortunate accident. Rather, it was the result of design
This is where the logic jumps a ridiculous distance. Because simple can become complex, it may, nay... It MUST be designed that way. There's not even a word to describe the magnitude of that leap.
whether or not that design was instrumented by a higher power may be left for debate.
Oh, come on. This is just absurd. The argument "we're not saying it's necessarily God..." is just trying to be cutesy.
But it does much damage to the atheistic worldview if it can be shown that no life can result from purely random events.
Only if you can actually show it.