It's not technically the weekend ... but it sure feels like it! So, because it's a de facto Friday, and many Kossacks will be heading out for a long and well deserved four-day break to spread the message of liberal love far and wide, here's an early Sci-Fri. And there is a bonus Obscure Science-fiction Reference challenge within! And a special message on possible upcoming science events in comments.
Suppose you are skeptical of an extraordinary claim, as well you should be. A molecular geneticist tells you they can determine just from a few cells taken from strangers if one is your long lost relative, and pin it down to mother or father, brother or sister. Or a physicist claims that space is curved, matter 'warps' it, and even more incredible, time itself can slow down if you approach the velocity of light!
Lets say you ask the molecular geneticist or the physicist how that all works and to prove their respective claims to you. But the response in both cases is gibberish: A mind-numbing string of obscure symbols in what looks like ancient hieroglyphics with accompanying language that might as well be Chinese. You ask them to explain all this confusing techno-babble in three easy lessons: But they say they cannot.
Likewise, you're also skeptical of some claims made by new age or traditional Churches. Some theologies say that bad moods, poor behavior, and negative emotions are caused by ethereal spirits inhabiting your body, demons, or thetans. The Mystics claim they can determine your 'demon' level using some basic equipment, or by performing certain rituals, and even in some cases evict the entities. But when you ask how they know any of this or to prove it, they respond with confusing terminology, using language you don't understand.
How do you determine the validity of either claim without knowing the lingo? Well, that's the basis of what makes up science: The gift that keeps on giving.
To get a solid handle on what the physics geek is trying to tell you, you'll first need basic instruction in arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, and calculus. Then you'll need vector calculus, basic and advanced physics, a course in both introductory and partial differential equations, some elementary topology, a little set theory, non-Euclidean geometry, maybe a few other odds and ends like basic cosmology. All of which will keep you occupied through your senior year in College and beyond, and cost upwards of $ 50,000 at least. A similar effort will be required to understand the molecular geneticist. You want to sign up for that? You'll get your confirmation in ten to twenty years after you've paid the money and put in the time.
The Church may tell you that you'll need to be fluent in Latin or Hebrew, maybe learn about something called auditing or channeling, study ANE or New World archaeology, perhaps learn Sanskrit or ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics, and study under a Church mentor for several years. This carries a similar commitment in time and money.
Isn't there an easier way to tell who's plausible and who may be pulling your leg? There is. It's called science.
What is science? We hear the word bandied about so much, sometimes alone, often with all kinds of qualifiers. We hear of bad science, sound science, biased science and pseudoscience, and of course the worst kind of science, wingnut science. But what is science at its core? What separates our physics claims from the Church claims?
The answer lays in the methodology.
You come home, flick on a light as you enter the darkened house, but the bulb doesn't light up. What's the problem? You figure it's probably a burnt out bulb, so you replace it and flip the switch and are rewarded with bright light. You then go about your business, unaware that you've just employed scientific methodology, unconcerned that you can't be fully confident in your conclusion.
You made a factual observation: The light didn't work
You made a hypothesis: The bulb is bad
You came up with a test, an experiment to confirm or eliminate your hypothesis: Replace the bulb with a new one
You then conclude with a tentative theoretical solution explaining what was wrong: The bulb was bad
Is this foolproof? Have you 'proven' your theory? Of course not! Theories can never be proven to any kind of metaphysical certainty. Such proof is only found in formal systems such as mathematics or logic in which the proofs flow from previously assumed axioms.
It could have been that the power plant was temporarily out and while you found a new bulb and replaced the old one, the power came back on. Or maybe the switch or wiring was finicky. If you're methodical, and perhaps a little bored, you can try and eliminate or confirm each of those candidate possibilities and any others you can think of with further experiments. And, after eliminating everything that comes to mind, you may conclude your initial theory was correct, or you may alter it.
Of course, you can never exclude every possibility; because there are indefinite numbers of them. And you cannot eliminate something completely unknown. You cannot for instance eliminate that aliens are playing with the proper operation of electric lighting to drive a neighborhood crazy (Obscure reference challenge; Series and episode name? Update/Answer: Twilight Zone, Season 1, Episode 22: The Monsters are Due on Maple Street. Winners by the criteria of 'close enough': Califlander, Naturalized Texan, but I make it XPublius who got the entire correct answer first. Baste them in Thanksgiving mojo!).
You cannot rule out magic, supernatural, or the Divine; you don't even know what that would mean, or the rules that apply. You cannot preclude such events from affecting your results because you have no idea what rules they're operating under.
But running throughout the entire process is the same Scientific Methodology: Observe, hypothesize, test, observe, tentatively conclude; eliminate what error you can by further observation, hypothesizing, testing, concluding; repeat as often as needed until you're reasonably confident in your conclusion. Ignore or don't worry about undefined, unlikely, never reliably observed unknowns, like magic or aliens. The end result of this process may be to confirm a theoretical explanation you have enough confidence in to share with others. So when your spouse asks you what was wrong with the light, you proudly present your home-grown Burnt-out Bulb Theory.
Wouldn't it be embarrassing if they went to the trash can, got the old bulb out, screwed it into another socket and it lit up? Mrs. DarkSyde would love that, she'd come back and tell me my theory was falsified. `Nothing like a beautiful theory ruined by an ugly fact', as they say. But odds are if you're careful, any peers who check up on you will come to the same conclusion. Your theory will thus survive the Peer Review process and, if you're the first to think of it, go onto become a useful tool utilized by others.
That's all science is really. Observe, hypothesize, test, conclude, and repeat to eliminate other possibilities; publish. Then brace for the withering scrutiny of peer review, as your best academic buddies try for everything they're worth to poke holes in your conclusion and make you out to be an idiot who didn't think of something obvious.
It took a long time for that methodology to be universally accepted. For centuries the best minds on earth thought they should be able to figure out the deepest truths merely by thinking hard, no experiment required. And once the experiment idea was adopted by a few commoners willing to get their hands dirty, they had to show it was a useful way to solve problems in real world situations.
It may sound second nature to think this way, but it's not. The only reason it comes so naturally to you is because humans are to some degree rational and because you were trained from birth to solve problems in that manner. Like writing and mathematics, this methodology is a gift we take for granted. It originates with mostly unknown ancestral benefactors and is passed on to the present beneficiaries: Us. And it will have to be passed on to future heirs in the same way. Over time, each generation adds to the existing data base of observations, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusions. In the last two-hundred years or so in particular, our species has become exceedingly good at it.
The reason it's not as obvious as one might think is because the methodology relies on what is really an unlikely balance between unfettered imagination, skepticism, and cold hard logic. The most obvious stuff had already been figured out long before the Scientific Method came along. Only the most difficult, subtle mysteries remained. To imagine wholly new, revolutionary hypothesis and think up ways to test them demands tremendous creativity. But to perform the experiments objectively, carefully, and follow the result wherever they lead regardless of how emotionally invested one may be in the results, requires a high degree of education, discipline, and skepticism. It's an unnatural combination of differing skills and behaviors, each of which must be learned and practiced to be effective.
And just to give you an idea of how easy it is to take an odd turn in logic when one is untrained in this way of thinking, a friend of mine relayed a tale of a cab ride overseas: It was the only car (Actually a beat-up old jeep) in a remote mountain village, owned and operated by a 90 something year-old guy who had grown up in a virtual stone age culture. The driver came to the single, busy, four-way intersection. He blared his horn and sped right through without even slowing down, almost hitting a couple of bicycles and a donkey cart, scaring the shit out of his passengers. When the shocked customers asked why he did it that way, he replied casually that he couldn't see very well, and the first few times he drove through the intersection, that's what he did and it saved him, barely, from hitting anyone: So he figured he better stick with it from then on ... if he wanted to avoid an accident.
The longer a theory lasts, the more peer review it withstands, the more it is found to explain, the more robust it will become. And eventually it may become universal enough that it is accepted as accurate, in the sense that at least some portion of 'truth' is thought to be represented by the theory. Evolutionary biology is built in part on such a robust theory:The Modern Synthesis. Same for Quantum Mechanics and The Uncertainty Principle. And the same for our questions about time and space which started this missive: General Relativity.
How do we know that time can really slow down? Or that space can be 'bent"? What's different about that than the idea of exorcising demons or thetans? And how can we know it's valid without studying for half a lifetime?
The scientific method of course! Testing and peer review of experimental data built on hypothesis! After all, if time is supposed to slow down as we speed up close to the speed of light, and we know the relationship between speed and how much the time should change, we might be able to measure it using super accurate clocks, even at the relatively low speeds our fastest jets or spacecraft can reach, right? And lo behold, that's exactly what is observed! And today, GPS and communications satellites must take these effects into consideration to produce the most accurate data!
And if space really 'bends' in the presence of a mass, and we know the degree of bending that is supposed to result from a given mass, shouldn't we be able to see examples of that under the appropriate conditions, even if we don't fully understand the physics involved? Wouldn't it bend light for example, like a sort of gravitational lens? And viola, it turns out it does.
Gravitational lensing produced by mass bending space
These two Quasars are really one. The image has been split by a large, invisible mass in our line of sight. The arcs of light connecting the two images are another product of GR, called Einstein Rings
The demon explanation on the other hand makes no committed testable predictions and evades any set of rules. At times it almost sounds like the demon advocates are making it up. Why can't they be detected? Because this demon happens to be a clever demon and can avoid all forms of detection. Any results can be attributed to magic. Why is there no evidence for a demon? Or why does the evidence favor an ancient earth and universe over one which is a few thousand years old? Why, because It's a Test of Faith .... See how easy it is when the priority is preserving the theology at all cost? So, unsubstantiated claims of undefined magic can explain anything and, lacking supporting evidence, they thus really explain nothing, at least in any rational, useful way. That's not to say they're wrong, just that they're not science.
More over, claims of demon infestation or removal are often a consequence of so called `revealed knowledge'; generally sacrosanct claims which cannot be challenged and cannot change. In science, if the test fails again and again, sooner or later you have to toss your beloved hypothesis away and start with something new.
That's the difference: Science is built on a methodology that allows change and flexibility in underlying explanatory frameworks which are ultimately testable. You can learn to observe the test data even if you don't understand the science involved. You may be skeptical of genetic fingerprinting for example. And you may not understand it. But you can take samples from people whom you know the familial relationships of, and submit those blind to a geneticist, and if they correctly state the relationships between the two donors time and time again, you can confidently accept that it works. Likewise you can learn to read atomic clocks or recognize Einstein Rings on stellar objects with little training compared to a decade of intensive study.
The modern scientific method is not flawless, far from it. Hypothesis or embryonic theories are modified or discarded all the time. But that is a strength in science, not a weakness.
It's imperfect because people are imperfect. The process can be corrupted by parties who have a stake in a predetermined conclusion but who desire the credibility that science lends. A world renowned scientist can force a poor theory through peer review and maybe get away with it, for a while anyway, by sheer ego and degree of fame. That's what a fellow named Ernst Haeckel tried to do with some cooked data and radical ideas about human fetal development vis-a-vie evolutionary biology.
Dissent can be bought, presented as legit peer review, and used to muddy the picture: For enough money, a whole panel of scientists will stand up and swear in Court that cigarettes are not addictive or do not cause cardio-pulmonary disease. Make the check big enough, and you can probably find a medical doctor who will swear that decapitation isn't fatal.
The most pernicious effects come when the peer review process is corrupted by force of law or fear of reprisal and the remaining pseudoscientific dogma is widely used in real world, important applications. That's what happened to genetics in the Soviet Union under Stalin when a conman named Trofim Lysenko managed to gain power and forced his pseudoscientific views on agronomists. Many Soviet agricultural and genetic scientists who disagreed with Lysenkoism disappeared in the Gulags or were marched in front of firing squads, citizens starved to death as Lysenko's screwy ideas were implemented in statewide agricultural programs contributing to massive crop failures.
We tend to chuckle arrogantly at these communist shortcomings. Yet in our own ostensibly enlightened culture, science is openly attacked by anti-science ideologues under the guise of Intelligent Design/Creationism (IDC). These screwballs are often encouraged, mostly by right-wing politicians pushing forth legislation which would force teaching their nutty ideas for political points among the religious right.
Some scientists are whacked out flakes who will support all kinds of crazy, unsubstantiated ideas, either for ideological reasons or to make a buck, or just for attention. You can find testimonials to an earth centered solar system by degreed astronomers that are seduced by passages in the Bible or Quron which they feel mandates this belief. Conservative Think-tanks will produce reports signed by Ph. D's and every other letter in the alphabet concluding that global warming is a myth, that abortion causes breast cancer, or that methyl-mercury really isn't that bad for you. But Creationism is one of the best examples.
The primary pitchmen for IDC hail from the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. These people are out to change far more than evolutionary biology. Their stated goal is to undermine all of science, using evolution as the focal point with which to 'split the log' of what they call 'materialist science' open, and replace it with a pseudoscientific dogma which is ideologically compatible with their peculiar religious views.
The line between constructive peer review and dissent Vs. nonsensical garbage can be blurry. But by most accounts, these folks are well over on the flake side, and that's saying it nicely. Their methods are manifold: IMO they produce propaganda packaged as legitimate peer review; work to enforce their dogma via legislation and appeal to public opinion using a variety of shady practices; attack the very methodology of science. Indeed, in Kansas, these modern day Lysenkoists are seeking, with some success, to legally redefine science as inclusive of supernatural phenomena, i.e. magic.
Maybe there are people who are willing to go back to sleeping in the dirt, forfeiting medical care, using stone tools to scrounge up roots, natural game, or wild rice, but I bet not many. And even if everyone was willing to do it, the earth could only support a few hundred million people at the most. There is already 6 billion of us and counting. So how many anti-science ideologues want to volunteer themselves to be eliminated for the good of the cause ... None? What a surprise.
Like so many other abstract human constructs, science is neither inherently 'good' or 'bad'. It depends on what use one puts it to. We can make nerve gas or antibiotics using science. And either one might turn out to be a good idea, or a very bad one, depending on personal circumstances. But over all it's been the goose that laid the golden eggs, and at this point, our culture in the west and our entire global civilization is now utterly dependant on the applications of science.
That genie is out of the bottle, and there's no putting it back in short of world-wide genocide or planetary catastrophe. There is no dearth of real problems to solve. The universe is indifferent to our well being. It would be a tragic irony if we intentionally compounded the problem, if the source of that catastrophe was these modern day cheerleaders for ignorance; man-made, voluntary slaughter of the golden, scientific goose.
So this holiday season, plant the seeds of preservation. Amid the nifty gadgets wrapped in tinsel and stockings stuffed with confectionary treats, remember to give the gift of modern mind. Bestow upon your children the treasure of science and reason, anyway you can. It's the gift that will keep on giving the whole year long; and for the rest of their lives, ad infinitum.