Evolution

Yesterday (or maybe the day before) ideogram was talking about evolution on FICS.  Now I don't have any problem with the theory of evolution, as long as we understand and agree that evolution is nothing more than what we read at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html namely that evolution is just change.  Accepting evolution doesn't mean that I think that I share a common ancestor with monkeys, for example.  It merely means that I accept that the frequency of alleles can change from generation to generation and that, to date, no instance of the frequency of alleles staying the same has been found.

What I don't agree accept is called "Common Descent."  I find no compelling reason to believe in common descent for the reasons already outlined on this blog:  I do not accept empiricism as valid, I do not accept induction as valid, and therefore I do not accept science as valid except for some sympathy for Popper's point of view that science is useful in the sense that it can prove some theories to be wrong through falsification.

At that point ideogram linked me to http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ and demanded that I answer this post and, in an insulting way, accused me of lying and being lazy because I didn't immediately try to rebut it point by point.  Really there is no need to do so, because as Dr. Theobald has already said in the article, "No alternate explanations compete scientifically with common descent...[because] many other explanations are untestable, though they may be trivially consistent with biological data."  He's absolutely right in that regard.  Whether you speculate that Allah, Brahma, God, or the Spaghetti Monster created the universe you are talking about a non-falsifiable theory that science is ill-equipped to deal with.  That doesn't mean that the theory in question is wrong, it just means that it is outside of the domain of science.

I applaud Dr. Theobald's reference to Popper's ideas when he says that scientific theories must be testable and falsifiable.  Few scientists today bother with the philosophy of science at all and the usual quote goes something like this: "Philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds," attributed to Richard Feynman.  It is good to see that Dr. Theobald has at least considered the philosophical basis of his life's work.

Fundamentally, however, I disagree with Dr. Theobald's conclusion because finding 29 pieces of evidence for [Common Descent] does not support the theory of Common Descent at all, rather the findings are neutral to the theory, although they may be deleterious to competing scientific theories.  The fundamental problem, as it always is with science, are the philosophical underpinings of the system.  To wit, we have theory Common Descent (CD) and twenty-nine pieces of evidence (PoE).  The logical system is, as outlined below:

If CD then PoE.
PoE
therefore CD.

This is a classic example of the logical fallacy known as "affirming the consequent."  This may be very comforting to the scientist, and may even make him well paid and a recipient of federal grant money.  However, at the end of the day, nothing has been proved.  Nor do I think that 29 logical fallacies prove more than one would.

As far as I am aware there is but one single way to prove the theory of common descent.  If one were able to prove that there was one, and only one, incidence of abiogenesis during the history of the Earth then the theory of common descent would be indisputable - fait accompli, as it were.  Dr. Theobald does not, however, address abiogenesis in the link provided, rather he says that "[abiogenesis] is not considered in this discussion of macroevolution: abiogenesis is an independent hypothesis."  I must say that in this instance I completely disagree with Dr. Theobald: Abiogenesis is at the very heart of the argument and the theory of common descent either stands or fails based on it.  Proving, for example, that there had been multiple abiogenesis events in the history of the Earth would deal a death blow to the theory of common descent.

Perhaps one day scientists will create life in a laboratory or provide some compelling reason to believe that life did spontaneously self-create.  Even showing that large numbers of nucleotides (the building blocks of DNA/RNA) can be created without living cells and be together in such a way that it might theoretically be possible for RNA to self-assemble would be a step in the right direction.  I'm not holding my breath, however, as nucleotides are the largest molecules synthesized by our cells, and their creation requires many substrates, many steps, and huge amounts of energy.

The theory of common descent is empirically sufficient for the 29 pieces of evidence.  It is not proof of common descent.  It does not make common descent true.  Science is fundamentally incapable of proving theories true.  The most it can hope for is to disprove (falsify) bad theories.  And that's why science is bs.

The Myth of Galileo

It doesn’t take much time bumping around the Internet or talking to atheists before you run into the story of Galileo.  According to the tale Galileo was a wonderful scientist who proved that the sun was the center of the solar system thanks to the telescope he had invented.  He also dropped rocks off the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate his theories of gravity.  Unfortunately for Galileo he ran afoul of the Catholic Church, which was hostile to science.  He was arrested, tortured, convicted of heresy, forced to recant, and imprisoned.  When sentence was imposed on and he was forced to recant he still muttered under his breath, “Eppur si muove" which is Italian for, “Nevertheless, it does move.”

There’s only one problem with this story: None of it is true.

Galileo Galilei was a pious Catholic believer who aspired to be a monk.  When his father got wind of it, he withdrew him from the Jesuit monastery where he was studying and under pressure from his father studied medicine at university.

At age 20 Galileo noticed the lamp swinging overhead and timed the swing using his pulse as a sort of a ‘clock’ and observed that the period of the swing was the same whether it was given a big swing or a little swing.  This ‘law of the pendulum’ made Galileo famous and was incorporated into clocks.

Galileo was bored at university and on the verge of flunking.  The only subject that seemed to interest him at all was mathematics.  His father, although not overjoyed at the turn of events, arranged for full-time tutoring in mathematics in order to salvage his son’s degree.  However Galileo still dropped out of university without finishing.

In order to make ends meet Galileo turned to tutoring in mathematics.  He aspired to be a mathematician at university but Galileo was rude and sarcastic.  He had offended many people in the field who chose other people for the vacancies.

As luck would have it, however, Galileo got a break when he calculated the size of Lucifer as being 2,000 arm-lengths long from the writings of Dante’s Inferno.  Impressed he was granted a three-year appointment to the University of Pisa.  During his three-year stint he accomplished very little and succeeded in offending more people.  At the end of three years his contract was not renewed.

Soon Galileo was flat broke and in danger of going to debtor’s prison.  His father had died but he managed to invent a military compass to aim cannonballs.  He managed to sell these for three times the cost of manufacture and also to train people on their proper use and so he managed to stave off his creditors and make ends meet.

In 1609 he learned of the invention of the spyglass by a Dutch spectacle maker.  He wanted to obtain one, but it was a closely guarded military secret.  Based on descriptions of the instrument he managed to create a crude, rudimentary copy which he presented to the Senate in Venice.  They were quite taken with its military potential and gave him a salary and proclamations.

Galileo turned his gaze skyward and examined the moon.  To his amazement he saw a rough surface with mountains and cavities.  This flew in the face of Aristotle’s claim that the heavens were perfect, unchanging, and flawless as reflection of the perfection of the gods.  Aristotle, in case you are wondering, was a Greek philosopher and not Christian in the slightest.  When Galileo tried to present his discoveries to others the ‘scientists’ of the day, called natural philosophers, refused to look through his telescope.  They demanded to know how the device worked and Galileo had no idea how to answer them as he had just basically stolen the design from the Dutch optician.  Writing to a colleague Galileo penned:

"My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth."

Despite not knowing how the telescope worked, Galileo managed to create better ones thanks to his own tinkering and copying the improved features he saw in the military versions now in use by the Italian military.  Having obtained a 30x telescope he turned his gaze on Jupiter and was surprised to note that a group of ‘stars’ seemed to accompany Jupiter wherever it went.  Theorizing that these stars were moons of Jupiter he began to doubt the belief of the day that the Earth was the center of the universe.  Instead he held to the Copernican notion that the Sun was the center of the universe with everything going around it.

He observed the rings of Saturn, phases of Venus, spots on the sun and began to become quite famous as the Jesuit priests started copying and confirming his observations.  Where Galileo was an outsider in the university system and scorned by the scientists he offended, the Catholic Church was quite happy to have one of their own making such great discoveries.  In addition, Galileo was personal friends with the Pope.

Growing more and more unhappy at Galileo’s fame the natural philosophers of the university began looking for ways to ruin Galileo.  They despised his beliefs, and one of the university professors penned:

"Before we consider Galileo's demonstrations, it seems necessary to prove how far from the truth are those who wish to prove natural facts by means of mathematical reasoning, among whom, if I am not mistaken, is Galileo...anyone who thinks he can prove natural properties with mathematical arguments is simply demented, for the two sciences are very different." (Vincenzo di Grazia, a professor in philosophy at Pisa.)

Natural philosophers were at the top of the pecking order and astronomers and mathematicians were at the bottom.  Galileo’s poor people skills weren’t doing him any favors, either.  The university professors looked for ways to separate Galileo from his support (the Church) but it wasn’t easy as Galileo had already been thoroughly investigated by the Inquisition and given a clean bill of health.

Galileo requested and received permission from the Pope, his personal friend, to write a book about the Aristotelian and Copernican systems.  The Pope asked him to present the evidence fairly with the pros and cons of each system.  Galileo would have none of that, however, and his book was written in his classic style of three characters.  One, supporting Galileo’s side, was brilliant and well reasoned.  The second was open minded and was eventually persuaded to accept Galileo’s theories, and the third character, named Simplico, was foolish, dogmatic and unable to explain anything.  It was the classic straw man argument where Galileo set up fake arguments not representing the best ideas against the Copernican system and easily demolished them.

The Pope felt betrayed and ordered Galileo to appear before the Inquisition.  Galileo had some 16 years previously been ordered by the Inquisition not to defend the theory, but merely to show it as an easier mathematical system whose truth was uncertain.  For good measure Galileo’s opponents doctored the records to show that Galileo had been ordered not to teach the system, but Galileo outfoxed his rivals again by producing the letter from the Inquisition showing that he had been ordered to do no such thing.

Undaunted the Aristotelian academic Ludovico delle Colombe presented the case against Galileo.  He was openly accused of believing theories that contradicted the Bible.  Cardinal Bellarmine who had been the chief spokesperson against Protestant reinterpretation of the Bible his whole life took notice.  He did not want any upstart Catholic astronomer challenging the official Catholic interpretation of the Bible without good reason.

Challenged to provide proof of his pet theory Galileo was unable to do so.  The lack of stellar parallax or any other indication that the Earth moved round the sun quickly showed that the Copernican system was inferior.  Both Tycho Brae’s system and the Aristotelian system ran circles around the Copernican system.  Even Galileo’s claim that the system was simpler as it eliminated epicycles was suspect as his own system had the Moon on epicycles around the Earth.  It would not be for another hundred years that stellar aberration would cast doubt on the validity of the Earth-centered model of the universe.

Galileo did not help his case by continuing in his brash, sarcastic manner.  Despite basically admitting to heresy Galileo was not mentioned in the condemnation of Copernicus’ theory.  He was not officially disciplined.  Despite his admission of guilt four of the panel members refused to vote against him in the charge of heresy.  Quickly enough the matter was papered over and Galileo was moved to ‘house arrest’ at a nearby palace where he continued to observe the heavens all he wanted, write as much as he wanted, and he continued a devout Catholic to his dying day… even being carried daily to take communion when he was too old and frail to manage the trip himself.

Galileo was not a scientist nor was he a natural philosopher.

Galileo made many observations and few if any experiments – certainly no pendulum experiments and no dropping rocks off the Tower of Pisa.  It is possible that he did some experiments with magnets, but apparently nothing came out of that.

His primary opponents of the day were those natural philosophers (which some claim to be the forerunners of science).

His primary defenders were Jesuit priests.

The Copernican system was and is wrong.  The Sun is not the center of the universe nor does the Moon move around the Earth with epicycles.

Galileo never proved the Earth-centered versions wrong nor even seriously challenged them.

Most of Galileo’s theories (for example on tides) were completely and laughably wrong.

In any event to the extent that Galileo advanced human knowledge he was fought every step of the way by those people who history tells us were the forerunners of scientists.  So anything that Galileo may have done to further human knowledge was not because of science, but rather in spite of it.

And that’s why science… is BS.

Problems with Falsificationism?

A common complaint against falsification is the following:  Imagine that you have two theories about building bridges.  Theory A has been in use for 50 years and has never been falsified, whereas Theory B is brand new and completely untested.  Which one are you going to use?

Presented this way everyone normally says, “Theory A, of course.”  But let’s get under the hood of this argument and see what makes it tick and why it’s faulty.

First of all, it’s generally presented to a bunch of people (like you and me) who know nothing about bridge building.  Except for once in physics class with a bunch of wood, I’ve never built a bridge.  The bridge I built quickly failed under pressure because I didn’t know what I was doing (and was more concerned about just building something to get a grade anyway) and so except for the fact that my teacher said triangles were important for proper bridge building, I know little about building bridges.

So that’s the first problem with this argument:  People are asking us to make a good decision about something we are completely ignorant of and/or advancing arguments that sound good and can confuse us when we’re talking about something we know zero about.  You can easily go to http://www.garrettsbridges.com/building/bridge-joints/ and read about the proposed types of joints where one is supposedly stronger than another.  A new bridge building joint theory would propose some new kind of connection (not previously dreamed of) or claim that lap joints are not really better than end joints in certain circumstances, right?  Specifically what does the theory claim so that we can evaluate it?

Just putting this new theory into the mind of someone with expertise in building bridges would let it get evaluated right away because the person would think back over his experience and think, “No, I saw a bridge like that once and it didn’t work that well” or think “You know, I always wondered why John’s bridge carried more load than mine and now that I think about it, it did have that feature partially incorporated but more as an accident than by real design.”

So you see, all theories are immediately subjected to potential falsification by being compared to the past.  A new gravitational theory that couldn’t explain why the planet Venus was moving in a specific way two weeks ago gets shot down on the spot.  Obviously, therefore, all new theories are just as verified as the old theories in the sense that they will be compared against the same weight of experience the old theory had.

Let’s take a few hypothetical examples.  Let’s say that theory A proposes that triangles make bridges strong and that circles should go around the triangles to keep them in place.  Theory B claims that circles make the bridge strong and the triangles are only there to keep the circles in place.  From a bridge builder point of view, it doesn’t matter which theory is right.  The solution is still to build bridges with circles and triangles.

As another example, let’s say that theory B claims that triangles are not really the key, but rather half-rectangles are better and therefore the triangles should be arranged in such a way as to form rectangles to build stronger bridges.  Won’t the proponent of the theory immediately point to some bridges not built according to his two-triangle forming a rectangle theory that failed as ‘proof’ of his theory?  Of course he will.  He will also point to bridges built according to his design that are still standing as proof that his new insight is superior.

The ‘new but untested bridge building theory’ argument is nothing but a red herring.  Unless the people who claim this is possible can actually mention a specific time that this (or something like it) occurred, they are just throwing vague suppositions out in the dark.

On the other hand the proponents of falsification can point out specific times when induction failed.  Mercury was supposed to move in a certain way and it didn’t.  Believers in Newton’s law of gravity went looking for a new planet (named Vulcan) which they never found (although Star Trek continues as though it existed).  When Einstein proposed curved space which better explained the movement of Mercury and the behavior of light moving around the sun, Newton’s theory got sent to the junkyard where it belongs.

David Hume and the Problem of Induction

Some of my detractors have claimed that David Hume said, "Only a madman would be a complete skeptic."  Who is David Hume?  Why would anyone think I was a complete sceptic?

First of all, let's set the story straight; David Hume never made the above comment.  What he said was, "...though none but a fool or madman will ever pretend to dispute the authority of experience, or to reject that great guide of human life, it may surely be allowed a philosopher to have so much curiosity at least as to examine the principle of human nature, which gives this mighty authority to experience, and makes us draw advantage from that similarity which nature has placed among different objects."  As we can see, David Hume's quote (when not taken out of context) seems to indicate that a healthy scepticism is a good thing and that a degree of delving into the value of experience was meritted and worthwhile.

David Hume is important because he was the first person to officially touch on what is now known as the "Problem of Induction," although he never used that term.  The problem is this: There is no logical reason to believe that the future will resemble the past.

At first people may vigorously object to this idea.  "Just you wait," they may say.  "The sun has risen every day and it will rise again tomorrow.  You watch and see!"  Then, appearing triumphantly on the following day they state, "A-ha!  So you see, the sun has risen as I predicted.  Now, surely, you must realize that the past is a good guide to the future."

Unfortunately for these well-meaning people, they are committing a logical fallacy called "begging the question."  They are saying that the past is a good guide to the future because it has worked in the past (and will therefore work in the future).  This is circular logic and proves absolutely nothing.

Over the centuries since David Hume first encountered the problem many great minds have struggled with the problem and to date there is no answer to the problem of induction.  David Hume resolved the problem for himself by deciding that mankind was irrational and that it was impossible to avoid using induction.  As such he is known as the father of anti-rationalism.  Rationalism has been defined as "any view any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification."  Anti-rationalism is the view that even though something conflicts with reason, logic and good-sense that this is no reason to abandon the procedure.  As you might guess, I heartily disagree with this notion.

In fact, I should like to point out that the basis on which David Hume argues that humans are irrational and that induction is unavoidable is based on the past and the assumption that the past is a good guide to the future.  As such, he basically justified induction and the irrationality of humans by using induction.  This, as we have already mentioned, is begging the question.

Scientific apologists generally try to sweep the problem of induction under the carpet, and with good reason.  Accepting the idea that the past is not necessarily a good guide to the future means that science itself is suspect.  After all, the idea of science is that after dropping a rock a few dozen times and noting the acceleration downwards that this observation can be applied not only in that same spot, but everywhere in the universe both in the past and in the future.  What scientist would like to admit that there is no rational basis for his craft?  Perhaps it is even more unappealing when lucrative scientific funding is at stake.

Those who have seriously delved into the matter, however, have advanced two possible solutions to the problem.  Karl Popper proposed 'falsificationism' in which induction is abandoned.  It is true, he argued, that science cannot prove any theory right - but it can and has proved a number of apparently good theories to be faulty.

So simply by objecting to the illogical nature of induction does not mean that someone completely abandons experience as a guide nor does it mean that a person who insists on using logic is a complete sceptic.  It just means that I don't place stock in things that are blatantly irrational and that I'm not going to sacrifice logic and common sense on the altar of science just because I'm told to do so.

The second proposed solution to the problem of induction is Bayesian statistics.  This argument proposes that although you cannot use induction to say that just because you have observed 6 white swans in a row that all swans are white, that you CAN say with a degree of statistical precision that it is very likely that the next swan you see will be white.  This n+1 workaround is what most scientists fall back on if they are pushed on the problem of induction.  In another article, I plan to take the time to criticize this claim.

But for now I will suffice by saying that naive reliance on induction, as the vast majority of science-ophiles do and the willful ignorance of the problem is just another reason to realize that science... is BS.

Big Bang Theory

I once asked my uncle, who is an astronomer, if he believed in the Big Bang Theory.  He told me that he did because of the discovery of the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR).  Although I don't believe in the Big Bang Theory, I let it drop at that.  I could have continued with any number of reasons why the CBR isn't consistent with the Big Bang Theory like the smoothness, that the theory originally predicted a temperature closer to 50ºK, or something else but I didn't.

Instead I thought about science - what it really is and how it works.

Let's follow my uncle's logic process from start to finish.  First we have a theory called the Big Bang Theory (BBT).  The theory predicts things about the CBR.  Then we find the CBR so my uncle concludes the BBT is correct.  Unfortunately, however, this is a classic case of a logical fallacy.

Thanks to Wikipedia it's easy to find an absurd example following the same pattern of logic.  If Bill Gates owns Fort Knox, then he will be rich.  Bill Gates is rich, therefore he owns Fort Knox.  This logical fallacy, called affirming the consequent, is the basis of the so-called "scientific method."  We can express it in symbols, as follows:

If P, then Q ( or P=>Q )
Q
therefore P

This pattern is reflected in almost every aspect of scientific "knowledge" that we find nowadays.  If Einstein's theory of relativity is correct then the orbit of Mercury will be such-and-such.  The orbit of Mercury is, indeed, such-and-such, therefore Einstein's theory is true.

If the Earth is 4.5 billion years old (give or take) then we will find a certain ratio of uranium-238 to lead.  We find that ratio, therefore the Earth is indeed 4.5 billion years old.

Realizing this, a sensible person will say, "Well, all of these are just theories," but don't say that too close to a true scientific believer.  He will assure you that a scientific theory is a special thing - not a hunch, a guess, or anything else.  It's well-documented, well-supported, and well-tested.

Unfortunately all this documentation, support, and testing follows the above logic-challenged pattern.  I guess they feel that although one logical fallacy proves nothing, a large number of logical fallacies do indeed prove something.

And that's why Science... is BS.

How to Calculate the Odds of Something

Some people didn't understand my post about why induction is self-refuting.  I believe this may be because they don't know exactly how the odds of something are calculated.  By way of illustration, we shall imagine that a person takes a cancer test, which turns out positive.

We know that the cancer test has a 95 percent confidence level - that is that it generates false positives and false negatives only 5 percent of the time.  Some people might think because of this that the person has a 95 percent chance of having cancer.  That is not true.  As a matter of fact, there is not enough information in the problem to know what the person's chance of having cancer is.

Let us assume that the person has an 8 percent base chance of having cancer.  Perhaps this is merely an informed guess by the doctor or perhaps it comes from the percentage of people in the general population who have cancer.  As such, anyone walking in the door might be expected to have cancer based on their age, their symptoms, or whatever.  This is the piece of information we will need to calculate the chance of having cancer.

So if 8 percent of the population has cancer then out of every 10,000 people that come to be tested 800 of them will have cancer and 9,200 will not.  After the test we will have four groups: 760 people who have cancer and tested positive for cancer (800 x .95) and 40 people who have tested negative for cancer, but really do have it (800 x .05).  We will also have 460 people who have tested positive for cancer, but do not have cancer.  We will also have 8,740 people who do not have cancer and have tested negative for it.

What then is chance that the person really does have cancer after receiving a positive test result for cancer?  The answer is 760 / (760+460) ... that is, the number of people who have cancer and have tested positive, divided by the size of the whole number of people who have tested positive for cancer (the 760 plus the 460 who falsely tested positive).  Accordingly we can say that the person has a 62.3 percent chance of really having cancer.

It may seem strange to you that a test that is 95 percent accurate results only in a 62.3 percent chance of the person having cancer.  However, you need to look at it this way:  The person's initial chance of having cancer (8 percent) has now increased to 62.3 percent and a second positive test would let us increase the probability accordingly.  The more tests we do, the greater the chance of the person having cancer if, indeed, they do have cancer.

A Stupid Argument

How would you feel if someone said to you, "Hey... since you don't accept Thor why don't you stop using your computer!  After all, you wouldn't have electricity if it weren't for the God of Lightning.  Log off now and stop wasting my time!"

I bet you'd think that was a pretty stupid argument.  I agree - it's a dumb argument because it presupposes something as true that is not known, namely that Thor is responsible for lightning and thereby electricity.  Electricity could easily exist without Thor having been responsible, right?  Ok, good.

So now you understand how I feel when someone says, "Hey!  Since you don't accept science you should stop using your computer, never take penicillin or aspirin, and stop bothering us!"

Really that's the same argument, isn't it?

Plus it shows that the person is woefully ignorant of history.  First of all, penicillin was first made by microorganisms.  It is far more likely that we have God, Vishnu, or Allah to thank for penicillin than science.  Secondly, aspirin is nothing more than the bark from a white willow tree and has been in use for centuries before science reared its ugly head on the scene.

Similarly there's no proof that science is responsible for computers, electricity or our understanding of them either.  Science's main claim to fame is retroactively proclaiming people they agree with scientists while doing everything they can to sabotage them during their lives.  A simple look at http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html#list will give you an extensive list of those who have suffered thusly.