Sunday, February 28, 2010

Sunday Evening Blogging


After several successful attempts of ignoring and at times chastising cult members of the 'Lost' phenomenon, I found myself hoisted with my own petard this weekend. During a fit of boredom, I errantly watched an episode of Lost involving the character 'Desmond David Hume'. In the episode, Desmond turned a key and ended up reliving several painful parts of his life. As much as he hoped to change this particular portion of his life, he consistently chooses the path of pain.

Desmond's namesake, David Hume, was extremely influential in the European enlightenment. Hume wrote extensively on the nature of free will and how many of our choices in life are determined by extrinsic forces. Ultimately, Desmond accepts his fate and moves onward cautiously into a deterministic future. This falls in-line with Philo-Hume's thoughts on free will. Of course, one thing led to another and I ended up watching several episodes in a row.

The result? I am forced to stand upon the rotting carcass of my own righteous indignation and admit I've been led into the cult of 'Lost' by the Sirens of Philosophy 101.

Also, congratulations are in order for Canada!

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Ghosts, UFOs, Anthropogenic Climate Change, and El Chupacabra


Cookie Monster was one of my favorite Sesame Street characters to watch on television while I was growing up (as evidenced by my quick decision to marry my wife upon hearing her eerily accurate rendition of CM's classic 'c is for cookie'). Oftentimes, during Saturday morning Sesame Street episodes, CM would put forth a puzzle made up of several items in a set. CM's set of items usually had a distinguishing feature which made it obvious why they were grouped together, except for one.

Cookie Monster's challenge to us? Tease out the one that didn't belong. To a human, this is a simple matter of intuition. You ask yourself, are there a different number of items (three plates containing two cookies and one plate with three cookies)? Is there one that is a different color? A different shape? All of these differences are easy to pick up on and most of us do it quite well.

Choosing between physical differences of objects isn't necessarily difficult, however, choosing how to interpret abstract concepts is a little tougher. Fortunately, Cookie Monster only puzzled us using simple abstracts such as letters and numbers. i.e. Which one doesn't belong in the set 1, 2, W, and 3? Obviously, 'W' is the answer since it is not apart of the larger set of items known as numbers.

In the title of this post, I put forth a similar puzzle made up of abstract ideas that are a little more controversial than letters and numbers. In some circles, each of these items is postulated to exist. Yet only one them has a large consensus of experts on the evidence to back it up. Which one is it? To find out, I suggest you read this article by Dr. Steve Novella.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Sunday Evening (belated) Blogging

Enceladus, the planetary temptress of my fascination.

So it's Monday and I didn't post a "Sunday Evening Blogging" post last night. To ease the pain of a late blog post, feel free to take your pick of any of these excuses: I was too distracted by a sick kid, the dog ate my computer, one of my robots turned sentient on me and I was forced to take immediate action (the most likely scenario), or I got lost in ABC's "Lost" (the least likely scenario). None of these excuses are true, of course. The sad fact of the matter is that I forgot. Disturbingly, I'm told this is something that happens as you get older. I'll believe it when it happens to me. Again.

Onward and upward (into space)! The picture above was taken by the amazing and surprisingly entertaining space probe V'ger.. errr.... Cassini. That picture, my friends, is one of the most interesting moons of Saturn, Enceladus. So what's so insanely great about this moon which is only one of sixty two orbiting everyone's favorite ringed planet?

A gigantic underground ocean teeming with life!

Okay, caught in a lie again. We have no proof of a gigantic underground ocean teeming with life but it sure is fun to think about. Cassini has, however, returned some evidence for an ocean under the ice crust that covers the entire surface of Enceladus but has not discovered evidence of life. Many, many Euro-Ameri-dollars will be needed to figure out if said ocean is a supporter of life. Hopefully (fingers crossed) this will happen within my lifetime (which is inversely proportional to my HoHo intake.)

So I proclaim this to NASA:

"Build some more of those non-sentient, fantastical bots and launch them into that Undiscovered Country! And soon, please, HoHo's are good."

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Sunday Evening (Skeptical) Blogging


My family and I live in Texas and I’ve been following the antics of Donny McLeroy and the Texas State Board of Education for a little while now. Basically, some on the board believe that the world was created 10,000 years ago and they wish to convey this idea to our school children through public education. Sara and I do plan to put our son Alex into public schools if for no other reason than to sharpen his wits against the crazy he’ll be exposed to. Sara and I had an excellent experience in our school district as kids even though we were at opposite ends of the academic spectrum. School isn’t always about grades.

My approach is to teach Alex to think critically for himself and not automatically believe people who liken themselves authorities on any subject. Just because scientists say things like evolution and global climate change are true doesn’t mean you should believe it right away. Instead, look at the predictions made by both of these theories. Did they come true? Do they present a cogent and consistent view of the domain they claim to describe? (The answer is yes on both counts, but don't take my word for it!)

The scientific method is not the ultra clean process presented in schools. It is utterly messy and oftentimes cruel. However, it does work. Take for example multiple Nobel Prize winning chemist Linus Pauling who made significant contributions many disciplines including quantum chemistry. Later in his life, he began to study the effects mega doses of vitamin C has on preventing and curing the common cold and cancer. He successfully argued his case in the public arena (on preventing colds at least, which it does not) though other scientists and doctors were skeptical. Many clinics attempted to repeat Pauling’s results with little success. Even though no one could verify his claims, Pauling held to them tightly. His pet theory had been decimated and he was quickly moved into the realm of quackery.

The ideas of repeatability and prediction are key to the understanding the scientific process. Pauling's results could not be predicted or repeated, thus they lost traction. Global climate change, however, makes very specific predictions how human carbon production affects the acidification of the ocean, the mass of the ice shelves in the Arctic, and levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Over the span of the last thirty years, many of these predictions have come true. Does this mean the model of global climate change is absolutely correct? No, of course not, but it does lend credibility to the idea that something is going on and humans are to blame.

A level head and a good understanding of how to think critically is all it takes to tease the truth out of any situation. Be wary of the person with an idea to sell. (Kinoki foot pads anyone?) Actual science doesn’t start with an outcome and work back like Pauling did with his belief that vitamin C cures all ills. If a scientist’s idea is crushed by an observation, the scientific community moves on and expects that scientist to move on with it. Unfortunately, some like Pauling, do not.

So here’s a wee little guide on how to think critically:

1) Be wary of the person who has an idea to sell and damn the facts. (This is so important, it’s worth repeating.)

2) Be wary of the person who can’t back up their ideas with facts and data but resorts to the “this is so obvious, only a moron couldn’t see it” defense. (Rush Limbaugh is famous for this. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong, only that he is a poor arbiter of a cogent worldview.)

3) Not all ideas are made equal. The silly notion of showing all sides of an argument leads folks in the press to present crack pot theorists on the same level as real scientists.

4) Just because you don’t like an idea, doesn’t have any bearing on whether it’s true or false. We are all human, prone to human mistakes in judgment.

5) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Why do the UFO and ghost folks hang on every tiny shred of evidence that their particular worldview is correct? Why do they push the notion that “they are out there” and “you can speak to your dead relatives through me”? Do they have solid evidence or blurry pictures and crazy stories? Is the scientific establishment “hiding” these things or did the (great many) experiments on paranormal activity all return negative?

6) Be aware of the false dichotomy. My favorite example is the Creation vs. Darwin argument. Darwin was a scientist who proposed a theory that makes very specific predictions and has been tested to the Nth degree over the past 150 years. His theory also lead to the genetic understanding of all life on Earth! Creation purports and idea which has no observable data (it’s a nice story) associated with it and makes no predictions that have come true. Setting these ideas against each other is like comparing apples to buildings, it is nonsensical and silly.

7) Last one, I swear. Be aware of the straw man. The alternative medicine people (foot pads! raw and organic foods! acupuncture!) do this all the time. They tell you that western medicine has it all wrong and Big Pharma is out to do you an injustice. This is a straw man, easy to build up and easy to knock down. No evidence, no facts, and no data generally follow their arguments.

Why is all of this important? Let me tell you a simple anecdote. I fell for the lure of alternative medicine myself a few of years ago before I honed my BS detector. I have MS and the drug I was taking is not tested for use with MS, relied on the authority of a single scientist who was fighting "Big Pharma", and claimed extraordinary results without any actual testing or data. Needless to say once my thinking became more systematic and less "woo"ifed, I dropped that drug like a bad habit and got on one that's proven.

These tools have served me very well over that past couple of years and I hope to impart them on my son. Living in this world is a whole heck of lot easier when I can keep the patrons of bullshit from invading my space.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Superbowl Sunday Evening Blogging


The Superbowl is over, Hoosiers are going home with heads low and New Orleans is lit aflame. I enjoyed the Superbowl game myself and I think Alex may have enjoyed the little part he got to see. I know a one year old can't appreciate anything past screeching toys but the TV was certainly mesmerizing to him for at least a little while.

I finished the dog physics book today and started reading Microserfs again. I read the book when it first came about 15 years ago (I was still in high school) and didn't appreciate much of the pop referenced humor in the book. Now that I've begun my 30's (31 is just a couple weeks away!) I've gained a new appreciation for the book. I found it when Sara and I replaced our aging cheepo Target bookshelves with one from the bare furniture store down the road. It's good to know that the sturdy bookshelf perched in our abode wasn't thrown together with the careless application of dowel rods and press board.

This is all I know this week. Well, that and QED is awesome! Next week... rocks, rocks and more rocks.

Oh yeah, you should also watch Richard Dawkins.