What Science Ain't

I sparked a bit of an argument on social media with a little jab at Bill Nye the Scientism Guy.

Bill Nye the Science Guy is a science expert in the sense that Larry the Cable Guy is cable expert.

People don't really like it when you attack their cherished sciensh celebrities. The reaction of those who chose to defend the attack was what we've come to expect: a discussion of credentials. For instance, because Nye is a degreed mechanical engineer, that makes him a qualified scientist. More than just a fictional character with a children's show, I suppose. But is he a scientist? What is a scientist? To find out, let's name the things we know aren't scientists and see where things start to get uncomfortable.

A tech junkie is not a scientist

There's a tendency for people to lump all technology in with science. For instance, people say that because engineering is a subset of science, engineers are scientists. But does working in technology make one a scientist? By that understanding, gadget gurus would have to be scientists, as well as mathematicians, etc. If all STEM is science, then why even have the TEM at all? It should just be S.

A book reader is not a scientist

Merely possessing knowledge does not make one a scientist. An idiot savant whose only skill is voracious reading skills coupled with perfect retainment might learn the entirety of some scientific discipline in a number of months. But that would not make him a scientist. Learning science does not count. I've taken quantum mechanics but no one pretends I'm a physicist.

A figure skater is not a scientist

Further, employing knowledge found from science does not make one a scientist. A figure skater might be a top-notch scholar, with a deep understanding of the laws of centripetal motion.  She might employ that knowledge to create visually stunning performances of her art. But that does not make her a scientist. An engineer is not a scientist just because he builds bridges. If they were, they'd have to build a series of spans at each crossing to determine which design & materials had the best results. But they don't do that. They build bridges using best design practices and knowledge previously acquired.

A teacher is not a scientist

Teaching is not science. Teaching is teaching. Science might be applied to teaching, but that is not the norm. Science is about discovering new information. Teaching is about passing the information down to others. Both are very important roles, but they are not the same. Just because Nye goes in front of kids and recreates science experiments does not make him a scientist any more than performing Beethoven makes a pianist a composer.

A computer scientist is not a scientist

The term science has been so abused that it cannot be trusted on sight. People have a tendency to latch on to the word in the belief that it will convey an air of legitimacy. But not much of what happens in the field of computer science is really science. The same can be said of political science and probably any field that feels compelled to include the word science. Computer science graduates understand the distinction and call themselves programmers or software engineers instead. Even within academia, they are more likely to refer to themselves as researchers than scientists.

A taxonomer is not a scientist

Here things start to get uncomfortable, as taxonomy is defined as a field of science. Is it really science? It doesn't do much to expand the field of human knowledge. Then again, organizing things allows for humans to perceive relationships they might otherwise miss. I would suggest that taxonomy can be a science, as long as it organizes observations against a testable theory. For instance, I might organize my record albums by the middle name of the drummer, but there is nothing to test. There is no underlying theory. I might theorize that all the K albums will be terrible, but testing random hypotheses probably doesn't constitute science.

On the other hand, organisms tend to be organized according to the theory of evolution. It is tested every time a new organism is discovered (does it fit in nicely or does it mess up the order?) and with the advent of new technologies, such as genomics. So a taxonomer might actually be a scientist, but we have a pretty good idea of when they are not.

A theoretician is not a scientist

Are theory guys scientists? What about philosophers and logicians? Our theory of science probably shouldn't exclude theoretical physicists, but what if it does? The job of the theorist is to create hypotheses. We might make a similar argument as we did of the taxonomer. Their work must be testable. String theory has lost support in the scientific community; no one believes it is a testable theory.

Can we apply the same requirement to the logician or the philosopher? I reckon there is no other way. Arm-chair philosophers might analyze their world view and come up with unique insights, but the process can only be called science if those insights are testable. In Make Predictions or STFU I implored anyone making social commentary to make predictions if they expect to be taken seriously. To be credible, one must be regularly proven correct, or show that they have modified their world view in response to poor predictions. This prediction-making is a poor man's science. Yes, it's prone to some confirmation bias, but formal science suffers that as well. Perhaps even more so, as disagreeing with the academic orthodoxy is a good way to sink a promising research career.

Bill Nye is not a scientist

Perhaps science is not really that complicated to define after all. Actions that expand or sharpen the collection of testable human knowledge is science. Everything else is something else. Acquiring scientific knowledge isn't science. Applying scientific knowledge isn't science. Teaching scientific knowledge isn't science. It would seem that there isn't anything that Bill Nye does that could actually be called science. Making and testing predictions on a blog is closer to science that what Bill Nye does, which is to apply pseudo-scientific rationale to preferred political and social objectives. We all tend to do it, but we don't all have a large platform to broadcast from or the veneer of scientific credibility. Really Bill Nye is a model for us of what not to be doing.

Science is a process. You are a scientist if you engage in science. Having a degree doesn't make you a scientist. Advocating science doesn't make you a scientist. However, to go back to my initial point, the question was never whether Nye is a credentialed scientist, or even whether he is a scientist at all. The question was whether he is a science expert. Can one be an expert in a field of which they do not participate? Yes, I think they can. Historians of medieval warfare don't normally engage in jousting tournaments to prove their legitimacy, for example.

So how do we know if Bill Nye is a science expert? Well if we could definitively answer that question then we could also answer a great number of more substantive problems. Like who to elect. The normal human intuition must suffice. Does he have great command of the science he discusses? Does he communicate that knowledge without contradicting himself? Is he able to make solid arguments in favor of the positions he advocates? The answer to all those questions, as shown in Bill Nye the Scientism Guy, is no he does not. He does not have the facts of climate change at his disposal. He deeply contradicts himself. And not only are his arguments easily refuted, they betray a novice grasp of the concepts he using. If he goes on Tucker Carlson specifically to talk about cognitive dissonance and then shows that he doesn't really understand the term, then what else is he talking about that he does not understand? 

It's interesting that Bill Nye is arguing that climate skeptics are suffering cognitive dissonance because they question the results of the academy, and so many people defend Nye because he is (allegedly) credentialed. It all sounds like the sort of dynamic that science was supposed to avoid. In the days before science, the epistemological orthodoxy was strictly controlled by the academy, which was basically the church. While the anti-science role of the church is somewhat exaggerated in the modern zeitgeist, it can't be denied that they kept a strong grip on what could be believed and what would be punished as heresy. The whole point of science was that knowledge became a matter of provable fact rather than theological or authoritarian belief. And yet here we are, being told that consensus of the academy is all the proof we need, and academic credentials are all that convey credibility. By the same people, mind you, who typically condemn religion because of it's enforced monopoly on intellectual discourse. It seems that too many of those people are less interested in destroying religion as a matter of  principle as they are in replacing it with their preferred religious orthodoxy, Scientism.

Soldiers & Scouts

A friend linked an article in response to a conversation we had, where he stated he engaged in debate to test his own assumptions, whereas I stated I primarily did so to inform and convert. The article suggests there are two mindsets towards truth seeking: the opinionated soldier and the open-minded scout. The scouts are said to possess higher EQ (emotional quotient). There are general truths to the article, but reasons to be cautious as well. Let's tease out some of the implications the way Jesus would do it: through parables.

Parable 1

A Roman Centuria has been tasked to resupply a garrison. They come to a crossroads. If they go right they will be led into Germanic territory. If they go left they will remain in friendly territory but will add 3 days of travel to their journey. They find a local Gaul familiar with the territory and offer to hire him as a scout. The Gaul responds.

"I can, but don't waste your money. I have lived here my whole life and I can tell you the Germanic lands are incredibly dangerous. You'd best go around."

The Roman leader, the Centurion, having been well-educated in high-EQ approaches to fact discovery, responds, "Gaul, I did not ask for a rundown of your preconceived notions. You clearly have a soldier's mentality as you are already advocating for a particular conclusion. I already have 80 soldiers, I don't need another. I'm offering to pay you as a scout, using scout mentality."

The Gaul agrees to scout out the route under cover of darkness. The next day he returns and reports to the Centurion.

"Captain I was able to observe a Germanic camp from a safe location. It is as I suspected. They have a large well-armed contingent and are staged for a rapid deployment. I suspect they have been tipped off to expect a Roman supply train."

The Centuria's Lieutenant responds, "If we move quickly we will be through before they have even slept off their hangovers."

"That's another thing I did not perceive any signs of alcohol in the camp."

"A Germanic camp with no booze, that is preposterous! Captain, this scout has clearly not dropped his soldier mentality. He has already made it known he prefers a particular conclusion and has let that cloud his observations. I guarantee you a proper scout mindset would have observed a shoddy camp drowning in booze, just like we always see from the Germanics. My own scout mentality compels me to suggest we dismiss this biased testimony."

The Centurion concurs with his lieutenant. The Romans take the shortcut through Germanic territory. They are quickly slaughtered by the awaiting Germanics and the supplies are stolen.

Lessons: someone perceived to have taken sides may only be advocating strongly after a sober weighing of the evidence. We can't say for certain that someone who has taken sides is one way or the other without further considerations. Also, one believing their own high EQ leads them to dispassionate analysis may end up even more susceptible to their own biases than they otherwise would be

Parable 2

The Centuria approaches the intersection. The lieutenant, having experience in skirmishing with Germanics, advises the Centurion to go around the danger. A local Gaul is consulted, who responds that he has no idea if the area is safe, but he'll make observations overnight using scout mentality. The next morning he reports he found only a single lightly armed camp, which the Roman forces could easily overpower. The lieutenant responds.

"I have never seen Germanics lightly armed in small numbers. The assessment must be inaccurate. We should go around."

The Captain responds. "Lieutenant you are quite passionate in your convictions. But the Gaul is more open-minded than you. He is using scout mindset to make all observations without bias, whereas you are in a soldier's mindset. We will trust his observations over your convictions."

The Romans march through. Unfortunately the scout, while impartial, was simply a poor scout. He underestimated both the numbers and armaments of the camp he had found and missed two other nearby camps entirely. The Romans are quickly slaughtered by the awaiting Germanics and the supplies are stolen.

Lessons: higher EQ does not equate to greater rationale or observational ability. Low EQ might limit one's ability to properly apply his intellect, but high EQ does not boost it.

Limitations to truth seeking

I see a number of articles these days with the message of "turns out EQ is more important than IQ." These may be sober analyses made through high-EQ observations, or perhaps are opportunities for low-intellect writers to find an avenue of superiority. I would assert that we can more generally and more dispassionately claim that truth seeking is limited by the following factors.

1. Intellectual ability (IQ)
2. Intellectual curiosity
3. Emotional maturity (EQ)

A person lacking in the first domain is unintelligent. One lacking in the second is lazy. A person lacking in the third will not be able to apply his intellect in a sober or dispassionate manner. He might make extraordinary arguments as to why the Earth is flat, despite strong indications to the contrary. I have made the same argument myself, such as in Stefan Molyneux is a Gamma, where I describe a man who has great intellection prowess until he feels he is under attack, at which point emotions take over. The third aspect is the thesis of the article but it doesn't encompass the whole picture, and perhaps puts too much emphasis in emotional stability at the risk of undervaluing the other components.

How Can We Know if We Know?

None of this matters much if we can't make some applications in the real world. How do we know if our own stance comes from soldier stubbornness or scout rationale? How can we know about another person? Let me propose a rubric that conveniently follows the Rule of 3.

Command of the Facts

If we restrain ourselves to matters of opinion we'll never get anywhere, we'll never tease out who is more prone to being objectively correct. In France, the Cartesians and Pascalians have been at it for centuries. That doesn't give much hope that American liberals and conservatives will come to an agreement anytime soon. 

But where we can judge another is in the facts. Does the other have a grasp of the relevant facts? Are they prone to misstating facts? If a person cannot articulate the cold mundane facts of the matter, they probably cannot be trusted to make the proper conclusions.

As an example, I don't make strong claims about climate change, but the advocates drive me up the wall. They never know any facts, only conclusions and consequences. My favorite technique now is to ask them for a number. Any number related to climate change theories. Any number at all. A rate, a measurement, a percentage....anything. This doesn't work online, where anyone can quickly google the subject, but in person the point is easily made: they don't know a single quantitative fact on the issue and yet they are very sure of the conclusions, often to the point of arrogance. I suggest you use the technique in other domains as they suit you.

Contradiction

Does the person routinely contradict themselves? Then they have probably not spent much time pondering the issue at hand, or haven't come to the accurate conclusions. It's inevitable we'll all be contradicted as some point. To believe otherwise is to believe one has achieved perfect wisdom! How does the opponent handle contradiction? Does it give them pause? Do they update their worldview as necessary? Do they seek to disprove the apparent contradiction using logic until it is clear they cannot? Or do they plow through the thing like it never happened?

Predictions

In Make Predictions or STFU I advised being wary of anyone who doesn't use their worldview to make predictions. Making & testing predictions is the essence of scientific inquiry, and thus should be the basis for testing one's own beliefs. If someone isn't sure enough of the worldview to make predictions, then how could they possibly be sure enough to assert their correctness?

So if you want to display that you don't engage in perpetual posthoc analysis / rationalization, blog up or find some similar approach to get yourself on the record about something.

We've Tried Being Reasonable

The Proposition Nation

America, the proposition nation. Founded on ideas. American society was not to be bound by a divinely anointed monarch, or tribal loyalties, or a heavy-handed authority, but rather by the agreement that natural rights grant each man great freedom to live as he chooses, so long as he doesn't impede the rights of others to do the same. Americanism is not a birthright or a blessing or a victory condition; it is a simple logical and moral agreement.

The Founders were all Christians yet they specifically decreed freedom of religion. They were all English-speaking but made no recommendation for language. They were all white but put no Constitutional restriction on demographics, as Mexico does. One wonders if these considerations weren't omitted as a consequence of their absence from the contemporary society. The rich do not worry over money like the poor. The hungry think about food constantly while the well-fed eat when it is convenient. Noble decrees of equality and an appeal to our higher faculties may be easier to make in a ethnically homogeneous society of a relatively high IQ populace bound by a common belief system. Many among us, probably most, do not believe this to be the case. Their conviction is that our multiculturalism drives the reason-based social contract, because we don't have the tribal, religious, or dynastic bindings to rely on. But was that the reality of our founding? They didn't invite the Indians into their new society. Or the Africans. And heavily resisted even non-English speaking Europeans and Catholics. It does seem that man's more primitive instincts towards social organization were overcome in an environment where they were somewhat irrelevant to begin with.

America (or more accurately the West) is so confidant in her citizens' capacity for reason that they were granted universal suffrage, an empowerment of the masses never seen before. Despite some initial limitations set by the Founders, American is a system where every representative, every senator, every governor, every mayor, and every president is chosen by the masses. Surely the contract for the people to chose their government includes the clause that they are, well, reasonable.

To the notion of a society bound by reason, I am a natural proponent. And yet I am abhorred by the results. This is hardly a reasonable society. It is not populated by particularly reasonable people, and does very little to leverage its more rational human assets. We don't organize our society to put the more reasonable people in charge. I encountered this the first time I voted. My ballot included 46 different individual races - and I was from a tiny town and county - plus referendum measures. It quickly became questionable to me how anyone could be qualified to fill out the ballot. Who was I to comment on whether to retain various judges throughout the far-flung state? I considered myself to be more qualified to vote than most, but still not sufficient for the ballot I was provided. I did a fair amount of research on candidates before voting, which is a fair amount more than most I would reckon. How can we be sure the typical American voter is unqualified for the task? Because candidates spend exorbitant sums of money on radio and tv ads. Why? Because the ads successfully influence a significant number of votes. Why are ads successful in influencing a rational person's vote? I'll leave you to make your own conclusion.

Wisdom & Education

In the ancient world wisdom was the highest virtue. Elders were respected; the great minds were highly sough after. Today's world has no interest in wisdom. Technical expertise is highly valued, and credentials, oh do we love our credentials. It seems that credentials are something of a proxy for wisdom. Or at least they once were. At one time a college degree probably did have some correlation with wisdom, because the institutions that granted them were motivated by achieving wisdom. In today's college imparting wisdom is their stated sacred purpose but in practice hardly even an afterthought. Students don't go to college to gain wisdom. They go to gain status. Colleges serve to provide careers to students, academics, and administrators, and recruits for liberal indoctrination. It can't even be decisively claimed that colleges are for acquiring information anymore, as most of it can be found online.

The schools don't drive kids towards wisdom. They seek to impart skills. And not just any skills, but skills that can be captured by standardized testing. In the decade and a half since I graduated, my high school has dropped band, chorus, auto shop, ag shop, industrial arts, and, I think, physics. I'm not entirely sure about the last one. On the school's website I can find a 54-page policy handbook and schedules for all the varsity sports, but not a list of courses. Academics are just not a big priority in education these days.

American parents don't drive kids towards wisdom either. Do you hear parents asking themselves if junior will read Rousseau or understand chaos theory? No, parents wonder what occupation their child will hold and brag about their successes. Typically successes are measured in the acquisition of resources (money) or title (status). Thus children are primarily guided towards money & status. The major difference between white suburban childrearing and gangsta rap is that the rappers are more honest about their ambitions.

Caring

Not everyone stives for money & status. Some people reject the rat race or, more often, are rejected by it. Often they are hippies, and they know there is something much more important than petty materialism: caring. Caring is a virtue of course. Caring gives life meaning and is fundamental to Christianity. But it is no substitute for reason. An uncaring civilization can still succeed and provide a nice life for its people (like Germany until so recently) but an unreasonable society will destroy itself or be destroyed, caring or not.

I see on social media the liberal motto it is better to be kind than correct. But those attributes are orthogonal. It's as if saying it's better to be left than purple. One can be kind and correct, or one of them, or neither. Maybe I'm too pedantic when the intended message is clear: it's better to be caring than rational. It seems fitting then that the quip is itself irrational. Better according to what context? Where is it better to be caring than rational? Who says, "you need to be kind and wrong more?"

Caring is seen as enlightenment. And it is! Compare it to the money chasers. They are consumed with acquiring resources, just like every organism on Earth. Even lowly life forms like amoeba and fungi and divorce lawyers spend their time primarily engaged in resource acquisition. If hippies think caring is a higher, more enlightened motive in life I would have to agree with them. Caring is not restricted to humanity. Mammals by definition care for their young. Social animals develop deep attachments to each other. Even crocodiles are said to be make protective mothers. But none are capable of rationale. Caring is a humane trait but rationale is what makes us human. To say it is better to be kind than correct as a life philosophy is practically to renounce one's own humanity.

Media

If future generations will judge us by the fruits of our professional media then we should start destroying the records immediately to save some embarrassment. I cringe thinking our 24/7 news hysteria is constantly being broadcast out to space where it might be received by some intelligent life form. It's no wonder those superior beings choose to remain hidden. Can you imagine how they'd be welcomed here?

Alien: we come and peace, and we wish to share our ancient wisdom with you, and guide you to deeper understandings of existence. 

CNN reporter: What can you tell us about the Russia-Trump connection?

There can be nothing more irrational than making routine logical contradictions with oneself. I point out media absurdity frequently on this blog. It is my top grievance with our society. As long as our established method of public discourse and consensus making is irrational, we can't possibly call ourselves a rational society.

Conclusions

The major point of America is that authority is based on reason and universal egalitarianism. To be sure it was an experiment, and it was not an irrational experiment. The Founders were dedicated to reason themselves and to Enlightenment thought and, in a world where brute strength typically rules, it is truly remarkable what they accomplished. In a rational society experiments are important, but so are results. The results are not looking good. America has been extraordinarily successful and still is, but we're moving in a dangerous direction and very quickly. The major difference between the traditional conservative and the reactionary is that the reactionary doubts the entire premise of the American experiment. Some even doubt the reason-based society altogether and advocate for a return to monarchy! I don't. If you like your reason-based society, and you want to keep your reason-based society, your most immediate task is to realize just how failed the model has become and where we're headed.

Universality in the US

Universality is the principle from philosophy that morality judgments should be applied to all individuals and groups uniformly. In fact, we can often tell if there is injustice by inverting the parties involved to determine if the moral determination is altered. Consider the following scenarios.

• 96% of campaign donations by the media are directed towards the Republican party.
• Whites are given preferential access to colleges and jobs.
• Women receive 63% longer jail sentences than men for the same crime.
• Haiti engages in a bombing campaign against the US for not handing over the terrorist Emmanuel Toto Constant.
• Whites commit violent crimes at 7 to 10 times the rate of other races.
• Custody courts rule in favor of men 90% of the time.
• Iran maintains a heavy naval presence in the Gulf of Mexico to ensure oil makes it safely to market from Texan ports, and maintains numerous bases in Mexico, Cuba, and Canada to support them.
• Republicans routinely inflict violence on Democrats to suppress their freedoms of speech and assembly.
• European nations pay a heavy burden for the defense of NATO while the US pays very little.
• All non-white countries are expected to diversity their ethnic compositions. However white countries are free to remain homogeneous.
• Men host nationwide marches but women's rights advocates are widely ridiculed and condemned as misandrists.
• 20 million Americans enter northern Mexico illegally. They take jobs from the locals, enroll in social programs, and frequently vote in Mexican elections.

Do you think any of these scenarios would cause tremendous outrage in mainstream America? If so it might be the case that our society is driven by identity politics more than principles, which does not bode well for the long-term stability of the nation.

Absurdity Times Infinity to the Power of Infinity

I recently came across this post, which seeks to inform readers of a scientific concept that ought to be more widely known: parallel universes.

In 1957, a Princeton physics graduate student named Hugh Everett showed that the consistency of quantum mechanics required the existence of an infinity of universes parallel to our universe. That is, there has to be a person identical to you reading this identical article right now in a universe identical to ours. Further, there have to be an infinite number of universes, and thus an infinite number of people identical to you in them.

In quantum mechanics everything exists as a waveform, which is just a probability distribution. The canonical example is Schroedinger's cat, which shows that not only do we not know the exact state of a thing until we observe it, but the thing doesn't even assume an exact state until it is observed. There have been some experiments to confirm the spooky behavior.

The conclusion reached in the article (disclaimer I'm not familiar with Evertt's work) is that quantum mechanics implies there must be an infinity of universes. And not just an infinity of different universes, but also an infinity of the same universes. Yes, that sounds absurd. But don't worry, it gets worse. According to the author, at each point you make a decision, the universe splits in two. For example, one universe where you pay your taxes, and one you don't. This is alleged to show free will. At each moment you can decide which universe you switch to. You control your own destiny.

This means that at each moment in time, another infinity universes is created. But not just that, because we must consider all the other decisions being made. This introduces combinatorial complexity. So there are on order of infinity to the power of infinity universes created at each moment. Do the old universes get destroyed? The author doesn't say. Perhaps there is a single infinite set of universes and another set of infinite transitions, to make up a sort of multiverse automaton. It does hurt the head to think about this too much.

If universes are constantly created and destroyed, what does this mean? Does it make sense that at each increment in time (according to quantum physicist, the Planck time, a ridiculously small increment) we enter a freshly minted universe? If we exist on a graph in which each of the infinite states of the universe exists an infinite number of times on a graph, what does that say about the fabric of existence?

If the universe splits each time we make a decision, then almost all universes should be wildly chaotic. Think about it. You drive to work. At each increment of time, you decide how to control the wheel. You can direct it down the road, or you can run your car into the ditch. The odds that you ever make it to work are just unfathomable. There is the argument, "well you chose to enter the safe universe by free will." Well what of the universe where I wrecked my car? Clearly I didn't choose the safe universe, I just inherited it by chance. And the chaotic universes vastly outnumber the safe ones.

This simply defies all logic, it defies our understanding of existence, and if indeed quantum mechanics comes to this conclusion, then something is wrong with quantum mechanics. More likely something is wrong with the article.

Now, there is something to be said for multiple universes. The best argument I know of is this: in our world there are a great many constants, for example the gravitational constant, Boltzman's constant, the mass of the electron. It has always been the assumption that these constants fall out of the equations of the universe, just in ways we don't understand yet. As it is, the constants are determined through measurement. A few years ago, after a long search, the Higgs Boson was finally discovered at the Large Hadron particle accelerator in Europe. It was just as theory predicted, with one exception: the mass was way off. Not even close. Here was yet another constant that couldn't be predicted by theory.

The conclusion some physicists started coming to was that the constants are in fact totally arbitrary, which leads to some troubling philosophical suggestions. The constants must be just right for life to exist in the universe, and yet they seem to be arbitrary. If any were just a little different life wouldn't exist at all. The only two conclusions are (1) the constants are divinely set, or (2) there exists a multitude of universes with unique sets of constants. That we exist in one of the few sets that supports life is a tautology. We would have to exist in one of those universes to even ponder the question.

This a multiverse theory that is more palatable. First it only requires a countably infinite number of universes rather than the infinite exponents of the original version. Even more, it doesn't require the incessant creation of infinite universe. Each universe plays out continuously in the way we perceive ours to be.