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Bad Ideas and Good Ideas

October 31, 2014 //

I want to talk about bad ideas and good ideas.

Bad ideas originate from many directions. They can be based on the convictions of so-called gurus – the L. Ron Hubbards, or the Andrew Wakefields of this world – whose insane teachings are cherished like nuggets of gold by their many advocates. They can be based merely on a distrust of officialdom, such as is evident in the comments of the New World Order zealots, or the many and varied conspiracy-theorists in our midst. They can arrive from wishful thinking, like belief in angels or the Loch Ness Monster, or the idea that ancient aliens founded cities on the planet long before we arrived. They can be based on literal interpretations of ancient scriptures, evident in fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and Christianity. They can capitalise on fear or feed ancient prejudices, leading to pogroms, slavery and racism.

Bad ideas are like viruses. They are most successful when they exploit the parts of our brain that deal with our strongest emotions – love, fear, joy, loss and hatred. In this way they can persist for generations. Superstitions, astrology, homeopathy, fairy belief, white power, anti-semitism and witch-hunting all have a long, inglorious provenance, but this alone doesn’t make them good ideas. Not one bit.

Bad ideas inhabit a twilight zone, bolstered up by groupthink, forgiven with generous excuses and defended by Byzantine forms of apologetics. When the emperor has no clothes on, attacking the small child becomes the order of the day.

Bad ideas hurt. They sometimes kill. Quack medical practitioners, their heads stuffed with bad ideas, can give advice that endanger their clients’ health. Unscrupulous charlatans can empty the bank accounts of the unwary as they offer them false hope about themselves and loved ones. Governments have gone to war based on bad ideas. Bad ideas cause world leaders to bluster and prevaricate while the world’s climate changes, decade by decade.

Good ideas, by contrast, originate from systems that expose ideas to reality. When ideas don’t work, they are jettisoned in favour of better ideas. Over time, the best ideas rise to the top. Practical trades, such as plumbing and bricklaying, have no time for bad ideas, because they simply do not work. The currency of these professions are good ideas – ones that have stood the test of time, that do what they are intended to do.

Good ideas emerge from science and engineering all the time. We put men on the moon due to a string of great, practical ideas. The computer on your lap, that phone in your pocket, that car you drive, the pacemaker keeping your father’s heart ticking – they all happened because people built good ideas upon good ideas upon good ideas – a solid pyramid of innovation.

Good ideas are hard to come by. Bad ideas are ten-a-penny. In medicine, bad ideas cost lives, so there is a continual search for ideas that have the potential to do great good – to extend the quality of our lives and ease suffering. We’re still not there but each year a few new useful ideas are discovered. In the end, that’s a positive, hopeful story.

We look at race relations differently. We look at human rights and animal rights differently. We look at gender relations and sexuality differently – not because they are the faddish thing to do, but because they concur with objective reality. They match with how things really are when they are put to the test.

I understand the danger of bad ideas. I greatly value good ideas. And that is why I am a sceptic.

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Categories opinions, skeptics

Is Science up for Debate?

May 17, 2014 //

Normally, in the political sphere, the business meeting or on the Internet, there is nothing like a good debate to flush out the issues and get people thinking more deeply about their views. It helps us make up our mind on subjects we might not know a lot about.

Debate has its limitations, however. Some people are better than others at performing it. Irrespective of the merits or strengths of the arguments, good debaters will make themselves appear sympathetic to the audience. They will use pathos and evoke emotion. They will use humour and make use of clever soundbites where possible. There is an element of conjuring in the best debaters: little rhetorical tricks that we in the audience may not be aware of, but can do wonders to get people onside.

There is also a sense that the best ideas from each side can lead to a better position overall. Seeking a middle ground is a viable position for a disinterested viewer to take. The argument can be made that if both views are being represented, then they are somehow equal, and that there are important points to be gained from both sides.

When it comes to scientific issues, public debates don’t work quite so well. First of all, no matter how good a debater you are, it has no effect on the underlying science. A skilled creationist debater can argue until the cows come home that God created the Universe in 6 days. He can use every rhetorical device and trick in the book to persuade his audience, but it doesn’t make evolution and a 4.5 billion year old Earth any less true. So too with gravity,  or any number of well established scientific theories. These theories were not developed in the courtroom, or by TV debates, or by pressure groups, or forums on the Internet. There was no appeal to the public to decide their veracity. They came about in the lab, through field work, experimentation, data analysis and published papers. Sure, there would have been debates – many of them – but these debates are technical and professional ones, focused on the quality of the evidence and the methods used. Such arguments rarely play well in front of a TV audience.

Secondly, once scientific theories are established, there is no middle ground. Just as 1 plus 1 is always 2, that too is usually the case in science. Reality works in particular ways. Gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear physics and biochemistry all operate on strict physical laws that don’t change just because someone doesn’t like them. A good thing it is too, as our computers, the cars we travel on, and the boilers for our hot water would not work if it were not the case.

You can’t just come along and equate your opinion or belief, no matter how deeply held, with a well established scientific principle, unless you have serious evidence to back it up. There is no sense that creationism is partly true. No sense that the successive dilutions advocated by homeopathy are of any practical use. Why? Because their advocates have not brought any useful evidence to the table, properly supporting their beliefs, while at the same time accounting for everything else that the existing scientific theories tell us. To take the middle ground in such cases, you are comparing apples, not with other apples, but with a copy of a facsimile of what once used to be an orange but now could be a giraffe, or anything you are having yourself. A scientific theory can only be modified or upended by better scientific evidence, not by a change in public opinion.

Equating pseudo-scientific opinion with well established science is known as “false balance”. It’s widely practiced in the media, where the he-said / she-said debating format is in wide use. A frequent outcome is that a casual listener can come away believing in nonsense, merely because the rhetoric on the nonsensical side of the argument was more persuasive than the expert view.

False balance is everywhere. Creationists in America have tried every trick in the book to inject their particular brand of stupidity into the US education system. There have been incessant efforts to put alternative medicine on a par with actual medicine, despite a long-standing failure to establish scientific plausibility, or to prove their modalities work better than placebo. Climate change deniers are active in the public sphere, using techniques borrowed from creationists and tobacco companies to cast doubt on the research. In Ireland, anti-fluoridation groups are seeking to change public health policy, despite numerous research studies giving fluoridation a green light at low dosages. All of these groups use public debate and public pressure as proxies instead of proper scientific research – because the science does not support their position.

Many prominent scientists are reluctant to engage in debates of this nature because it gives the other side a recognition that they don’t deserve, and offers the possibility of losing a debate because their rhetorical skill might not be as good as the other person’s. These are genuine concerns, however it’s a problem because public pressure and public debate can, and does, move the needle. It is possible for laws to be changed despite the best efforts of scientists. Legislators are rarely scientifically educated themselves. Simply avoiding debate gives all kinds of pressure groups a carte blanche to force through the most wrong-headed legislation possible.

I am minded of Christopher Hitchens, who never shirked any debates, even when his opponent’s points were extreme, terrifyingly offensive and in no sense based on reality. He recognised that how we learn things is based on science, but how we move forward is by public debate. We need both the sense of discovery and the ability to persuade. We need good communicators who can counter the propagandists from the other side while making a forceful case for science in public policy.

The following video is an oldie but a goodie. Dara O’Briain outlines the problem of false balance better than I ever could.

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Categories science, skeptics

On Scepticism

April 22, 2014 //

I did a radio interview a few weeks ago, and in it, I discussed homeopathy, acupuncture, salt therapy and chiropractic. Needless to say, the interview was followed by a range of alternative practitioners all calling in to defend their methods. The interviewer also read out a number of texts and emails, all pretty much saying the same thing: that I was just a closed-minded begrudger who should be a bit less dismissive about things he doesn’t understand.

Image

“Thinking” by ores2k (CC Licenced)

It’s a common belief that sceptical people are somehow lacking in imagination and empathy. According to some, when we look at the world, we moan and groan at the stupidity we see around us. Somehow, most other people are lesser beings, and while we cast doubt and criticise, they are out in the world getting on with their lives. What a miserable, negative lot we are!

The thing is, I don’t see it like that at all. As a person, I’m not terribly negative about things, and most other sceptical people I know have similar attitudes. Indeed, what I see around me, when I visit sceptical conferences and organise my own get-togethers, are wildly interesting people. Among the sceptical community, you will find writers and musicians; painters, comedians and poets. You will find fantasists, willing to consider life far into the future and worlds yet to be discovered. You will meet people with great talents, and those with huge burdens to bear. There is a passion to our discourse, some sadness, and many, many laughs. The sceptical community is just like any community on the planet, as varied and fascinating as a patchwork quilt.

So, what makes us different? If there is something that distinguishes us from others, it is this: we are driven by a curiosity about how the world really works. From this, we believe that the best way to understand it is to consider the evidence that exists for it. If you are asking us to accept something as true, we will ask how well it is supported. If it has good backup, it will be discussed, considered, explored and toyed with for the possibilities that it may offer. If it has little or no support, then acceptance will be withheld, until such time, if ever, that better evidence comes to light. Over time, you develop a sense of whether an idea is worthwhile or not: a “baloney detector kit”, as it were, helping you sort the good ideas from the bad ones.

A glance at my bookshelf reveals books about the origins of life, the story of Galileo, the scramble for Africa, Richard Feynman, the Ice Age, the Crusades, the stories of civilisation, great epidemics and the life and times of an executioner in 17th Century Nuremberg – hardly the library of a cynical begrudger. It would pain me greatly if I was ever to be parted from them. I am possessed with a desire to know and understand what I can, and yet not be fooled in the process. To me, scepticism is part of the process of gathering knowledge. Without it, knowledge is meaningless, as you cannot distinguish the worthwhile ideas from the chaff.

Scepticism is a state of mind. It doesn’t mean I get angry every time I see something I disagree with, or that I’m always writing angry letters to newspapers complaining about the latest fad. Most of the time, it simply allows me to be discriminating in what I wish to spend time on. There are only so many battles you can fight.

That doesn’t imply that there are no issues to discuss. Scepticism gives me a perspective on which to look at the world, and from this viewpoint, I see charlatans – psychics, faith healers and cancer quacks – exploiting peoples hopes and vulnerabilities with non-existent cures. I see anti-vaccination groups scaring parents, thus bringing rare diseases back amongst our children. I see cult religions warping people’s lives when they could have been doing so much else. I see political think-tanks questioning the science on climate change, thus condemning future generations to a potentially dreadful future. These are issues that affect us all. My concerns are human concerns, focused on the best of what life has to offer us, and rejecting the worst. I’m just coming at it from a slightly different angle.

Ultimately, I think scepticism is a hopeful stance. I believe that we humans have the capability to extend our survival as a species and to make all our lives better during our short stay on the planet. We can solve many of the problems that beset us, but it will require hard work, trial, error and great insight. In the end, it’s less about ideology and more about the role of science, technology, education and a good dose of common human decency, in addressing the many challenges that we face, now and in the future.

So, it’s not all about begrudgery and negativity. Quite the opposite – scepticism is about intellectual honesty, unquenchable curiosity and truly great ideas. It is accessible to all, both young and old. As a perspective, it is valuable and satisfying, both emotionally and mentally. It is a viewpoint shared by many of the world’s greatest thinkers, scientists and innovators. If only our political classes would consider it more seriously! We sceptics still have quite a job to do to convince people that our stance is important and worthwhile, but in the end I am hopeful. After all, we have an important ally on our side: reality.

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Categories skeptics

Why is science so important?

April 5, 2014 //
epsos

Wooden Sculpture (CC image via EpSos.de)

Why is science important?

Some people think science is all about wild-haired, bespectacled geeks in lab coats, holding beakers and marvelling at their latest fantastic breakthroughs. Then there are the people who believe it to be some sort of church, where immutable truths are held in sacred reverence. Many consider it to be just a type of opinion, prone to change its mind with the same regularity as teenage fashion. In the worst case, it is condemned as an enterprise of pure evil, determined to foist dangerous chemicals, foods and drugs on a compliant public. All of these are lazy, small minded caricatures of what science is.

Put simply, science is about trial and error. Scientists test ideas against reality; dumping the failed ideas and retaining the successful ideas for further scrutiny. Ideas that survive multiple, repeated testing gain greater validity. Over time, the best ideas become part of the consensus of knowledge that helps us understand the world and Universe we live in. While all this knowledge is provisional, and subject to change with further evidence and testing, many of the best ideas are doggedly persistent, retaining their power and validity after many decades, and even centuries, of close examination. Gravitation and Evolution by Natural Selection are two of the more notable examples.

This process of trial and error is familiar to us all. Computer programmers, debugging thousands of lines of code, understand it only too well. Businesses test competitive strategies, rejecting ones that don’t add to the bottom line. Plumbers, bricklayers and carpenters rely on the fruits of hundreds of years of reality testing, every time they build a house. We eat mushrooms, salad leaves and shellfish, safe in the knowledge that someone, some time in the past, tried them, liked them, didn’t die of poisoning, and told others what they had just eaten. Science is all this, and more. Over the years, it has become very sophisticated in how it can tease out the best approaches from a vast array of flawed ideas.

Science is important because it tells us how things work. Often, it can explain why they work. So, when it comes to explaining something like why vaccines are today used against measles, the trained eye can explain it not only from longitudinal studies on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines, but also though an understanding of the mechanisms of the human immune system and the measles virus itself. Even if there is a lot more to discover, as in the cases of autism and cancer, science can provide a sense of what is known so far and what is yet to be discovered.

Science is furthermore important because it also tell us what doesn’t work and the reason why this might be so. So when crystal healers tout their garnets and quartzes as cures for depression, or when homeopaths claim that their sugar pills have medicinal properties, we can reliably challenge their assertions. Pseudo-scientific (“false scientific”) claims like this fly in the face of physics, biology and everything we know about physiology and mental health.

One wonderful thing about science is the many surprising insights that have been made about the nature of the world around us. Discoveries such as DNA, quantum mechanics, electromagnetism and relativity – to name but a few – have revolutionised our understanding of the world while driving massive improvements in technology and the world economy. We need to keep in mind that without science, such discoveries would never have been made.

Science can also provide the most useful hints toward future discoveries, cures and treatments. The knowledge already built up leads to interesting pathways deserving of further research, and from this, real breakthroughs may arise. Without such a starting point, we are unlikely to make much progress in fields such as cancer control, neurological disorders, climate change and the many other problems of our times. To propose and promote solutions in such areas while remaining ignorant of existing knowledge about the problem is foolish in the extreme.

There is an integrity to science. Despite many different political systems around the world, there is no “Islamic science”, or “Eastern science” – it’s just science. The same methods are taught in science classes everywhere there is a commitment to good education. And despite many attempts by politicians and charlatans to interfere with the scientific process for their own ends, it stands firm, even if this means loss of funding and favour. This is particularly the case in the environmental debates of the present time.

For these and other reasons, science is worth promoting and defending. Many groups seem intent to promote anti-scientific agendas, or, more usually, cherry picking the bits of science they like, while rejecting outright the bits that don’t conform to their ideologies. It’s difficult to be blasé when confronted with such opposition. A lessening of the value of science, in our classrooms and public spaces, is ultimately a rejection of what we have learned as a species. It debases a process of inquiry that has served us so well in the past and should continue to do so in the future.

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Categories skeptics

The Triumph of Bluster

March 11, 2014 //

Yesterday, Cork County Council recommended by a “huge majority” to stop the use of fluoride compounds in public water supplies. Under pressure from the council, the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney, has agreed to appoint a group of international experts to review the fluoridation of Ireland’s drinking water.

Water fluoridation was introduced in Ireland in the 1960’s to reduce dental cavities, after other countries had reported significant success in their own fluoridation programmes. Fluoride compound ingestion does have side-effects, so the issue has always been about establishing the correct dosage for safe use. Currently, the recommended dosage in Ireland is 0.8 ppm, which is substantially lower than the US Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum safe dosage of 4 ppm. The only established side effect of fluoridation at low levels is dental fluorosis – a temporary discolouration or mottling or teeth that is mainly observed in children. To date, and despite extensive study across the globe, no major health organisation has been able to establish a link between fluoridation and any other health impacts. The conclusion is that, so long as the levels are below international safe guidelines, it’s safe to drink the water.

That’s not the conclusion our esteemed councillors appear to have reached. From listening to their soundbites, you would be lead to believe that we are in the middle of a major public health disaster.

 “Some of the countries we are exporting food to are now calling into question the use of fluoride in our food products and this would be very detrimental to the food industry.”

Cllr Adrian Healy, FG

 “It contravenes the EU Convention on Human Rights. Nearly all countries in the EU have stopped it.”

Cllr Christopher O’Sullivan, FF

This is “Dr. Strangelove” territory.

The inspiration for all this scaremongering is a highly organised campaign group in West Cork, running under “The Girl Against Fluoride” (TGAF) banner. They are running an energetic and effective campaign, with a large support base. They have successfully grabbed the ear of anyone who will listen, including plenty of local politicians.

However, running a slick campaign and determining public health policy based on the best scientific facts are two totally different things. TGAF cherry picks data from wherever they can find it, linking current levels water fluoridation to thyroid problems, lowered IQ, cardiovascular problems, osteoporosis, cancer and kidney disease. If only the peer reviewed literature supported them! For example, a Harvard study quoted by them on lowered IQ is based on excessive amounts of fluoride in China, and not on the minimal amounts in Irish water supplies.

As if to lend credibility to their campaign, TGAF are supportive of notorious quacks such as Joseph Mercola and Stanislaw Burzynski, of which much else could be written. If the science is against them, then clearly their opponents are on the take, stooges of Big Fluora, or sheeple who have not yet woken up to the truth. The message is that scientists and public health advisors are working against the people and that they know better – classic conspiracy thinking. If they reach their goal of making Irish water fluoride free, one wonders what their next target will be? Childhood vaccines, perhaps? Antibiotics, maybe?

If public health experts conclude that water fluoridation is no longer required in Ireland based on the success of other measures, then I have no problem with this. The problem here is how the fluoride debate is being pushed – primarily via scaremongering and bluster – from an organisation that prefers emotion and fear over rational analysis.

The developments in Cork County Council yesterday indicate that anti-scientific and conspiratorial thinking is making strong inroads into public debate and that all you need to overturn good public health policy is a highly motivated campaign group. This is not a good portent for the future.

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For more on this I recommend you read David Robert Grimes’s excellent blog post on the same subject.  Also, please look at Gerry Byrne’s “Inside the mind of an anti-fluoridationist”. 

 

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Categories Uncategorized

QED Con, 2013

April 17, 2013 //

Last weekend, I returned to Manchester to attend QED Con 2013. This is the biggest event in the UK and Ireland for folks interested in skepticism. It didn’t disappoint. The talks and discussions were superb.

QED: Audience at the Robin Ince / Brendan O'Neill debate

QED: Audience at the Robin Ince / Brendan O’Neill debate

First up was Stevyn Colgan, who gave a great talk about questioning assumptions in urban policing. Stevyn talked about how crime prevention needed to focus on more than just the perpetrator: the victim and the environment need to be considered too. Innovative solutions such as fake vomit, pink lighting and dog shows have their place in preventing anti-social behaviour, it seems. His talk was a discussion of how lateral thinking had produced measurable, sustainable results in preventing crime and reducing antisocial behaviour.

Next up was Helen Czerski, who struggled for the first part of her talk to get the presentation software to behave. Her talk focused on how interesting physics is all around us in everyday life and how science is for everyone, not just scientists. The talk was packed with fascinating anecdotes about bumblebees, eggs and coccolithospores (i.e. chalk).

Brooke Maganti spoke about sex, dodgy statistics and challenging assumptions about male and female inclinations in society. Her work has revealed big problems in claims of newspapers and advocacy organisations. Oh, and we’re all sex addicts.

I then attended the Skeptics in the Pub forum. As an SITP organiser in Cork, I’m scratching my head for new ideas as I look to change the format of our meetings and events. The ideas were there in abundance – storytelling events, science walks, topical subjects, civility policies, and engagement with the press and radio.

QED: Is Science the New Religion

Robin Ince lays into Brendan O’Neill during the “Is Science a New Religion?” debate.

The next meeting was “Is Science a New Religion?”, featuring Robin Ince, Brendan O’Neill and Helen Czerski. Brendan O’Neill took the view that scientists had far too much influence in the political process and that they were assuming the mantle of high priest within the power structures of society. The perspective from many there was that the reverse was the case: politics was all the poorer because of inadequate attention to evidence, except when it suited the politicians. Parliament and Government is also vastly under-represented by scientists. O’Neill got a hard time at the meeting, but I will say that differing views are important at gatherings like this. Challenging assumptions is what scepticism is about, after all.

Dr. Rachel Dunlop then spoke about the anti-vaccination movement in Australia. It’s quite a case study. The anti-vaxxers, who disingenuously call themselves the “Australian Vaccination Network” are good examples of unsinkable rubber ducks – no matter how hard you prove them wrong and challenge them in the media, they keep coming back for more. The Australian skeptics have been effective in countering false balance in their media organisations, with some measurable success.

Richard Dawkins then did an interview with Robin Ince, talking mainly about his books and ideas over the last 40 years of writing. He spoke of how Newton managed a far greater feat of understanding compared to Darwin, and yet preceded Darwin by 200 years, and how talking about Santa can be a teaching moment for kids when they eventually begin to question his existence. He had no easy answer for the human propensity for self-deception, but he did point to innovations such as the double-blind trial as tools to help people move away from dodgy thinking and poor conclusions. He also made the point that religion is not necessarily the enemy – that dogma is. Dogmas do not have to be religious to be enormously destructive.

That night we were treated to an awards ceremony and the enormous comic talents of Chris Cochrane, Michael Legge and Mitch Benn. It was hugely enjoyable.

On day 2, Carrie Poppy started proceedings by talking about how skeptics should engage more with proponents of woo by eating their dog-food, as it were. She has spent the last few years going on cleansing diets, attending a UFO cult, becoming a Mormon and submitting to acupuncture so that we don’t have to. She encourages us to try it ourselves, so we can understand more where the other side is coming from and so we can better use our anecdotes as a means of public communication.

QED: The God Panel

Mitch Benn, Laurence Krauss, Richard Dawkins and Carrie Poppy talk about God.

We then had a “God Panel” featuring Richard Dawkins, Mitch Benn, Carrie Poppie, Mike Hall and Laurence Krauss. Dawkins said that it was understandable that kids believe in God given that it is so beautiful, complicated and apparently ordered. Laurence Krauss says its more amazing that we have outgrown this simplest belief. Mitch Benn challenged Atheism Plus as people trying to turn “not a thing” into “a thing”, thereby giving critics ammunition to throw in our direction. It was an energetic and fast paced discussion all round.

There was a discussion on legal issues and defamation, appropriate in the light of the defamation bill in the UK. Ian Rushton, a member of the Crown Prosecution Service was there as were Simon Singh and Helen Dale, a solicitor based in Scotland. They talked about social media and how even retweets could be seen as libellous in certain jurisdictions.

QED: The Tree of Life

You Are Here in the Tree of Life.

Up next was Adam Rutherford, who gave a very good, accessible talk about the origins of life. Starting with the Hapsburgs and their weird family tree, he brought us through the many ideas throughout history, from creation myths to primeval soup. The second bit of his talk, on genetic modification, was just as interesting.

Finally we had Laurence Krauss, who gave a fascinating talk about the origin of the universe and how it’s stranger than we can possibly imagine. It was a great talk that brought in dark matter, dark energy and the disappearance of all the galaxies in the sky, many billions years in the distant future. “You are far more insignificant than you could ever imagine”. Don’t we know, Laurence. Don’t we know.

All in all a terrific bunch of speakers and entertainers. The pity is that I missed out on so many other great talks, such as Richard Saunders, Natalie Haynes, Mark Lynas and Rose Shapiro. Maybe next year.

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Gun crime : towards cool headed solutions

December 15, 2012 //

Another day, another truly sickening mass murder in the US.

English: Caliber .45 ACP Pistols. From left to...

English: Caliber .45 ACP Pistols. From left to right: Glock 21, Sig Sauer P220 Combat, Colt 1911 Rail Gun. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This time, a man managed to kill 27 people, including 20 young children, during a shooting spree in a Connecticut elementary school. His weapons of choice: two handguns and a Bushmaster .223 caliber semi-automatic rifle.

Nobody really expects things to change after this. Even though this counts as one of the worst gun outrages in US history, the power of the NRA, along with blanket opposition to gun restrictions means that the only outcome is likely to be a few extra lines in America’s grim firearm mortality records.

People, who should never be let within an ass’s roar of a powerful weapon, will continue to purchase firearms with impunity. The building up of private arsenals will not abate. The senseless murders will persist. America will lead the developed world in gun violence.

Any sensible person should be able to reason that mass murders like this, and murders in general, are unconscionable in a civil society. Presumably, it is the will of the vast majority of people that something be done to reduce these horrific statistics as aggressively as possible. It is also reasonable to assume that things can be done, given the right circumstances.

Gun violence, like most other things, is driven by certain factors. Identifying these factors and implementing policies to manage them or eliminate them is therefore both judicious and necessary.

Let me digress for a moment. Forty years ago, Ireland had some of the worst road death statistics in Europe. At times during the 1970s, over 600 people died on Irish roads. This was at a time when car ownership was far less than it is today. Today, the road death rate is less than 200 – a decrease of 66% on those grim figures. The reason for the drop, in Ireland as well as many other countries around the world, has been due to a raft of different measures from penalty points, to random breath testing, to airbags, to better testing and training. Road deaths were driven by multiple factors. Identifying and addressing all of them, in a comprehensive way, helped to control the problem. There are many other examples of initiatives such as this making a real and substantial difference in improving health and avoiding early mortality.

America is stuck in a situation where a cool-headed analysis of the root causes of gun violence has not been sufficiently translated into any sort of sensible public policy. Instead, the country has been happy to let rhetoricians and lobby groups hold sway. Rather than doing whatever it can to address and reduce the incidents of mass murder, the citizenry gets soundbites, right-wing propaganda and slogans.

Rhetoric and sloganeering will not solve the gun violence problems of America. Sensible initiatives, from a wide range of perspectives, will do it. Comparing America’s experience to initiatives in different countries, and implementing similar policies locally, will help. Keeping all factors on the table and identifying the real root causes is essential.

It’s time that people stopped presuming that their sacred idols are above reproach or beyond sensible analysis. A wide range of initiatives should be implemented and supported. Some may work, others not: but that is how science works. These initiatives need to encompass gun ownership, mental health, advertising, gun-culture, arms manufacture and trading, among many others. In this way, America’s gun-murder problems can be solved.

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Categories opinions

And yet, planes fly

November 22, 2012 //

Jet Trails over Canberra-1

And yet, planes fly.

This is a phrase that often comes to mind when people question the value and utility of science, or diminish its importance in the world today.

It cuts through the objections: that science can be biased, or imperfect, or financially driven, or chaotic, or fraudulent, or philosophically unsound, or just one idea among many.

Sometimes, these criticisms are valid. There are many instances where science has been hampered by fraudulent and unethical behaviour, where scientists have taken appalling short cuts and or adjusted data because it didn’t fit preconceived notions, where bullying and a dogmatic over-reliance on unsound theories has hampered progress. You could write a book on it.

And yet, planes fly.

Big ones too. Gigantic 300 tonne planes, travelling at 900 kilometres per hour, at 40,000 feet above the ground. Right now, a few of them are routinely ploughing their way through the stratosphere en route to various destinations across the planet.

All this would not have been possible if it were not for the efforts of generations of scientists and engineers. These people sought to understand and exploit the physical properties of this world, using rational thought, experimentation and argument to allow us to leave the ground and do something that would have been unimaginable to countless generations.

When I say “yet planes fly”, I am only tipping a snowflake on the tip of an enormous iceberg. And yet, computers work. Washing machines work. Mobile phones work. We’ve put men on the Moon. Cured and treated cancers. Eradicated ancient diseases. Increased food supply. People now live longer. Babies are born that otherwise wouldn’t be. Most children survive to adulthood. Mothers can better plan their families and their futures. We can peer back to the beginnings of time and examine the most fundamental components of the Universe. All this, and much more, because of science. All this, despite the problems inherent within the scientific process.

It may seem trivial to point to aeroplanes and these other examples and point them out as astonishing products of the scientific process. Even the most ardent pseudoscience devotee is likely to accept that science has yielded huge discoveries and benefits. The point, however, is that, faults and all, it remains the most successful mode of understanding the world and dealing with problems that humans have ever concocted. It has succeeded where mysticism, homeopathy, religion and new age doctrines have not. Indeed, they seem to occupy the ever-decreasing areas where significant progress is still limited.

Such an outlook could be dismissed as scientism: a view that science, on its own, can explain anything and solve any problem. This may not be true, or even possible; but science still remains the most powerful intellectual tool in our arsenal. When it comes to the pressing issues of the day, from global warming and climate change, disease management and genetic disorders, sanitation and overpopulation, I would prefer to have a bunch of scientists and engineers looking at these challenges than anyone else.

So when I see airplanes in the sky, it shows that, limited and all though are species are, and no matter how faulty our processes of discovery, we have nevertheless learned a lot about how the universe works and how we bring those insights to bear on real-life challenges. The problems of the coming century will be very different to those of the last one. They are likely to need the efforts of our best technical brains to tackle and solve. It’s time more people started to wake up to this.

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Categories science, skeptics

Mosquitos: A Small Story

September 3, 2012 //

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Say you have a population of mosquitos. Each mosquito has a needle-like mouth, enabling them to puncture the skin of bigger animals and suck their blood. Some mosquitos have average size needles, some have slightly smaller needles, and some have needles that are just that little bit longer. 

The longer ones enable the mosquitos to suck more blood and to penetrate tougher hide. These mosquitos have a slight advantage compared to their peers. The next generation have longer needles too, so this small benefit tends to spread among later and later generations. 

Over time, all the mosquitos in the population have larger needles. Other mosquitos, in other populations, develop special characteristics to fit their circumstances, so that after a long period of time they look, behave and interact differently to each other.

That’s evolution. Fairly logical, wouldn’t you say? 

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The tyranny of the storyline

April 6, 2012 //

Storytelling may be the most important means of verbal communication that we have. Stories were the standard form of imparting knowledge from generation to generation for millennia. To this day, some of the best forms of entertainment: movies, novels, plays; are ones that tell a story. Children learn stories at an early age by their parents. We were born to narrate, and to be narrated to.

via youngdoo (Flickr / CC Licensed)

A key aspect of good stories is their coherence. Everything in the story contributes to the message the author wishes to impart. A case is built up, line upon line, until a solid, inevitable conclusion is reached. The aim of the storyteller is to build up evidence that convinces the reader; there should be no loose ends. Incongruence is disparaged. To tell a good story is to make it flow like water from source to sea. Coherence is the power of good storytelling.

In life, we tell stories all the time. We use the tools of the narrator to make our message heard, to compete for jobs, to seek enrichment. The best storytellers find tales that contribute to their narratives. If there is a jarring note, they try to write it out of the plot. There are many techniques to do this. Our stories create coherence, direction and conviction in a otherwise chaotic world.

Via Local Studies NSW (Flickr, CC Licensed)

Stories package life into digestible bites, but we all know that life is not so simple. Stories, by their very nature, are distortions of reality. They place greater weight on some incidents, facts, people, findings and opinions; while minimising the importance of other aspects of a situation. They gloss over complexities in the interest of maintaining attention. Two people can create totally different stories from exactly the same event. If we want to understand real events, we need to treat individual stories with great caution.

Stories are often central to the world-views of people. At the heart of all great political movements, religions, fads and management theories are narratives – ways of looking at the world that emphasise certain aspects while dismissing contradictory information. The filters are so great that people go to the grave convinced of their certainty, even when all the evidence points in the opposite direction.

We should be thankful that we possess narrative thinking, as it is our greatest communication tool. At the same time, we should mindful of its many weaknesses. There are occasions in life where simple narratives are not enough. There are situations where the distortion field erected by narration needs to be pulled down, so that we can understand reality as it is, faults, blemishes and all.

via TED.com

Fortunately, there is a mode of thinking that recognises the failures of the narrative. It accepts challenges head-on. It seeks to understand the biases that plague our patterns of thought. Through testing and experimentation, it matches our premises to reality. This type of thinking does not come naturally to us. We have only engaged with it, seriously and systematically, over the last 400 years. In that time, it has proven itself over and over again; allowing us to see things as they are, rather than how we think they should be. We have a name for this type of thinking.

We call it science.

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