Everyday science

Scientific Regret

2006-06-26T17:46:00.000-07:00

I was just reminded today of something by Nadine Stair I first read something like twenty years ago:

If I Had My Life to Live Over
I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
I would take more chances.
I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day…

(The complete text can be found here).

Science has finally caught up with popular folk wisdom. A recent study showed that, as people get older, we do indeed regret more the fun things we did not do rather than the mistakes we made (at least the minor ones).

Just a reminder to anyone out there who, like me, tend to always be looking far into the future.

More Evidence Against the Bush Administration’s War on Terror

2006-06-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

A few months ago the Pentagon came out with a new anti-terrorism policy which admitted that nonviolent means of fighting terrorism were more effective than fighting. This was promptly ignored by the Bush administration.

Now more studies are coming out which support this conclusion. A study by the Oxford Research Group indicates that a policy of violence is counter productive because it exacerbates rather than corrects the problems which give rise to terrorism. This is supported by another study which showed that most suicide bombings are done as revenge for wrongs (perceived or actual) done against a group the bomber identifies with. So responding to these acts with more violence simply perpetuates the problem, just as many “peaceniks” have been saying for years.

Will any of these results change the Bush Administration’s policies? Don’t bet on it.

Science sheds some light on medical malpractice lawsuits

2006-05-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

After all the years of debate on medical malpractice lawsuits, it is nice to finally see some reliable facts on it. A nice article in Science News did a pretty good job of discrediting the claim that most (or at least many) of the lawsuits were baseless. In fact, what was found was that there were many more valid claims not paid than invalid claims paid. I guess this makes sense given that the insurance companies could likely hire more and better lawyers than the average medical patient.

The best part about this study was that the cases were evaluated by doctors themselves. I would expect that doctors, if anyone, would tend to side with other doctors and against the people bringing lawsuits against the doctors, but this was not the case. It is always reassuring to see people rise above their own self-interest to be honest with others. I wonder if the reaction of the insurance companies to these results will be so honest.

Corporate funded “science news”

2006-05-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

One of the science blogs I used to recommend, but have since deleted is the impact lab. Too many of their science “articles” look to me to resemble paid corporate advertising or public relations rather than actual science. One example is an article named “Is thinking obsolete?” which claims that the increase in oil and gas prices is completely justified and that anyone who questions this is not thinking. Notice, however, that no actual facts are sited to justify this claim, just some vague statements and rhetorical questions.

OK then, lets take up the challenge and look at some quick facts, shall we? For one, the author implies (by means of a rhetorical question) that the profit on a gallon of gas is less than ten cents. I know enough of “creative accounting” and the methods such as shifting profits to wholly owned subsidiaries to realize that figuring out a large company’s finances can be a major undertaking even for the best accountant, but we can at least look at the overall financial picture:

The price of unleaded gas has increased about 28% or 64 cents/gallon in the last year and about 88% or $1.36/gallon in the past three years. (Prices from aaroadwatch). Meanwhile, the overall US inflation rate has been about 3.5% in the past year and 3% in the past three years. (From inflationdata.com). So someone is making over 50 cents more profit per gallon than last year and over $1.20/gallon more than three years ago. Any claims to the contrary are pure nonsense. Other costs (except medical insurance) have not risen significantly more than the overall inflation rate.

It may be argued that the suppliers have a right to make whatever profit they can from their product and I would be hard pressed to find a scientific argument against that. But when fake science and mathematics are used as justification, then I start doubting whether there truly is a valid excuse.

In any case, if you are looking for valid scientific information, bookmark the sources listed on the right. These people seem to do an honest job of presenting the most accurate information they can. Sciencedaily is an especial favorite of mine lately: I like the way they link to the original source when possible and also have good links to similar information. This makes researching a given topic much easier.

Children (or Possibly Parents) Believe in Science

2006-05-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

There is a great article over on Livescience explaining how children find scientific explanations more believable than religious ones. I thought it interesting tha the explanation was thought to be because parents gave scientific explanations in a more matter of fact tone of voice versus more emotionally for religious explanations. Perhaps because they themselves found the scientific explanations more believable? It is pretty much a given that it is not wise to question another’s religious beliefs unless we are ready to deal with strong emotional reactions. I suppose the reaction is not that much different when the questioner is a child.
On the other hand, the researcher’s explanation for the difference in the children’s reaction does not agree with my own childhood memories. For one thing, I distinctly remember more of the religious explanations I was given than the scientific ones. The reason is that the religious explanations often did not make sense to me, so I spent considerable time afterwards puzzling over them. Also, the scientific explanations that puzzled me became clearer as I grew older, the religious ones continued to be puzzles. Which is why I eventually became a scientist, I suppose.

Exporting American Values?

2006-05-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

Now that the valid-sounding excuses for invading Iraq, like Weapons of Mass Destruction, or al-Qaida links, have been thoroughly discredited, the latest reasoning has been that we are “exporting American values”. Well, lets see just what ideas have been successfully exported to Iraq:

We read every day about more killing in Baghdad, not to mention the rest of Iraq. Since US cities have the world’s highest murder rates, sounds like this important “value” got exported all right.

What is the cause of this violence? Intolerance between the different religious sects, for one. Apparently differing religious beliefs are no longer tolerated in Iraq. Sounds like the values of Pat Robertson and the religious right have a firm foothold in Iraq now.

What is the Iraq government doing about this? Lots of words and no action. Apparently, they have more important things to worry about than the welfare of ordinary citizens. Sounds like a perfect copy of the Bush administration priorities.

Despite being one of the largest suppliers of oil in the world, Iraq has been having severe problems supplying its own citizens with gasoline. Not to mention that billions of dollars worth of oil revenue has somehow disappeared. Remember Enron and so-called power shortage in California? Sounds like the “values” of corporate corruption and theft have found a home in Iraq as well.
So sounds like Bush has finally found a true justification for his war. The only question now is how to properly reward him for his efforts. Something like bringing him in front of the world court for crimes against humanity sounds good.

A god is within each of us?

2006-05-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

What do we do when we have a difficult problem to contend with? Often, we pray, meditate, “sleep on it” and then wait for answers to come to us in dreams, or just out of the blue. These approaches have been successful for thousands of years. The old reasoning has been that god of one type or another has been supplying us with answers. But now science has been giving us a look into what has been going on deep inside our minds, where our consciousness does not go.

For one thing, our unconscious thinking seems to arrive at answers before our thinking mind does. One study showed that we start making correct choices before we realize what the correct choice actually is. So our unconscious mind is making our choices for us, then the conscious mind finally catches on and we understand why what we are doing works.

The unconscious mind also picks up on details that the conscious mind is too busy to notice. So often answers can pop into our consciousness that we did not realize we knew. Again, they were there all the time, but we did not realize it.

We are always unconsciously processing the things we learned, especially in sleep. As this process goes, on, the new ideas are integrated in with the things we already knew. So suddenly a new connection between ideas can be made and new understanding comes, apparently from nowhere. But all this processing does not necessarily good; we can also create false memories by the same technique. So our new understanding should be checked, not just unquestioningly accepted.

When it comes to emotional matters, it seems that letting our unconscious mind alone to do the thinking for us makes for more emotionally satisfying answers. But when our emotions can effect the lives of others, decisions made by our unconscious mind can lead to disastrous results.

On the other hand, our unconscious mind is not a critical thinker and can be easily influenced by extraneous information. So the process where the conscious brain “learns” what the unconscious brain has figured out makes sense: our conscious thinking weeds out the mistakes our unconscious mind makes.

So listen to your internal god, but check the answers for errors with your conscious mind. After all he/she is as human as you are.

National Day of Prayer

2006-05-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

May fourth has been declared a “national day of prayer” in the U.S., so this seems a good time to review the benefits (or otherwise) of prayer.

First of all, as mentioned previously, praying for others does not seem to do them any good. On the other hand, studies do indicate that praying can be good for oneself. The same or similar studies also indicate that the similar benefits can be obtained from things like exercise or meditation, including non-religious meditation. Meditation also required less than an hour a day to be useful, so an entire day does not have to be dedicated to this one task. What then to do with the rest of the day?

Being a blog about science, thinking certainly comes to mind. Fortunately, others believe the same, so I learned that some cool people declared May 4 to also be “national day of reason”. (Thanks Freakgirl!)

Verifying things people have told you is also a useful pastime, so you could check things out on the science sites listed on the right or do a Google search. Even if you don’t find exactly what you are looking for, you are bound to learn something.

On the lighter side, the benefits of prayer depend on what you are praying for, as shown by this old comment:
“When I was young I used to pray for a bike. Then I realized that God doesn't work that way, so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness.”;-)

Whatever you do, have a happy and productive fourth of May day.

Interpreting Scientific Results

2006-04-30T16:43:00.000-07:00

While most aspects of performing scientific studies are pretty solid, interpreting the results of a study is still somewhat of an art, and one that I think could still use some improvement, especially in the case of psychology. Take, for example, a resent study where the subjects were asked to make a choice of betting money on one of two games: one where the odds were a fair fifty-fifty and the other where they did not know the odds. Before you read on, think for a minute or two about which game you would pick and why. (The why is especially important).

The results of the study were that almost everyone picked the fifty-fifty game. They also found that the part of the brain associated with fear was active when the subjects thought about the game with unknown odds. The researchers interpreted this to mean that people were afraid of ambiguity. (More information on this study can be found here).

If the only information available to make a decision was what people were told during the study, then I would tend to agree with the experimenters’ analysis. But people also have past experience to go by (sometimes called “common sense”). When faced with insufficient information, thinking back over past experience seems like a sensible thing to do.

So what has your experience been with betting games of unknown odds? Remember when you were young and some other kid came up to you and said “Want to bet…”? The other kid always won, no matter how safe the bet seemed to be, didn’t he? How about casinos and state lotteries? Ever seen one designed to give money out instead of take it in? Not me. So it seems like the people in this study were perfectly right to be nervous and distrustful of the unknown risk game and picking the fair one really was the best choice.

People who know me or have read much of my blog know I am a fan of the scientific approach to understanding reality. But that does not mean unquestioningly trusting the results of a single study. Using our own brains and experience is always a good habit to develop.

Embracing Reality

2006-04-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

One thing that most religions have, but the secular world lacks, is a comprehensive guide to how to live one’s life. Sure, there have been philosophers (dating back at least to Aristotle) who have given their opinions on many topics. But these were the thoughts of individual people while religious texts were more often selected from many sources (note the current controversy over the recently-discovered Judas gospel). A secular version of this, a compilation of advice and thoughts from many sources has never been created.

A wiki web site called Embracing Reality is an attempt to do just that. It is intended to be a guide to living based on purely secular sources: scientific studies and independent observations and thoughts of the world around us. All based on reality. No need for myths or magic or the imagined.

Is this an arrogant and impossibly grand task? Perhaps. But what I think makes this possible is that it is, like Wikipedia, relying on the contributions from as many people as possible. People from many different backgrounds, all with their own experiences, expertise and understanding of life. One does not have to be a scientist or philosopher. These people already have places they publish. This is about getting these ideas and putting them together in a way that ordinary folk can use.

There is not much on the web site yet. As of this writing, it is just a day old. But I have high hopes. If enough people are willing to take some of their time to add something of value, then this could make a significant difference in people’s lives.

So make a positive difference in the world, contribute a bit of your knowledge today.

Think Today

2006-04-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

During random internet surfing I came across an interesting picture of a speedboat accident. What caught my attention, besides the obvious lack of attention that would cause someone to hit a stationary pole in open water, was the name “Temporary Insanity” and numeral “II”. Apparently this is not the first time this person has lost control.

This seems a perfect example of a disturbing attitude: that foolish, irresponsible behavior is not only acceptable, but even something to brag about. “Boy was I drunk last night, I don’t remember a thing!” “I got my motorcycle over 130MPH over on I-8!” "I bought a boat I can't afford, but boy is it hot!"

The Darwin Awards make fun of those who lose their lives while doing foolish things. But I think everyone can and should learn to use their brain to regulate their impulses. This is what the logic portion of the brain was made for.

While some people think of impulsiveness in terms of being spontaneous and having fun, scientific studies indicate that it is more often harmful (such as the example in the picture). Self-destructive behaviors ranging from smoking to suicide all are associated with this type of poor self-control.

It is a matter of education. Not the sort of rote learning that gets you a passing grade on the test; even a parrot can recite stuff back. It is understanding and critical thinking that people need to be taught. Unfortunately, it seems that many political and business leaders would rather have people obedient rather than thoughtful. Vote Republican/Democrat: the other side is evil. Buy my product, lots of it. The consequences be damned.

So think today and live a long life. There is too much happiness that the years can bring to risk missing it all over an uncontrolled impulse, even if you make a joke about it and call it “temporary insanity”.

Science Needs Public Relations

2006-04-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

LiveScience had a great article on people’s interest in Science. However, I differ with them somewhat on the interpretation of the results.

The good news, which they emphasize, is that there are 60million Americans “intellectually curious”, which was interpreted as being interested in Science. The even better news, from my perspective, was that 47% of those who were passionate about science were women. Yay! We need more women involved in science.

The bad news was that over half of the people surveyed (55%) thought that science was not relevant to their lives. Ouch. The irony of this is that these people were participating in a scientific survey.

Apparently too many people still do not realize how pervasive science is in their lives: any communication more sophisticated than yelling out the window to tell the neighbor’s kid to stop stomping around in your flower patch is based on science. Same thing with transportation and medicine. Even advertising and TV programming all are based on scientific surveys of what people want to hear. (What do you think Nielson ratings are?) Perhaps the problem is that we are like fish in a pond: we are so surrounded by science that we take it for granted.

The fault is also due to scientists themselves. We are so wrapped up with publishing and debating the latest discoveries, things which will have no real effect on people’s lives for many years that we forget to talk about the “old stuff” which is changing people’s lives right now.

Know any good P.R. firms?

The Cause and Solution to Political Ethics Scandals

2006-04-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

We all have been reading about the problems our representatives in Washington D.C. have been having with corruption and how poor a job they have been doing in correcting the problem. The deeper problem is simply that politics is not self-regulating. As demonstrated in a study by Emory University, even ordinary people will excuse the faults of politicians in their own party. How much more difficult it must be for the politicians themselves, who have committed themselves to those parties to a much greater extent than private citizens. It is clearly unreasonable to expect these people to regulate their own behavior the way Scientists and Journalists do. No wonder the government’s own internal ethics panel is doing nothing.

All people and organizations have some problems with self-control or self-regulation. When this happens, the solution is to have some external controls in place. Friends, neighbors and acquaintances let us know when we are stepping out of line. When this does not work, there is the law. However, the law is not a good regulatory method when we are trying to control the behavior of those who create the laws. Some sort of external control is needed.

The existing solution is elections. As we see in the news, every time there is an election year, the politicians suddenly start worrying about what the voters are thinking and are afraid of passing any legislation that will arouse the wrath of the general public. The rest of the time, they could not care less. Making every year an election year would be one solution, but would require an amendment to the constitution, which would take years. A quicker solution would be similar to what many police departments have: an outside agency which monitors and reports on unethical or questionable behavior. Again, since the law makers have to create this agency, this has been voted down.

Secrecy is another problem. Both Science and Journalism are about releasing information, so hiding mistakes and ethical lapses is not a possibility. Politicians, on the other hand, are more and more prone to secrecy in their dealings. The president regularly has meetings on policy which is supposed to benefit the citizens of this country, yet what transpired at those meetings is kept secret from said citizens. Why is that? Earmarks and riders are allowed to be added to bills after the bills have been debated and the identity of the person responsible does not have to be revealed. Why not, unless this behavior is something to be ashamed of?
Not that the federal government has any monopoly on ethics scandals. San Diego, CA has had recent problems with scandals on the government retirement system and bribery by the local sex industry. (Is it a coincidence that these were also all Republicans?) Maybe the solution is to fix the system locally where laws can be passed by ordinary citizens and frighten the national leaders into taking action.

The Biases of Scientists and News Reporters

2006-04-16T13:30:00.000-07:00

As mentioned previously, everyone has biases. The trick to compensating for them is to know what they are. Individual news reporters and scientists each have their own biases, which can vary all over the place. However, as a group, both of these categories seem to have a common weakness: they want to announce something new.

For news sources, this is obvious. Being the first to have a “scoop” gains the source prestige and more readers/viewers. (Everybody wants to be the first in the know. It also gives them status around the water cooler at work). This is also true for scientists: fame (and often fortune) come from being the first to discover something new.

Since we are all influenced by our emotions (whether we admit it or not), this desire to find something new makes us less inclined to check our results before we announce our great discovery to the world, especially when we think the competition is breathing down our necks. Remember 60 Minutes exposé of President Bush’s National Guard service and all the controversy that followed. Apparently, the people involved honestly believed they had valid information, but did not check things carefully before rushing to get the story out: they were worried about the competition publishing first (article).

The same sort of thing occurred in cold fusion. The public announcement by Pons and Fleischmann (instead of going through a refereed journal was done mainly to get ahead of Steven Jones (see Wikipedia article). These people also believed they had something good, but did not check things carefully enough.

These two examples show another similarity between science and journalism: they both tend to be self-correcting. When one scientist or journalist presents something incorrect or questionable, a competitor is quick to point out the mistakes. In both cases competition for status provides the checking and correcting needed to stay in touch with reality. No external correction seems needed. The question is why this does not occur in other disciplines. Politics, in particular, seems like it should be self-correcting (with the competing parties), but we see that obvious mistakes can continue uncorrected for years. Perhaps this is because the only time real correction can occur is at elections, which are years apart. Perhaps some faster form of corrective feedback is needed here. Or perhaps it is because there is too much attention to perceptions rather than reality that keeps mistakes from getting fixed.
An interesting side effect of this desire by scientists to come up with new ideas to replace old ones is that it demonstrates the robustness of ideas which withstand these attacks. When something like the Theory of Evolution remains little changed after generations of scientists who would love the fame that would come from being the one to present a better answer shows just how difficult coming up with a better answer is.

Dealing with biased information

2006-04-15T13:51:00.000-07:00

An anonymous poster here pointed out (correctly!) that some news sources are highly biased and are still widely read or viewed. This works because we are all biased to some degree and are reassured when we hear others validate our views. So a news source that has the same bias as a large segment of the population can be very popular. The problem with this (for those of us who want accuracy rather than affirmation) is that there is nothing to correct us when our views are mistaken. So how can we deal with this?

First of all, an information source which puts out incorrect or misleading information without correcting its mistakes is clearly of no use, so should be ignored. Even if they are sometime correct, there is no way to know which times this is happening. Like the stopped clock, they may be correct twice a day, but without an accurate clock, how can we know when? It is the working clock which has value, not the broken one. An information source which puts out false information, is by definition broken.

While a perfectly unbiased source is the ideal, an accurate but biased source can still be useful. A clock which is always ten minutes slow is perfectly good as long as we know how far off it is and correct for it. Similarly, an information source which gives correct information, but only information which agrees with its biases can also be useful, especially when the bias is the opposite of our own. This gives us guaranteed access to information which can improve our own understanding, if only of why other people believe as they do.

Unfortunately, gathering our own information on most subjects is impossible. No single person can do all the traveling needed to actually get first-hand information, even in the US alone, never mind world-wide. So we are stuck with finding sources we can trust.

For accurate new reporting, Associated Press and Reuters (available at Yahoo’s News page) seem to be pretty good at putting out facts with minimal manipulation. USA Today, on the other hand, tends to openly put commentary into their stories which appears to have no purpose but to be manipulative. (Check out the opening sentence on what was supposed to be a news story about Tom Delay. This sounds to me like Mark Anthony’s “we have come to bury Caesar, not to praise him” manipulation). I finally gave up reading USA Today: I never found any information here that I could believe without first checking someplace else. A classic “stopped clock”. CNN is somewhere in the middle for me. I rarely agree with their point of view, but I sometimes find something which gets me thinking in new ways.
Does anyone out there have any favorite news or analysis sources they have found to be trustworthy? A compendium, combined with defined areas of accuracy (no one can be an expert on more than one or two subjects) would be invaluable.

Not Enough Time Continued: Finding Good Analysis

2006-04-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

As mentioned yesterday, accurate information seems readily available, but there is still the problem of taking the time to gather it all together (since the needed information may be spread across many days or from many different sources) and doing an accurate analysis. Clearly, it would be nice if there were people we could rely on to do this for us on topics which we do not have the time to become experts on.

One common approach (not recommended) is to simply find analysts who agree with our preconceived notions and listen to them. However, this violates the basic principle of science in that we want to correct our mistakes, not reinforce them. A somewhat better method is to find out what the most popular opinion is and go along with that. The problem with this is that it does not take into account that new ideas (which may be much better than the old ones) are almost always unpopular at first. Unpleasant truths also tend to be unpopular, which does not make them any less correct. A better approach is to listen to many analysts and find out which ones are the least biased and the most scientific in their analysis.

How do we determine the trustworthiness of a source? First, do they cite facts to back up their judgments? Without complete information, the best logic in the world is pretty much worthless. Do they look at facts which seem to contradict their analysis and address them reasonably (unemotionally)? This is the all-important error checking part of science. Unless there is evidence that they are doing this, it is likely that they are not truly correcting their errors.

Another check one can do is to see if the analyst has a vested interest in the point of view he is espousing. If this is the case, he is unlikely to be able to deal fairly with the opposing point of view. Again, most politician fall into this category. Since they have taken a stand with one party or the other, it becomes virtually impossible to admit when the other side has a valid point.
Another indication which is often useful is if the analyst admits that the opposing points of view have some validity. Most issues we have to deal with in our daily lives are complex and have no single cause or solution. An analyst who oversimplifies a complex issue to try to justify his view is not to be trusted. This is not always the case, however. Take evolution versus intelligent design for example. In this case, there really is no substance to most of the ID arguments. Also note the way scientists regularly address ID claims in a detailed and factual way as mentioned above as a necessity for doing a good analysis. It is not that common, but there truly are situations where there is a right and wrong side to an argument.

Who has time to be a scientist?

2006-04-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

(Reliable sources of information).

One of the problems with the scientific method is that all that data gathering and analyzing takes time. Much as many of us would like to be “scientists” on every subject, this is clearly impossible. But in a democracy, we are expected to vote on many different subjects which would ideally require us to be scientifically knowledgeable on them. Given how busy our lives are, how can we do this?

One answer is to establish reliable sources of information. These are places that have proven to use the scientific methods of collecting information and correcting errors.

The flip side of this is ruling out those sources that have proven to be unreliable sources of information. In particular, if a source had access to information showing their idea was incorrect, but ignored this information, they clearly are not being scientific, so we should not be relying on future things they tell being correct.

A very visible case in point would be the missing Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Both the US and UN inspections in Iraq publicly concluded that there were no weapons present or even any research programs being done. Similar results also came from other intelligence reports. Yet when a report came in relying on a single informer, this was used as proof. When further evidence proved this one source incorrect, faulty intelligence was blamed, not biased selection of results. Clearly, there is no scientific approach happening with this group of people. So reliance on their future claims would be foolish indeed.

Another way to rule out the most unreliable sources is to consider their self-interest. Of course, everyone is looking out for themselves to some extent or another, but we can easily find cases where an information source is never going to admit errors. Advertising and public relations firms are one clear example. These people are getting paid to promote a company or its products, so obviously they are not going to be putting effort into finding faults that need improvement. Similarly, politicians also use public relations principles when making announcements (especially during election year). They are primarily in the business of promoting themselves, not in getting accurate information out. So most of these statements can also be discounted as not having a large error-correction component.

Most of the major news sources, on the other hand, can usually be relied on to get the facts right. Their business relies on being accurate sources. If they make too many mistakes, consumers will go to a competitor for information. That they care about accuracy can be seen in their behavior when false information is identified. Virtually always a retraction is issued immediately. In the most famous cases, not only is the offending reporter punished, but there is also significant effort made to make sure the situation does not recur. Any news source which is reluctant to do this sort of correction, or changes the minimum amount to avoid criticism, is not a reliable as one which makes a serious effort.

Research scientists are also sometimes accused of being biased and unreliable by those who disagree with their results. But does this hold up? If we look at past scientists who have made false claims, such as Hwang Woo Suk’s false claims about stem cell research or Pons and Fleishman’s claims about cold fusion, what we see is that scientists who make these sort of mistakes are found out by other scientists and lose their jobs. So the science community as a whole is a relatively reliable source of information.

On the other hand, we are all human and make mistakes and have biases whether we are aware of them or not. How to compensate for these biases, both in yourself and others, will be dealt with next.

Illegal Immigration: Science is MIA

2006-04-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

Living here in rural San Diego, migrant workers are a part of everyday life, yet I must admit I know little about the issues. After reading about proposed immigration reform and all the mass protests, I decided that I needed to become educated. Gathering data is one of the key parts of scientific method.

As it turns out, this was not an easy task. Not only are opinions all over the map, but the supposed facts are as well: Illegal immigrants are just hard working people doing jobs no one else wants or they are hard working people taking jobs away from US citizens or they are just plain criminals robbing us blind.

A quick review of what I have seen and read locally points mostly to the first case, with a bit of job-taking also happening. Mostly what I have seen the local Hispanics doing is the gardening and farm work which no one else wants to do. About the only place I have seen any competition with Anglos has been in installing sprinkler systems: I once saw a couple of young white guys installing one in my area, otherwise it has all been Hispanics. Crime? In twenty years of living here and hiking in the empty hills around my house, I cross paths with Hispanics living out there almost daily. The worst “crime” I have seen is drunken weaving on their way home. On the other hand, I see people doing 100MPH on the freeway almost every week. Which is causing more problems to others? Theft is also a problem here. Every week I read about break-ins at local business, schools and homes. When the police finally catch up with the thieves, guess what? Not once in twenty years have I read that the criminal was an illegal immigrant.

Another piece of information is the protests themselves. Everything I have read indicates they were completely peaceful. This hardly sounds like this demographic is violence prone.

On the other hand, I have to admit that illegal immigrants are criminals by definition: they are here illegally. The local ones also seem to be mostly living in illegal camps rather than renting homes. But as far as I can tell, this is the extent of their criminal behavior around here. I wish all criminals were like this.

I suppose the next question is what sort of immigration reform is needed, who will benefit and who will pay. I will try to get to this (in a scientific manner, of course) in the next day or so.

The supernatural: We Want to Believe

2006-04-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

Last night a woman I know (who for the most part does not believe in the supernatural) talked about something she said she could not explain: a couple of dreams which came true to an uncanny degree. Her words were dispassionate; she made no claims that anything supernatural occurred, only that she could not explain what happened.

On the other hand, her emotional communication, her tone and attitude, all seemed to be saying: “don’t give me a cold, rational explanation for this.” And when some of the people there did so, she argued strongly against them all. Apparently she wanted one last bit of magical ability for herself that was not explained by the perceptiveness and intelligence of her unconscious mind (or anything else).

Nor is she alone. A number of other people I know who are smart and practical-minded also believe they can predict the future or have inexplicable knowledge of things which happen far away.

When I was young I also believed in this sort of thing as well as much more. I loved the idea of miracles and magic and aliens visiting from outer space. But the more I looked into these things the less evidence I found that any of it was true. Worse still, I saw that these beliefs were actually belittling people’s actual achievements: Space aliens, not people, built the pyramids. People did not figure out how to make fire on their own, Prometheus stole it from the gods. The doctor did not cure your disease; it was god, or fate or karma.

Eventually I realized that all the achievements plain old ordinary people have accomplished against all the obstacles in their way are more wonderful than all the magic ever imagined. So I no longer needed to believe, though there is still a place for unicorns in my fantasies.

Group Principles versus Individual Failings

2006-04-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

In response to a previous post on religion, HairlessMonkeyDK mentioned that many religious leaders do not follow their religions principle of shunning lying and maintains that this is a negative aspect to religion itself.

I do not agree that failures of individuals necessarily reflect on the organization. Virtually any organization you can name (including science) has individuals who violate the group’s principles. This alone does not mean that the group or its principles are faulty.

But he was correct in that how the group deals with those who violate their principles show much about the group’s real values. Are the violators protected or are their errors openly admitted and dealt with appropriately? Does the group itself find the violators and correct their behavior on its own, or does this only happen after an outside source points them out and public outcry forces the group to deal with the problem? Here is where the intrinsic difference between science and most other organizations, from religion to politics to industry, can be seen.

In most groups violators of the group’s official principles are protected and their violations hidden away and publicly denied. Remember President Bush’s response to how poorly FEMA was dealing with the Katrina disaster? “You’re doing a great job, Brownie.” How about the way the Catholic Church dealt with child molestation by priests? Sweep the problem under the rug, transfer the accused to another parish and forget about it. It was not until lawsuits were files and public outcry occurred that any serious changes happened.

Not that I think the Catholic Church is especially bad, all organizations except science seem to have the same faults. Who caught and corrected Hwang Woo Suk’s false claims about stem cell research, or Pons and Fleishman’s claims about cold fusion? Other scientists, not outsiders.

Here is where we see the true standards of a group as a whole. Scientists clearly value honesty and facts over protecting their image or presenting themselves as infallible. If more groups followed this sort of standard in fact, not just as lip service, the world would be a much better place.

Basic control theory

2006-04-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

Control theory may sounds like some sort of obscure theory that has little connection with real life, but as we will see, this theory says the same thing as the scientific method, and says it in a way that tells us much about how we should use this method.

Technically stated, control theory says that the only way to control a high-gain system is though feedback (See drawing). Another way of saying this is that, if you have an object whose output varies a lot with very little change in input, you have to control this object by watching the output and varying the input depending on the output that you see.

For example, an automobile engine and drive train can be considered a high-gain system. Making small changes in how hard you press down on the gas pedal can make a big difference in how fast the car goes. So you control the car’s speed by watching the speedometer and changing how hard you press on the gas pedal to get the speed you want. Without this feedback (or something similar, such as watching how fast the other cars or scenery goes by) you don’t know how hard you should be pressing down on the gas pedal.

Similarly, people also frequently behave as “high-gain systems”. For example, telling a small child “go clean your room” can lead to hours of cleaning on their part. A small input leads to a lot of action. On the other hand, the same instruction could lead to hours of sulking and not the sort of action you wanted at all. This is where the feedback comes in: You check what the child is doing and change the input if the result is not what you wanted.

So how does this apply to science? Think back to the scientific method. First there is the proposed theory. This is the input. Next there is collecting and analyzing information regarding the theory. This is all the work in the “high gain” part of the system. Next is using the information to check the theory. This is the critical testing part of the method. So the scientific method and control loops are the same thing!

This is so important because, as control theory states, without the feedback the system can go haywire and even self-destruct. The same holds true for people-based systems: get rid of the feedback and things can go out of control.

This is the danger in religion-based systems. If the precepts are unquestionable, if no feedback is allowed, then unreasonable behavior can result. Inquisition. Witch hunts. Jonestown. Healthy behavior only returns when people are again allowed to question the validity of the behavior.

But a system only is guaranteed to work correctly when the feedback is accurate. How is that accomplished in a system of people? In science it is done by checking physical reality. I claim that physical reality is the only way this can be done. Checking with large numbers of people (democracy) rather than just one or a few (dictatorship) is helpful, but the majority can still be wrong at times. Checking with reality, on the other hand, is intrinsically correct.

If one could prove that witches were maliciously hurting people and could only be destroyed by burning, then it might be reasonable to do so. If one could prove that your religion and no other was completely correct, then converting people by violence might also be acceptable. Yet no reliable physical evidence exists to support either contention. Without that, taking action, especially violent action based on these presumptions seems downright evil to me.

The Science of Humor

2006-04-01T18:20:00.000-08:00

This being April Fool’s day (at least it is while I am writing this), I thought it would be a good opportunity to put together a collection of what science has to tell us about humor and laughter.

Most people know that laughter is good for your well being in general, but what does it do specifically? For one thing, it helps protect against heart attacks and may even help diabetics. It also gives us a more positive outlook, which in turn makes us live longer and be more successful. It also helps build relationships, which are an intrinsic part of a happy life. What surprised me (though I suppose it shouldn’t) was that keeping your sense of humor helps greatly in dealing with trauma and bereavement.

Interestingly, women enjoy humor more than guys do and also value a sense of humor more in a mate. (Are these two related?) On the other hand, anticipating laughing increases the amount of benefit from it, so maybe guys get more benefit out of laughing.

Are you (like me) not very good at telling jokes? That’s OK, neither can infants or animals, yet they laugh all the time. Apparently laughter is more about social connections than jokes.

So make it a point to laugh today (whatever day it is). A good place to start is rec.humor.funny, which has new jokes every day or so and also has a good joke archive.

Healing Power of Prayer Compendium

2006-03-30T21:14:00.000-08:00

A recent article claiming that prayer has no effect on heart patients motivated me to look back at past studies on the effect of prayer on healing. A compendium of studies found that just over half (57%) showed an effect, the rest did not. When I looked at one of the double-blind studies showing positive results I found that the statistical effect was just over one standard deviation in magnitude, which just barely qualifies as “significant.” (Three standard deviations of difference are more usually considered a reliable indication of a real effect).

So what we have, in effect, is an unreliable result that tends to be very small when it is observed. This sounds like what we see from a medicine manufacturer desperate to show that their product is useful. They want a particular result and will keep trying until they see it.

I also see a logical disconnect here. Proponents of the healing power of prayer blame scientists for being unable to see the benefit, yet the studies are all being done on prayer helping those in hospitals: people already being helped by science. Those people are trusting science to help them because science has proven to be effective. If prayer was a useful approach, then these people would not need to see doctors at all: they could simply go to their nearest prayer group. It looks to me that it is the religious ones who are blind to reality, not the scientists.

The Politics of Global Warming

2006-03-30T14:08:00.000-08:00

Time magazine has a good set of articles on the reality of global warming this week. The growing amount of evidence is irrelevant to the politics of the situation. It has been clear for decades that humans could be having a significant effect on the environment. But why has there been resistance to doing anything about it? Taking the safe route of assuming the effect was important is clearly what would be best for ordinary people: after all we have to live with whatever environment we have locally. It is big money such as oil companies who profit most from not doing anything.

Compare this with the supposed threat posed by Iraq. There was no substantiated evidence, yet the Bush administration went ahead with an invasion costing hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives. Who benefited? Look at oil company and defense industry profits.

Politicians beliefs are not shown when there is incontrovertible proof (in that case there is not question what to do), but when there is uncertainty. When in doubt, who do they look out for, people or big corporations? What we are seeing now is a consistent disregard for the welfare of ordinary people.

Gut feeling versus thought-based decisions

2006-03-28T21:08:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a growing divergence of opinion on whether to use gut feel or cognitive thought as a basis for decisions. Some people claim that studies show that gut feel is the best approach. Others claim that being governed by emotions is a problem. Which, then is correct?

The difference seems to depend on whom the decision is for. If it is only for yourself, then making an emotional decision makes sense. After all, the purpose for most of our decisions is simply what makes our lives happier. Since the end result is about emotions, then it makes sense that the process should involve emotion decision-making as well. However, all this changes when the decision is for a group of people or an organization such as a corporation. Then the decisions are not about personal happiness any more, but about the collective happiness or success of the organization. This is where our natural inclinations break down. So this is where we have to start checking our emotional/intuitive guesses as to the right decision if we truly want to get things right.

Science-based ethics

2006-03-22T11:14:00.000-08:00

As noted in a previous post, science is often accused of lacking in morality or ethics. This argument is often used to claim that religion is a necessity for ethical behavior. But science is essentially just a method for understanding reality as clearly as possible. So lets see what scientific knowledge can tell us about how to behave:

First we can observe that living things do not want to die. We see this both in ourselves and in the behavior of other creatures. From this we can conclude that we should not kill without great need, such as our own survival. (Which, by the way agrees with the teaching of all the successful religions I know of).

Next, we can look at what people need to live: food, water, shelter. From this we can conclude that it is unethical to steal necessities, at least. Again, religions agree.

Pain and suffering are also things with animals go to great lengths to avoid. From this we can say that things like torture and inflicting bodily harm are also to be abhorred. While this is not a fundamental part of the teaching of any of the religions I know, I think few would disagree with this sentiment.

We could go on by making observations about our emotional natures and needs and discuss the appropriateness of eye-for-an-eye behavior versus compassion and generosity, but recreating all of ethics is a bit much to expect from a little blog like this. Not that this is necessary; this has already been done rather exhaustively.

But if we stick to a scientific basis for ethics and morality, I must admit there will be some things religions teach which will be absent. Crimes against god, for one. Anything that does no harm to another creature does not count as a crime under this approach. Neither is there a god to fix our mistakes for us. We cannot “kill them all and let god sort them out” nor is “if I kill any innocents, I know in my heart that god will ask them to forgive me” an acceptable attitude. Without a god to fix mistakes, we are obligated to be completely responsible ourselves to do the right thing as best we know how. Personally, I kind of like that.

Religious leaders often claim that religion is superior as a base for ethics because they claim that ethics should come from outside, not from within. But science is all about basing our beliefs on external reality. It is religion which actually allows thing like “I know in my heart that this is true” in spite of how much evidence is offered to the contrary. So if we are to claim that only ethics and morality imposed from outside is acceptable, then it is religious-based morality which is suspect, not science-based.

What it takes to be a scientist

2006-03-20T11:34:00.000-08:00

I keep hearing from people that being a scientist somehow requires a lot of intelligence, or at least a couple of college degrees in physics, biology or some such. However, I think that “expert” is a better name for someone who has accumulated much knowledge in a particular subject, not "scientist".

But I do not think that all this knowledge necessarily makes a person a good scientist, nor do I think that not having a college degree keeps you from being a scientist. To be a true scientist is more a matter of a willingness to let go of your preconceived ideas and try to get at the real answers. It is using the old “scientific method”, which is testing your ideas, looking for errors and then revising your thinking based on the results.

This does not require a string of college degrees. What it does require, however, is courage; the courage to admit mistakes. This is why real scientists are all too rare.

Fixing Iraq

2006-03-19T17:50:00.000-08:00

How can we fix the problems we caused in Iraq? By charity instead of violence. Even the US military (who make a living off of violence) agree in their latest counter-terrorism strategy that this is a superior approach:

“…the U.S. military's efforts to aid tsunami victims in Southeast Asia and to assist victims of Pakistan's earthquake did more to counter terrorist ideology than any attack mission.”

A billion dollars in aid did more than $100’s of billions in fighting.

Why is there so much violence in Iraq now? Unemployment is somewhere between 50% and 70%, yet I calculate that the US government has spent $200 million (at most!) to ordinary Iraqi’s to help in reconstruction. This is less than one-tenth of one percent of the total US expenditures in Iraq. Yet these are the people who should be the backbone of the reconstruction. After all, it is their country. Where is the rest going? To US businesses who fly people into and then back out of the “green zone” and do virtually nothing to help rebuild.

Can’t fix the problems in Iraq? Seems to me that we have not even tried yet.

Science, religion and the atomic bomb

2006-03-18T23:26:00.001-08:00

Not exactly late-breaking news, but using the atomic bomb as example of the evils of science keeps coming up, so I want to deal with it. For example, in a statement supposedly trying to smooth over the differences between science and religion, the Vatican stated:

"We know where scientific reason can end up by itself: the atomic bomb… fruit of a reason that wants to free itself from every ethical or religious link."

So they go on to claim that religion should oversee science.

But a bomb does no harm unless it is dropped on someone. So who made the decision to bomb the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Not the scientists. Most of the scientists who knew about the bomb signed letters to President Truman asking that the bomb never be used, especially against civilians. But they had no say in the final decision.

Then who did decide to bomb cities full of women and children? Christians all:
President Harry S. Truman was a Baptist.
Secretary of state James F Byrnes was an Anglican/Episcopalian.
Secretary of War Henry Stimson was a Presbyterian.

So where was religion’s famous morality when these decisions were made? And where they now while our self-proclaimed Christian President George W. Bush wages a war in Iraq based on lies which kills civilians by the thousand?

So don’t try to push religious morality on me. I will take my morality from science: from those (mostly forgotten) scientists who cried out for restraint and compassion for others and were ignored.

Reality Exists!

2006-03-16T16:31:00.000-08:00

An interesting guy over in Denmark wrote a Blog about how it is impossible to prove that reality exists. Being a scientist, this got me wondering about whether I do indeed know about reality as well as I think I do. The answer seems relatively simple to me.

Anyone who has ever seen a magician perform knows that illusions abound. But how do we know they are illusions? When I was a child, I once saw one of those mirrored dishes which formed an image of an object floating above them. I reached out to touch what I saw, but felt nothing so concluded that there was nothing there.

So touching is how I define physical reality. If my body exists, then objects which I touch or touch me also exist: the keyboard I am using at the moment, the breakfast I ate this morning, a hug from a friend when I needed it.

But I suppose one could claim that my body is illusion as well. But if that is true, then what is this thing I call “me”? All I can say is that it is my mind: my thoughts and feelings. But I have been touched there as well. Many others have made me feel things which I have never felt when I am alone. Others have made me think things I never before imagined. So if my mind exists, then theirs must as well.

But I have also shared reality with those other minds: The soft fur and (sharp claws!) of a kitten with my sister, scientific measurements with my co-workers, sunsets and moonlight with a lover. Since those others saw and felt much the same things as I, then it seems I must admit that those things exist as well.

Decide by intuition?

2006-03-14T13:39:00.000-08:00

There has been much in the news lately about making decisions based on intuition. This bothered me because my intuition told me that this is a bad approach. So either way, intuition seems questionable. So what does a scientific analysis tell us?

First of all, it seems clear that intuition/unconscious thinking is very powerful. One study clearly showed that our unconscious can give us a correct answer to a complicated problem before we are consciously aware of it. Another study showed that intuition gives more satisfying answers when the problem is complex. Of course, being happier with a decision does not necessarily mean it is the correct decision. But unconscious thinking uses more of the brain than conscious thinking, so it seems reasonable that this sort of processing could be more powerful than conscious thought alone. There is even a book telling us how successful intuition is.

On the other hand, there are also studies which show that intuition can lead to incorrect answers and that the answers can change when the same question is phrased in different ways. Unconscious thinking can also be emotional in nature rather than logical. And we also know that people tend to ignore or explain away facts in order to justify their emotional decisions. A Google search on “incorrect intuition” will give you a sampling of cases where intuition leads most people to incorrect answers.

The answer? Listen to your intuition, but use the scientific method (testing) to verify your guess as to the correct answer. It is this process of testing which weeds out our mistakes, which is necessary in order to get to the best possible answer. This is especially important considering that we are so emotionally inclined to trust out intuitive results.

Confessions of a not-so-brilliant scientist

2006-03-09T14:01:00.000-08:00

There was a thread a day or two ago over in nogodblog.com between a religious person and a bunch of atheists. Lots of words written, some angry, not much communication accomplished. Not that there was any attempt by yours truly. I just plain could not figure out what to write that would be of any help. The words were flying fast and furious and I like to think things through before I speak out. The way the religious one started out by disparaging science and scientists made it that much harder for me to get past my own feelings and point of view to get to where I could understand his.

Once I calmed down, I noticed that one of the first things he did not like about science was the way scientists dismissed his thoughts and beliefs! I guess once the contempt starts, it just keeps going. He probably has some justification for complaint. I know I tend to get irritated when someone has a relatively simple question (or objection) to something I have taken large amounts of time to understand. It takes me a moment to remember that there was a time when I knew little or nothing about the subject as well.

I have less excuse than most for my difficulty: I have had many years experience dealing with mentally handicapped people, including one of my brothers. So I do not have all that much excuse for my impatience. All I can say is that I sometimes have trouble switching from the idea of talking to someone who is my equal on a subject to someone who knows less.

Dealing with the mentally handicapped actually has helped me grow in several ways. First was learning that, to get the other person to understand, one must speak in the other person’s terms, not my own. I don’t know how many times I have had to change the way I was explaining something until I found a way that lit up the other person’s eyes. Another was that everyone (and I mean everyone!) has something to contribute. Just about every mentally handicapped person I know has at least once explained something to me that opened my eyes as well. A third is that attitude and intelligence have nothing to do with each other: I have seen about the same range from humble to arrogant among mentally handicapped as I have seen among scientists. Maybe we are not all that different after all.

My intelligence? Since I am a scientist, it must be very high: just the other day I was looking for mayonnaise at the supermarket and managed to find it after only five minutes of looking and going down every isle at least twice. Pretty clever, huh?

No, not much difference at all.

Communist China has a point

2006-03-09T09:58:00.000-08:00

Mainland China is hardly a champion of human rights, but their latest annual human rights response is correct in that the US has also become a major violator. Is has become apparent to any independent witness that the abuses in Iraq prisons and Guantanamo Bay are not isolated incidents, but part of the current administration’s policy. They may make claims of opposition to torture, but their actions show that to be a lie. Have the torturers even been reprimanded? Has outside oversight been given to prove that problems no longer exist? The Bush administration has done everything in its power to fight laws against torture, including attempts to redefine what it is. Their attempts at secrecy are increasing, not decreasing.

When the Declaration of Independence mentions unalienable rights, it means rights which should apply to all people everywhere. It does not mean (as the current administration seems to believe) “does not apply to aliens”. When our government performs the sort of human rights abuses we are seeing now in the course of pursuing its goals, it is betraying the very foundation of our society: the foundation which once made the US admired around the world rather than distrusted and condemned as it has become now.

As I mentioned in a previous post, even the latest Joint Chiefs of Staff counter terrorism strategy admits that compassion works better than force in fighting terrorism. If the military can reach this conclusion, why can’t politicians?

Scientific method scores! (literally)

2006-03-07T17:26:00.000-08:00

A new study shows that people learn more with repeated testing than repeated studying. If you look back on my original post on scientific method, this makes sense. The results of testing show where the mistakes are. If you just review again and again you may never realize that you are not picking up something important. Just another example that the basis of science is what leads to better results.

Why Bush prefers war to peace

2006-03-07T11:33:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in my last article, even the Pentagon now admits that the peaceful solutions long derided are better for the American people and the world at large. So why has the Bush administration continued to push violence? The key here is who benefits. If you look at who has been winning and who losing you can see who the Bush administration cares about.

Who is losing? Over 2,000 US soldiers killed in Iraq for one. Not to mention about 30,000 Iraqi’s killed. The war in Iraq also lowered the world opinion of the US.

And world opinion of the US keeps going down as violence increases. Not to mention that people all over the world agree that the Iraq war increased the terrorist threat.

Do you think that last bit is a surprise to the administration? Hardly. The Bush administration knew right up front that the war in Iraq was going to make things more dangerous for Americans. They connived congress to authorize the war on October 11, 2002 and then started making vice president Dick Cheney’s home more secure. They did not do this after 9/11/2001, not after invading Afghanistan. Obviously these did not create significant new threats. But the war in Iraq? Now its time to start digging in.

Who won? For one, the oil companies reported record profits since the war began. Not too surprising, since both the pres. and vice pres. are Texas oil men. Not to mention billions of questionable high-profit (no-bid!) contracts for companies like Halliburton. And (of course) huge increases in Defense industry profits.

The motivation for the Iraq war was never to make the world safer. Even the admistratin itself occasionally let slip that the motivation was more to help Bush’s standing: Back in January 2002 after pushing al-Qaida out of Afghanistan, “Bush's advisers have pored over polls showing how long previous Presidents have enjoyed wartime spikes in popularity—and discovered that they never lasted more than 10 months.” So he decides to go to war again, after all "History shows," a top Bush adviser tells TIME, "once the shooting starts, the public rallies around the President.” (March 2003).

Bush likes war because war is easy. How do you make peace? By cooperation, by both sides working together to get (at least some) of what they want. This is difficult, especially since it needs to be done day after day, not just once. War, on the other hand, is easy. No need to compromise. No need to care about the needs of the opposition. Just look out for your own interests and those close to you.

This last bit is key. Looking out for his buddies has been the hallmark of the Bush administration from the beginning. He has made no bones that his role model was Reagan. The world champ at helping his friends. Remember Reaganomics? Give the taxpayer’s money to the rich and it will “trickle down” to the poor.

Besides the Iraq war itself, there are plenty of examples showing Bush does not care about ordinary folk: the lack of response to Katrina, the waste of billions of dollars without any significant rebuilding in Iraq, the continual worsening of environmental policies, the shift of the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class and poor. Politics is supposed to be ruling for the benefit of the general populace, but all too often (like here) it is more about helping the politician and his financial supporters and close friends (as we are seeing in the current congressional scandals). More about this in the future, you can be sure.

US Military sides with the peaceniks

2006-03-05T14:22:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of quotes from the new Joint Chiefs of Staff counter terrorism strategy:

“Pentagon officials involved in writing the strategy point out that the U.S. military's efforts to aid tsunami victims in Southeast Asia and to assist victims of Pakistan's earthquake did more to counter terrorist ideology than any attack mission.”

“A central piece of the plan, the document says, is the concept of "supporting mainstream efforts to reject violent extremism." The effort requires encouraging those segments of the Muslim world that support inclusion, moderation and tolerance.”

This is a beautiful example of the scientific method of changing your ideas based on previous results. Here is an organization whose main purpose is the use of force finding out that force is not the best approach (at least in this case). When the opposition switches to your side, you know that you are on the right track. Now if we can only get our political leaders to realize the same thing, we may actually manage to create a better world.

Fighting against science is fighting against reality

2006-03-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, science is an effort to see the world as accurately as possible. So when someone or some group fights against the best and most accurate answers that science can give, they are essentially fighting against reality. It is one thing if the dissenter has loads of good, solid evidence to support their argument, but this is never the case. Why not? Because gathering together all that evidence is damn hard work. Work that the scientists have already done and found wanting. So the dissenters are essentially left trying to make arguments based on ignoring the majority of the facts. But people seem to figure that if they argue loudly enough and emotionally enough, somehow reality will change to what they want it to be. Some examples:

The far right Christians dislike evolution, so they came up with creationism and then intelligent design. Neither version fits the facts, but that does not stop all the yelling. Wikipeadia’s article on evolution.

The Bush and Reagan administrations did not like the idea of global warming, so dismissed it as “just a theory” and changed or suppressed any scientific findings which indicated that it was a real problem. Seems they decided that politicians know more about global warming from listening to their lobbyists for a few minutes than scientists know from endless hours of researching what is actually happening in the world.

Since the government makes decisions which will effect us and our children for many years to come, this behavior in itself is a serious problem. But beyond this, ordinary people have a tendency to copy the behavior of the people in the news, thinking that those people must somehow be smarter and more knowledgeable than themselves.

Just recently there was an article on declining savings rates by Americans. So what is the reaction? The measurement technique is bad! Does not matter that this is the same method used for about a hundred years. Now that it is giving bad news, there is something wrong with it. Change the method, that way we can ignore the fact that the savings rate is less than any time since the great depression. (Supposedly the old method is no good because it does not include things like investment growth. But if you have not noticed, the stock market is still down from its peak. Home equity? What are people going to do, sell their house and live in a tent? Increased home prices are of limited value).

If you have been reading the news, you know that the examples could go on and on. The bottom line is that we are in the midst of a battle to get people to accept reality whether they like it or not. The alternative is to be faced with many more fiascos like the Iraq war and the devastation of New Orleans.

See the world as it truly is

2006-03-03T15:33:00.000-08:00

I just had another discussion with a friend about point of view; whether different points of view are equally valid and so on. Which reminded me that I never got around to explaining the reasoning behind using the scientific method:

The purpose behind the scientific approach is to see the world as it actually is, not as how we wish it to be or from our own self-centered point of view. The idea is that there is some external reality independent of ourselves which we are trying to see as clearly as we are able. I believe this to be true whether we are talking about a physical object such as a rock or subjective things such as emotions. The difference is that we do not (yet) have any good way to measure such things as a person’s emotional pain. That does not meant that it does not have a specific measure, only that we cannot measure it. After all, there was a time when we could not measure the distance to the moon, but that does not mean that the distance was subjective, only that we did not know what it was.

Buddhists often say that the path to enlightenment, to seeing the world as it truly is, arises from letting go of selfishness. If I ignore the metaphysical aspects of this, it agrees very well with the scientific idea of understanding the world. We try to give up our own selfish point of view in our attempt to understand the true reality around us.

So I guess my final answer to the question of the validity of different points of view is that all probably have some validity, but the one which cones closest to seeing reality is the most valid. I think the most valid point of view most, of necessity, be the one which encompasses all of the less accurate points of view, so should also give one a better understanding of others. Also a worthwhile goal to pursue.

Score one for religion

2006-03-02T22:51:00.001-08:00

Religious types often make the claim that religion is intrinsically moral and science is amoral or even immoral. In general I disagree with this, but there is one case where it seems to me that religion is one up on science.

This is the case of avoiding lying. Training for religious leaders normally requires the student to reject lying completely. Psychology, on the other hand, regularly uses lying in the course of performing psychological studies. Lying also seems to be acceptable in treating patients. The former is done in the best interests of science and the latter is only supposed to the done in the best interest of the patient, but it is interesting to note that religion has the higher standards of conduct.

Much as I am a supporter of science, this is one area where I have long wished science would improve. I know of no real effort on the part of psychologists to find alternate ways of doing research that do not require the subjects to be deceived by the experimenters.

Science has the keys to happiness

2006-03-01T22:49:00.000-08:00

I just saw a great article on what science has to tell us about being happy:

Science has the keys to happiness

In short:

1) Make enough money so you are not living in poverty (When money buys happiness)

2) Get deeply involved in whatever it is you are doing (flow). (Time flies when you are busy).

3) Friendships are key. Close relationships help too.

4) Good family ties improve self-confidence

5) Be altruistic! It is good for you. Volunteering improves life.

6) Be forgiving (don’t harbor resentments; let them go).

7) Keep a positive attitude. (This also helps when you are sick).

8) Stay optimistic

9) Be grateful

10) Laugh

Why happiness? (Isn’t that a bit shallow?) Happiness makes you successful!

Science versus religion

2006-02-27T17:53:00.000-08:00

The key differences between science and religion is not the answers, but how you get the answers. In religion, the answers are supposed to come from God, so are presumed to be infallible and are unquestionable. In science, the answers are known to come from (fallible) people, so are always questionable and subject to improvement. In religion, if the observed facts disagree with what religion tells you, it is acceptable to say things like “It is a mystery” or “You have to take it on faith”. In science, this is not acceptable. If your thinking is not in agreement with the facts, then you have to change your thinking.

This is where the conflict arises. Science moves on when new information gives new results. Religion sticks to the old answer. Science has the evidence of being correct, religion has the emotional conviction. History, however, has pretty much proven that science is the inevitable winner.

Justification is not verification

2006-02-26T17:17:00.000-08:00

Looking for information which confirms your belief or action is not the same as testing it. Unless one is completely out of touch with reality, there is always some data which confirms your theory.

For example, I could claim that the sky is pink, not blue. If I look at the sky at certain places and times of day, I can find verification of my claim. But that does not change the fact that the sky is blue most of the time. If I ignore this fact, then I have no hope of improving my understanding.

Looking for justification is a very common mistake in decision making, especially after the initial decision has been made. For example, studies indicate that people who buy cars look at car advertisements more after they buy than before. But they pretty much only look at the advertisements for the cars they bought. They are looking for confirmation that they made the right decision, not checking to see if they made a mistake.

Yes, there still is global warming, even if it is winter

2006-02-17T11:42:00.000-08:00

<>Now that winter has finally arrived (in February!) we can count on right-wing pundits to start proclaiming “what global warming?” That we have been having a record warm winter so far, not to mention record high temperatures all over the world all summer (and last summer and the summer before that), any bit of cold weather in the winter is somehow proof that there is no such thing as global warming. Is anybody in the world so forgetful that they actually buy this stuff?

The evidence for global warming is getting so conclusive that even the right-wingers are having a harder time justifying their nonsense. So what next? My guess is that they are going to start claiming that global warming is “good”. Sure, lets start pumping out more pollutants and greenhouse gasses until we can comfortably wear bikini swim suits at the poles. As long as MY company is still making large profits, I don’t care what happens to the rest of the world.

The science of influencing a politician II

2006-02-02T18:42:00.000-08:00

How to get your representative to actually represent you continued...

Don’t be a stranger. In many languages, the word for stranger is the same as the word for enemy. There is a basic psychological principle here. We trust our “friends”: those we see all the time. “Strangers”, those we do not have personal contact with, we do not trust or care that much about. Unfortunately, we are strangers to our own representatives for the most part. On the other hand, lobbyists see our representatives all the time. So these are the guys who get treated as friends, as the people our reps want to do things for, not us.

What to do about it? Be their friend ant they will more likely be yours. Contact your representatives regularly. Be positive and supportive as much as possible, so they have positive feelings towards you as well. This gets you more into the “friend” space instead of the “stranger” space. This way, when you tell them about what you think is important, they will have more of a tendency to listen to you as a friend, as someone they want to go along with rather than as a stranger, someone they don’t particularly trust.

The science of influencing a politician

2006-02-01T18:57:00.000-08:00

Why all the fuss about lobbyists? Even if we forget about illegal activities, the things these guys are allowed to do still outweighs the influence of most politicians’ constituents. It is a psychological effect called reciprocity. This is used all the time in supermarkets. They give you a free sample, you like it and then you go out and buy more, even if it is not something you really want. You do this out of a built-in feeling of fairness: they gave you something, so you should give them something in return. It is not something most people think about, it is just something they do. It is a part of our make-up as social creatures.

So a lobbyist visits a politician every once and a while and gives a gift or campaign donation or some other “pay for access”. The politician gets what he wants and when voting time comes around what happens. His emotions tip in the direction of what the lobbyist wants. He gives a payback, whether thought out or not, in return for the free stuff he has been getting. Rationalizations for why he made the voting decisions he made come later. Still, it is the feelings that influence, not the logic.

So what can you do? The same thing the lobbyists do. Make small regular donations. Make sure the donations come with information on what you think are the important issues and how they should vote. Get the payback emotions working for you jus as the work for the lobbyists.

Do not give large infrequent donations. The idea is for frequent reinforcement, not the size of the gift. You already have an infrequent influence in the form of voting, but this is soon forgotten. It is the regular reminders (and reciprocity) that are needed to get your influence felt.

Just because you believe in it, does not make it science

2006-01-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my first post, the key to science’s success is checking the initial theory for errors. So what is not science? Any theory that has not been verified this way! It does not matter how “certain” you are that your theory is correct, it does not matter how deeply or emotionally you believe in it, it has not become science until it has passed this sort of rigorous checking. Passionate belief does not count in science, only proof.

This is where many people who come up with these wonderful ideas give up (and often blame those “exclusionary” scientists): they do not want to go to all the effort to prove their idea. And make no mistake; it usually is a lot of work. Usually much more effort than coming up with the idea in the first place. Don’t expect other people to prove (or disprove) your ideas for you. Anyone interested in science usually has their own list of ideas that need all that work to be proven. Why should they drop what they are doing to work on your ideas? Remember, just because you have some deep conviction that you are right does not mean that anyone else will. It is up to you to show them.

What is Science?

2006-01-02T19:20:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

As one of my New Year’s resolutions, I am going to write a set of blogs showing how science is not something remote and incomprehensible, but a real part of everyday life.

The first part, I guess, is to explain just what I mean by science. There have been more than one definition floating around, but the most useful one for every day use is to say that science is simply making use of the scientific method.

What then, is the scientific method? It is simple, and you most likely have been using it in your life already. It is coming up with a theory to explain something you see in the world, testing the theory and then changing it, discarding it or accepting it depending on the results.

The key is the testing and changing. Testing means looking for mistakes in the original theory. That is, one looks for things that indicate that the theory is wrong or needs improvement in some way. What is so important about this is that it is the opposite of what most people do when they have a theory about something. Usually, they look for vindication: facts which prove themselves correct rather than facts which prove them wrong. But finding errors is the only way one makes any improvements. This is why science keeps advancing while nonscientific approaches usually stay stuck where they started.

Here is an everyday example: How did you learn not to touch a hot stove? If you are like me, your mother told you not to touch the stove, but you did anyway. If you are like me, but smarter, you may have put your hand close to the stove without actually touching it. Either way, what you did was perform an experiment: you tested both whether the stove was actually hot and whether you could trust what your mother told you. You probably did this sort of theory testing many times over the years without even thinking about it. You learned both what was real and how much you could trust what people told you.