In a statistical test, we have to balance two types of error. They are called type I error and type II, but I can never remember which is which, so I just know them as false positives and false negatives. The balance between these errors is why we use a probability value of 0.05 for a test of significance, and I think different emphasis on these errors helps to define a skeptic from a true believer.
A false positive would be accepting a false hypothesis as true. A false negative is rejecting a true hypothesis. If you try to avoid one of these, you necessarily err in producing more of the other. Lets say you don't want to be a sucker so you definitely don't want to accept any false claim as true. You demand extremely high standards of evidence and large statistical differences. You can be sure no false hypothesis will get through. However, there are likely to be true hypothesis that you also throw out. Maybe you don't want to accept any drugs that might not be effective. You demand such high statistical results that you throw out some drugs that work but either to only a limited degree or in only a portion of the population.
On the other hand, if you want to make sure you don't throw out any true theories, you could accept things with less evidence. Now the risk is that you will accept false hypothesis. If you accept any drug that shows even the weakest improvement you can be sure you won't throw out any effective drugs, but you will accept some drugs that had an effect just by chance alone.
We all must balance these contrasting tendencies. In statistics, we usually use a value of P=0.05 as a cutoff that balances the two errors. We accept the hypothesis if there is a 1/20 chance or less that it is due to chance. I think a lot of the difference between skeptics and true believers is their emphasis on these errors. A believer would hate to throw out any theory that might be true, so they demand little evidence. Sometimes just the possibility of being true is enough for them. Of course, this means they will accept many false hypothesis. The skeptic on the other hand does not want to believe a theory that is not true and demands much more evidence. They risk possibly throwing out a theory that is true.
Going too far in either direction is wrong. We need a balance. But for any phenomenon, there are many more false hypothesis than true ones. There can only be one correct explanation, while there could be hundreds of incorrect hypothesis. This suggests we should err towards rejecting false hypothesis (as a P of 0.05 does). We certainly should be aware of the kinds of errors we are likely to make, and to look out for them. We should also make sure we make an effort to determine all possible explanations for something, and then determine the explanation that is most likely. If we stop creating hypothesis after the first few that occur to us, we are much more likely to only consider false hypothesis.
The risk with skepticism is going too far in rejecting hypothesis. I think you will find a significant number of skeptics who reject global warming, regardless of the overwhelming evidence for it. Often the rejection is just a general skepticism about all new theories and familiarity with other environmental exaggerations, rather than a consideration of the specific evidence (at TAM 6, Jillette Penn expressed such a view, and admitted it was just a gut feeling).
In science, we must avoid the low standards of the true believer, but we do need some scientists who tend more towards one error or the other. Some scientists are great at coming up with ideas, sometimes outside of the box, and we need them to advance science. Others need to look at these ideas critically. I can think of several scientists who have had a few brilliant ideas, but maybe also often accept some ideas that they shouldn't. Lynn Marguilus proposed the endosymbiont hypothesis and she got it right. She has also championed several less rigorous ideas such as the Gaia hypothesis. Robert Bakker revolutionized our view of dinosaurs with The Dinosaur Heresies and because of him we now think dinosaurs may have been warm blooded and more active, for example. But many of his heresies remain as just heresies. I am grateful for people like Bakker and Marguilus. Although they sometimes accept a few too many false hypothesis, they weren't afraid to be wrong and came up with some amazing true hypothesis. And we need the other scientists who criticized them when they were wrong and separated the good from the bad.
I have always admired Carl Sagan as an educator and popularizer of science and as a great skeptic. I think he epitomizes the balance between the two errors. In many ways he was the epitome of skepticism, attacking UFOs and Velikovsky and abductions and many other pseudosciences. But he wasn't afraid to consider wild hypothesis. At one time he suggested the moons of Mars might be artificial satellites. He rejected it when the evidence was clear, but he wasn't afraid to suggest it. Carl Sagan was a great skeptic, but he wasn't closed minded and was open to the wonder of the universe. A good way to balance type I and type II error is the Carl Sagan type.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
The pseudoscience of education
One of the talks at TAM 6 focused on "niche pseudoscience". Steve Cuno talked about how you can investigate pseudoscience in your particular specialty, in his case advertising. That made me think about pseudoscience in education.
Here I won't talk about any specific beliefs or pseudosciences. Rather I will just mention an overall attitude about teaching methods. It is very difficult to determine what works in education. Overwhelmingly, when you talk to educators about what they do, they will mention some technique they use that works or doesn't work. The problem comes in when you ask how they know if it works or not. Usually, it is just a feeling. It seemed to work. You seemed to connect with students. They were excited about it. The problem for anyone familiar with the nature of evidence is that this is all subjective. It is also prone to confirmation bias. We notice the students that it did work with but we fail to see those students that we lost (or sometimes the other way around).
Chances are most techniques work well with some students and less with others. We are likely to see the examples where it works and either fail to see or ignore those where it does not. Which students are most likely going to give us feedback? And of course a bigger problem is that a student's subjective feeling does not necessarily mean it really produced the outcomes we desire.
A slightly better way to assess outcomes is with student surveys, and probably most educators use these. If they are anonymous and you get all students, they are likely to be a little more representative, although students still might change what they write to please those who will read it, just as they do in all surveys. And again, these are only the student's subjective feelings of how they learned.
The best way to determine what works is research, and it is the attitude of many in the sciences towards this research that I would most like to discuss. There is research on education. One thing it tells us, fortunately, is that student surveys are usually fairly accurate assessments of actual student learning, so some of the above techniques are at least somewhat useful. However, when a professor gets poor student evaluations, chances are he/she will dismiss them and say that they are only low because he was too hard of a grader or similar justifications. When they have actual data, they can ignore it.
There is extensive research that shows that a pure lecture format does not work well for most educational outcomes. Some level of active learning works much better. This is a robust result of many different studies. The details of what does work can be murky and this does not mean that lectures have no role to play, it just means that 100% lecture is not the best way to go. I have known professors who completely dismiss all of this research as some kind of touchy-feely pandering.
What I find unscientific is this attitude towards research, especially among science teachers. Scientists should know that personal experience is not reliable. Scientists should know that research is better. Now I fully agree that the level of research in education isn't always as good as in other areas. So if someone had actually read some studies and found specific methodological flaws in the research, I would have no problem with them dismissing it. But that is not what I often see. Rather there is the feeling that they know what works best in teaching and they aren't going to have somebody from an education department tell them what works and what doesn't. They aren't going to worry about student evaluations, since they know what works and those studies showing evaluations are accurate can be ignored. After all, 5 of the 100 students they have tell them they are doing a great job.
I admit I use just a general feeling that something works, just like every one else. The truth is that with education, often that's all we have. I try to use student evaluations. For me the best assessment would come from students five years after I have them, when the sometimes subtle effects of education can truly be seen. What I do not approve is wholesale rejection of the research that has been done without any familiarity with it at all. Education is difficult to measure, but as scientists we should not have a double standard, rejecting personal experience in one field but embracing it another or requiring data in our fields but ignoring data in education.
Here I won't talk about any specific beliefs or pseudosciences. Rather I will just mention an overall attitude about teaching methods. It is very difficult to determine what works in education. Overwhelmingly, when you talk to educators about what they do, they will mention some technique they use that works or doesn't work. The problem comes in when you ask how they know if it works or not. Usually, it is just a feeling. It seemed to work. You seemed to connect with students. They were excited about it. The problem for anyone familiar with the nature of evidence is that this is all subjective. It is also prone to confirmation bias. We notice the students that it did work with but we fail to see those students that we lost (or sometimes the other way around).
Chances are most techniques work well with some students and less with others. We are likely to see the examples where it works and either fail to see or ignore those where it does not. Which students are most likely going to give us feedback? And of course a bigger problem is that a student's subjective feeling does not necessarily mean it really produced the outcomes we desire.
A slightly better way to assess outcomes is with student surveys, and probably most educators use these. If they are anonymous and you get all students, they are likely to be a little more representative, although students still might change what they write to please those who will read it, just as they do in all surveys. And again, these are only the student's subjective feelings of how they learned.
The best way to determine what works is research, and it is the attitude of many in the sciences towards this research that I would most like to discuss. There is research on education. One thing it tells us, fortunately, is that student surveys are usually fairly accurate assessments of actual student learning, so some of the above techniques are at least somewhat useful. However, when a professor gets poor student evaluations, chances are he/she will dismiss them and say that they are only low because he was too hard of a grader or similar justifications. When they have actual data, they can ignore it.
There is extensive research that shows that a pure lecture format does not work well for most educational outcomes. Some level of active learning works much better. This is a robust result of many different studies. The details of what does work can be murky and this does not mean that lectures have no role to play, it just means that 100% lecture is not the best way to go. I have known professors who completely dismiss all of this research as some kind of touchy-feely pandering.
What I find unscientific is this attitude towards research, especially among science teachers. Scientists should know that personal experience is not reliable. Scientists should know that research is better. Now I fully agree that the level of research in education isn't always as good as in other areas. So if someone had actually read some studies and found specific methodological flaws in the research, I would have no problem with them dismissing it. But that is not what I often see. Rather there is the feeling that they know what works best in teaching and they aren't going to have somebody from an education department tell them what works and what doesn't. They aren't going to worry about student evaluations, since they know what works and those studies showing evaluations are accurate can be ignored. After all, 5 of the 100 students they have tell them they are doing a great job.
I admit I use just a general feeling that something works, just like every one else. The truth is that with education, often that's all we have. I try to use student evaluations. For me the best assessment would come from students five years after I have them, when the sometimes subtle effects of education can truly be seen. What I do not approve is wholesale rejection of the research that has been done without any familiarity with it at all. Education is difficult to measure, but as scientists we should not have a double standard, rejecting personal experience in one field but embracing it another or requiring data in our fields but ignoring data in education.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
On the supposed cruelty of natural selection
I have written before about the strong feeling among all sides of the discussion that evolution is somehow cruel. The only difference between creationist and evolutionist is in how people see that cruelty. I do not get it. I have another example of this view that I would like to discuss.
Jason Rosenhouse reviews Ken Miller's Only a Theory and Karl Gilberson's Saving Darwin (here). Both books are by theistic evolutionists, and in both reviews Rosenhouse mentions the cruelty of natural selection. The relevant quotes are below:
I simply fail to see the supposed cruelty in natural selection. All of those deaths have occurred whether evolution is true or not. Let's say that a trillion animals died in the U.S. yesterday (a purely arbitrary number). They died whether evolution is correct or not. They died the same horrible deaths, or peaceful deaths. They died by parasitism and predation and starvation and old age and bad luck. The amount of cruelty cannot be in dispute. The creationist and evolutionist agrees there were a trillion deaths and agree how they died. The creationist cannot claim a world that is less cruel. The only question is whether this cruelty produced a genetic change in the population.
There seems to be an assumption that lives are only meaningful if they lead to evolution. If a person dies at the age of 22 without reproducing, it is a tragic death. If that person had children and passed on his genes, the death is no less tragic. If a person has a fulfilling life but has not children, his or her life is not less fulfilling, and if a person has a life filled with misery and cruelty but has many offspring, this doesn't affect the meaning of that life or affect the amount of cruelty.
Let's say that 100,000 years ago there were two men in Africa. One had a good life but was killed by a lion before he could reproduce. The second had a similar life but had genes that allowed him to escape the lion and he did reproduce and died shortly afterwards. The value of each of their lives does not depend on whether they escaped the lion. They were born, lived, and died. Because of the difference, future generations might be more likely to escape lions, but the life of the first man is not somehow worth less and his death not more tragic because of the difference in genes. Nor does it make sense that the life of the first man existed only to help future generations.
The same could be said for every organism that has ever lived. Some died horribly, some not. Some died because of their genes, some did not. Each was born, lived, and died. Genetic change is a side effect of living those lives, not the reason for those lives. You could object to the cruelty itself. You can object to people dying from lions and genetic disease. But that is simply the problem of evil (which is a big problem, but its magnitude is not altered by natural selection). There is nothing uniquely evil or more evil about evolution. There is exactly the same number of deaths and same amount of cruelty whether evolution is correct or not. If we assume that creativity is a good, then we can say that the world with evolution is better than the one without. The both have the same amount of cruelty, but one also has creativity.
The view that selection is cruel could be held if you believe that the only reason for all of those lives was to get to where we are now. The only reason those two men lived was so that we could get genes for escaping lions. One problem with that is figuring out when now is. Are the lives of people who lived 1000 years ago to be seen as existing just for us today? How far back to we go before we say that those deaths were just creating?
Religions don't do well with the vast space and time shown by modern science. They focus on earth of the past few thousand years. But once we grant the billions of years of life on earth, why do we have to see it as only existing for now? Just as the life of a person today can be valuable regardless of whether genes are passed on, why can't the life of an animal 400 million years ago be good in itself? Why must that life be seen as only existing for the future? Each animal lived and died. They didn't give a crap whether they evolved or not. Evolution is simply a by product of living. Evolution is only evil if a person has a theology that sees the only reason for the existence of past life is to create current life. They can even see current life and humans as part of God's plan without seeing all of past life as existing only for the creation of the present (even if that is one of the effects of those lives).
And the fact that evolution is selfish doesn't somehow make its creations less good. I fully admit that I consist of selfish genes, but that doesn't make my life worth less. Our economy is entirely the result of selfish interest, but I still like my job and I enjoy the benefits of that selfish economy.
It seems that creationists, theistic evolutionists, and nontheistic evolutionists all agree on one thing. They all agree that selection as a way of creating is cruel. I honestly just don't see it. It's not that I have an explanation for it, I just don't see what needs explaining. Maybe there are assumptions that I do not have. What am I missing?
Jason Rosenhouse reviews Ken Miller's Only a Theory and Karl Gilberson's Saving Darwin (here). Both books are by theistic evolutionists, and in both reviews Rosenhouse mentions the cruelty of natural selection. The relevant quotes are below:
Yes, human inevitability would solve the problem of preserving human specialness in the face of evolutionary contingency. But just consider the view of natural history entailed by this. Evolution by natural selection, you see, is an awful process. It is bloody, sadistic, and cruel. It flouts every moral precept we humans hold dear. It recognizes only survival and gene propagation, and even on those rare occasions where you find altruism and non-selfishness you can be certain that blind self-interest is lurking somewhere behind the scenes. All of this suffering, pain and misery, mind you, to reach a foreordained moment when self-awae creature finally appeared. What theological purpose was served by all this bloodsport? If humans were inevitable why didn't God simply fast-forward the tape himself, thereby sparing all of those animals that died horrible deaths in the preceding hundreds of millions of years? Problem of evil, indeed.and
After all, it is not hard to see why Christians would be uncomfortable with a modern understanding of evolution. Biologist George Williams expressed the basic problem well in his book Plan and Purpose in Nature:
With what other than condemnation is a person with any moral sense supposed to respond to a system in which the ultimate purpose in life is to be better than your neighbor at getting genes into future generations, in which those successful genes provide the message that instructs the development of the next generation, in which that message is always “exploit your environment, including your friends and relatives, so as to maximize our (genes') success,” in which the closest thing to a golden rule is “don't cheat, unless it is likely to provide a net benefit.”This, for me, is the fundamental difficulty that a theology of evolution must address. It's hardly the only difficulty, but it's an especially big one. A resolution to this problem is always what I am looking for in books by theistic evolutionists.
I simply fail to see the supposed cruelty in natural selection. All of those deaths have occurred whether evolution is true or not. Let's say that a trillion animals died in the U.S. yesterday (a purely arbitrary number). They died whether evolution is correct or not. They died the same horrible deaths, or peaceful deaths. They died by parasitism and predation and starvation and old age and bad luck. The amount of cruelty cannot be in dispute. The creationist and evolutionist agrees there were a trillion deaths and agree how they died. The creationist cannot claim a world that is less cruel. The only question is whether this cruelty produced a genetic change in the population.
There seems to be an assumption that lives are only meaningful if they lead to evolution. If a person dies at the age of 22 without reproducing, it is a tragic death. If that person had children and passed on his genes, the death is no less tragic. If a person has a fulfilling life but has not children, his or her life is not less fulfilling, and if a person has a life filled with misery and cruelty but has many offspring, this doesn't affect the meaning of that life or affect the amount of cruelty.
Let's say that 100,000 years ago there were two men in Africa. One had a good life but was killed by a lion before he could reproduce. The second had a similar life but had genes that allowed him to escape the lion and he did reproduce and died shortly afterwards. The value of each of their lives does not depend on whether they escaped the lion. They were born, lived, and died. Because of the difference, future generations might be more likely to escape lions, but the life of the first man is not somehow worth less and his death not more tragic because of the difference in genes. Nor does it make sense that the life of the first man existed only to help future generations.
The same could be said for every organism that has ever lived. Some died horribly, some not. Some died because of their genes, some did not. Each was born, lived, and died. Genetic change is a side effect of living those lives, not the reason for those lives. You could object to the cruelty itself. You can object to people dying from lions and genetic disease. But that is simply the problem of evil (which is a big problem, but its magnitude is not altered by natural selection). There is nothing uniquely evil or more evil about evolution. There is exactly the same number of deaths and same amount of cruelty whether evolution is correct or not. If we assume that creativity is a good, then we can say that the world with evolution is better than the one without. The both have the same amount of cruelty, but one also has creativity.
The view that selection is cruel could be held if you believe that the only reason for all of those lives was to get to where we are now. The only reason those two men lived was so that we could get genes for escaping lions. One problem with that is figuring out when now is. Are the lives of people who lived 1000 years ago to be seen as existing just for us today? How far back to we go before we say that those deaths were just creating?
Religions don't do well with the vast space and time shown by modern science. They focus on earth of the past few thousand years. But once we grant the billions of years of life on earth, why do we have to see it as only existing for now? Just as the life of a person today can be valuable regardless of whether genes are passed on, why can't the life of an animal 400 million years ago be good in itself? Why must that life be seen as only existing for the future? Each animal lived and died. They didn't give a crap whether they evolved or not. Evolution is simply a by product of living. Evolution is only evil if a person has a theology that sees the only reason for the existence of past life is to create current life. They can even see current life and humans as part of God's plan without seeing all of past life as existing only for the creation of the present (even if that is one of the effects of those lives).
And the fact that evolution is selfish doesn't somehow make its creations less good. I fully admit that I consist of selfish genes, but that doesn't make my life worth less. Our economy is entirely the result of selfish interest, but I still like my job and I enjoy the benefits of that selfish economy.
It seems that creationists, theistic evolutionists, and nontheistic evolutionists all agree on one thing. They all agree that selection as a way of creating is cruel. I honestly just don't see it. It's not that I have an explanation for it, I just don't see what needs explaining. Maybe there are assumptions that I do not have. What am I missing?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Back from TAM 6
I'm back from TAM 6 and Las Vegas. I had a great time. Las Vegas was fun--endless lights, people, and slot machines. And hot. Fascinating in small doses. It's the epitome of the superficial for a meeting of the substantial. But I like a little superficiality now and then as much as the next guy.
As for the meeting, I can say that Neil deGrasse Tyson is amazing. He was the keynote speaker and is entertaining and thought provoking. He is the kind of guy we need for science. We need some public scientists who are entertaining, articulate, and good with the public. We are still suffering from the loss of Carl Sagan over 10 years ago. Tyson has the potential to help fill the void. I wonder if he ever gets on the Tonight Show or Letterman? It was great when Johny Carson was the host of the Tonight Show, because he was a great skeptic (as was his predecessor, Steve Allen). He helped to make Sagan and James Randi into celebrities.
Richard Wiseman was another great speaker. His work is perfect for making the public interested in science. He deals with every day perceptions and characteristics of thinking. He has tried to scientifically determine the best joke and the best pick up line. At the meeting, we did the worlds record spoon bending exercise, with over 800 spoons being broken at once. Video of it will be available later. I will make sure to link to it.
There were many other good speakers. It seems the common thread of the best speakers was their enthusiasm for science. In addition to Tyson and Wiseman, this included the Bad Astronomer Phil Plaitt and Ben Goldacre. Adam Savage of myth busters was appropriately enthusiastic although his talk seemed to lack much of a point. PZ Myers, Steve Novella, and Sharon Begley all gave good talks as well, with great content even if they were not quite as animated as some of the others.
And I got to see all of these famous people, people who I have read or listened to many times (at least famous to us skeptics). In addition to those mentioned there are the other members of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, Micheal Shermer, and of course, the Amazing James Randi himself.
What was really different is being surrounded by so many people who think like me. Usually a scientific or skeptical attitude is in the minority. Here I was surrounded by 900 people who all thought science was cool and the best way to know about the world, who all know creationism is bunk, and who would consider a curmudgeonly magician to be a hero. What more could I want?
As for the meeting, I can say that Neil deGrasse Tyson is amazing. He was the keynote speaker and is entertaining and thought provoking. He is the kind of guy we need for science. We need some public scientists who are entertaining, articulate, and good with the public. We are still suffering from the loss of Carl Sagan over 10 years ago. Tyson has the potential to help fill the void. I wonder if he ever gets on the Tonight Show or Letterman? It was great when Johny Carson was the host of the Tonight Show, because he was a great skeptic (as was his predecessor, Steve Allen). He helped to make Sagan and James Randi into celebrities.
Richard Wiseman was another great speaker. His work is perfect for making the public interested in science. He deals with every day perceptions and characteristics of thinking. He has tried to scientifically determine the best joke and the best pick up line. At the meeting, we did the worlds record spoon bending exercise, with over 800 spoons being broken at once. Video of it will be available later. I will make sure to link to it.
There were many other good speakers. It seems the common thread of the best speakers was their enthusiasm for science. In addition to Tyson and Wiseman, this included the Bad Astronomer Phil Plaitt and Ben Goldacre. Adam Savage of myth busters was appropriately enthusiastic although his talk seemed to lack much of a point. PZ Myers, Steve Novella, and Sharon Begley all gave good talks as well, with great content even if they were not quite as animated as some of the others.
And I got to see all of these famous people, people who I have read or listened to many times (at least famous to us skeptics). In addition to those mentioned there are the other members of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, Micheal Shermer, and of course, the Amazing James Randi himself.
What was really different is being surrounded by so many people who think like me. Usually a scientific or skeptical attitude is in the minority. Here I was surrounded by 900 people who all thought science was cool and the best way to know about the world, who all know creationism is bunk, and who would consider a curmudgeonly magician to be a hero. What more could I want?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
TAM 6
I will be attending TAM 6 in Las Vegas this week so I don't expect to have any more posts for awhile. I might have a chance to post from the meeting. If not, I should have a lot of fun stuff to report when I get back. TAM 6 is the premier meeting of skeptics in the country. I can't wait.
Changing science is a strength
Proponents of alternative medicine like to claim victory out of any failing of modern medicine, especially of drugs. So if Vioxx is shown lead to heart problems, they say that proves drugs are bad. If research suggests we were wrong about something, it shows the errors of modern medicine. Every time medicine was wrong is trotted out as proof of the problems with modern medicine.
But in every one of these cases, who was it that found the problems? It was scientists. In every case, how did the medical establishment react? They changed in response to the new evidence. Mainstream medicine isn't some specific set of drugs and procedures, it is simply an approach to health--an approach based on evidence. We use that which the best evidence supports and reject that which it doesn't support. And we know those things might change.
The real irony is seeing how they respond to evidence against alternative medicine. When a study comes out saying that aroma therapy doesn't work, do they change their ways? Of course not. When a study goes their way or against modern medicine, then the study is reliable and science is behind it. If a study doesn't go there way then they complain about how closed minded science is and how there are other ways of knowing.
Cases like Vioxx are reasons to accept medicine, not reject it. How would people feel if doctors continued to prescribe drugs like Vioxx after it was shown to have problems? They would have good reason not to trust them at all. Then we have good reason not to trust alternative medicine at all.
There are several similarities here between alternative medicine and creationism. In both, they search for any evidence that the mainstream is wrong and promote it. They always see those studies as good science. In both, they ignore the consensus against them and imply science can't be trusted. In both, it is the practitioners of medicine or evolution that find the problems in the first place, not the opponents. The biggest similarity is that in both, they just can't seem to understand that we change our mind. Science isn't etched in stone. We get things wrong sometimes, and when we do, we change. Science isn't absolutely correct. They see each change as a sign of weakness, when in fact the ability to change is science's greatest strength. They seem to think science must consist of absolutely certain knowledge. Science is not the truth, it just approaches the truth. In both cases, they seem to have a hard time understanding degrees of certainty, as opposed to right or wrong. In fact, a lack of appreciation of degrees of certainty is behind much misunderstanding of science, from global warming to evolution.
But in every one of these cases, who was it that found the problems? It was scientists. In every case, how did the medical establishment react? They changed in response to the new evidence. Mainstream medicine isn't some specific set of drugs and procedures, it is simply an approach to health--an approach based on evidence. We use that which the best evidence supports and reject that which it doesn't support. And we know those things might change.
The real irony is seeing how they respond to evidence against alternative medicine. When a study comes out saying that aroma therapy doesn't work, do they change their ways? Of course not. When a study goes their way or against modern medicine, then the study is reliable and science is behind it. If a study doesn't go there way then they complain about how closed minded science is and how there are other ways of knowing.
Cases like Vioxx are reasons to accept medicine, not reject it. How would people feel if doctors continued to prescribe drugs like Vioxx after it was shown to have problems? They would have good reason not to trust them at all. Then we have good reason not to trust alternative medicine at all.
There are several similarities here between alternative medicine and creationism. In both, they search for any evidence that the mainstream is wrong and promote it. They always see those studies as good science. In both, they ignore the consensus against them and imply science can't be trusted. In both, it is the practitioners of medicine or evolution that find the problems in the first place, not the opponents. The biggest similarity is that in both, they just can't seem to understand that we change our mind. Science isn't etched in stone. We get things wrong sometimes, and when we do, we change. Science isn't absolutely correct. They see each change as a sign of weakness, when in fact the ability to change is science's greatest strength. They seem to think science must consist of absolutely certain knowledge. Science is not the truth, it just approaches the truth. In both cases, they seem to have a hard time understanding degrees of certainty, as opposed to right or wrong. In fact, a lack of appreciation of degrees of certainty is behind much misunderstanding of science, from global warming to evolution.
Monday, June 16, 2008
The design of evil
Last time I wrote about how it is incorrect to think of evolution as wasteful. Similar is the view that the evolutionary mechanism is somehow a source of evil. But it seems to me that viewing life as the product of design would be a better reason to see nature as a source of evil.
Nature is cruel, regardless of your beliefs on origins. That is a simple observation. Animals are killing each other every second. Parasites eat their hosts from the inside out. Plants and fungi poison animals that eat them. Fewer than 10% of animals born will ever reproduce, and in many groups it is dramatically less than that. Even with humans it is only recently that a newborn had a greater than 50% chance of surviving to have children. I could go on, but the point is undeniable that nature is full of death and pain and cruelty, no matter how it got here.
Why should that observation lead to evil in humans? I don't see why it would if that cruelty is simply the result of natural processes. But if the cruelty is designed, if it is there on purpose and for a reason, I could see it being used as a basis for cruelty. It is only if you see design behind the cruelty that you can justify more cruelty as part of a greater purpose. Evolution does not see purpose, or lack of purpose, in the cruelty. It just is, and cannot be used to justify our behavior.
The same is true with the biology of behavior. It doesn't matter what you believe about our origins, it can't be denied that our biology and genes affect our urges and desires. We all have sexual desires and obviously those are part of our biology. Genes and hormones produce them, we don't just decide to have desire. Anger has a biological underpinning. There is evidence for a genetic influence on violence and addictive behavior. Even if you don't believe evolution produced those genes, you cannot deny that the genes and hormones exist or pretend that our biology has no affect on our behavior.
Again, it is the design proponent for whom this is a problem. If evolution produced these, it says nothing about whether they are good or bad or should or should not be followed. But if it was designed, then you must find the purpose or reason for these behaviors.
Everyone agrees evil is there, the only question is whether that evil was designed or not. I have to give Micheal Behe credit for being consistent. In his latest book, The Edge of Evolution, he takes his design views to their logical conclusion and says that Malaria has been designed to kill people.
Evolution doesn't make us evil. It isn't a mechanism that tells us how to behave. We are animals, whether we like it or not. Being an animal doesn't mean we must behave as animals. I think the reason evolution deniers think that way is because they habitually see purpose behind everything. They cannot understand a process that just is. When they contemplate evolution, they are actually seeing it as design, and that is why they see it as evil.
Nature is cruel, regardless of your beliefs on origins. That is a simple observation. Animals are killing each other every second. Parasites eat their hosts from the inside out. Plants and fungi poison animals that eat them. Fewer than 10% of animals born will ever reproduce, and in many groups it is dramatically less than that. Even with humans it is only recently that a newborn had a greater than 50% chance of surviving to have children. I could go on, but the point is undeniable that nature is full of death and pain and cruelty, no matter how it got here.
Why should that observation lead to evil in humans? I don't see why it would if that cruelty is simply the result of natural processes. But if the cruelty is designed, if it is there on purpose and for a reason, I could see it being used as a basis for cruelty. It is only if you see design behind the cruelty that you can justify more cruelty as part of a greater purpose. Evolution does not see purpose, or lack of purpose, in the cruelty. It just is, and cannot be used to justify our behavior.
The same is true with the biology of behavior. It doesn't matter what you believe about our origins, it can't be denied that our biology and genes affect our urges and desires. We all have sexual desires and obviously those are part of our biology. Genes and hormones produce them, we don't just decide to have desire. Anger has a biological underpinning. There is evidence for a genetic influence on violence and addictive behavior. Even if you don't believe evolution produced those genes, you cannot deny that the genes and hormones exist or pretend that our biology has no affect on our behavior.
Again, it is the design proponent for whom this is a problem. If evolution produced these, it says nothing about whether they are good or bad or should or should not be followed. But if it was designed, then you must find the purpose or reason for these behaviors.
Everyone agrees evil is there, the only question is whether that evil was designed or not. I have to give Micheal Behe credit for being consistent. In his latest book, The Edge of Evolution, he takes his design views to their logical conclusion and says that Malaria has been designed to kill people.
Evolution doesn't make us evil. It isn't a mechanism that tells us how to behave. We are animals, whether we like it or not. Being an animal doesn't mean we must behave as animals. I think the reason evolution deniers think that way is because they habitually see purpose behind everything. They cannot understand a process that just is. When they contemplate evolution, they are actually seeing it as design, and that is why they see it as evil.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Vitamin C, evolution, and alternative medicine
Sometimes an evolutionary way of thinking could save us a lot of effort. There have been claims made for 50 years that large doses of vitamins, especially vitamin C, are good for you. There have been many studies done and they all show that there is no health benefit to large doses of any vitamins. In fact, more recent studies indicate that vitamin supplements harm your health and increase the chances of death.
That should not be surprising if we had some evolutionary background. Most mammals do not need any vitamin C in their diet at all, because they are able to synthesize it in their own cells. Primates (including humans) have lost this ability. One of the enzymes for making vitamin C has been mutated into a non functional state. Presumably, this is because primates get enough vitamin C in their diets so they do not need to make their own.
If large amounts of vitamin C were healthy, why would we have lost the ability to make it? If anything, evolution should have made the enzymes more active rather than inactive. The fact that mutations for inactivating vitamin C have been fixed means there was no selective pressure to maintain it--there was no harmful effect on the health of our ancestors.
Many alternative health claims are like this. Claims that our colons are filled with toxins that need to be flushed don't make sense. Why would evolution maintain our colons, or not make them flush more often?
We have to be careful with this logic. It is incorrect to think that evolution is always perfect. Sometimes evolution produces a messy way of doing things, some things aren't adaptations, and sometimes we are adapted to conditions that existed 50,000 years ago but no longer apply today. We still should do the studies to determine if vitamins help or hinder. But evolution can greatly increase the prior probability of a claim and help us to determine which claims are more worth pursuing.
That should not be surprising if we had some evolutionary background. Most mammals do not need any vitamin C in their diet at all, because they are able to synthesize it in their own cells. Primates (including humans) have lost this ability. One of the enzymes for making vitamin C has been mutated into a non functional state. Presumably, this is because primates get enough vitamin C in their diets so they do not need to make their own.
If large amounts of vitamin C were healthy, why would we have lost the ability to make it? If anything, evolution should have made the enzymes more active rather than inactive. The fact that mutations for inactivating vitamin C have been fixed means there was no selective pressure to maintain it--there was no harmful effect on the health of our ancestors.
Many alternative health claims are like this. Claims that our colons are filled with toxins that need to be flushed don't make sense. Why would evolution maintain our colons, or not make them flush more often?
We have to be careful with this logic. It is incorrect to think that evolution is always perfect. Sometimes evolution produces a messy way of doing things, some things aren't adaptations, and sometimes we are adapted to conditions that existed 50,000 years ago but no longer apply today. We still should do the studies to determine if vitamins help or hinder. But evolution can greatly increase the prior probability of a claim and help us to determine which claims are more worth pursuing.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
On dead ends
There is one argument about evolution that we often find a surprising agreement between most opponents and proponents of evolution. It is argued that natural selection is a cruel or wasteful process. Opponents often use it as an argument against theistic evolution, saying that if God used evolution to create, then he used a cruel and wasteful process.
Most evolutionary biologists who respond to this admit that evolution is a wasteful way to create, but argue that it happens nonetheless and theistic evolutionists still agree it is wasteful but then explain why this is consistent with theism.
It seems to me that both sides are making a fundamental error in thinking. It's surprising that evolutionary biologists would make this error. They are thinking typologically. They are thinking of a species as a real thing that is being created. Evolution just requires that organisms live and die. An organism that passes on fewer of its genes than another has not been a waste. It would only be a waste if somehow it is seen as incomplete, as existing to create the next step. An organism isn't born trying to evolve into something else.
We can think of the world as consisting of several tens of millions of species, or we can see it as trillions of individual organisms with different degrees of similarity and relatedness to others. In many ways evolution is not cruel at all. It uses the deaths that assuredly would happen anyway to produce change.
No matter what your view on evolution, you cannot deny that there are massive numbers of deaths in every species every day. You can't deny that most organisms fail to reproduce. You can't deny that death happens, and often it happens because of differences in the genetic make up of the organisms. Whether you believe in evolution or not, we see the exact same total number of deaths for the exact same reasons. If I or anyone I know fails to pass on genes to the next generation, our lives and deaths are not more or less meaningful, cruel, or wasteful. If an organism does pass on its genes and the next generation is different from the one before, that organism did not exist just for that change.
If an individual that dies is the last member of its species then it is unfortunate that the earth has a little less diversity. But its death isn't more cruel than any other death. It is the end of one particular lineage, just like all deaths are. Creationists believe in typological "kinds" and I suppose they could see it as the loss of a kind, but the essence of evolutionary thought is population thinking rather than typological thinking. It is surprising to see biologists think of species or higher taxonomic categories as real things that are being wasted.
If you believe in God and you believe in a world that is billions of years old, with countless trillions of deaths, those deaths could only be seen as wasteful if you see those billions of years as existing only so that today can exist. It seems much more elegant to me to see those trillions of organisms as existing for their own sake. Evolution is a by product, not the reason for their existence.
Most evolutionary biologists who respond to this admit that evolution is a wasteful way to create, but argue that it happens nonetheless and theistic evolutionists still agree it is wasteful but then explain why this is consistent with theism.
It seems to me that both sides are making a fundamental error in thinking. It's surprising that evolutionary biologists would make this error. They are thinking typologically. They are thinking of a species as a real thing that is being created. Evolution just requires that organisms live and die. An organism that passes on fewer of its genes than another has not been a waste. It would only be a waste if somehow it is seen as incomplete, as existing to create the next step. An organism isn't born trying to evolve into something else.
We can think of the world as consisting of several tens of millions of species, or we can see it as trillions of individual organisms with different degrees of similarity and relatedness to others. In many ways evolution is not cruel at all. It uses the deaths that assuredly would happen anyway to produce change.
No matter what your view on evolution, you cannot deny that there are massive numbers of deaths in every species every day. You can't deny that most organisms fail to reproduce. You can't deny that death happens, and often it happens because of differences in the genetic make up of the organisms. Whether you believe in evolution or not, we see the exact same total number of deaths for the exact same reasons. If I or anyone I know fails to pass on genes to the next generation, our lives and deaths are not more or less meaningful, cruel, or wasteful. If an organism does pass on its genes and the next generation is different from the one before, that organism did not exist just for that change.
If an individual that dies is the last member of its species then it is unfortunate that the earth has a little less diversity. But its death isn't more cruel than any other death. It is the end of one particular lineage, just like all deaths are. Creationists believe in typological "kinds" and I suppose they could see it as the loss of a kind, but the essence of evolutionary thought is population thinking rather than typological thinking. It is surprising to see biologists think of species or higher taxonomic categories as real things that are being wasted.
If you believe in God and you believe in a world that is billions of years old, with countless trillions of deaths, those deaths could only be seen as wasteful if you see those billions of years as existing only so that today can exist. It seems much more elegant to me to see those trillions of organisms as existing for their own sake. Evolution is a by product, not the reason for their existence.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Repeating history in playing God
Carl Zimmer has a good post on the history of fears over genetic engineering. The fears people had over changing E. coli 30 years ago mirror the things we hear about genetically modified crops or gene therapy today. To this I could add the history of plant breeding documented by Nina Fedoroff in Mendel in the Kitchen. There was talk of playing God and assaulting nature when hybrid crops were first introduced, with the use of plant cell culture techniques, with the use of radiation to induce mutations, with grafting, and with the new varieties produced by Luther Burbank. All of these were seen as abominations against the order of nature, but are completely accepted today and are responsible for almost everything we eat.
In addition to the points made by Zimmer and Fedoroff, I would like to add that a common misperception of genes underlies much of the opposition. Genes are somehow seen as the essence of an organism. People have no problem with extracting a chemical from a plant or animal and using it in humans. We don't have a problem with moving an organ from one human to another. We accept blood transfusions. We don't have a problem with products made from the proteins of an animal. When I take an antibiotic, I am taking a compound made by a fungus or other organism into my body. But genes are seen as different. Genes are the essence of a creature, and if we take a gene from one organism and put it into another, it is changing the essence of life, unlike all of the other examples.
A gene just codes for a protein. How is introducing a gene different from introducing the protein product it makes? There is nothing specifically human about a human gene or a pig gene. Evolution shows us they are just variants of the same protein and are often interchangeable. I argued this in more detail before.
The problem with the opposition demonstrated by Zimmer and Fedoroff and others, and that we see today, is that it makes it hard to distinguish between the serious arguments and the specious ones. We should proceed with care with any new technology. Technologies like gene therapy do pose serious issues from health risks to costs to possible abuses for cosmetic enhancements. But serious issues are drowned out by the cacophony of voices complaining about how this is not natural and exaggerated fears.
In addition to the points made by Zimmer and Fedoroff, I would like to add that a common misperception of genes underlies much of the opposition. Genes are somehow seen as the essence of an organism. People have no problem with extracting a chemical from a plant or animal and using it in humans. We don't have a problem with moving an organ from one human to another. We accept blood transfusions. We don't have a problem with products made from the proteins of an animal. When I take an antibiotic, I am taking a compound made by a fungus or other organism into my body. But genes are seen as different. Genes are the essence of a creature, and if we take a gene from one organism and put it into another, it is changing the essence of life, unlike all of the other examples.
A gene just codes for a protein. How is introducing a gene different from introducing the protein product it makes? There is nothing specifically human about a human gene or a pig gene. Evolution shows us they are just variants of the same protein and are often interchangeable. I argued this in more detail before.
The problem with the opposition demonstrated by Zimmer and Fedoroff and others, and that we see today, is that it makes it hard to distinguish between the serious arguments and the specious ones. We should proceed with care with any new technology. Technologies like gene therapy do pose serious issues from health risks to costs to possible abuses for cosmetic enhancements. But serious issues are drowned out by the cacophony of voices complaining about how this is not natural and exaggerated fears.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
A reverse Pascal's Wager
I think a lot of opposition to evolution is based not on reason, but on a variation of Pascal's Wager. Unless we understand this and address the wager, all of our words are pointless.
People have been told that if they believe in evolution, they are on the road to hell. Their immortal soul is on the line. We might show them overwhelming evidence for evolution and make it clear there is a 99% probability that evolution is true. They then have the following decision: I could believe in evolution which gives me no benefit but which has a small probability of condemning me to eternal torment, or I could reject evolution which gives me no harm and just might save my soul. Even if the odds of evolution being false are small, the benefits are so great that you should bet against evolution.
Of course, this is a variation of Pascal's wager. Pascal argued that you should believe in God, because if you believe and you are wrong, you lose nothing, but if you don't believe and you are wrong, you lose eternal life, so it's safer to believe. This is one of the worst arguments for God, and for the same reason it is a terrible argument against evolution. It is easy to show its faults, although many people never consider it.
There are two ways to approach it. The first is to show that belief in evolution does in fact have real benefits and rejecting it does have harm, in this life. We should always point out the real world benefits of evolution. Geologists use fossils and evolution to predict where we will find oil. Rejecting evolution would lead to less oil. Evolution helps us understand the evolution of disease and of crop pests, and how to overcome those. Evolutionary ideas are the basis for the programs that we use to study genomes. We can look for signs of positive selection in genomes to know which genes have been important in human evolution and involved in the evolution of disease resistance or of the human brain. If we reject evolution, we will miss out on all of these benefits (and if the US rejects evolution but other countries embrace it, then those countries will be the ones with the benefits).
People think of evolution as a purely academic question that doesn't have technological implications, but it does. If we show that, then part of the Pascal equation is missing: we can no longer say that rejecting evolution has no consequences.
Still, the immortal soul is more important than short term benefits. The reason Pascal's Wager fails so miserably for religion is because it assumes there are only two possibilities. Once we realize that believing in the Christian God damns us if the Muslims are right, and even many Christian versions of God will damn believers in other versions, or God might be a God that prefers we follow our reason, etc, it is a much riskier terrain. No matter what choice we make, we might be condemning ourself to hell. It is no longer a gamble with no risks. There might be many reasons to believe in God, but "just in case" really doesn't hold up.
The same thing can be shown for evolution, although this one is trickier if you are in a classroom, where we do not want to preach. It is fine for one on one, and if done carefully it can be done in a classroom. Maybe God would be angry if you reject the gift of reason he gave you. If God used evolution as his means of creating, why would God want you to believe otherwise and why would he save you for rejecting his creation method?
Maybe the wager is the other way around. Maybe it is more damning to faith to reject evolution, in the sense that Augustine argued 1600 years ago. We have Augustine's warning about the dire consequences of those who spout nonsense in the name of religion:
People have been told that if they believe in evolution, they are on the road to hell. Their immortal soul is on the line. We might show them overwhelming evidence for evolution and make it clear there is a 99% probability that evolution is true. They then have the following decision: I could believe in evolution which gives me no benefit but which has a small probability of condemning me to eternal torment, or I could reject evolution which gives me no harm and just might save my soul. Even if the odds of evolution being false are small, the benefits are so great that you should bet against evolution.
Of course, this is a variation of Pascal's wager. Pascal argued that you should believe in God, because if you believe and you are wrong, you lose nothing, but if you don't believe and you are wrong, you lose eternal life, so it's safer to believe. This is one of the worst arguments for God, and for the same reason it is a terrible argument against evolution. It is easy to show its faults, although many people never consider it.
There are two ways to approach it. The first is to show that belief in evolution does in fact have real benefits and rejecting it does have harm, in this life. We should always point out the real world benefits of evolution. Geologists use fossils and evolution to predict where we will find oil. Rejecting evolution would lead to less oil. Evolution helps us understand the evolution of disease and of crop pests, and how to overcome those. Evolutionary ideas are the basis for the programs that we use to study genomes. We can look for signs of positive selection in genomes to know which genes have been important in human evolution and involved in the evolution of disease resistance or of the human brain. If we reject evolution, we will miss out on all of these benefits (and if the US rejects evolution but other countries embrace it, then those countries will be the ones with the benefits).
People think of evolution as a purely academic question that doesn't have technological implications, but it does. If we show that, then part of the Pascal equation is missing: we can no longer say that rejecting evolution has no consequences.
Still, the immortal soul is more important than short term benefits. The reason Pascal's Wager fails so miserably for religion is because it assumes there are only two possibilities. Once we realize that believing in the Christian God damns us if the Muslims are right, and even many Christian versions of God will damn believers in other versions, or God might be a God that prefers we follow our reason, etc, it is a much riskier terrain. No matter what choice we make, we might be condemning ourself to hell. It is no longer a gamble with no risks. There might be many reasons to believe in God, but "just in case" really doesn't hold up.
The same thing can be shown for evolution, although this one is trickier if you are in a classroom, where we do not want to preach. It is fine for one on one, and if done carefully it can be done in a classroom. Maybe God would be angry if you reject the gift of reason he gave you. If God used evolution as his means of creating, why would God want you to believe otherwise and why would he save you for rejecting his creation method?
Maybe the wager is the other way around. Maybe it is more damning to faith to reject evolution, in the sense that Augustine argued 1600 years ago. We have Augustine's warning about the dire consequences of those who spout nonsense in the name of religion:
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions... Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books.
Friday, June 6, 2008
A tale of two students
I went to Catholic schools for the first 12 years of my education. When I was in 7th grade, I did a science report on the evolution of man. My teacher said that was an OK topic, but warned me that I should be careful because it might have some problems with Church teaching. I was a precocious kid in the sciences, and by that age I already knew that the Catholic church (and most protestants) had no problem with evolution and I usually felt I knew more than my teachers in science, so I nodded and then proceeded to ignore her. I got an A on the paper but when she handed it back, again she said that some of it maybe is problematic, and I ignored her again.
I was unusual in knowing church teaching at that young age even though so many adults don't, and unusual in my confidence in my knowledge of science. Although science and religion are complicated issues that I have thought a lot about and I know there are many sources of conflict, evolution has never been one for me. It has simply never entered into my considerations about God and I have never seen a conflict involving it. But we must be careful to remember that not everyone has the same background.
I recently received an essay written by a student about her struggles with evolution and religion. She respects science and is also very religious. She describes how her heart sank when she first heard a professor say that evolution is central to biology on the first day of intro to biology. When she took my course in evolution, she struggled. She would be in class talking about the strength of evolution with her peers and then go to a Bible group where they would knock evolution. She wished she didn't have to think about it. She now fully accepts evolution. She is Catholic and takes comfort in the stand of her church, but she was unaware of that stance before and many of her religious peers do not feel the same way.
There are two points I would like to make about this. The first is frustration at the existence of this conflict. Most denominations have found peace with evolution, but for those that don't, or the individuals who don't, it creates a major conflict within people. It is not good to make people fear reality or wish it away. Some, like the writer, can find resolution, but for many the conflict leads to the rejection of either religion or reality. It need not be that way.
The second and main point is that when we discuss evolution, we should always remain sensitive to how people react to it. I did not have that conflict, but for many students, just the mention of evolution produces dissonance. They are not as interested in the evidence or logic of evolution as in resolving the dissonance. They won't hear the evidence unless we at least touch on the dissonance first. We absolutely must not hold back or diminish evolution because of this, but we should make an effort to let students know that it is not a dichotomy. It is not my goal to attack who you are or diminish your beliefs. It is possible that some adjustment is in order is all. It certainly does no good at all to attack religion or belittle those who believe.
I want to make it clear that I do not favor being nice to anti evolution arguments. I confront them directly in class and I make it clear the arguments against evolution are dishonest. For some, this will produce a conflict. But I do try to make it clear that I am attacking the arguments, not religion or God (which is how many people will take it if you aren't clear). The people who make these anti evolution arguments are giving only one interpretation of religion, and there are others. I do not advocate for any of them, just let them know they exist.
Reading the essay was a good reminder to me of the effect of my words on those who hear them. It is sometimes easy to forget that. The more we understand where students are coming from, the more we can actually teach them.
I was unusual in knowing church teaching at that young age even though so many adults don't, and unusual in my confidence in my knowledge of science. Although science and religion are complicated issues that I have thought a lot about and I know there are many sources of conflict, evolution has never been one for me. It has simply never entered into my considerations about God and I have never seen a conflict involving it. But we must be careful to remember that not everyone has the same background.
I recently received an essay written by a student about her struggles with evolution and religion. She respects science and is also very religious. She describes how her heart sank when she first heard a professor say that evolution is central to biology on the first day of intro to biology. When she took my course in evolution, she struggled. She would be in class talking about the strength of evolution with her peers and then go to a Bible group where they would knock evolution. She wished she didn't have to think about it. She now fully accepts evolution. She is Catholic and takes comfort in the stand of her church, but she was unaware of that stance before and many of her religious peers do not feel the same way.
There are two points I would like to make about this. The first is frustration at the existence of this conflict. Most denominations have found peace with evolution, but for those that don't, or the individuals who don't, it creates a major conflict within people. It is not good to make people fear reality or wish it away. Some, like the writer, can find resolution, but for many the conflict leads to the rejection of either religion or reality. It need not be that way.
The second and main point is that when we discuss evolution, we should always remain sensitive to how people react to it. I did not have that conflict, but for many students, just the mention of evolution produces dissonance. They are not as interested in the evidence or logic of evolution as in resolving the dissonance. They won't hear the evidence unless we at least touch on the dissonance first. We absolutely must not hold back or diminish evolution because of this, but we should make an effort to let students know that it is not a dichotomy. It is not my goal to attack who you are or diminish your beliefs. It is possible that some adjustment is in order is all. It certainly does no good at all to attack religion or belittle those who believe.
I want to make it clear that I do not favor being nice to anti evolution arguments. I confront them directly in class and I make it clear the arguments against evolution are dishonest. For some, this will produce a conflict. But I do try to make it clear that I am attacking the arguments, not religion or God (which is how many people will take it if you aren't clear). The people who make these anti evolution arguments are giving only one interpretation of religion, and there are others. I do not advocate for any of them, just let them know they exist.
Reading the essay was a good reminder to me of the effect of my words on those who hear them. It is sometimes easy to forget that. The more we understand where students are coming from, the more we can actually teach them.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The appeal of reality
I used to get excited by pseudosciences, but they don't do it for me anymore. I've thought about why that changed.
I've always been a voracious reader. My parents and four older siblings would always have books around. In junior high and high school I would pick up any book lying around the house and read it, whatever it was. Sometimes these were texts on logical fallacies or classic literature like The Stranger by Camus, but sometimes they were books on pseudosciences like ESP Party Games or The Chariots of the Gods. I never knew whose books they were, I'd just read anything. I still don't know who in my family gave me my diet of pseudoscience.
I loved The Chariots of the Gods and any book on ESP. I was into UFOs and especially thought Bigfoot was cool. The Chariots of the Gods gave me a fascination with the Incas and Mayas that stayed with me for a long time. But it seemed whenever I learned about them in school and other places, they weren't quite as cool as I had read and I wanted more of the juicy stuff. I had similar disappointments whenever I would try to look at other things more carefully.
Eventually I faded away from the pseudoscience and when I thought about it again, it seemed foolish. So what changed? I can see the appeal of those books. What could be more cool than discovering a new primate like Bigfoot or a dinosaur in Loch Ness? Wouldn't it be fun to read minds? Contact with aliens, now or in the past, would be the coolest thing I can imagine. None of that has changed. If any of those things turned out to be true, I would be thrilled. I still think they would be the coolest thing I ever, and I would be finding out everything I could about them.
I think two things have changed. First, I simply can't believe them any more. Santa Claus would be cool too, but wanting something cool can't make me believe it. But more importantly, I've discovered how many true things are just as cool. What could be more fun than the story of evolution, a supernova explosion, or understanding how our genes work? Science is just as cool as pseudoscience, but has the added benefit of being real, which makes it much more exciting. Some people still find the fictions of pseudoscience more exciting than what real science shows us. That just tells me they don't really know science and we must not be teaching science right. Sometimes it just takes a little more work to understand the science to see the excitement. It is often hard to convince people to do that today.
I've always been a voracious reader. My parents and four older siblings would always have books around. In junior high and high school I would pick up any book lying around the house and read it, whatever it was. Sometimes these were texts on logical fallacies or classic literature like The Stranger by Camus, but sometimes they were books on pseudosciences like ESP Party Games or The Chariots of the Gods. I never knew whose books they were, I'd just read anything. I still don't know who in my family gave me my diet of pseudoscience.
I loved The Chariots of the Gods and any book on ESP. I was into UFOs and especially thought Bigfoot was cool. The Chariots of the Gods gave me a fascination with the Incas and Mayas that stayed with me for a long time. But it seemed whenever I learned about them in school and other places, they weren't quite as cool as I had read and I wanted more of the juicy stuff. I had similar disappointments whenever I would try to look at other things more carefully.
Eventually I faded away from the pseudoscience and when I thought about it again, it seemed foolish. So what changed? I can see the appeal of those books. What could be more cool than discovering a new primate like Bigfoot or a dinosaur in Loch Ness? Wouldn't it be fun to read minds? Contact with aliens, now or in the past, would be the coolest thing I can imagine. None of that has changed. If any of those things turned out to be true, I would be thrilled. I still think they would be the coolest thing I ever, and I would be finding out everything I could about them.
I think two things have changed. First, I simply can't believe them any more. Santa Claus would be cool too, but wanting something cool can't make me believe it. But more importantly, I've discovered how many true things are just as cool. What could be more fun than the story of evolution, a supernova explosion, or understanding how our genes work? Science is just as cool as pseudoscience, but has the added benefit of being real, which makes it much more exciting. Some people still find the fictions of pseudoscience more exciting than what real science shows us. That just tells me they don't really know science and we must not be teaching science right. Sometimes it just takes a little more work to understand the science to see the excitement. It is often hard to convince people to do that today.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Evolution and falling apples
I've again heard a respected scientist misrepresent gravity to get some points on creationists. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine, and it's time to vent.
Denying evolution is often compared with denying gravity. That is almost right, so I understand its appeal. There is even a quote from Stephen J. Gould that I use myself that does this, in which he says "I suppose apples might begin to rise tomorrow, but the idea doesn't deserve equal time in the physics classroom". This comparison is made when discussing the meaning of theory in science. A scientific theory is very well established and not at all like the common use of the word theory as a wild guess. We have the atomic theory, the germ theory of disease, and the theory of gravity, and evolution is no less certain than any of them just because we call it a theory.
I agree with that. I say it all of the time. The problem is when the theory of gravity is misrepresented as "things fall". "Things fall" is a simple observation, a fact. No one ever doubted it. Sometimes people say Newton discovered gravity with the implication that until Newton, we weren't sure if apples fall up or down, but he answered it for us. Newton didn't discover that things fall. His discovery was that the same force that makes an apple fall also controls the motion of the planets, and that the force of gravity has a specific mathematical relationship to mass and distance (prior to Newton, falling was attributed to a tendency internal to the apple to seek out a low position, in the teleological reasoning typical of Aristotle).
The latter part is the theory, not that apples fall. Technically, Newton discovered a law, not a theory, although the explanation of orbits could be called a theory. It was criticized in its day as not being a full theory, because we did not know how gravity worked, only mathematical relationships. It wasn't until Einstein and the theory of general relativity that we had a full theory of gravity (and even now it is incomplete at the quantum level).
So I agree that evolution is as strong as the theory of gravity (or better to say general relativity). The problem is when scientists then score cheap points and imply that denying evolution is the same as denying that apples fall. No, denying evolution is the same as saying gravity doesn't control the motion of the planets or that it is not caused by the shape of the space-time continuum. That is still absurd, but not quite the same.
I try to emphasize to students that a theory is a complex structure that incorporates laws and hypothesis and explains a wide variety of observations. If we then say that "apples fall" is a theory, how are we helping them to understand what exactly a theory is? The comparison to gravity is OK as long as we make it clear gravity is a complex explanation for a wide variety of observations, not simply the tendency to fall. Doing that makes for an easy cheap shot, but it is not accurate and we should not use it.
Denying evolution is often compared with denying gravity. That is almost right, so I understand its appeal. There is even a quote from Stephen J. Gould that I use myself that does this, in which he says "I suppose apples might begin to rise tomorrow, but the idea doesn't deserve equal time in the physics classroom". This comparison is made when discussing the meaning of theory in science. A scientific theory is very well established and not at all like the common use of the word theory as a wild guess. We have the atomic theory, the germ theory of disease, and the theory of gravity, and evolution is no less certain than any of them just because we call it a theory.
I agree with that. I say it all of the time. The problem is when the theory of gravity is misrepresented as "things fall". "Things fall" is a simple observation, a fact. No one ever doubted it. Sometimes people say Newton discovered gravity with the implication that until Newton, we weren't sure if apples fall up or down, but he answered it for us. Newton didn't discover that things fall. His discovery was that the same force that makes an apple fall also controls the motion of the planets, and that the force of gravity has a specific mathematical relationship to mass and distance (prior to Newton, falling was attributed to a tendency internal to the apple to seek out a low position, in the teleological reasoning typical of Aristotle).
The latter part is the theory, not that apples fall. Technically, Newton discovered a law, not a theory, although the explanation of orbits could be called a theory. It was criticized in its day as not being a full theory, because we did not know how gravity worked, only mathematical relationships. It wasn't until Einstein and the theory of general relativity that we had a full theory of gravity (and even now it is incomplete at the quantum level).
So I agree that evolution is as strong as the theory of gravity (or better to say general relativity). The problem is when scientists then score cheap points and imply that denying evolution is the same as denying that apples fall. No, denying evolution is the same as saying gravity doesn't control the motion of the planets or that it is not caused by the shape of the space-time continuum. That is still absurd, but not quite the same.
I try to emphasize to students that a theory is a complex structure that incorporates laws and hypothesis and explains a wide variety of observations. If we then say that "apples fall" is a theory, how are we helping them to understand what exactly a theory is? The comparison to gravity is OK as long as we make it clear gravity is a complex explanation for a wide variety of observations, not simply the tendency to fall. Doing that makes for an easy cheap shot, but it is not accurate and we should not use it.
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