Why people go anti-science

Mark Hoofnagle at Denialism Blog hits the hail on the head:

In fact, if there is a unifying theme of denialism, it is that any extreme of ideological thinking leads to the necessary denial of fact. When one considers the causes of denialist worldviews, one sees again and again some form of fundamentalist belief. Fundamentalist religion leads to the rejection of evolution. Free-market fundamentalists are the leading source of anti-global warming denialism. On the liberal side, a mixture of technophobia and neo-luddism leads to paranoid suspicions about everything from GM crops causing non-existent illnesses to fear of harmless radio technology such as wifi to the fear of vaccines and medicine innovations exemplified by the HuffPo cranks and the evidence-based medicine/HIV/AIDS denialists like Mike Adams and Gary Null.

Any dogma that gets any followers is likely to be (a) simple and (b) emotionality satisfying, at least to some people. In fact any belief system must be simpler than reality, since reality is vast and probably not fully comprehensible to the human mind anyway. Once people become adherents of a dogma, they are likely to hold tight to it, since it’s their intellectual comfort blanket. And when reality proves that their dogma is at least partly wrong — as all dogmas must be, even though they are probably partly right, too — then the adherent is drawn into conflict with reality, and resolves that conflict by simply pretending that the uncomfortable truth isn’t there. And then the more serious of the adherents erect whole intellectual edifices, founded on bullshit and wish-fulfillment fantasy, as to why reality isn’t real.

What’s the cure for this? Simply to realise that any simple, pat, belief system isn’t going to be the whole truth, even if it does have good points. Put simply, no belief system about how the human world works is entirely correct, or is any widely-held belief system likely to be entirely nonsense. For example:

Religion: God may not exist, but nevertheless it is still bad for people to murder or steal from each other.

Free markets: are an efficient way of allocating scarce resources, under many circumstances, but they are not the solution to all human-organisation problems.

Medicine: some medicines have genuinely harmed patients, but most do good, and by spreading panic about vaccines etc one is almost certainly doing more harm than good.

Technology: most technology leads to humans living longer, more fulfilled lives; but some technologies have lead to a diminution of human happiness (e.g. telemarketers and spammers)

Why should religion get a free ride?

Chris Dillow notes that Gordon Brown is privileging religion:

What is a conscience? This is the question Brown opened when he said that “exercising your conscience will mean for Labour Party members a free vote” on parts of the embryology bill.

But, as Janine asks, why should conscience only permit a free vote here? To take just one example, many Labour MPs consciences might - or should - stop them wanting to put people in jail for 42 days without charge. But there’s little hope of a free vote on the Counter Terrorism bill.

What Brown means by “conscience”, then, is “religious belief.” Which raises the question: why should religious beliefs have a special status in politics that allows MPs free votes when they don’t get them on other grounds?

Why should religion be privileged above other belief systems? Dillow says it shouldn’t be. I go further than that: religious beliefs should be accorded less respect, less status, than for example secular liberal beliefs.

There are about 6 billion people in the world, and about 100 million of them die every year. Most of these people die of diseases, many (or all) of which could be curable over time with medical research. So medical research saves lives, and being against medical research — which opponents of the embryology bill are — kills people. Hitler only killed 50 million or so; these people want 100 million potentially preventable deaths to happen every year.

Most of the religious people who oppose the embryology bill are I suppose in their private lives good and decent people; certainly the vast majority don’t personally go round killing people. Which leads me to the conclusion that although good people do good things, and bad people do bad things, it takes religion to make good people do bad things.

Why science is good and religion is crap

I’ve so far not commented on the debate regarding Dr Rowan Williams’ remarks on sharia law — it’s a debate that’s caused more heat than light, expecially in the popular press which has wilfully misrepresented Williams’ remarks. But I will pass on this tidbit from Quaequam blog:

The point which much of the media has ignored is that Williams has argued for a system of exceptionalism whereby we atheists (or, as he put it in his speech on Thursday, sterile positivists) must abide by the rule of law while anyone of faith can negotiate whatever opt-outs they wish. At the same time, of course, he insists that the Church should be established and retain its existing seats in the House of Lords. Gay marriage, and even same-sex registered partnerships, is apparently a threat that undermines the institution of marriage, yet we should at least be open-minded about the idea of Muslim polygamy. People of faith can say what they like about atheists, but atheists should be locked up for slagging off the religious. In short, he believes absolutely in equal rights with the modest proviso that the religious are more equal than the rest of us.

This I think gets to the nub of what Williams is arguing for. It’s obvious what the attraction of such a point of view is to a religious leader such as Williams; it is also obvious to any fair-minded person what’s wrong with it. Why should any belief system be priviledged over any other? The only reason is that some beliefs are correct, or at least more correct than other beliefs. For example consider:

Belief A: Strawberries are good to eat.

Belief B: Broken glass is good to eat.

It happens that one of these beliefs is more true than the other one. How do we know? By observing reality. Now there’s a special way of observing reality that consists of considering procedures which if carried out will give a different result based on with belief is true, and then carrying out those procedures. This way is called experimentation and it’s how science works.

Sometimes its impossible to do experiments — for example it would be unethical to force people to smoke cigarettes to see if doing so harmed their health — but what you can do is observe the health of smokers and non-smokers and use statistical techniques to infer a correlation. Correlation isn’t causation (of course) but it does strongly hint that something is going on.

Now consider another belief:

Belief C: The world was created with apparent age by my pet cat last Tuesday.

There are no experiments that can tell whether Belief C is true or false. Thus it is said to be unfalsifiable. This has two implications: first, we don’t know whether it is true or not, and secondly we don’t (or shouldn’t) care anyway, because all observable phenomena behave exactly the same regardless of whether it is true or false.

Society (and the state) should respect and priviledge those beliefs that have been shown by observation or experiment to be true — or at least that have the evidence in their favour (beliefs such as Belief A). So for example,it’s reasonable for the state to say smoking is bad for people and therefore to tax it highly and restrict its sale.

Regarding beliefs that are wrong or unfalsifiable (such as Belief B and Belief C), these should not be respected or priviledged in any way. In fact, it’s best for society to actively ridicule such beliefs, in order to reduce the number of people who believe them.

Free will versus science

Quaequam blog has as thoughtful post up about how modern science is dissolving commonly-held notions about free will:

I’m becoming increasingly conscious of the fact that science and our notions about free will are increasingly coming into conflict. On one level that tension does not, and never will be particularly meaningful. Science is unlikely to ever become so adept at understanding our genes, brains, bodies and environment to such an extent that it can predict exactly what anyone is likely to do at any given moment. But on another level, it is likely to throw up all sorts of inconvenient truths such as levels of intelligence and modes of behaviour which have fundamentally chemical bases and can thus be altered in a similar way. We’ve created distinctions between “disorders” and personality traits which are looking increasingly unsustainable. Surely there needs to be some kind of distinction between a negative thing that we should seek to cure or otherwise discourage, and a neutral thing that we should tolerate in a pluralistic society? But that line seems to be becoming increasingly blurred and just as we are having to seriously consider reclassifying some things from the former to the latter, so we may have to consider others going the other way. Or is it to be anything goes?

One point is that the “we” who are going to have to decide how to deal with these issues doesn’t jusdt include the West, it includes societies like China, which might be described as paternalistically authoritarian and will probably have less reluctance to change human brain chemistry if they thing society will benefit from it.

How it will eventually turn out probably depends on what is the most efficient, so that if one society alters human brain chemistry in a way that makes them vastly more efficient than their competitors (e.g. by making people cleverer and harder-working, or less likely to commit crimes) then other societies will have to match them or they will be consigned to the dustbin of history.

All three of my parents were genetic scientists

You know you’re living in the 21st century when someone can say “All three of my parents were genetic scientists“.

Get a degree in teaching creationism

According to New Humanist:

The state of Texas may be about to approve an online master’s degree in science education provided by the Texas-based Institute for Creation Research. The “degree”, which has already been given preliminary approval by a Texas state advisory group, is now awaiting the final go-ahead from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Events like this make it more plausible that China will be running the world in 50 years time.

Britain may be dumbing down its educational system but at least we’re not teaching this ridiculous nonsense (mostly not, anyway).

Patio Heaters

Some MEPs want to ban patio heaters:

The EU parliament is expected to back a resolution requiring the use of appliances with low energy efficiency to be phased out. Patio heaters are specifically targeted in the motion, which calls on the EU to act urgently and introduce minimum standards for energy efficiency on such appliances as air-conditioning, television “decoder” boxes and light bulbs.

Patio heaters are used for two purposes: by pubs wanting to allow customers to sit outside and still be warm, and by people using them in their gardens. The first use has been greatly increased in the UK by the smoking bans introduced in the UK, and the correct response would be to allow pubs to have an indoor area where smokers could smoke. Because it’s unreasonable to expect employees to have to endanger their health in the course of their work, this area probably wouldn’t be cleaned except after the pub closes at night, but I doubt if people who deliberately inhale smoke and ash would be all that bothered.

People using patio heaters at home are not really a problem, because the proportion of carbon emissions caused by that use is miniscule. Home patio heaters are a stupid idea — there’s already a perfectly good technology for staying warm when it is cold outside, called “buildings” — and people who use them are idiots who I disapprove of on aesthetic grounds. But that doesn’t mean they should be made illegal; if people want to waste their money (including paying a tax to pay for the negative externalities they cause), that’s up to them.

If the EU want to reduce carbon emissions, there are two things they must do. Firstly, they must tax activities that emit carbon, ideally according to the amount of CO₂-equivalent they emit. And secondly they must persuade outside countries to do the same — China and the USA each produce more emissions than the EU, and China’s emissions in particular are growing quickly. Because most countries do a large proportion of their trade with the EU, the EU can use tariffs as a lever with which to influence these countries.

There are other policies that it might also be useful for the EU to pursue — for example, encouraging research on solar energy — but unless they do the two things I’ve stated above, they might as well not bother doing anything at all, because other policies will not on their own be effective.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

Over at Liberal Conspiracy, Kate Belgrave writes:

This is a quick blog to update LC readers on the latest god-based outrage against women. As most of you probably know, Gordon Brown’s cabinet contains a number of career Jesus freaks - Ruth Kelly and Des Browne are the main offenders, and there are a couple of other perpetrators whose names and point in our lives escape me for the moment.

Anyway - Ruthie and her fellow holy-rollers have revealed themselves concerned that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will make it possible for lesbians to avail themselves of IVF and become parents.

I’m still trying to grasp the exact reasons why the thought of a couple of dykes pushing a pram is considered such a disaster - who gives a stuff, basically - but I’ll go out on a limb for you here and posit the theory that the big concern is that two women who bring a child up without male input will wash its hair and teach it to bake and turn it into a Gay.

My understanding is that it is government policy to allow for civil partnerships between gay people which are marriages in all but name. Furthermore, civil partnerships include the possibility of bringing up children, and IVF for lesbian couples is an obvious extension of that. If Kelly and Browne disapprove, then they are entitled to their opinion, but if they oppose government policy what are they doing in the cabinet? If they had any integrity, they would resign, instead of demanding a free vote on the issue.

BBC gets it wrong about Wi-Fi

Earlier this year, the BBC screened a documentary, “Wi-Fi: A Warning Signal“, which made misleading claims that it was harmful to health.

Now they’ve admitted they got it wrong:

The BBC has upheld complaints against an edition of the current affairs programme Panorama.

Two viewers said Wi-Fi: A Warning Signal exaggerated the evidence for concern about the potential health hazards of wireless technology.

The BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) said the programme “gave a misleading impression of the state of scientific opinion on the issue”.

I’ve some advice for the BBC: when making science programmes, employ presenters who know a bit about science. The BBC wouldn’t employ football commentators who don’t know what the penalty spot is, or political commentators who don’t know who Gordon Brown is. Similarly, people presenting science programmes — including documentaries with significant science content — should know enough about science not to make a complete tit of themselves.

UPDATE: Bad Science is covering this here.

Exams for terrorists

Do you have an A level or AS level in biology or chemistry? Then you must be one of those evil terrorists the government is always warning us about. At least that’s the conclusion one can draw from this report in Nature:

A British resident who is under surveillance for suspected terrorist activities is being prohibited from taking secondary-school-level science courses by the government, Nature has learned.

The man, referred to as A.E., is contesting the decision in court, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind. The preliminary hearing over whether A.E. should be allowed to take AS-level courses in human biology and chemistry took place on 16 November at London’s High Court. The UK Home Office, which has an order restricting A.E.’s actions and affiliations, argues that such coursework could be turned towards terrorism. His solicitors counter that the knowledge is public, and that the furthering of A.E.’s education poses no threat.

I was in Waterstone’s the other day and they had a whole shelf of revision guides for AS levels. I guess they must be in league with the terrorists too, which demonstrates that the terrorist conspiracy is much bigger than I had hitherto suspected, and that the government is therefore right to throw away all our civil liberties to combat it.