Pharyngula

Posted by: truthspeaker | July 6, 2010 11:30 AM

Many people can't hold them on a basis of scientific knowledge, since they don't have sufficient scientific knowledge to hold them.

This is, in fact, the very problem we're complaining about. It's also a problem that's easily remedied - get yourself some more scientific knowledge.

Posted by: raven | July 6, 2010 11:40 AM

One doesn't need much science to know that the earth is old. All that is required is a functioning brain and eyes.

The earth simply looks old. This was known hundreds of years ago although how old was not.

There are valleys and canyons everywhere. Strangely enough, at the very bottom are...rivers. It doesn't take much thought to link the two together. The river is forming the valley by erosion. Duh!

Much of the earth is covered miles deep in sedimentary rock. Much of the midwest was an ancient ocean and fossils of mososaurs, pleisiosaurs, and sea invertebrates are everywhere.

We run our civilization on "fossil fuels", ancient dead biomass entombed and cooked in rocks.

The fundie 6,000 year old universe leaves no room for the ice ages or stone ages but evidence for glaciers is common in the northern hemisphere and stone tools litter the earth's surface everywhere.

The dinosaurs are obvious evidence of ancient ecosystems, long gone.

One has to be willingly ignorant to miss what is all around them visible to all.

Posted by: jafafahots | July 6, 2010 11:44 AM

I don't understand how TV works, and you can't expect EVERYONE to study it and learn how, therefore you're being a dogmatist if you say I shouldn't think it's actually magic little people in there.

Posted by: Timberwoof | July 6, 2010 11:48 AM

I think our Vital Remnant was alluding to the fallacy of appeal to authority: he did not want to be caught making that error, and so concluded that he can't know anything. The problem is that the fallacy is appeal to inappropriate authority, such as quoting a nuclear physicist on the role of ribosomes in tertiary blastosphere replication. I'm not a biologist; I'm happy to read what a biologist says on the subject and accept it on his authority. If someone asks me a question on biology and I happen to know the answer, I could perfectly well answer, "PZ Meyers says…"; that would not be an improper appeal to authority.

It's a subtle difference, one which our creationist acquaintances shoudl learn.

Posted by: strangebeasty | July 6, 2010 11:51 AM

This is a nice (maybe that's not the best word I could use) piece of writing on productive vs. not-so-productive lay attitudes toward science, and it's something a lot of people in the public could benefit from hearing, because a lot of people only tend to see the "authority" side of science that Rand Paul wants to bitch about here. It's making the effort to get things clear in our own minds that transforms the authority held by scientists into what it should be- critical scrutiny followed by a reasonable degree of trust.

Posted by: Gus Snarp | July 6, 2010 11:55 AM

Not at all saying, BTW, that Rand Paul is right to criticize the Civil Rights Act, just that it's something he does based on a Libertarian political philosophy, he's dead wrong on that of course, and even his waffling on that show a lack of courage. It's just that even after the waffling, he's willing to say that, basically, government shouldn't force businesses to serve African Americans, an abhorrent position, but he's not willing to be as offensive to the religious vote, but a Libertarian world view, it seems to me, ought to have a viewpoint on church and state that pretty much matches the one laid out in the Copenhagen Declaration - no special tax breaks or treatment for religion, a complete separation of church and state, etc. But let's see Rand Paul say that in front of a creationist group. He doesn't even have the guts to tell them that the world is significantly (by any definition of the word) older than 6,000 years.

Posted by: Tulse | July 6, 2010 11:59 AM

Not at all saying, BTW, that Rand Paul is right to criticize the Civil Rights Act, just that it's something he does based on a Libertarian political philosophy

Funny, then, that he is for using the jackbooted heel of State violence to enforce a ban on abortion.

Posted by: frog, Inc. | July 6, 2010 12:04 PM

That's actually interesting -- one of the issues apparently for the religious is an inability to distinguish accepting things on authority versus accepting things on creditability.

Authority comes from tradition -- from inheritance. It's "common sense". Credit comes from a track record, from a network of trust, and from transparency. It's theoretical, empirical, and often counter-intuitive.

If you don't distinguish the two, listening to Bohr and listening to Paul seem indistinguishable.

Posted by: Vicki, Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief | July 6, 2010 12:07 PM

I'd even accept something like "The Earth is very old. I don't know exactly how old; let's call a geologist at $local_college and ask." That's an honest "I'm not an expert"; a world of difference from denying that the information is available.

(I don't know exactly how much money I have in the bank this morning. But I do have a rough idea, and if you told me "you only have three dollars" or "you're a millionaire" I'd know you were way off. And I don't know exactly what my cat weighs, but I know it's close to 5 kg, maybe 6, not 500 grams or 15 kg. If I needed to know, I could use a scale or wait until his next visit to the vet.)

Posted by: MJP | July 6, 2010 12:09 PM

There's a huge anti-intellectual streak in the libertarian movement. It's the only movement that manages to have both sizable religious-right/conspiracy-theorist and New Age bullcrap factions.

Posted by: Tulse | July 6, 2010 12:12 PM

If the Earth was created 6000 years ago, the Mesopotamian people sure didn't know about it. Or 'cavemen' drawing art in their caves.

As if often the case, The Onion covered it: Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | July 6, 2010 12:15 PM

The goal these days seems to be coming up with statements that are so vague and open to interpretation that no one can take issue with them. This is a perfect example of what Wolfgang Pauli would describe as "so bad it's not even wrong!"

Wrong can be correctd. Bullshit can't. Bullshiting is much worse than simply being wrong--it is being cowardly.

Posted by: Jennifer | July 6, 2010 12:20 PM

You keep you cephalopods in the basement? Cruel Overlord.

and @23:
I believe you are on crack. and no one has invalidated that yet.

Posted by: Gregory Greenwood | July 6, 2010 12:22 PM

I don't know the age of the earth, but I know that someone who thinks that someone who doesn't know the age of the earth should have a position on the age of the earth anyway is a dogmatist. What else could he be?

This is the curious thing about people who hold to Darwinism: they demand that people with no scientific expertise hold scientific opinions.

This statement is so far into the territory of 'not even wrong' that it is quite staggering. This creationist is seriously asserting that no one can can learn the age of the Earth without an advanced understanding of physics and geography, that anyone who is not an expert themselves and places their trust in the expertise of the foremost minds in these fields, rather than in the musty mythology of the bibble, is a 'dogmatist'.

This attitude really is wholly unsupportable in this age of the democratisation of knowledge. The data is readily available, as are any number of books written in such a fashion as to be readily understood by scientific 'lay-persons'.

The only way for a person with access to the information sources of a developed nation to remain ignorant of these facts is if they wilfully choose to remain ignorant.

What can one say? You can take a fundie to the data, but you cannot make them think...

Posted by: Gus Snarp | July 6, 2010 12:24 PM

@wccrawford - Did you even read the post? There's a huge difference from believing something because a holy book or your preacher say it is true, and accepting a modern scientific theory. Most people haven't done the research to prove that the Earth is round, that it revolves on its axis and that it orbits the Sun, but we accept these things because we know that pretty much every scientist who has ever studied them has verified them. This is very different from believing that God created the Earth and everything on it 6,000 years ago because your preacher's interpretation of some book written thousands of years ago says so.

Posted by: Cosmic Teapot | July 6, 2010 12:27 PM

This is the curious thing about people who hold to Darwinism: they demand that people with no scientific expertise hold scientific opinions.

No, I demand nothing*. But I would like creationists with no scientific expertise to stop making stupid scientific claims.

* But then I am not a Darwinist.

Posted by: stompsfrogs | July 6, 2010 12:28 PM

There's a huge anti-intellectual streak in the libertarian movement. It's the only movement that manages to have both sizable religious-right/conspiracy-theorist and New Age bullcrap factions.

...and Penn Jillette :( I saw he did a "Penn Point" episode in defense of Rand Paul... I didn't have the heart to watch it.

Posted by: frog, Inc. | July 6, 2010 12:29 PM

Gus: I don't doubt you, but I wonder what point in the Cold War that was? I'm not sure how much it had to do with the Cold War mentality either.

Well, there are two strands to the Cold War mentality -- there's the scientific and engineering end, in the tradition of American engineering going back to Edison and further to Franklin; and there's the revivalist thread going back the the Great Awakening.

So, there's the space race as you point out -- but there was also a strong push to wrap the flag in the cross. That's a uniquely 20th century phenomenon in the US, and it sure as hell accelerated back in the 50s. It is clearly associated with such craziness as anti-fluoridation, Jim Crowism (I'd guess that's the real source, the attempt back in the 1870s to desecularize Southern racism and turn it into a religious principle) and such.

Most fundamentalists before the 50s where strongly anti-nationalist (see the tale of York as an example). Or see Jehovah's Witnesses, who are more "primitive" in their religious sense, more similar to 19th century American religion.

For example, the "under God" was added to the pledge of allegiance in 1954, apparently coming from a push from an early iteration of "The Family" -- a religious authoritarian anti-Communist group that still runs the Congressional Prayer Breakfast. It also links Catholic authoritarianism (the Knights of Columbus were also involved) with Protestant authoritarianism -- before that period, there was deep hatred between Popists and anti-Popists.

Yeah -- and Reagan is always to blame. Before him, Republicans were as standoffish as Democrats on that streak. They both gave in and used it, but neither made anti-secularism a plank of their party.

Posted by: AstroProf | July 6, 2010 12:34 PM

"This is the curious thing about people who hold to Darwinism: they demand that people with no scientific expertise hold scientific opinions. But on what basis? Many people can't hold them on a basis of scientific knowledge, since they don't have sufficient scientific knowledge to hold them."

Put another way: Whatever you didn't figure out for yourself is simply 'belief', whether it comes from a public-school teacher, or priest, or Nobel Prize winner. And hey, this is America, you are free to choose your beliefs!

Isn't this what science class is for? Or education in general, for that matter. If all we knew was what we each individually figured out for ourselves, we'd all be dead.

Posted by: raven | July 6, 2010 12:51 PM

I don't know the age of the earth, but I know that someone who thinks that someone who doesn't know the age of the earth should have a position on the age of the earth anyway is a dogmatist. What else could he be?

A normal person of at least average intelligence.

Cthulhu, the creationist moron could look up the age of the earth on google or wikipedia in a few seconds. That is what the internet is for.

Posted by: SES | July 6, 2010 1:06 PM

Rand Paul is a physician. In order to get into medical school, one has to take college-level chemistry, organic chemistry, physics and biology. You have to have some background in science to take those courses, so you'd think that somewhere along the line he would have encountered information related to evolution and how old the earth is. I mean, it's not like he can claim he was "educated" in some madrassa, or something.

Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort | July 6, 2010 1:09 PM

@eeanm:

But you can just look around and see that the earth is millions or billions of years old with some common sense. Just look at the layers in a highway cut. Look at the fossils of sea life found in any creek bed in the midwest. Look at the old mountains of the ozarks. Think about your personal experience of erosion of rocks and then look at the grand canyon.

No no, that was all from Noah's Flood. A catastrophic flood both laid down and cut away all the sediment on the Earth. Geeze, I though this was an intelligent blog. *sarcasm*

Posted by: KG | July 6, 2010 1:12 PM

There's a huge anti-intellectual streak in the libertarian movement.

- MJP@20

I think that follows psychologically from the "I don't owe society anything" (subtext: so taxation is theft) attitude: to refuse to accept anything you haven't witnessed or figured out yourself is seen as admirable in its individualist self-sufficiency, rather than idiotic.

Posted by: occamseraser | July 6, 2010 1:20 PM

"Rand Paul is a physician."

You would be shocked to learn how many medical students today "don't believe in" evolution. Pre-meds no longer take comparative anatomy and know little about anything larger than a cell. The National Academy of Sciences has argued recently that principles of evolution should become a prerequisite for pre-meds, but don't hold your breath...

Dr. Egnor is also an MD. Quack quack.

Posted by: Snikkers | July 6, 2010 1:32 PM

Wow, that's the best argument against public education I've ever heard. Seriously, why are we wasting all that money?

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/KHFT1PAowIXXdtzjMn0ilRzex40S#9adc9 | July 6, 2010 1:42 PM

John Kenneth Galbraith:
"When I am asked my position on a particular subject I find it useful to see what William Buckley thinks. I take the opposite position in the assurance that I am right"
P.C.Chapman

Posted by: Gus Snarp | July 6, 2010 1:47 PM

@Snikkers - Except that I, and I'm sure many others here who have a pretty good idea how old the Earth is, am the product of a public school education. Meanwhile an awful lot of the people who believe the Earth is around 6,000 years old are the products of home schooling and private religious schools. Take away the affordable alternative of public school and you'll see more kids in religious private schools, since they are usually more affordable and more likely to offer scholarships for poor students than secular private schools, and more kids home schooled or not schooled by parents who can't afford any private school. Or we'll just give state money to private schools to take students, and there's no reason to believe that that system, over the long term, will be any better than public schools. In Ohio, at least, Charter Schools (private schools operating at public expense) fare more poorly on tests than public schools, so the evidence for privatizing education is weak at best.

Posted by: Ray Moscow | July 6, 2010 1:54 PM

Finch @ 55: This guy is an MD, and he's being wilfully pig-ignorant. He is indeed an "empty-headed goober, M.D."

Posted by: Kraid | July 6, 2010 1:57 PM

This is the curious thing about people who hold to Darwinism: they demand that people with no scientific expertise hold scientific opinions. But on what basis?

From Lake Placid: "They hide information like that in books."

Posted by: Birger Johansson | July 6, 2010 2:04 PM

Kevin: "Also, if God flooded the planet 4500 years ago, why are there burial mounds almost 5400 years old, or pyramids dated to about the same time - are we supposed to believe that Noah built the pyramids?"

Beavis and Butt-head (watching music video with pyramids in the background)
Beavis: "What are those triangular things"?
Butt-head: "I think Moses built them....really long ago, like in the sixties or something..."

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | July 6, 2010 2:10 PM

Even when you teach them, PZ, and even when you show them good information, good sources, good explanations, and so forth, a high percentage of them walk out saying, "Well, these so-called scientists can't decide whether margarine or butter is better, and I never quite believed this whole 4.6 billion year thing anyway!".

I simply accept that there's not much we can do about it. I hate to say it, but at least 10% of us (and I'm being hopelessly optimistic when I say only 10%) will simply never accept science. They'll buy that stupid "geology" book while they're visiting Grand Canyon, and say, "See? Some scientists disagree! Who am I to argue?".

Where a society gets into trouble is when that percentage gets too high. When it gets around 30%, I pretty much lose all hope.

MikeM

Posted by: jbenson | July 6, 2010 2:14 PM

I read Mr. Paul to be saying that because most people don't have in-depth scientific knowledge, and without such knowledge that religious belief and scientific belief are *equivalent* in that they rely on an authority. This I believe to be erroneous reasoning, because the scientific believer knows that the evidence to support the scientific claim is discoverable (in documented research), while the religious believer knows that the evidence to support the religious claim is not.

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | July 6, 2010 2:16 PM

Celtic_Evolution:

Using this guy's very loose and ludicrous definition, anyone who watches the weather and carries an umbrella with them the next day is a "dogmatist".

Fucking clownshoe.

Agreed. It's annoying as all hell, because they won't listen at all, they just yell "dogmatist!" at the top of their voice over and over. One more lame attempt at shoehorning atheism into religion, because these folks feel more comfortable arguing against another religion.

Posted by: Birger Johansson | July 6, 2010 2:25 PM

There is one very contiuous record of the age of the Holocene that will convince anyone willing to learn....If you go to western Canada (or northeast Sweden) you can see the evidence of the shoreline retreating due to the post-glacial rebound. This retreat is continuous, and the land moves upward at more than two feet per century, gradually making harbours too shallow.

Count backwards and you can calculate the position of the sea level at the end of the ice age. At that point you will find the forests on mountain slopes get thicker, since they grow in a much thicker layer of soil. Below this line, every square inch has at some point been part of a shore, and the silt on steep slopes will have been mostly washed away by waves, making tree growth on lower steep slopes visibly sparser.

With your own eyes, you can track the movement of the coast for ten thousand years. Anyone who denies what is in front of him at this point can be dismissed as wilfully ignorant.

Posted by: Sastra | July 6, 2010 2:28 PM

This is the curious thing about people who hold to Darwinism: they demand that people with no scientific expertise hold scientific opinions. But on what basis?

On the basis of knowing the difference between having confidence in the reliability of a person, and having confidence in the reliability of a system.

My new-age-ish friends who are into alternative medicine once complained that I only advocate science-based positions because I "trust" scientists. I told them no. Science is the system you value, when you don't trust scientists.

Religious and 'folk' ways of believing are based on following those whom you trust, because they are good people. You can't know everything, so you choose an authority. Science instead builds up testable models of reality that are not simply based on taking someone's word for something. Trust is not good; trust is technically bad: if your results are not replicable, you can't start harping on your reliability, and how certain you are that you just know that those were the results. If other scientists choose to believe you, despite the fact that nobody else can ever get your data again, they are not applauded for their loyalty. Mysticism and other non-scientific systems of thought thrive on such loyalty to personal experience.

A critical thinker seeks out opposing views. Science is all about the real diversity of clash and argument in fair competition -- as opposed to the superficial 'diversity' of accepting everyone's view in the name of 'harmony.' Mechanistic transparency, observational support, experimental replicability -- everything has to be done out in the open, and supported and demonstrated through evidence which will persuade skeptics, and force them to admit error. You advance by winning a grudging consensus -- not by explaining why your critics aren't emotionally mature enough to believe through trust, because you have to really want it to be true, before you are convinced.

That's the problem with the argument from authority. On what, is that authority based? On the way you know they're right? On the way they make you want to take a leap of faith, and believe? Not how it works in science. You can't just appeal to people who are looking for a way to be convinced, special people with a psychic affinity of some kind who will validate the Truth. Subjective validation won't cut it. Science is a competitive, aggressive, adversarial system of checks and balances, with a shared reality as the measure. If someone lies or messes up, someone else will eventually catch them. And there is every incentive to catch someone elses mistake. And every incentive to make sure that the mistakes they're catching, aren't yours. Better check.

You trust the authority of a system that is set up to trust nobody. Yes, people build on previous work: but if the work is flawed, they won't be able to build anything that actually works.

Religion and spirituality don't have to work in a reality that doesn't give a damn about us. They only have to "work for the person. My friends are convinced that their woo beliefs are part of science because there are Brave Maverick Scientists putting mean words on crystals or verifying energy healings who are working outside the system of meanies and naysayers which is mainstream science, and getting results which are accepted on trust by people like them.

If you understand how cut-throat competition works, you understand why you are not just accepting the word of an "authority" if you assume that someone who has won a prestigious award for piano performance, at least knows how to play the piano.

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | July 6, 2010 2:28 PM

wccrawford @23

See, this is the problem with being a moron in the Age of the Internet. Not only is in-depth analysis and education on topics such as evolution right at your fingertips, but the people you talk to in any given forum are from all walks of life and all sorts of backgrounds.

So a comment that might have flown at the Church Picnic in front of a bunch of proudly know-nothing assholes just falls flat on its face in front of people who actually know what they are talking about.

See, some of us here on this forum including the blog host have personally done some of the research into this field. My thesis project involved using phylogenetic analysis techniques to examine a large dataset of mitochondrial data.

In short, my thesis was directly into evolutionary techniques and required evolution to be true to even be possible. Similarly, my education and stints as a research assistant also had a number of experiments that simply would have been impossible if evolution wasn't accurate to what the scientists claimed it was.

Hell, I've even done directed evolution as an in-class project in order to pass my cell biology lab class.

So yeah, some of us have actually confirmed with our own hands the veracity of the theory.

And you are a moron.

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 6, 2010 3:00 PM

#23

In my experience, most people 'believe' in evolution.

Then your experience is tainted by the fact that most of these people say this because the question is, lamentably, too often framed with the the use of the word "believe".

The debate about evolution has always been one of belief by the majority of religious folks. The framing of acceptance of the science of evolution vs. faith in religious text has been turned into a question of belief by the religious majority, and has thus been presented that way by much of the mainstream media.

So if your experience is that people say they "believe" in evolution, it's because common parlance has caused the layperson to conflate "belief" with "acceptance" in these instances. Most lay-people don't realize there's a difference.

Posted by: timpanogos | July 6, 2010 3:01 PM

I think you've glossed over the serious political issue here, P.Z.

Here is the sore point: Someone who subscribes to crank science probably is a crank in other fields.

A. Paul is unlikely to be friendly the rules of evidence used in courts of law, the rules that determine whether a person accused of murder is convicted or not, or put to death or not. These evidence rules also apply in cases where polluters are asked to take responsibility, and where drunks are accused of driving dangerously, etc., etc.

B. Paul probably subscribes to crank sociology, which leads to crank politics. In the trial of the famous case of Brown vs. Board of Education part of the evidence involved a sociology study that found African American children were so poisoned by racism that they thought their color made them inferior and so they preferred to play with white dolls, for example, to imagine themselves white. We already know that Paul is a crank on civil rights -- do we now know why?

C. Paul is likely to subscribe to crank economics. A key point of Republican/Teabaggers of late is that unemployment insurance discourages people from looking for full-time employment. This is a conclusion one could reach only by ignoring all the evidence (10% of salary isn't a begging wage, let alone enough to keep somebody who wants to work home watching TV). What other crank ideas in economics does he entertain? Governments shouldn't intervene to prevent poverty? Governments have no role in assuring access to health care? Governments have no duty to enforce laws on pollution? Against drunk driving? Against incest?

Can Paul tell us just how much of reality he subscribes to, rather than those parts of reality he rejects? I'll wager he knows better. People should ask.

Paul has established a presumption that he is a crank, unfit for high office. It's a rebuttable presumption, but reporters should demand he rebut it.

Ed Darrell

Posted by: Disturbingly Openminded | July 6, 2010 3:13 PM

The crazy creationist is making an Inverse Courtier's Reply argument. Which I didn't even know existed.

Posted by: aghunt | July 6, 2010 3:47 PM

Hi PZ (and everyone else),

Just FYI, this "inane creationist", Martin Cothran, is an instructor at a private Christian school in Louisville. This school uses A Beka in its 9th grade (IIRC) biology instruction, and Martin sees nothing wrong with using this material for that level of student. On his blog, Martin has defended the use of A Beka, using the "being open-minded" excuse.

My opinion of classical education has changed significantly since I started reading Martin's blog.

Posted by: raven | July 6, 2010 4:17 PM

Even if you're not a scientist you should have SOME idea of history's scale just by osmosis.

Any functioning adult should have some idea of what the world around us looks like.

The basics. Diagram the solar system, earth orbits the sun, earth is billions of years old, moon orbits the earth, stars are suns, universe is older still and so on.

It isn't hard. This is simple stuff. I learned most of it by the end of the first grade.

Posted by: raven | July 6, 2010 4:27 PM

Here is the sore point: Someone who subscribes to crank science probably is a crank in other fields.

Crank Magnetism

Polykookery is very common. Some of these collect every known crackpot theory in science, religion, and whatever and weave them together in elaborate tapestries of baloney.

Bigfoots ride in flying saucers piloted by demons from hell to the picnic with the elves and fairies while fighting off MD's armed with vaccines, medical books, and The Germ Theory of Disease.

Posted by: steve | July 6, 2010 4:51 PM

Daniel Dennet gave a great example on the difference between trust and faith.

He asked a friend of his who spoke Turkish (Dennet does not) to write a statement in Turkish whose content was not known to Dennet but in the opinion of the author was true and would be a statement that Dennet would agree with.

Now Dennet could claim to believe the statement on a basis of trust even though he did not know what the statement actually said.

At any point he could verify the truth of the statement in a number of ways; he could learn Turkish and understand the Turkish statement first hand, he could ask a number of other Turkish speakers to independently translate the statement, etc.

Contrast this with faith where you would believe the truth value of a statement based on the authority of the speaker.

Posted by: Twisted_Colour | July 6, 2010 5:23 PM

Cantrary?

Is that some type of bird?

Posted by: oldfuzz | July 6, 2010 6:03 PM

Several things come to mind:
1. Rand Paul is running for office in Kentucky where non-creationists may dismiss this dodge.
2. There are both young earth and old earth creationists.
3. He wants to be elected.

Posted by: Owlmirror | July 6, 2010 6:27 PM

He asked a friend of his who spoke Turkish (Dennet does not) to write a statement in Turkish whose content was not known to Dennet but in the opinion of the author was true and would be a statement that Dennet would agree with.

I put the sentence (from Breaking the Spell) into translate.google.com (as can anyone, of course), and the result was indeed something that I, and most rational people, would agree is true.

Posted by: Peter H | July 6, 2010 7:04 PM

"I don't understand why the young-Earth creationists don't think that God as they understand Him could have created a planet with the Grand Canyon already formed, with cave paintings already painted, and as much of whatever kind of carbon He cared to distribute however He wanted to distribute it."

Some of them do subscribe to such a notion. But no rational examination of available data will support such a notion, so it is not useful as an hypothesis as to the creation of the universe & this infinitesimal speck of rock we call home.

Posted by: John Morales | July 6, 2010 7:12 PM

jillian,

I am an agnostic, not an atheist

Are you agnostic about the Invisible Pink Unicorn, too?

Posted by: truthspeaker | July 6, 2010 7:31 PM

Remember when a rounded education was something to be proud of?

Posted by: Peter H | July 6, 2010 7:36 PM

"Remember when a rounded education was something to be proud of?"

Remember when a rounded education was something one could reasonably be assured of finding?

Posted by: MS | July 6, 2010 7:52 PM

What I posted over there:

I doubt very seriously that Rand Paul doesn't know, within a reasonable margin of error, what the age of the earth is. However, he can't come out and say so. If he tells the truth, he alienates a large part of his base. If he asserts that it is only a few thousand years old, he exposes himself to ridicule from the educated. Hence, he weasels. All politicians weasel to some extent or other, I suppose, but it's still not a good thing.

And the information requested is common knowledge, and should be known to any person claiming to be educated. It's not a "gotcha" question, like asking him to opine on some obscure controversy about quarks or bosons. There simply is no controversy among scientists about the (approximate) age of the earth. It is disingenuous at best to pretend otherwise.

By refusing to answer the question, he shows that he doesn't value truth very much, and that he doesn't think science is particularly important, strange positions for a physician, and scary in someone seeking high office.

As it happens, I live in Kentucky. Not that I would be likely to vote for him anyway, but this is one more nail in the coffin. I really hope that as his looniness (and I really can't think of a better word) becomes more widely known, it will throw the election to his opponent.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 6, 2010 8:10 PM

so why does he publicize a troll who went the extra step and started his own blog?

it's because people were complaining they needed a new chew toy, and cleaning after trolls locally is problematic and time consuming.

why not send us somewhere else to chew on trolls for a while?

He's busy writing and can't be bothered to clean up the messes around here.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/ePZaUQRzp8RTmwJfmvugLekDa4ux#4e32d | July 6, 2010 8:49 PM

It saddens me Prof Myers, that the very same basic philosophical understanding of logic, reason, and critical thinking that brought humanity into the modern age is now being systematically rejected.

I worry for the future. EMBRACE KNOWLEDGE.

Posted by: jillian | July 6, 2010 8:55 PM

@raven (#101) - well, I didn't say that a being that created the universe last Thursday has to be benign, nor that our lives have meaning.

If I were a young-Earth creationist who believed that God created the Earth with fossils intact, I might say something like, "Well, He works in mysterious ways; maybe He put them there to help us understand the natural laws He set up." Or, maybe Satan put them there, to trick us. Honestly the possibilities are endless. It's easily explained.

Personally I tend to act as an atheist would be expected to act. I just have a really high standard of proof, I guess. As a physicist might say, the probability of the Invisible Pink Unicorn being real is a number very near, but not identical, to zero.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | July 6, 2010 9:59 PM

"Personally I tend to act as an atheist would be expected to act. I just have a really high standard of proof, I guess. As a physicist might say, the probability of the Invisible Pink Unicorn being real is a number very near, but not identical, to zero."

Really? Funny how to me that looks exactly the same as being a mealy wormed yellow bellied crystal gazing faux intellectual woowoo baby who refuses to take a stance on any issue so he can pretend to be 'above it and purely objective' and better than anyone who actually gives a crap about reality..

John Kerry is that you?

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | July 6, 2010 10:10 PM

The problem with Last Thursdayism is "and then a miracle happened" is unfalsifiable.

Posted by: jillian | July 6, 2010 10:42 PM

Last Thursdayism is clearly not science. I certainly hope that's not what they are teaching in schools these days.

As for what they teach in Sunday School, however: I would certainly prefer Last Thursdayism (which can accommodate science) to the made-up science you typically hear from the young-Earth people (eg, the Grand Canyon was formed in Noah's Flood). Better yet, of course, is the rational approach that many Christians take, that God merely created the natural laws and set them loose, and that Genesis is best understood as a metaphor.

Unverifiable, yes; that's why they call it faith. Certainly has no place in a scientific discussion.

I accept all generally accepted scientific theories, such as evolution. Scientists understand that theories are not 100% verified; therefore scientists understand that there is some (very, very small) chance that they may be disproved at some future date. To acknowledge such is not mealy-mouthed (or mealy wormed, either) or faux-intellectual. It is merely accurate.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | July 6, 2010 11:35 PM

I accept all generally accepted scientific theories, such as evolution. Scientists understand that theories are not 100% verified; therefore scientists understand that there is some (very, very small) chance that they may be disproved at some future date. To acknowledge such is not mealy-mouthed (or mealy wormed, either) or faux-intellectual. It is merely accurate.

The problem here is not the error margins that come with science, but the failure to distinguish between quantum tunnelling and magic blue smoke as to why computers work. Yes, the theories of quamtum mechanics aren't held with certainty, but so what? If knowledge required certainty then knowledge itself is a useless word. Yes, theories can be wrong. Yes there are new paradigms that can completely change things, but no magic blue smoke and quantum tunnelling are not equivalent.

Fallibility doesn't mean faith!

Posted by: jillian | July 6, 2010 11:55 PM

I seem to have been mistaken for a troll. Let me try to restate my original points:

1. Christianity is not incompatible with science. Many intelligent, intellectually rigorous scientists would agree.

2. People who invent bogus science to justify a young Earth undermine Christianity and make themselves look stupid.

Ignorant people can use the uncertainty of scientific theories to justify all kinds of ridiculousness. That doesn't mean we should go around claiming that scientific theories are not uncertain. We just have to be clear about what that uncertainty entails.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 7, 2010 12:02 AM

Christianity is not incompatible with science.

yes, it is.

Many intelligent, intellectually rigorous scientists would agree.

which logical fallacy were you trying for there? An argumentum ad populum?

If you're trying out the idea that disparate ideas are compatible because you can find humans that hold both at the same time, try looking up what compartmentalization means sometime.

People who invent bogus science to justify a young Earth undermine Christianity and make themselves look stupid.

actually, they make themselves out to be liars. stupid is irrelevant - smart people can make the same dishonest arguments - we see it all the time.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | July 7, 2010 12:21 AM

1. Christianity is not incompatible with science. Many intelligent, intellectually rigorous scientists would agree.

And many intelligent, intellectually rogorous scientists would disagree too. The question of compatibility is not whether one can be pro-science and believe in a Christian supernaturalism, but whether the claims that are at the core of what makes one Christian are compatible with the epistemic findings of the discipline. People keep saying there's a means of reconciliation, but it's hard to actually point to one. Most of the reconcilians that are paraded (whether they work or not) are unlike the Christianity that is practiced by many.

Surely you meant to say that there are some forms of Christianity that are compatible, because indeed there are many forms that are clearly incompatible hence the fight against science.

2. People who invent bogus science to justify a young Earth undermine Christianity and make themselves look stupid.

Christianity is not one thing though, there are something like 40,000 sects and over 2 billion believers. A lot of the fundamentalists sects and individuals within those sects attack liberal Christianity as not being True Christians, that by picking and choosing they are not following what it means to be a Christian. Other individuals that call themselves Christian believe in a God akin to a quantum consciousness. Why is it just the YECs that undermine Christianity? Surely the creationists could charge the same thing against the liberal Anglicans or the Unitarians.

The church my Mum is now deeply involved with is like a mix between newage mysticism and a generic Christian supernaturalism. How does a church like that fit into the singular entity that is called Christianity?

Ignorant people can use the uncertainty of scientific theories to justify all kinds of ridiculousness. That doesn't mean we should go around claiming that scientific theories are not uncertain.

I think what you're missing is the difference between scientific uncertainty and philosophical posturing. The question of a young earth has long been disproven by science, but to speak of the fallibility of science and the presentation of non-scientific ideas is comparing apples and oranges. Science operates within its own epistemological framework, we call that methodological naturalism. Ideas like a young earth aren't within the bounds of methodological naturalism, they are taking on a different epistemology.

These are philosophical distinctions, not scientific ones. Philosophically one might be able to explain the success of methodological naturalism without concluding ontological naturalism, but scientific questions sit within the confines of methodological naturalism. Invoking the omphalos hypothesis isn't science, it's philosophy. You're comparing apples and oranges.

We just have to be clear about what that uncertainty entails.

Indeed, but conflating scientific uncertainty with philosophy is not the road to clarity... it just makes the issue more muddled because people can't distinguish between what is science and what is not.

Posted by: circleh | July 7, 2010 1:01 AM

Ichthyic seems to subscribe to the narrow minded idea that if something is currently not considered scientific, it must be anti-science forever. But is it not possible that what we call unscientific today may fall within the realm of science tomorrow if we find something that can explain such "miracles" as the Resurrection and the healing works of Jesus? Even Thomas Jefferson denied the reality of meteors, because he was opposed to the very idea of rocks falling from the sky. But he was quite wrong about that. How many times must it be explained to atheists that just because something has not (yet) been proven (to them), that's no clear reason to DENY what they don't want to believe?!

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 7, 2010 1:07 AM

if so, what are you doing slumming around the "bigotsphere"?

or have you decided to dump that bit of inanity?

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 7, 2010 1:13 AM

But is it not possible that what we call unscientific today may fall within the realm of science tomorrow if we find something that can explain such "miracles" as the Resurrection and the healing works of Jesus?

I see, no, you still pursue the same idiotic and easily disproven arguments.

this is a strawman of what I said, but it's easy enough to take apart anyway.

you would like to compare future knowledge to present, and say someday we may know better.

the problem is, Dale, that ideologically, religious dogma deliberately separates itself from the knowable.

It's not I that say that "miracles" will never be explainable by science, it's the religious.

I merely say that anything explainable by science is mislabeled "miracle" to begin with.

BTW, this is exactly where ID fails, too. ID can't be approached scientifically, not because it is vapid (well, it is), but because you can never identify HOW a putative "intelligent designer" ever interacts with the world, and thus can't even begin to formulate a hypothesis.

thus, your argument is not only irrelevant to the discussion at hand, it's also simplistic and incorrect.

go ahead, call me a bigot one more time, motherfucker.

;)

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 7, 2010 1:18 AM

Not to mention incredibly arrogant.

*yawn*

Dale, you seem to think anyone who disagrees with you is a bigot or arrogant.

especially if they prove you wrong, repeatedly.

you're a dishonest git, and likely will be just as unenlightening to debate here as you were on Panda's Thumb.

Posted by: Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom | July 7, 2010 1:41 AM

Calling something "fiction" just because you disbeleive it, when it is considered a religious belief (which by definition is NOT fiction) is itself a dogmatic attitude. Not to mention incredibly arrogant.

Can you establish your religious belief as fact, supported by empirical evidence?

Posted by: davemcrae999 | July 7, 2010 1:48 AM

Sort of relevant - the story of Clair Patterson, scientist from Iowa (male if his firstname seems otherwise), who finally works out the age of the Earth is riveting!

Do yourself a favour and grab Bil Bryson's "Short History of Everything" - it's worth it for the section on Patterson alone

Oh, and what a geek to :) thought he was having a heart attack when he finally worked it out but it turned out to be just excitement

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | July 7, 2010 1:59 AM

The problem I find with this kind of rhetoric is that it sets two separate standards on the burden of proof. It starts out with two reasonable assertions: science is fallible (agreed) and it can't be showed with certainty that religious ideas are wrong (agreed), but follows to the implicit unreasonable conclusion that making a non-scientific claim is just as valid as making a scientific one. You can claim whatever you like and it doesn't matter whether or not the science currently matches because theories are fallible and whatnot...

Of course this is a misapplication of science, where science isn't in the business of certainty. The question of whether a belief is reasonable or unreasonable can involve the scientific understanding, but decrying science at its lack of absolute truth is making the opposite mistake of scientism.

But at the core the fundamental question is missed: what reason do we have to expect that something is true? Take the resurrection of Jesus: just because science can't disprove it (though it does a great job at explaining it away) it doesn't mean by default it's a reasonable claim to make. It's a bare assertion, the opposite of reasonable.

If the science tomorrow were to support "miracles" such as the resurrection of Jesus, then all the power to the claim. But until then it's nothing more than a bare assertion that goes against where the evidence currently stands. After all, it might be that computers really do run on magic blue smoke and that electricity is merely angels flapping their wings. Science can't disprove any of it, doesn't mean that believing any of it is any less absurd just because one can't mythbusters style slap [BUSTED] over the concept.

The problem with such rhetoric is that it means absurdity rests within the error bars. It's taking a fallible epistemological approach (which it is admittedly fallible by its own nature - otherwise we'd never learn anything new) and then trumpeting that the fallibility is sufficent to allow for any claim beyond that epistemology to be on equal footing. It's forsaking real knowledge for the sake of protecting nonsense.

Posted by: llewelly | July 7, 2010 2:04 AM

More on why science and faith are incompatible:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/06/christian_faith_is_at_odds_wit.php
http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2010/06/sciencereligion-compatibility-yet-again.html
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/appeals_to_common_practice_dont_make_science_and_religion_compatible/

Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula | July 7, 2010 2:34 AM

Science cannot be compatible with religion, because, if it does, it stops being what makes it science, namely making verifiable, testable observations based on evidence and/or reasoned analysis.

Religion is the antithesis of that - it requires the acceptance that we have already been given answers and that we should not spend any further time looking.

Because science has found no evidence for religion, the defenders of religion have chosen to shift the goalposts, insisting that the reason for that isn't what the most intellectually honest and parsimonious analysis of that fact would be (i.e. that no gods exists) but because their gods can't be observed by scientific methods.

Apparently, believing in gods also absolves one of the fallacy of special pleading.

Once again, that certain human beings are able to withstand the cognitive dissonance that results from claiming to accept using the scientific method to explain aspects of the universe other than those pertaining to religious claims, does not support the idea that religion and science are compatible, it supports the idea that certain people are able to shut out the sound reality when it suits them not to.

Christians who do this but who also decry creationism are hypocrites. The YECs believe what they believe because of faith and despite what science tells us. How is that any different from how a 'liberal', allegedly science-loving Christian justifies why their god is outside of science? Faith is faith, after all.

It's not only goalposts that accomodationist Christians move - it's the perception of a moral high ground.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 7, 2010 2:40 AM

Christians who do this but who also decry creationism are hypocrites....It's not only goalposts that accomodationist Christians move - it's the perception of a moral high ground. '

better watch it, Dale will call you a bigot for saying that.

:P

Posted by: MetzO'Magic | July 7, 2010 8:10 AM

Heaventree #67:

Do human beings and chimpanzees share a common evolutionary ancestor?

That is a well thought-out question. Given that almost half of Americans apparently don't know how long it takes the Earth to go round the Sun though... I'm sure many people would not even *understand* your question, much less be aware of the concept of a last common ancestor.

But you can be quite certain that hearing the words 'chimpanzees' and 'evolutionary' in the same sentence would provoke a typical knee-jerk reaction from the religious out there, which is probably your intent. Just for kicks, I'm gonna try out your question on a few of my friends here in Ireland. The unusual mix of religion and liberalism found here coupled with a strong educational system should produce some... interesting results.

Posted by: raven | July 7, 2010 9:45 AM

creationist troll:

This is the curious thing about people who hold to Darwinism: they demand that people with no scientific expertise hold scientific opinions.

Not at all. They think people should have the general knowledge and thinking ability of an average 10 year old and be capable of honesty once in a while. Fundie xians fail this one.

They would settle for the religious kooks staying under their rocks, telling their lies and myths to each other and screwing up their own lives and societies.

Creationists are just baggage being dragged along for the ride by our society. All societies have baggage, ours happens to be a bit too large for comfort.

Posted by: frog, Inc. | July 7, 2010 1:03 PM

@jillian: or that matter I cannot prove that the Earth, indeed the universe, was not created this morning. Or that I am not delusional, or living in the Matrix.

You should finish taking Philosophy 101 first. There are simple outs of the "brain in a box problem", essentially on the principle that a difference that makes no difference isn't a difference, per James and others as a development of the razor and parsimony.

There's no informational content in distinguishing a universe create ab nihilo one second ago to appear exactly like a 13 trillion year old universe, and one that actually is 13 trillion years old. Therefore, the idea that it was created one second ago is empty of content -- it adds complexity without increasing informational content.

It's like adding a squiggly to the end of every word -- like~ this~, I~ can~ add~ a~ squiggly~. It's~ just~ trivially~ a~ silly~ thing~ to~ do~.

Posted by: Owlmirror | July 7, 2010 1:26 PM

Granted I can see that some religions could in theory be compatible with science.  
But they wouldn't be western religions at all. They'd be the COnfusian or Taoist "do this because it promotes a good frame of mind or builds harmony in the community."

Or Buddhist, stripped of superstition about reincarnation and gods and whatnot.

Jennifer Michael Hecht proposed the term "graceful life philosophies" for Epicurianism, Stoicism, and Skepticism, and like that. They did not, originally, deny that gods existed, but gods were largely irrelevant in them, and they can easily be repurposed for atheism.

And I suppose that Christianity, if watered down to a vaguely Deistic or even atheistic sort of cultural philosophy -- "gosh, that character Jesus Christ in the bible allegedly said some nice things about behaving well towards each other, and we quite like some of the music and songs, as long as we don't think too hard about the words" -- might also work in the same way, for varying values of "work".

Posted by: Tulse | July 7, 2010 2:06 PM

There are simple outs of the "brain in a box problem", essentially on the principle that a difference that makes no difference isn't a difference

But the situations described are different, it's just that we can't tell. Just because we can't distinguish between an old earth and Last Thursdayism (or The Matrix) doesn't mean that only one of those situations is actually true. Ambiguities with epistemology don't mean that ontology itself is indeterminate, just that we can't tell what the actual ontological state is.

Posted by: Tulse | July 7, 2010 4:23 PM

There is no difference in ontology that produces identical epistemologies

Of course there is! If everyone were blind, we couldn't determine whether there was "light", but presumably there would be a fact of the matter as to its existence. No one has tasted trilobite, or ever will, but presumably it had a flavour. Just because it is impossible for us to determine some aspect of the universe does not mean that aspect does not exist -- that borders on solipsism.

Posted by: Tulse | July 7, 2010 4:49 PM

We have fossils of trilobites

But we will never know how they tasted, even though they presumably tasted like something.

But if there's no difference at all, then there's no measurement and therefore no physical reality to the putative difference

So The Matrix is philosophically impossible? Sure, it was a bad film, but impossible?

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 7, 2010 5:57 PM

Tulse: But we will never know how they tasted, even though they presumably tasted like something.

I do believe there was some Improbable Research that might shed light on that...

Posted by: frog, Inc. | July 8, 2010 1:31 PM

Jinchi: Feynmaniac and frog have decided to throw Ben Franklin on the dustbin of history.

It was me "throwing Ben Franklin on the dustbin" (the unidentified identified other person) for pointing out that Thomas Jefferson was a rapist, which tells one very little about rapists, TJ or TJ's idea.

I was trying to point out his actual ad hominem error -- but apparently folks continue to believe that the ad hominem fallacy is one of tone. AH goes both ways -- applying irrelevant details of a person to justify & support some other argument or act of the person.

God, I hate puritanism -- you're either a saint or a sinner. Yes, BF was a genius and a political master; he was also an imbecile and a political incompetent, depending on his daily whiskey consumption, how long since he had gotten laid, and whether sciatica was acting up. Just read some of Madison's notes -- part of the reason the Hamiltonians managed to fuck up the constitution so badly was because apparently BF was really drunk or showing senility.

Posted by: frog, Inc. | July 8, 2010 1:47 PM

Tulse: "Epistemic boundedness" is a term used to indicate when there are truths in the world that we cannot determine (one might think of it as the real-world analogue to Godel's Theorem). If I understand you correctly, you are saying that epistemic boundedness never exists. Is that correct?

Yes -- I haven't come across that term before, but if your definition is correct, then undetermined truth's mean that the actual truth is indeterminate, not that there is a determinate value that can't be determined. Of course, by "determined" I mean not having any distinguishable effect on the world, not that we haven't happened to recognize that difference.

It fits right up with Godel -- there are propositions that are indeterminate implies that you can create two consistent mathematical systems, one from the proposition being true, another from the proposition being false. One isn't "better" than the other -- it's just a question of which one you find more useful. The physical analogue is that if a "truth" is indeterminate, you use the more useful one -- the epistemically more useful one.

Physically impossible? How so? You think that it is in principle impossible to produce a virtual world indistinguishable from the real world? Surely that isn't true -- we already have schizophrenic individuals who can possess deep hallucinations, so why is a Matrix-like "total hallucination" impossible?

A schizophrenic isn't a "total hallucination". Don't confuse having information with being aware of that information. A schizophrenic, in fact, continues to absorb information -- he just misinterprets it, which is completely different.

What I say is physically impossible is that you are in a "Matrix" world with no way out (no possible way out), and yet it actually is that world in any useful sense. I don't see how it's useful to say that there is a deeper ontology than what is epistemologically possible. There is no metaphysics in that sense -- physics is physics, end of story. It doesn't require explanations or ontologies, it just is what it is.

These ontological games just seem to be a very sophisticated version of the God-game. If x makes no difference, then the only reason to consider x true or false is the simplification it produces in all other propositions -- in other words, is it a handy axiom, or just an extra axiom?

Posted by: Tulse | July 8, 2010 2:17 PM

Of course, by "determined" I mean not having any distinguishable effect on the world, not that we haven't happened to recognize that difference.

This may be the source of our disagreement -- when I mean "determined" I also mean "distinguishable effect on the world", but I simply don't take it to be a necessity that we have the ability to recognize all distinguishable effects. That's what I mean by epistemic boundedness -- there are truths about the world that we may not be able in principle to see.

I don't see this as particularly controversial. For example, it is thought by many physicists that black holes destroy all information about the matter that falls into them with the exception of the matter's mass and charge. Under this view, there is simply no way to get that information back out of a black hole. So, if I drop an object into a black hole, there is a fact of the matter as to whether it was a shoe or a bread loaf, but once it is in there, there is no way for some distant civilization to determine that fact. That information is lost forever. This is an epistemic problem, but the inability to determine this information doesn't mean that there is no right answer as to what I dropped in.

In general, history itself often acts as a "black hole" for information. What did Jefferson have for breakfast the day he signed the Declaration of Independence? I have no idea, and my guess is that this question is simply unanswerable today -- the information needed is not available. But the information is not the same as the actual fact, and even if we can't know, nonetheless Jefferson likely did have some sort of breakfast. Our epistemic blindness does not impact on the ontology.

Perhaps I have grossly misunderstood your point.

Posted by: CJO | July 8, 2010 2:36 PM

Tulse, remember the butterfly effect. While it might not be "knowable" what Jefferson had for breakfast on a given day, his choice did have effects on the universe, and there are yet still the lingering ripples of those effects, so, in a way, we live in a different universe than one in which he did, or did not, have, say, bacon.

(The pig didn't live another day, and so didn't eat those particular kitchen scraps, and so a potato rotted that would have been eaten by the pig, and so ... never mind. I'll let the reference to bacon in such an abstruse context stand alone.)

Likewise, in your black hole example, it is the case that there is either one less shoe or one less loaf of bread in the universe, and the lack cannot be accounted for in any other way.

Posted by: Tulse | July 8, 2010 2:57 PM

We probably can determine that he had a breakfast -- but we probably can't determine what that breakfast was. I'd argue then that there is no specific breakfast he had, even though there is some superposition of breakfast's he had. Our epistemic blindness does impact ontology in that sense.

And this seems patently absurd to me, as it implies that, if history ever made the fact of our conversation inaccessible to some future people, then our actual conversation would be "indeterminate". It implies that what you had for breakfast today (and I presume you had an actual breakfast and not just a superposition) somehow can be affected by an inability to know that fact in the future. Information about practically everything that is actually occurring now will be lost to future people at some point, and if I understand you correctly you take that to mean that what is happening now isn't "actually" occurring, that the future retroactively puts almost everything into quantum superposition, that somehow the probability wave that we've collapsed is "reformed". I just don't get that -- that seems to go against what we know of physics and causality, and it is completely contrary to our (and Jefferson's) experience. (I actually did have a glass of buttermilk for breakfast, and that will be true even if no one 200 years from now can determine that fact.)

Posted by: Tulse | July 8, 2010 3:07 PM

in your black hole example, it is the case that there is either one less shoe or one less loaf of bread in the universe, and the lack cannot be accounted for in any other way.

CJO, I agree that there is a fact of the matter that there is one less shoe or loaf of bread, but my point is that someone coming along at a much later point can't tell.

Let's turn the example around. Say we send a probe to examine a black hole. I claim that part of its mass comes from having absorbed a billion years ago an advanced alien starship that contained wonders of technology. You claim that instead, that mass can be accounted for by the dust and stellar debris that the hole consumed. I would argue that it is absolutely the case that only one of us is right -- either it ate a starship a billion years ago or not. But I would also argue that, given what we know of black holes, we cannot in principle tell who is right.

As far as I understand it, frog, Inc. seems to be saying that if we can't tell, there is no determinate truth of the matter. That seems to me to confuse one's epistemology with one's ontology. When you get on that train, there's not many stops until you get to solipsism.

Posted by: CJO | July 8, 2010 3:20 PM

I'm somewhat out of my depth here, though it's the kind of question that interests me, but I'll perhaps naively submit that there's the issue of whether we can tell if we can tell.

Aiming at a distinction between the nature of the universe we live in, and our ability to delineate exactly why it is the way it is. Our temporal and cognitive limitations versus how it actually is around us.

For example (and going large-scale, here), I'm sure you and I both agree that had the US not dropped two atomic weapons on Japan, the universe would be a radically different place. But neither you or I have any particular ability to specify the effects of those events except in the most general, approximate sense. Yet those effects, well, affect us, whether or not we can say exactly how. We can tell, we live here under those effects, but we can't tell that we can tell. Does that make any sense at all, or am I just inviting an infinite regress?

Posted by: frog, Inc. | July 8, 2010 3:48 PM

Tulse: And this seems patently absurd to me, as it implies that, if history ever made the fact of our conversation inaccessible to some future people, then our actual conversation would be "indeterminate". It implies that what you had for breakfast today (and I presume you had an actual breakfast and not just a superposition) somehow can be affected by an inability to know that fact in the future.

The fact that it seems absurd doesn't affect whether it happens to be true in fact. You seem to reject the Copenhagen interpretation, but in fact experiments show that there are no hidden variables, that there is no determinate past for an event which isn't distinguishable by that past event.

Yes, in fact there were multiple breakfasts eaten relative to a future observers point of view. Yes, the universe is a superposition constrained by consistency from multiple viewpoints. Yes, there is no God's eye-view -- there are many entangled views that are consistent with each other but indeterminate to some extent.

No, I'm not confusing ontology with epistemology. I am in fact claim that much of what we call ontology are phantasms -- that any reference to a God's-eye viewpoint is fallacious, so epistemology and ontology aren't distinct, but entangled.

Yes, a superposition of me (it's a very, very minimal superposition) had a superposition of breakfasts (with the same caveat, given the ambient temperature and my wavelength). It's absurd, but true.

I do think we understand each other -- but you refuse to accept a partly indeterminate universe, one lacking a rock upon which to build your world. I say it's turtles all the way down.

Posted by: Tulse | July 8, 2010 4:01 PM

Yes, in fact there were multiple breakfasts eaten relative to a future observers point of view

So our observations of our actual breakfasts now don't permanently collapse the probability wave? Perhaps you're right that I don't understand the full impact of the Copenhagen interpretation.

Posted by: consciousness razor | July 8, 2010 4:25 PM

Frog, Inc.:
I think I understand your point. Although I'm certainly no expert on physics, I suspect you're fallaciously generalizing indeterminacy on a quantum mechanical level so that it applies to (what could perhaps be) true statements about other levels of reality which don't behave the same way.

Do you really believe that hundreds of years from now, this conversation will actually be in a superposition of states, so that you and Tulse may have switched roles (from our contemporary perspective) and were arguing exactly the opposite of what you're both doing now? Does that possibility actually affect anything about your argument right now?

Let's say this thread is archived somehow so that the answer is available at whatever point in the future. If that happens, are you saying future philosophers/scientists would need to describe it as a superposition because the relevant information still exists, or are you saying that lacking the information is physically the same as being in a superposition? If the archive is destroyed, I would argue that hasn't changed anything physically about your and Tulse's current brain states, although it would affect the information available in the future. I know QM is true and incredibly weird, but I find it hard to believe that it necessarily has such bizarre effects extending to the non-quantum level.

Posted by: frog, Inc. | July 8, 2010 4:41 PM

Mr. T: Do you really believe that hundreds of years from now, this conversation will actually be in a superposition of states, so that you and Tulse may have switched roles (from our contemporary perspective) and were arguing exactly the opposite of what you're both doing now? Does that possibility actually affect anything about your argument right now?

I'm saying it's such a superposition (within the realms of consistency) right now.

Of course, because of the nature of the macro world, the entanglements are split. You'd have to measure from some future point in time or some distance to measure the effects. Sometimes the effects reach the macro level because of upward propagation -- see superconductivity as a macro example of indeterminancy.

But from my little knowledge of quantum gravity, there are physicists who do think that it's necessary to have these kinds of effects to properly describe the world -- that truth is relative to the beholder, to an extent constrained by inter-viewpoint consistency (see Smolin for an example).

No one's taken it up to the level of entropy -- yet. You're right, I could be completely offbase on that, so I hedge with "intuition" there. I'd have to work out the math -- and I haven't done that, so I am just speculating there (bullshitting). But it's not just vacuous bullshitting -- there are problems of entropy and the arrow of time that are linked with the information capacity of systems doing the measurements, which ultimately go back to "how do I know which universe I'm in" "which large integer do I belong to".

To some extent, I can't see how some similar universes couldn't be linked -- would be distinguishable universes, actually distinct, rather than overlapping. At one end, you get quantum superposition at the quantum level -- but at another, historians would have to say "Not X, Not Y, but 0.2X+0.8Y is history". The overlap would even have to be temporally and locationally relative.

Posted by: frog, Inc. | July 8, 2010 5:05 PM

MrT: But it goes entirely against my "intuition"! Of course, that's true of a lot of subjects.

Well, my intuition is formed from being into mathematical biology. Entropy for biologists is just a given -- they don't question it. And for physicists, it's just an epiphenomena, a higher level effect that they just use without really considering.

For me, I'm really bothered by it. It seems a prime law of the universe -- not just an effect of large numbers, but really at the root of questions I'm asking. I can't dismiss it, so I've thought a lot about it over the years. Just as a physicist likes to be able to "explain" Newton from the Law of Least Action, which links everything down to quantum mechanics rather than just saying "it's a law" -- I want to see someone link entropy into the very heart of the physics of the universe, as derivable from something lower level than "law of large numbers".

So my intuition is that it has to somehow come out of the information forming the observer of the effect, that it's a limit of the ability of an observer to identify which universe they are part of. Of course, if the universe isn't really an integer but is a real number (or worse, not mathematical at bottom), then my intuition is crap.

Posted by: frog, Inc. | July 8, 2010 5:34 PM

MrT:

What I understand is that the surface area of the black hole is proportional to the entropy it has produced -- how much information has been dropped in. So as the black hole evaporates -- the information about that information comes back (you can measure the heat absorbed by the evaporation), but not the actual information itself. You can find out how many bits went in, but not what the value of those bits were.

But I may be misunderstanding, of course.

Posted by: David Marjanović | July 8, 2010 5:46 PM

For those interested, Leonard Susskind argued in The Black Hole War* that information isn't (totally?) lost when it enters a black hole, but is apparently derivable from things happening at the event horizon. I would have to do way too much handwaving to say more than that without consulting the book.

As seen from the outside, stuff that falls into a black hole slows down more and more till it asymptotically comes to a standstill at the event horizon. (Gravitational time dilation or something, I forgot.) In other words, its image stays on the event horizon forever. It just (asymptotically but quickly) bleaches out to zero, because the object isn't there anymore to emit any new photons; but no information is truly destroyed by a black hole (or anything) ever.

At least that's the extent to which I've understood it.

Posted by: frog, Inc. | July 8, 2010 6:27 PM

DM: That I want to see.

You're right it wasn't a diffraction experiment. It was a pathway experiment, coming from a gedankenexperiment from Wheeler that appears to have been comfirmed. The path of light in lensing appears to depend on the method of observation -- but I need to find a full explanation before I continue muttering. My idea was right, at least according to Wheeler, but not the mechanism.

As far as I understand it, systems composed of multiple particles can be in superpositions of states, but this is exponentially less easy the more particles are involved. Setting up a double-slit experiment for a single photon is rather easy. Observing the collapse of a beryllium atom from being in two places at once (with opposite spin) is a lot more difficult, though it has been done. "Quantum effects" haven't been observed so far on anything larger than a C70 molecule, and that was difficult to achieve already. Getting Schrödinger's cat into a superposition of states is right next to impossible, like you tunnelling through a wall.

Well, it depends on whether Rovelli is right -- and whether I understand him correctly. The problem is that if you're in a superposition as well, if you get entangled, well, that's a collapse. The bigger you are (and your expirement), the more entanglement, the less you can measure all states because some of the states become correlated with your states -- and you can't see your own superpositions, since that would entail self-contradictions. So, you can measure A OR B, since going through A OR B is correlated with YOU, but if YOU are consistent with A & B, then you can see A & B.

So, the double-slit (thanks for that catch) doesn't work merely because a photon is a single "particle", but with more "particles" you get bigger and bigger interference effects, leading to shorter and shorter wavelengths, requiring smaller and smaller slit distances to produce the effect. You also have phase-offset effects (which is almost the same thing) -- the more particles you have, the more interference you have because the waves get out of phase and cancel out -- so if your action is much bigger than Planck's constant, the phases for most paths you take cancel out since they are basically random. And the larger the experiment, the more likely that YOU'll get tangled with the subject, and dependent on the state of the "particle".

On the other hand, I recall some years ago an experiment was published in Science measuring carbon tunneling. There were two enantiomers of an organic molecule and the transition rate between them was many orders of magnitude too large to be classical. The carbon and associated bonds were tunneling from one state to the other. That's a fairly "macro" effect.

But why, when that's not necessary? Why make an unparsimonious assumption?

No, I see the current state of entropy explanation as un-parsimonious. Entropy is an "extra" effect -- the explanation is "probabilities" without linking those probabilities, in a general way, to underlying principles. It's ad-hoc.

Why does entropy go in ONE direction? Yes, a given transition is higher probability from one direction to another, but how does that time arrow link to the physics? Why doesn't that arrow go the other way, given that modern physics is time-invariant in most cases (maybe all, given the right symmetries)? If I color half the balls in a box red & the other blue, and shake them up, they get all mixed -- it's just not right that my measure of entropy should depend on my having colored them! Is it possible that all measurements are "colored" in some sense? I'd rather that that "coloring" not be an accidental act, an epiphenomena require ad-hoc explanations, but a necessary, general principle that can be applied universally.

How do you tell that this isn't just an argument from personal incredulity?

Sure -- I'm explicitly saying that I don't have the maths, so anything I say is coming partly from my gut. If I did, I'd be publishing rather than speculating on the tubez. But Tulse was just as well arguing from "absurdity" -- so it's just as fair in this speculative argument to use informed credulity. When you lack the maths, you're going by intuition which is nothing more than a combination of "personal credulity" and some unconscious, embedded maths. One hopes that it's right from time to time.