We may have the answer to all of the big problems in physics! Or not.
My money is on "not".
Marcus du Sautoy, a very smart mathematician and the fellow who occupies the chair for the public understanding of science at Oxford formerly held by Richard Dawkins, made a stunning announcement.
Two years ago, a mathematician and physicist whom I've known for more than 20 years arranged to meet me in a bar in New York. What he was about to show me, he explained, were ideas that he'd been working on for the past two decades. As he took me through the equations he had been formulating I began to see emerging before my eyes potential answers for many of the major problems in physics. It was an extremely exciting, daring proposal, but also mathematically so natural that one could not but feel that it smelled right.
He has spent the past two years taking me through the ins and outs of his theory and that initial feeling that I was looking at "the answer" has not waned. On Thursday in Oxford he will begin to outline his ideas to the rest of the mathematics and physics community. If he is right, his name will be an easy one to remember: Eric Weinstein.
There are a few peculiarities to this story. Weinstein is a consultant to a hedge fund, not an academic physicist. That's not a major criticism of his theory, but the fact that he hasn't shared his ideas with anyone other than one mathematician…that's a problem.
This is not how anyone does science. No paper has been published or submitted for peer review, not even so much as a copy put in arxiv.
No, my beef is with the Guardian for running the article in the first place. Seriously: why was it even written? Strip away all the purple prose and you’ve got a guy who’s been out of the field for 20 years, but still doing some dabbling on the side, who has an intriguing new idea that a couple of math professors think is promising, so he got invited to give a colloquium at Oxford by his old grad school buddy. Oh, and there’s no technical paper yet — not even a rough draft on the arxiv — so his ideas can’t even be appropriately evaluated by actual working physicists. How, exactly, does that qualify as newsworthy? Was your bullshit detector not working that day?
But wait, there's more. He was invited to present his ideas at Oxford, but then no one bothered to let the physicists know.
“I’m trying to promote, perhaps, a new way of doing science. Let’s start with really big ideas, let’s be brave and let’s have a discussion,” du Sautoy told The Guardian. Great idea! Except it’s not really a new way of doing science. And as Oxford cosmologist Andrew Pontzen pointed out in a New Scientist op-ed, nobody thought to invite any of the Oxford physicists. You know, the people most qualified to evaluate Weinstein’s work. It’s hard to have a collegial dialogue that way, especially with no technical paper on hand to provide the necessary background information. This seems more like trying to do science via press conference.
Oh, I remember science by press conference: I got to attend Pons and Fleischmann's big announcement of the discovery of cold fusion at the University of Utah. We all know how that turned out.
The New Scientist article is damning.
Exciting news: all the problems plaguing physics have been solved. Dark matter, dark energy, quantum gravity – one amazing insight has delivered us from decades of struggle to a new knowledge nirvana.
There's a catch, however: I'm unable to tell you what that insight is. Neither I, nor any of my professional physicist friends, have the faintest clue. In fact, nobody except Eric Weinstein and mathematician Marcus du Sautoy are sufficiently familiar with the claims to venture an opinion.
It's interesting that just yesterday at this conference I'm attending I was asked a good question: when we're dealing with high level scientific explanations that are far beyond what our background allows us to assess, how do we judge whether they're valid or not? Do we have to rely on faith in the scientific authorities?
And I told him no, that we have other means than simple faith. The methods of science are completely open — scientists show their work. You can review the papers describing their conclusions, and even if much of it is beyond your grasp, you can at least see that they aren't hiding their procedures. They don't say, "Here's a miraculous leap," they instead may show you a pile of incomprehensible math, but it's available to study, anyway.
And then you can also expect other independent scientists, who do have the background to understand the math, to weigh in and evaluate the evidence. They can explain the steps.
It's like someone claiming to have been up on a roof, and you don't see how she could have gotten up there, and you have no personal desire to be up there yourself, but she can point to the ladder she climbed, and you can also see others climbing up it, so you can trust the individual rungs to work. It's not faith-based at all, but is based on the step-by-step evidence that the procedure actually performs as promised.
And that's the problem with Weinstein's claims. He claims to have been tap-dancing on a high, inaccessible roof, yet so far he hasn't shown us any way to climb up there, and no one else has even been given an opportunity to climb his ladder. So why should we believe him? That would require an act of faith, and I reject that.
I am not a physicist. I have to wait to see the ladder. And that Eric Weinstein seems to be hiding it makes me very, very suspicious.
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"This is not how anyone does science."
Except mathematicians.
Other the publicity, most of which is speculative at this stage, there is nothing particularly exceptional in Weinstein having only discussed his ideas with du Sautoy or in the decision to start floating his ideas in a series of talks without first having published.
This is often how mathematicians operate, on the clear understanding that what they are present is, at this stage, provisional and that publication and peer review will necessarily follow - that is, of course, unless someone spots a serious flaw during the talk and raise it during the Q&A.
In mathematical terms, what Weinstein is doing at this stage is equivalent to putting forward a conjecture, so it necessarily has to be understood that the actual science will follow, and in that sense its really not so unusual at all.
PZ Myers, the final arbiter of what is and what isn't science. How about we wait to see what the guy has to say?
A rather narrow minded and entrenched view if ask me. I was going to say what Jevans has already said, so no need to repeat it again.
du Sautoy, as well as holding the chair Dawkins first held, is *also* a Professor of Mathematics at Oxford AND President of the Mathematical Association. Not to argue from authority but it's worth pointing out that he is a very distinguished academic aside from his newish role in communicating science to the public.
As far as i'm aware maths very often progresses in this way, with papers being shown to the very few others who might understand them first, before going through a formal publication process.
Look at Andrew Wiles and his solving of Fermat's Last Theorem, for example. He presented his proof first at a conference in Cambridge, and got it slightly wrong to boot, so when you write,
'This is not how anyone does science. No paper has been published or submitted for peer review, not even so much as a copy put in arxiv.'
you seem to be ignoring that - in well-known fact - this is how maths proceeds, often.
Finally, the crack about him being a hedge fund consultant is a cheap shot. Hedge funds employ mathematicians. Quelle surprise. And if it's not relevant - and you don't seem to make anything of it - the point of mentioning it would be...what?
I have to disagree with your suggestion that the general public doesn't need to take the word of scientists when it comes to the meaning of a lot of papers. Yes, if someone writes a paper that's has an easy to understand step like 'and then god somehow moves particles around', the general public can understand that that sentence is BS. But it's not exactly difficult for someone with sufficient familiarity in a field to write a paper that's incomprehensible to a layman while still being complete nonsense.
This doesn't mean that the general public relies on blind faith. I think that ultimately the thought process of someone is this:
- I see that my TV works, it is because of an understanding of the way the world works that it was possible to construct my TV. Therefore, whether I understand the science behind it, I generally trust that scientists talking about the science behind this particular technology generally know what they're on about.
- Some science has not led to technologies that I can readily understand, but because the TV scientists don't say that the guys at CERN are talking out their ass, I'll assume that they're not just siphoning billions for pizza funds.
I don't think this is blind faith, I think it's the reasonable level of faith people need to have. Trust people who are trusted by people who we trust because we have a reason to trust them.
A conflict between Mathematicians and Physicists at one hand and Biologists plus all scientists in the areas of Life Sciences tends to grow and will become a war. The first will never be able to reach the Theory of Everything without biologists, neurologists and finally Psychologists and others who study the Self-Consciousness. PZ Meyers is just expressing this discomfort that begins to dawn on scientists in the areas of Life. The explanation is even metaphysical, but rational. The universe can not be magic enough to create new information from nothing, only doing fuzzy logics. So, here and now there are biological systems and aware, it is because the universe appeared with this information at the Big Bang and - if the evolution of the universal system stopped advancing in the macro-galactic scale to continue through the micro atomic or quantum dimension, this information in some way were influencing the Historia studied by Physics, which is expressed in Mathematical language and logic. As the Darwinian Theory of Evolution has never revealed the full story and remains patched many times, the Standard Theory also will be due these influences of information unobtainable by it. The universal system arrived here and now in the form of a body composed of skeleton (which is area of Physics and is expressed in the logic or language of Mathematics), plus a cover of biologically organized soft matter and further the coverage of this unknown self- consciousness, which does not have a specific Science yet. With the discovery of dark-matter and dark-energy perhaps also the skeleton of galaxies is under the biological and mental coverage unreached by Physics.
I have a philosophical theory (non-scientific) entitled "The Universal Matrix/DNA". She seems to be exactly the same case of Mr. Weinstein: a giant leap over the current knowledge driven only by the exercise of the intellect, with the difference that Weinstein applies Mathematics excess and me, Biological excess. While Weinstein does not claim the status of a scientific theory, he will be - as I am doing it just now - reviewing and testing the theory against facts and touting it as he can to get the participation of a greater number of critics and helper brains.
Mathematics is the language only of the skeleton of the physical system under universal evolution, whose substance exhibits besides the skeleton, biological and awareness organizations of matter. According to a chart based on the formula of the Matrix / DNA (a graph with Cartesian coordinates of time and space and as sinusoidal wave the matter rolled since the Big Bang under the rules of evolution), the Universal Evolution would be curve and non-linear. The matter went from light at ground zero with the Big Bang and in the future will return to zero all transformed into "self-conscious light." Metaphysics aside, if evolution is the same curve, we have a problem with Mathematics that is linear. But because it is in the universal dimension, the curve consists of straight microcosms lines and this causes the Mathematics jumps over curves without scientific basis now, but rightly predicts future knowledge because it returns at tune with the natural reality in excerpts straight forward. It happened with the Theory of General Relativity with Quantum Theory, etc. And it can happen to the philosophical theory of Mr. Weinstein.
Con job. Without any doubt. Will probably turn up one day on Urbanlegends.
The guy is not saying it. Yet he claims to have The Answer anyway. That is not science.
As PZ says: "So why should we believe him? That would require an act of faith, and I reject that."
Are you trying to say that a mathematician is automatically qualified to evaluate hypotheses in physics?
Well, it depends what exactly you mean by "need". Those members of the general public that can afford to invest enough time in it can read the papers, or introductory textbooks that will help them understand the papers, till they don't need to take anyone's word anymore. (When the paper is behind a paywall, drop the author an e-mail.) Of course, few people have that much time or motivation.
By "she", do you mean the theory?
And I don't see a reason to think that mind, consciousness, is anything beyond what a brain does.
If so, it is of course a scientific theory.
Don't be confused by the word!
When biologists say "evolution", they mean descent with heritable modification.
When astrophysicists say "evolution", they mean the... biologists would say development or ontogeny of a star, the fully predictable phases a single star goes through over time.
These processes have nothing to do with each other.
...That's not even wrong. It doesn't mean anything. It's technobabble.
The fact that Weinstein is giving a lecture before writing a paper is not the problem. As has been pointed out this isn't so unusual for mathematicians (or physicists from what I understand). The problem seems to be the articles that appeared in the Guardian full of comparisons to Einstein and suggestions that Weinstein's theory could solve the big problems of physics.
But he isn't floating his ideas. He's only floating one of their conclusions.
Scientists, myself included, very often present work that is in progress or in press or came out only recently when the presentation is given. (Indeed, the biggest conference I go to every year has strict embargoes on everything presented there, lest somebody be scooped.) But they present the work, not just a conclusion.
How does Weinstein arrive at his conclusions? As long as he's not telling, it's not science.
More Hypothesis, than theory, in my view. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
"How about we wait to see what the guy has to say?"
Was someone suggesting jettisoning him off the planet? No one suggested silencing him.
If his ideas survive actual scientific scrutiny, no one's going to deny him because his ideas hit the press before the scientific community. But praise from one scientist and the press is not said scrutiny. The proper stance for scientists to take, then, is "I'll believe it when you show me".
That's how it works.
David: " Don’t be confused by the word (evolution)! When biologists say “evolution”, they mean descent with heritable modification. When astrophysicists say “evolution”, they mean the… biologists would say development ontogeny of a star, the fully predictable phases a single star goes through over time."
Matrix/DNA: " This difference between Astronomy's Cosmological Evolution Theory and Biology's Biological Evolution Theory focusing the same natural process is a serious problem. Matrix/DNA is not a scientific theory but it solved this problem, applying the knowledge about increasing complexity of biological systems over the unknown gaps of increased complexity of astronomical systems, and vice-versa. The current academic thought has divided Universal History into two blocks with no evolutionary link between then. The final result is the belief that the natural process of evolution (and biological systems too) was invented here by the stupid matter of this lost planet. Com'on! Yours definitions are based on definitions of current academic staff, not the natural process of evolution. Which could means: " the process that has been ruling the transformations of a universal natural system from the simplest shape to more complex shapes, by acquiring new information". Stars alone are not systems, It makes sense to you saying "evolution of liver" or " evolution of stomach"? Yes, there is some evolution here, but it says nothing without the system where these pieces belongs to. We must think about transformations of a atomic system nebulae into stellar systems nebulae into galactics systems, into biological systems... and then, the necessary evolutionary links are revealed and you discovers that there was no origins of life. Origins not explained by the universal chain of causes and effects are the source for magical thinking and these acts of faith.
This is off topic here, but, I am asking permission for PZ Myers leaving us using his space. If someone else will read my weird post will throw eggs against me, maybe I had studied too much and I am away off the beam, but I promise, I will cleaning everything before going out.
David: "And I don’t see a reason to think that mind, consciousness, is anything beyond what a brain does."
Are you a Neurologist? Do you know that there are lot of people just now doing research about how neurons are related or connected with thoughts? Which amount and network we call here "mind", or "consciousness"? And nobody found it, yet? So, scientifically, how could you prove that mind " is what a brain does"?! It is possible that you are right but it is not Science, yours affirmation is an act of faith. And... there are mathematical theorems showing that it is impossible to matter giving the jump to self-awareness. Brains are not matter?! I know the controversy between some scientists saying that there is no consciousness, everything is about brains' operations, and some people like Chopra saying that there is a cosmic consciousness underlying reality. But I prefer the results suggested by Matrix/DNA models, which is a third alternative.
What about " mind is what a human brain does and human brains are what the multiverse minded system does?" It seems absurd but it is more rational than thinking that brains invented consciousness. Let's go analise it?
A human baby is what the ovule, the womb, does, but before the womb and the ovule there were humans, who produced the ovule and womb. Consciousness is what universes does, but before this universe there were minded systems, who naturally produced this universe. Nope? I am based on a scientific fact, observed here and now, for elaborating my hypothesis. Which scientific fact do you have as foundation for the hypothesis that consciousness was invented first time by this universe and by matter organized as brains?
Consciousness emerges at a human embryo about six or seven months old. In relation to Universes, consciousness emerges at the systems at top of evolution about their 13 or 14 billions years old. So?! What's the problem?
My theory, as yours, is suggesting that mind is product of the brain, but the brain is product of this Universal History and we does not know if there was no minds before this Universe and this History. Are you believing that the stupid matter of this lost planet invented consciousness? ! It is not the same that believing the ovule and the womb invented the baby's consciousness?!
By the way, it is not Science, but, theories based on Nature here and now are more rational than theories that needs magical events, like the jump in the dark of matter into self-awareness. I am not saying that brains are product of some supernatural Intelligent Designer. Which intelligence was applied together with the previous design for minds transmitted by the parents to the embryo? So, brains can be product of systems with mind, without Intelligent Designers, it is all about natural process.
The Matrix/DNA formula suggests a model of electric-magnetic spectrum of lightwave that carries on the process that imprints life's cycle into inertial matter (through photons inside Higgs bosons). These lightwaves must be responsible for those vibrations observed at quantum vacuum. By another hand the synapses of brains are chemical/electrical currents producing those spots observed by MRI. Those spots are like lightening, a kind of natural light that vibrates in syntony with those vibrations at quantum vacuum. When they touches together, happens self-awareness. So, human consciousness is a product of the brain, it is not separated from the brain, but it is not contained by the brain, it is a kind of bubble of water that belongs to a vast ocean. The ocean is conscious about everything (which could means that is conscious about nothing, an eternal dreamer). the bubble is affected by the properties of the ocean, so, you get consciousness, but you are separated from the ocean as a bubble, so, instead a cosmic self-awareness, you get only local awareness. It explains why we becoming conscious of any decision that we take only six or fifteen seconds after the brain executing it. This is the time that brains lightening takes while travelling from left hemisphere, passing over right hemisphere, then among dimensions, till touching its infinite counterpart like a quantum entanglement. Ok, this is not scientific theory, it is not even a theory, it is a remote hypothesis, but I am very excited and going after testing it. I think it is an elegant model. You need see Matrix/DNA model of light wave spectrum and a TEDx talk of Jill Bolte Taylor, which helped me closing this model of human consciousness.
I'm all for being watchful against charlatanism.
But "This is not how anyone does science" sounds a lot like what the pope must have said to Galileo... jussain
(and Galileo was a giant wuss for retracting his claims: I feel that's a point that's way understated these days.)
The same natural processes? Please explain.
No, it's not increasing.
The range of complexity has increased, and this increase has been lopsided because life started at or near the minimum complexity that an organism can have; but there has not been a trend towards increased complexity.
Uh, there wasn't anything to invent. :-| Once you have things that reproduce with imperfect inheritance, evolution is inevitable: mutations happen, and there is an environment and therefore selection. There's simply no way to prevent it!
Again: not happening.
So you're using the term "evolution" in a third way, neither the way biology uses it nor the way astrophysics uses it?
what
...what, are you thinking that I think that the origin of life was some kind of miracle? Of course it wasn't. It's just chemistry. :-|
There's no point, he almost never reads the comments on this version of Pharyngula.
nope
yep
What do you mean?
What? "Prove"? I'm not a mathematician! Here's what I wrote:
"And I don’t see a reason to think that mind, consciousness, is anything beyond what a brain does."
It's the simplest explanation. If you propose are more complex one, you first have to disprove the simpler one.
What? Show me.
Why do you even think there's a jump? How do you define "self-awareness"?
There is no controversy. Chopra doesn't do science. He has no method to "winnow[...] deep truths from deep nonsense" (Sagan). He just says whatever feels good to him; he never tries to find out whether any of his ideas might be wrong.
No. A baby is what a human zygote becomes, not what it does. Brains don't become consciousness – consciousness is an activity of brains. Consciousness is not a thing!
The claim that "before this universe there were minded systems" isn't based on facts at all. It's pure speculation.
I simply don't need another hypothesis to explain the observations, for example the effects of damage to specific parts of the brain.
There's not enough oxygen in a womb for that.
What? What do the first and the second sentence have to do with each other?!?
And what, if anything, do you mean by "top of evolution"?
It's not a product. It's an activity.
Self-awareness is not magic – or at least there's no reason to think it is!
I'm sorry, you don't understand the words you're using. There is no such thing as "inside a Higgs boson"; Higgs bosons, and photons, are elementary particles – they don't have a size.
Where in the spectrum of electromagnetic wavelengths do you postulate your new radiation? How does the "imprinting" work? What do you mean by "life's cycle"?
...That's not even wrong. It doesn't mean anything. Seriously, learn some basic quantum physics.
...what... no. There are electric currents running along the membranes of neurons and across synapses. MRI doesn't measure currents, it measures the amount of H-1, C-13, and other atomic nuclei with uneven numbers of protons and/or neutrons – in other words, it measures blood flow.
Not even wrong.
Are you talking about quantum fluctuations? Those are not vibrations. They're not even regular – they're chaotic and blurry!
No. Consciousness is not a thing inside the brain. It's an activity of the brain.
What??? Show me.
Quantum entanglement is impossible with so many particles at such high temperatures, and it does not take time.
Do test it, and be prepared to accept the result.
You seem not to have read either the rest of the OP or the comments before yours... jussain
He was threatened by the Inquisition! What good would it have done anyone if he'd been tortured and burnt at the stake!?! Have you heard of Giordano Bruno?
@ ignacio gallo
(and Galileo was a giant wuss for retracting his claims: I feel that’s a point that’s way understated these days.)
Why? The theory was a bit half-baked at the time, which was one of Galilleo's problems--IIRC it predicted one tide a day. He and others had the right idea but not a complete working theory at the time. That was one of the problems, and, of course, having the pope think that Galileo had personally ridculed him dd not help
When you're over sixty years old, in poor health, and going blind, do you really want to risk torture and being burnt at the stake over some stupid theory?
Science does not need flaming martyers. Religions may but science does not.
David Marjanović - yes, a mathematician might well be in a position to evaluate at least some of the physics. I'm surprised you asked the question. Surely you'll be aware of the intersections and overlaps between maths and physics at this sort of level?
Given PZ's remarks I can understand why Rutherford said that the only sciences are Physics and Stamp Collecting.
"He was invited to present his ideas at Oxford, but then no one bothered to let the physicists know."
This is not true, see the correction at your original source. I think you need to issue a correction to this posting.
If I remember correctly, the Origin of Species was not peer reviewed in a journal but was published as is, i.e. a book. It did not reduce it's value. Darwin worked on this topic for over twenty years before publishing his book. He read alot, did lots of experiments himself and asked a network of contacts to help him gather information over all these years.
This being said, I have no idea if this mathematical thing will turn out real or not. If he publishes in some way or another his ideas we could stop speculating and start discussing the strenght and most likely weaknesses of his ideas.
For one, I think that there is still lots of room for improvement in our description of our universe. The following are areas I feel needs lots of work: concept of total entropy of the universe if such a concept would make sense at all (versus local entropy), Big Bang Theory, Gravity. In mathematics, sometimes we take shortcuts because they work in finding solutions. Complex numbers is one of those shortcuts in my view.
I'm inclined toward open-minded skepticism here. Either he has something, or he doesn't, and that situation will be clarified within reasonable time.
_New Scientist_ ran a correction at the end of their article: apparently there were efforts to publicize the event to actual physicists at Oxford, but those efforts failed due to what sound like routine administrative screwups by all persons involved.
There's no indication of anything other than that one math nerd impressed another and then held a meeting to discuss his ideas. OK, so there'll be more meetings, and if the people who attend consider this stuff to have any merit, they'll suggest to Weinstein that he publish in the peer reviewed journals. If he's a total outsider, someone might take him under his/her wing and offer to assist getting the stuff published.
Alternately if Weinstein is wrong or "not even wrong," he'll hear about it in no uncertain terms, and then either fix his theories and possibly make some small but useful contribution, or go find something else to do.
Re. Louis Morelli: One of a few things seeps apparent: You're confusing your metaphors with concrete representations. Or you're using metaphors to make your points, without re-anchoring them in empirical facts and the kind of logic that science uses. Or you're not doing a very clear job of expressing where the metaphors begin and end, and where the facts & logic begin and end. In any case, much of what you're speculating about has is outside the scope of this column and can be seen as digression.
Uh – yeah, of course. But that's not enough. Physics isn't pure math; even theoretical physics isn't.
That is true. The actual scientific publication, on which Alfred Russell Wallace was a coauthor, came out a year earlier; it wasn't peer-reviewed either because peer review hadn't been invented yet, but it was read at the Royal Society on July 1st, 1858. I'd bet money that Darwin incorporated any criticisms from the biologists there in his book.
Weinstein hasn't presented a publication or even a half-baked manuscript to anyone except du Sautoy.
Ah, thanks; I'll post that in the FreethoughtBlogs version of this thread.
You just asked if a mathematician is in a position to evaluate the claims. My answer was, yes, in part. You've gone on to say 'Physics isn't math'. Doesn't have anyting to do with your question.
' it was read at the Royal Society on July 1st, 1858'
Linnean Society, not the Royal Society. Nice try.
I'm afraid we'll just have to wait.
Perhaps publicity will expedite the processes.
...and let's hope that there is not a profit-motive holding it up!
OK. Thursday has come and gone, where can I find out what he said?
David, I am grateful for yours constructive criticism, it works as opportunity for checking my intellectual healthy state. What is Science and who owns the human scientific activity? About this activity, it remains the same purpose for which began with the Enlightenment? 51% of humans' life improved or worsened after the Enlightenment? Are you interested in the cause of Humanity or a cause of a particular group or staff?
Myers addresses this issue from the standpoint of the modern worldview of the academic community - based on the different methods of knowledge of Nature, which is called reductionist scientific method - and I try to approach the topic from a philosophical point of view based on empiricism and naturalist intuition as a natural brain activity produced directly by Nature, still existing in the jungles and rural areas, out of urban life and culture. I do this because I'm seeing at least 90% of humanity still being tortured by absurd conditions of existence, and this is due that still we do not have a real science for humans beings. Myers here allows us a great opportunity to rethink what is real Science and Human Knowledge of Nature that benefits here and now most humans.
You had the opportunity with my posts to see the huge difference between the academic worldview and the worldview of a modern philosopher naturalist who seeks knowledge and gross in Nature, while virgin untouched by civilization. Yours reactions are normal when facing worldviews outside the academic and the 10% - you considers it as backward and primitive. And I rely on the end result I see here and now, to counter the hegemony of scholarship, I think this worldview is not working for the majority of humans and the reason I think is because they deviated Sciences of the purpose for which it was created by the founders: the pursuit of knowledge of Nature to mankind achieve better life. If you are interested we will continue this discussion here - I could explain each critics you have made above - but if not, I will stop here. See what "G" said here: "what you're speculating about has is outside the scope of this column can be seen and the digression." Digression over rules imposed by whom? Certainly not by Nature, but by academic ideology that is not being efficient to improve the living conditions of more and 50% of humans. Cheers ...
Excuse me, I don't understand why you suddenly changed the topic. We were talking about evolution and consciousness, and suddenly you switch to talking about whether science has improved the human condition and about intuition and about whether some faceless monolith of scientists holds lots of people in contempt?
Intuition has the problem that other people can't reliably reproduce it.
Improved.
Smallpox was global, now it's gone; polio was global, now it's restricted to the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan; several other diseases are almost gone.
Huge famines used to be common. Norman Borlaug has saved two billion human lives, and two thirds of the nitrogen in our bodies come from the Haber-Bosch process that takes it out of thin air.
Information is spreading more and more freely. As a symptom, 1.2 billion people are on Facebook – in the times of the Enlightenment there weren't even a billion people in the world in total!
Seriously. You write on a computer to ask me, on another continent, whether the life of 51 % of humans has improved since the Enlightenment. I can only shake my head.
David: " Improved."
I don't think so. Which is the advantage of a method that multiplies humans from 1 billion to 7 billion if those initial 900 millions of slaves and poors grew to 6,9 billions?! I am one from this other side of modern life you don't know, ( orphan without family and home, growing in the streets of a third world country), so bad life's conditions that I escaped to live alone at Amazon jungle with monkeys and natives, and believe me, the freedom of those natives, even without any scientific resource, make me think that they are happier than these 6,9 billion (there is no smallpox there). Ok, my personal history and the debate who is happier is not the topic here, I will try to advocate my wish that Humanity really practices a Science for the good of all human beings and what I am seeing ( the way this modern Science did nothing for me and all people at my under substrate), modern Science had become a thing driven for private profits and keeping a global social system under a doctrine or ideology that rules the academic community and the scholar curriculum. I know that Science is good for my actual country now, USA, but, families as dictators and religions has used the products of Science at third world countries against their people. I am imploring to scientists that take the control of their activities and help us. Now there is a big opportunity for us with Sautoy appeal " Let's start with really big ideas, let's be brave and let's have a discussion," . For instance, there is the idea outside the Ivory Tower that biological DNA must be merely an evolutionary product coming from a non-biological DNA, called Universal Matrix, that works as forces composing a kind of software diagram and has been used by Nature for organizing inertial matter into natural systems, from atoms to galaxies to biological systems. That's seems weird and non acceptable inside the Ivory Tower, because their worldview is not rational and scientific, as is the idea that DNA was created by the stupid matter of some lost planet. Does not matter the thousands of evidences and predictions made by this theory, it was not developed inside the Ivory Tower, even that the Matrix formula could solve most humans problems just now.
So, if you are interested let's go back to the topic as you see it, I will comment every criticism you did here:
David said: "The same natural processes? Please explain."
Rationally, the process of natural evolution did not began at biological systems. I understand evolution as the transformation from a simples initial state of matter towards its complexity. My rational bases for it is embryogenesis, a process of evolution I can see here and now. Why? Bcause it is not rational to believe that Nature has pleisure playing dice with our intelligence. Nature shows here how evolution works, Nature has not changed the way that universal evolution works when making biological systems, because Nature is not a magician and can not create new information from nothing inventing new processes of evolution. It is weird for academic stuff understanding this kind of simplest and primitive thought that refuses to use elegant modern mathematics constructions and go back to pure naturalism. But, worst is practicing excess of mathematics imagination, going away off the beam, not translating real natural phenomenology, coming with a theory that suggests mechanisms and processes never saw in Nature. That's why Science is not doing its job to Humanity. Biological evolution is a normal continuous event coming from the universal chain of causes and effects, and so, biological evolution is a more complex product from cosmological evolution. If a theory dos not see the formation and evolution of atomic and astronomical systems by the same rules that works biological evolution, this theory must be wrong. Then, from what the salvage nature at the jungle is suggesting to me and not what the academic stuff is saying, the darwinian Theory, as the Modern Synthesis, based in the formula of VSI - Variation, Selection, Inheritance - is not complete, it is missing the variable that comes from those thermodynamics rules of non-biological systems. And the modern cosmology theory sometimes called Nebular Theory, is not complet because it is missing these VSI variables. If you see my calculations about how the real universal evolution must work, at cosmological and biological level, you have no scientific real facts for denying the idea. Why not trying what Sautoy is suggesting, since that our scientific enterprise is not working appropriately?
Will you saying that biological evolution has anything related to prior cosmological and atomic and particles evolution? My suggestion is that the academic stuff is becoming a kind of mystical religion, it is magical thinking, it is believing that evolution was created from nothing by the stupid matter of this lost planet or, like panspermia, by any other lost astronomical body. This misunderstanding prejudices our scientific enterprise which should be the unique hpes we have for our freedom, for the dignity of all human beings.
David said: " No, it’s not increasing. The range of complexity has increased, and this increase has been lopsided because life started at or near the minimum complexity that an organism can have; but there has not been a trend towards increased complexity."
What about a simples non-biological system that works more perfect than a monkey's organism? I am talking about this stellar system described by Newtonian mechanics that works almost eternally perfect as a watch. But... this system is the creator of " life" here... or elsewhere. The academic stuff is not accepting this rational idea, it is appealing to magical thinking. Everything must change in this worldview transmitted by university curriculum. We must go back to this stupid and simple solar system searching the mechanisms and processes that controls matter organized as biosphere for making our environment and our bodies working perfectly for us. I tried doing it based in the final products of this creator in the jungle, here and now. Of course, nobody with a PHD should having this idea and wasting time with it. They were educated under a doctrine to think that there was a kind of life's origins, coming from outside the universal chain of causes and effects, and never should to ask themselves that life is merely a new mutated shape of universal systems. My formula of astronomical formation and evolution suggests a kind of LUCA - the Last (half-mechanical/half biological) Universal Common Ancestor of the first cell system that is the most simplest formula, but containing all complexity showed at living beings from bacterias to monkeys and something else, at potential state, not expressed. I understand that the first initial shape of any human body- called morula or blastulae - has its complexity increased at the nest 9 months of embryogenesis, and the same way, the history from archaea ofr bacterial shapes to monkeys chape has showed increasing complexity. It has not invented new informations, those informations were existing before the womb, so, since that Nature does not play dice with us, the informations for biological complexity were existing before the beginning of this Universe that works as a womb. That is the way the salvage Nature suggests to us how tho think scientifically. You can not accept this weird suggestion, I know. But, I need say it, Science is not working for us and there are others scientific methods that could working. For instance, you told about I am using a computer. Indeed, Internet is a improvement for getting informations, I can read scientific papers in the jungle, but when I was learning inside libraries with books I was not loosing a lot of time with computer's problems that I have because I never could getting a technical course about computers operations because I always have been a slave of hard and bad payed work. This is the situation of most human beings just now and I ask you: what is the advantage of this " Science" for this people?
If you want, we could continuing discussing those others critics from yours.
But that's not what has happened. There aren't 6.9 billion poor people in the world. (Holy crap, that would mean only 100 million are not poor; the EU alone has more than 500 million citizens, and most of us aren't poor!) There are less than 2 billion.
Science done by private corporations is (almost always) driven by private profits, yes. But science done at public institutions? No.
Please tell me what that "doctrine or ideology" is, then. I'm not getting it.
But that's not the problem of science, is it? That's the problem of dictators and religions.
This hypothesis looks simply unnecessary to me. :-| What need is there to postulate a whole new set of forces? Galaxies are organized by gravity, biological systems by electrostatic attraction and repulsion, atoms by the same plus the strong nuclear force.
Crystals grow by electrostatic attraction and repulsion. No additional force needs to be postulated.
DNA is replicated, and proteins are made, by electrostatic attraction and repulsion working in complicated ways. No additional force needs to be postulated.
Show me some.
What? Please do explain!
You have the solution to "most human problems", and you don't explain it to us? What is wrong with you? :-)
But...
1) You don't get to redefine technical terms. As far as biology is concerned, we evolutionary biologists own this word; we determine what it means. You can't say we're doing it wrong.
2) You are saying we're doing it wrong. Evolution, you see, is not progress. It is not an increase in complexity. It is, in biology, descent with heritable modification. It does not have an inbuilt direction; it is a tennis ball that is thrown around by the environment in a lot of different ways. Sometimes complexity increases, sometimes complexity decreases, sometimes one kind of complexity changes into another, sometimes one kind of complexity increases while another decreases at the same time in the same lineage... it's chaotic. There is no global trend.
Embryogenesis is broadly analogous to what astrophysicists call evolution. It is not at all analogous to what biologists call evolution. It is a very different kind of change! In biology (unless you count Pokémon), individuals do not and cannot evolve – populations do, because when you have just one individual, there's no descent and no inheritance. In biology (unless you count Pokémon), evolution does not have an inbuilt direction; embryogenesis does.
But nature isn't a person who can play or can feel pleasure.
At least there's no reason to think it is, and plenty to think it's not.
There is no invention here, and no new process. Once there are entities that reproduce with imperfect inheritance, evolution is inevitable.
What do you mean by information?
What? All the mechanisms and processes postulated by the theory of evolution have been seen in nature. Please tell me one you think hasn't been!
There is no such thing as "cosmological evolution". The cosmos has a history, in which things have happened; it has changed over time – but that is not evolution when you're talking to biologists.
Its job is simply to find out how the world works. What we can do with this knowledge is the job of applications of science such as engineering or medicine; what we should do with it is the job of ethics.
Why?
Keep in mind that the theory of evolution does not postulate any new forces of nature.
Thermodynamics is why mutations happen. It's in there.
*blink* What? That sounds like something from the early 20th century at the latest!
This is not true, because stars and galaxies and galaxy superclusters do not reproduce (and therefore do not inherit). Stars don't make baby stars, galaxies don't lay eggs from which new galaxies hatch. Mutation and selection simply do not apply to such things.
Then show me your calculations. You haven't shown me any math at all.
Uh – du Sautoy isn't suggesting what you are suggesting. Du Sautoy is suggesting that Weinstein's unseen theory of physics overcomes the well-known contradictions between quantum physics and relativity. He's not talking about biology at all!
No, because you've used the word "evolution" in two very, very different senses in this sentence.
Seriously, learn about it. Read more. There is no mystics, no religion, no magic in it; it is science.
You still haven't given me a reason to think otherwise – though it's misleading to say that evolution, a process like crystallization or sedimentation, was "created".
How?
I don't understand what you mean.
The one who's appealing to magical thinking here is you, I'm sorry to say. You are the one who starts from the assumption that "like comes from like", that "evolution" comes from "evolution" because you call them the same.
What? Where do you get so many misunderstandings from?
The origin of life, however you define "life", is a matter of chemistry. Not a single previously unknown force needs to be postulated.
What do you mean by "formula"?
"Containing" only in the sense that a heap of sand contains cross-bedded sandstone in a potential state. That's a rather useless statement. :-/
Placental mammals like us never form a real blastula, and not much of a morula either. At the 8-cell stage, the embryo compacts itself, so that some cells are on the inside and others on the outside; the outside becomes the trophoblast, the inside becomes the inner cell mass, and then they secrete ions between them so that water follows (osmotically) and separates them on one side, beginning the blastocyst stage. A blastocyst looks similar to a blastula, but there are fundamental differences. The trophoblast does not turn into skin or gut or anything, all this is what the inner cell mass differentiates into; the trophoblast forms the placenta.
This is not true. Archaea and bacteria still exist, they still make up the vast majority of life (by numbers of cells, by mass, by diversity, by any measure you like).
The diversity of life has increased. Its complexity has not. The complexity of life has become more diverse. It grows in all directions like a bush – admittedly a bush that stands next to a wall, but still a bush.
Ah, so that's what you mean by "information". Every mutation creates new information in that sense.
Again this assumption that you have neglected to test.
Play with them. Computers aren't made for adults, they're exclusively made for children. Play like a child, and you'll learn.
Please do.
Oh crap. I'm sorry.
Here's the botched part again:
This hypothesis looks simply unnecessary to me. :-| What need is there to postulate a whole new set of forces? Galaxies are organized by gravity, biological systems by electrostatic attraction and repulsion, atoms by the same plus the strong nuclear force.
Crystals grow by electrostatic attraction and repulsion. No additional force needs to be postulated.
DNA is replicated, and proteins are made, by electrostatic attraction and repulsion working in complicated ways. No additional force needs to be postulated.
Show me some.
What? Please do explain!
You have the solution to "most human problems", and you don't explain it to us? What is wrong with you? :-)
But...
1) You don't get to redefine technical terms. As far as biology is concerned, we evolutionary biologists own this word; we determine what it means. You can't say we're doing it wrong.
2) You are saying we're doing it wrong. Evolution, you see, is not progress. It is not an increase in complexity. It is, in biology, descent with heritable modification. It does not have an inbuilt direction; it is a tennis ball that is thrown around by the environment in a lot of different ways. Sometimes complexity increases, sometimes complexity decreases, sometimes one kind of complexity changes into another, sometimes one kind of complexity increases while another decreases at the same time in the same lineage... it's chaotic. There is no global trend.
Embryogenesis is broadly analogous to what astrophysicists call evolution. It is not at all analogous to what biologists call evolution. It is a very different kind of change! In biology (unless you count Pokémon), individuals do not and cannot evolve – populations do, because when you have just one individual, there's no descent and no inheritance. In biology (unless you count Pokémon), evolution does not have an inbuilt direction; embryogenesis does.
But nature isn't a person who can play or can feel pleasure.
At least there's no reason to think it is, and plenty to think it's not.
There is no invention here, and no new process. Once there are entities that reproduce with imperfect inheritance, evolution is inevitable.
What do you mean by information?
What? All the mechanisms and processes postulated by the theory of evolution have been seen in nature. Please tell me one you think hasn't been!
There is no such thing as "cosmological evolution". The cosmos has a history, in which things have happened; it has changed over time – but that is not evolution when you're talking to biologists.
Its job is simply to find out how the world works. What we can do with this knowledge is the job of applications of science such as engineering or medicine; what we should do with it is the job of ethics.
Why?
Keep in mind that the theory of evolution does not postulate any new forces of nature.
Thermodynamics is why mutations happen. It's in there.
*blink* What? That sounds like something from the early 20th century at the latest!
This is not true, because stars and galaxies and galaxy superclusters do not reproduce (and therefore do not inherit). Stars don't make baby stars, galaxies don't lay eggs from which new galaxies hatch. Mutation and selection simply do not apply to such things.
Then show me your calculations. You haven't shown me any math at all.
Uh – du Sautoy isn't suggesting what you are suggesting. Du Sautoy is suggesting that Weinstein's unseen theory of physics overcomes the well-known contradictions between quantum physics and relativity. He's not talking about biology at all!
No, because you've used the word "evolution" in two very, very different senses in this sentence.
Seriously, learn about it. Read more. There is no mystics, no religion, no magic in it; it is science.
You still haven't given me a reason to think otherwise – though it's misleading to say that evolution, a process like crystallization or sedimentation, was "created".
How?
I don't understand what you mean.
The one who's appealing to magical thinking here is you, I'm sorry to say. You are the one who starts from the assumption that "like comes from like", that "evolution" comes from "evolution" because you call them the same.
What? Where do you get so many misunderstandings from?
The origin of life, however you define "life", is a matter of chemistry. Not a single previously unknown force needs to be postulated.
What do you mean by "formula"?
"Containing" only in the sense that a heap of sand contains cross-bedded sandstone in a potential state. That's a rather useless statement. :-/
Placental mammals like us never form a real blastula, and not much of a morula either. At the 8-cell stage, the embryo compacts itself, so that some cells are on the inside and others on the outside; the outside becomes the trophoblast, the inside becomes the inner cell mass, and then they secrete ions between them so that water follows (osmotically) and separates them on one side, beginning the blastocyst stage. A blastocyst looks similar to a blastula, but there are fundamental differences. The trophoblast does not turn into skin or gut or anything, all this is what the inner cell mass differentiates into; the trophoblast forms the placenta.
This is not true. Archaea and bacteria still exist, they still make up the vast majority of life (by numbers of cells, by mass, by diversity, by any measure you like).
The diversity of life has increased. Its complexity has not. The complexity of life has become more diverse. It grows in all directions like a bush – admittedly a bush that stands next to a wall, but still a bush.
Ah, so that's what you mean by "information". Every mutation creates new information in that sense.
Again this assumption that you have neglected to test.
Play with them. Computers aren't made for adults, they're exclusively made for children. Play like a child, and you'll learn.
Please do.
This is really embarrassing.
Here's the botched part again...
What? Where do you get so many misunderstandings from?
The origin of life, however you define "life", is a matter of chemistry. Not a single previously unknown force needs to be postulated.
What do you mean by "formula"?
"Containing" only in the sense that a heap of sand contains cross-bedded sandstone in a potential state. That's a rather useless statement. :-/
Placental mammals like us never form a real blastula, and not much of a morula either. At the 8-cell stage, the embryo compacts itself, so that some cells are on the inside and others on the outside; the outside becomes the trophoblast, the inside becomes the inner cell mass, and then they secrete ions between them so that water follows (osmotically) and separates them on one side, beginning the blastocyst stage. A blastocyst looks similar to a blastula, but there are fundamental differences. The trophoblast does not turn into skin or gut or anything, all this is what the inner cell mass differentiates into; the trophoblast forms the placenta.
This is not true. Archaea and bacteria still exist, they still make up the vast majority of life (by numbers of cells, by mass, by diversity, by any measure you like).
The diversity of life has increased. Its complexity has not. The complexity of life has become more diverse. It grows in all directions like a bush – admittedly a bush that stands next to a wall, but still a bush.
Ah, so that's what you mean by "information". Every mutation creates new information in that sense.
Again this assumption that you have neglected to test.
Play with them. Computers aren't made for adults, they're exclusively made for children. Play like a child, and you'll learn.
Please do.