Economic argument for skepticism

Back after a delay, allowing someone else’s humor to do the heavy lifting….

 

Teaching the “controversies”

Today’s NYT has an article about a new-ish strategy used by creationists in their efforts to influence the teaching of science in schools. According to the article, a bill in the Kentucky legislature would require schools to teach “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories.” A similar rule passed by the Texas Board of Education (see previous post for related info) requires “that teachers present all sides of the evidence on evolution and global warming.”

The problem with this kind of language is not that it advocates critical thinking about science as an enterprise or about the merits of specific theories. It is the ease with which the language can be bent to the end of distorting science. Teaching the “advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories” is part of the teaching of science, provided we specify the questions to which the theories pertain. For example, if the question is about the origin and diversification of life, including its adaptation to different environments, then by all means lets talk about the advantages of a scientific as opposed to, say, nonscientific account. Nonscientific (supernatural, mythological, untestable) theories have been tried, but it was not until Darwin set forth his explanatory framework that we had a way of systematically answering these questions. The problem is that teachers, school-board members, and parents who are threatened by Darwin’s account, and who don’t understand the nature and practice of science itself, will use the “advantages and disadvantages” language to promote false alternatives such as Intelligent Design or Scientific Creationism.

Similarly, there is nothing inherently wrong with teaching “all sides of the evidence on evolution and global warming.” Do that right, observing appropriate standards of scientific evidence and inference, and you wind up with an overwhelming case for Darwinian evolution or for the idea that the earth’s climate is changing at unprecedented rates under the influence of human activities. However, the “all sides of the evidence” language can be used as a Trojan horse to smuggle in arguments based on invalid evidence such as scripture, opinion polls, or distortions of scientific data.

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Update: grammatical fix

 

Texas School Board election results

The Texas School Board has a huge amount of clout in determining the contents of high school textbooks. Because of the size of the public school system and its consequent purchasing power, textbook publishers nationwide tend to cater to Texas. Thus the Texas school board decides what is acceptable for textbooks not only for Texas students, but also for students nationwide.

This situation wouldn’t necessarily be bad, except that the Texas school board is controlled at times by hard right culture warriors, who have used their clout to advance their political agenda. The most familiar battleground is creationism, but the struggle has moved into social studies as well, as described in the recent New York Times magazine article, “How Christian Were The Founders?”

That Times article emphasized the role played by Don McLeroy, a school board member who has long championed the teaching of creationism in schools, and has recently tried to push a conservative social and religious agenda into history books.

Well guess what, Don McLeroy was defeated yesterday in his bid for reelection. The winner, Thomas Ratliff, had some encouraging things to say: “I think we need to spend more time utilizing Texas’ higher education experts and less time trying to find that ‘expert’ out there that also fits a particular political profile.” At least I think it is encouraging.

 

Predictions gone wrong

There are lots of famous examples of failed predictions about the future of computer technology. Think of Bill Gates predicting, in 2004, “Two years from now, spam will be solved,” or the claim (possibly apocryphal) that Gates said in 1981 about computer memory: “640K should be enough for anyone.”

Even these choice examples are no match for this gloriously, promiscuously wrong prediction by Clifford Stoll about the future of the internet. Among the best parts:

“…Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.”

“We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.”

“No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who’d prefer cybersex to the real thing?”

“Who needs teachers when you’ve got computer-aided education? Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love videogames–but think of your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of decades past?”

It brings a chuckle to see just how wrong he was only 15 years ago. However, underlying Stoll’s skepticism is a worry that isn’t so easy to dismiss with a laugh. Here’s how his essay ends: “While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where–in the holy names of Education and Progress–important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.”

History has proven most of his other predictions wrong. I wonder about this last one.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the conspecific (animal pictures)

From the site: Evolution f**ked your sh*t up.  Wow.

UPDATE:

Astericized the name of the website….

 

Placebo effects

Dumbo and Timothy Mouse-The Magic Feather

I’m fascinated by placebo effects. Here are two recent topics that illustrate the power of placebo effects, and the challenge of interpreting whether drugs have the effects that are meant to have (over and above the placebo effect).

First, placebo effects getting stronger in clinical trials. This was reported in an article in Wired magazine, which also provides a wonderful survey of the bizarre world of placebo effects.  This is a world where the color, shape, and size of a sugar pill will influence its effectiveness, depending upon the medical condition being treated.  The problem with placebo effects getting stronger is that it becomes harder to determine whether the active medicine being tested is effective by itself.  Why is this strengthening happening?  The Wired article suggests that Americans are becoming ever more convinced by the power of drug companies to cure their ills.  I’m sure the companies appreciate this confidence in their skills.  They would probably appreciate all the more being able simply to sell sugar pills as treatments for our maladies.

The second example is a study of the effectiveness of anti-depressants in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The work shows (and builds upon lots of prior evidence) that both placebos and anti-depressants (two different drugs were tested:  paroxetine and imiprimine) improve people’s scores on a standard scale of depressive symptoms.  However, the drugs are better than placebo only for people with the most severe symptoms.  This study is discussed in a recent cover story in Newsweek by Sharon Begley.  Among the more interesting points is that even a positive effect of an antidepressant over placebo might itself be ascribed to a placebo effect.  Why?  Because people experience the side effects and hence figure that the antidepressant must be working, even if it is merely the power of suggestion having been triggered by the side effects.

 

Science is hard….

….especially physics

(click on picture to see whole image if it is cropped)

 

Songs to be sung on a Geology field trip

I am a scientist, but I come from a family of word lovers. My dad loves words, wordplay, puns, and one-liners, and so did his father before him, and both of his brothers.

It is a family of music lovers too. My dad played guitar for most of his adult life, and is an avid jazz fan, as was his father. One of my earliest memories was watching my grandfather, my dad, and my uncle Fred sitting around the hi-fi listening to 78-rpm recordings of jazz, tapping their feet and smiling at each other. My grandfather played piano, mostly by ear. One of his proudest accomplishments, according to my dad, was when he had gone out to listen to Bix Beiderbecke‘s band and then volunteered to sit in at piano when Bix’s regular pianist didn’t show. Bix Beiderbecke was a legend of early jazz. For my grandfather to hold his own was no mean accomplishment.

Here is the love of words and the love of music coming together, in the most exalted form of humor–puns. This list was started by my grandfather and expanded by my dad.

Songs to Be Sung on a Geology Field Trip

I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Silicate

Baby, It’s Gold Outside

Down By Geode Mill Stream

Shale We Dance?

Nevertheloess

Where Ore When

O, Pumice Me

Oil Or Nothing At All

Lava Come Back To Me

You’d Be So Gneiss To Come Home To

Gimme A Little Schist, Will Ya Huh?

It’s A Lodestone Old Town

Straighten Up And Pyrite

Sedimental Journey

Scree Little Words

Imagmanation

Too Marbleous For Words

In The Coal, Coal, Coal Of The Evening

Put Your Arms Around Me, Hematite

Sweet Moraine

Beryl Me Not On The Lone Prairie

 

Super-intelligent purple space squids apparently were unintelligent designers

From Ronald Bailey of Reason Magazine…

 

What “Climate Gate” tells us about scientists…

…that they are often less like the Professor and more like all of the other denizens of the island.