B8004-1 Evidence

Quite often, one encounters people who live a “scientific” life. They have learned certain scientific precepts (really, “opinions”) at the feet of other scientists, and they have learned to use a scientific jargon that colors their thinking. It is amazing how often these scientists pretend that somehow their thinking is superior to that of people who live an unscientific life because of their facility with those precepts and with that scientific jargon. Yet, they are surely a deluded people.

Take the case of religious revelation: scientists reject this out of hand because it lacks a grounding in the material world. They will insist that one cannot believe in such things because there is no material basis for it. They then further complicate this difficulty by arguing that logic must rule where materiality is absent. Their argument, in its simplest form, goes something like this: “If I can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist.” That is really another way of saying that they do not find the evidence of revelation to be credible because it lacks a certain type of materiality.

Ah, yes. Sweet materiality. It is such a dangerous thing, this materiality. For, if one insists upon grounding everything in materiality, eventually, one runs into sustained and intractable contradictions. The scientist rejects the biblical story of creation, for example, because it does not accord with his material view of nature. It seems fanciful and absurd to him. But more importantly, the biblical story of creation is rejected, because it lacks the kind of evidence that the scientists seeks in marshaling his arguments. It is based on revelation rather than in material nature. Of course, the scientist rejects that kind of evidence because it is a based on, well, revelation, instead of “science.”

Then, the scientist does a very curious thing. He explains the world on the basis of logic. That the world exists is really beyond question. The scientist’s problem is to explain that existence, and he rejects the revelation from biblical sources. Therefore he has to explain the existence of the world strictly in terms of materiality. But if the world is all there is (to paraphrase Wittgenstein), then one cannot look for explanations beyond the material world. So, at that point, logic takes over. The most reasonable explanation for the existence (or the creation of the world) is sought by the scientist because there is no experiment any scientist could conduct that would demonstrate the formation of the material world. Materiality, per se, is beyond experimental manipulation. The only thing left is logic, and the scientist gives us his best reason for the existence of things.

But isn’t that a very curious thing? Instead of experimentation, the scientist gives us a reasonable narration; instead of facts, he gives us reasons; and, instead of proofs, he gives us opinions. Funny thing for a scientist to do, that, eh? Where is his scientific method? Where is his epistemological integrity? How can he reject revelation with such ease, and then present us with nothing as an explanation for the world, and still consider what he’s doing to be science? You don’t want the messiness of creation by God to explain the existence of the world? Okay. Well, why not try the Big Bang Theory? Yeah, let’s run with that. We’ll take an event that occurred say fifteen, twenty, thirty billion years ago. Pick your own favorite starting point. I won’t quibble over half a dozen billion years. It happened so far in the past that nobody can call you a liar if you miss it by, say, one or two billion years. That’s always the very best strategy: have a scientific theory about something that cannot be checked by other people. Then supply a number of unassailable principles, such as, the color of light receding from the viewer (“red shift”), to supply the logical underpinnings for the explanation of that creation. Play with the theory until it sounds very logical and reasonable, and then presented to the public as science.

Excuse me, but how is that any more “scientific” than foisting any myth upon an unsuspecting public? Why would a scientist’s hollow reverberations of his own mind be more “scientific” than the evidence supplied by the Bible - or any other evidence for that matter? Why does the opinion of a man wearing a white laboratory coat trump that of a theologian with Holy Scripture in his hands?

B5014-2 Moron Science: Internet Science Writers

Some random comments about people who write popular science articles for the internet:

Sophomoric: They are, if one may generalize, a people who tend to have a sophomoric and starry-eyed understanding of science and what science can do in the lives of people.  One gets the impression when reading one of their articles that one is speaking with a 12-year-old nerdy sort of boy explaining the intricacies of atomic particle accelerators.  A single, pertinent question will often stop their narrative cold - as if they hadn’t thought it through.

Uncritical:  The writing often comes across as a Mechanics Illustrated, Gee Whiz, Who’d a Thunk It sort of writing, lacking in elegance and grace, and without the requisite skepticism that would prompt other writers to look more critically at the subject matter. At times, popular science writers fulfill the role of cheerleaders; other times, they function as ordinary mystics. Always, they come across as unthinking, uncritical, and undiscerning writers - clownish, really, if I may say so.

Shibbolethic: Certain words seemed to appear with monotonous regularity in their writing, especially words such as, “peer review.”  The writers often give the impression, that by using such words, they have “nailed” those who might raise objections to their silly writings. Of course, nothing is further from the truth. “Peer review” simply means that like-minded people have looked at a document.  Period.  Peer review does not mean that knowledgeable people have expressed independent opinions about an article.  Rather, it means that like-minded people have looked at a document and nodded their heads in unison. Peer review’s nearest analogue would be something more akin to American Legion members holding both, 1) pro-military views, and 2) saluting the American flag on Memorial Day. In both cases, it would answer the simple question, “So, what else would you expect?”
            To state that a particular piece of scientific work “has been peer-reviewed” is not to make an argument for the efficacy or merits of an actual scientific work.  “Peer review,” to be sure, is not a magical incantation, although it is often used as such.  Rather, it is a description of misplaced enthusiasm for a particular scientific project. Most tellingly, it is an assertion of one’s complicity in current scientific beliefs.  In itself, it is harmless and simply reflects the boot- polishing mindset of the modern, popular science writer.  “Peer review” is an abbreviation for the longer, more complex argument that seems to say, “We just know better, so don’t argue with us.” Its effect is to tell us to close our mouths and not to question what is being said.  “Peer review” is a science writer’s way of telling others to shut up because, hey, this is...Science.

Useless: Ultimately, the modern science writers’ articles are useless.  And that is because they hardly ever express scientific facts and principles.  Instead they present wild fantasies that cannot be verified. There is always some Big Bang that travels through an evanescent Wormhole and gets lost in a Black Hole in some outlying Nebula so remote in history as to be incomprehensible. We are expected to sit there and nod our heads up and down slowly as though we understand what is being said and as though we agree with the nonsense being spouted.  The popular science writer’s audience is filled from sea to shining sea with naïf dolts who possess an extensive science jargon and - this is the important part - an empty empirical platter.

Magical Thinking: There is a catechism among science writers which seems to teach that even the smallest instance of water on the planet is proof in itself that life once existed there. How happy they are to report that a piece of ice the size of a man’s fist was found on some remote planet that has no hospitable atmosphere and gravity strong enough to sink a man to his armpits in the barren soil.  And, of course, they postulate that an abundant zoology exists there without any evidence other than that dirty chunk of ice the size of a man’s fist.
            There is such an insistence upon supposing that life exists among the billions and billions planetary systems beyond our own. Logic and reason alone suggest as much. And to doubt that postulate itself is to doubt the very foundations of science.  But all they can show us for evidence is that dirty chunk of ice the size of a man’s fist. Then, they pretend that we are really weird because we don’t believe their asseverations. Show me life (as we know it) on that planet with a 900̊F surface temperature and an atmosphere mostly composed of ammonia gas - and I’ll eat my hat.

Subjunctive Mood: Have you ever noticed how often modern science writers use such words as “could,” or “might,” or “may,” or “possibly,” or “maybe,” or “probably” whenever they write about planets hundreds of light-years away from our own. Granted, they do not flaunt the subjunctive mood when they talk about their big-as-life neighbor next door. That’s because anyone can knock on his door and take a good look at him.  But when they consider something that is so far away that nothing can be verified, then they lapse into thinking that is wondrously sprinkled with coudas, wouldas, and shouldas: “Life could have arisen from that expanse of sand and rock so far away because we have found a chunk of dirty ice the size of a man’s fist nestled in the penumbra near the pole, and that probably means that there is life on that planet.” Indeed. But how could we ever disprove such ineluctable logic?
            The subjunctive mood seems to work best when its object can’t be examined close up. The part of the universe that is so remote and so far away - both in terms of distance and time - is often found to be dotted with subjunctive descriptors as numerous as the pimples on a teenage boy’s face. Happily, all of those remote and distant planets and objects are beyond practical observation and examination. Science, which normally cries out for empirical examination and experimentation, simply cannot be performed on something so remote and so far away. The so-called Big Bang Theory is the most pertinent example I can imagine that is wholly beyond the possibility of examination and experimentation.  It is, to be sure, a theory that falls completely outside the realm of science.  And yet, it is treated as a serious scientific theory and is taught regularly in the science classroom.  Have these people got any idea what science really is?