Dean's World

I have long been a supporter of nuclear energy. It's the safest, most environmentally-friendly form of mass power generation we have ever had. For lots of useful analysis on this issue from an environmentalist perspective, I strongly recommend checking out what the Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy have lots of good information. I particularly point out this good piece by James Lovelock.

Although some people cringe at the way we turn common social phenomena into "syndromes," the truth is that there are certain social pathologies which can be identified by certain traits that are documented to occur over and over again. One of these is Parental Alienation Syndrome. I believe that if you read about it, you will probably know people who it describes perfectly. I know I have seen it many times, and it's almost always very ugly. The patterns are instantly recognizable once you see them in action.

Somewhere in all our fulminating about "deadbeat dads," we ought to be doing more to recognize this particular pathology.

Doug Payton is quite taken with the theory of abiotic oil, the theory that petroleum is not a fossil fuel but is in fact generated by completely non-biological and largely inorganic sources. He cites a couple of sources to back that up.

I've written about this before, although I'm too lazy at the moment to find the links (feel free to do so in the comments if you're motivated). My short answer is that I find it fascinating, but I am skeptical if only because a successful theory by definition makes predictions. I have yet to see any strong predictions made by the abiotic oil theorists. Can they show how they can better predict where oil will be found than geologists who accept the orthodox view? Or predict it at least as well? If they can, they have something important. If they can't, then they have something highly interesting to contemplate.

To be clear, I'm not saying the abiotic theorists are lunatics, crackpots, dangerous, etc. I'm just saying: "show me the money." Telling me you can produce hydrocarbons by just subjecting iron, limestone, and water to high pressure is interesting--in fact, it's very interesting, and probably helps explain why hydrocarbons are so abundant in the universe--but in terms of energy production, it's about like telling me that you can squeeze combustible hydrogen out of seawater. Yeah, you can do it, and...?

To be fair, I haven't checked all of Doug's references thoroughly. If someone thinks I'm missing something big, let me know.

Quoted:

Hi,

Have you seen this?

Dilbert creator Scott Adams on Intelligent Design.

Scott Adams weighs in with a surprisingly (though I guess not-so-surprisingly) level-headed treatise on the Intelligent Design thing.

I have to wonder if atheistic geeks like me, for whom Adams is something of a role model, might use this occasion as something of a catalyst for questioning the received dogma. Because, hey, having there be unanswered scientific questions out there is FUN, isn't it?

Especially if there isn't anything politically pressing that's riding directly on it. This isn't nuclear physics during the Cold War. This is one of the oldest questions in the human experience, and the more I think about it, the more I wish every kid was subjected to it head-on in his formative years.

Brian Tiemann

Peeve Farm blog

Oh gosh, another atheist and science geek who is unperterbed by the Intelligent Design people, and who thinks maybe they raise some intriguing questions. Doubtless Brian will now be avalanched with calumny about how he's secretly a fundamentalist, a creationist, a "religious rightist," a scientific illiterate, and a general moron by the likes of PZ Myers, Richard Bennett, Ed the Culture Wars guy, and other soi-disant Defenders of Darwinian Truth.

I've had about enough of writing about this because it feels like all I ever do is repeat myself. Arguments that are perfectly clear to me seem to be like mud to other people, so it's either my own shortcoming or just one of those areas like abortion where you can't get everyone to agree.

But: watching Scott Adams at work was sheer joy here.

Adams, who appears to be about as religious as a bowl of Cheerios, recently committed the crime of being less than absolutely condemning of the idea of Intelligent Design, and, even worse, of suggesting that maybe they raised some valid points worth considering. He was, predictably, avalanched with ugly criticism. Unlike me, instead of getting upset, he had a simple and elegant response here.

But then it got really good. P.Z. Myers, a science teacher with a bad habit of mischaracterizing anyone he disagrees with (including both Trudy Schuett and me in the past) got involved. In his usual paint-by-numbers manner, Myers constructed and then obliterated an army straw men in an attempt to make Scott look dumb. I pity this jagoff's poor students, I really do. But Scott managed to just watch in amusement--then calmly exposed PZ Myers as the intellectual lightweight and bloviating bully that he is. Go Dilbert!

The ID theorists often claim they can't get published in peer reviewed journals because intolerant members of the establishment won't even let them raise certain questions or make certain suggestions. I used to think that was probably just self-serving whining. I thought the case of Richard Sternberg was disturbing but probably an aberration. Now after all the dishonest abuse I've received, and seen others receive, I begin to wonder if his story, as well as the stories told by people like Caroline Crocker and Guillermo Gonzalez, are actually typical. I fully credit people like Richard Bennett and P.Z. Myers for making me think so. Indeed, I have a free suggestion for the Discovery Institute: put P.Z. Myers on your payroll, if he isn't already. This man routinely does more to damage the reputation of Darwinian biologists than I would have thought possible.

For the record, this twit Myers called me a "creationist," while some of his intellectual allies called me a "fundamentalist" and a member of the "religious right." Many of his friends addded all sorts of calumny about my being a scientific illiterate, and even threw in invective about my family and certain personal problems I've publicly discussed my struggles with. Some people I'd thought were friends even told outright lies about me. Sound familiar?

For the record: I'm an atheist and a huge fan of Darwin's, with a particular fascination for evolutionary psychology. I get into big theological arguments all the time with my Christian pals because I don't believe their God exists, and even if he did exist I'd think that if what some of them say about him were true he should be hated and not worshipped. On ID, my most controversial opinion has been that since this debate is as old as Darwin it ought to be part of kids' science curriculum, and that throwing it out by court order has done enormous damage to scientists' reputations. And, I note that the ID'ers occasionally make a good point and that it's okay to acknowledge that without getting worked up over it. That's it. Finito. For that I'm a liar, a fundamentalist, a creationist, blah blah woof woof, whatever. F**k you and the horse you rode in on, guys. Seriously.

(And no, this does not include anyone who currently has a working comment account here on Dean's World, since almost all of you guys, even those of you who disagree with me vehemently, have usually been entirely rational.)

Anyway, now Scott asks people to explain in simple terms why he's stupid. My prediction is most attempts will utterly fail, since there's nothing particularly stupid about anything Scott's written on this subject.

This is fun to watch. Nice to have the spotlight on someone else, too.

Here's an interesting debate between researchers on aging.

I make no secret that I side with the anti-aging forces. Senescence is a horrible killer, a disease that should be fought with every available weapon. Every time I hear an argument about why humans should not artificially extend the number of years wherein we live robust, healthy, active lives, I get creeped out. "God wouldn't want us to do this" is the most irrational and disturbing, and holds no more weight with me than arguments about how transplants, artificial organs, or lifesaving drugs are "against God's plan." If you believe that stuff, great, you voluntarily forego life-saving, quality of life enhancing treatments. Just leave the rest of us alone.

But even worse in my view are creepy, death-embracing arguments like, "the world has too many people" or "all that is good in humanity comes from our mortality," which are morally bankrupt so far as I can see.

The Vatican has issued a strong condemnation of creationists. In the meantime, others contemplate a Vise Strategy.

Missing from it all is a series of voices who note that much of what passes for Darwinism today--what is known as "Neo-Darwinism" to its critics--has simply become dogmatic and reactionary. The late Stephen Jay Gould stated flatly, on more than one occasion, that mutation and natural selection alone are insufficient to explain life's diversity. He was a dedicated and passionate opponent of creationism, yet he never advocated much of what today's Neo-Darwinists insist must be so. Today, of the same concept (that natural selection and random mutation alone can explain all life's diversity), the noted biologist Lynn Margulis says, "It is totally wrong. It's wrong like infectious medicine was wrong before Pasteur. It's wrong like phrenology is wrong. Every major tenet of it is wrong." She has even recently called the Neo-Darwinists intellectual bullies.

I can certainly say I've seen plenty of that bullying. It's also hard not to notice how much of what is peddled as Darwinism has become nonfalsifiable: absolutely everything we see is given as proof that the theory is correct, with every new development automatically assigned to the theory, and everything we don't understand said to be supported by the theory anyway, just in ways we don't understand yet. How is that falsifiable? What are you testing against? What are you predicting, besides "everything we see will fit with the theory?" What possibility have you left open for any other force or explanation or hypothesis? King gene rules all, discussion over?

Professor Don Jewett has a good article which relates to this: What's Wrong With Single Hypotheses. He's not talking about Neo-Darwinism per se, but a growing tendency in multiple fields to accept one hypothesis and one only--and the pitfalls that necessarily arise from that.

After you're done with that, you can read more about the fascinating Postdarwinists from this piece by Kevin Kelly. You might also be interested in reading some about the fascinating James Lovelock's work.

In yesterday's discussion of the (probable) junk science of Randell Mills, several people brought up the concept of cold fusion in a non-mocking way. Not because Randell Mills is promising cold fusion, but some brought up cold fusion as similar junk science--and a few gave a tentative defense of the subject.

This led me to the home page of MIT Professor Peter L. Hagelstein, and then to this interesting writeup in the Washington Post. And by the way, although the story doesn't say, the DOE released its report on cold fusion in December of last year, basically saying that they'd consider research applications on the subject through the normal peer review process but wouldn't start any direct projects on it.

I'm still more than a little skeptical but this seems to fit with an uncomfortable pattern that's been noted in a lot of other areas of research: researchers who go off the beaten path to study things or take positions that aren't warmly embraced by their colleague are often stigmatized and denied any respect or funding. This is troublesome.

To quote from a paper from a similar maverick:

"The peer review system derives its power from the little known practice of governments to deputize their authority to distribute funds for research to committees of "experts". These experts are academic researchers distinguished by outstanding contributions to the current establishment. They alone review the merits of research applications from their peers, and they have the right to elect each other to review committees. Outwardly, this "peer review system" appears to the unsuspecting government and taxpayer as the equivalent of a jury system – free of all conflicts of interest. But, in view of the many professional and commercial investments in and benefits from their expertise, and even of the rewards from their universities and institutions for the corresponding overheads and partnerships – all legal in the US since president Reagan – "peer reviewers" do not fund applications that challenge their own interests...Since "peer review" is protected by anonymity, does not allow the applicant personal representation or an independent representative, nor a say or even a veto in the selection of the "jury", and does not allow an appeal, its powers to defend the orthodoxy are unlimited. The corporate equivalent of academia’s "peer review system" would be to give General Motors and Ford the authority to review and veto all innovations by less established carmakers competing for the consumer."

"Even the professional journals and the science writers of the public media comply with the interests of government- funded majorities because they depend on their monthly "scientific breakthroughs", the lucrative advertisements from their companies, and the opinion of their subscribers."

I'm more than a little skeptical of the cold fusion claims, but to be honest I'm increasingly even more skeptical of the system we have in place now where mavericks with new ideas can be quietly slapped down without even a chance at being heard, and where one mistake can ruin a career. Sonia Arrison had a good piece on this earlier this year, nothing something that's obvious to those of us who've worked in high tech most of our lives: mavericks in high tech, when they fail, generally are helped up onto their feet, dusted off, and congratulated for at least making an attempt and having taught others something valuable: their approach didn't work. Yet people in more traditional areas of research instead are treated as pariahs. Why?

Max Planck observed that, often, the only way to make certain advances in science was wait for certain people to die. "Science advances one coffin at a time" I believe he said.

I would think a more open jury system and an appeals process for funding applications would definitely help alleviate some of that.

The U.S. currently provides funds to provide abortions overseas in places like China. Since China's draconian "one child" policy has often resulted in infanticide, mandatory abortions, mandatory sterilizations, and so on, you have to ask why we should be providing any funding for such heinous human rights abuses.

This also illustrates the foolishness of Malthusian thinking. Let's do a little population math here, shall we, and compare it to a nation of similar size?

1) China covers 3,696,100 square miles, with a population of 1,306,313,812 (SOURCE).

Divide the population by the number of square miles and you get: 353 people per square mile.

2) India covers 2,042,813 square miles, with a population of 1,080,264,388 (SOURCE).

Divide the population by the number of square miles and you get: 529 people per square mile.

India has never forced people to stop having kids. Yet their birth rate has been declining. Why? Because they've been growing wealthier and more free over time (SOURCE). They are clearly more crowded than China, and yet their economy and standards of living have been growing for decades.

Yet another nail in the coffin of the mass delusion that having more people on the planet causes poverty and hunger. Nope, in free societies it tends to translate to greater wealth and prosperity. At the rate they're going, India will within another generation or so rival the U.S. for standards of living, and may well be one of the world's superpowers. Since they're a liberal democracy I think that would be splendid.

Science is about falsifiable hypotheses. Ultimately that's what science is all about.

Some claim that political science is not truly science because it produces no falsifiable theories. But political scientists do state a falsifiable hypothesis: no two democratic nations will ever go to war with each other.

How do you define "democratic?" "Democracy" in this discussion is defined by the Freedom House data set. Any country rated an overall "4" or better is defined as a democracy.

How do you define "war?" The loose definition is "an armed conflict in which at least 1,000 people die."

The prediction is that no two democratic nations will ever go to war with each other.

The weak version of the theory is that this will be rare. The strong version is that it will never happen.

So far, the strong version is vindicated.

You disagree? Find me the exception.

I recently fell over laughing at this thread over at Bill Quick's place. Richard Bennett (or as my my lovely wife calls him, "he of the tiny penis") decided to attack me, in his usual pathetically trollish fashion, as follows:

Thus spake Dean Esmay*, man of science.

*according to whom HIV doesn't cause AIDS, Ebonics is a language, and Intelligent Design belongs in Jr. High biology class. That's the company you're in, Bill. Happy?

1) My view on creationism is that it's better to invite the kids to debate it than to forbid it by court decree--a view shared by evolutionary biologist and contribitor to the peer-reviewed journal Science Michael Balter.

2) My position on HIV and AIDS is endorsed by not one but two Nobel laureates, as well as several fully credentialed and published biologists and biochemists I've personally interviewed. It amounts to this: "the science on HIV and AIDS is poorly supported and needs extensive re-examination." I completely admit that I may be wrong about HIV and AIDS, but I've talked to more than one fully credentialed scientist on both sides of the issue. Can Richard say the same?

3) I don't want African American Vernacular English (a.k.a. "Ebonics") taught in the classroom. That's a dumb idea. But I do think it's good if teachers are taught to understand the vernacular. I also think it's a good idea to teach kids how to differentiate between the "ghetto-talk" they grow up with and Standard English.

I state here and now that no one can produce a list of ten linguists who agree that "ebonics" (more precisely known as "African American Vernacular English" or "Black Vernacular English") does not exist. Indeed, I predict that no one can produce a list of five.

I also add this: We all make mistakes and say things we wish we could take back. Can you produce such a list about yourself? I can.