In the current wars over global warming we are seeing an example of scientists behaving badly. I am not referring just to the hacked e-mails that everyone is talking about. Far more disturbing to me is the recent tactic of labeling any scientist who expresses skepticism about the extent of anthropogenic global warming a “global warming denier,” as though they were somehow comparable to holocaust deniers and thus both willfully ignorant and morally repulsive.
Don’t get me wrong: There is a great deal of kooky pseudoscience in the world, and it should be branded as such. Not all ideas deserve to be taken seriously, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the scientific community trying to marginalize ideas that really are kooky. But skepticism about the extent of anthropogenic global warming is not in that category. How do I know that? More importantly, how is the average non-scientist to tell? Are there indicia of pseudoscience by which the man on the street can recognize it? Not infallible ones, but there are some rules of thumb.
First, pseudoscientific ideas usually involve (at least implicitly, even if their proponents are unaware of it) a rejection of a huge mass of well-tested and well-established scientific theory. For example, “Creation Science”, which claims that the universe is only a few thousand years old, requires the abandonment of most of what we know about geology, astrophysics, cosmology, and biology, not to mention a certain amount of nuclear physics. Scientific knowledge is a highly reticulated structure of mutually supporting facts and inferences. Every well-established scientific fact is held in place by numerous links to other known facts, both closely related and seemingly distant. There are many scientific facts the denial of which would bring vast expanses of the edifice of human knowledge crashing down. The same is true in other branches of knowledge, such as history. History can be revised, but only up to a point. One might question some detail of Roman history, for example, but to say that the Roman Empire never existed would make nonsense of historical knowledge as a whole.
The scientists who are questioning the “consensus view” on anthropogenic global warming are not proposing such wholesale revisions. Quite the contrary. All the scientists who are involved in these climate controversies, whether skeptics or ardent alarmists, are working within the same basic framework of modern scientific theory. They accept the validity of the same laws of thermodynamics, chemistry, fluid dynamics, and so forth. They disagree only in their analysis of a specific physical system that everyone agrees is tremendously complex.
Second, genuinely crackpot theories have essentially no following in the scientific community. At most, one can find at the fringes of serious science a few supporters of such ideas. If one looks into their records (not hard to do in the internet age) one generally discovers that they have done very little actual research, and what research they have done is in fields only remotely related to their odd ideas. I will give a couple of examples without using names. There is a fellow who champions the idea that the earth is completely motionless and stands at the center of the universe (“geocentrism”). While he himself has no scientific training, he has a sidekick/coauthor who many years ago obtained a Ph.D. in physics from a well-known Midwestern university. However, that “scientist” never did any research after obtaining his degree and never obtained a position at any university or scientific research institute. There is another fellow who for years has been trumpeting nonsensical ideas about relativity and gravity in books and articles, even in respectable periodicals. He too has no scientific training, but his scientific guru, now deceased, was a man whose record of published research was paper thin and lay in a field far removed from gravitational theory. This is the almost invariable pattern of phony science.
By contrast, there are very well-known, highly respected and accomplished scientists, knowledgeable in the relevant fields, who are openly skeptical about various aspects the “consensus view” on global warming. Just to mention two: Prof. Richard S. Lindzen of MIT, one of the world’s leading climatologists, and Prof. Will Happer of Princeton University, who was for several years the director of energy research at the United States Department of Energy (one of the main funders of scientific research in this country). Nor are Lindzen and Happer alone. Scientists who share their views may be in the minority, but it is hardly an insignificant minority.
What is going on then? Why are scientists who are skeptics vilified and the attempt made to marginalize them? Something has obviously gone terribly awry. The tremendous hurry some people are in to achieve a “scientific consensus” is driven, I believe, by two factors. One is panic. I think that some people feel that we cannot afford to wait until the evidence is more solid; we have to do something now or it might be too late. The other factor is ideological passion. The climate change issue has been mixed up with people’s political views and their sense of what it means to be progressive and enlightened. The ideological passion is, to me, more disturbing. Panic, after all, usually subsides in time; but the politicization of science might have longer term consequences if it corrupts the attitudes of scientists toward their craft.
The pirated e-mails are indeed revealing in this regard. It is notoriously easy to slant one’s data analysis unconsciously. And it is quite common for scientists to emphasize the data that support their theories and to downplay or find contrived explanations for the data that doesn’t. That is normal. But I think it is the rare scientist who would admit to himself, let alone to a colleague, that he was actually trying to “hide” some important information and who would even use that word.
Ideologues who would trample down legitimate scientific questions raised by their entirely qualified colleagues are risking terrible damage to science in the long run. If it turns out, as it might, that the global warming fears are overblown or ill-founded, the credibility of the scientific establishment will suffer a grievous blow from which it will be hard to recover. It will open the door for all the real kooks and purveyors of pseudoscience, who will be that much harder to resist in the future. And what if at some point in the future an environmental catastrophe looms about which there really is a solid consensus in the scientific community? And what if at that point it really is only kooks who deny it? Won’t non-scientists be disposed to say, “We’ve heard that all before?” We believed you the last time and you led us astray?
December 3rd, 2009 | 1:35 pm
One of the conclusions I would draw from this situation is that we have a vast number of scientists who have enormous amounts of training in specific fields of science but who have very little training in philosophy. Many of them also subscribe, consciously or subconsciously, to philosophies which deny metaphysics. This naturally leads to confusion in their methods, biases, and conclusions. It has become very difficult to gain much useful science from such scientists.
December 3rd, 2009 | 2:32 pm
To Brandon Jaloway:
How do one’s views on metaphysics affect one’s ability to interpret data about the environment?
December 3rd, 2009 | 3:06 pm
Brandon, I’d like to know the answer to Travis’s question too. Let me make a wild guess: you are a Thomist, and you think all of modern science has been deeply corrupted by the lack of a sound metaphysics. Am I close? My guess is based on the fact that I have heard or read several Thomists say these kinds of things. I like to think of myself as a Thomist too, at least in spirit, though probably most Thomists wouldn’t agree; but for the life of me I don’t understand this kind of complaint. Why is it that being metaphysically challenged hasn’t stopped scientists from making all the remarkable discoveries that they have over the last 400 years in countless areas? And why should it stop them from understanding the earth’s climate also? And here’s another question, can you name a single scientific discovery that anyone has made in the last 400 years that he made (or made more easily) because he was a Thomist. Any Thomists out there who share Mr. Jaloway’s views please feel free to chime in. If my guess is wrong, and you are not a Thomist, Mr. Jaloway, I would repeat my second questions with “Thomist” replaced by “sound metaphysician”.
December 3rd, 2009 | 6:27 pm
One possibility may be the neo-Pythagorean tendency to ascribe truth to numbers per se; e.g., to confuse the output of models with the empirical facts of nature. But as the statistician George E.P. Box once commented, “All models are wrong. Some are useful.” One thing that has emerged from the e-mails and from the earlier review by the NAS mathematical section is that our friends at the IPCC are not good at either statistics or computer programming.
Another possibility is the modern confusion of ‘fact’ with ‘measurement,’ which is related to the first. This leads to the disregard of such historical facts as vineyards in Scotland and dairy farms in Greenland during the Medieval Warm Period, simply because there were no thermometers around to put a number to the empirical experiences of people. Then, when past temperatures are “estimated” by “correlation” with tree ring data, it is found that recent tree ring data was out of synch with the thermometer measurements. To a statistician, this would call the correlation into question; but the actual response was to “hide the decline” by substituting thermometer data for the more recent tree ring estimates. A statistician would be very wary of plotting two differently calculated numbers in the same graph or series.
A third possibility is that Nietzsche has become the default philosophy, and Das Kriterium der Wahrheit liegt in der Steigerung des Machtgefühls. (Will to Power #534)
(The criterion of truth resides in the heightening of the feeling of power.) If it makes you feel empowered, then it is true for you. This is not a metaphysic friendly to science in the long run.
The fourth possibility is that modern metaphysics began with the denial of finality in nature, but without finality there can be no efficient causation, since A->B requires that there be something in A that is “directed toward” B rather than toward C or Z or nothing at all. That was why Hume found it necessary to deny causation. This worm – the Marxist “inherent contradiction” – has been eating away for 500 years, so that today correlations are accepted as “causes.” (Some scientists even present “randomness” as a “cause”!) Certainly, evolution makes far more sense in a Thomistic context than it does in a Humean – or Nietzschean! – one.
These are just my guesses. Brandon may have had something else in mind.
December 3rd, 2009 | 7:44 pm
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December 4th, 2009 | 5:05 am
[...] M Barr, a professor of physics at the Bartol Research Institute at the University of Delaware, picks up the theme: Ideologues who would trample down legitimate scientific questions raised by their entirely [...]
December 4th, 2009 | 7:29 am
Stephen,
You said:
“First, pseudoscientific ideas usually involve (at least implicitly, even if their proponents are unaware of it) a rejection of a huge mass of well-tested and well-established scientific theory. For example, “Creation Science”, which claims that the universe is only a few thousand years old, requires the abandonment of most of what we know about geology, astrophysics, cosmology, and biology, not to mention a certain amount of nuclear physics. Scientific knowledge is a highly reticulated structure of mutually supporting facts and inferences. Every well-established scientific fact is held in place by numerous links to other known facts, both closely related and seemingly distant. There are many scientific facts the denial of which would bring vast expanses of the edifice of human knowledge crashing down. The same is true in other branches of knowledge, such as history. History can be revised, but only up to a point. One might question some detail of Roman history, for example, but to say that the Roman Empire never existed would make nonsense of historical knowledge as a whole.”
I must admit, I am someone who wants to give some notice to what *some* young earth creationists have to say. At the same time, I am recently feeling a need to get more educated on this subject and am wondering if you have any recommendations for the best book (whether Christian or non) that would take apart the creationist arguments. Also, I need to be convinced, as you seem to be, that this interconnected network of facts, if it comes apart, would throw all kinds of things into question (interesting analogy with the Roman empire there…).
Please help if you can.
Thank you,
Nathan
December 4th, 2009 | 7:32 am
You mentioned “Creation Science” causing us to abandon much of what we know from several fields of science. There is a difference between what people know, and what they only believe because of their philosophical worldview.
You also mentioned that history could be revised, but only up to a point. Aren’t there over 300 accounts of a worldwide flood in almost every ancient culture? Why do scientists try to prove there wasn’t one?
December 4th, 2009 | 8:49 am
Stephen, I apologize in advance because I know I am not going to be able to do justice to these arguments with the limited amount of time and space I have here.
I also wish to compliment you on a great article.
I do not think that ALL of modern science has been corrupted by the lack of sound metaphysics. I cannot point to any scientists who are better scientists because of their sound metaphysics (although if I knew more Thomist scientists I imagine that I could, btw, are you any better of a scientist because of it?). The point of mentioning “philosophies which deny metaphysics” is that such philosophies are the most common culprits creating bad epistemologies (but most people don’t know what an epistemology is). In order to subscribe to a philosophy which denies metaphysics one must go down a road which leads to horrible epistemology. I have even had people deny causality to my face in order to defend such a philosophy. On the other hand, it is remarkable how much valid science can be derived from scientists who have horrible epistemologies. To derive such science you just have to be willing to sift through a lot of garbage. Apparently, your average science reporter is not equipped to do this, not to mention your average “man on the street”.
However, bad philosophy does cause a lot problems in science. One such problem is the choice of subjects for research. Take as an example the case of the search for the Higgs boson particle. Why is this particular search being undertaken? (BTW, I believe building the Large Hadron Collider was a good idea and I hope it will advance our understanding of creation. It hardly couldn’t. I would be particularly interested to see if it will find any backing for Garrett Lisi’s ideas on the Grand Unified Theory. What do you think of his ideas?) However, the primary motivation for building this enormous collider seems to be searching for the Higgs boson particle. And what is the motivation for finding the existence of this particle? Why to learn about (or prove) Big Bang theory. And what is the motivation for studying the Big Bang? Well, you might know better than I, but it seems most of the scientists (and the non-scientists who fund them) are interested in trying to prove that God does not exist or is somehow unnecessary to the universe. So why are we using billions of dollars (or Euros) on the Large Hadron Collider? I wish it were for science. However, it seems to me simply one more tired attempt to try to prop up a philosophy which denies metaphysics.
December 4th, 2009 | 9:39 am
[...] A conversation on climate. More on the same here. [...]
December 4th, 2009 | 9:39 am
[...] A conversation on climate. More on the same here. [...]
December 4th, 2009 | 12:15 pm
Dear Nathan,
A pretty good book on evolution that discusses (inter alia) young earth creationism and evidence against it in a very readable way is The Evolution Controversy, by Fowler and Kuebler.
There is a problem that everyone faces when asked to counter the arguments of Young Earth Creationism or any other crackpot idea; and you can see the problem by considering what you would say to a man asked you to prove that the Roman Empire existed. Think about that for a while. You might say, “well we have all these Roman coins with Emperors’ images on them”; and the man might say, “how do I know that they are not modern forgeries?” Or “how do I know those images are Emperors?” You might say, what about the Roman ruins? And he might say, “yes, but who built them?” You might say, but we have Roman histories written by people like Livy, and Plutarch, and Suetonius.” And the man might say, “are those original copies or some monkish invention of the Middle Ages?”. What happens is that you will put forward particular facts, one by one, piecemeal. But every fact can be questioned, and if is questioned it is generally found to rest upon a large number of other facts and assumptions, which in turn also can be questioned. The lunatic can always win this game, therefore. That is why a Young Earther can always win, if he is willing to promiscuously question everything and anything, in a kind of orgy of skepticism. What such people don’t understand is that while every fact (whether in history, science, or anything else) rests on many other facts and assumptions, it is also the case that every fact SUPPORTS many other facts and assumptions — that is what I meant by a highly reticulated structure. It a NETWORK of MUTUALLY supporting facts. It is not a chain that is as weakest as its weakest link, because every link is attached to many, many other links, not just one. Every proof is based on a hundred facts that might be questioned, but every solidly established fact is supported by a hundred different proofs.
It is only by learning a lot about history that one sees how it fits together into a coherent picture that is able to account for a vast number of features of today’s world, including artifacts, monuments, texts, the structures of languages themselves, the distributions of the world’s peoples, and so on. A lunatic theory (such as that the Roman Empire didn’t exist) can only have plausibility to a person with a very thin knowledge base. Adducing this or that fact as evidence to convince him cannot prevail if he is willing to adopt a universal skepticism and the attitude that the whole world is trying to pull the wool over his eyes. The only cure is to considerably broaden his education. This is the insidious nature of Young Earth Creationism, which is as hostile to reason as any form of post-modernism.
Steve
December 4th, 2009 | 12:53 pm
Dear Brandon,
You are right that many scientists espouse bad ideas about epistemology. But one should distinguish between a person’s conscious and explicit theories of epistemology — what he might say if asked about epistemology — and the unconscious, implicit epistemology that guides his actual work as a scientist.
There is actually nothing wrong with the methods by which scientists go about learning about the natural world. Scientists are generally bad philosophers, but that has no practical effect (except in very rare cases, perhaps, of which none come to mind) on the practice of science. Modern science does the proper business of science not only well but for the most part staggeringly well, despite the philosophical inadequacy of scientists.
You have some misconceptions about the motivations of particle physicists. If you want to understand what people are hoping to learn from the LHC, you might read my article on the FT website explaining this: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2008/09/on-the-edge-of-discovery
(1) It is not the Higgs boson that is of primary interest, despite what even many scientists say. Foolishly, from both a physics and a PR point of view.
(2) The Higgs is not sought because it will tell us about the Big Bang. It will tell us next to nothing about the Big Bang. The main purpose of the LHC is not to learn about the Big Bang, but to learn various things about the fundamental particles and forces in nature.
(3) Scientists do indeed hope to learn about the Big Bang — what happened shortly after it, and even conceivably what happened before it (if anything happened before it) — because that is a hugely interesting and important scientific subject. Many scientists are atheists, but also many scientists are religious, and many scientists are just uninterested in religious questions. Religious scientists (such as myself) are just as interested in learning about what happened at or near the time of the Big Bang as atheist scientists are.
The reason that the Big bang features largely in modern particle physics is that at the time of the Big Bang temperatures and energies were huge and therefore by studying what went on in the early universe we learn about what happens at very high energies, which (by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle) tells us what happens at very short distances, which in turn tells us what things are really made of. It has nothing to do with atheist attempts to disprove God.
Your post seems to reflect a certain suspicion, if not fear, of modern science and its practitioners . The fear is unjustified. If you read my book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith you will learn that many things modern science has taught us are more deeply consonant with traditional Christian and Jewish belief than they are with atheism.
December 4th, 2009 | 3:07 pm
Dear Stephen,
lol, not fear, suspicion of the practitioners, yes, definitely. But fear of modern science itself, no most definitely not. I love science almost as much as I love philosophy.
…unless we were talking about the people who cannot say when gestation takes place because it might compromise their most holy sacrament of abortion. Then, yes, I do fear those people.
Anyway, I will read your book(s). I am also dabbling in particle physics and it would be my dream job to do what you do, research particle physics and defend Church teaching. BTW, I just followed the link and read your article “On the Edge of Discovery.” Excellent article! I am still curious as to your opinion on Garrett Lisi’s theories.
My current background is philosophy (I have a BA in philosophy which I don’t use it much since I am actually a network engineer). It does frustrate me greatly to read scientists expounding about philosophy. As I said, I only have a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and yet even I can see straight through the horrible philosophical arguments of a great number of scientists. I might even go so far as to say that with merely a basic understanding of philosophy I can see through a huge deal of the “science” that is published today, at least as conclusions for the general public to consume. As you most correctly say, the implicit epistemology of most scientists that guide their actual work protects them from a lot of the silliness of the childish epistemologies they actually espouse.
The frustration is that even though scientists are generally bad philosophers they continue to speak about philosophy! Why? Biologists don’t speak much about particle physics. Particle physicists don’t speak much about biology. They happily admit that there are some areas which are outside of their particular field of expertise. And yet, heaps of unprovoked “scientists” will expound ad nauseam about philosophy when they have so little understanding of the subject that it is really quite laughable. Non-scientists do this too but at least most of them will quiet down once they realize that they are out of their depth.
So, I will go read your book(s).
Thanks,
Brandon
P.S. I really want to know your opinion of Garrett Lisi.
December 4th, 2009 | 3:45 pm
Stephen,
Thanks so much for the response and recommendation.
I understand your “Roman empire” doesn’t exist analogy, but I still am not fully convinced that this is roughly analogous to the YEC’s denial of evolution and the millions/billions of years…
Maybe the book you recommended covers this, but, can you give me a/some example(s) of how persons using the evolutionary theory has made useful predictions where a YEC perspective would not have been able to do the same? Also, can you give me a/some specific example(s) of (a) useful fact/s that a YEC framework would necessarily overturn?
FYI, I’ve read some YEC stuff, know my history pretty well (I think), and think I’m pretty bright… but am really trying to allow my biases (I want YEC to be true, certainly) to be shaken up…
Thanks again,
Nathan
December 5th, 2009 | 8:41 am
Hi Nathan,
Maybe the book you recommended covers this, but, can you give me a/some example(s) of how persons using the evolutionary theory has made useful predictions where a YEC perspective would not have been able to do the same? Also, can you give me a/some specific example(s) of (a) useful fact/s that a YEC framework would necessarily overturn?
I’d like to suggest an example, if I may. It actually started more as a problem than a prediction, but it led to a prediction. And that’s the discovery, once the genomes of both species were mapped, that humans have one pair of chromosomes fewer than chimpanzees and other primates with whom, according to standard Darwinian theory, we share a common ancestor.
Not having the same number of chromosomes was seen to be a serious issue: if we descended from a common ancestor with chimpanzees, with whom we share so much of the same genes, then the theory has to explain how we underwent such a drastic change without going extinct. As I’m sure you know, even the slightest change to a chromosome during meiosis can result in the most frightful debilities (when not fatal) for a human baby. Daniel Fairbanks’ book, Relics of Eden, covers this in detail. If Darwin’s theory is true, then a fusion between chromosomes (without losing the genetic content) in the human lineage must have taken place. So molecular biologists went to work and soon discovered the fusion location in Chromosome 2, and it exactly matched what used to be two separate chromosomes in the chimp lineage. This is a hasty overview but Fairbanks’ book covers it in detail.
If they had failed to find such a marker, Darwin’s theory would have faced a real crisis, I think.
There have been attempts to explain the implications of Chromosome 2 away in ID terms, but none that I find convincing.
For what its worth. I think you’d find Fairbankss book fascinating.
December 5th, 2009 | 1:09 pm
Dear Nathan,
I will mention some examples, but before I do, let me make an observation. You should realize that hundreds of thousands of researchers in many branches of science, who have devoted their lives to their work, who are generally professionally honest and highly intelligent people, who have all sorts of views on religion, are virtually unanimous in their judgment that the evidence from their fields points overwhelmingly to a universe billions of years old. The only reason why anyone might believe that the universe is a mere thousands of years old is that he thinks that to be divinely revealed in the Book of Genesis. That the Book of Genesis is “God-breathed’ Scripture and the Word of God, is not open to dispute by a Christian or Jew. But that it must be interpreted as teaching the age of the universe or the scientific details of its beginnings is certainly disputed by people who are serious Christians and on the fundamentals of Christian faith and morals orthodox.
So here’s the basic question you ought to ask yourself: Are you SO certain that the way you are disposed to interpret Genesis is correct that you would be prepared to set aside the enormous weight of scientific authority that says the universe is billions of years old? Are you prepared to say that those hundreds of thousands of scientists are in the grip of a mass delusion or partners in a conspiracy?
You have to settle that BEFORE you look at the scientific evidence. Because if your answer is yes, then your suspicion of anything scientists might say is so deep that you cannot trust anything they say unless you have directly verified it for yourself. However, it is impossible for one human being to redo for himself every experiment, every observation, every calculation on which modern science rests — just as it is impossible for one man to check out everything that history textbooks or encyclopedias or atlases say. That is, if you are prepared to believe that the entire scientific world is engaged in a mass conspiracy, then you have essentially decided the issue in advance. On the other hand, if you think such a mass conspiracy is incredible, you also have decided the issue in advance — the other way.
Now some examples. By a variety of means, astronomers can determine the distances of astronomical objects from us. For the light of those objects to have reached us, it must have been emitted hundreds of thousands of years ago (for stars in our galaxy) or billions of years ago (for distant galaxies). Astrophysicists also have a good understanding of the life-cycles of stars — the different stages they go through and how long it takes to go through them. These are based on well-understood principles and laws of physics that have been massively tested in laboratories. They observe huge numbers of stars in various stages of development, and their observed properties correspond very well to the theoretical models of stellar development. Those models say that stars similar to the Sun last for several billion years
Many other astrophysical processes are seen to have occurred that must take — according to the laws of physics — millions of years. For example collections of astronomical objects are seen that have “virialized”, where the process of virialization must have taken such times. Or to take another example, the formation of spiral arms for a galaxy takes millions of years.
Galaxies are also seen to recede from each other at speeds that when traced back (using their known distances) implies that they are the remnants of an explosion that took place about 14 billion years ago. This theory is confirmed by several other observations, such as the ratio of primordial helium to hydrogen in the universe (as well as the ratio of other light elements). These elements were synthesized in the early universe and from their relative abundance one can derive an age of the universe that agrees with the one computed from the recession of the galaxies. The intricate spectrum of density perturbations in the cosmic background radiation also agrees spectacularly well with calculations from the standard model of the Big Bang.
Rocks can be dated using the known half-lives of radioactive elements in them. This also gives ages of billions of years. Geologists now understand a great deal about the motion of plates of the earth’s crust, and the time scales involved in the motion of the continents to their present positions. Biologists can use genetic comparisons to figure out how the tree of life branched and their results agree very well with the sequences found in the fossil record, and the rates of mutation imply time scales of hundreds of millions of years.
One could go on and on and on, but really what is the point? There is no dispute among scientists about these things — as I said, if the universe were a few thousand years old, just about all of astrophysics, cosmology, geology, natural history, and much else goes right out the window. YEC says that ALL major branches of science have miscalculated the age of the universe not by a factor of 2 or even 20, but by a factor of ONE MILLION. If you can believe that, you can believe anything, and in particular you have to believe that essentially all scientists including myself are engaged in a vast conspiracy — in which case, why bother discussing anything with me?
If you do believe that, the only cure would be to learn a LOT of science. Not just to delve into popular books, but to study science the way people who become professionals do — only then could you really “see for yourself” why scientists say what they do. That will take you years, but maybe it is worth it to you.
December 6th, 2009 | 3:24 am
“Scientific knowledge is a highly reticulated structure of mutually supporting facts and inferences”
How about the possibility of paradigm shifts? How do they come about? All the facts would still remain, but another set of inferences would have to be developed to explain the facts in a different way. Because of how scientific knowledge is so highly reticulated, a small shift in a fundamental assumption could have a big impact. And it seems to me that to get much deeper into theoretical physics (GUT, M-theory, etc.) there would have to be some paradigm shift.
The main difference between YEC and the current scientific consensus is ‘time’. If there was some change to our understanding of time itself so that we could account for all the facts using a different understanding of time, YEC could have the slim chance of being accepted. Either that or we assume God created a mature Earth. Those are the only two possible ways I see, so I prefer an Old Earth:
“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” 2 Peter 3:8
(Also, a literal biblical interpretation doesn’t necessarily require the genealogies to be closed.)
December 6th, 2009 | 11:23 am
Dear Anais,
You raise an interesting question: if scientific knowledge is so highly interconnected, as I said, how can there aver have been or ever be in the future a major conceptual shift? Don’t “revolutions” in scientific thinking sometimes happen — relativity, quantum mechanics, plate tectonics, etc? The answer is twofold.
First, with only a few exceptions, such “revolutions” do not sweep away what went before. For example, Einstein’s theory of special relativity did not invalidate all of Newtonian mechanics. Almost all of the basic conceptual structure of Newtonian physics was left intact — such concepts as energy, force, mass, momentum, the least action principle, etc. In fact, even Newton’s three laws of motion remained intact, including the famous law F=ma. Einstein’s special relativity added a new and vital insight about the geometry of space-time. It ADDED new insights, it didn’t negate the insights that had been achieved earlier. The same is true of the even more “revolutionary” breakthrough of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics built upon the classical mechanics that went before. That is why all these “revolutionary” theories in order to demonstrate their viability had first to show that they reproduced all the successes of the previous theories. Einstein’s theory of gravity gives the same results as Newton’s when gravitational fields are weak and objects are moving slowly compared to the speed of light. Quantum mechanics gives the same results as classical physics (generally speaking) when one is speaking of objects bigger than atoms.
Second, those few revolutions that really do sweep away most of what went before only happen when a branch of knowledge is in its infancy. Newtonian physics really did sweep away Aristotelian physics almost completely. But that is because Newtonian physics was really the beginning of modern mathematical physics. The correct theories of oxidation developed by Lavoisier really did sweep away the phlogiston theory completely — but this was at the very beginning of the science of chemistry.
Will there be a revolution in our understanding of time? Most physicists would say yes — in fact, if superstring theory is right, the answer is certainly yes. But that revolution will affect how we think about time in extreme situations, in particular when time periods shorter than the so-called Planck time are involved. But any such revolution must leave basically intact our insights about time and space in situations where our present theories work well. Such a revolution is NOT going to tell us that the distance between New York and Los Angeles is not 3,000 miles but three inches. It is not going to say that it takes five minutes for the Earth to orbit the Sun. It si not hoing to say that the universe isn’t 14 billion years old, but 6,000 years or five minutes.
December 6th, 2009 | 4:53 pm
Thank you,
It’s good to have some idea of what kind of scientific knowledge is closest to a truthful depiction of reality, what kind is tentative, and what kind needs to be built upon. I like to be skeptical, but it’s good to know what is more worthy of skepticism and what is not. Currently I think the magnitude and cause of climate change is worthy of skepticism.
December 6th, 2009 | 8:50 pm
“You should realize that hundreds of thousands of researchers in many branches of science, who have devoted their lives to their work, …..”
Yeah, yeah. Same old, same old. Argument from authority. Just like your argument for evolution (and the argument for global warming)
“Scientists” have their own creation myth called the “big-bang” which relies on hocus-pocus.
Tell me Stephen, what scientific evidence is there for inflation, dark energy and dark matter?
which underpin big bang theory. If you are honest you will say there is none; you should realise it is all supposition.
December 6th, 2009 | 11:39 pm
Dear Mr. Hobart,
There is plenty of evidence for the Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, and inflation. You are mistaken in thinking, however, that dark energy, dark matter, and inflation “underpin” the Big Bang theory. The evidence for the Big Bang was extremely strong before the ideas of inflation, dark matter, and dark energy had been proposed.
The main pieces of evidence for the Big Bang are (1) the recession of distant galaxies from us and each other and the Hubble relation that describes it, (2) the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR), whose temperature, spectrum, and isotropy agree with the predictions of the Big Bang theory beautifully, (3) the primordial abundances of hydrogen, helium, and other very light nuclei that were synthesized in the BB, for which the observations agree very well with the predictions of the BB theory, and more recently the very precise measurements of the spectrum of density perturbations in the CBR.
Actually, the Big Bang theory was quite unpopular with atheists, who were made uncomfortable by the idea that the universe had a Beginning. This was a contributing factor (but not the only factor) in the slowness with which the Big Bang theory gained acceptance by scientists. But eventually the evidence for it became so strong that it became universally accepted. So the Big Bang theory was not cooked up by atheists to suit their philosophical views, quite the reverse! They accepted it, in most cases against their strong philosophical feelings, because the evidence was just too strong.
As for dark matter, the evidence comes from a variety of sources, including the flatness of galactic rotation curves, and gravitational lensing of distant galaxies.
You must either be unaware of these things, or have chosen the path of rejecting all of modern science as a vast conspiracy, which is a form of intellectual suicide.
Modern science has brought you all the technology you take for granted: radio, television, airplanes, rockets to the moon, MRI and PET scans, lasers, semiconductors, nuclear reactors, DNA testing, antibiotics, and a thousand other marvels. To be fair, you ought to include those things in your “same old, same old.”
The great danger of Young Earth Creationism is that it flies in the face of so much evidence that anyone who studies science in a serious way quickly comes to see its absurdity. (Indeed, one does not need to know very much science to see that.) That presents no problem to those who are happy to embrace no-nothingism. But it does present a problem for countless people brought up to believe that one must embrace YEC to be a true Christian, who then lose their faith when confronted with the facts of modern science. That creates a terrible brain drain from Christianity.
December 7th, 2009 | 12:50 am
Stephen, you know very well that there is no evidence for dark energy, dark matter and inflation; their existence has been inferred so that the properties of observable matter in the universe can be explained in such a way to conform with the big bang 14 billion year paradigm.
You need inflation to explain the isotropy of the universe; you need dark matter to explain the motion of stars, galaxies and superclusters relative to each other and you need dark energy to explain the expansion of the universe,
so of course these underpin the big-bang model.
Oh, and guess what, The MRI machine was invented by a scientist. who believes in YEC, Dr Raymond Damadian.
December 7th, 2009 | 1:23 am
Also, if I may add. Whether or not you believe in YEC or not makes no diference to your faith. For all I know my priest may be an evolutionist and I don’t really care, however if he was I would like show him why his ideas are wrong!
December 7th, 2009 | 2:29 pm
What Mr. Hobart believes and what I “know very well” are not the same. Indeed, there is probably very little overlap between the two.
There is strong evidence for the existence of dark energy that does not depend on the there having been a Big Bang (e.g. galactic rotation curves and gravitational lensing); and there is strong evidence that there was a Big Bang that does not depend of dark matter (e.g. the primordial helium abundance).
As for inflation, it is indeed needed to explain the isotropy of the microwave background. But without the Big Bang there would be no microwave background radiation at all! That is, the Big Bang is needed to explain the very existence of the microwave background, to explain its temperature, and to explain that it has a virtually perfect black-body spectrum. If one ALSO wants to explain its isotropy (without just making that an initial condition) one needs inflation or some other additional hypothesis.
For the audience out there, let me use an analogy. No one would say that the existence of Neptune “underpins” Newton’s theory of gravity. Newton’s theory was proposed long before Neptune was discovered. It successfully explained many of the gross features of planetary motion: e.g. the fact that planets go in elliptical orbits with the Sun at the foci of the ellipses, that planets speed up in a certain way as they get closer to the sun, the relation between planets orbital periods and their distance from the Sun, and so on. Laplace later showed that Newton’s theory also beautifully explained very many of the finer details of the motions in the solar system.
Eventually, however, it was found that some planets deviated from the orbits predicted for them, and to make their motions conform to Newton’s theory it was postulated that there must be other, hitherto unseen, objects whose gravitation was perturbing the orbits of the known planets. Later, such objects were indeed found with telescopes. (This is how Neptune was discovered: it was predicted to exist in order to rectify the discrepancy of Uranus’s orbit, and later found).
That is how things work in science: As a theory is compared to ever more accurate data, small discrepancies or anomalies inevitably appear. Usually, these are simply the result of additional effects that require no modification of the basic theory. The existence of Neptune, for example, does not entail any change in Newton’s laws of gravity or mechanics or his explanation of planetary motion .
In the same way, the Big Bang theory explained many things (some of which it predicted before they were seen) very simply and successfully, including the recession of galaxies, abundances of certain elements, the
existence of a cosmic background radiation, the fact that that radiation has a black-body spectrum, the temperature of that radiation, and more recently the spectrum of density perturbations (which show acoustic modes that are consistent with the idea of “recombination” after an early period where matter was ionized).
Later, indeed, some relatively small effects were found that did not fit the simplest picture of an expanding universe filled only with ordinary matter. To explain these discrepancies required no change in the basic outlines of the Big Bang theory. As in the case of Neptune, it just meant that there is some stuff out there whose gravitation had been previously neglected: dark matter and dark energy. As for the dark matter, there are various independent pieces of confirmatory evidence that it exists (such as galactic rotation curves, gravitational lensing).
But what all this has to do with YEC is beyond me. It is one thing to have a spectacularly successful theory that needs to be refined (like Newton’s explanation of planetary motion or the Big Bang theory) and a theory that is so spectacularly in DISagreement with everything 9like YEC) that it is an intellectual scandal that anyone even talks about it.
The existence of dark matter affects calculations of the age of the universe at the roughly 10% level. YEC says that the age of the universe is off by a factor of one million. So because of 10% effects that are easily accounted for one rejects a theory and embraces one that is off by 100,000,000% My goodness! Speak of straining out gnats and swallowing camels!!
Mr. hobart appears to be a Catholic, both because he mentions his priest, and because of statements he has made earlier on this site. I would note that Pope Pius XII was quite enthusiastic about the Big Bang theory, and gave a famous address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1951 said that several independent and converging lines of evidence point to the fact that the universe is billions of years old. On a scientific level, what he said has held up extremely well. Yes, a Catholic can believe in YEC. A Catholic is free to believe all sorts of things about all sorts of subjects. A Catholic can believe that the moon is made of green cheese — a much more sensible theory than young earth creationism.
A Catholic cannot say, however, that believing in the Big Bang is contrary to Scripture, unless he wants to accuse Pope Pius XII of heresy.
You say that YEC makes no difference to one’s faith. That is not quite the position you seemed
to take in an earlier post this year on Firstthoughts, when you said that you believed that Genesis teaches Creationism. If the divine Author of Genesis meant to teach us YEC there, it certainly DOES make a difference to one’s faith!
December 7th, 2009 | 5:35 pm
Dear Dr. Barr,
Back to Climate Change: What is your opinion on the American Physical Society’s statement re climate change? Don’t you think APS could do a “first principles” analysis on the phenomenon and a critique of the science?
Cheers,
Jim
December 7th, 2009 | 6:14 pm
Stephen, the 1909 decision of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC)
allowed the Hebrew word yom in Genesis 1 to be interpreted as a “natural day”
or as “signifying a certain space of time” As a catholic I follow that and hence I say that belief in YEC makes no difference to ones faith. So you can be a good catholic and believe in old or young earth.
That said,I am of the opinion that there is much evidence for a young earth, all life created at once and a global flood.
I think their are big problems with big bang theory which can only be explained by making stuff up (dark matter, energy and inflation).
Also I find it hard to understand how evolution can be believed by anyone who has thought seriously about it. I mean how does hydrogen gas turn into a human being after 14 billion years? Answer: by “Natural Selection” Come on now, admit you’ve been conned.
December 7th, 2009 | 7:41 pm
Also I find it hard to understand how evolution can be believed by anyone who has thought seriously about it.
You could start by reading the last pope on the subject. But wait, no, I’m sure he was just conned, too. Poor sap.
December 8th, 2009 | 7:58 am
Stephen,
Thanks so much for getting back to me. I will read and digest. May comment again here later, but now am busy, busy.
Best regards,
Nathan
December 8th, 2009 | 10:45 am
Dear Prof. Stephens,
I don’t like the APS statement. It can be found here: http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
If one parses its sentences very carefully, it contains no actual errors.
The first sentence says, “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”
That is a trivial observation. Obviously there is an effect, the question is how big the effect is.
Then it claims, “The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.”
Without specifying what time scale they are talking about in saying warming “is occurring”, this statement is vacuous. Do they mean it has been warming over the last few months, the last ten years, the last 30 years, the last 1,000 years? If they mean in the last few decades, or last several centuries, then no one denies that — no one is “controverting” that.
Then they say, “If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur.”
Here they protect themselves by using the somewhat vague word “likely”. How likely? Likely could mean 20% chance or 99% chance. If I say, “if you do that, you are likely to hurt yourself”, that could mean a 1% chance.
And what (in quantitative terms) do they mean by “significant”?
Then they urge, “We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”
Not in ten years, when we might understand the problem better, but NOW! One sees here careful hedging of scientific claims (as befits people trained to be careful with evidence) combined with a breathless tone of alarm.
The last paragraph begins quite reasonably:
“Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms.”
Then it gets frankly political and activist, and makes policy prescriptions that it makes no attempt to justify: “The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.”
Any and all policies and actions? Is any cost-benefit analysis to be done? Might some policies that would reduce greenhouse emissions have negative effects that would make them on balance harmful to human welfare?
On the whole, this is a bad statement — overly political. I agree with you that the APS should undertake a serious and balanced review of the issue.
December 9th, 2009 | 6:08 pm
Dear Dr. Barr,
Your presence amongst these pages has been too few and far between.
Last Christmas, my son, an alumni of Thomas Aquinas College, gave me a present: “Modern Physics and Ancient Faith.” It truly was a marvelous gift. I am reading and re-reading it underlined with many notations of my own. I have been following your contribution in these pages of FT since 2001, Anthropic Coincidences.
It is clear from your replies to comments that you are a great and a patient teacher.
I have a question unrelated to the topic we are discussing; a friend sent me a link
On Antropic Coincidences:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32403430/ns/technology_and_science-space
I am very curious to your reaction.
Thank you,
Frans Monnereau
ffmonner@aol.com
December 10th, 2009 | 10:13 am
Dear Frans,
Thanks for the kind words. I was aware of the argument of Brandon Carter but the counter-idea of Cirkovic is new to me. For those who haven’t read these links, the Carter argument says that life is rare in the universe. His point is that there are two time scales involved: (a) the typical time it would take life to evolve on a planet, and (b) the time that a typical star lasts. Carter argued that the first time is likely to be much longer than the latter. There are many kinds of processes in nature, and their typical time scales span a vast range. For example, nuclear processes typically take about a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second, and stars burn typically for several billion years. So if one considers any two highly dissimilar processes, such as the evolution of complex life and the history of a star, one would expect, a priori, that their typical time scales would be very different from each other. One process would likely be much much slower than the other. It would be a remarkable coincidence if they happened to have similar times scales. Now it is highly unlikely that the typical time for life to evolve is much LESS than the lifetime of a star (which is about 10 billion years) since on earth it actually took many millions of years for life to evolve. So, most likely, the typical time for life to evolve is much GREATER than the lifetime of a typical star. But that would mean that very few stars would have complex life on their planets. Most of them burn out before such life manages to evolve.
This is a good argument, but it is not a proof, just an argument for what is most plausible. Cirkovic counters that various astrophysical processes (such as supernovae) whose frequency is tied to the lifetimes of stars, not only affect but may even control the pace of the evolution of life. In that case, it would not be such a coincidence for the two timescales
to be similar. For this to weaken Carter’s argument, one would have to accept the following picture: The key evolutionary steps would have to take place very fast (compared to the lifespan of the sun) once given a chance, but would be unable to proceed unless triggered by some astrophysical event. Then the pace of major evolutionary changes would be closely controlled by astrophysical events.
Carter’s picture seems more realistic to me.
In any event, even if Cirkovic is right, there are arguments to the effect that planets having all the conditions needed to allow complex life to evolve are very rare. (cf. the books Rare Earth and Privileged Planet).
Steve Barr
December 17th, 2009 | 10:46 am
Steve,
Thanks again for taking the time to help me out here. I understand what you have written about the power of these modern theories of science to explain and predict things. Your examples of what the big bang, for example, has been able to successfully predict about the universe (or at least, able to successfully predict about what we would consistently observe with our senses), is powerful indeed.
Of course, I always think that Kepler’s original theory (with the 5 solids) was able to predict things pretty well to – but of course the theory was indeed off (and wacky), as further experiment was able to show.
What I really don’t get is how making successful predictions in areas like this, necessarily ties in with comments like this:
“Modern science has brought you all the technology you take for granted: radio, television, airplanes, rockets to the moon, MRI and PET scans, lasers, semiconductors, nuclear reactors, DNA testing, antibiotics, and a thousand other marvels. To be fair, you ought to include those things in your “same old, same old.”
It seems to me that all of these very practical matters could just as easily be accomplished by persons whether they believe in the big bang, billions of years of geologic time (radioisotope dating), or the modern evolutionary theory, or not? As a matter of fact, when it comes to these three theories in particular, what kinds of practical inventions (that harness the laws of nature that have been observed and imperfectly mapped) have resulted from them?
I, in my ignorance, don’t really know of any. All of the inventions you listed above would seem (in my mind at least) to be possible without all of these “big theories”… Are there, among the “thousand other marvels” you mention above, any very practical (beneficial) inventions that have clearly and unambiguously derived from these three theories above?
Thank you again for your time.
~Nathan
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