Astroblog

Fellows of the Discovery Institute seem to be over represented in fringe groups, Paul Nelson is a Young Earth Creationist, the Godfather of Intelligent Design Phillip Johnson and DI fellow Jonathan C. Wells have signed on to AIDS denial and Guillermo Gonzalez has signed on to a climate change denialist list.

Topically, given the debate about science communication that has been happening in the wake of of “Unscientific America”, in a recent article William Dembski dives into the whole Global Warming Denialism thing [1].

Ironically, at that same time in the 1970s, scientists were concerned not that the earth was warming but that it was cooling. The scare back then was global cooling!

Unfortunately for Dr. Dembski, this is a complete myth. There was no global cooling scare in the 70’s. While this is an indication of the level of fact checking involved in the article, more important is the subtext in this article, which makes more clear than ever the real concern of the Intelligent Design movement.

And this is the naked, unadulterated envy (and fear) of the power of scientists.

Holdren nevertheless represents the powerful new caste of scientists who have appointed themselves the guardians of humanity and the priests of a new social order. .... Their strategy is always the same: Scientists have discovered a problem that, as their models and data (often falsely) demonstrate, is on the verge of getting out of control; now, if only we do exactly as they say, we'll avoid catastrophe.

Stand in awe at the power of us scientists, we only have to use big words, show lots of data, click our fingers and politicians will um, er, well ..... ignore us actually (see also here). Until real disaster actually does strike.

Take air pollution: Scientists had been pointing out the issues with air pollution for years, but nothing really started getting underway until the killer smogs hit London. With acid rain, it was only after large swaths of forests began dying and lakes became sterile did anybody actually take action on scientists warnings. Collapsing fisheries? Scientists keep on warning about the consequences of overfishing but people tend to take notice only after a fishery has collapsed, and then don’t even put in decent fishing controls. Ozone hole? Despite well researched chemistry no one really listened until the ozone hole appeared over the Antarctic, then they scurried moved sluggishly, until finally we have bans on most ozone destroying CFC’s.

The true pattern is that scientists find an important issue, back it up with careful research, and have to fight persistently to get governments, businesses and the general public to take notice. Global warming is a case in point.

Now the scientific priesthood is telling us that the earth faces catastrophe if we don't mend our carbon-emitting ways and do everything we can to prevent global warming ("cap and trade" is only the beginning). .... In any case, the pattern is always the same: Find a problem, catastrophize it and make scientists the saviors.

According to George Marshal (New Scientist, 25 July 2009, page 24), it has taken 44 years of research that cost around $3 billion dollars per year, plus symposia conferences, journal articles, popular articles, documentaries and innumerable internet postings to ahh, convince politicians to come together and procrastinate. And still 40% of the UK population and over 50% of the US populations do not accept that human greenhouse gas emissions are changing the climate WWMAKD [2].

Yeah, scientists, feel our power, tremble at our might (that was sarcasm, by the way).

Even this weak, pathetic shadow of power that we do have provokes Dr. Dembski.

But isn't science our best, most reliable form of knowledge, and shouldn't we therefore defer to scientists?

Scientists are as fallible as the rest of us, as are their scientific theories. Indeed, the history of science is filled with failed scientific theories that once were confidently asserted and now have been radically modified or even abandoned

Yeah, naughty, naughty scientists; actually paying attention to evidence and modifying our theories in the light of actual data.

When John Snow closed down the Broad Street Pump the Germ theory of Disease was only just being devised. It would be significantly changed and revised multiple times before being properly formulated by Koch, and would keep on being revised multiple times since then (viruses and prions being new additions to the fold). Despite the deficiencies of the germ theory at the time, Snows actions lead to sewage and clean water works that would save millions from disease, Lister’s work would revolutionise surgery, and Koch would revolutionise medicine.

Should we have not put in sewerage works or ignored antiseptics until the germ theory of disease was in its modern form?

Science is not perfect by any means, but if you want practical solutions to practical problems it is the only way to go.

In claiming to find and then resolve problems that threaten to overwhelm humanity, they have invaded the political scene, commanding vast research moneys and attempting to force on the wider population government-sanctioned programs for social control.

Scientists, fear us, we will take your children and feed them the best available knowledge.

Of course science invades the political scene, if we want to reduce childhood deaths, prevent the spread of hepatitis C (let alone AIDS), respond to the spread of H1N1 (the flu formerly known as swine flu), slow the rise of antibacterial resistance by limiting antibiotic use in animal husbandry, make informed decisions on genetically modified foods, do anything which requires an evidence base, it will of course require science by its very nature (and involve politics because these things all involve governments at various levels).

An example is the response to HIV in Australia. The advent of HIV/AIDS in Australia resulted in an academic-grass roots collaboration which amongst other things brought about the execrable “Death goes bowling” ad (but this played a huge role in raising AIDS awareness), testing of blood donations to prevent HIV contamination of blood stocks, the “If it’s not on it’s not on” campaign, where giant condoms were plastered across buses and trams, needle exchange programs and safe needle disposal containers in public toilets.

This is exactly the sort of thing where science invades the political sphere, where we want it to invade the political sphere, and I have no doubt the Australian approach would have given Dr. Dembski a conniption fit. Certainly our approach was vigorously opposed by conservative politicians in the US. What are the results of this horrible, materialist, evidence based approach? Australia has a AIDS incidence of 0.9 per 100,000 population, over 10 times lower than that in the United States (12.8 per 100,000). And the last time I looked, Australia wasn’t markedly more decadent that the US. How dare we scientists save lives without corrupting youth!

Seriously, what does Dembski think we should do when forming policies, consult sheep entrails? The whole article reeks of fear and envy of scientists.

And the "vast research moneys"? The US military budget for 2006 was $527 billion, the NIH was around $30 billion and the National Science Foundation was around $6 billion in 2006, of which only $4 billion goes for research (2006 data as it was the only comparable data I could find at short notice). That may sound a lot, but the US had roughly 1.2 million researchers in 2006, so that money has to be spread over a lot of programs, from computing to polar science. The average NSF grant size is $140,000 which covers research costs, salaries, on costs etc.

We pay our soccer players more. Heck, to put this in perspective, Melbourne just spent $240,000 on a new logo. Vast research moneys? Ha!

Now some large collaborative projects will be funded to well over a million dollars (Large Hadron Collider or Human Genome project anyone?). But again, in terms of global warming, this goes for things like researchers salaries to actually do work, satellite data costs, sending out boats and so on to collect data, sample collection, preparation and analysis and computer time for data reduction. While this may be more money than Dembski will ever see as a philosopher, this is because scientists actually do stuff. Somebody actually has to go and drill ice cores then count the ice layers and extract gases and measure their CO₂ content.

Insofar as they are trying to influence the public square, they need to explain themselves in plain English and they need to allow fair discussion and open dissent. Plenty of qualified scientists dispute that humans are significantly contributing to global warming or that extreme counter-measures are necessary. But the scientific priesthood quashes all such dissent, marginalizing and even persecuting those who don’t toe the party line.

Ohhh, Scientists use big words! Scary! Dembski also trots out the “lots of scientists dissent” myth and the “big science quashes debate” myth. Bjørn Lomborg has such a hard time getting heard, I should be so persecuted. Here in Australia, any Global Warming Denier gets a free ride in the national newspaper The Australian, no matter how loony, but real climate scientists are ignored. How’s that for power?

In reality, scientists would be chuffed if we had a thousandth of the power that Dembski ascribes to us. Any gains we make in any area of public policy, from global warming, to safe limits for pollutants, to effective public health practices, is a hard slog which first involves lots of hard data, and then convincing people at various levels in Government and Industry that things are serious. Long hard slogs, always starting with the evidence. And, in most cases, both government and Industry and other stakeholders are sympathetic.

Scientists are not our masters. They are our servants, and they need a lesson in humility. It is up to us -- We the People -- to hold their feet to the fire.

Another power fantasy from Dembski.

Despite the vast overrating of scientists power by Dembski, scientists can influence policy, because we have evidence. And this is what Dembski envies and fears.

[1] Yes, global warming is real, and largely due to human actions, deal with it. Good backgrounds at http://www.realclimate.org/ and Bave New Climate http://bravenewclimate.com/
Major issues comprehensively covered at http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php See also New Scientists Climate Change a Guide for the Perplexed and Climate Change myths.
See also this disturing report on global sea ice levels.

[2] WWMAKD What would Mooney and Kirshenbaum do. Chris and Sheril claim we scientists need to get out and communicate more. However, despite innumerable public talks, freely available websites, IPCC downloadable reports, debates, documentaries, newspaper and magazine articles it's hard to see what scientists could do to make the science of climate change simpler and easier to understand. For example, tomorrow Professor Barry Brook, the Director of Climate Science at The Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, will debate Climate Change Denier Ian Pilmer. Barry has has published two books and regularly writes opinion pieces and popular articles for the media as well as talking to a variety of community groups (I've heard him talk, he's great!). Yet ignorance on the topic abounds. What more can he do? Suggestions Chris and Sheril please.

Labels: global warming sillyness, Intelligent design

I'm not in a very good mood at the moment, so when Bishop Tom Frame, professor of Theology at Charles Sturt University says this unmitigated nonsense:

A dedicated Darwinian would welcome imperialism, genocide, mass deportation, ethnic cleansing, eugenics, euthanasia, forced sterilisations and infanticide. Publicly, he advocates none of them.

it briefly makes me want to grab him by the lapels and shout at him."Get a CLUE you fracking moron. If you are going to criticise Darwinism[1] at least LEARN a minute skerrik about the theory you have the temerity to mouth off about. A "Darwinian" would not welcome any of those things because they make no fracking sense from an evolutionary point of view, which you would realise if you had spent one nanosecond learning about evolutionary biology[2]. Go read this article which explains it in small words you might understand."

I will not though, if I do meet him, I will politely explain why he is wrong. But it peeves me that having spent decades trying to politely disabuse American creationists of their deep misunderstandings of evolutionary biology, a fracking Australian Professor WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER (because we have a halfway decent education system here in Australia), comes out with a load of unmitigated nonsense. The rest of the article is pretty well rubbish too.

I don't mean to come on all PZ Myers here, rational dialogue between different viewpoints is my thing[3] but Bishop Frame, how much effort would it have taken to walk over to the biology library and crack open a textbook, really. If I said "Christians should welcome cannibalism" (transubstantiation, eating the host, oh never mind) Christians would rightly jump all over my ignorance. So why can't the good Bishop at least do us biologists the courtesy of getting his biology facts just a teeny bit right.

[1]Darwinism, no such thing (well, in the 50's it refered to a strict adaptionist view of naturla selection). It's evolutionary biology, and has been since the modern synthesis. What the heck is it with anti-evolution types that the keep on calling it "Darwinism", it's like calling Relativity "Newtonism" (ie WRONG)
[2] Imperialism? IMPERIALISM! WHat the heck does imperialism have to do with biology for fracks sake?
[3] I mean, I've kept my cool under torrents of scatological abuse, but eventually you reach your limit for nonsense.

Labels: Intelligent design

I normally do my evolutionary posts over at the Panda's Thumb, but given the astronomical nature of this item, it really belongs here.

Ken Kev Miller is the screenwriter of the ID propaganda film Expelled. He's been carrying on about how consensus in science is repression. Apart from the irony of quoting science fiction author and global warming denier Michael Crichton as an expert on the role of consensus in science*, there is a complete lack of understanding of the history of science. Miller makes this jaw dropping statement.

By your logic, it was right for Galileo to be persecuted for his views, because the overwhelming majority of astronomers were certain that geocentrism was right and heliocentrism was wrong. The evidence was just so overwhelmingly obvious. The same goes for virtually any other scientist that revolutionized his discipline.

Can't these people get their history right? If you would have polled astronomers in 1610, after the publication of Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger) and well before Galileo fronted the inquisition or was persecuted, you would have found that most astronomers would regard the Copernican heliocentric model as computationally convenient. It made predicting planetary positions easier, having got rid of many (but not all) of the epicycles that bedeviled the Ptolemaic geocentric theory (for a series of Java animations that illustrate geocentric theory, see here). It also provided a natural explanation for retrograde planetary motion. On the other hand, stellar parallax had not been observed, and with the Copernican system there was no obvious replacement for the system of Aristotelian physics that, for example, produced gravity, so its status as an explanatory theory was not firm. However, Galileo's observations of the Medician Stars and his work on physics significantly dented Aristotelian physics, making the Aristotelian argument against Copernicanism less compelling and throwing open the geocentric question again. This was a time of great ferment in astronomy as astronomers made their own telescopes and confirmed Galileo's observations while making new observations of their own.

One thing we can definitively say about this time was that there was no consensus amongst astronomers, in the sense of our modern consensuses about relativity, quantum mechanics, evolutionary theory or global warming. In Italy, there were more geocentrists than heliocentrists, but in Germany it was the other way around.

Then Galileo discovered the Phases of Venus, and the Ptolemaic geocentric system was effectively dead from then on. There was no way the phases of Venus could be compatible with a Ptolemaic geocentric system. By the time Galileo first fronted the inquisition in 1616, the Ptolemaic geocentric system was consigned to the trash heap by almost every astronomer. The big battle was between the Tychonian geocentric system, where all the planets except Earth orbited the Sun, and the Sun orbited the Earth. This system was mathematically equivalent to the Copernican system, but was obviously a kludge, and furthermore, broke Aristotelian physics. It was definitely not “overwhelmingly obvious” that the Tychonian system was supported over the Copernican system.

Where were the astronomers when Galileo fronted the inquisition for the first time? Right behind him. The Academy of the Lynxes, the Italian equivalent of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or the Australian Academy of Science, supported him against the church in both confrontations with the Church, the lesser known 1616 meeting, and the iconic 1633 heresy trial. Ironically, shortly before Galileo fronted the Inquisition for the second time, a transit of Mercury had been observed which verified the predictions of Kepler’s heliocentric, elliptical orbit system. By the time Galileo was receiving his sentence (and legend has it, muttered “E pur si mouve”, “but it does move”), Kepler’s "Epitome of Copernican Astronomy” was on its way to being the best selling Astronomy text in Europe.

It took some time to provide a definitive observation of the Earths rotation, and longer still to demonstrate stellar parallax, but by the time of Galileo’s trial there was unequivocally no consensus that geocentrism was right, with no overwhelming evidence supporting geocentrism. Indeed, it could well be argued that by the time of Galileo’s trial, and during most of Galileo’s time of persecution (if you take 1616 as the start of his persecution, rather than the beginnings of the call to be tried for heresy) the balance was well and truly tipped in favour of heliocentrism in Europe overall.

Ironically, it wasn’t astronomers who were persecuting Galileo (even though he did have some very vigorous arguments with some astronomers), it was the Church. A point Ken seems to have forgotten.

Then again, history is beside the point really. No one, least of all Wesley Elsberry, is claiming people should be persecuted for not accepting the consensus. Heck, in science people reject the consensus all the time (look at Fred Hoyle for example). But if you reject the consensus, there is no obligation of anyone to listen to you unless you bring data to the argument. Galileo bought lots of data, he had reams of falsifiable observations and experiments. He deeply engaged with the scientific community of his time, with extensive correspondence on things such as construction of telescopes (so people could check his claims). His work inspired scientists of that age, and lead to much fruitful research, essentially establishing modern science.

In contrast, the Intelligent Design people actively shun engagement with the scientific community, have produced no data, just arguments from ignorance and waving lots of big numbers in the air (see also here, here, here and here). Yet they moan and carry on when scientists ignore them. Sorry folks, being ignored is not persecution. You can't even get to the first part of "It is not enough to be persecuted to wear the mantle of Galileo, you also have to be right".

Ironically, while Galileo was being persecuted, he produced Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences, possibly the foundational document of modern physics. In contrast, the intelligent design movement has come up with a couple of pop-culture, data free books (see here). Galileo? I don't think so.

*What is it with these people, ID supporters turn out to be global warming deniers and HIV deniers as well. Is there no pseudoscience they don't like?

Labels: Intelligent design

In my other blog life I blog about evolutionary biology over at the Pandas Thumb. There I have helped point out some of the many errors in Michael Behe's anti-evolutionaty arguments. Behe has a new boook out, "Edge of Evolution", which is mostly the same old tired stuff over again. But in one remakable image (figure 7.4) he claims that HIV has evolved no new protein/protein binding sites. Now over at endogenous retrovirus blog, ERV completely demolishes this claim. As his claim is central to his argument that complex things can't evolve by mutation and natural selection, ERV's post is pretty devestating for Behe. Go over and read it, it's a very good essay (and I'm not saying that just because I drew a diagram for ERV).

Labels: biology, creationism, Intelligent design

That's a question Discovery Insitute fellow Paul Nelson asks. I give an answer over at the Pandas Thumb.

Labels: creationism, Intelligent design, pandas thumb