Post no. 22 (Power to the people – NOT!)

I’m still fuming. The steam is condensing on my glasses and I can’t see a thing.

Michael Brooks – a consultant for New Scientist, no less – said that “The public complain that science is just too difficult and boring”. Then he suggests that “We should take a risk and canvass public opinion about where society wants science to go – then act on the results.”

The reason: “More lay people find it hard to accept that their taxes are used for research in which no one but the scientists involved can judge or appreciate progress and merit.”

I think that “Bollocks!” is a suitable interjection. Let me rephrase what I think he means.

Many people think that science is abstruse, yet it is funded from their taxes. It’s not fair. Why don’t we ask them what they want to see so we give them more of it?

Let’s try it with something else, shall we?

Many people think that the law is abstruse, yet its administration is funded from their taxes. Why don’t we ask them what they want to see so we give them more of it?

It is a downside of specialisation that one tends to lose sight of the big picture. The activity we call science has become so vast that progress can only be made if one directs one’s efforts at a single target – or a limited set of targets. The days of the polymath are long gone. Brooks argues that specialisation is perceived as dull, so if we really have to specialise we must specialise in something the public is interested in… can anyone spot the inconsistency here or is it just me? Specialisation necessarily means doing something that not everybody can or wants to do. This means that however interesting (haha) or broadly appealing the subject is, a point will be reached where few people will be interested any more. Electronic gadgetry is something most of us love, but how many of us can really understand the physics and chemistry behind our games consoles or Blu-Ray disc players?

Brooks also quotes Erwin Schrödinger (he of the cat in a box fame):

“Never lose sight of the role your particular subject has within the great performance of the tragic-comedy of human life. If you cannot – in the long run – tell everyone what you have been doing, your doing has been worthless.”

Very rich that, coming from someone whose contribution to science cannot be described in words. Schrödinger gave us the wave equation, which describes how the probability of finding an electron at a particular energy level varies in time. Very appealing, don’t you think? But science has made huge steps in unlocking some of nature’s secrets through that concept. Would we have arrived at it if we had to ask the public what they want to see? Resoundingly no.

To be fair on Brooks, he also warned about the possibility of scientists using convoluted logic to justify their research funded out of public funds. There are also hubristic tendencies to contend with along the way… but we must bear in mind that science is, after all, a human activity – riddled with our inherent imperfections.

Brooks’s piece really got my goat because I do not hold public opinion in high regard. Let me rephrase that because it sounds a tad rightist. Certain jobs are best left to experts in the field. A plumbing job is no different to the chosen course scientific research should take. Both will come to grief if left to unskilled hands. Respecting other people’s opinion doesn’t mean having to hold all opinions in equal regard.

I feel that this relates to Post no. 15.

OK. That’s that for today.

Toodle-oo.

 

Post No. 17

Archbishop Paul Cremona’s contribution (in the Times of Malta) to the “divorce debate” is impressive. Let me explain. In his piece he gives some suggestions on how to strengthen the family and how the  family is perceived – outside looking in, sort of.

It is obvious that he is combatting divorce, but the beauty of the piece is that he wisely does not tackle the issue by trying to rubbish divorce. He does not even say that he’s tackling the issue, as it were. His ideas, if followed, could significantly strengthen families. And that is his strategy: strengthen marriages and families so that they will think less about looking for pastures greener. Think of it as “customer loyalty” if you wish. If we’re satisfied with a brand we don’t go round looking for something better. I think that he’s saying that the same goes for marriage. If you have a strong marriage and a fulfilling family life, you will do your utmost to keep them in the best of health.

Strangely, he doesn’t mention Christ or the Church anywhere in this piece, neither. What’s going on? How can a Catholic bishop go on about family and marriage without dropping any of the C-words? And this is precisely the impressive bit. If you go through the piece you’ll notice that it is jam-packed with practical day-to-day advice that anyone – irrespective of what they believe (or don’t) – can follow and obtain good results in so doing.

On the  other hand you cannot reasonably expect an Archbishop of the Catholic Church to say something with a whiff of godlessness. So what’s going on here?

The themes in the piece are love and education. Love is also the essence of being Catholic, but stated as such it is very easy to miss the wood for the trees. Astutely, Archbishop Cremona has built his suggestions around love without once alluding to it as the quintessential Catholic virtue. Not that he is ashamed to do so, mind you. But his strategy has shown the common-sense value of central Catholic principles.

It’s a pity that people associate the words “Catholic Church” with various unsavoury practices. It’s an illogical extrapolation, if you ask me. A bit like shooting the messenger before listening to the message. If we were to concentrate on what the Catholic Church teaches (and not allow our effort to be diverted by a few costly mistakes of some misguided members) we might all learn something.

Remember the elephant.

Toodle-oo.

 

Post no.16 (Divorced from Reality)

I bet you thought this was going to be about the Great Divorce Debate (Malta) … Actually, no.

I went to Mass last Friday (15th August, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven). During the sermon the priest said something that stuck to my mind like chewing gum to a shoe . I forgot the exact words he used, but the gist was that Mary, Our Lady, accepted to do what God asked of her without quibbling.

Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to do whatever he wants. May everything you said come true.” And then the angel disappeared. Luke 1:38

I will not go into the religious implications of the event here; it is not my place. I will point out the underpinning concept, however: blind faith.

Blind faith, these days, is considered the domain of optimists and simpletons. The identifying factor of these two groups is: Divorced from Reality.

We are living in the second enlightenment. Don’t believe what you’re told. Do what suits you. See for yourself. If it’s not measurable it probably doesn’t ( or shouldn’t ) exist. Of course that doesn’t stop us from devouring every episode of Most Haunted, but that’s beside the point.

Faith – removed from its usual religious context – is a belief that is not based on fact; trust, if you will, but a bit broader. “I’ll believe it when I see it” is the opposite of faith – and trust.

Faith, you’ll be forgiven for thinking, is the enemy of science. God forbid scientists just had blind faith in their hypotheses and left it at that, without testing them. And it’s a good thing, too. Just look at the huge difference (to the better, of course) science has made to our lives. We have mobile phones, laptops, better medicine … you name it, science has given it to us. All this without us having to resort to faith. Science doesn’t make untestable claims, does it? If it did surely someone would point it out …Well, we can’t actually confirm every claim, can we? But if science has proven dependable in some of its “utterances”, we have no reason to doubt the others we can’t test…

Our assumption is based on taking someone else’s word. We have to trust them – believe what they say, in other words. But doesn’t that constitute a leap of faith too? We have made science our new belief system. As far as we are concerned, the contents of conventional faith-based systems (i.e. religions) and science are equally verifiable – or not. We dismiss belief in “unknowable” quantities as inadequate yet we substitute that with belief in another set of unknowable quantities.

The nature of the contents differs, of course, but that would be the subject of another post

Toodle-oo

 

Post no. 13

I remember reading a thought experiment called The Invisible Gardener from a book called The Pig that wants to be eaten while clearing the sofa to make the room look nice-ish. (It’s amazing how interesting newspapers and magazines become when you’re throwing them away or clearing out). The “experiment” goes something like this:

Livingstone and Stanley were sitting behind a bush in a clearing in a forest. The clearing looked like a well-kept garden. They had been observing it for two weeks but they hadn’t seen anyone tend to it. Livingstone was maintaining that the clearing was tended by an invisible and intangible gardener who works without anyone knowing. Stanley wanted to know what was the difference between an invisible and intangible gardener and no gardener at all.

Baggini (the author of The Pig) remarks that Stanley’s and Livingstone’s argument can be applied to the existence – or not – of God.

That the existence of God – even of a god at all – be debated is interesting. “Some say tom-ah-toes, some say tom-ay-toes” sort of thing. This dichotomy has reared its head quite often in the past and in its present guise the fork in the road is represented by scientism and religionism (no surprises there).

“Scientism” is generally used pejoratively to mean that all of reality is composed of empirically verifiable physical effects with physical causes- also presumably empirically verifiable. “Religionism” tells us that God exists and consequently all progress – in every field – must be interpreted in the light of this reality.

Who’s right and who’s wrong?

The issue reminds me a bit of Descartes. (Descartes believed in the existence of God so I know I’m not talking about the exact same problem here). The way I see it, his tussle with the dualism of mind and matter runs parallel to the religionism vs scientism match. At the end of the day he came up with a compromise between the two (i.e. mind and matter). He said that mind and matter inhabit two parallel but independent worlds that can be studied without reference to each other… neat sidestep.
Fast forward to more recent times. Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss half-jokingly told a conference, that included theologians, that he didn’t have to listen to them (theologians) because for theology to make any sense it must take into account what cosmologists have found to be true about the universe. Cosmologists, on the other hand, don’t need theologians.

What’s all this got to do with anything?

I think that I can compare Krauss’s cosmology and Descartes matter with a picture. You can study the picture or admire it or even buy it. You don’t need to know anything about how the picture came to be. For all we care the picture made itself. And this is where I see a second comparison. Krauss’s theology, Descartes’s mind and how the picture came to be.

There is a clear demarcation between the picture and the creativity behind it, mind and matter, cosmology and theology. You can touch matter, cosmology is an empirical science, the picture is there for everybody to see. The defining property of these three objects is that they can be somehow measured. The other three – mind, theology and the creativity behind the picture are a bit like Livingstone’s invisible gardener.

I cannot fathom why some people have to talk about the incompatibility of science and religion. If anything I dare say that they are highly compatible as they both claim to be chasing reality – or the truth. In science a set of techniques is used. In religion another set of techniques is used. You use a trawling net to catch tuna and you use a harpoon to catch a whale.

Remember the elephant.

Toodle-oo.

 

The Elephant

“The Elephant” is one of the most important stories I have been told. It has been a major force in the shaping of my world view and after having decided what direction I’m going to give this blog, I thought that now’s as good a time as any to repeat this story. Come to think of it it’s not a time as good as any … now’s the best time. I shall be coming back to this story quite a bit, so …

Anyway, here goes.

Once upon a time there were three men who had never seen an elephant. As luck would have it – or rather, as convenience for my story would have it – a circus was coming to their village the following week. And the word was that there were going to be performing elephants.

“Why don’t we go and see what this elephant looks like?” asked man no. 1

“Yes. Good idea. I’ll buy us three tickets,” said man no. 2

“OK. But what if we make things a little exciting? A little flutter,” said man no. 3

“A flutter?”

“We’ll blindfold ourselves and get somebody to take us to this elephant and we’ll try to guess what this elephant looks like just by touching it. Whoever guesses – or comes closest – takes the money.”

“Yes. I agree. What a wonderful idea.”

The next day, each of men nos. 1,2 and 3 were blindfolded and led, by their sons, to the elephant. The sons knew of the wager and decided to play a trick on their fathers.

Son 1 placed his father next to the elephant’s head and gave him its ear. “So, dad, what does this elephant look like?”

“Hmmm. This elephant is a flat animal. Like a sail. Probably not very big.”

Son 2 placed his father next to the elephant and placed his hands on the beast’s side. “Dad?”

“I think that the elephant is like a huge wall. A mountain of an animal.”

Son 3 gave the elephant’s tail to his father.

“The elephant must be like a rope. Tiny animal. Nothing bigger than a snake.”

The sons took their fathers next to each other. “Before we take off your blindfold, tell us what you think the elephant looks like.”

“A sail!”

“A wall!”

“A length of rope!”

“A wall! what sort of idiot are you?!”

“Can’t you tell a sail from a bit of string?! You must be thick.”

The exchanges soon changed to blows and it took all the sons’ strength to separate the fathers.

“OK. OK. Let’s take the blindfolds off.”

The three men stared at the elephant. It wasn’t like a sail and it wasn’t like a wall and it wasn’t like a length of rope. They were all wrong and they were all partly right.

Moral of the story: Human activity can only uncover discrete bits of reality, none more valid than the other. We can arrive at the truth only if we acknowledge our limits and encourage interdisciplinarity.