Science Is The Best Tool We Have: Updated

As you may have guessed, I love science. While it's not perfect since it's done with technology that has limitations, and more importantly is done by humans, it's the best tool we have to understand our universe.

I've wanted to write about the scientific method for quite awhile but could never feel like I would do it justice. Then, yesterday, I actually did science and thought I'd start there. See, we all use the scientific method in our daily lives, without even thinking about it. It's not some foreign thing that only people in white lab coats are allowed to do.

I'm trying to lose weight and get fit. I've become a bit roly poly over the years, eating too many calories, spending too many hours in front of my monitors, and no time exercising. So on January 7, my mom and I decided to start a friendly competition. That's not really the right word. It's more like we're encouraging each other and spurring each other on. My husband Butch joined in too. So it makes it much better for all of us to work together.

Anyway, since Jan 7 till last week, I had lost 15 pounds. The weight is getting harder to lose now, but I was still making slow progress until last week. Then, alarmingly I put 1.5 lbs on in one day!

I am not on a "diet". I've tried fad diets before, denial diets, etc. They don't work. They are gimmicks. Usually you lose in the beginning but after a short time it no longer works, then as soon as you go off of these fad diets, the weight comes back on with a vengeance. 

People Trust Peers, Not Science

This is depressing, but not surprising, I guess. Three psychological studies have come out recently all saying about the same thing. People trust their peers and tend to distrust authority (the government) and scientific information.

I heard about this on The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, episode 254, from May 26th. If you want to listen to Dr. Steven Novella talk about the three studies, start around the 23:30 minute mark. This segment goes to about 35:20, but the whole episode is good, of course.

The attitudes of parents toward the MMR vaccine and autism: The study concluded that parents had a significant bias toward believing information that they heard from other parents. The parents were mostly affected by their peers, and did not seem to be affected at all by what the scientific evidence said, and they seemed to inherently distrust information that came from the government. Not a surprising result.

Raising a general level of scientific literacy would be the best thing we could do to help this mess we're in. My fear is that people are so anti-science and anti-intelligence these days that I don't know how we could go about it, that people aren't interested in learning anything that goes against their narrow world views. Another thing we could do (as recommended by Steven) is to change regulation so that it's rational and evidence-based, not based on public opinion.

How People Tend To Think And Respond

In our book club right now, we are reading  Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language by Robert J. Gula. It's very interesting as it goes through emotional language and logical fallacies in several ways that make them easier to understand. Robert Gula wrote the book in the 1970's which is interesting in its nostalgic examples.

But what I wanted to share with you was something from chapter 1 that I thought was quite valuable:

First, some general principles. Let’s not call them laws; and since they’re not particularly original, I won’t attach my name to them. They are merely a description of patterns that seem to characterize the ways that people tend to respond and think. For example, people:

You Are Wrong Because:

Hello Everyone! I hope, if you're in the States, you had a happy 3 day weekend (all non-Americans, I hope you had a happy regular weekend!). Mine was packed full of socializing centered around the annual family reunion. Needless to say I've been quite busy, but I did want to show you something my friend Rachel over at Morgantown Brights shared with me since we're always talking about logical fallacies here.

Nothing can reduce your happiness faster than an argument with an irrational co-worker. You can’t win irrational people over to your side by your superior reasoning abilities. And you can’t talk them into getting inside abandoned refrigerators and closing the door to see if the light goes out. There simply aren’t that many abandoned refrigerators. If you use the refrigerator in the break room, everyone will start whining about how there’s no room for yogurt. Until there are more refrigerators, or less yogurt, you will find yourself in frustrating discussions that can have no good endings.Trying to win an argument with an irrational person is like trying to teach a cat to snorkel by providing written instructions. No matter how clear your instructions, it won’t work. Your best strategy is to reduce the time you spend in that sort of situation.

I have developed a solution to this problem. It is based on the fact that irrational people are easily persuaded by anything that has been published. It doesn’t matter who published it, or what the context is, or how inaccurate it is. Once something is published, it’s as persuasive as anything else that’s ever been published. So I figure that what you need is a publication that supports all of your arguments no matter what they are. This is that publication.

I have collected the most common arguments made by irrational people into a handy reference guide and titled it “You Are Wrong Because.” Circle the irrational arguments that apply to your situation and give a copy to the person who is bugging you. Look smug, as though this were conclusive evidence of your rightness. A rational person might point out that just because something is written down doesn’t make it so. But since you’re not giving the list to anyone with that much insight, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you will feel as though you brought closure to a potentially frustrating situation.

You Are Wrong Because:

For your convenience, I have circled the brain malfunction(s) that most closely resemble(s) the one(s) you recently made on the topic of (fill in topic):

Logical Fallacy Land 2: A Treat For You!

I have a treat for you. Last week I posted a horrid creationism video by John Morris Pendleton and suggested that we practice pointing out logical fallacies by refuting the lies and nonsense he was spewing forth. Not many people commented, and honestly I don't blame you because I could barely handle watching the video myself, never mind muddle through it point by point.

Still, I think there's validity to refuting such arguments as practice. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 39% of Americans say they believe in the theory of evolution, while 1/4 say they do not believe in the theory.

Lucky for us, my friend Brent told me about a set of videos that go through Pendleton's step by step and refute them. How awesome!

Here is the first one of 4. (about 10 minutes long):



For the rest of the videos, click here. Or you can probably get them through the web page of this video.

Logical Fallacy Land 1 - intro

As you may have noticed, there's a new conversation element in the sidebar. I added it so people can leave general comments for the whole site easily. You can be anonymous or sign in with all different kinds of accounts, not just google. It seemed like a friendly way to promote communication.   Someone posted a video in there the other day with a request for help on how to refute "an arrogant christian".

Here is the video. I'll warn you, it's almost 27 minutes long and incredibly irritating to watch.



Honestly, it's so ridiculous, I almost decided to do nothing about it. I suggested to the unknown person to get a copy of Atheist Universe by David Mills because basically that whole book refutes this video in very clear and easy to follow detail, without oversimplifying. It's quite thorough and I highly recommend it.

But then I talked to my mother today. She knows I'm a rather vocal atheist. She is kind of in the middle. She doesn't believe "all that religious crap" but doesn't know what to replace it with. She asked me what I believe about the beginning of the universe, if I believed in the Big Bang Theory. So I explained a bit about that, how science works (evidence and observation), how it changes over time to reflect new evidence and observation, and how that's awesome.

I told her about this video, about creationism and intelligent design, and how silly it was to base anything on a book written over 2000 years ago by desert goat herders who knew nothing of science or how things worked. She asked for a link if I decided to refute the video for the person who left it. She wanted to read it. So I decided I would tackle it after all.

I'm going to do it in stages. It's simply too long to tackle all at once. Also, I welcome your input, suggestions and refutations! Links to research, science, quotes, specific logical fallacies, anything and everything, is all welcome! Specific is good here, I think. So feel free to contribute. We can do this together much more easily than me alone.

The first thing to point out is the Argument from Authority. The guy in the video is a chemist in a lab coat. That is supposed to make him look like a trusted expert. But how is a chemist an expert in geology, astrophysics, astronomy, anthropology, etc? He's not, of course. Whatever background he has is irrelevant to what he's arguing.

Ok, that will get us started. I'm looking forward to your feedback!

This Is How Stupid They Think You Are

Ok, if you're not a republican, this doesn't apply to you directly, but pay attention anyway. Samantha Bee at the Daily Show shows the card that's being played by the republican party. The first 1:42 minutes are what I want to share with you.



It's about the new buzzword, Rebranding. Listen to republican strategist Kellyanne Conway. Here's the transcript: