Science and Faith

I've been silent for far too long, but recently, I've felt the need to return to putting my views on display. Perhaps it's egotistical, but there it is. Blogging is one of the primary means of participating in global conversations that is available today, and there are too many conversations worth having to sit idly on the sidelines.

One of those important conversations is on the nature of science and faith. It is often claimed that science requires faith, or that science is its own religion, or that science is somehow built on a house of cards. This post, then, is a manifesto to the effect of demonstrating that none of these is true. Science is, at its most basic, the formalization of those ways and means of learning that work. No one definition captures all of science, as the methodology itself of science changes as we learn what methods work and don't work. When we learned of the placebo effect, for instance, evidence collected without the aid double-blind randomization was no longer seen as good enough. That is, we identified a weakness in the very way that knowledge was collected by the medical sciences, and we fixed it.

To learn about the world, we don't need faith in anything other than the existence of something that can be learned. To then say that this simple and universal axiom is somehow a manifestation of faith in any religious sense strains the word beyond all usefulness and turns it into nothing more than a vehicle for ad hominems. Taking as a given the existence of patterns is what keeps us from thinking that we shall find ourselves to be bananas in some near-future moment, to pick one of the less strange possibilities. A world where anything can happen is a world without patterns, rules or causality. I have yet to meet any system of religious thought that rejects the idea of causality itself; indeed, we rightfully label as "insane" those people who reject causality. One can always go down the rabbit hole of hypothesizing an adversarial universe that merely seems causal by some cosmic coincidence, but down this path lies nothing but the most dismal form of navel-gazing. In order to function, we must take as axiomatic the existence of patterns.

In this way, science is the ultimate expression of pragmatism. If something contributes usefully to the realm of human knowledge, then science can and will adapt itself to incorporate this new knowledge. If you'll pardon a rhetorical bit of oversimplification, science has moved from armchair philosophizing to stamp collecting to a mathematical endeavor to the huge range of approaches we see today. Throughout human history, however, one thing serves as a strong indicator of what works and what doesn't. Without evidence-- objective and reproducible evidence-- we know nothing. Human memory is fallible, as is human reasoning. We are all too easily convinced of what is patently false, and thus must expand knowledge outside of the fragility of our minds. Thus, evidence is paramount. There is no faith to this, but only empiricism and pragmatism.

Of course, to fully refuse the "science is faith" claim, I would have to first understand the claim. I must admit that I find myself unable to do this. Despite my attempts at understanding the views of those around me, this is one point which fiercely resists my analysis. I admit that I am at a complete loss for any arguments as to the faith-based nature of science. If you have some, I'd love to hear them, as I hate leaving my arguments incomplete. It's rather unsatisfying, to say the least.

There are those who will, no doubt, interpret what I am saying here as some strong claim of science as omniscient or infalliable. Nothing could be further from my views. Science is, after all, a human affair, and we make mistakes. This is why our whole methodology is designed to minimize the room for the flaws inevitably introduced by our own human limitations. Moreover, science does not know everything-- simply more than any other systematization of knowledge available to humans. The nature of science is to expand knowledge, and as such, the realms of human experience off-limits to science are continually shrinking-- never growing. Neuroscience, for instance, demonstrates that human emotions are at least in principle subject to objective and evidence-based analysis. Anyone who takes SSRIs for clinical depression indirectly benefits from this shrinking of the unknowable. Why should we mistake the limits of our current methods as being intrinsic properties of the world itself? That seems like the ultimate leap of faith. To hold some phenomenon to be permanently beyond the realm of understanding, regardless of how much humanity grows (or how much our post-human descendants grow), is to take an unpalatable amount on faith.

Don't Be a Dick

I have a few words for all my fellow Americans who today find themselves hating the new healthcare reform package: don't be a dick.

You had eight years at the helm to fix healthcare, and you did nothing. You had eight years to tackle a problem that, aside from letting people die for lack of medical care, is keeping the US from being competitive in the jobs market. You failed to stand up for the rights of middle- and lower-class workers and their families.

Even more damning, though, you were given every opportunity over the past year to make your arguments for keeping the old "if you get sick, you die" healthcare policies. Instead of offering substantive critiques, such as how including a mandate but not a public option is a giveaway to the very insurance agencies that made the problem to start with, you took those opportunities to be heard and spat on them. You invented preposterous lies about "death panels," abortion funding, illegal immigrants and whatever else you could get away with. You threw around meaningless but emotionally resonant labels like "socialism" and "communism," without even a shred of pretense that those labels were in any way relevant or accurate. Worse still, when that kind of fearmongering didn't change the fact that the majority of Americans wanted some sort of guarantee that getting sick wouldn't be a death sentence, you resorted to racial slurs and threats of violence. Your shameful behavior has made a mockery of political debate, as well as shocked the rest of the world. Living abroad, I often get asked just what in the hell is wrong with America that would make us think that an idea that is uncontroversial everywhere else in the developed world would somehow undo society.

You had your chance to be taken seriously, and you blew it big time. You demonstrated with horrifying clarity the lengths to which you will go to deny your political opponents any kind of a legislative victory. Your callous opposition to something precisely because it was supported by a majority of the American public was and is sickening (literally-- people really could have benefited from not having you delay healthcare reform over your nonsense). Now, while today the saner half of America celebrates a small, incremental step towards recognizing universal human rights, as you threaten to leave the country or take violent actions, I ask that you instead try calming down and not being a dick to your fellow Americans.

For the childrenz

Disclaimer: I am not a parent, and have no plans of becoming one. Take all this with a grain of salt. I do, however, have first-hand experience at being a child.

For the sake of the children, we do quite a lot. Never mind exactly what it even means for something to be for the sake of the children, such as whose children and who gets to decide what's best, we are as a society willing to do a lot for our children. Frankly, that is a wonderful thing in many ways, but when that otherwise noble drive crosses the line into hysteria, then unsavory people will seek to exploit it for their own nefarious ends.

This seems to be the case with child pornography: a real problem is exaggerated to the point that those who at some level control us can exploit the problem, tagging whatever their political enemy might be with the emotional baggage of "kiddie porn." Someone doesn't like Usenet, so it's kiddie porn. It is such a common pattern that many Slashdot users have adopted the use of the "thinkofthechildren" tag to mark stories about such excesses, along with tragic stories of incidental victims.

Of course, the real irony to my mind is how little we are actually willing to do for children. We provide basic healthcare only after a mockery of a national debate. We fail to provide decent education, and even pass acts to further the problem. We subject our children to dangerous diseases over a long-debunked anti-vaccine hysteria (yes, I know that many of those link to the same blog-- it's a good blog, but far from the only one to deal with anti-vaccine hysteria). We leave our children a world plauged by global warming. Most of all, we do our children a great disservice by tarring their names with all of our petty battles whilst ignoring their most pressing needs.

On bias and hypocrisy: Conservapedia as a case study.

Bias as a human element.

There is a reason why our language is littered with trite phrases such as "only human" and "the human element." At some level, as a society, we recognize that the human condition is marked by an extreme level of imperfection. We cannot but introduce elements of ourselves in what we do, and we cannot perfectly abstract ourselves away from a task. In particular, in any non-trivial writing, then, we make obvious to the world our thoughts as we introduce bias into that which we pen. Of course, I am no exception. What I write here is quite obviously biased, and I wouldn't expect anyone to think otherwise.

Bias as a conservative anti-virtue.

This discussion, though, presumes an understanding of what "bias" even is. We most often hear the word in association with "the media," or other elements of mass communication, when neoconservatives accuse decidedly conservative reporting outlets of being liberal in bias. This modern use of the word is very misleading in several ways, the majority of which are outside of the scope of this essay. What I do want to deal with, however, is the idea that unbiasedness is a virtue that trumps accuracy, fairness, completeness or relevance.

That particular idea of bias, along with the modern usage of the word "balance," leads us to farces like that of including an oil industry representative to "balance" a scientist's reporting on global warming. Some statements are, within the scope of our current knowledge, "true," and this by their very nature gives them a special status apart from any other statements. For instance, if I say that all the research conducted to date confirms that global warming is true, then this is not "biased" in a liberal-versus-conservative sort of fashion. Rather, it is biased towards verifiability and accuracy.

What does one do, then, when their political positions are based largely on statements that are in contrast with what we know about reality? Construct a system of thought where evolution must be "balanced" by creationism under the guise of intelligent design, where global warming must be "balanced" by climate "skepticism," and where an introspective examination of history must be "balanced" by blatant and unjustified religiosity in the guise of historical interpretation.

This is precisely the sense of the words "bias" and "balance" which those like Fox News use in order to justify spewing what any sane and rational person would call biased trash. As per the discussion of bias before, I don't mind the biased part. I listen to Democracy Now, read Crooks and Liars, and watch Olbermann. No, I mind the implication that everyone else's bias is bad, but that one group (always the conservatives or neocons) can be biased with impunity.

A recent case study.

Seldom has this effect been more stunningly obvious than in the recent launching of the Wikipedia-inspired Conservapedia. With the lofty mission of eliminating bias, this "virtuous" project demonstrates the incredible extent to which they avoid bias by putting their political leanings in their name. How could any project with the name "Conservapedia" ever be accused of being liberal in nature?

Of course Conservapedia is biased. It exists. That pretty well guarantees its bias. The problem comes, however, in how it is biased. Whereas Wikipedia is biased towards things that we understand to be true (global warming, evolution, the existence of religions other than Christianity), Conservapedia is biased towards things which support the neoconservative and Christian fundamentalist platforms. While this may be useful to them, it most certainly cannot provide the same utility as a repository for information generally regarded as being accurate. Moreover, the inherent effect of this kind of a "resource" is to be display marked hypocrisy, as one cannot simultaneously demonize "bias" and publish articles based only on a book about "Creation" published by "Apologia Press."

Thus, I denounce Conservapedia not as being horribly biased, but rather as being vapid and hypocritical. In the same way that I don't decry the fact that the Cato Institute is biased towards the classic-conservative position, I do decry the horrible dishonesty with which the authors of Conservapedia handle the issue of bias.

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Commencing the Metashell Project

This entry was cross-posted to cgranade::social.

Well, folks. It's time. The open-source Metashell project (hosted at Google Code, read the blog) is underway. Sure, it started as a class project, but it is time to try and make something wonderful out of it. I strongly encourage anyone who's interested to go and read about it, and to give it a try. There isn't a snapshot up yet, but the Linux users among you can download MonoDevelop and use it to compile a copy. It can't do too much yet, but it does have enough there to be interesting and to be fun to mess with.

That said, to say that Metashell is rough around the edges is a significant understatement, and it serves to drive the point home that I'm not good at everything. Thus, I do want help. I want someone to write a nice installer and to get it to compile under Windows, for starters. More than anything, though, I want this project to get attention. I think that, even if the project itself isn't that well written, that the ideas behind it are sound, and I hope that developers writing all kinds of software can glean some inspiration from it. If it sounds conceded to write that, it is. I'll admit that much. I can't justify why I feel conceded about it, but I hope that at least my conceit isn't too offensive to anyone, and that you give my work a fair chance.
In short, if you want, it's there to download and play with. The Metashell project has commenced. Spread the word.

Technorati Tags: metashell, opensource, projects, dotnet, mono

The most basic premise.

Underlying all of science is one basic axiom that has been implicitly invoked time and time again throughout the ages. So basic is this premise, and so drastic the consequences of its falsehood that it routinely evades comment. It is the reason that we can even write down the laws of physics, why we can establish principles, and why we are able to make predictions about the natural world. Those who attack science often do so without full cognizance of this foundation, and thus are apt to issue only the most topically applicable of arguments.
What is this assertion, then? What one statement could all of science be built upon, and yet be seen as too trivial to deserve mention?

The Scientific Axiom: The world is logically consistent, and is describable by a set of logical constructions.

If this is not at all true, then all of science is meaningless, as all events are merely coincidences, with no correlation or structure. It is even worse when we consider that the statement that all things happen randomly is a perfectly logical description, and thus would not violate the Axiom in any concrete way. Rather, a world which violates the Axiom is even more perverse and more impenetrable to understanding than even a completely chaotic world. We could not distinguish an unscientific world from a scientific world based only on historical observations, thus rendering all reflection and introspection useless and meaningless.
Why do we assume this strong of an axiom, then? Simply stated, we would very much like that it is actually true, as there is no humanity, no experience to an unscientific world. Art, philosophy, culture and even thought itself depend on the Axiom for their existence. We assume the Axiom because, if we did not, there would be no point to science itself. Perhaps the Axiom is false. If so, then whatever we do is utterly devoid of meaning anyway, so why not spend life on such a useless pursuit as describing that which is by definition undefinable?
From this, we see that despite the protestations otherwise, science is the foundation for a great many other things, and that a world in which science carries no weight cannot also support any other human pursuit. So many aspects of human experience are intertwined thusly; we cannot practice science in an artless world (a basic result of complexity theory), and we cannot practice art in an unscientific world. Any attempt to completely isolate and detangle these aspects of human existence is futile, and endangers humanity itself. At the same time, we must separate the spheres of our lives to at least some degree, as they are in fact different, and must be treated in different manners.
It is patently absurd to approach art with the same axiomatic rigor as is applied to science, just as it is to apply the subjectivity and flexibility of art to scientific pursuits.
Rather, the Scientific Axiom tells us that no matter in what open field we find ourselves, we can make some ground beneath our feet for us to stand upon. We needn't fall into an abyss of despair, for we may always trust logic to at least some degree. At least, in the cases in which we can't, we aren't really "wrong," as correctness is a logical construct anyways.

A small footnote.

The astute among you will note that my statement of the Scientific Axiom is, in fact, not accurate, as it does not take into account Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, nor any other aspect of complexity theory. I must obviously hold some faith in the validity of complexity theory, though, as I so flippantly invoke it elsewhere in my diatribe. No, I realize my omission, and made it intentionally to simplify the statement of the Axiom and to render it accessible to a wider audience. Technically, I should have defined that the world can be described as the asymptotic tendency of increasingly accurate logical constructions. There will, of course, always be lapses and differences, but these are minimized by refining our constructions.

Technorati Tags: science, philosophy, axioms

What is important?

With the liquid ban still mostly in effect, months after any pretend or real threat has passed, the time comes for any intelligent citizen to ask one resounding question to the TSA: what is important? The boarding pass flaw still unchecked, the question becomes even more pressing.

Let us, in asking this question, take the view of a passenger going through the "security checkpoint." A passenger, most often also a citizen of the United States of America, is made to remove shoes, watches, coats, purses, backpacks, belts, rings, wallets, key chains, cell phones, and any number of other arbitrarily chosen objects. Meanwhile, the line behind them grows. If we accept the premise upon which the TSA supposedly operates, that the world before the checkpoint is dangerous, and that the world after the checkpoint is safe, then we realize that the TSA is placing American citizens into danger.

Indeed, I claim that with every arbitrary inconvenience, with every invasion of privacy, with every bureaucratic hiccup, with every police-state-style intimidation, the TSA has every reason to believe that they are putting American citizens into mortal danger. Citizens are being thrust into a situation where they are crammed in a tight space, with no substantive security measures protecting them. If a rouge suicide bomber ever wanted a nice target, the TSA has saved him the walk all the way to their gate.

What, pray tell, is being protected by the TSA? What does the organization feel is important enough to protect at the direct cost of the safety of the American populace? For what is our safety spent with not even a receipt to show for it? Is it the planes, the private property of already heavily subsidized corporations? Is it the Commander-In-Chief's approval ratings? Is it the jobs of the agents? Their place in the federal government at all? What is important to the TSA?

At What Cost: A rational approach to security.

"No such thing as a free lunch."

Security always comes at the comes at the cost of something else. We must ask ourselves what we are willing to sacrifice in the name of security; what we are willing to accept in return. There are certainly those who show no such introspection, as is evidenced by the article titled News Hounds: Fox News Airs Call for 'Muslim-Only' Line. People like those described seem to think that there is no trade off- that those target by such profiling are unworthy of consideration. This can hardly be further from the case.

Making a sacrifice.

Despite warnings from those such as Benjamin Franklin, there are those among us who are willing to make an exchange of liberty for security. This exchange, however, is rarely thought through to its logical extremities. If one is to make this choice, then a firm line must be made, or else we end up with an entire state of matter being forbidden. Worse, we could have just as easily been in a state like the British find themselves now: forbidden from even carrying their own personal effects. Are we too far from the old rag about flying naked?

If sacrifices are to be made, they must be made in the context of a strong system of legal oversight to ensure that limits imposed on the extent of the sacrifice are held. Of course, by definition, sacrificing liberty means sacrificing one's ability to redress grievances if this accountability is not observed.

Fair exchange.

It would be ridiculous to make these kinds of sacrifices without even having any security to show for it, but that is exactly where we find ourselves. Air travel is no more secure for our having made these sacrifices, and so we might consider that, as a populous, we have been cheated. To support this claim, consider the massive problems with the revised security procedures advanced by the TSA:

• Banning liquids only helps against yesterday's attacks, and is no more than security theater.
• The liquid ban is based on a poor threat model.
• The modified security procedures are poorly implemented, resulting in more security problems.

Sadly, these problems are only part of a larger progression of ever worse security, being brought to us in exchange for our liberties. Indeed, non-solutions such as racial profiling distract us from the real problems, as do such statistical nightmares as our generation's polygraph. Our fear is being co-opted, and we are being swindled by power-hungry fiends.

Remember, a public system cannot be perfectly secure. Especially not one as trafficked as the airline system. There will always be ways around security, whether it be through body cavities or through sneaking in modified fast food ingredient shipments. Besides, security goes beyond the airports, and as we tighten the airline system, we lose sight of the general problem.

A solution.

We don't have to make these choices. We don't have to choose between liberty and security. As we have seen, blindly ignoring the costs of security makes us both less secure and less free. Instead, let us pursue diplomatic and humanitarian means of resolving the underlying problems of which terrorism is a symptom. It is hard work, and comes at the cost of many years of diplomatic endeavors, but leaves us free, secure and respected in the world. Not that security should be eschewed altogether, but such procedures as are in place today should not be relied upon, but should be secondary to fixing underlying causes of violence.

Surely, our liberty is worth a bit of patience, and a fair spot of work? At the very least, a diplomatic nation is a secure nation.

technorati tags:security, politics, tsa, liberty

Celebrating a Failure of Civic Duty

As written in a post entitled Hoystory » What they knew and when they knew it, Matthew Hoy berates the New York Times for not revealing the illegal NSA wiretapping program (which Hoy describes as a "terrorist surveilence program," despite that it targets law-abiding American citizens) as soon as they knew about it. The reason he gives, however, is as fine an absurdity as you'll likely find on the Internet:

Frankly, the second-best choice (the best choice being not revealing the program at all) would have been for the Times to reveal the it when it first discovered it. Democrats would’ve beenforced to take a responsible position — not the politically convenientone — and endorse the program and trash the Times. The year-plus delay served to give the paper, and Democrats, some cover.

So, basically, Hoy seems to wish that both the Democrats and the Times would abandon the American people to be victims of this administration's war on the Constitution. Not revealing an illegal program that you have knowledge of can hardly but be considered a deriliction of duty, and makes one an accessory to that crime. This unethical and illegal program stripped American citizens of their Fourth Ammendment rights, as well as any right or privledge to privacy. Furthermore, the program could not be considered to be effective, as before it was commenced, we already knew that the methods by which many terrorists choose to communicate are invisible to this program, such as the shipping of prepaid cell phones to other countries.

Whenever a program strips citizens of their rights and lets terrorists go unchecked, while at the same time violating the law, I would hope that all citizens would at the very least feel transgressed, and not celebrate any derilictions of duty which occur.

While I may respect that others have different viewpoints on how to combat terrorism, broad and untargeted wiretapping is unethical, ineffective and illegal. Targeted wiretapping, with warrents obtained through open or secret courts, against those strongly suspected of terrorism does work. In fact, this is what Britian used to foil the most recent airplane-related terror plot. Remind me again how it would have been a good thing for the Times to fall through on their duty as a journalistic enterprise? You know, the watchdogs of democracy?

technorati tags:politics, wiretapping, nsa, illegal, republicans, nyt, duty

Pacifism Meets Godwin's Law: Debunking a strawman argument.

Whenever I hear about some kind of "do no harm" attitude I always want to ask "does it pass the WW2 test?" What I mean is, would you really have preferred to have sat by and watched the Holocaust happen rather than fight? If so, then I consider the concept morally bankrupt.

-- theStorminMormon (883615)

It is truly unfortunate to see pacifism treated in such a disrespectful manner. This argument, if one could call it that, is a straw man. It discounts entirely that the point for pacifism and diplomacy had passed: by the time the Holocaust had begun, the choice to engage in violence had been made through inaction. Were pacifism applied to the events of WW2, more efforts would have been made to preserve peace before Hitler took power. To say that WW2 is an argument against pacifism is to substitute blatant emotional appeal for rational discourse, and is, in effect, distorting the claims made by pacifists to paint them with the same brush as the Nazis.

technorati tags:politics, idiots, wars, pacifism, ww2, godwin, slashdot