Smarter Than Thou!

SOME (MORE) PROBLEMS WITH PSEUDO SCIENCE

   I have been dealing with some current “scientific” issues.  My main purpose is to expose pseudo science as the nonsense that it is.  I refer to opinions (or wishes) presented as if they were scientific facts.  I have already dealt with Intelligent Design and how the current cabal of so called scientists, who reject it out of bigotry, actually support it with their unfounded scientific theories.  This time I hope to offer more information on the topic. 

    Let me add two qualifications.  First, the term “climate change” is relatively new.  And it is a totally cowardly term.  Consider the following.  A stock investment advisor told you to buy a stock, because its price will “change.”  Ah yes, but will it increase or decrease?  The advisor refuses to commit to one or the other, but does predict that it will “change”… eventually, if you wait long enough.  You would not pay such an advisor.  The “rules” for stock princes should be known by the experts.  And they should predict, with validity, price movements.  Of course, if there were no rules, then guessing is allowed, along with the use of horoscopes, numerology and alcohol induced inspirations, among other methods.    

    To say the climate will change is as useless as this stock market advisor.  Things do change, or, often, they may appear to change.  If this year is not EXACTLY like last year, or the year before, in its weather then one could claim that the climate has changed.  Maybe it has, as I shall explain below.  However, if someone really knew what was going on then he would predict that the temperatures are going up, or down, and by how much.  Simply saying change is happening is as intellectually brave as predicting that the score of the baseball game at first pitch will not be the same as it will be when the last pitch is thrown.  There will be a “score change.”

    Here is a valid rule by which you can determine if scientific knowledge exists and is known.  I first must add that the Earth may be heating up.  We simply have no way of knowing, yet.  My criterion is:  Does the scientist make valid predictions, in terms of numbers?  Can these predictions be validated, by measuring devices that are calibrated in numbers?  To put this slightly differently, are the scientific theories realized in engineering realities (e.g. bridges that do not fall down) and by measuring devices. 

   There have been some so-called experts who have predicted that the temperatures of the Earth are increasing.  Although this can not be tested, at least they risked their reputations by predictions.   In this sense they may be quasi honorable, although stupid.   The reason why they are stupid is that there is no way to measure the various temperatures of the Earth in any way that yields scientific data.  I refer to temperatures (plural) because the Earth is too big to have one temperature.  The temperatures---and the climate---of the Artic are quite different from the temperatures---and the climate---of the Congo.  Neither is “Earth,” and yet both are Earth, aren’t they?

   Which is the “real” climate of the Earth?  There is no way to determine if either, or both, or neither, are the “scientific” indicator.  To record the true temperature controlled experiments need to be conducted.  And there is no way to heat up, or to cool off, the Earth, or even an isolated part of it, by one source of energy and to hold everything else constant.  And without this procedure climatic measurements can not be validated as data.  To put this differently, regardless of what impressions people may accept, there is, and can not be, any evidence on the subject. 

    I shall comment on this farther in the next installment.  In it I shall show that the conventional ASSUMPTIONS of the “global warming” school are so idiotic that no intelligent person can believe them. This is because they are self-contradictory.    

EVOLVING INTO IDIOCY

   SCIENCE is a field of knowledge.  It is the study---and the knowledge---of the mathematical relationships of natural events.  Science is dependent upon technology.  In this case technology would mean machines that allow a human to “see” what is going on better than he could without these aids.  Machines and meters that can measure speed, mass, time, distances, color, volume, heat, change, etc, correctly are essential before scientific principles can be restated as laws.  They produce the data that scientists need to learn what they seek to learn. 

    ONE of the major objections advanced by Liberals against both Conservatives and “Fundamentalists” is that they “reject science.”  In this case science means evolution and anti-science means “intelligent design.”  Evolution in this case means trans-species evolution.  This means that lizards became chickens… somehow, when no one was looking, not even the lizards.  Intelligent design (known as ID) REALLY means that God created things, animals and humans.  However, the advocates are a bit coy (i.e. cowardly) about this and do not directly advocate it.  The ID people do not deny that within a species a large number of physical changes can occur.  Thus dogs can range weigh only a few pounds to over 200.  The key point is that, regardless of size, they remain dogs, with the same DNA.

    The ID people would “win” the debate if it could be established as possible that some extraterrestrial life forms were involved in Earth’s development.  This naturally leads to the areas of UFO visitations, and ancient aliens building the pyramids.  There is a strong cultural bigotry against this position.  Any “real” scientist who even dared to consider this possibility would lose his status and credibility, immediately.   

    Yet these “real” scientists are the ones who are constantly increasing the number of planets in the universe.  Whether they actually have any valid scientific basis for their claims is immaterial.  However, there are endless Public TV programs about these (literally) astronomical numbers.  And the interviewed experts usually advance one very, very interesting point. 

    It is that, because of the immense numbers of planets, and the laws of probability (which probably do not apply---pun intended), it is supremely “arrogant” for man to assume that humans are the only intelligent life in this immense area.  OK… but have you noticed the conclusion.  These guys accept, or assume, or conclude that there probably IS life out there.  They do so, in my opinion, only because it attacks the basic Biblical view that mankind is a special and superior creation, living in the theological center of the universe.  Organized religion begins with this premise. 

    So, these secular experts are now saying (1) be not proud, mankind, as thou are not alone, and these other beings are probably superior to you, and, at the same time, (2) these other life forms could not have visited here and helped develop men and animals (because they do not exist), and because this would weaken belief evolution.   

    It is a good general rule that one can recognize hatred pretending to be rational analysis when the objection can not be refuted because both of its contradictory premises are used to attack the hated position. (COMING SOON:  what is inherently impossible with evolution AND how the "global warming" explanation can not be valid.) 

   You may be interested in some full length works written by me.  Several are humorous.  All are wroth buying.  They are worth buying too.   Try “Rejected Works by Famous People,” available on Amazon and Lulu.com.

 

SCIENCE AND DESIRE

   SCIENCE is a field of knowledge.  It is the study---and the knowledge---of the mathematical relationships of natural events.  Science is dependent upon technology.  In this case technology would mean machines that allow a human to “see” what is going on better than he could without these aids.  Machines and meters that can measure speed, mass, time, distances, color, volume, heat, change, etc, correctly are essential before scientific principles can be restated as laws.  They produce the data that scientists need to learn what they seek to learn. 

    It is tautological to say that before these machines and meters existed men, no matter how observant they were, men could not really see what was going on with more than an approximate degree of precision.  I give the classic historical example.  Galileo was in church, and, instead of paying attention to the service, he noted the motion of a lamp that was hung from the ceiling.  It moved like a pendulum.  He wanted to discover something scientific about its motion.  That is, he wanted to time its cycles.  So he took his own pulse as a “clock” to measure the time intervals. 

    We know that a human’s pulse is pretty much regular.  As long as the human is not subject to physical, emotion and psychological changes, due to stress, falling asleep (he was in church), excitement, exercise, love, etc, it will remain relatively constant.   And thus it can be used as a somewhat reliable measuring device.  But we also know that it DOES change if any or all of the above are involved.  It is not valid more than an approximation. Galileo, despite his best efforts, could not come to more than an approximate conclusion. 

    He also tried to measure the speed of light and came to the conclusion that it was “very fast.”   He was right, of course.  But this is not precise enough for a scientific reality.  My point is that people try to find scientific truths all the time.  But, until they can record the math, what they are dealing with is not (yet) science, and they are not (yet) scientists.  Let me offer an analogy.  Men hear of a gold rush, and “rush” out to find gold.  They stake claims.  Some of them will possess land that contains lots of gold.  This does not make them rich, not yet.  Until they have the technology and machines to remove the gold from the ground and transport it to buyers---and do it!   ---they are not yet rich.  Knowing what should be done is not the same as knowing how to do it.  Desire is not accomplishment. 

    A large number of fields of study are now considered, by the Mass Media and common consensus, to be sciences.  They are not.  To be called a scientist a man must have the math, and his discovered and reported results must be repeatable by others.  Those who are seeking as yet unknown basic natural relationships may, or may not, be honorable men.  But they are not scientists.  The failure may be due to lack of technology and not be their fault.  However, they still are not scientists. 

    I mention this because the word “science” is horribly misused these days.  You should be aware of it.  I hope to offer a number of installments on how this danger distorts reality, confuses issues and causes mischief.  This installment may have been necessary for you to understand the others.   Do try to remember it.    

YESTERDAY'S NEWS, BUT SOEM EVER USEFUL ADVICE

    RECENTLY Todd Akin, a Republican candidate for Senate, created headlines by stating some factual statements regarding rape and infanticide.  Our culture being what it is, this is now history---the kind that no one tries to remember.  However, I wanted to make another two points about what he said.  So, please indulge me. 

    Akin said that he was told by “some doctors” that, during a rape, and apparently right after, a woman’s body engages some defense mechanisms to prevent pregnancy.  He was, rather foolishly, adding this remark to his moral position that rape should not be revenged by killing an innocent child.  Abstract moral issues should NEVER be examined from the point of few of statistics.

    I offer my first of two points.  I know that, in recent years, the problem of female infertility has become widespread.  This is probably due to all the poisons (mostly contraceptives) that younger women ingest.  I once made this comment on a network TV talk show many years ago.  So doctors now often advise, usually older, women on how to increase the probability of pregnancy.  And these approaches are the exact opposite of the conditions for rape.  For example, IF being in love, happy, comfortable and relaxed increase the chance of pregnancy THEN the opposite conditions thus would reduce the chance of pregnancy.  And these opposite conditions are what occur during (as he put it) a “legitimate rape.”  Thus he was, and is, factually correct.  Rape is less likely to produce pregnancy than a similar but welcomed “activity.”

    I offer my second point.  It is significant not so much in itself but because of what it represents.  Akin reported what he HAD BEEN TOLD.  He did NOT offer medical opinion.  He repeated something in his memory.  The subject was what he claimed to have heard, and NOT what really happens.  In this case Akin can not be “wrong” in the normal sense of the word.  The doctors who informed him may have been wrong.  But Akin is not a doctor.  He is a candidate who remembered hearing something, and then repeated it.  He cited authorities.  When authorities are wrong those who cited them are not similarly wrong.  His opponents can call him a liar, and say that he made up these conversations.  But they can not otherwise attack his credibility.  Of course they did anyway. 

   The current culture seems to me to be filled with such basic errors.  Conservations, and often analysis, focus on the wrong point.  The nature of the topic is not understood. That is, the people, who are paid to pay attention to what is actually said, seldom do.  The Akin case was a perfect example.  NO ONE (except for me) noticed what was really said and not said. 

    The current level of intelligence is low enough and terrible weak.  We need no additional impediments.  So, as your useful advice today, I offer this.  Actually listen to what is said.  Ask yourself, and others, the following key question.  “What are we talking about?”  There is no charge.