The Wandering Skeptic
Friday, November 30, 2001
On God and Evolution
Science and religion aren't necessarily enemies; often, they provide distinct explanations for a situation and do not intersect. However, some biologists have taken it too far in the direction of naturalism and atheism. They conclude from their analysis of evolution that natural selection works quite as expected: that is, it follows from the chance and contingency inherent in nature as we know it. This I agree with. But then they go on to say that God then becomes irrelevant. If no mover of evolution is needed, and nature is self-contained and self-sufficient, then there is no room for God in the process. As Dawkins puts it: "In Darwin's view, the whole point of the theory of evolution by natural selection was that it provided a non-miraculous account of the existence of complex adaptations" (his italics).
But why must God work only in miraculous ways? It may be, as some say, that God is in the details. Human application of the laws of probability to practical situations is limited by our inability to understand all the forces that induce randomness. Somewhere, at the microscopic level, we lose our perception to Heisenberg's uncertainty and to cost and time limitations. We cannot predict everything, and so we call that set of things random. In the case of evolution, we are talking about the random mutations that provide genetic variation, as well as the macroscopic randomness of climate, terrain, etc. But let us focus for now on the mutations. If God does not always need to proceed by miracles, then he may very well proceed within that set of things beyond the powers of human observation. He may imperceptably nudge a gene one way, and create unpredictable conditions unfavorable to the survival of another gene. Perhaps the randomness that we cannot account for is the true domain of God.
A legitimate concern is: why God? Why not aliens, or ghosts, or demons? Because we are not interested here in rationalizing God or defining his existence. There is a direct conflict between religion and science on the topic of evolution, and this is an attempt to reconcile it without heading to extremes. The explanation is one, I think, that fits well with religious literature and does not contravene what most people believe about God. Although I agree with Dawkins that evolution is blind, I can also see, on the other hand, why God would not create a perfect world. I have always imagined God as a caretaker, not a ruler. He prods here and there, and imperfections arise not because his plans were wrong per se, but because he leaves many more things up to nature and allows for true randomness. This is, perhaps, fundamental to my belief in free will. But I digress. Whether you believe in God or not, the space left over by naturalistic evolution is the proper home for a religious interpretation. Science and religion need not intersect, they need not conflict, and they need not preclude the veracity of the other. ¶ 11:11 PM
Science and religion aren't necessarily enemies; often, they provide distinct explanations for a situation and do not intersect. However, some biologists have taken it too far in the direction of naturalism and atheism. They conclude from their analysis of evolution that natural selection works quite as expected: that is, it follows from the chance and contingency inherent in nature as we know it. This I agree with. But then they go on to say that God then becomes irrelevant. If no mover of evolution is needed, and nature is self-contained and self-sufficient, then there is no room for God in the process. As Dawkins puts it: "In Darwin's view, the whole point of the theory of evolution by natural selection was that it provided a non-miraculous account of the existence of complex adaptations" (his italics).
But why must God work only in miraculous ways? It may be, as some say, that God is in the details. Human application of the laws of probability to practical situations is limited by our inability to understand all the forces that induce randomness. Somewhere, at the microscopic level, we lose our perception to Heisenberg's uncertainty and to cost and time limitations. We cannot predict everything, and so we call that set of things random. In the case of evolution, we are talking about the random mutations that provide genetic variation, as well as the macroscopic randomness of climate, terrain, etc. But let us focus for now on the mutations. If God does not always need to proceed by miracles, then he may very well proceed within that set of things beyond the powers of human observation. He may imperceptably nudge a gene one way, and create unpredictable conditions unfavorable to the survival of another gene. Perhaps the randomness that we cannot account for is the true domain of God.
A legitimate concern is: why God? Why not aliens, or ghosts, or demons? Because we are not interested here in rationalizing God or defining his existence. There is a direct conflict between religion and science on the topic of evolution, and this is an attempt to reconcile it without heading to extremes. The explanation is one, I think, that fits well with religious literature and does not contravene what most people believe about God. Although I agree with Dawkins that evolution is blind, I can also see, on the other hand, why God would not create a perfect world. I have always imagined God as a caretaker, not a ruler. He prods here and there, and imperfections arise not because his plans were wrong per se, but because he leaves many more things up to nature and allows for true randomness. This is, perhaps, fundamental to my belief in free will. But I digress. Whether you believe in God or not, the space left over by naturalistic evolution is the proper home for a religious interpretation. Science and religion need not intersect, they need not conflict, and they need not preclude the veracity of the other. ¶ 11:11 PM
Thursday, November 29, 2001
Finally updated the "Future Topics" page.
¶ 2:30 AM
Monday, November 26, 2001
A (bad) Review of The Blind Watchmaker
[I posted this review to amazon.com, so it's quite short, uncomprehensive, and was frankly rushed. Unfortunately, they rejected my revision (now lost forever), which was longer and far more accurate regarding my views. I'll post more about what I really think about the book later. I feel this was very poorly written, but I guess it's "official" as far as amazon is concerned...]
To most of those who unfavorably reviewed this book: did you even read it? One review states that evolution is not reproducible: something that biologists throughout the world reproduce daily, with mice, worms, and flies. Many reviews claim that the blind forces of nature render our lives meaningless or without "transcendental purpose." Why? Is it really so inconceivable that luck and blind forces could produce something wonderful? Is it impossible that our human intelligence, the products of natural selection, cannot find its own purposes in a world filled with amazing biological tales? The absence of a creator's hand in evolution does not mean that we cannot carve out our own meaningful place in the history of the universe.
As for the book itself, I most certainly can sympathize with detractors who say that Dawkins is often pompous and egoistic. But the factual basis of his arguments remain solid, with all aspects of current biology daily providing further supports for models of evolution. The basic gist of evolution as is stands today is this: if evolution were incorrect, none of what geneticists do in the lab should work. Making a fly with legs instead of antennae is done precisely based on the assumption that genes, as Dawkins describe them, have flowed continuously down through time as selfish genes. Every further advancement in genetics is a tacit proof of evolution, for without evolution, the functioning of modern genetics would be nothing short of a miracle. ¶ 12:36 AM
[I posted this review to amazon.com, so it's quite short, uncomprehensive, and was frankly rushed. Unfortunately, they rejected my revision (now lost forever), which was longer and far more accurate regarding my views. I'll post more about what I really think about the book later. I feel this was very poorly written, but I guess it's "official" as far as amazon is concerned...]
To most of those who unfavorably reviewed this book: did you even read it? One review states that evolution is not reproducible: something that biologists throughout the world reproduce daily, with mice, worms, and flies. Many reviews claim that the blind forces of nature render our lives meaningless or without "transcendental purpose." Why? Is it really so inconceivable that luck and blind forces could produce something wonderful? Is it impossible that our human intelligence, the products of natural selection, cannot find its own purposes in a world filled with amazing biological tales? The absence of a creator's hand in evolution does not mean that we cannot carve out our own meaningful place in the history of the universe.
As for the book itself, I most certainly can sympathize with detractors who say that Dawkins is often pompous and egoistic. But the factual basis of his arguments remain solid, with all aspects of current biology daily providing further supports for models of evolution. The basic gist of evolution as is stands today is this: if evolution were incorrect, none of what geneticists do in the lab should work. Making a fly with legs instead of antennae is done precisely based on the assumption that genes, as Dawkins describe them, have flowed continuously down through time as selfish genes. Every further advancement in genetics is a tacit proof of evolution, for without evolution, the functioning of modern genetics would be nothing short of a miracle. ¶ 12:36 AM
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
I'll be gone for the next 5-6 days for Thanksgiving vacation.
¶ 11:14 PM
Monday, November 19, 2001
An extension of the 11/14 essay on statistics
There is an argument (made by Richard Dawkins) that if there are 100 billion billion planets in the universe, the maximal improbability of life arising in the universe is 1 in 100 billion billion, since we know it to have arisen at least once, on Earth. But this is invalid for the same reason as our researcher with his coin: the odds may actually be much worse against life arising. Perhaps it is 1 in 1 trillion trillion, and we simply got lucky.
Imagine if all the planets in the universe were created one by one, and on the 100 billion billionth planet, Earth, life arose. Like our researcher who keeps flipping the coin, the only way to know the maximal improbability is to go on creating planets until life arose again. We have no way of finding what that improbability is, since we don't have enough positive points to establish the right number. We only have one: Earth. ¶ 1:04 PM
There is an argument (made by Richard Dawkins) that if there are 100 billion billion planets in the universe, the maximal improbability of life arising in the universe is 1 in 100 billion billion, since we know it to have arisen at least once, on Earth. But this is invalid for the same reason as our researcher with his coin: the odds may actually be much worse against life arising. Perhaps it is 1 in 1 trillion trillion, and we simply got lucky.
Imagine if all the planets in the universe were created one by one, and on the 100 billion billionth planet, Earth, life arose. Like our researcher who keeps flipping the coin, the only way to know the maximal improbability is to go on creating planets until life arose again. We have no way of finding what that improbability is, since we don't have enough positive points to establish the right number. We only have one: Earth. ¶ 1:04 PM
Wednesday, November 14, 2001
On Probabilities in Research
In research, there is often a tendency to extrapolate probabilities from insufficient amounts of data, particularly when the measured event is rare. For example, if 100 cells are grown, and one of them becomes cancerous, some researchers are tempted to conclude that the probability of cells becoming cancerous is 1/100. Hopefully, you can spot the fallacy in this type of reasoning.
However, in the course of actual research, the numbers aren't so simple or small, and the fallacy perhaps not so obvious. Such probability calculations are extracted from mountains of complex and confusing data, so that the researchers, even if they understand the principle, might still be caught in the fallacy.
But to get at the underlying problem, we must turn again to simple examples. Let's say that the chances of flipping a penny and having it land perfectly on its edge happens once in a million times. Let's say a researcher, not knowing this number beforehand, happens to flip the penny on its edge on the 10,000th flip. Does he stop here and conclude that it happens 1/10,000 times? Or does he continue and see when the next edge-landing happens? Obviously, he continues. It is much more solid proof when you have 10/10,000,000 landings than when you have 1/10,000.
Yet this is exactly what happens in many research labs, on a wider and more complex scale. One or a few positives are obtained and the odds are determined from those few points. There is no indication in the discussion that the trials were simply lucky and chanced upon the positive results before reaching the maximal probability, much like our hypothetical researcher flipping the coin on its edge on the ten thousandth try.
As statistics have an aura of infallibility around them in the mass media, scientists must continue to be careful that only sound statistics are published. Data dealing with rare events must not be rushed to publication, but left to germinate further positives. The stranger the event, the more proof is required. ¶ 1:15 PM
In research, there is often a tendency to extrapolate probabilities from insufficient amounts of data, particularly when the measured event is rare. For example, if 100 cells are grown, and one of them becomes cancerous, some researchers are tempted to conclude that the probability of cells becoming cancerous is 1/100. Hopefully, you can spot the fallacy in this type of reasoning.
However, in the course of actual research, the numbers aren't so simple or small, and the fallacy perhaps not so obvious. Such probability calculations are extracted from mountains of complex and confusing data, so that the researchers, even if they understand the principle, might still be caught in the fallacy.
But to get at the underlying problem, we must turn again to simple examples. Let's say that the chances of flipping a penny and having it land perfectly on its edge happens once in a million times. Let's say a researcher, not knowing this number beforehand, happens to flip the penny on its edge on the 10,000th flip. Does he stop here and conclude that it happens 1/10,000 times? Or does he continue and see when the next edge-landing happens? Obviously, he continues. It is much more solid proof when you have 10/10,000,000 landings than when you have 1/10,000.
Yet this is exactly what happens in many research labs, on a wider and more complex scale. One or a few positives are obtained and the odds are determined from those few points. There is no indication in the discussion that the trials were simply lucky and chanced upon the positive results before reaching the maximal probability, much like our hypothetical researcher flipping the coin on its edge on the ten thousandth try.
As statistics have an aura of infallibility around them in the mass media, scientists must continue to be careful that only sound statistics are published. Data dealing with rare events must not be rushed to publication, but left to germinate further positives. The stranger the event, the more proof is required. ¶ 1:15 PM
Friday, November 09, 2001
Something Awful takes on Scientology with satire, oft of the funny variety. I give a round of applause to Lowtax and Zack for taking on such a formidable foe that has crushed so many others with their lawyers. Though the site (which, for those of you who may not know, is a gaming/humor/satire site) purposefully perverts some facts regarding L. Ron, they leave enough of the truth in the satire for you to get an idea of how Scientology has managed to creep across America over the last half century like a cancer. Trust humor to get the word out where serious skepticism may not.
¶ 12:35 AM
Monday, November 05, 2001
Sorry things didn't get updated for about 3 weeks. The FTP server was bugged, and didn't recognize my password. There's a couple essays in between, and some more to come.
¶ 7:31 PM
Sunday, November 04, 2001
On Reality TV Shows
[This is an article I wrote last year for a University of Chicago students' magazine.]
Reality TV shows seem to have an uncanny draw: a miraculous hold on America’s collective attention-span for which the reasons apparently lie hidden under the shadows of corporate malfeasance. Yet the motivations of millions who watch Survivor II, Temptation Island, The Mole, and The Real World may be much closer to the roots of the American psyche than many have guessed.
Certainly, the concepts of escapism and vicariousness, the love of thrills, suspense, and sexuality, and even sadism – all reasons that journalists have pointed towards in attempting to describe the phenomenon – are probable contributors. However, I posit that a more fundamental desire drives our nation’s infatuation with such programs: there exists in America – more now than ever – a wish to learn more about the complex processes that define human behavior.
Now, I’m not saying that your average couch potato turns on CBS with the hopes of becoming the next Freud. Rather, theirs is a subconscious desire sewn into their minds by the social environment of modern America. There is exponentially rising scientific progress, and there is a popularization of homeopathy; there is political correctness, and there are ever more radical forays into sociology and psychology. Ours is a time where we are taught to seek balance between selfishness and selflessness. Nothing new, you say, but what sets us apart from our forbears is the advent of instant communication: cell phones and the internet, faxes and satellite television. This has exposed us to dizzying levels of variation in espoused doctrines on how one should achieve the aforementioned balance. Progress, homeopathy, political correctness, and radical intellectualism are all examples of just such varied and opposing dogmas of self-help.
Thus, in their ineluctable state of confusion, people have turned to their own observation as a means of obtaining clarity. Enter the reality shows.
The Real World arrived over eight years ago on MTV, drawing instant popularity among high school and college students (who, many would argue, are the most confused of all). There were discussions in dorms and hallways all over America about which Real World participant would do what, who would leave, and who was tricking whom. Thus, what the show did was to provide a public arena for showcasing basic human interactions. And people loved dissecting them, predicting outcomes, and asking the question "what would you do?" For many viewers, the spontaneity of the show was preferred to the fiction of scripted shows like soap operas because – though neither accurately reflect reality – the Real World contained more natural reactions to human behavior.
Survivor appeared last year, extending the viewing demographic of reality shows to older audiences. The same type of questions surfaced: "what would you do?" "what would I do?" "why did he/she react that way?" The inescapable topic of voting off participants stimulated even more discussion, as it touched directly on the selfish/selfless balance with the time-worn lure of money as the crux of the moral dilemma.
Temptation Island and The Mole added new elements to the mix this year: sex and subterfuge, respectively. Temptation Island titillates viewers with the possibility that sex is a more powerful force than love. Though certainly not the intent of its creators, the show presents a challenge to the viewer’s perception of evolution and social growth: are humans as rational as we hope, or are we still bound to our animal instincts? The Mole likewise challenges the viewer, in this case with the ability to distinguish between acting (the titular Mole) and bona fide human reactions (the other contestants).
The point of all this is to say that the popularity of the shows is governed by Americans’ desires to act as independent sociologists; people wish to discover the truth for themselves as to how humans do and should behave. Ultimately, the hope is that this truth will allow them to choose more wisely among possible routes to balancing their lives. I’m not saying that this will actually work to improve America; it is merely my explanation for the fad. In fact, I believe that the morally irresponsible handling of the shows are more likely to damage than help, but that lies beyond the focus of this essay.
One might raise the objection that these shows are far from representative of reality (I’ve already admitted as much), and that therefore my deductions are baseless: how can the audience hope to learn about human behavior from situations that are clearly improbable in reality? Imagine, then, if you will, that the various islands are not islands at all, but mazes; that the contestants are not humans, but mice; and that the money is actually a piece of cheese. Here, then, we have a classic experiment in behavioral study: a situation clearly improbable in nature, yet very telling about the rational capabilities of mice.
The advantage of reality shows over, say, a home video, is that on Survivor, the examples of human behavior are not only compressed into a short time span, but are also subject to conditions of stress which produce a wide range of emotions and their corresponding intensity. There is a necessary sacrifice of time and reality in providing suitable sociological fodder for the masses. Furthermore, they provide guarantees that the contestants are average people "just like you and I," so that as viewers learn about the contestants, the belief is that they learn more about themselves.
It may seem as though I’m giving too great a weight to the role of reality shows in modern society. Not so. My attribution of intellectual stimulation to these shows is not a commendation of their existence. Rather, these shows are merely fortuitous (for television executives) creations that happen to come along at a time when they can capitalize on current social leanings. I am quite as sick of Survivor-mania as many of you reading this article, but the craze will not go away so long as Americans continue to invest their subconscious hopes in learning from the actions of people voting each other off of islands.
¶ 6:58 PM
[This is an article I wrote last year for a University of Chicago students' magazine.]
Reality TV shows seem to have an uncanny draw: a miraculous hold on America’s collective attention-span for which the reasons apparently lie hidden under the shadows of corporate malfeasance. Yet the motivations of millions who watch Survivor II, Temptation Island, The Mole, and The Real World may be much closer to the roots of the American psyche than many have guessed.
Certainly, the concepts of escapism and vicariousness, the love of thrills, suspense, and sexuality, and even sadism – all reasons that journalists have pointed towards in attempting to describe the phenomenon – are probable contributors. However, I posit that a more fundamental desire drives our nation’s infatuation with such programs: there exists in America – more now than ever – a wish to learn more about the complex processes that define human behavior.
Now, I’m not saying that your average couch potato turns on CBS with the hopes of becoming the next Freud. Rather, theirs is a subconscious desire sewn into their minds by the social environment of modern America. There is exponentially rising scientific progress, and there is a popularization of homeopathy; there is political correctness, and there are ever more radical forays into sociology and psychology. Ours is a time where we are taught to seek balance between selfishness and selflessness. Nothing new, you say, but what sets us apart from our forbears is the advent of instant communication: cell phones and the internet, faxes and satellite television. This has exposed us to dizzying levels of variation in espoused doctrines on how one should achieve the aforementioned balance. Progress, homeopathy, political correctness, and radical intellectualism are all examples of just such varied and opposing dogmas of self-help.
Thus, in their ineluctable state of confusion, people have turned to their own observation as a means of obtaining clarity. Enter the reality shows.
The Real World arrived over eight years ago on MTV, drawing instant popularity among high school and college students (who, many would argue, are the most confused of all). There were discussions in dorms and hallways all over America about which Real World participant would do what, who would leave, and who was tricking whom. Thus, what the show did was to provide a public arena for showcasing basic human interactions. And people loved dissecting them, predicting outcomes, and asking the question "what would you do?" For many viewers, the spontaneity of the show was preferred to the fiction of scripted shows like soap operas because – though neither accurately reflect reality – the Real World contained more natural reactions to human behavior.
Survivor appeared last year, extending the viewing demographic of reality shows to older audiences. The same type of questions surfaced: "what would you do?" "what would I do?" "why did he/she react that way?" The inescapable topic of voting off participants stimulated even more discussion, as it touched directly on the selfish/selfless balance with the time-worn lure of money as the crux of the moral dilemma.
Temptation Island and The Mole added new elements to the mix this year: sex and subterfuge, respectively. Temptation Island titillates viewers with the possibility that sex is a more powerful force than love. Though certainly not the intent of its creators, the show presents a challenge to the viewer’s perception of evolution and social growth: are humans as rational as we hope, or are we still bound to our animal instincts? The Mole likewise challenges the viewer, in this case with the ability to distinguish between acting (the titular Mole) and bona fide human reactions (the other contestants).
The point of all this is to say that the popularity of the shows is governed by Americans’ desires to act as independent sociologists; people wish to discover the truth for themselves as to how humans do and should behave. Ultimately, the hope is that this truth will allow them to choose more wisely among possible routes to balancing their lives. I’m not saying that this will actually work to improve America; it is merely my explanation for the fad. In fact, I believe that the morally irresponsible handling of the shows are more likely to damage than help, but that lies beyond the focus of this essay.
One might raise the objection that these shows are far from representative of reality (I’ve already admitted as much), and that therefore my deductions are baseless: how can the audience hope to learn about human behavior from situations that are clearly improbable in reality? Imagine, then, if you will, that the various islands are not islands at all, but mazes; that the contestants are not humans, but mice; and that the money is actually a piece of cheese. Here, then, we have a classic experiment in behavioral study: a situation clearly improbable in nature, yet very telling about the rational capabilities of mice.
The advantage of reality shows over, say, a home video, is that on Survivor, the examples of human behavior are not only compressed into a short time span, but are also subject to conditions of stress which produce a wide range of emotions and their corresponding intensity. There is a necessary sacrifice of time and reality in providing suitable sociological fodder for the masses. Furthermore, they provide guarantees that the contestants are average people "just like you and I," so that as viewers learn about the contestants, the belief is that they learn more about themselves.
It may seem as though I’m giving too great a weight to the role of reality shows in modern society. Not so. My attribution of intellectual stimulation to these shows is not a commendation of their existence. Rather, these shows are merely fortuitous (for television executives) creations that happen to come along at a time when they can capitalize on current social leanings. I am quite as sick of Survivor-mania as many of you reading this article, but the craze will not go away so long as Americans continue to invest their subconscious hopes in learning from the actions of people voting each other off of islands.
¶ 6:58 PM
