Good Science, Bad Science, PseudoScience, Dogma, Common Sense, Religion and the Laws of Nature

 A defining characteristic of Homo sapiens is to make sense of things around them - the 'how?' and 'why?' of what is happening.  Wisdom gained from such curiosity driven enquiries - not equally possessed by other species - has helped us to become the most powerful species on earth. In two previous features (1, 2), I had discussed how our understanding of the laws of nature progressively improved over time - this process continues unabated in the present era.  Help from emerging technologies (microscopes, telescopes, digital devices etc.) has greatly increased the rate at which new understanding/insights, into how nature works, are being acquired.  

Of course, path to progress is never a straight one - it is full of detours, blind alleys and occasional blunders; due to inadequate means of observations, lack of direction and, not to be underestimated, less than perfect human psyche. 

Generally, our understanding of the laws of nature has improved with time - by building on previous wisdom and by further exploration of some remaining unexplained observations (accumulation of more empirical evidence). Existing laws are replaced by new to provide a more satisfactory explanation of what we observe.  This is the scientific method that has helped to place our understanding of the universe on a much firmer footing.  The work in science is never finished - older theories shall be modified or even discarded in the light of new evidence - nothing is 100%!

Attempts to understand and make sense of nature by our ancestors were hampered by a non-existence knowledge base and absence of any framework to guide them.  It is reasonable that early theories would appear simple minded and absolutely inadequate to us in the 21st century.  Nature is extremely complex and does not lend itself to simple interpretations.  It has been a slow process and only about 400 years ago, we arrived at a formal protocol for studying science - the scientific method - with emphasis on honesty, impartiality, meticulous planning and analysis. No matter how good a theory appears to work today, in future it may be modified or completely replaced by a better theory.    

How Human Psyche Influences Scientific Research:  Ideally, scientific investigations must be carried out in an objective manner as prescribed by the scientific method. In real life, human traits like cognitive biases, emotions, social and cultural dynamics profoundly affect planning, execution and interpretation of the scientific investigation.  It may be useful to look into this aspect in a bit more detail:

We pay more attention to data that support our existing ideas and overlook contradictory evidence (Confirmation/Expectation Bias).  Also, information supporting recent studies may be more appealing and readily accepted while other equally important information is ignored (Availability bias). We might be unduly influenced by the thinking of established authorities in the field (Authority Bias).  Additionally, one can suppress own dissenting opinions due to the desire for harmony and consensus with others (Groupthink). 

To curb these cognitive biases, one needs to follow transparent, open practices.  Reproducibility of results is an important check and hardly any empirical evidence is now certified valid without reasonable corroboration.

This brings us to explain what Good Science is.

 Good Science:  The purpose of science is to study the natural world and create a proper understanding of its working.  Good science studies the natural world by using observations/measurements that are impartial, verifiable, free from personal bias, reproducible and curiosity-driven.  Theories and hypotheses must not only explain the full empirical evidence but also make new predictions testable in a way that they could potentially be proven false - theory is reliable but must be open to further scrutiny.

An easy-to-read reference of some important landmark investigations that represent good science may be worth looking at.  A brief introduction to one such experiment follows:

The Rutherford Alpha Scattering Experiment:  Alpha particles were fired at a thin gold foil.  While most alphas passed straight through, a small fraction of alphas was observed to be unexpectedly deflected backwards at large angles.  This could only be explained if the positive charge and mass in gold atoms were concentrated in a tiny space (the nucleus) rather than distributed over the whole volume of the atom. The results replaced the plum-pudding model.

Bad Science: Research, while intending to be scientific, is flawed in its design, execution, or analysis.  Results from such studies would often be incorrect, unreproducible and/or misleading. They have the potential of doing much harm to the progress of scientific endeavour; peer-review of research before publication is a powerful way of preventing wider circulation of results from such bad science studies. I give an example that shows how bad science can happen and the checks and protocol of the scientific method can prevent misinformation and chaos that bad science is capable of:

Faster Than Light Neutrinos: Einstein's special theory of relativity says that nothing can travel faster than light - this is a core theory in physics.  In 2011, researchers sent a beam of neutrinos 730 km from CERN to the OPERA detector and measured their time of flight, and found that neutrino travelled slightly faster than light.  After much scrutiny and in view of scepticism of the result by many researchers, the finding were only reported in arXiv.org - a non-peer-reviewed open access archive. Subsequent investigations revealed that two pieces of equipment were faulty and the timing measurements were incorrect.  Neutrinos did not actually travel faster than light.

Pseudoscience (aka Fake Science):  is something that looks like science, but is somehow false, misleading, or unproven. It certainly does not follow the scientific method.  Pseudoscience suffers from lack of reproducibility, ignores contradictory evidence (cherry-picking), rely on cognitive bias, and is not peer-reviewed.  

I refer you to my feature on pseudoscience for a more detailed description.  Misinformation via pseudoscience is becoming a major problem in today's world due to the rise of profit-seeking big business (tobacco and food industries) and interest groups driven by some ideologies (climate-change deniers).  Social media plays an important role in giving free unchecked publicity to such pseudoscientists as their pronouncements can reach us without going through peer-review and not meeting the criteria of good science required by the scientific method.  

Natural world operates on a complex set of rules - pseudoscience flourishes by providing  simple explanations that many might find easier to accept. Health-related pseudoscience offers false hope or easy solutions to complex problems, sometimes leading to dangerous (but avoidable) health consequences. 

Wiki has a long list of pseudoscience examples and is worth a look.  I list a few:  Astrology,  Modern Flat-Earth Beliefs, Climate-change denial, Phrenology, Palmistry, and many more.

Dogma:  

" I would rather have a question I cannot answer than an answer I cannot question"                                           ... Richard Feynman

Dogma refer to principles that are accepted, without question, as undeniably true and impossible to dispute, contradict, or doubt. They are antithesis to good science as dogma resist being tested by available new evidence. They are very difficult to change.

Generally, religion is the first system that comes to mind when we think about dogma (e.g. Trinity or Mary's Immaculate Conception in Christianity, Islam), but dogma encompasses rigidly held ideas which can not be questioned  in any system - be it politics (totalitarianism, Marxism, national sovereignty) or science (geocentric model of the universe, several of Aristotle's theories, Luminiferous Aether,, Bloodletting - medical science). The situation in science has improved greatly since the adoption of the scientific method of inquiry - it is possible to challenge existing rules/theories and replace them by new if found insufficient.  This has been very effective.

By suppressing questioning, dogmatism excludes possibility of acquiring better understanding and challenging mistakes.  This does not serve us well.    

Why does dogma arise?  For this, we need to have an understanding of the world that humans live in - it is a complex world and to deal with it, we have many evolutionary attributes or cognitive biases - short-cuts to conserve energy, time and effort.  Humans need certainty (confirmation bias);  we need to live in societies, feel in control and still have an individual identity.  We look for security  - a rigid dogmatic regime provides this by simplifying things.  

The downside of dogma is that it is easily exploited by those in authority and used as a means of control. This is very well expressed in the following slide (extract from Big Ideas) 

It is not easy to change dogmas - you are in a state of mind when you have full confidence in the validity of what you currently believe.  It may be that you arrived there through brainwashing, fear or coercion but that is where you are. 

To combat dogmatism, challenge your own beliefs, be open-minded, create cognitive flexibility, seek new friends, practise mindfulness.  It is difficult!  

Common Sense & Religion:  I refer to the two features that I have published for this topic  - Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2. 

End Note:  The various sections in this article highlight the contradictions of our present day societies.  Good science has opened new vistas with wonderful technological achievements that has 'improved' our lives in a big way.  We also have a much better understanding of how the world works with new research addressing many of the remaining unanswered questions.  One would think that in the current environment, irrational and retrograde thinking will subside.  The evidence available just now does not support this view - the world is full of pseudoscientific and dogmatic thinking.  Why is it so?  May be the answer lies in the way sapiens have evolved - our executive function brain (the prefrontal cortex) and the limbic brain always seem to be at loggerheads.  The limbic brain controls the fast-acting, emotional and survival-driven tendencies - with finite energy resources and time constraints, limbic brain is still the main actor in our day-to-day functioning.  As somebody aptly said;

"Physically and cognitively, we are hunter-gatherers in Hugo Boss suits"

Thanks for reading ...

Laws of Nature, Common Sense and Religion in Early Societies (Part 2)

 This is a reposting of a previous feature from 2013.

In Part 1 we had discussed why common sense is fundamentally incapable of explaining and making sense of the world we live in.  Simply, it is a matter of scale.  The world operates at the atomic/molecular level (~0.000001 mm or a nano meter) where particles move near the speed of light (300,000 km/sec) while common sense is built up over centuries from observations made by our senses operating at distances typically greater than 0.1 mm and speeds less than 0.1 km/sec.  Additionally, time scales for understanding fundamental chemical and biological processes are less than a billionth of a second, more than a million times faster than our reaction time.

To understand the working of the natural world using common sense is like trying to understand the geography of the UK by standing at a corner in George Square in Glasgow! An impossible task.

We had built up a whole series of laws by extrapolating what we could observe with our senses - that is until about 500 years ago when technological advances started to extend the limits of our observations. The rest is history; now in the 21st Century, we are truly appreciating the intricacies of the natural world and I believe, correctly formulating the laws governing it - the laws of nature. Theories of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have made possible the development of new technologies - digital, nano-, bio-, medicine and many others.  Life without these is unimaginable. To somebody living in the 19th Century, the technology today will be science fiction.

Humans like to make sense of things.  With extremely limited empirical information, acquired through our senses, for our ancestors it would have been impossible to explain much of what was happening around us. Natural phenomena like rain, thunder, lightening, tides, storms, earthquakes, motion of heavenly bodies, infectious/mental and other diseases etc. are mediated by causes well outside the range of human perception.  Theories and explanations would be put forward – of course different in different societies – to make sense of such events.  This can give rise to beliefs, customs, rituals, superstitions etc.
Who controls the clockwork-like motion of heavenly bodies; what causes earthquakes and storms? There has to be some almighty, omniscient being looking over the working of nature, controlling everything happening on the Earth.   
Reproduction and death were mysteries.  What happens after death would be a great puzzle.  Losing a loved one for ever is difficult and it would be natural to assume that he/she comes back to life again at some other place and time. Alternately, after death the person would go to some other unknown world where he/she will have access to all the comforts and good life, may be not available when alive.  
A mind full of a large number of unanswerable questions is very receptive to any suggestion that can even partially reduce the bewilderment.  

In distant past humans, with nomadic lifestyle, did not have a great deal of interaction with others.  They were preoccupied with the problems of survival - finding food and shelter was more important than worrying about the philosophical questions of how and why of things.  As humans started to settle in communities - particularly after discovering agriculture - they started to face a whole set of new problems.  In a community, one has to live in close proximity with the neighbours, there is more time to reflect on the natural phenomena around you and people would be living longer so there would be more continuity between generations.  Some sort of tradition will begun to be defined.  

Having evolved from the apes and with the history of struggle to survive, human nature would have the tendency to be selfish - hoarding of food and providing comfort to the family must have been of utmost importance. Physical strength would help to grab more land for growing food and to ensure security.  How does a community survive when everybody is fighting for a bigger share of whatever is available?  There is no point if the mightiest kills all the neighbours; then we are back to nomadic lifestyle. One needs a system of government and rules of conduct and, of course, punishment.      

If I am an intelligent person then I could exploit the situation by solving all the problems in one stroke.  I would attribute all the natural phenomena to an almighty who is benevolent by giving us rain for growing food, wood for making our huts, cows for milk etc. but will punish our collective bad behaviour by bringing storms, earthquakes, diseases and other natural calamities.  Someone who will nourish us but also punish us. He will also tell us how to behave in the community.  This code of conduct will be given to the community through a medium - somebody who can communicate with the almighty being.  Humans are too ignorant and too frail to question what the almighty decides - they must accept without question what is being decided for them.  They must have faith - blind faith is better as this makes the implementation of rules easier ensuring stability of the society. 
We have religion with an almighty God who we must try our best to please.  We have to have a prophet who can bring the message and the priests who can interpret the word of God for the common man.

Let us face it, most of the humans are not that clever.  They are already confused with what is happening around them in nature and about their safety and well-being.  A good lazy way for them will be to follow the code of conduct - it comes with the additional promise of good life after death. To keep reminding the community about the rules of conduct, we have to have beliefs, rituals and superstitions  - if faith is strong then all these make good sense - the main thing is not to question, just follow.

Of course, different regions will have their own unique way of describing God and the rules of conduct, rituals etc.  It does not really matter as nobody is there to question?  If one falls out of line - faith is shaken - then the community can take care of that by removing the unfaithful altogether. The good of the community is paramount and the chief priest can always decide what God wants - he has a direct line to Him.
One can have one God or several Gods looking after different issues. You can have unwritten code of conduct, everything is verbal (easier to modify) or you can have one book or several describing the will of God.  One does not even have to have a God - it could be just an energy field or an abstract being - who is somehow passionately concerned about the earthlings and their welfare.  As long there is unquestioning faith, the system can and has worked.  And it has worked for several millenia.

The question is how do the laws of nature (derived from the empirical evidence) and religion (needed historically to make sense of things) live side by side.  Things will be straightforward but for the idiosyncrasies of the human mind.  We shall leave this for the next instalment.

Laws of Nature and Common Sense (Part 1)

 This is a reposting of a previous feature from 2013

Common sense is what we humans live by – it is kind of wisdom gained from experience over many generations. Humans experience the world through the five senses, but importantly we also use our intelligence to perform cause and effect analysis of what has been happening around us to understand how the world behaves. 
Common sense has worked very well and has ensured the survival of the human race; particularly, in the avoidance of dangerous and harmful situations.  Human societies evolved to preserve and enhance the species.  Shared knowledge and effort proved useful in meeting adverse situations and quality of life improved rapidly as humans started to live together in social groups.  
Survival of human societies is a multifaceted situation; they not only have to guard against the hostile physical environment around them but also against other fellow humans who are driven by greed, violence and other undesirable traits.  Humans have always enjoyed exercising power and control over others around them. This is a classic example of conflicting requirements – living in societies is beneficial but at the same time exposes one to potentially dangerous elements of oppression and exploitation.  How humans dealt with this is fascinating and will be discussed in a future blog.
How does our common sense relate to the laws of nature is what we wish to look at first.  The difference is in the scope of the evidence available.

Laws of nature are deduced from experimental observations at all possible levels of space and time.  As human ability improves to expand such observations to wider regions of space and time, laws of nature are modified or even replaced by a different set of laws.  Fine-tuning of the laws is fundamental to their authenticity and acceptance.  The current set is the best available to make sense of what the empirical evidence tells us. 

Common sense is much more restricted in terms of empirical evidence at its disposal.  Without technological aids - and most human experiences have been in such conditions - humans really occupy a small region roughly in the middle of space-time expanse.   Their experiences are limited in size, speed, time, colour, frequency etc.  Quantitatively: We experience

Physical dimensions from ~0.01 mm to a few hundred km. 
Speeds vary from rest to a few tens of km/hour.
Time is restricted to our reaction time of the order of 10 ms to a few hundred years.
Colour is perceived in the narrow wavelength range of 0.4 to 0.8 micron                                       (1 micron = 0.001 mm)
Perception of sound is limited to frequencies less than about 20 kHz.

Animal species do better in colour and sound perception due to the evolutionary need to protect themselves against predators etc.

Humans mainly perceive the world around them through light which travels at the fantastic speed of 300,000 km per second; this gives the feeling of instantaneous communication – things are happening as we see them.

Natural phenomena like rain, thunder, lightening, tides, storms, earthquakes, motion of heavenly bodies, infectious/mental and other diseases etc. were mediated by causes outside the range of human perception.  Theories and explanations were put forward – of course different in different societies – to make sense of such events.  This can give rise to beliefs, customs, rituals, superstitions etc. 
We shall return to this later in Part 2.

Limited scope of human experience, nevertheless, provided some quite sensible and workable theories about the way the world operates – kind of ‘limited’ laws of nature.  In good true scientific spirit a law would get modified when the evidence against it became overwhelming.  Sometimes it would require great sacrifices as changing a law might encumber on the interests/dogma of the powerful in the society. 

Situation started to improve about 500 years ago with the acceptance that experiment based evidence could not be ignored and must be taken into account in formulating so called laws of nature.  Technological advances helped in removing many of the limits to observations – in space, time and other areas.  Common sense inspired laws of nature started to be replaced by the new physics at the turn of the 20^th century and in the short span of 25 years the acceptance of the new laws of relativistic and quantum physics was overwhelming. 

While common sense laws are arrived at through observations, mostly visual, and rely on the behaviour of matter around us at the macroscopic scale of dimensions greater than about 1 micron (0.001 mm), laws of nature (physics) are determined in the way elementary particles, typically of dimensions less than 0.001 micron, interact with each other.  These interactions are of four types:

gravitational (G), 

electromagnetic (EM), 

strong nuclear (SN) and 

weak nuclear (WN).  

G and EM are long range and affect matter at all distances. SN and WN are relevant only at nuclear dimensions with distances of the order of a billionth of a micron or less!   
Chemical and biological properties are determined by EM forces acting between atoms and molecules at distances of the order of 0.001 microns and may not be properly understood through evidence from everyday experience. Old theories based on human experiences have been unable to make good sense of chemistry and life sciences.
Motion of heavenly bodies is governed by gravitational forces but mostly involves distances far greater than our senses can be sensitive to.  That is why there has been so much confusion about this subject in historical accounts.  Newton's laws of gravitational attraction explained the way heavenly bodies are organised in the sky but a proper understanding of the Universe had to wait for the theories of relativity and the development of nuclear sciences. 

The world of atoms and nuclei was latent to our ancestors as the distances involved were unimaginably small and even their existence could not be contemplated. Understanding the true nature of atoms and nuclei only started at the turn of the 20^th century and this has created the atmosphere in which modern industry could start.  Nuclear energy, Nanotechnology, Computers, Biotechnology, Space Exploration all owe their success to the laws of nature enunciated through empirical evidence acquired through development in technology in the 19th and 20^th centuries.  Without this mind-set, modern industry would not even be science fiction.

Another interesting aspect of this discussion is the emergence of paradoxes.  A language that is weakly developed will be unable to describe a situation that is highly complex – the vocabulary is just not there.  A good example of a paradox is the wave-particle duality in classical physics (mostly based on common sense observations).  In our daily lives we see objects behave like material particles or as undulating waves in motion.  We do not have objects that switch between being waves and particles at different times.  This was the situation until the end of the 19^th century when light was observed to exhibit properties akin to waves in some experiments but behaved exactly like a stream of particles in others.  The situation was resolved and explained by quantum description of light in 1925.  Now, we know that everything in the universe shows wave-particle duality and it is just our attempt to classify things as either waves or particles that is flawed.  We are using the wrong language for our description.

It is not that there are no paradoxes in the modern theories.  There are many and this simply points to the fact that, while we have a much better understanding of the world we live in, we have more to learn and the laws of nature will be rewritten differently in the future.