Skeptico

More Bingo

Following my Creationist Bingo and Psychic Bingo (sorry, that should be “pretend-psychic”/ “cold-reader” bingo), cards, TechSkeptic just developed an on-line Topical Bingo playable version which includes explanations for the squares – a brief debunking of the creationist arguments used. Check them out. Right click each square for the relevant explanation. You’ll need to download the .Net framework (the download link is also on the site) unless you have Vista, but I managed to do that so it can’t be too difficult.

Currently he has only the creationist bingo with the explanations/ debunkings, but more are to follow including for non-evidence based medicine and global warming denial. I’m sure he’ll appreciate any comments or suggestions.

ALF Terrorists

Well, they did it. In November I wrote about how the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) flooded the house of a scientist who was involved in animal research. They said they really wanted to torch the house, but just flooded it instead. What heroes. Via BPSDP to Blue Collar Scientist, I just learned they came back on February 4^th and set an incendiary device on her porch. I’m not sure how much damage was caused, but the device apparently did ignite and cause some damage. 

Morons.

Denialism Blog has more. 

What’s The Harm?

That’s often the fallback of woos when the lack of evidence for their claims is exposed – “what’s the harm?” The desperate last argument goes something like, “OK, maybe there’s no evidence for [brand of woo], but what’s the harm in believing it?” Of course, it’s a red herring - paint the skeptics as mean for arguing against their harmless woo, and they can escape having to admit their woo is nonsense.

Of course, woo does cause harm. Just ask Mark Klass or the parents of Shawn Hornbeck, for example. Or the police who are forced to waste time chasing the lame guesses of “psychics” such as Allison Dubois. Don’t forget the time wasted by the authorities looking for Elizabeth Smart’s dead body where the PsiTech fraudsters claimed it was buried.

So called “alternative medicine” might not harm people directly (homeopathy’s only water, after all), but when it causes people to adopt quackery in place of the real medicine that could save their lives, it does do harm.

As I’ve said before, all skeptics should have responses such as the above, ready.  The Skeptics' Dictionary has a What's the harm? archive that is worth consulting.  Now there is also a website called What’s The Harm? It aims to record the numerous instances where woo has actually verifiably caused harm. As they say, “2,427 people killed, 117,711 injured and over $115,461,902 in economic damages”. I think the $902 at the end is pretending a degree of accuracy that isn’t really there, but minor niggles notwithstanding, it’s a great resource.

The site is pretty new and is of course a work in progress. If you have any examples, the webmaster would love to hear from you. The strength and success of this site in my view, will be in submissions they receive from readers, so please consider sending them any cases that you are aware of. Please read their criteria, and check first that the case you’re submitting isn’t already there. Also, include citations to support your case – it is a skeptics’ site, after all. The webmaster has the following tips, if you feel like being proactive and searching for some additional cases with The Google:

Tip 1: Simply combining the name of some form of woo with the word "died" or "injured", often gets amazing results. For example, "naturopath died".

Tip 2: Use the archive search on Google News.  You can search older news at Google. There are tools there to limit the year as well.

Tip 3: Please check the site to see if I already have the case! No sense wasting your time on something I already have. However, if you find a link that is better than the link I'm using on a given story, feel free to send that in.

Tip 4: Pick a category I don't have many cases in. If you don't have a favorite form of woo that you would rather concentrate on, browse the whatstheharm.net topics list and pick a topic I have under 20 cases in. (There are a bunch). This makes it easier to avoid having to scroll through stories I already have while searching.

Tip 5: If you have non-web resources available, use them. Anybody have access to Lexis/Nexis or other non-public databases? Many news web sites cycle their stories very quickly. I've had some of my links go stale just in the four months I've been doing this. But those pay databases keep everything. I'm thinking the same search techniques that I mention above might work well there.

Given time I expect the number of cases included to be huge.

Of course, some woos will argue that, for example, real medicine can also cause harm, medical mistakes are made, wrong medications prescribed etc. That’s of course true, but real medicine also has a benefit and so there is a risk / reward trade off. Woo has no benefit and so there is no risk / reward trade off, only risk / risk. This site aims to quantify some of that risk, and certainly shows that woo does, in fact, cause harm.

Bad arguments by analogy

…like there’s another kind.

Some twit called Nicholas D. Kristof writes in the New York Times that criticizing religion is the same as racism or sexism:

At a New York or Los Angeles cocktail party, few would dare make a pejorative comment about Barack Obama's race or Hillary Clinton's sex. Yet it would be easy to get away with deriding Mike Huckabee's religious faith.

Liberals believe deeply in tolerance and over the last century have led the battles against prejudices of all kinds, but we have a blind spot about Christian evangelicals. They constitute one of the few minorities that, on the American coasts or university campuses, it remains fashionable to mock.

Those poor downtrodden Christians again who are, don’t forget, the minority in the US with no money no resources and no power. Oh wait, no they’re not. Fortunately Ed at Dispatches From the Culture Wars puts Kristof’s silly argument in its place. Ed calls it a category error; I’d say it was a false analogy. Read Ed’s whole piece – I couldn’t have said it better. (Well I’m sure I could, but read Ed’s piece anyway.)

Anyway, thinking about this yesterday, it occurred to me that woos just love argument by analogy – in fact they’d be totally stuck without it. Here’s how it goes:

1. Racism is bad
2. Criticizing religion is like racism
3. Therefore criticizing religion is bad

Notice they didn’t have to show any actual evidence that criticizing religion is bad. Standard woo – no facts, evidence or logic, so argue by analogy instead. Here’s the thing - if I had to argue that racism is bad, I wouldn’t think of an analog to racism that we all agree is bad, and say “hey, racism’s the same”. No, I would explain why racism is bad. With perhaps some facts, citations, logic, evidence. Of course, I could do that because racism is, actually, bad, and so the facts logic and evidence are there to support the statement. Woos don’t have anything to back up their position, so analogy is often all they have. Where would Michael Behe do without Mount Rushmore? Or a mousetrap? And what would Kristof have written about without racism or sexism?

When someone argues by analogy, you can be pretty sure it’s because they don’t have any facts, evidence or logic to support their position. And all you have to do to debunk their argument, is find the flaw in the analogy.

Chicken, Road, Year Three

This Sunday February 3rd will be the third anniversary of this blog, and as with previous years I've revisited the numerous kooks we met in the last year, and thought about how they would answer the age old question: why did the chicken cross the road?  See my post commemorating 2006’s first anniversary, Why did the chicken cross the road?, and the 2007 version, Why did the chicken re-cross the road? for the previous versions. And with no long-winded preamble, I give you 2008’s version of:

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Joe Vitale

Because it’s a Law just like gravity.

And if you disagree I’ll delete your comment.

The UK Ministry of Defence

We just spent £18,000 to see if chickens can cross roads. But we only used “novice” chickens. The real ones who can actually cross roads refused to take part.

Robert F. Kennedy Junior.

Our vaccines are making chickens cross roads because of the mercury in them. How many more chickens are crossing roads every year because there is so much mercury everywhere? Amish chickens don’t cross roads, neither do Christian Scientists’ or Scientologists’ chickens… (continued next year).

Dr. Oz

To get a “wellness” acupuncture treatment. Even though it doesn’t doesn't suffer from any actual ailments.

God

To wear out its flawed heart so I can miraculously repair it.

Sylvia Browne

Only God can cross roads every time. Take down your website or I’ll sue you.

Secretards

Chickens always cross roads, every time, no exceptions.

Secretards

I never said that chickens always cross roads, every time, no exceptions.

Secretards

When chickens fail to cross roads that’s because they CROSSED IMPROPERLY.

(… etc etc)

The Discovery Institute

To misreport the evolution issue.

James Cameron

It’s the lost tomb of the King of the Chickens!

Oprah

The chicken made up its claim that it crossed the road. How dare the chicken support made up stuff? That’s dishonest!

Join me tomorrow when I’ll be promoting “The Secret”.

John Travolta

If the chicken had only stayed on this side of the road, Scientology would have been able to get it off drugs and save its life.

At least I’m not as crazy as Tom Cruise.

Pope Ratzinger

Science has unnecessarily narrowed humanity's view of why chickens cross roads.

Hako Deepcrap

Science can’t understand why chickens cross roads which means that materialism is false.

Croppies

It’s impossible for a chicken to cross the road under those conditions and in under 90 minutes.

PaV

If we can study chickens crossing roads, they must have been intelligently designed.

BarryA

SETI don’t know who their designer is, and so chickens must have been designed to cross roads

Stephen Bennett

"Perverts Without Morals" chose to deliberately mock Jesus Christ, Christians and The Last Supper, by depicting a chicken in the place of Jesus Christ. An egg can clearly be seen in front of the chicken, and we Christians will no longer tolerate this abuse nor be silent.

I’m an ex-homosexual.

Rick Warren

I have a friend, a chicken, who wanted to cross a road. As I was walking I met a woman. She said, "I build pedestrian crossings, I'd be happy to take this case." This proves God exists.

Bill Donohue

The chicken didn’t thank Jesus for its crossing the road award. This is disgraceful. The chicken needs to make a swift and unequivocal apology to Christians. If she does, she will get this issue behind her. If she does not, she will be remembered as a foul-mouthed bigot for the rest of her life.

I’m a professional victim.

Peter Fisher

I'm very angry about it because people are going to get salmonella - there is absolutely no reason to think that homeopathy works to prevent salmonella and you won't find that in any textbook or journal of homeopathy so people will get salmonella, people may even die of salmonella if they follow this advice.

It cures everything else, though.

John Best

I don’t give a rat’s ass about your studies. I win money betting on horses so I know that chickens cross roads because of the thimerosal in vaccines.

I’m a true scientist.

The Society of Homeopaths

If the chicken crossed the road The Society’s reputation could have been lowered.

Another good way to lower The Society’s reputation would be to instigate an absurd meritless lawsuit.

Dinesh D’Souza

The Fallacy of the Enlightenment is the glib assumption that we can discover why chickens cross roads and understand reality.

Danie Krugel

I have this magic quantum box that can tell me exactly where in the world a chicken is crossing the road. All I need is a piece of the chicken’s DNA. Look, I said DNA. Also GPS. So this must be science, science, science! That is what is so fantastic about it. It’s just science. That’s it. I have no idea where Madeleine McCann is though.

I work in security at a university.

Various guests on Larry King:

Shirley MacLaine

A chicken doesn’t cross the road when it crosses the road, and we know this because Stephen Hawking says we understand energy.

James van Praagh

There is no such thing as chickens crossing roads. There is no such thing as chickens crossing roads.

Jim Callahan

Criss Angel is trying to prove that chickens can’t walk on water which means I have paranormal powers.

Ingrid Newkirk

It’s disgraceful that we experiment on chickens by seeing if they can cross roads. Send back any products from companies that make chickens cross roads. Terrorize the scientists who work for them. Pass me my pain pills. They’ve been fully tested on chickens, right?

David Kirby

I know the chicken crossed the road but I’m going to keep debating the issue anyway.

Dr. (sic) Manish Bhatia

We have seen a 50% drop in chickens crossing roads due to this SO SUCCESSFUL anti-crossing campaign.

Homeopath writing in the Guardian

Goldacre seems to think that chickens cross roads by walking. He omits the critical component of looking both ways ('lookcussion') first, without which they would, indeed, not “reach the other side”.

Joseph Chikelue Obi

Stop calling me a chicken or I’ll sue. It worked so well for The Society of Homeopaths.

MySpace

You’re banned for daring to ask such a question.

Skeptico

I predicted when and where the chicken would cross the road. Did Sylvia Browne do that? I don’t think so.

Extraordinarily Mangled

After I had finished writing Monday’s Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence post, I Googled extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to see what else had been written about it: had I missed anything or got something wrong? Surprisingly, the first hit was the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM) – with a critique of the way atheists supposedly apply the extraordinary claims doctrine when examining claims of Jesus’ resurrection. Unsurprisingly, they managed to mangle the atheists’ position. Equally unsurprisingly it’s choc full of logical fallacies. It starts with a possibly unintentional statement that the Christian has already made his mind up about the resurrection, whether he has any evidence or not:

In Jesus' resurrection, for example, Christians presuppose that God exists and that He could easily have raised Jesus from the dead. The evidence of fulfilled prophecy, eyewitness records, and changed lives of the disciples is enough to convince many people who believe in God that Jesus rose from the dead. This is a logical conclusion based on the presupposition and the evidence.

The CARM’s position that “Christians presuppose that God exists and that He could easily have raised Jesus from the dead” is circular reasoning: they’re using the resurrection as evidence that Jesus was resurrected (and was therefore the son of God, etc), but their admitted presupposition is that God exists and would have resurrected his son. Of course, if you start from the position that Jesus was the son of God then your “logical conclusion” pretty much has to be that Jesus was resurrected. Who needs evidence?

They then misstate the atheists’ position to accuse atheists of doing what they just admitted to doing themselves:

Atheists, on the other hand, would negate the resurrection by default since their presupposition that there is no God would require that God involvement cannot occur. Therefore, for an atheist the extraordinary evidence would have to be "exceptionally" extraordinary in order to overcome his atheistic presuppositions.

No. It has nothing to do with “atheistic presuppositions”. It is because of the “presupposition” (actually, the extraordinary evidence that exists), that show DEAD PEOPLE DO NOT COME BACK TO LIFE. I’m not talking about people who were technically “dead” for a short while but who were brought back by heroic modern medicine. I’m talking about someone who was really dead, for nearly two days, without modern machinery to keep the organs working, who was resurrected by magic.

I find it telling that the CARM accuse atheists of presupposing their conclusion (they don’t), when that is exactly what the CARM just did. (Projection?) And remember, I used their own actual statement of what their presuppositions are, from their own article – not a straw man version of their presuppositions as they did with the atheists' supposed presupposition.

This is why the skeptic must require "extraordinary evidence." It enables him to retain his presupposition should the extraordinary level of the evidence not be met. Therefore, requiring extraordinary evidence effectively stacks the deck against the claim.

No. The absurdity of the claim – a dead person coming back to life - stacks the deck against the claim.

When debating skeptics, I often ask them to tell me what would qualify as extraordinary evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Generally, nothing sensible is offered. Normal evidence would be written accounts. Extraordinary evidence would be a film, but we know that this extraordinary evidence is not reasonable since there was no film in Jesus' time. Therefore, can the requirement that extraordinary claims (Christ's resurrection) require extraordinary evidence apply to Jesus' resurrection?

It can and it should. It is not the fault of the atheist that Christians have nothing but lame second-hand anecdotes for this patently absurd claim. The burden of proof is upon the claimant, not upon those who doubt the absurd claim.

It would seem not. Since Jesus' resurrection is alleged to be a historical event, then it seems logical that normal historical evidence and normal historical examination of that evidence would be all we could offer. The resurrection is supposed to be an event of history and since it claims historical validity, then typical criteria for examining historical claims should be applied.

No. Unless the historical claims they refer to also involve raising the dead. Which they rarely do.

They go on to equivocate about how historic claims are judged differently because of the difficulty in testing events that happened a long time ago. But historians are generally evaluating claims such as who won a war, why they won (better tactics, better weapons?), who was involved in implementing legislation, etc. These things can often be inferred from a variety of sources. But they are not, in the main, extraordinary claims. One historian might say a war was won because of a better general; another might say it was bad weather than got the troops of one side bogged down in the mud. One or both of these explanations might be wrong. But neither requires you to accept some new and extraordinary claim such as (for example) that if you accept Jesus you will live in heaven forever. The CARM equivocate about this difference:

Furthermore, we cannot ascertain all things with absolute certainty. We cannot, for example, prove that Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) ever lived by observing him. But, we have ancient writings from eyewitnesses concerning his existence. Skeptics readily believe in Alexander the Great without involving the scientific method and without requiring "extraordinary evidence" yet they will require it of Jesus' existence.

No. They have created a false analogy. When expressed properly, it applies to the atheist position, not the Christian one, as I will demonstrate. As with Alexander the Great, we cannot prove that a historic Jesus actually existed. However, we have ancient writings (not from eyewitnesses, but I’ll let that slide for the sake of argument), concerning his existence. I am prepared to accept that a historic Jesus could have lived, without involving the scientific method and without requiring "extraordinary evidence". What I will not accept is that he died, was resurrected, and now lives in the sky. That, is the extraordinary claim. It is absurd. And there is no rational reason for anyone to believe it.

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

So said Carl Sagan. But why? And what is an extraordinary claim?

The origins of the saying can perhaps be found in Hume’s Maxim:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish…

Replace “miracle” with “extraordinary claim”, and you have the basis of the quote that Carl Sagan popularized. And intuitively, most people would agree with it in principle. For example, if I told you I had cereal for breakfast, you would probably believe me. You know cereal exists and that people eat it for breakfast. Of course, I could be lying, but even if I were, I have not asked you to accept some new and extraordinary idea. (The fact that I lied wouldn’t mean that cereal somehow doesn’t exist any more.) However, if I told you that the cereal I eat every day will guarantee that I will never get sick and will live to be 100, you would probably want some evidence of that, and some pretty good evidence too.

Strictly speaking, all claims require exactly the same amount of evidence, it’s just that most "ordinary" claims are already backed by extraordinary evidence that you don’t think about. When we say “extraordinary claims”, what we actually mean are claims that do not already have evidence supporting them, or sometimes claims that have extraordinary evidence against them. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence because they usually contradict claims that are backed by extraordinary evidence.  The evidence for the extraordinary claim must support the new claim as well as explain why the old claims that are now being abandoned, previously appeared to be correct. The extraordinary evidence must account for the abandoned claim, while also explaining the new one.

Most people are probably unaware of the amount of extraordinary evidence required for most scientific claims. Not only must the experiments be written up in such a way that others can challenge the assumptions and be able to spot errors, but they must also be independently replicated. In addition, most scientific discoveries have provenance – that is, we know how and why we decided to test this claim in the first place. For example, a new drug may have a theoretical rationally as well as positive in vitro and animal testing before it is even tested on humans. Consequently, we already have reasons to suppose it might work. Compare that with much of alternative medicine, where we have no basis to suppose it works, and whose tenants tenets we are pretty sure were just made up. In this case by “extraordinary evidence,” all we really mean is the same level of evidence that supports real medicine.

You can see than my claim I had cereal for breakfast is not extraordinary. We know cereal exists and people eat it. There are no other accepted or “proven” claims that you have to abandon to accept that I ate cereal for breakfast. The claim that my cereal will guarantee I will live to be 100 is an extraordinary claim. It is counter to all the other evidence we have that there is no one simple thing you can eat that will guarantee no illness and such a long life.

Examples of Extraordinary Claims

Part of the difficulty in defining what makes an extraordinary claim is this: claims that skeptics consider extraordinary, woos consider quite normal. Woos often consider that (for example) it is already a given that psychics exist, therefore anecdotal evidence is good enough for them. But psychics are scientifically implausible and have not been shown to be real. That doesn’t mean they aren’t real; it does mean we need extraordinary evidence to suppose they are. Woos start from the place that these things are already supported by evidence, and that’s where they go wrong. I’ve tried below to explain what is extraordinary about the following claims – what other claims, and what other implicit evidence, they contradict.

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is the definition of an extraordinary claim, It is initially extraordinary because it does not have provenance – that is, we know that Hahnemann didn’t derive the laws of homeopathy by experiment, he just made them up ad-hoc. Hahnemann made up the Law of Similars based on an observation of one thing (quinine / malaria symptoms), and this “Law” has not been replicated or confirmed. In fact, we now know the Law of Similars is false. We also know from every other piece of evidence we have, that when you dilute something it gets weaker, not stronger. Because of these two basic flaws, homeopathy requires stronger evidence than we would ask from other therapies. And yet with homeopathy we are expected to accept weaker evidence – anecdotes and non-blinded studies written by homeopaths. All well run double-blind tests show homeopathy is no more than placebo.

Incidentally, most alternative medical therapies suffer the same lack of provenance flaw – ie they were mostly just made up by ancient peoples with no knowledge of how the body actually works or of what makes us sick. Similarly, we are mostly offered anecdotes in place of evidence.

Astrology

Astrology is similar to homeopathy in that we know it was not derived by experiment, but was most likely just made up by people who saw pictures in the sky. (At least, no one has ever been able to show this explanation is wrong.) In addition, there is no plausible explanation for how astrology might work – ie what forces could alter a newborn’s personality in the precise ways claimed. Despite this lack of provenance and plausibility, we are still offered only anecdotes and appeals to science doesn’t know everything.

Jesus’ resurrection after 2 days

This goes against all the evidence that people do not come back to life, spontaneously, after two days. Modern medicine can bring people back from what would have been considered in earlier years to be “dead”, but not after 2 days of being dead with no modern life support to keep the vital organs working. In fact, it is probably reasonably safe to say it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that people cannot come back to life after being dead for two days. The evidence we are offered are accounts written decades after the event, by people who were not there when the events described were purported to have occurred. We are offered nothing but hearsay anecdotes from superstitious people with a clear reason for wanting others to think the story true. This is hardly acceptable evidence to counteract the fact that this never happens. Christians might ask, what evidence would a skeptic accept for such an extraordinary claim. The fact that even in principle you are unlikely to find extraordinary evidence 2000 years later, is hardly the non-believer’s fault.

Psychics

Psychic powers are extraordinary initially because of lack of scientific plausibility: that is, we have no known way for psychic signals to be sent and received. Lack of plausibility doesn’t mean something isn’t true, but it does make it extraordinary. The continued lack of good evidence for psychic powers, despite 125 years of looking, means that even more extraordinary evidence is now required to explain why the previous 125 years of looking were unsuccessful. For example, attempts to prove psychic powers with Zener cards were abandoned when the few positive results that were obtained were shown to have been achieved by cheating. Subsequent tests of psychics have resorted to tests that are easier to fudge – tests requiring judging to determine if the psychic got it right or not. The wiggle room this introduced results in less extraordinary evidence for this extraordinary claim that has been strangely shy to appear when properly tested (in a way that would truly be extraordinary evidence, if it worked). Instead we are left with lame guesses by the likes of Sylvia Browne and Allison Dubois, that are anything but extraordinary except in the sense that they are extraordinary bad.

Alien Visitation

Strictly speaking, alien visitation does not contradict other claims that are known to be true. It is theoretically possible that aliens exist and may hold advanced technology that enables them to travel across the galaxy. But the claim is extraordinary in that there is zero evidence alien visitation has actually occurred, despite at least sixty years of looking. In addition, there are rational explanations for many claims of alien visitation. There is no hard evidence of alien visitation, such as a crashed spacecraft with technology far advanced of our own.

PETA Hypocrisy

You may have read recently how the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) recently caused $20-30,000 damage to the house of a scientist, because the scientist’s work includes animal testing. Actually, the scientist was lucky: the ALF really wanted to burn the house down but settled instead for merely flooding the place. Nice.

This is the same ALF that PETA co-founder and President Ingrid Newkirk wrote about approvingly in her book Free the Animals! The Untold Story of the U.S. Animal Liberation Front and Its Founder, ‘Valerie’. According to Amazon.com, Newkirk "is one of the few people with firsthand knowledge of the ALF and is personally acquainted with the organization's founder."  Furthermore, Newkirk:

…gives interviews to ALF’s publications, supports the legal defense efforts of ALF criminals (with PETA’s money), has been subpoenaed in regard to her ALF connections, and has even been accused in court documents of participation in the ALF arson of a Michigan State University research lab.

I think it’s safe to say that Newkirk would have approved of this recent terrorist attack on a scientist’s home. Newkirk is so strongly opposed to animal research that she has said:

even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, "we'd be against it"

So she’s uncompromisingly opposed to animal testing. Well, as it turns out, not so much. Not when she needs modern medicine, at any rate. You see, recently she broke her wrist:

Just as I was setting out to launch my new book, Let’s Have a Dog Party!, I met a wet floor and went splat, neatly snapping the bones in my wrist. Ooh, the pain! Thank goodness for IV drips.

Thank goodness for IV drips. IV drips. That would be those same intravenous anaesthetics that were tested on rats, rabbits, dogs, cats and monkeys. Apparently she’s not opposed to that animal testing. So unopposed that she thanks "goodness" for it.

Now, you may say, Newkirk didn’t have a choice in this matter, or that Newkirk believes animal testing was unnecessary to develop these medications and procedures. Well, if you think that, I’ll just refer you to PETA’s Animal Testing page, that unambiguously states:

Send back items that you have from companies that test on animals...

From the comments to the PETA blog, I think we can assume that Newkirk is now aware that her painkillers were, in fact, tested on animals. So can we assume that she will now refuse (“send back”) any more painkillers? Or will she, like PETA Vice President and insulin (tested on dogs, rabbits and mice) dependent diabetic Mary Beth Sweetland, continue to enjoy the benefits of animal testing while supporting terrorist acts on the scientists who provide them?

I think we should be told.

Richard Dawkins’ New Charity

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has just been set up as a charity in the UK and the US. Read its mission statement, which begins:

I have just visited my local branch of Britain’s biggest bookshop chain, and this is what I found: six books on astronomy and nineteen books on astrology. The real science is outnumbered three to one by the pseudoscience.

A mission statement that starts like that has to be good. Anyway, if you’re stuck for a charity to give to, this one looks like a good one. Also see The OUT Campaign and get your T shirt.

The Parsimony of the Multiverse

I wasn’t going to do this again for a while. Comment on something on Dembski’s blog. Their standard is so lame. But I had to contradict this one as it represents a common misinterpretation of Occam’s Razor.

The post in full:

“In science, parsimony is preference for the least complex explanation for an observation. This is generally regarded as good when judging hypotheses. Occam’s razor also states the ‘principle of parsimony.’” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsimony

In the post below (”Multiverse of the Gaps”), I point to a recent paper in which a Darwinist attempts to get around the extremely small probability (less than 1 in 10 raised to the negative 1,018) of life emerging by chance by invoking an infinite “multiverse.”

The question for the class today is which is the most parsimonious hypothesis: One designer or infinite universes?

Answer: the multiverse is the more parsimonious. The mistake he’s making is in thinking that parsimony means the “least complex” or simplest explanation. Of course it doesn’t. If it meant choose the simplest explanation then Occam would always choose “Goddidit”. Because, what is simpler that “Goddidit”? No. Occam’s Razor means, don’t make stuff up. Or if you have to, make up as little as possible.

Suppose I have a cat. One night, I leave out a saucer of milk, and in the morning the milk has gone. No one saw who or what drank the milk. Lets say there are two possibilities:

1. The cat drank it

or

2. The milk fairy drank it

Occam tells us to reject option 2. This is because option 2 requires us to invent an unnecessary entity - the milk fairy. It is an invention because we have no evidence that the milk fairy exists. And it is unnecessary because there is a plausible explanation that does not require a milk fairy - the cat.

Note also that strictly speaking, both solutions are equally simple. The cat hypothesis is only simpler in that you haven't had to invent a new, unnecessary entity.  Occam says that if you insist it could be the milk fairy, you have invented an unnecessary entity. And why would you do that?

So the answer to the original question is – it depends if there is any evidence for God, and if there is any evidence for the multiverse.

I haven’t seen any convincing evidence for God. Of course, the whole “extremely small probability” baloney is itself supposed to be the evidence for God – so we can’t include that or we’d be assuming the conclusion. It’s been debunked anyway. I’ll draw a blank on the evidence for God, then.

While I don’t think there is any hard evidence yet for the multiverse, I believe it is predicted by some of the math in string theory, and that the multiverse makes some predictions that may soon be testable. Astrophysicist Victor Stenger states:

No new hypothesis is needed to consider multiple universes. In fact, it takes an added hypothesis to rule them out-- a super law of nature that says only one universe can exist. But we know of no such law, so we would violate Occam's razor to insist on only one universe.

We know this universe exists. Why should there be no others? On the other hand, we don’t know God exists. While we currently can’t be sure, it seems to me that God is the milk fairy in my analogy. Just because I think that one of several million cats drank the milk, that doesn’t mean that it is more parsimonious to insist the milk fairy drank it.