Skepticism

Scientific progress is rarely useless

ArgusEyes — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:37:48 GMT

I am mightily impressed with the Large Hadron Collider. To build such a complex mechanical machine that stretches for miles and to turn it on and have it work boggles my mind. Sometimes I despair at the human race and sometimes I am overjoyed. This is an instance of the latter.

I asked a workmate about it and he sniffed and said something to the effect of it being a “waste of money” that would be better spend on “humanitarian efforts”. Here’s the deal. If we balked at scientific progress that didn’t seem to have an on-the-face-of-it practical application then I don’t think we would have a world close to what we have today.

The word “science” comes from “knowledge” or “to know”. Progress that may seem useful may turnout to be very useful indeed. Computers operate on the principles of solid state physics. Would the pioneers of that field have predicted computers and the way that they have changed the world?

Nothing helps cure misery and elevates human problems than science and technology. This is why I hate creationism so much because they invariably spit on this beautiful methodology. The scientific method is the greatest human creation ever.

Speaking of which:

Listen to this podcast for good info on the LHC.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/skepticsguide/podcastinfo.asp?pid=164

The "big picture" feature has some great pictures of this human achievement:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/the_large_hadron_collider.html

Global warming - Avoiding the questions that matter

ArgusEyes — Sat, 10 May 2008 22:59:10 GMT

Global warming is a subject which I approach in a purely non ideological way. I have no affiliations to big oil and I have no affiliations to anti-corporatism. This is a subject in which I genuinely want to find the truth on and always have.

You could look at the populist discussion in the media on this topic as a parallel between two documentaries. The most popular of which is Al Gore’s documentary supporting man made global warming versus the documentary refuting it called the “great global warming swindle”. Both of them are very convincing, al Gore’s doc is slightly more emotional and contains less science and facts.

But first is a big problem that plagues any debate on these issues. And That is the usage of the word “global warming”. When the words global warming are used on the news it normally refers to manmade global warming, and scientists who seek to prove manmade global warming normally reveal studies talking about rising co2 levels or the retreat of glaciers or the melting of the polar icecaps and assume on top of that that mankind is causing it all.

The issue here is whether this warming is caused by humans. I have always been very frustrated by the lack of focus on this aspect of the debate. Which always seemed to me to be the only important question.

How much of the temperature rise is due to humans.

The conventional surveys reporting on the status of the poor polar bears or the melting of the ice caps, support what we all know and shouldn’t debate.

Which is that the planet is actually warming.

Which is not under debate at all! Both the documentaries have temperature charts in them in which you can see that the temperature of the planet is wither going up or going down, it is never in a straight line, it is always changing. And if you think about it, why would it always be constant, it makes more sense that it changes over time.

To me, though when people talk about the scientific consensus being settled then they are referring to this. But I fear that far too many people make an ideological jump from the real evidence that the planet is warming to the assumption that humans are causing it all.

The argument for human caused global warming hasn’t changed much. It goes along the lines that CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect which in turn causes a rise in temperature, and human industry produces CO2. But how much CO2 is there? How much is caused by humans? These are burning questions.

Be wary of people who do not address the weaknesses of their own arguments.

Also, the question as to whether CO2 causes temperature change is under fire. In the al gore documentary he shows a chart correlating warmth to CO2 levels, but if you look closely at the chart then you see that the temperature levels leads the CO2 level, therefore it is impossible that CO2 drives the temperature, in fact it seems to be the other way around.

The CO2 causes global warming argument seems to be the only argument that the man-made global warming advocates promote. However, more C02 is caused by animals and rotting plant matter and the oceans then by humans. Also, look at the forest around me, its beautiful. These trees and this plant matter is releasing carbon dioxide as we speak, we are made of carbon. It is not a pollutant, it is a part of life.

The best argument for moving array from non renewable sources is that they are non-renewable. They will run our some say and we shouldn’t be left holding our nobs when that happens. This angle is rarely stressed though.

But what is the harm of taking action to limit emissions? Well, it puts more of a stranglehold on businesses, it holds back industry, limits developing countries, and can result in some pretty Orwellian laws such as a recently proposed carbon emission points where you need to buy points for your own carbon emissions. These laws, whilst being well meaning should not be made until we are sure that our carbon emissions does cause global warming.

To sum it up. I am still not sure what to think. If you asked me whether I believed in man made global warming only a year ago I would have said yes, mainly because of it was the consensus. But then consensus can be wrong. It is generally a consensus that feminists represent equality and I don’t believe that. I moved to a middle ground and now I will probably land on the side that it is not man caused. But one thing is clear, that we need more discussion on many points. Such as the role of the sun in warming, does CO2 drive temperature? And is the cause really man made.

Creationist arguments are full of logical fallacies

ArgusEyes — Sat, 10 May 2008 22:57:10 GMT

Creationist arguments are full of logical fallacies

In the past year I have been getting more interested in the scepticism. There is an organisation called the New England Sceptical Society who publishes a podcast every week that I highly recommend you listen to, they have a list of the top 20 logical fallacies [1] that should be read by all, a logical fallacy is a logical flaw in an argument that does not prove anything.

The most common type if logical fallacy I see in responses to my videos is the straw man, a straw man argument argues against a position that was created artificially by the arguer rather than your actual view, I constantly see my views mis-represented and have to point out to the reviewer that they either didn’t see the video or they are meaningfully mis-representing it.

Another common argument is ad hominem, which states that a persons views are not valid because of some characteristic of their personality. E.g. "Your video is rubbish because you just hate women", not true by the way.

A particularly annoying logical fallacy I have seem used in many occasions is where an analogy is used as a proof for an argument, the place I have seen this the most is in the arguments of creationists. Here is a blatant example: (clip shown in video)

An analogy is a similarity between the features of two things. What is done in this video is an analogy but it seeks to prove the authors argument via that analogy. It specifically states that to believe the analogy is what is needed to believe the base theory and the analogy is ridiculed as if it were the base theory itself.

This clip also employs three more logical fallacies did you spot them?

One of them is a straw man argument, evolution does not propose the creation of organisms by chance, but rather by successive modifications.

One is the argument from personal incredulity, look at this ridiculous situation I cannot understand it or understand how it is true, so it must be false.

Reductio ad absurdum, in which an absurd conclusion comes from legitimate premises, evolution does include random changes in DNA which is an element of chance, but the process of natural selection selects good strains.

Four logical fallacies in the space of a minute, this is why creationists and ID supporters are wilfully ignorant, dishonest and pompous arses who should be shunned.

A good analogy explains a theory by drawing a comparison between situations which are easier to understand in the aim of explaining the theory more clearly. To sum it up, the analogy does not become the argument but is made merely to complement it. Staying on the theme, an example of a good analogy is one used by Richard dawkins which he called "climbing mount improbable" (clip shown in video)

Sources
[1] http://www.theskepticsguide.org/logicalfallacies.asp

The moon landing and other conspiracy theories

ArgusEyes — Sat, 10 May 2008 22:56:12 GMT

I am a sceptic. A person who is a sceptic asks for a simple thing – to be show facts and evidence that support a particular theory. If this evidence is not forthcoming then the theory is correctly deemed to be "weak" and dismissed until it can be more strongly proven. Now this is not so say that the theory is dismissed forever as false out of hand, or that the sceptic is saying "this theory is not true". A good grass-roots sceptic will not deny most things that have a hard time being disproved, things such as paranormal effects that cannot be disproved or proved, the same thing is true for a belief in God, a good sceptic will say that God cannot exist but merely that he/she/it is unlikely to exist.

Now that I have laid the groundwork on scepticism let's move on to the subject of this thread, the moon landing conspiracy.

Now, the case for the moon landing conspiracy theory is the same as for practically every other conspiracy theory. The proponents of the theory will collect together a small amount of disparate and disconnected evidence that flies in the face of the massive and compelling body of evidence that proves the theory. They focus on this evidence with a passion and ignore or do not mention the evicence against their conspiracy theory.

Now, this points to a certain amount of intellectual dishonesty and a little bit of cowardice. If you say that the moon landing is fake then you are presented with a number of huge hurdles. The approach taken by the conspiracy theorists? To not even touch this, in a serious debate they will be defeated in seconds, but no-one is dignifying these people with a scientific debate (unlike other fields such as creationism). In a way, a scientific debate will lend a certain validity to their claims and thus should not be done.

There is no time here for a point-by-point refutation of the points they make, these websites are better suited for this:

http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/ConspiracyTheoryDidWeGototheMoon.htm
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html>

As for the fact all I have to say is that we know the rocket took off, we know the capsule moved in the atmosphere, we know through telemetry performed by many amateurs who listened into the shuttles radio transmission that the movement of the radio source moved to the moon, we know that rocks were brought back that show unique characteristics that prove they came from the moon.

We also know that the points that the conspiracy theorist make are finicky at best, pointing out things such as ripples in flags and many of their points relate to the photos that were taken (note: A photo is not proof of anything, as an amateur photographer myself I can attest to this.). At best the assertions that the conspiracy theorists make are scientifically ignorant and at worst an ad-hominem tirade.

I can not successfully psycho-analyse these people but they seem to have an innate mistrust of authority and a desire to believe. The worst thing is when they say that they "sceptical of the moon landing" they are not sceptics – they are deniers.