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October 18, 2006

Which Way the Rafts are Going

A few years ago, I heard a report on a study that found that some astonishingly high proportion of Americans did not wash their hands after using the bathroom. The study was done by observing people in public restrooms. But it turns out that the definition of "wash their hands" meant at least 15 seconds of "vigorous scrubbing" with soap. So someone who, say, washed their hands but didn't vigorously scrub them, was not counted as having washed their hands at all.

When people with an agenda want to put it across, they have to find a way that makes the idea — no matter how ludicrous or stupid; no matter how draconian or pointless (or both!) their proposed remedies — sound reasonable and appealing. This is true for everything from selling soap to selling political ideology. It used to be, in a more religious age, that the agenda-driven person would use religious arguments to push their agendas. (Indeed, that is exactly the way that the jihadis sell their nihilist arguments today in Muslim cultures.) Today, in the developed world, the equivalent of religion is "science."

I put "science" in quotes for a simple reason: very few people, even many scientists, do not understand science. Take, for example, the fact that Pluto exists. Well, for me, it's not a fact, it is a belief. I believe that the people who have looked through their telescopes and seen Pluto, and who have reported on it, are not lying en masse, particularly when combined with the people who have reported their measurements of the motions of the planets as observed and as predicted by the theory of gravity and Kepler's theories of orbital motion. I myself, though, have never seen Pluto, nor do I know enough at present to duplicate the measurements of planetary motion for myself. Similarly, I have only faith to go on when I read of the distance of various stars from the Sun and their size and heat, or planets around those distant stars, or that hydrogen and oxygen bond to form water. I have enough experience with the very basic science that led to those conclusions that I can trust them, but I cannot duplicate the evidence leading to those conclusions with what I know today and what I have today. I have faith that I could do so with time, equipment, and the will to do so.

Indeed, the very basis of science is an act of faith: faith that the natural laws we observe do not vary with time or place; faith that natural explanations exist for observed natural phenomena; faith that logic and reason can discover those explanations. Yet to most people, faith is anathema, to the extent that &mash; well, see the Richard Dawkins book I linked. In an interview on NPR recently, he came across as so lacking in humility — where humility seems to me the very basis of good science — so certain about his beliefs on how evolution leaves no room for gods in the Universe (and I think, really, that he only meant the Christian conception of God, given how he was talking), that I suspect he has somehow forgotten that science is inherently questionable if it is worth anything at all. If science moves beyond question, as some global warming alarmists are trying to do, it is no longer science but faith — and not faith backed by reasoning and knowing the basics, but faith backed by "in an elegant world, in a world I'd like to live in, this would be true." That is certainly not science, whatever you might call it.

Even to those to whom faith is not anathema, most in the developed world still put huge amounts of trust in science. I do. You probably do. Science, and good engineering based on good science (the two are often confused, for some reason), has produced good results. Modern medicine, to pick just one area, is heavily dependent upon chemistry, double-blind studies, and statistical projection. But as we have all seen, bad studies and flawed statistical analysis, or badly-reported studies or analysis, can lead to all kinds of snake oil, from many of the dietary supplements to the recent Lancet study on "excess deaths" in Iraq since the invasion.

The Lancet study is the second in an apparent series designed and timed to influence US elections. But it is deeply flawed in so many and such obvious ways that its amazing that anyone takes it seriously. Well, ok, it's not amazing that those whose primary goal is to make the Iraq invasion seem a monstrous act take it seriously. But to take such obvious malarky seriously brings one's own credibility into immediate and serious question. Even Iraq Body Count, who are rabidly against the Iraq war and often inflate their own body counts by double counting and by conflating innocents with enemies, couldn't stomach the Lancet's study.

There is really a simple test for this kind of thing, though, an easy way to see if people are using "science" to lie to you. It's the test proposed by Bill Whittle: which way are the rafts headed? There is a saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which is why it took so long for black holes to be accepted by most scientists: it took a long time for their evidence to be sufficient to match their claim. In the case of the Lancet study, can anyone doubt that, were their conclusions true, the media would be constantly harping on the piles of bodies around Iraq? Given the vicious and unrelenting attacks on the President over 60 or 100 civilian deaths over a weekend, does anyone doubt that such a large body count as the Lancet claims — even at their low-end figure — would be front page news every single day? For that matter, if those body counts are true, does anyone seriously believe that US soldiers would not be screaming about it?

The evidence of our eyes and ears, as well as the tiniest shred of reason and logic, tells us that the rafts aren't heading to Cuba, and there have not been well over half a million Iraqis killed above and beyond the natural Iraqi death rate. To believe otherwise brands one as wilfully blind on the level of young Earth creationists. If that's what your faith requires, of course, that's your own business. Just don't be surprised when the only people who take you seriously are as nutty as you are.

Posted by jeff at October 18, 2006 5:20 PM

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Comments

Posted by: queuno at October 18, 2006 10:40 PM

Posted by: queuno at October 19, 2006 10:46 AM

Posted by: triticale at October 22, 2006 10:27 PM