Wow, James Randi made a top Yahoo! news item!
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=572&ncid=572&e=5&u=/nm/20041206/lf_nm/life_supernatural_dc
His million dollar challenge: you prove something to his satisfaction,
and he'll give you a million dollars.
Sounds good on the surface... but something about the whole "skeptic"
or "debunker" movement always struck me as... religious zealotry in its
own right. And in that way at least as anti-science as any Creationism
-- in fact, far worse in my estimation, because debunkery does a much
better job of pretending it is science than things like Creationism.
IOW, at least I can clearly separate Creationism from science; but the
whole "skeptic movement" seems to have similarly fundamentalist biases,
but shrouds them in a veneer of "scientificality." And insofar as I
want to see the progress of science open doors and uncover
possibilities, creationism actually proves less of a problem for
science than something actually posing AS science, while really being
nothing more than a witch-hunt.
Put it this way: Mr. Randi's challenge isn't the "X Prize." The X Prize
was created by people excited about the possibilities for the future of
space flight, with the hope that it would encourage discovery and these
possibilities by creating a well-publicized prize.
Mr. Randi's "prize" has a whole different cast to it. Mr. Randi has
spent his career trying to convince us that there is something akin to
a "mental disease" rampant in our society - a disease of "superstition"
- and his "prize" is not really meant as a catalyst for finding new
possibilities as much as it is a chance to indulge in yet even more
prominent and high-profile proclamations of his very strong and
personal beliefs.
In a way, I think he fears we're all "going to hell in a handbasket" as
much as Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson does.
Of course, we all have personal beliefs. One of my beliefs: that part
of being "scientific" is trying to identify one's own biases so that
one can try to remove them from a rational examination of the phenomena
we choose to explore.
I believe Skeptics have a different take on this, however: as a
category, they seem to view science as having certain simplistic rules
akin to commandments, which if adhered to legalistically, make it
unnecessary to refrain from any form of prejudgment.
Specifically, in the case of the sorts of things they look at, they
will work with a simple rule such as "extraordinary claims demand
extraordinary evidence", with a sort of faith that by reciting this
rule at every turn it becomes "OK" to study any phenomenon from the
standpoint of certainty that "it isn't real."
As far as I am concerned, such an approach is blatantly unscientific.
Science requires objectivity on the part of researchers. And
objectivity is not pretending to provide a forum for something to
happen, while believing it cannot happen.
This objectivity I speak of is essential to science for several
reasons. For one, it is well established that no matter how "pure" one
believes the "mechanical process" of the scientific method is,
ultimately, all science involves humans to parse the data. And humans
have only a veneer of rationality; fundamentally, we are irrational
beings. We don't like to *believe* this -- and that is sort of the
point. *Emotionally we don't like the fact that we're emotional
creatures*. Mr. Randi is foremost in that emotion, it would seem.
But it is simply the case that Science takes place in the thinnest part
of our collective beings: our rational selves -- the arena in which our
logic can work unfettered by emotion. And this is a state achieved
through concerted, intentional effort -- it is not natural. And in
fact, I wonder if it is even achievable in any great measure. But to
the degree it is, I think we have to work to know our emotions well to
even attain any semblance of rationality. Thus knowing one's emotions
and the beliefs and assumptions based on emotions is essential for an
effective scientist, because even the slightest emotional bias
introduced in research can and will subtly skew a researchers handling
of data -- no matter how "pure" their beliefs in the actual data are,
or how "pure" they believe their adherence to commandments of
"scientific method" have been.
Put more bluntly, waltzing in to a subject motivated by the view that
it's phenomena don't exist is not an activity associated with science.
It is infinitely closer to the kind of zealotry one sees in religion.
Ultimately, in regard to Skeptics, I would offer this: nobody
purporting to be a "scientist" should be advocating views founded on
premises of impossibility. Science is looking for possibilities, and in
no way is "damaged" by anybody exploring *anything*. Science has proven
that it has it's own "natural selection", if you will -- and in that
way, there have actually been no "taboo" subjects, nor should there
ever be. And while we may feel great urgency to "fix" science in some
way when we are emotionally convinced it has "gone wrong", it has a top
speed and natural pace of its own -- which is basically glacial in
nature. And attempts to "rush it" by declaring things "impossible" or
by "policing" it is wholly counter productive, because history shows
that the Science we so embrace today *required* every phase it went
through -- including the darker periods when seemingly it was lost.
Take alchemy -- a skeptic is liable to suggest it was a waste of time,
and "imagine where we'd be had people like Newton not spent years of
their time and energy studying alchemy." Well, I think this fails to
take in account the fact that those people were not motivated to do the
materials study necessary to found modern chemistry simply because "one
day it would turn in to Chemistry." No, the effort they put forth
required the enthusiasm and intensity and above all *sense of
possibility* inherent in trying to create gold.
And while many Skeptics will without a second thought conclude that
"Alchemy failed", the irony is that in a completely unpredictable way
it directly laid a foundation that led to the understanding of *what
gold is* scientifically, and consequently in a sense, it actually
succeeded! Because through modern chemistry and physics, we actually
have proved that through fusion iron can indeed turn in to gold!
But the funny thing is, it turns out that creating gold isn't nearly as
important or valuable as the knowledge our culture discovered through
the superficially fruitless yearning for gold all those years ago...
And I think the most important point: Science benefitted by the
unfettered, raw enthusiasm for *possibilities* inherent in something as
(in retrospect) "fruitless" as trying to create gold.
This says a lot to me: it says that when people see *possiblities* --
in *anything* -- that enthusiasm should *never* be squelched.
Long-range, you have no idea what you might be squelching!
And the other side to that: focusing on beliefs in impossibilities is
about the most counterproductive approach to science conceivable --
especially when (as skeptics like Mr. Randi seem to) one tries to
enforce these beliefs in impossibilities as if they should be laws
forbidding the pursuances others.
In short: let the UFO nuts have their day! Who knows what it can turn
in to?
And likewise, according to this rule, I believe one also "must let Mr.
Randi have his day." And also the Scientologists, and the Evangelicals,
and the whole mess of things I see as being "wrong." Because who am I
to judge. I myself have a point of view, and I share it, like here;
that's the most I can do. But where I differ from Mr. Randi: I do not
lay bait out to attract people who believe in possibilities so I can
demonstrate that they are wrong. For me, that is over the line; for
him, I suppose my belief that Science isn't flimsy enough to "be
extinguished" (as Sagan used to suggest) because of people studying
weird things is, for Mr. Randi, equally "over the line."
Anyway, reading this article on Yahoo!, I finally was able to bring to
the surface many of my own "skepticisms" regarding "skeptics." Namely,
much became clear when Mr. Randi said this:
"It's a very dangerous thing to believe in nonsense. You're giving away
your money to the charlatans, you're giving away your emotional
security, and sometimes your life"
It occurs to me that "believing in nonsense" is a presumption in
nonsense, and that all of his view are emotional in nature: fear of
charlatans, of losing emotional security, of losing your life.
As noble as those fears might seem to Mr. Randi, *they simply are not
scientific.* They are fears: they are emotional. I believe that one
foundation of effective research is for researchers to sort-out the
emotions that might influence the way they read their data. Mr. Randi
clearly cannot accept any data from phenomena he despises without
filtering it through his biases; which could be said of all of us, I
presume. But what bothers me about his point of view: he boldly
embraces his own irrationality rather than try to acknowledge and
work-around it.
And thus the "prize" he offers is really no more than so-much fish-bait
for him -- to attract fish that he can beat-over-the-head and then hold
over his head to advertise to the world.
The prize is certainly no incentive for people to explore
possibilities. Rather, it is used as a means to reinforce Mr. Randi's
beliefs in impossibilities.
And what kind of science worth it's salt is based on embracing
impossibilities? Certainly not the one we have today. Skeptics seem to
think science came about by chasing superstition away -- actually,
science itself is, by necessity, based on its own kind of superstition
and presumptiveness. It is merely a set of assumptions and beliefs that
have a bit more logical consistency than most other systems our species
has come up with. And through that tiny difference -- a yearning for
logical consistency to explain reality -- it unwittingly forged what is
arguably the best and most robust alternative to any of it's
"superstitious" peers. But it is important, I think, to realize that it
didn't come in to existence by chasing superstition away. It came in to
being because people saw grand possibilities and explanations in the
reality we are immersed in -- *just as Religion did*. Galileo wasn't
trying to prove religion wrong -- rather, he was inspired by the
possibility that he could know something about reality *and his god*
through understanding subsets of well definable phenomenon.
But this did not lead him to believe he needed to expend energy to
"prove impossibilities."
Ironically, the yearning for logical consistency that led to both
science and religion has also equally taken it's toll in both. In
religion, it is obvious that at times the need to protect the emotional
stability of what we believe we know has curtailed any further progress
with the freedom of exploration from which it was created. This is now
also becoming blatantly true in science too, where the emotional need
we as a society have for the stability and inviolability of our
scientific paradigms has us doing much as "holy men" of yore did for
religion: contain it, homogenize it, and above all make sure nobody
really has the opportunity to "rock the boat" beyond a certain degree.
In that sense, it is interesting to remember that the God religion of
Galileo's day was not in any way "anti-science" -- they simply were not
willing to advance science beyond the arbitrary place at which they
stopped accepting exploration -- specifically, they did not want to go
beyond a certain non-Christian fellow named Aristotle! Because everyone
had become very comfortable with Aristotle representing all there was
to know about science.
While I believe science has some advantages, I still nevertheless
sometimes wonder if science is in some way beginning to lay similar
walls around itself as that Church did... and if it is, it seem plain
to me that it would happen along the lines of what modern-day
"Skeptics" try to achieve. They represent a kind of "scientific
evangelicalism" to me, replete with doomsday scenarios and creation
myths and all sorts of simplified, stripped-down ideas that they hold
with a sort of death-grip.
I wonder because I so often have seen Mr. Randi's name in journals --
as high-level as Science and JAMA -- and yet, not only does he have
none of the academic credentials normally required of one referered to
as an authority in such places, he also simply doesn't represent
anything I think of as science. The kind of protective embracing of
impossibility that he and other self-proclaimed "Skeptics" espouse
strikes me as one of the only real stumbling blocks science can ever
have.
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