William M. Briggs

I’m at the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness meeting in No-History City, Louisiana. Here’s Part II of (an earlier draft of) the speech I gave Saturday. Consider donating $1 for every typo you discover. Read Part I.

Theoretically speaking

I often say the root of all scientific evil is the love of theory. And it is so.

What is a scientific theory? Nothing except a set of premises—propositions, observations and the like—from which we deduce statements about the observable universe, where by “universe” I mean all the material + energy there is, including that in any so-called multi-verse or many-verse.

Here is a simple theory. Days following hot days are usually hot. This is as fully a scientific theory as that produced by the largest grants at the top indoctrination centers. From our humble theory, and given the observation “Today is hot”, we deduce that tomorrow is likely to be hot. There are no quantifications of “hot”, “usually” or “likely”, and there is nothing in the world wrong with that. The theory is understandable without quantification. Quantification is not what makes a theory scientific; indeed, over-quantification and quantifying the unquantifiable can ruin an otherwise workable theory.

Our theory does two things which all good theories should. One, it fits past data well. Two, it makes testable predictions.

Anybody can try our theory, and if decisions made relying on it work out for some individuals, they might want to adopt the theory as their own. Not everybody makes the same decisions. Some might want more precision in temperature; our theory will be of little to no use to them.

Should we only look for true theories? No.

What makes a theory true, and not just good or utilitarian, is when each and every premise in the theory is itself true (and the combination not self-refuting in some way). In our theory, it is true, given our observation, that today is hot. But it is not universally true that days following hot days are usually hot. That premise (that part of the theory) is only likely given other observations and premises. So we do not have a true theory; merely a good one.

I know of no scientific theory that is true in this absolute sense. To be a true theory, I reiterate, every single premise comprising the theory must itself be true, provably true given a chain of argument that indubitably leads back to unshakeable axioms and sense impressions. Candidates for true theories, then, are simple ones; indeed, the simpler the better. This is why particle physicists are much closer to true theories than fluid physicists.

True is a harsh, brutal, exacting word. Mostly true is not true; it is a little bit false. Mathematicians and meta-physicians speak of truth, and well they may. But scientists used to be, and now ought to be again, more cautious. They must re-learn to speak in uncertainties.

Richard Feynman? said, “When we know that we actually live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know answers.”

Theories which are not true are thus always in need of fixing in the direction of truth. And since there are not absolutely true scientific theories, this is why the scientist who says, “The debate is over” is a bad scientist. He has confused a likelihood with truth, a telling mistake. He has conflated probability with decision, an all-too common error.

One thing immediately follows from learning most scientific theories are not true. It is this: most scientific theories are not false.

To be false, we have to prove at least one of the premises of the theory is itself false—and false is just as concrete and immovable a word as true—and this is unlikely because blatantly false premises are rarely found in scientific theories. Or we have to observe something the theory said was impossible. And when I say impossible, I mean just that: a probability of zero, something that no matter what cannot happen. Since most theories speak of predictions in probabilistic terms, they rarely or never say anything is impossible. Thus we cannot falsify most scientific theories.

Even the weatherman saying “Tomorrow’s high will be 88F” is not falsified by observing a high of 89F, because everybody, including the weatherman, knew there was a little unquantified plus-or-minus in his theory’s predictions. That “fuzz” is present in every scientific theory I know, including our favorites, like global warming. True falsification is as rare as a bureaucracy closing because they say they have fulfilled their mission.

Since truth and falsity will not be wholly found in scientific theories, though they are de rigueur for mathematical and metaphysical theories, what else can we use in their judgement? Usefulness.

Walks like a duck

Scientific theories make predictions about observables. Astrology make predictions about observables. Therefore, astrology is a science. It isn’t a very good one, but it is a science. David Berlinski makes this point in The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky: Astrology and the Art of Prediction.

Bigfootology, or xenobiology, is likewise a science since it makes predictions about observables. So is parapsychology. So is climatology. So is inorganic chemistry. So is radio engineering. So is homeopathy. So is any theory science that makes predictions about observables.

Yet why do we say astrology is bad and some others good? An astrological theory makes statements like this: “Given that the moon is in the house of Mars and Venus is rising, and that you were born son this certain date, this week you’ll experience greater fortitude.” The theory is the set of starry rules and the observation of the birth date. The deduced prediction is greater fortitude.

There is no mechanism, no sense of the cause of the greater fortitude, except by pointing to the rules, and the rules have only vague things, or nothing, to say about cause. Mars is the god of War, and in war you need fortitude, say.

Scientific theories do not have to say anything about cause. Every citizen before Newton knew to duck when throwing a rock into the air, and none of them (or almost none of them) had any theory beside the empirical, i.e. non-causal, theory What Goes Up Must Come Down.

Newton, and Einstein after him, and whoever comes next, did not obviate or destroy the citizens’ empirical theory. It remains as predictively accurate for most of mankind as it did for Adam, and will remain that way until the last stone is thrown. Rocks did not suddenly descend at different rates because a new theory was proposed. Our theories do not make the universe.

There is no real way to check the premises of the astrological theory. They are stated as true; some even believe they are true. They are accepted or rejected by prejudice. All we have to go on are the predictions themselves.

Ask somebody whether they’ve experienced greater fortitude this week, and they might say yes, just to be cooperative. They’ll find some small instance where they asserted their bravery—not screaming when seeing a cockroach, maybe—and claim that. If they want to believe in astrology, and they knew of the prediction, they’ll search very hard indeed for this small instance. And they will nearly always discover it.

Given their discovery, the astrological theory has therefore made an accurate prediction, and therefore there is not only no reason to doubt the theory, but a very good reason to believe it. This is rational, as far as it goes, and it is the reason astrology is still and ever with us. It is easy, in a certain sense, to verify as accurate astrological predictions.

Now we know there are better ways to test astrological theory. Make predictions specified with exactitude, so that the predictions can be verified unambiguously. Spell out, in advance, just what fortitude is and what it isn’t. And keep the predictions hidden from those to whom they are applied. There is some trickiness in this which we can ignore here, but you get the idea.

Have we answered why astrology is a bad science? Sort of, but we didn’t state the key fault, which is this: ambiguity. It’s the ambiguity of the predictions which maddens. A skeptic will hear the forecast of greater fortitude and find just as many instances of its lack as a believer will find instances of its presence. The forecast will not verify for the skeptic, but will for the believer. Our pair are conditioning on different information. Both will be exasperated the other can’t see what is plain to them.

Dissuading the astrology believer is thus a Herculean task. We have to endeavor on a complete, thorough disquisition on the nature of evidence. We’re going to have to demonstrate how resolving ambiguity casts doubt on the theory’s veracity. We’re going to have to wade through mountains of case studies. We’re going to have to think deeply about cause.

And even then, even after all that, we will be left with two inescapable facts to which the believer may cling. One, we will not have proven the theory false; the premises of the theory are not capable of disproof; they may always be believed. And two, even after removing all ambiguity, we will be confronted by those times in which the astrological forecasts were accurate. Even monkeys throwing darts can pick good stocks.

There is no use putting such extraneous hits down to “chance”. There is no such thing as chance. Statistics, and probability, cannot prove cause. (I wrote a book on this called Uncertainty: The Soul of Modeling, Probability & Statistics.) There will be times when astrological predictions are accurate, and there must be some real, actual reason why they were accurate. And that reason might be the astrological theory is right! You cannot prove—and prove is another of those adamantine words—it wasn’t.

The only real hope you have of converting the believer is to change his metaphysical perspective. He believes astrology because he believes it is possible for the stars, or the universe, or whatever, to cause changes in his behavior or demeanor. This is something he wants to believe. To dissuade him from this means replacing that metaphysical position with another, such as the rank (and ultimately unsatisfactory) skepticism of the materialist—or the living religion of a theist. Everybody knows how difficult a task this is. Why, it often takes a miracle.

We’re all gonna die!

What holds for astrology holds for theories of environmental doom.

On his blog Real Climate Science, Tony Heller documents failed prediction after failed prediction using the very words of the doomsayers. In 1992 (he showed in an 18 July 2017 post) the warning was of an ever-widening ozone hole, which was an “alarming threat” which caused “the degradation of the conditions necessary to sustain life on this planet.” One scientist rang the familiar cry, “It’s far worse than we thought.”

And came the hard data showing the size of the “hole” has been essentially unchanged since 1990 (sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller). It must have been disappointing to some that the sky didn’t fall after all.

Paul Ehrlich in 1970 said that “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years”. This did not happen. Something like the opposite of it did, in the sense that agricultural production has been rising beautifully ever since.

Was Ehrlich’s theory falsified? No. Was the theory about the ever-shrinking ozone hole falsified? No. Global-warming-of-doom? No.

It could be—and Ehrlich makes this very claim—that we have not yet reached the doom of which he spoke. The “fuzz” surrounding his dates, which everybody knew was there, was just a little wider than we first thought. Mass starvation is a live possibility.

The ozone might flee forever. The globe could burn up. All of it might still happen. Just as we might experience greater fortitude when our horoscope predicts.

How do convince believers these are all bad theories?

We could and should and must lead these believers through lectures on the nature of evidence, on what ambiguity means and how to resolve it in relation to their forecasts, as we did with the astrologer. We should scientists who believe in environmental doom what skill means and why they don’t have it. We can show how other theories make superior predictions.

But like with the astrologer, we can scarcely prove their theories wrong. And there will always be times and places, localizations, where their theories scored small hits. It will always be possible for folks to retain a tight grip on their cherished theories.

Again, just like with the astrologer, changing their mind requires changing their most fundamental beliefs. They must come to a new metaphysical view of the world; yes, come to a new religion, one which it makes their heart sing, and not darken, to hear, “Go forth and multiply.”

That may very well take a miracle. Without it, we have a long, slow endless battle ahead of us.

I’m at the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness meeting in No-History City, Louisiana. Here’s Part I of (an earlier draft of) the speech I gave Saturday. Consider donating $1 for every typo you discover.

Watch the skies!

Two years ago I got into a minor public feud with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the man with some popular, albeit curious, ideas about probability. Well, “feud” is a grandiose word. What happened was this.

Taleb and some friends of his (Joseph Norman, Rupert Read, and Yaneer Bar-Yam) wrote an open letter called “Climate models and precautionary measures”.

The quartet noted that the debate in global warming focused on the accuracy of climate models. Those who say the models are good want immediate action. Those who say the models have no skill argue there is no evidence that anything needs to be done.

But Taleb says model accuracy is irrelevant. Why? “We have only one planet,” he says. And because “It is at the core of both scientific decision making and ancestral wisdom to take seriously absence of evidence when the consequences of an action can be large.”

Yes, and “the burden of proof of absence of harm is on those who would deny it.”

Thus, we ought to take the measures I’ll tell you about in a few minutes so that we can—all together now—save the planet.

Think carefully about his reasoning. One, we must take seriously the absence of evidence when the consequences of an event are large. And two, the burden of proof of the absence of harm is on those who would deny it.

All right. It is true—it is logically possible—that hostile aliens from outer space, Black Swan Aliens I called them, might attack and destroy the planet. The aliens will find us because of our constant global electronic emissions—the earth hums like a giant space radio. And when the aliens get here—whammo!—we’re goners.

Now the consequences of this attack, should it occur, are surely larger than anything global warming can do to us. Global warming is spilled milk next to the complete and literal destruction of the world as we know it when Black Swan Aliens attack.

Of course, there is no proof these aliens will attack. There is no evidence. But, like Taleb says, we have to take seriously the absence of evidence when the stakes are large—and they don’t come larger than this.

To prevent the attack requires that we immediately and for all time shut down all electronic appliances. No radio, no television, no satellites, no computers, even, because they emit loads of EM. We need to be like those submarines in World War II movies: we need to run silent, run deep, electronically speaking. Any EM leakage will allow the aliens to discover us, and when they discover us, we’re nothing but probe fodder.

We must spare no effort, spare no expense! Shut it down, shut it all down. Now!

Let Taleb deny it if he can! The burden of proof of the absence of these harms is on those who would deny it. Right?

I pointed these facts out in the Stream article “Attack Of The Black Swans From Outer Space“. I kindly provided a copy and links to Taleb so he could ponder his philosophy in action.

That’s when he blocked me on Twitter.

Precaution

Taleb’s argument is actually old and goes by the name the precautionary principle, otherwise known as What about the children! Those who hold with the precautionary principle say that if a bad thing can happen, we must protect against that bad thing. Better safe than sorry. The culmination of effeminacy combined with irrational fear.

Which reminds me of the old definition of a sweater. A sweater is an article of clothing a child puts on when the mother gets cold.

Precaution is trivially dispatched as a reasonable argument. Here’s how. The list of things that could kill you, or everybody, is infinite. Each of these things, if they are contingent, i.e. involving logically possible things, must therefore be protected against if the precautionary principle is valid. Since the list of precautions you must take are infinite, you are paralyzed. No, it’s worse: you cannot even sit still.

Want to take a walk after—or, more likely, during—this speech? Well, a bus could careen off a cab, jump the curb, and flatten you. Or maybe sitting still is safer; maybe have a small nap. Stay put and a chandelier can plummet from the ceiling and plunge into your skull. Take a breath and you risk inhaling some carcinogenic compound. Hold your breath and asphyxiate.

There is nowhere safe, no amount of precaution that you could take that will save you from doom. Some try to rescue the principle by saying it is only those threats which are “plausible” which need to protected against. This move fails because to say a thing is “plausible” means to make assumptions that make the thing possible, and it is the assumptions that are always in dispute.

For instance, we can easily assume conditions that make it likely the Black Swan Alien attack will occur. Not too long ago scientists at some radio telescope began receiving mysterious, unexplainable signals. Well, I can explain them. It’s the Black Swan Aliens communicating with their Mother Ship which is hiding behind Jupiter. Why not? You have no proof I am wrong.

Now you can argue against my assumptions, but that is just the point. It is always the assumptions which are the point. It is never the horrible event. Everybody understands what the Alien attack means, just as everybody understands what runaway-global-warming-of-doom means. Both will destroy (they say) Life As We Know It. The consequences of any evil are well understood.

That means, as should have been clear from the start, that what counts are the assumptions. And other words for “assumptions” is “theory” or “model.” I’ll speak more about theory after discussing the proposed fixes of our impending doom.

What precautionary principle supporters are trying to do in saying their doom should be protected against but the alien attack shouldn’t is cheating. They are assuming the validity of their theory and denigrating mine without any argument except prejudice. They are trying to slip their theory past your defenses so that you start arguing about the consequences of the theory and not the theory itself.

It’s worse than it sounds. People invariably invoke the precautionary principle to advocate some expensive or power-accumulating scheme. Yet what folks like Taleb never realize is that if their schemes are adopted, then the principle can then be turned around and used against them.

People who want to “save the planet” want to do all kinds of curious things, like creating an army of short people, about which more in a minute. Now this miniaturization of mankind might very well lower the planet’s mean temperature by a tenth of a degree—who knows? But is it possible that shrinking everybody by forced genetic manipulation might have untoward effects?

I speak of the Doctrine of Unexpected Consequences, summed up well in the popular phrase, “What Could Go Wrong?”

Practical, ubiquitous electrification has done much good, but it has also caused soul-destroying. peace-wrecking music to harass you wherever you go. There is no escape from it in any public place. The Internet has showed us what the media in the West really is, but it has also made us stupider as we no longer know how to rely on our memories; what can’t be looked up in an instant may as well not exist.

The late and mostly great philosopher David Stove in his essay “Why You Should be a Conservative” said that the oldest and best argument for conservatism is

that our actions almost always have unforeseen and unfortunate consequences. It is an argument from so great a fund of experience, that nothing can rationally outweight it. Yet somehow, at any rate in socieites like ours, this argumeant is never given its due weight. When what is called a “reform” proves to be, yet again, a cure worse than the disease, the assumption is always that what is needed is still more, and still more drastic “reform.”

Human behavior is hideously complex. Nobody is consistently good at predicting it. Yet every politician and activist knows just what will cure all of what ails us.

The poet Robert Burns knew the Doctrine of Unexpected Consequences well.

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Short people got no reason to live

Many otherwise reasonable and responsible people have so addled their minds with the belief that we face environmental (yet not spiritual) doom that they have proposed some of the most outrageous, preposterous, foolish, and idiotic schemes to save us. You can hardly open a scientific journal these days and not think you’re looking at plot treatments for 1950s science fiction B-movies.

An NYU professor name Liao—a short professor, a little guy—wants to shrink mankind so that big men like me can’t dominate people like him. Large men eat more than small, ceteras parabis, and growing food, he says, adds carbon dioxide and other gases to the atmosphere, acts which he takes on faith will kill or greatly harm us all.

How will Liao midgetify mankind? Via “preimplantation genetic diagnosis”, a process which involves “[re-]thinking the criteria for selecting which embryos to implant”. Liao, you see, is a dedicated follower of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It’s not clear what Liao advocates for those who slip by the Gene Police and inadvertently turn out tall. Perhaps post-birth abortions. Genetics is not a precise science.

Liao intimates only stupid people have many kids. Thus he suggests “cognitive enhancement” to lower birth rates. He says “many environmental problems seem to be exacerbated by—or perhaps even result from—a lack of appreciation of the value of other life forms and nature itself.” Solution? Shoot people up with the “prosocial hormone oxytocin” or a “noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor”. Also—and you could see this one coming from a mile off—reduce testosterone. Sorry, big men. Liao seems to have it in for us. Can you imagine the lines outside the government “Health” clinics to get your mandatory shots?

All this seem intrusive to you? Not so, says our little friend: “human engineering could be liberty-enhancing.” Liberty enhancing? Yes, sir. He says “if we were able to scale the size of human beings, then given the same fixed allocation of greenhouse gas emissions, some families may be able to have more than two children.” How generous!

Liao and his academic colleagues also suggest poisoning the food supply; or, rather, poisoning you so that you cease enjoying meat. They advocate making people wear meat patches, akin to nicotine patches, that “induce mild intolerance” by causing the immune system to “react” against meat proteins. He says, “henceforth eating `eco-unfriendly’ food would induce unpleasant experiences. Even if the effects do not last a lifetime, the learning effect is likely to persist for a long time.” You bet it will.

Let me read to you something written by Julia Pongratz of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology:

Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes had an impact on the global carbon cycle as big as today’s annual demand for gasoline. The Black Death, on the other hand, came and went too quickly for it to cause much of a blip in the global carbon budget.

Now both the Mongol horde and the Black Death lasted about a century, and while the Black Death killed twice as many people as did Genghis and his followers, it didn’t kill with the same efficiency as the Mongols. The plague would wander into a populated area and, depending on its mood, would take a out a few here, a few there. It left many survivors who would continue emitting carbon dioxide.

Contrast that with the Mongols. They would ride to town, surround it, encourage its occupants to surrender and be killed in an organized, efficient manner. Or, if the town were recalcitrant, the Mongols would lay siege and then kill everybody in a sloppy, disorganized way.

The good thing about this, according to Pongratz, was that when the hordes pushed on towards their next set of victims, they left only silence behind. And barren—freshly fertilized!—ground covered in tree seeds—seeds which were able to grow into forests which sucked CO2 from the air, thus cooling the planet.

Somebody said of Pongratz’s discovery, “Genghis Khan’s bloody conquests scrubbed 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere as depopulated land returned to forest.” The Mongols again killed only half as many as the Black Death, but by removing these folks contiguously, unlike the hit-and-miss approach of the plague, “there was enough time for the forests to re-grow and absorb significant amounts of carbon.”

Pongratz says, “Based on the knowledge we have gained from the past, we are now in a position to make land-use decisions that will diminish our impact on climate and the carbon cycle.” We now know that we can’t rely on disease to solve our global warming problems.

We wonder how Pongratz plans to ressurrect, or create a new, Genghis Kahn.

Besides killing people off, preventing their births, or chemically enslaving them, academics also often suggest monkeying with the atmosphere itself. The want to dump massive, stunning amounts of fertilizer into the ocean and stimulate plankton growth. Or they want to dump massive, stunning amounts of sparkily debris into the stratosphere and reflect away life-giving sunshine. The list is endless, or as endless as the grant money supporting these people.

These folks never pause to consider they know not of what they speak. Besides ignoring the Doctrine of Unexpected Consequences, they assume their theories of doom are true. Why do they make that assumption? Why do they rely so heavily on theory?

Part II tomorrow.