[Chat] In Defense of Nonsense

[Crystal]

This article is several years old, but the points are
still relevant.  Indeed, they may be even more
relevant with the increasing influence of
"faith-based" snake oil salespeople.

Dr. Krauss gave an interesting interview in the August
2004 issue of Scientific American in which he said,
"We live in a society where it's considered okay for
intelligent people to be scientifically illiterate.
Now, it wasn't always that way.  At the beginning of
the 20th century, you could not be considered an
intellectual unless you could discuss the key
scientific issues of the day.  Today, you can pick up
an important intellectual magazine and find a write-up
of a science book with a reviewer unashamedly saying,
'This was fascinating. I didn't understand it.' If
they were reviewing a work by John Kenneth Galbraith,
they wouldn't flaunt their ignorance of economics."

-- Crystal

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http://www.phys.cwru.edu/~krauss/nyt730.html
In Defense of Nonsense

New York Times Editorial. 30 July 1996 

By LAWRENCE KRAUSS
Chairman of the physics department,
Case Western Reserve University,
the author of "The Physics of Star Trek.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Four months ago, when his
Presidential campaign still seemed viable, Patrick
Buchanan appeared on a national television program and
argued in favor of creationism. This, by itself, is
not so remarkable, given some of Mr. Buchanan's other
views.

What seemed more significant, however, was that the
same national media that questioned other Buchanan
campaign planks like trade protectionism and limits on
immigration did not produce a  major article or
editorial proclaiming the candidate's views on
evolution to be simple nonsense.

Why is this the case? Could it be that the fallacies
inherent in a strict creationist viewpoint are so
self-evident that they were deemed not to deserve
comment? I think not. Indeed, when a serious candidate
for the highest office of the most powerful nation on
earth holds such views you would think that this
commentary would automatically become "newsworthy."

Rather, what seems to have taken hold is a growing
hesitancy among both journalists and scholars to state
openly that some viewpoints are not subject to debate:
they are simply wrong. They might point out flaws, but
journalists also feel great pressure to report on both
sides of a "debate."

Part of the reason is that few journalists naturally
feel comfortable enough on scientific matters to make
pronouncements. But there is another good reason for
such hesitancy.  In a truly democratic society, one
might argue, everything is open to debate.

Who has the authority to deem certain ideas incorrect
or flawed? Indeed, appeal to authority is as much an
anathema to scientists as it is to many on the
academic left who worry about the authority of the
"scientific establishment."

What is so wonderful about scientific truth, however,
is that the authority which determines whether there
can be debate or not does not reside in some
fraternity of scientists; nor is it divine.   The
authority rests with experiment.

It is perhaps the most immutable but most widely
misunderstood property of modern science: a
proposition can never be proved to be absolutely true.
There can always be some experiment lurking around the
corner to require alteration of any model of reality.

What is unequivocal, however, is falseness. A theory
whose predictions fail the test of experiment is
always wrong, period, end of story. The earth isn't
flat, because you can travel around it, period, end of
story.

This misunderstanding is at the heart of much
scholarly debate in recent months, including the
amusing hoax that a New York University physicist,
Alan Sokal, played at the expense of the editors of
the journal Social Text. The postmodernist journal
published a bogus article that Professor Sokal had
written as a satire of some social science criticism
of the nature of scientific knowledge.

It was aimed at those in the humanities who study the
social context of science, but whom he argued could
not discern empirically falsifiable models from
meaningless nonsense.

The editors, on the other hand, argued that
publication was based in part on their notion that the
community of scholars depends on the goodwill of the
participants -- namely they had assumed Professor
Sokal had something to say. They too have a point.

The great paranormal debunker and magician, the
Amazing Randi, has shown time and again that earnest
researchers can be duped by those who would have been
willing to answer "yes" to the question "are you
lying?"  but who were never asked.

We must always be skeptical.  Being skeptical, however
does not get in the way of the search for objective
truths.  It merely assists in the uncovering of
falsehoods.

Another popular misunderstanding of the nature of
truth and falsehood in modern science involves the
speculative ideas which often appear at the frontiers
of research. For example, the science writer John
Horgan has argued that such speculations are unrelated
to the real world around us. But notions such as
"superstrings" and "baby universes" are not akin to
arguments about the number of angels on the head of a
pin, much as they may bear a superficial resemblance.

They are merely the most recent straw men in a
longstanding effort to get at the truth. They would
not be taken seriously by anyone were it not for the
belief that these notions, when properly understood,
might in principle one day lead to either direct or
indirect predictions which may be falsified by future
experiments or else which may or may not explain
existing data. The debate among physicists about the
viability of these ideas is simply a debate among
those who think the notions will be testable and those
who suspect they won't.

No physicist I know has ever suggested that unprovable
speculation will shine on its own merits, whether or
not it can be taken literally, or that it is progress
to come up with a theory which cannot be proved false.

Mr. Horgan is absolutely correct to suggest that this
approach is impotent. But his error is to confuse this
process with what physicists actually do, and thereby
demean the notion of scientific truth.

This whole issue might make for simply an amusing
academic debate were it not for the potentially grave
consequences for society at large.

If  we are unwilling, unilaterally,  to brand
scientific nonsense as just that, regardless of whose
sensibilities might be offended -- religious or
otherwise -- then the whole notion of truth itself
becomes blurred.

The need to present both sides of an issue is only
necessary when there are two sides. When empirically
verifiable falsehoods become instead subjects for
debate, then nonsense associated with international
conspiracy theories, holocaust denials and popular
demagogues like Louis Farrakhan or Pat Robertson
cannot effectively be rooted out.

When nonsense which can be empirically falsified is
presented under a creationist guise as critical
thinking, a controversy is created in our schools
where none should exist. When the empirically
falsifiable supposition that someone was not present
at a murder when his DNA is found mixed with the blood
of victims at the crime scene is not recognized as 
nonsense, murderers can go home free.  Nonsense
masquerading as truth has been with us as long as
records can date.

But the increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense
uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling.
 Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this
as any other single threat, regardless of whether the
origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism,
simple ignorance or personal gain.

Perhaps the greatest single legacy our scientific
heritage can bestow on us is a well-defined procedure
for exposing nonsense.

We would all be wise to heed the advice passed on by
Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York
Times from 1935 to 1961:  "I believe in an open mind,
but not so open that your brains fall out."

Lawrence Krauss,
Chairman of the physics department,
Case Western Reserve University,
the author of "The Physics of Star Trek.


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