Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utastro.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!ut-sally!utastro!bill From: bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Crank Science Message-ID: <509@utastro.UUCP> Date: Thu, 8-Aug-85 17:34:22 EDT Article-I.D.: utastro.509 Posted: Thu Aug 8 17:34:22 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 11-Aug-85 06:36:48 EDT Distribution: net Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX Lines: 224 Pat Wyant's points are well taken; the questions raised in net.origins cannot be solved by discussions of the kind we have been having. It is first necessary to recognize that the Creationist ethos is fundamentally opposed to that of science. Having learned a little of the vocabulary of science, the so-called "Scientific Creationists" imagine that they are engaged in a scientific discussion, and those of us on the other side are easily fooled into sharing that delusion. The discussion is not, in fact, a rational discussion based on the same rules of evidence that are customary among scientists. It is, as Pat points out, almost certainly a futile effort to approach it as if it were. In many ways, Science is like a game. Any game, such as baseball, has certain rules, and anyone who wants to play that game has to abide by those rules. If, for example, I want to have a private rule that says "four strikes and you are out", then I am no longer playing baseball, but some other game. It may be a perfectly good game, it may even be a better game than baseball, but it is NOT baseball. In a similar way, those who play by rules different from the rules of Science may be engaged in worthwhile activities, activities that may be more valuable than Science, but they are NOT doing Science. Suppose I were to join a baseball team, but insisted on playing by my private rules. The other members of the team would rightfully point out that I am not playing baseball, and would probably kick me off the team. If I insisted that I *was* playing baseball nevertheless, they would rightfully call me a liar. Similarly, there are standard terms for those who claim to be doing science when, in fact, they are not playing by the rules of Science. We call such people "pseudoscientists" or "crank scientists", and what the produce is "Pseudoscience" or "Crank Science". It is not very difficult to recognize Pseudoscience. Ted Holden's recent article illustrates very well some of the characteristics that distinguish Science and Pseudoscience. I will list some of them and illustrate them by quotes from his article. (1) One of the characteristics of Pseudoscience is the fact that pseudoscientists do not like to submit their ideas for critical evaluation by acknowledged experts. The notion of Peer Review is alien to them. They would much rather engage in spreading their ideas among lay people, using the popular print media, debates, popularly written books and the like. Thus, for example, Ted Holden writes: > My own training was in > science (math) and not religion. I wouldn't feel > good about publishing in a journal "refereed" by > "scientists" in the case of the creation-evolution > debate. I would prefer well attended debates with > members of the press present as was the case in > Roanoke. I know "scientists" a little bit too well. The problems with debates and similar presentations is obvious: Each side can claim victory, and no one can tell who really won. The press, with some notable exceptions (such as Walter Sullivan), is ill-informed and ill-equipped to distinguish between Science and Pseudoscience. Furthermore, pseudoscientists aren't really interested in affecting the progress of science anyway, since their real motivations lie elsewhere. In the case of "Scientific Creationism", for example, the real purpose is to get Creationism taught in the public schools, or failing that, to prevent the teaching of evolution. So it is not surprising that pseudoscientists prefer propaganda and debate to publication in scholarly journals. To have the guts to submit an article to a refereed journal, one would first have to believe that it will measure up to some minimal standards of scholarship. Pseudoscientists aren't generally willing to allow that kind of exposure. I am sure that most scientists would agree that IF THE IDEAS IN AN ARTICLE ARE SCIENTIFICALLY VALID, THEN THE ARTICLE SHOULD BE PUBLISHED. When I referee an article, that is the standard I adhere to, since I would rather have an article published that turns out to be wrong, than prevent the publication of an article that turns out to be right. I may suggest changes or improvements, but I am opposed to censorship. To do otherwise would be to impede the progress of science. I am sure that most journal editors would agree with me. By the same token, however, IF AN AUTHOR IS NOT WILLING TO SUBMIT HIS IDEAS TO PEER REVIEW, THEY ARE UNWORTHY OF THE ATTENTION OF SCIENCE. Creationists, for example, consistently avoid even submitting their ideas to the only forum that counts in science...the refereed journals. Why, if their ideas are correct, do they avoid the *real* debate? THE FACT IS, MOST CREATIONIST ARGUMENTS ARE SO FULL OF HOLES THAT THEY COULD NOT STAND UP TO THE TESTING OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS. (2) A second distinguishing characteristic of pseudoscientists is that they portray them selves as heroic fighters for the truth against an unyielding science establishment. They whine, "They all laughed at {Columbus|Marconi|...}", all the time forgetting that they also laughed at T. J. J. See and thousands like him. And they still laugh. Among other things, pseudoscientists use this paranoia as an excuse to avoid submitting their work to refereed journals. They carp about how the editors of these journals are going to reject Creationist articles out of hand, despite the fact that the hypothesis has hardly been tested. (See"The Elusive Scientific Basis of Creation "Science"", *Quart. Review Biology* *60*, pp. 21-30 (1985) for a detailed study). A bit of this paranoia shows when Ted Holden says, explaining his preference for debates over publication in scholarly journals: > I know "scientists" a little bit too well. (3) Yet a third distinguishing characteristic of pseudoscience is that those engaged in it consider themselves in possession of a grand, unconventional view that can *explain everything*. The more grandiose and crazy the idea, the more it conflicts with conventional science, the more convinced of its correctness they are. You can't argue them out of it, because they've got an "answer" to explain away every possible objection to their obsession. Contrast this to scientists, who will readily admit the limitations of their knowledge! For example, when I asked: >>Really? And what mechanism do you propose to change >>the force of gravity on the earth? Ted Holden responded: > I can forgive Mr. Jefferys for this one. This one > involves a radical departure from present > thinking. Immanuel Velikovsky was aware of this > but refrained from including it in "Worlds in > Collision, Vol I" specifically because it would > seem too weird to most people. and continued: >......................................................... > > Velikovsky's long promised "Worlds in Collision, >Chapter II", dealing with the nature of the world prior >to the flood, was essentially published in 1980 in the >form of "The Saturn Myth" by David Talbott, available >from DoubleDay. ... [Then he quoted from "The Saturn Myth"] > Prior to the flood, we were a planet of Saturns. >This sounds crazy at first, but the pictures inside the >pyramids depict this repeatedly. The idea definitely >didn't sound crazy to Akhnaten. The North pole faced >Saturn directly, and we hung perilously close to the >small star. The gravitational interaction between the >star and planet was intense; particals and debris were >trapped in between permanently and picked up the glow of >the star, resembling a great mountain rising straight >from the North Pole to the star, the myth of the god on >the mountain, Zeus on Olympus, Jahveh on Zion etc. These ideas violate all the known laws of physics. Not only do they *sound* crazy, but they *are* crazy. They are as "off the wall" as any of the many crank ideas that have been sent to me by aspiring pseudoscientists over the years. To give only an elementary example, it is impossible for a planet orbiting another body to maintain its rotational axis pointing towards the other body. To do so would require a gross violation of angular momentum conservation. (4) Another distinguishing characteristic of pseudoscience is the failure of its adherents to do genuine research, research that might possibly show their theory to be wrong. Mostly they engage in what we might call "armchair science", meaning a lot of library work to try and find any piece of evidence that might support their cause. At the same time, they avoid noticing any evidence on the other side. On those rare occasions that they do actually get into the field, their purpose is not to advance science (for example, by journal publication) but rather to find evidence that can be used to proselytize their cause among the public at large. For example, the Rev. Carl Baugh has been digging at the Paluxy River in Texas for years. Has he ever submitted any of his findings for publication? No. This despite the fact that he has actually made a few significant finds (he recently unearthed a genuine and rare dinosaur skeleton; unfortunately he didn't know what he had and he thoroughly bungled the excavation, destroying the scientific value of his find by his amateurish methods). His real purpose is to stock the "Museum" he is building at Glen Rose with "evidence" that humans and dinosaurs once roamed the earth together, and to provide Creationist debaters with ammunition. This failure to do the obvious things that might prove ones pet theory wrong (as all real scientists are obliged to do) extends to a failure even to do the obvious calculations that would show whether a particular claim is even physically plausible. The very first thing a physicist does when he has a new idea is to do a "back of the envelope" calculation that shows whether, for example, the energetics of the proposed idea make sense. This is something that is seldom, if ever, done by pseudoscientists. For example, Velikovsky makes some amazing assertions about the origin of Venus (it is supposed to have been a comet that was ejected by Jupiter), but he doesn't do the elementary calculation that shows the idea utterly preposterous on energetic grounds (Carl Sagan has done it. It is presented in a rather long article, well worth reading, in his book *Broca's Brain*. I am sure that Mr. Holden will tell us why we shouldn't believe Dr. Sagan.) These are only a few of the ways that Pseudoscience can be recognized. Perhaps if I have the opportunity I can provide some others later. The bottom line for me is this: I do not care whether someone believes the kind of nonsense that Mr. Holden has been writing. It makes no difference to me whatever. But I strongly object when this nonsense is passed off as science. I greatly fear for the future of our country if schoolchildren, for example, were to have the Creationist model held up to them as an example of good science. The experience of the Soviet Union under the pseudoscience of Lysenkoism shows what can happen when pseudoscience is allowed official sanction. It would be a great disaster if something like that were to be allowed to happen here. -- "Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail) {allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill (uucp) bill%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA (ARPANET)