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The Manufacture of Uncertainty
The sabotage of science is now a routine part of American politics. The same corporate strategy of bombarding the courts and regulatory agencies with a barrage of dubious scientific information has been tried on innumerable occasions -- and it has nearly always worked, at least for a time. Tobacco. Asbestos. Lead. Vinyl chloride. Chromium. Formaldehyde. Arsenic. Atrazine. Benzene. Beryllium. Mercury. Vioxx. And on and on. In battles over regulating these and many other dangerous substances, money has bought science, and then science -- or, more precisely, artificially exaggerated uncertainty about scientific findings -- has greatly delayed action to protect public and worker safety. And in many cases, people have died.
Tobacco companies perfected the ruse, which was later copycatted by other polluting or health-endangering industries. One tobacco executive was even dumb enough to write it down in 1969. "Doubt is our product," reads the infamous memo, "since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy."
In his important new book, David Michaels calls the strategy "manufacturing uncertainty." A former Clinton administration Energy Department official and now associate chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at George Washington University, Michaels is a comprehensive and thorough chronicler -- indeed, almost too thorough a chronicler, at times overwhelming the reader with information.
But there's a lot to be learned here. Even most of us who have gone swimming in the litigation-generated stew of tobacco documents (you can never get the stink off of you again) don't have a clue about the extent of the abuses. For the war on science described in Doubt is Their Product is so sweeping and fundamental as to make you question why we ever had the Enlightenment. There aren't just a few scientists for hire -- there are law firms, public-relations firms, think tanks, and entire product-defense companies that specialize in rejiggering epidemiological studies to make findings of endangerment to human health disappear.
For Michaels, these companies are the scientific equivalent of Arthur Andersen. He calls their work "mercenary" science, drawing an implicit analogy with private military firms like Blackwater. If the companies can get the raw data, so much the better, and if they can't, they'll find another way to make findings of statistically significant risk go away. Just throw out the animal studies or tinker with the subject groups. Perform a new meta-analysis. Conduct a selective literature review. Think up some potentially confounding variable. And so forth.
They can always get it published somewhere. And if they can't, they can just start their own peer-reviewed journal, one likely to have an exceedingly low scientific impact but a potentially profound effect on the regulatory process.
All of science is subject to such exploitation because all of science is fundamentally characterized by uncertainty. No study is perfect; each one is subject to criticism both illegitimate and legitimate -- and so if you wish, you can make any scientific stance, even the most strongly established, appear weak and dubious. All you have to do is selectively highlight uncertainty, selectively attack the existing studies one by one, and ignore the weight of the evidence. Although Michaels focuses largely on the attempts to whitewash the risks that various chemicals pose to the workplace and public health, the same methods are also used to attack the scientific understanding of evolution and global warming.
And it happens virtually every time the government even dreams of regulating a substance. People know what's going on, but they respond as if they're simply shocked, shocked, to find science being tortured. And so the outgunned federal agencies that must consult science to take action -- the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and Food and Drug Administration, among others -- repeatedly capitulate to corporations that effectively purchase science on demand.
We used to have a regulatory system -- that was the dream, anyway, of the 1960s and 1970s. But in significant part due to the manufacturing-uncertainty strategy, we now have the bureaucratic equivalent of clotted arteries. And mercenary science hasn't just blinded federal agencies. It has also blinded the courts, where the same tactics apply. Indeed, recent changes to the role of science in the federal regulatory system and the courts have worsened the situation by making corporate sabotage of scientific research easier than ever.
The 1998 Data Access Act (or "Shelby Amendment") and the 2001 Data Quality Act, both originally a glint in Big Tobacco's eye, enable companies to get the data behind publicly funded studies and help them challenge research that might serve as the basis for regulatory action. Meanwhile, the 1993 Supreme Court decision in the little-known Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals case further facilitates the strategy, unwisely empowering trial court judges to determine what is and what isn't good science in civil cases. Under Daubert, judges have repeatedly spiked legitimate expert witnesses who were otherwise set to testify about the dangers demonstrated by epidemiological research. Often juries don't even hear the science any more because the defense can get it thrown out pre-trial.
It's all about questioning the science to gum up the works. The companies pose as if they are defending open debate and inquiry and are trying to make scientific data available to everyone. In reality, once they get the raw data, they spend the vast resources at their disposal to discredit independent research.
Michaels ends by proposing a series of reforms. He suggests giving citizens more access to the courts (since the regulatory agencies are broken), requiring full disclosure of all conflicts of interest in science submitted to the regulatory process (and discounting conflicted studies), getting rid of rigged reanalysis by promulgating scientific standards that forbid it, and returning to the practice of using the best available evidence to protect public health, rather than waiting for a degree of unassailable certainty that will never arrive.
With his extensive chronicling of just how many times the manufacturing-uncertainty strategy has been used to make our world more dangerous, Michaels has performed a great service. Moreover, because he's a scientist himself and has seen these abuses up close in government, he can go much further than muckraking journalists who have often sought to expose this kind of malfeasance. (Full disclosure: Michaels cites my own book The Republican War on Science and mentions me in his acknowledgments.) I support Michaels' regulatory solutions -- his "Sarbanes-Oxley for Science" proposal, as he calls it -- and would like to see them enacted into law or put into effect by administrative action. But if there's a problem with Doubt is Their Product, it's that Michaels is, in a way, too much of a scientist. Let me explain.
Michaels chronicles a long litany of outrageous abuses, nothing less than the undermining of reason itself from within. Yet despite just how vulnerable the book shows science to be, Michaels continues to have faith that the solution lies in science. No matter how many times we have seen the facts lose, he still writes as if he thinks the facts alone will win.
So Michaels slices and dices all the misinformation, as he's ideally equipped to do. Anyone who grasps the nature of science well enough to follow him will not only be convinced but also deeply angered by what's happening. But other readers will just feel dizzied by the complex analyses, confused and ready prey for the science sharks whom Michaels has worked so hard to expose. The manufacturing-uncertainty strategy works because it buries you in the facts, loses you in the woods of science. Sometimes, arguing back within that arena only makes it worse.
And so, while eminently rational critiques of the abuse of science have their place -- and Michaels' is excellent -- I worry that the defenders of science sometimes delude themselves into thinking rational criticism is enough. It isn't, however, because scientifically grounded argument will only persuade those inclined to defend science in the first place. In order to be protected from the kind of assault it now faces, science must do more than convince its own. Science needs the allied power of outrage, political will, and a fundamental commitment to fighting back that, as of now, simply doesn't exist. So enough of being shocked, shocked. It's time for the merry, rampaging science-abusers themselves to be shocked as the sleeping giant of American science awakens and finally decides it isn't going to take it anymore.
Chris Mooney is a Prospect senior correspondent and a freelance writer living in Washington, D.C.
© 2008 The American Prospect
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36 Comments so far
Show AllI've been a subscriber to both Scientific American and The Skeptical Inquirer for many years. (for SI, most of their existance.) Almost every issue now of both periodicals condemns the mis-use and abuse of science by the current administration. Skeptical Inquirer has been slow to come around, as they try to maintain an apolitical stance, mostly because their readership is quite diverse and not concentrated in either the "liberal" or "conservative" camp.
As Mr. Mooney concludes, relying on the facts alone to make the case is wishful thinking. Errors in reasoning are common even to those trained to be wary. Secular Humanism remains a distant also-ran contender for hearts and minds because it relies on rationality and inclusiveness as the great levelers. The sentiment is correct, but the strategy is flawed and ineffective. btw: I have signed every iteration of the Humanist Manifesto.
What happens is "nothing less than the undermining of reason itself from within". That statement eerily echoes Al Gore's "The assault on reason". It shows how "the manufacture of uncertainty" - an excellent phrase - spills over into political and social life.
Everything can be doubted: maybe the sun doesn't really start the day, maybe the climate isn't changing, maybe pollution isn't bad, or maybe pollution's bad for some but good for you. To the point where Groucho Marx' "Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" strangely makes people doubt their own eyes, senses and power of reasoning. That way people are turned into malleable, unquestioning consumers. Very scary.
The book reviewed is obviously an important one. If only it's read, understood and put to use.
As a scientist, I have seen both sides of this. Manufacturing doubt about studies showing risk, and on the other side, manufacturing risk where it is absent. There is no simple solution that will replace intelligent, knowledgable and unbiased evaluation of all the evidence. Lets not forget that the lesson of the tobacco companies is that if you lie, you will pay big; even if it is extorsion to corrupt polititians who were supposed to use this money for healthcare for sick smokers. I have seen misinformation peddled on this site on both sides of the same argument. Should we ban cell-phones because they are causing brain cancer? What is the evidence, and what is the real risk? Do you use a cell phone?
Nice "manufacturing of doubt" there, "Mr. Obvious"...
The book is: "Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health". Cf. http://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Their-Product-Industrys-Threatens/dp/019530067X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206813335&sr=1-1
Ullern - So do you have a cell phone?
When you teach you learn, but the opposite is also true. When you don't teach you become stupid. This is what is happening in America today. The dumb guys are still in charge. If they had taught the right way, then they would be sitting at home watching their country on CNN or FOXNEWS, instead of directing a rapidly declining empire. And talking us and the world with them. The right way would have been to tell the truth, but for that generation the truth is hard to come by. I agree they had a tough sell. They had to pretend that we won WW2. Some people won WW2, but it certainly wasn't the American people. And you can't blame the America people for the decline of our empire. We were only asked to build a country, not a fucking empire.
Hoa binh
Look at it from my side. I'm a scientist who has to get research funding to make my living. Grants for legitimate science are drying up, and I've got to make a living. Of course I could put my daughter on the street to peddle her tushy, but that would be immoral.
Werner Heisenberg developed the Uncertainty Principle in the 1930s. Old indian men had the same theory 2000 plus years earlier. Science is slow to accept the idea of uncertainty. Its real. It wasnt invented by corrupt politicians.
Anything can be doubted--even reality.
For every why there is a because, and for every because, another why.
Basic Philosophy of religion 300 teaches that Theism, Mysticism and Secularism are the three branches of religious thought. Secularism IS a religion--it is also based on faith. You perform an experiment 100 times and say it will be the same on the 101 attempt--that requires faith. it may not be the same as saying you can walk on water, but it is still faith. Because to say that you know for certain it will be the same is to claim you know everything.
That is even more silly and arrogant than a theist saying an invisible man in the sky knows everything.
The only religious system that doesnt take a leap of faith is mysticism, it acknowledges doubt in its fundamental beliefs. Theism and secularism are grounded in faith and trying to claim absolutes. Theism says a God is behind everything, secularism says a material universe is behind everything. Two sides of the same coin.
And secular humanists tend to be human supremacists, just like theists(although theists have God as the ultimate human). Secularists will say: humans are superior to other species according to Evolution--which is just a secular version of the great chain of being. Theists have one advantage over secularists in this regard--at least they say that there is a big humanoid brain in the sky that decides humans are the best(its bogus--since you can doubt the absoluteness of such a being). Secularists claim the universe is mindless-yet can make value judgements-so that's like saying a chair is mindless, but an apple is better than an orange according to a chair.
This is basic common sense stuff. it doesnt require a test tube or a microscope to figure it out.
No one should trust the religion of Science. And i find it ironic that the term "torture of science" is used--when science has tortured others for centuries.
You have animal research, you have the experiments on war prisoners, Marion Sims, Mengele, BF Skinner, military scientists, an article a few weeks ago on here talked about scientists polluting a lake to tell us that pollution is bad. Just check out the article on the tasering of pigs. Chicago hospital tortures pigs and says tasers are bad. The taser company does their own study and says tasers are good.
Science policing science.
Its schizophrenic.
We definitely need to police science. Restrict it. Force it to bow to society and ethics and common sense. You have idiots playing around with genomes and claiming they can grow a tomato better than Nature--that they understand how it all works. You have fools wanting to splice human and non human dna and saying: oh! its in the hope of curing diseases(by creating new ones). And when mistakes happen they say: more science! More research!
They keep moving the goal post, so they are allowing more and more cruelty and runamuck science. Progress shouldnt come with side effects.
And if you criticize them you are called a luddite. Or they try to say we are doomed to destruction if we dont embrace all the experiments of the idiots in lab coats.
Really? Sounds an awful lot like the threats of oblivion by the gods that witch doctors used to talk about.
And yet humans have survived plagues and have overpopulated the planet(all the while we still have disease and death). And we have wars. Strange how humans show more outrage over natural cessation but dont get so upset about human caused ones(wars, cars, guns).
The Repugnantcan Party runs the biggest Con of this nature. Manufacture of Doubt IN ALL AREAS AND ALL THINGS is one of that Party's main devilish tricks and fraudulent machinations to deceive the suckers... oops I mean the American people. For example, "the Surge is working." Prove otherwise, you peon! We can't be certain...!
Even when it patently becomes a lie that can no longer be obfuscated by the immense bodyguard of lies, ordinary people will tend to believe the authorities... "well, he's the > president/CEO/lawyer/accountant/expert/reporter/judge < and must know more than I do. We can't be certain...!"
This kind of thinking was anathema to the founders of this country. It would be like saying, "Well, he is the king, and must know more than we mere colonists."
And the founders held this view miraculously even way before the so-called information age we live in now. This is so probably because we actually now live in the age of information OVERLOAD (another trick in the manufacture of uncertainty) which just confuses many, so they leave 'it' to the 'experts', even when 'it' is government. Which is why we get the fabulously corrupt and incompetent Cheney and Rumsfeld, fascist-moles who have been burrowing for decades into the fat cash-cow they see in the American government like the tapeworms they are, and selling the American people out for their own personal gain and that of their cronies. But... we can't be certain...!
Objective information is what we need, and do not get now, when all meanings and truths are being politicized, as they have been in the past couple of decades by the NeoCon, Hard-Right-wing, 'liberal'-cursing mercenaries of fascism and greed. These social and moral and political perverts are at the very center of the manufacture of uncertainty.
For example, George Bush says freedom, and the word is meaningless to him. It is mere propaganda, that he needs to "catapult". It means what he thinks it means at the time, like the 'new' meanings of the entire massive lexicon of Neo-Conned and Republicanized-words, words manufactured exactly for their uncertainty factor... no truth here, nothing to see, now move along, just another fatal pile-up in the manufacture of uncertainty. Yet the Neo-Cons had a field day with Clinton's little "depends on what you mean by 'is'" comment. This is dwarfed by their own galaxy of phoney wiggle-words that create uncertainty in the mind. We now can't even be certain what words mean!
And we are all prisoners of this fraud, perpetrated by the corpo/fascist money-control classes, who are waging a hidden class-war against us all. But we can't be certain...!
So we get lawyers who 'advocate' both sides in the maufacture of uncertainty to the detriment of the truth, but only as long as there's money in it. Thus, even justice in America is now a commodity and corrupted and distorted by money. But... we can't be certain!
We get money corrupting everything, even science and medicine, as money always does in every situation (see Prohibition, and drug-peddling both legal and illegal, and the corrupt drug wars and the CIA off-book drug dealings that even today are still going on with opium from Afghanistan.) But we can't be certain...!
We get stupid journalism, because that is what 'the advertisers' and politicians and Neo-Cons demand (though publishers will blame it on being what they must mean the 'moronic-public' wants).
Whereas REAL journalism must ALWAYS be antagonistic to power, of whatever kind, in order to keep power in check, as Thomas Jefferson indicated. REAL journalism must ALWAYS be muckraking and cynical and investigative and be an antagonist of the real powers of the public sphere, in order to get at the truth the powers do not want you to know.
Or else it is just Public Relations, just as we have now in the White House Press Corps, chummy wtih Dubya and 'in the clubhouse, apart from the plebes outside.' As Colbert once derided, the Decider decides, the White House 'well-paid-off stenographer-pool' Press types it up and goes home. So they won't lose their positions in the press room, or their lifetime jobs in corporatized media.
We get despicable corporate executives who dictate that 'corporate truth (falsehood)' be propagated and used to smash real truth, in order to enrich themselves at the expense of truth. It was once said that a man will be blind to the truth, if his livlihood depended on his being blind to the truth. This is a coporate axiom. Be blind or be gone. Those at the top hold the power and wisdom, just believe it, you slaves. You rabble will not look behind the curtain, as the CEOs and Republican pols are the powerful Wizards of Oz. But we can't be certain...!
We are lied to from every direction every day with the propaganda machinery of advertising and political spin. No wonder people are so confused. THAT IS THE POINT! That is the purpose of the manufacture of doubt. It is there so people can be induced to go against their own and society's and the planet's best interests.
It is there so people will be so confused they will be able to actually vote for a McCain, a lame-brained warmonger (embedded in the center of the military-industrial complex that we were warned against by Eisenhower, of all people) and who has a long history of corruption unto this day (hey, he was deeply involved in the Savings & Loans deregulation disaster that cost taxpayers $500 billion in 1988 dollars to bail out, and that utterly destroyed Savings & Loans; and NOW he is here for the same damn re-run with deregulated commercial banks... deja-vu all over again, and yet another twist to the moniker of McSAME he so well deserves).
Yes, the list goes on and on. In fact, it may well be said that these days America's main industry is now The Manufacture of Uncertainty. Including the uncertainty inherent in the insurance and financial 'uncertainty industries' who also profit from fear-mongering and obfuscation.
Thanks to all the devious money-mongers and corporate-fascists and sell-outs of the public good and the public wealth in the Republican Party, along with the the Neo-Conistas, and the RightWingNuts, America is the Number One World Manufacturer of Uncertainty, and its subclasses of confusion and deception. And it appears that this is our biggest and main manufacturing industry nowadays. Hey, America, at least We're Number One! Maybe.
One in five Americans polled believes the sun revolves around the earth. Two in five believe that fossils only exist to "test our faith." This society has been dumbed down the the point that it would be the laughing stock of the civilized world if we didn't pose such a danger.
Now days it's more likelyThink "softly", and carry a big stick ?
(My apology to the memory of President Theodore Roosevelt)
kelmer,
You seriously misunderstand science.
"Secularism IS a religion–it is also based on faith. You perform an experiment 100 times and say it will be the same on the 101 attempt–that requires faith."
Not so! Science is not based on faith. It is fundamentally based on doubt and uncertainty. The scientific method is a good example. You take your hypothesis, one you are certain is correct, and set up an experiment to see if your hypothesis is correct. This requires doubt. The results are recorded, witnessed and reviewed. Why? Because the results are in doubt. Doubt is the basis of science not faith.
So here is how these systems of thought are really related
Theology - Faith
Science - Doubt
Mysticism - Hopeless Navel Staring
Regards,
P.S.
The results of an experiment are much more that yes/no, same/not_same. The results of an experiment are always multidimensional and distributed over a range of uncertainty. However even with uncertainty, if after 100 experiments all returning similar results, you were not expecting a similar result on the 101st, you would be a fool.
FV HORN: Excellent posting.
KELMER: I have thought about all the interesting points/observations you shared above, and I think that human uncertainity--the realization that in spite of our best efforts we must face mortality--causes in many a desire to mimic control. It could be control over others' mores, or internalized as self-discipline. Some seek to control large sums of money as a means to manipulate others and they are to be feared; but the ones I fear most are those who elect to play GOD with science, in particular, DNA. The entire subjugation of the female side of humanity so that men could control the birth lineage, now expanded into the nether realm of bio-tech where organisms easily are rendered of two quite distinct species. This is playing Russian roulette with the timeless, priceless codes and NO MAN should enter this land for the mistakes once let out of the bottle, can never be put back.
Then again, when we consider global warming, escaping methane, rising seas, it could be that the great MOTHER intends to erase the template and start all over again as legendarily occured years back in that which is alluded to as the Bible's great flood: the sinking of the highly evolved technocrats, the Atlanteans.
I was certain that all swans were white, then one day I saw a black one. Damn you Karl Popper.
Manufactured uncertainty is not limited to science, but also history, economics, politics, current events. The contradictions in the information on the internet, media, books, magazines is such that a good many people just give up trying to figure out which is the truth, and others just pick and choose what they to believe in things that fit in with a preconceived model of reality. Left and Right are both living in a fictitous reality.
Imagine, the Fed has destroyed the economy and the solution is we are going to give it more power. Hoo boy. If I wasn't an American I might laugh.
Truth does exists, but it is hidden behind illusion, and distorted by perceptions that come from lies. That said, you can never be certain that what you believe to be the truth is absolutely true. Those who believe with certainty in their reality or truth are either stupid or insane (or both). Thats why you must always keep searching, since you will never actually find it, you can only move in it's direction and away from the lie. If your truth today is the same as it was last week or last month, you have not been searching for it.
George Orwell gives us a glimpse of what we are going through today:
"The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'. "
Like when they started with the surge, it's intent was to give Iraqis a chance to reconcile. Then after some time, the violence was down, but their was no reconciliation, and yet they declared victory because the violence was down, the surge worked they cried out in joy, and people forgot the objective was reconciliation, and see today there was none.
Also from Orwell:
"Being a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. The obvious, the silly, and the true had to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth's centre. With the feeling that he was speaking directly to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, Winston wrote:
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows"
Today, Winston would be labelled a Conspiracy Theorist. If Big Brother said 2+ 2 = 5, and it really was 4, then that would take a conspiracy, and we all know conspiracies are not possible, Faux news and George Bush say so.
So they tell us WTC 7 fell down due to fires, it must be true.
But then we have Aldous Huxley of The Brave New World telling us:
"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad."
Yes, it will make you mad. Not insane mad, but mad mad. Thats why they want to make sure you don't find it out.
The people that shape our reality, which for most people means we are spreading democracy, justice and freedom while fighting a war on terror, are not telling the truth. Thats obvious to anyone but the brain dead, the insane, or those who support the agenda of those telling the lie. Yet when Jermiah Wright rejects this reality, there is outrage among the majority, noth left and right. Not very promising. The shapers are winning.
They lie with impunity and convincingly. They manipulate the picture we see of the world. They use words, like national security, war on terror and mission accomplished. These words have no bearing on reality, but they aren't intended to convey reality. They are intended to lead you to see things they way they want you to see them.
To get to the truth, you must search for it and discover it for yourself, it won't jump out and hit you, even if you happen to read the truth, you would not recognize it as such. Without going though the process of discovery, the truth would be too much of a jump for those living too close to the mainstreams version of the truth. Of course, searching for it yourself is a lot of work. You're busy. You don't have time. But, if you don't search for it, you won't have a life. The world in changing, in ways many can't see. You have been lied to, manipulated and programmed to see the world in a certain way. The purpose is to keep you quiet and docile until the time comes for the hammer to fall.
The question is, will people wake up and see past the illusion, or continue to pretend all is well, and just hope for Obama or Hillary to save the day while they continue working and entertaining themsleves. You will not find the truth without accepting there is a conspiracy. Remember who told you not to believe in crazy conspiracy theories. It was Bush right after 9/11, before anyone even had any conspiracy theories since most were in shock. Bush has proven himself a pathological liar, maybe if he tells you not to believe in something, you should at least entertain it.
The truth won't set you free, it may allow you to stay free, or might not. The clock is ticking. Good luck. It is only going to get worse.
MiMiCcS -- You're becoming philosophically profound to add honors upon your strong understanding of world politics and economic vectors, to our continuing enjoyment and elucidation.
Your life's purpose must entail a pillar of ever-seeking truth, and asking questions upon questions relentlessly. I viewed Crichton's interview with Charlie Rose, about his intellectually challenging book denying the pending catastrophe coming along with global warming -- as he did go behind the scenes, probing into the principle scientists conclusions and assumptions -- and they couldn't answer his questions.
The honesty and conviction to stand against the tide, and even appear as a shill for big-oil impressed me and allowed me to regain my appreciation of his works, and his dedication to unseen principles.
You remind me of him
Namaste
kelmer - "Secularists claim the universe is mindless-yet can make value judgements-so that's like saying a chair is mindless, but an apple is better than an orange according to a chair."
Nonsense - a chair is mindless, too, so it can have no opinion.
Anyway, you're still trapped by the mistaken notion that you need a Guy-in-the-Sky to make value judgments.
Science is not a religion. Religion is based on faith in things not visible, and science is based on observation of the visible, and is therefore free to make adjustments according to empirical evidence. Evidence. Objective data.
It may not be perfect, being subject to human desires, prejudices, assumptions, political pressures, but it's the best we've got, and it works quite well when allowed to be honest.
You're using the term, "faith", very carelessly - if something works 100 times, and you expect it to work the 101st, that's not faith, that's a hypothesis. Based on observation. If it doesn't, then you can check for errors in method, and other variables. And adjust the hypothesis. Something faith doesn't do.
Faith gives us shlocky nonsense such as "You were put on this earth for a reason", "Jesus loves you"; "If you believe hard enough, you can achieve anything you want (or something like that)"
Try it some time - hold a pencil up in mid-air. Let go of it and pray that it will stay up. If gd loves you, and you pray hard enough and your everlovin faith is strong enough, and the Guy-in-the-Sky wants it, and you beat yourself hard enough with a length of chain, the pencil ought to stay up in mid-air.
I think the point of creating doubt is to slow everybody down, dizzied and confused, as the author says, while the "facts on the ground" are being solidly established. To counteract the paralysis that is destroying its value and its power, "Science needs the allied power of outrage, political will, and a fundamental commitment to fighting back.."
That's the message.
Once again, a simple dichotomy develops here. "Science is based on evidence and religion/spiritualism on faith, and if you have the latter you are stupid." Faith does not make one stupid and there are a great many scientists considered genius that believe(d) in God. The issue is not to mix things up; by definition evidence is not required by faith. For example, when you see folks denying that the evidence suggests that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that evolution shaped life, then these folks do not have true faith. They are trying to align evidence with their faith, when it does not align. If they were to say that they believe that this evidence was placed on earth by God to temp folks away from their faith, then that is another story. When folks say we should not move genes from one organism to another because we are messing with "nature". Then this is faith; faith that there is a devine power in nature that is sacred. This is a religion and it has a name - neo-paganism. This is quite different from saying that genetic engineering carries risks, like moving a toxic gene/protein into a food crop. The latter is a hypothesis and can be tested for each gene/protein and is science based and not a "moral" issue.
Scientific debate assumes that each party is truly interested in finding the truth of a matter.
Many of the early scientists were in one way or another more or less independent, socially, economically and, in the case of a lovely freak like Newton, maritially.
That is why, I suppose, we had a golden age of science for some three hundred years.
Today? It's publish or die, finger in your buddy's eye and an elbow in his ribs is no big deal.
The contention that day and night are the result of the sun revolving around the earth is based on simple observation. The contention that day and night are the result of the earth revolving around the sun is, well, stupid. Even a more correctly stated contention that day and night are the result of the earth revolving on its axis is one that requires a greater knowledge base than simple observation to be understood.
kelmer sez: Secularism IS a religion–it is also based on faith. You perform an experiment 100 times and say it will be the same on the 101 attempt–that requires faith. it may not be the same as saying you can walk on water, but it is still faith. Because to say that you know for certain it will be the same is to claim you know everything.
That is even more silly and arrogant than a theist saying an invisible man in the sky knows everything.
This is a load of bull.
Quantum uncertainty says that there is a chance I, a human being, can be suddenly teleported through a six-foot thick wall of steel and safely to the other side.
But the chance of this happening is so remote that it is extremely unlikely it will ever happen in the lifetime of our universe let alone the lifetime of a human being.
So if I stand in front of a six-foot thick steel wall for the 101st time expecting that quantum mechanics WILL NOT deliver me to the other side... I'm practing a religion?!?!?
Absolutely not. What I'm doing is acknowledging statistical reality. Reality that for the most part needs no greater effort to acknowledge than simply not even bothering.
Humans muddled along for tens of thousands of years while making scant progress in understanding the universe around them. Then evolved the simple but brilliant idea of testing hypotheses in controlled experiments, and recording and examining the results mathematically. Doubt, which exists in every field of knowledge, actually began to shrink significantly in certain areas. The growth of knowledge and control over the environment began to grow exponentially.
Scientific methods were so successful in describing and controlling the natural world that some became tempted to try to apply them to human relations. But, partly because of the level of complexity (human relations are based on human cognition which involves a great many complex poorly understood processes), and partly because the degree of control over experiments and all the variables involved was quite limited when it came to human subjects, progress in that effort has been elusive. So, even with the best scientific practices, doubt in social sciences like sociology and economics stubbornly persists.
The doubt created by the current efforts by the corporate crookocracy is completely different from the doubt in the social sciences. It arises out of intentional efforts to muddy the waters, particularly in areas when the honest application of the scientific method would produce a clear and convincing picture, one that is at odds with the interests of the members of the crookocracy funding the creation of such mud.
Mr. Obvious - The reason faith does not align with reason or science is that faith is a 6000-year-old paradigm. This may surprise you - the bible does not claim to be a scientific explanation - it can't. The Scientific Method was far in the future. What the bible does is tell you stories that illustrate what happens when you break the deal between man and gd. It's a long contract with anecdotes. The point of the new Testament is that Jesus wanted to rewrite the contract, sort of a Protestant of his day.
It also contains passages that make pretty clear that part of this contract is how you deal with your fellow man. Apparently, war, murder, genocide, rape, and incest in the service of this interesting deity are recommended. Just don't eat shrimp.
Your faith comes in when you believe that we are living a divine contract, and that the Guy-in-the-Sky gives a flying patootie what you do, or will intercede in human or natural events at some point.
Science is independent of belief, or should be, in that the results follow the Laws of Nature. Those, by the way, are the only Truth in this universe; they exist beyond our existence and independent of our belief. It's the scientists' task to discover (pure science)those Laws of Nature, possibly to learn how we can benefit from them (applied science). Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, all men of faith, a couple of them even monks, are to be greatly admired for their courage to buck what faith was telling them in their day. Galileo was imprisoned for his heresy - he refused to accept that the sun revolved around the earth; he couldn't; he had evidence to the contrary. Evidence. Only pepole who reject evidence are stupid.
You can thank science and scientists for everything in you life that works - try and find out all the levels of science that went into the manufacture of the computer you are using to deny it. Open your fridge, your medicine chest; run your car; turn on the lights, the tv; take a photo; make phone call - all of these, and the space projects, are products of scientific enquiry and application.
Not faith.
If you decide that putting a fish gene in a tomato or cloning humans is wrong, then you no longer have science, you have morality. Science will always ask - and should - "What happens when...?" Morality will ask, "Should we..., is it right to...?" Those are important questions, and we are struggling with them, now that science has pushed the frontiers of knowledge.
Some people turn to their faith to answer such questions, and with the variations we have in "faith", we may never be able to agree on the answers - or interested parties will muddy the waters and paralyze everyone with doubt until Monsanto gets its way.
It's curius and disappointing that people who squawk so loudly about the separation of church and state are so hopelessly mired in ill-informed religious notions that they can't untangle them from secular/scientific ones. Perhaps if you'd had some decent religious instruction in school, you'd know where the boundaries are.
Bad as things were with the Catholic church, I must say a lot of damage was done when Protestantism opened the door to individual interpretation of a text that is difficult for the best scholars to interpret. Ever since Luther - and he had a lot of valid points - it seems everyone with an opinion and a venue has a different, often bizarre, version of this "faith". Completely unbelievable that each one could claim to have the 'true faith', and so toxic and so non-compassionate as to qualify for hate speech. These are the people behind the sowing-doubt campaigns. These preachers and their cousins in business sow doubt on many levels. They are very skilled at messing with people's heads, and there's a lot of money in knowing how.
Maybe that's why people can stand by and watch the atrocities unfold in Israel-Palestine and West Asia and think it's gd's work.
But the scientists who are being pushed around by the big commercial/corporate interests really do need to develop a moral spine, and we need to be aware of the pressures, and support ethical scientists and sound, honest science, not allow ourselves to be distracted by the misguided rantings of the tent preachers. Or advertisers.
It makes sense that faith should align with reason and science - the belief that people can be turned into pillars of salt or a deity can split a sea in two, or would want to, should be recognized as moralizing mythology, not as scientific data or historical fact. Though many of the tales have a basis in some tiny fact, they've been expanded, enlarged, laden with symbolism, and the original "fact" no longer matters. Anyway, it can't be definitively determined; all archaeologists can do is come up with a plausible temporary theory, which is subject to reinterpretation as more facts are discovered. And the interpretation is where archaeology gets mired in political agendas. Bigtime.
Peace and blessings.
Kudos to both KIVALS & MEDUSA -- MEDUSA, I hope that your name comes from Dr. USA, as I apparently have been unable to caste away my fear (awe) of snakes.
I would argue your statement on the basis of Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem, when you state:"in that the results follow the Laws of Nature. Those, by the way, are the only Truth in this universe; they exist beyond our existence and independent of our belief."
Goedel's work is profound beyond measure, for it proves that within any consistent (i.e. scientific) system of truths, that there are ALWAYS truths within that system that are not accessible, nor provable (while within). It requires a larger context of inclusiveness to prove those elusive truths to be TRUE.
Why would I bother to introduce esoteric and convoluted mathematics into a philosophic discussion of the bounds and clarity between faith & reason?
It is my belief that other truths - that are not provable from with the domain and context of science - are nonetheless very true and even more so essential for humankind's growth and survival.
The Law of Attraction is one such truth.
This is the basis of much more than the movie "The Secret"
We can use our faith, intention, and belief to shift our focus from the trivial to the profound - but even more powerful - is the alignment with our INNER BEING (aka soul, or spirit). The truth of the nature of reality is ultimately converging (into belief + science + ?), as any viewing the results of physics and cosmology already understand the energy basis of all matter, as vibrations occurring mostly in empty space.
The model of our planets buzzing around the sun, is written with every atom (on that scale) and similarly cosmically for galaxies, and even super clusters of galaxies.
We are all the intersection of a non-physical consciousness enlivening a physical body, and that includes the planet and all other life forms. The dance of life is more profound and interconnected (see Lewis Thomas's "Lives of a Cell") than the current version of science (or religion for that matter) could ever broach.
WE need to OPEN up to a new manner of thinking that allows for both the spirit and science, but not some idio-illogical fundamentalism. The truths are as water is to hold upon, in that the harder one tries to grab, the less one has.
Namaste
Namaste - all my snakes are sleeping, not to worry.
To: "within any consistent (i.e. scientific) system of truths, that there are ALWAYS truths within that system that are not accessible, nor provable (while within)", I reply only: "How do you know?"
It sounds too metaphysical to me, too Khalil Gibran to be scientific. But I do agree that there are probably aspects of ourselves that we haven't yet discovered, or even figured out how to go about discovering. That will come, too.
I agree there's a cosmic harmony that is echoed in our internal physical harmony (carbon is carbon, whether you're on Earth or Antares), and that we ought to find a way to foster that harmony in the social sphere of our existence. But whether there is an overarching Consciousness that guides everything is, again, a matter of faith. So that makes Lovelock's Gaia Theory problematic also, for he proposes a Gaia Consciousness within which all organisms and systems function.
Religion and myth are important to us because they address a different part of our psyche, do a different job. Read anything and everything by Joseph Campbell. Go see the latest Beowolf movie and consider a Jungian interpretation.
"The Secret"? Dale Carnegie on pot fumes.
I bow to you.
MEDUSA -- Gödel is actually quite accessible for all, please consider the challenging read of Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Douglas Hofstadter.
The secret behind "The Secret" is in some ways more profound, as discussion of "vibrations" was considered too extreme for the American audience, so they removed all initial references to the teachings of Abraham (via Esther & Jerry Hicks) - and re-shot those parts of the movie. Watching the released movie is a warm glass of water on a hot day, compared to the cool joy of Abraham's missing refreshment.
Listening to Abraham is the most wholesome gift that (almost) any could expect to receive. Check it out, free 72 min available Abraham: Ask & It's Given
Namaste
P.S. In answer to how do I know, I've thoroughly read GEB, which provides details for the proof, and I've been lucky to have been exposed to much of higher math and its techniques to appreciate the raw beauty revealed.
¿ Were you aware that physicists are constantly scoping the works of pure mathematics, in valiant attempts to conquer extraordinary convoluted puzzling physical descriptions ?
That Einstein (and the world) directly benefited from somewhat sadistic university head chair Goethe forcing effervescent student Riemann to develop an entirely new geometry, in a matter of a few weeks (due to his 3rd choice dissertation topic assailing Goethe's empiric edifice).
Check out Riemann Sphere video, or Riemann Surface.
It's those hard to grasp tent poles to infinity (black holes infinite mass, zero size) that clever Riemann encapsulated into "imaginary" math - using the square root of minus one. What number one might ask, is it possible to imagine, that when squared (times itself) equals -1 ? Of course i = √(-1), so that i2 = √(-1) x √(-1) = (-1).
When one multiplies an imaginary number orthogonally to reality, one creates the Riemannian universe that Einstein lived, dreamed, and created within.
Namaste
P.P.S. What I love the most about Gödel is that is self-referential, in that one never can make a big enough box of logic to hold ALL of truth, as one ALWAYS needs a bigger box to handle the smaller one inside's truths - which leaves the next level up open for expansion, … … …
Something else that is self-referential -- is ourselves.
¿ Who is it (or what-not-ness isn't it = ineffable)
that _ I S __ I _,
that is the possessor of our bodies and thoughts ?
Namaste
I wish I had the ability to understand math at that level. I truly admire that gift. I'm stuck in the spot where a negative times a negative must always produce a positive number. And I used to cry every time I had to recite the times tables. My big mathematical victory occurred the day I calculated a percentage in my head and a colleague at work, who had a Ph.D. in math (from a US college), had to haul out a calculator.
As I said, I love it when science bumps up against the ineffable and struggles with explanations. It fills me with wonder and awe to see "man" wrestling with those interfaces. And as you said, they exist between us and within us also.
But that's far different from the US's atate policy of keeping a populace so ignorant and benighted that they can't think for themselves. The truly scary thing is that the ignorant and susceptible of today will be running the country in about 20 years. If there's anything left by then.
Time to feed my snakes.
is doubt\science aversion not a convenient personal way to avoid making otherwise pressing changes in one's personal morals\ethics\behaviors? preferable to doubt the caloric intake\exercise\waste-or-waist equation, or the income\mortgage\bills\shopping\debt equation, or the conservation of energy (uranium mining\poisoned aquifer) equation, than have to deal with them...where do my food and water and elecricity come from? where do my urine, feces and garbage go? Better to not know, or believe a happy lie, almost any lie, than accept responsibility...think, man, for thyself...and clean up after thyself...no one else will do it for you...
Doubt as a function of reason, of the Scientific Method is a whole other issue: in that context it fosters inquiry.
The title article is talking about creating a hesitancy that gives the instigators time to organize and control the situation for themselves. It's a political manipulation and interferes with the work of scientists.
Yeah, and laypeople need to get on top of the problem, see their own complicity in it.
dubet -- Good points, we need enhanced awareness.
From my hi school days, we read from a very appropriately named, ecologically aware, and progressive text, entitled:
"There is No _ A W A Y _"
Think about it.
Every time we "throw things away", we need to consider exactly where that place is … … …
(or soon enough, it'll be served in our soup at lunch).
Namaste
Geez, I've been throwing my tailpipe emissions away for years... You mean they're still here somewhere?
I'd like to thank the author for adding "manufacture of uncertainty" to my vocabulary. It's a lovely bookend for Noam Chomsky's "manufacture of consent".
As for the "faith" argument, let me add this: Faith in God is not the same thing as faith in the Bible/Torah/Koran/Bagdavita etc. It's not faith, but literal belief in scripture that creates conflict with the scientific worldview.
God created evolution, and evolution created us.
What's the problem?
The flip side of 'The Manufacture of Uncertainty':
Lawrence Solomon's 'The Deniers'
http://www.desmogblog.com/solomons-denier-book-cheered-by-inner-circle
namaste - "It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the universe." Thomas Carlyle
and...there is no away ..that's my favourite line!
jjohnjj - good point on literalism; "God created evolution..." I've often said so myself.