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Lifehacker is talking about the benefits of skepticism.

Creativity – The best way to prevent new solutions is to believe you already have the answer. Allowing a gap of doubt can allow creative alternatives to flow in. If you are adamant that advertising will not work for your product, you might cut off hundreds of ideas for improving your business.

Amen to that!  There are several others listed, and I completely agree with what is being said.  Skepticism has been the route to balance in my life, the route to understanding.

There is also an amusing story from The Big Room calling for a government War on Science. I find the idea amusing.

Life Hacks creativity, Science, skepticism

Someone once argued with me, concerning evolution, “science has been wrong before.”

True enough. I didn’t reply at the time, for a variety of reasons. Today, I would challenge them to name something that science has been wrong about. There are several possible choices. One common answer is thinking the earth was flat (most people don’t know about Eratosthenes calculating the diameter of the earth around 200 B.C). Never-the-less, the fact remains that the argument is right. We have been wrong about things in the past. We’re still wrong about some things. We know that many of our theories are incomplete.

Given all of that, though, there is a better point to be made. Science is unique in the way that it is the only self-correcting field out there. All of those times science has been wrong about something, I can guarantee you, it was not the priest that fixed it, but another scientist.

Theology christianity, debate, evolution, Philosophy, Science

Well, I’ve wrapped up my viewing of the Planet Earth series from the BBC, narrated by David Attenborough. Only one word is needed to describe the experience: WOW! If you have not seen this yet, you will not be disappointed. And for only $55 at amazon, there is no excuse not to have it as a part of your DVD collection.

The series is marked by the footage of things that have never been captured on film before (and in some cases, never even seen before), incredible camera work to capture the scenery, and jaw-dropping scale. The first time I saw the footage of Angel Falls was nearly overwhelming.

One thing the film really brings to my attention, and something I’ve been loath to think about in the past, is the knife edge we are now walking in reference to our global environment. Some of the things they caught on film is likely to never be seen again; the animals will be gone. After seeing these on screen, the disaster that would be their loss is really driven home. Sadly, in some cases, it might be too late.

So check it out! As I said, you won’t be disappointed.

Science biology, inspiration, Science, videos

From a blog entry about psychiatry:

“When Marco Polo saw the exotic one horned quadruped, his frame of reference required that it could be none other than a unicorn, even though it did not conform exactly to his prior conception of it. Marco Polo made his observation fit his existing paradigm of zoology. While superficially (and in retrospect) this may seem silly and arbitrary, it is in fact the opposite, Marco Polo believed the only thing he could believe—because the alternative was to believe he had discovered an entirely new, unheard of, creature.“

While the original post dealt with psychiatry directly, I think there is a wider lesson to be learned here. Our assumptions about knowledge and authority can lead us down the wrong path.

Philosophy Science, skepticism

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a classic non-zero-sum game in game theory. I know that can sound a little intimidating, but I’ll lay it out in it’s simplest terms, because it really is quite simple to grasp, and quite valuable to understand.

As a former Objectivist, I really understand the power of selfishness and what it entails. Everyone is basically selfish – in fact, it’s impossible to be completely altruistic. However, that explanation depends on very rigid definitions of both altruism and selfishness, and those definitions are rarely used outside of Objectivism. The main point is that most people, most of the time, will look to maximize their own gain, and I think that most people will agree with that. Objectivism states that this can be a very valuable tool for the betterment of everyone, and there is a lot of evidence that backs that up. The problem is that it never takes into account non-zero-sum games, such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

To illustrate what I mean by a non-zero-sum game, let me explain the Prisoner’s Dillemma. Imagine two people who committed a crime together. When they are arrested, they are seperated into two different rooms, and the prosecuter comes in to talk with each of them. The situation is explained to them. If they betray the other person and turn states evidence, they will get away scot free. If they stay silent, while the state can’t convict them for the original criminal act, they can easily get a conviction for a smaller act committed later. The options each person is facing are these:

1. Stay silent, get convicted for the smaller offence, serve 5 years in prison.

2. Turn states evidence, betray their partner and serve no prison time.

It seems pretty obvious that option (2) is the best option. However, there is a twist. The other person is also getting the same deal, so the situation is more complicated. The possibilities are now this:

A. Both stay silent, both serve 5 years in prison.

B. One talks while the other stays silent, and so one goes free while the other spends 10 years in prison.

C. Both talk, where they both serve 10 years. In other words, if they both turn states evidence, there is no need for a deal, so they both go to prison.

Now the Dilemma should be clear. If they both take option (2) from above, they will both serve 10 years prison time. However, if one stays silent, they risk the other turning states evidence and getting off free while they serve 10 years prison.

What would you do?

Given that situation and the options given to each, I’m going to define option (1) as altruistic in nature, and option (2) as selfish in nature. If both people act purely selfishly, as our tendencies are, they both lose greatly. If only of them acts altruistically, they risk being screwed into something pretty bad. The best option now becomes for them to both act altruistically, seeking cooperation instead of self-preservation.

That deserves quite a bit of meditation. As in the Tragedy of the Commons, the best option for both the group and the individual over the long run is more altruistic behaviour than purely selfish behaviour. However, where as the tragedy of the commons can be addressed through private ownership to a point, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is more about interaction, which can be more difficult to really grasp, and I think relevent to morality. Where-in Objectivism holds selfishness as the highest moral principle, it does not necessarily reflect reality. Obviously, altruistic behaviour can lead to an even greater gain, depending on the situation. Those situations are non-zero-sum games.

Given that gaining and keeping resources is good for the individual, we can now derive a moral principal. In a non-zero-sum game, it is morally best for an individual to act altruistically, and immorral to act selfishly.

Okay, you might be wondering why I’m taking the time to write something so blazingly obvious to anyone. As an atheist, I’ve been accused as being a moral relativist, or even worse, completely lacking in morals. This is obvious to the accuser because morality can only come from god. I have now answered those accusations. I have demonstrated the creation of a moral principal using only reason, and without invoking the supernatural. What’s more, it can be applied equally to everyone, and it’s reasoning is available to everyone. It is not dependent on revelations to the elite, or an ancient and contradictory book. It something you can learn, here and now.

This is not something new. It’s not something I did completely on my own. This has been explained over and over again, and as I mentioned, there is a whole field dedicated to the study of such situations. Richard Dawkin’s has done a documentary on the subject called ‘Nice Guys Finish First,’ which explains the subject much better than I can hope for.

Philosophy Atheism, Mathematics, morality, Science

I’ve been a scientific skeptic for over nine months now, and I’ve discovered that most people don’t really know what this means. So, I’m going to attempt to explain it.

You can boil down the concept of scientific skepticism down to one single concept: we know things based on empirical evidence. But what does that mean? It means that the only evidence acceptable in support of something is that evidence that is available to everyone and can be verified by anyone.

When looking at the phrase ’scientific skepticism’ it’s important to focus on the first word. A scientific skeptic uses science and the scientific method to verify or discover new evidence.

There are many famous scientific skeptics you probably already know about. Here is a short list: Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, James Randi, Penn & Teller, and even the Mythbusters crew.

Using the scientific method, there are several things already know. We understand the effects of gravity (but are still working on how it works), the concepts of thermal-dynamics, the workings of the atom, evolutionary biology.

The things that there isn’t empirical evidence for are the things that the skeptic rejects. Examples of these things include: homeopathy, psychic readings, telepathy, and faith healing.

Sometimes the question arises about things everyone feels that they know, but we don’t really have evidence for. There is a scene in the movie, Contact, that illustrates this. The main character is asked to ‘prove’ that she loved her father. The point is that this was something she knew was true, but couldn’t really prove.

But is this a proper application of the skeptic epistemology?

There are several ways I’ve approached this problem. The first goes something like this. Personally, she has a lot of evidence for the fact that she loves her father. She has no problem knowing beyond all doubt that it is a simple fact. However, getting proof to this fact demonstrable and verifiable to a third person would be a bit more difficult. Some say that it would be possible for her to be hooked up to an MRI or EEG machine and readings of her brain to be taken. Or perhaps measurements of her body chemistry and how it reacts to thoughts of her father. In the end, however, there is an important thing to note that makes all of this rather pointless. She’s not trying to get other people to believe that she loved her father. It doesn’t really matter what anyone else believes. If she were to take on the task of trying to get other people to believe, perhaps then it would be necessary to provide such evidence.

When approaching a new idea, a skeptic will take a neutral stance and then look at the evidence. If the evidence contradicts the idea, then the idea is wrong, or incomplete. If the evidence is not enough to render a judgement either way, the skeptic will withhold judgement. This is an extremely important point. Skeptics are more tied to the method of knowledge discovery than to the knowledge itself. If contradictory evidence appears, the original idea is discarded and the search for a new one begins, one that fits with the evidence. Sometimes such new ideas are easily located, others may forever be out of our reach.

Philosophy meaning, Philosophy, Science, skepticism