On the denigration of science: Atul Gawande’s commencement address to Caltech

June 12, 2016 • 10:15 am

A short while ago, when we were chewing over Siddhartha Mukherjee’s distortions about epigenetics published in The New Yorker, I reproduced an email from a colleague discussing the magazine’s generally absymal and postmodernist take on science—but also singling out one author as an exception:

The New Yorker is fine with science that either serves a literary purpose (doctors’ portraits of interesting patients) or a political purpose (environmental writing with its implicit critique of modern technology and capitalism). But the subtext of most of its coverage (there are exceptions) is that scientists are just a self-interested tribe with their own narrative and no claim to finding the truth, and that science must concede the supremacy of literary culture when it comes to anything human, and never try to submit human affairs to quantification or consilience with biology. Because the magazine is undoubtedly sophisticated in its writing and editing they don’t flaunt their postmodernism or their literary-intellectual proprietariness, but once you notice it you can make sense of a lot of their material.

. . . Obviously there are exceptions – Atul Gawande is consistently superb – but as soon as you notice it, their guild war on behalf of cultural critics and literary intellectuals against scientists, technologists, and analytic scholars becomes apparent.

Gawande (born 1965) is a surgeon who also happens to be a staff writer for the New Yorker, one of the best writing gigs there is. And I agree with my correspondent: he’s very good. You can see his salubrious attitude toward science in something he just published in the magazine, a transcript of the address he gave on Friday at the Caltech (California Institute of Technology) commencement. It’s called “The mistrust of science.” (See the video below.)

I was happy to see that Gawande made several of the points I stressed in Faith Versus Fact: science is more a way of knowing than a body of facts; its methodology, honed over centuries of experience, is a reliable way to understand nature, while views based on faith or ideology are not; that “asserting the true facts of good science” is a better way to correct scientific misunderstandings or ideological opposition than is simply rebutting good science (something I tried to do in WEIT). Here’s just a bit:

Few working scientists can give a ground-up explanation of the phenomenon they study; they rely on information and techniques borrowed from other scientists. Knowledge and the virtues of the scientific orientation live far more in the community than the individual. When we talk of a “scientific community,” we are pointing to something critical: that advanced science is a social enterprise, characterized by an intricate division of cognitive labor. Individual scientists, no less than the quacks, can be famously bull-headed, overly enamored of pet theories, dismissive of new evidence, and heedless of their fallibility. (Hence Max Planck’s observation that science advances one funeral at a time.) But as a community endeavor, it is beautifully self-correcting.

Beautifully organized, however, it is not. Seen up close, the scientific community—with its muddled peer-review process, badly written journal articles, subtly contemptuous letters to the editor, overtly contemptuous subreddit threads, and pompous pronouncements of the academy— looks like a rickety vehicle for getting to truth. Yet the hive mind swarms ever forward. It now advances knowledge in almost every realm of existence—even the humanities, where neuroscience and computerization are shaping understanding of everything from free will to how art and literature have evolved over time.

Well, I’m not sure how rickety the enterprise really looks: bad writing is endemic in academia, but so long as it’s intelligible it’s no block to scientific progress (try reading some of the early papers on quantum mechanics!). Letters to the editor, which are really corrections, are useful in calling out errors or distortions. “Pompous pronouncements of the academy” (I assume Gawande means scientific bodies like the National Academy or Royal Society) have little effect on the progress of science, though they may affect public policy. And “subreddit threads” are completely irrelevant to scientists; I don’t think I’ve ever read one. But Gawande’s right: the self-correcting “hive mind”, even though motivated largely by careerism and ambition, is unique to science, and completely alien to theology and pseudoscience.

Gawande’s final words to the graduates were these:

Today, you become part of the scientific community, arguably the most powerful collective enterprise in human history. In doing so, you also inherit a role in explaining it and helping it reclaim territory of trust at a time when that territory has been shrinking.

. . . The mistake, then, is to believe that the educational credentials you get today give you any special authority on truth. What you have gained is far more important: an understanding of what real truth-seeking looks like. It is the effort not of a single person but of a group of people—the bigger the better—pursuing ideas with curiosity, inquisitiveness, openness, and discipline. As scientists, in other words.

Even more than what you think, how you think matters. The stakes for understanding this could not be higher than they are today, because we are not just battling for what it means to be scientists. We are battling for what it means to be citizens.

Here’s the talk if you’d prefer to watch rather than read:

Addendum: Gawande made one statement that will rile up gun lovers (in bold):

Many people continue to believe, for instance, despite massive evidence to the contrary, that childhood vaccines cause autism (they do not); that people are safer owning a gun (they are not); that genetically modified crops are harmful (on balance, they have been beneficial); that climate change is not happening (it is).

It turns out that, indeed, you’re not safer owning a gun (see also here).

 

Terrorist attack in Orlando kills 50, injures 53

June 12, 2016 • 9:28 am

According to the New York Times and CNN, an assailant attacked an Orlando nightclub with an assault rifle and a handgun, killing about 20  50 people (updated) and injuring 42 53. The attack occurred at about 2 a.m. The assailant, who was killed in a battle with police, may also have also had explosives taped to his body.

The new death toll of 50, which may rise, makes this by far the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

My CNN news feed identifies the suspect as Omar Saddiqui Mateen, and The Jerusalem Post notes that, according to the FBI, Mateen may have had connections or leanings to ISIS.

While it’s possible this isn’t a terrorist attack, the likelihood is that it is. It may also be relevant that it was a gay nightclub.

This is a mirror of the terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv last week. There is no justification possible for either attack, though Hamas claimed credit for the latter and many Palestinians celebrated the four Israeli civilians who were killed, passing out sweets and issuing celebratory tweets. Any celebrations in the Islamic world will be more muted this time, as the organization involved was more likely to be ISIS rather than Hamas, and the targets were not Israelis but Americans.

But it’s never justified to kill innocent civilians, and I mourn for those, both Americans and Israelis, who lost their lives, as well as for the friends and relatives who remain. Our next President will have a hard row to hoe, for these attacks are not going away. We have the problem of gun control and we have the problem of terrorist Islamism. Neither has a clear solution, especially given the administration’s refusal to recognize religious motivations and Americans’ love of their weapons.

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 12, 2016 • 7:30 am

Reader Mike McDowell sent photographs of butterflies, all photographed in southern Wisconson, with these notes:

All were photographed using a Nikon 1 V1 with a Tamron 60mm f2 1:1 macro lens. Compared with tiger beetles or robber flies, butterflies are a snap! Still, my approach is similar; I hold my camera in one hand, then use my other hand and knees to slowly shuffle forward, and then carefully lean toward the insect for the shot.

Striped Hairstreak, Satyrium liparops:

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Banded Hairstreak, Satyrium calanus:

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Coral Hairstreak, Satyrium titus:

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Edward’s Hairstreak, Satyrium edwardsii:

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Giant Swallowtail, Papilio cresphontes:

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Viceroy, Limenitis archippus:

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Baltimore Checkerspot, Euphydryas phaeton:

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Red-spotted Purple, Limenitis arthemis astyanax:

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Common Wood Nymph, Cercyonis pegala:

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American Copper, Lycaena phlaeas:

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Sunday: Hili dialogue

June 12, 2016 • 6:30 am

It is Sunday, June 12 (“Loving Day” in the U.S.), and all is quiet; the students have graduated, and have either left for their homes or will do so today. And the campus will undergo that annual instant and magical transformation from busy to quiet and empty. On the other hand, for three days, starting tomorrow, they’ll be filming a movie on the street outside my office, and I have no idea what it’s about. (They always keep these things quiet.) The last time this happened it involved Keanu Reeves, who had a scene sitting on a motorcycle right outside my building. All the grad students—especially the women—crowded around the windows to get a peek at him, and were told by the movie people to step back so they couldn’t be seen. So it goes.

On this day in 1942, Anne Frank received a new diary on her thirteenth birthday; the rest is history. And on June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan made his plea in Berlin for Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” The rest is history. Finally, it was on this day in 1994 that Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered in Los Angeles, the killer almost certainly being O. J. Simpson, now in prison for other crimes. Those born on this day include Egon Schiele (1890), one of my favorite painters, who died of influenza at only 28; author Djuna Barnes (1892); and, as noted above, Anne Frank (1929). Notables who died on June 12 include Edmund Wilson (1972), Karl von Frisch (1982), and Gregory Peck (2003). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Cyrus and Hili are having their constitutional along the Vistula. I would have thought that the “best time,” however, involved noms.

Hili: What time is it?
Cyrus: The best one.
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In Polish:
Hili: Która godzina?
Cyrus: Najlepsza.
Lagnaippe: my favorite Get Fuzzy strip of all time, which I finally found:
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Dawkins’s Reason Rally speech

June 11, 2016 • 2:30 pm

I didn’t go to the Reason Rally a week ago because I was in Boston, but I doubt I would have gone anyway, for I’m beginning to tire of many of these convocations (not all of them—some include science, psychology, and philosophy talks that go beyond personal deconversion tales or rah-rah calls for nonbelief). Richard Dawkins, one of the draws—but not a “self-appointed Atheist Leader”—had to make a video for the audience, as a recent stroke kept him from traveling to the U.S. Here’s his short video for the Rally, which concentrates on the incompatibility between science and faith. I especially like the bit where he goes after theologians for asserting that God is not complex but SIMPLE.

As you may recall, in The God Delusion Richard argued that the “First Cause” argument is intellectually bankrupt, for it doesn’t explain the “cause” of a complex God who could create everything. In response, the dimmer or more mendacious theologians say that God isn’t complex at all, but simple. (Some theologians, however, just punt and say that God is the One Thing that Doesn’t Need a Cause.) It is this “simple god” argument that Dawkins takes apart halfway through the video. And, of course, even if God were simple, his appearance in the cosmos still needs an explanation. It just won’t do to say that God is the one thing, among all other things, that doesn’t need a cause. If he was hanging around forever, pray tell us, O theologians, what he was doing before he created the Universe.

Finally, physics has dispensed with the idea of causation; the discipline has no such thing as “a law of cause and effect,” and some physical phenomena are simply uncaused.

Larry Alex Taunton taunted again for his ghoulish book on Hitchens

June 11, 2016 • 1:15 pm

We’ve pretty well established that Larry Alex Taunton’s book on Christopher Hitchens, based on two long road-trip conversations he had with the man, twisted Hitchens’s interest in religion into a misguided speculation that he was pondering becoming a Christian after diagnosed with terminal cancer.  And Taunton’s views are completely different from those of Hitchens’s friends and loved ones, who knew the man far better than he did. (See here for the evidence.)

So it may be superfluous for me to call your attention to a new piece in The Atlantic by David Frum, “Betraying the faith of Christopher Hitchens“. While it adds to the chorus of opprobrium heaped on the hapless Taunton, it does so in damning detail—the most comprehensive takedown to date—and also proffers some juicy new tidbits. These include revealing why Mark Oppenheimer wrote a New York Times piece about Taunton’s book with the headline below (click on it to see the piece), as well as giving a number of quotes from the book in which Taunton seriously denigrates Hitchens’s character.

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Frum also tells a moving anecdote about Hitchens’s generosity. Finally, Frum interviewed Taunton and got some pretty damning admissions.

I’ve read most of Taunton’s book, but I didn’t pay to do it. After reading Frum’s piece, which, by the way, is also very well written, I doubt that any of you will want to read the book.  I’ll give just one excerpt, but do read the whole longish piece, as it gives you a thorough analysis of Taunton’s mendacity—or else the world’s most blatant case of cluelessness. He begins by quoting Taunton:

Taunton again:

“My private conversations with him revealed a man who was weighing the costs of conversion. His atheist friends and colleagues, sensing his flirtations with Christianity and fearing his all-out desertion to that hated enemy, rushed to keep him in the fold. To reassure them, Christopher, for his part, was more bombastic than ever. But the rhetoric was concealing the fact that even while he was railing about God from the rostrum, he was secretly negotiating with him. Fierce protestations of loyalty always precede a defection, and Christopher had to make them. At least he had to if he was to avoid the ridicule and ostracism he would surely suffer at the hands of the very same people who memorialized him. To cross the aisle politically was one thing. There was precedence for that. Churchill had very famously done it. But Christopher well knew that whatever criticisms and loss of friendships he had suffered then would pale in comparison to what would follow his religious conversion. Hatred of God was the central tenet of their faith, and there could be no redemption for those renouncing it.

And it is here that his courage failed him. In the end, however contrary our natures might be, there are always a few people whose approbation we desire and to whose standards we conform.” 

What evidence does Taunton have for this claim that Christopher Hitchens believed one thing and said another in order to make money and to avoid “ridicule and ostracism”?

What evidence that Hitchens remained an atheist only because he “weighed the costs of conversion” and preferred to conform to the standards of others?

What evidence that Hitchens “was altering his opinions, while often pretending to himself and others that he was not doing so”?

What evidence is there that Hitchens’ was “secretly negotiating with God” but that in the end “his courage failed him?”

The answer to those questions is even more breathtaking than the accusation itself—and should have been glaringly apparent to anyone who gave Taunton’s book more than the most cursory skim.

Taunton has nothing.