The moral of this post is:  beware of where you get your information from and be careful how you use it.

If a life-form from another planet were to land on earth today they would likely be surprised (and dismayed?) at the division among the dominant species on the planet. Religion, language, ethnicity, politics … so many reasons to divide ourselves even though our similarities outweigh our differences. Somehow, humans find it easier to see why we are different, rather than why we are similar.

The divisor the extraterrestrial visitor will likely find most disturbing (or is amusing the correct word?) is the divide between those who believe in and use the results of the scientific process, and those who do not believe in the scientific process – but use the results of that same process every day.

We will get to that in a bit. First, lets consider how, and why, Joe & Josephine Public got involved in the debate on science and why many appear to mistrust science.

I am taking a long-winded approach, so bear with me.

Changing Human Communication

Early in the development of human society long-distance communication and the dissemination of news would have been very slow and the boundaries between fact and fiction (rumor) very slim. Priests (in their sermons), town criers (at specific locations in towns), and posts (handwritten notifications attached to a post at specific locations) would have been the primary means of disseminating news. While the roots of science could be traced back to 3000 BC, for much of this time in human history, scientists if any would have been more likened to wizards or sorcerers, like Merlin in the Court of King Arthur.

The electrical telegraph (Francis Ronalds in 1816) marks the next step change in communications. Although not a mass-information communication system it did enable fast communication between two distant points via wires using a spark code. 

The telephone, invented by Antonio Meucci in 1849 (but patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876) used a similar system of communicating between two distant points via wires, but in this case was able to transmit voice – making the communication much more efficient than using the spark codes (Morse code).

Interestingly, there is controversy around this also – such as the failure to deliver radio warnings of the presence of ice, the refusal of the Marconi system operators on the Titanic to deal with messages from the competing Telefunkun company. However, these were not failings of the system or the science that led to the invention of the system – it is rather the fault of how humans used the system. 

The next improvement in information dissemination was the development of the television, an extension of the radio, but with the addition of a picture to the sound. Many scientists worked on developing the ability to transmit moving images through wireless radio waves but the first successful demonstration of a working system was by John Logie Baird on 25 March 1925. 

Cellular (mobile) phones developed quickly thereafter, soon fitting into our pockets and weighing only a fraction of the early “bag phones.” This also meant that now, most people had a way to communicate almost instantly, and were not constrained by being attached to a source of electricity – since these phones used small portable batteries. The emergence of the cell (mobile) phone also sounded the death knell for the wired telephone – just as newspapers made obsolete the role of priests and town-criers as newsmongers, and radio and television reduced the reliance on newspapers.

Welcome to my Web (parlour) said the Spider to the Fly

We now need to introduce the computer and subsequently the internet into the mix. The first programmable electronic computer was the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), built by the USA during World War II (yes, by scientists and engineers). ENIAC, completed in 1946 would not fit in your pocket or even a backpack – it occupied a 50 foot x 30 foot room. The first personal computer (PC) capable of running application programs was the Altair, developed in 1974. 

Paralleling the development of personal computers was the development of the Internet. With origins reaching back to the 1960s research by the US Department of Defence to enable computer time-sharing. By 1995 there was a fully commercialized internet in the US. At the time of writing most, if not all, countries of the world have followed suit. We have a truly World Wide Web.

Frankenstein’s monster

Part telephone, part television, part computer, part unfiltered megaphone…the smartphone may have the last laugh yet.

This leads us to the biggest change, and the one that is central to the democratization of science, the development of the “smartphone.” Having a telephone for communication, radio and television for news, and a mini-computer in everyone’s hand – has allowed us all to communicate and browse the internet for all kinds of information including politics, science, and entertainment. So, while we have gained access to huge amounts of information, we are often not trained or able to screen the information or properly decide what is pertinent and relevant against what is not.

---

“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

— Mark Twain

---

So, while you will see many questioning or criticizing science, or outright stating their disbelief of science – they make their views known on the same electronic device and internet made possible by science; they travel by car, bus, train, airplane invented and developed through science; they eat food that has been manipulated by science; they wear clothes made possible by science; listen to music created, recorded and reproduced by scientific principles, and so on. The irony is that these developments were made possible by…. science. Our very existence on our tiny blue planet is inextricably interwoven with science. 

Each of us is not able to master all the varied information/fields we can now explore and comment on. I spent many years studying and working in my field of science – that still does not qualify me to entertain you all with song. It’s best I don’t. It’s worse if I have to entertain you with dance. Really, don’t ask me to. Even though I have a robust understanding of science in general, it doesn’t qualify me to comment on areas of science I am not closely familiar with – for example quantum physics. 

So, why is it there are so many armchair science experts on the internet who take unrelated information, synthesize improbable hypotheses, jump to unjustified conclusions, and issue earth-shattering proclamations on their disbelief of science? 

Because they can. The smartphone, World Wide Web, and Social Networks have made it appear to the proletariat that science is a free-for-all. It isn’t.

Science vs. Opinion and Belief

In science we conduct research using the scientific method. However, for it to have any meaning or use beyond an individuals own understandig, it has to be published in a scientific journal. Science journals only publish works that have been vetted and approved by other scientists (usually experts in the field). The vetting of a submitted publication is not an easy process. I have been at the receiving end of many a cutting criticism, but at the end – if I can resolve any issues raised by the editors – my article gets improved by the feedback and then gets published. Only then do my insights get incorporated into the knowledge base of the topic.

Unfortunately, as with any system, there are occasions when a system is not implemented as strongly as it should be. When that happens the scientific community will call out those publications of flawed science using data and logic – and it can lead to significant erosion of the errant author’s and publication’s credibility. Although this may suggest a weakness of science – it actually shows just how strong and reliable science is.

This is the exact opposite of what happens when one publishes anything on the internet, and especially on social media. If you disagree with what I say in this post I can simply ignore you and not share your rebuttal. Based on what I see on social media people can and do say whatever they want (except when they exceed some random line determined by the social media platform) – rarely taking the trouble to even make it sound credible.

Scientists also have opinions and beliefs (consider the scientists who have expressed skepticism about human-induced climate change). There is nothing wrong with having an alternate view. However, if one is truly a rational scientist, when research data accumulates contradicting your view you have to be willing and able to change your mind. Obstinately holding on to a belief even after it has been debunked is not how science has improved our knowledge.

I believe (based on currently available data) that human activity is driving global warming and climate change. If scientifically valid data becomes available that contradicts this belief I will happily change my mind. That makes me a good scientist, not a bad one.

The internet of smartphones and social media apps have given the previously inconsequential among us unfettered access to a bully-pulpit where anyone and everyone can pretend to be informed, intelligent and, very occasionally, coherent. With this new found ability to reach multitudes of social media followers, many have proceed to prove Mark Twain right!

Example: Science vs. Rumor and Innuendo

Here is a recent example from FB where a reader responds to a NOAA article on how our suns brightness varies over time and that how these short-term changes are not linked to the pattern of global warming (that is, global climate change is probably not because of increasing brightness of the sun). Names have been deleted to protect the uninformed.

The first comment isn’t really a comment at all. It’s a tactic used by many who wish to criticize but with no actual basis for the criticism to say “did you know you might just be wrong in your statement?” The question itself is so inane that no response is possible. The use of quotations for “data” is also typical of those who can’t really understand the data but use grammatical tools to denigrate it anyway. 

The second comment is also confused (“Science and consensus are not the same…” no one said it was – obviously doesn’t understand science). And what is “settled science?” The nature of science is that we don’t prove anything with science, we just get better and better at explaining what may be causing some observed feature. See my earlier post on the scientific method.

This commentor then states “tens of thousands of scientists have disagreed with NOAA’s findings.” I have not seen a survey of scientists on this issue but it sounds catchy – the kind of data climate change deniers do accept. Finally, lets consider the three scientists s/he identified in her/his two-minute search: Richard Lindzen, Freeman Dyson, and Frederick Seitz.

All three were prominent scientists (Dyson and Seitz passed away several years ago). This 2009 interview with Dyson gives a better insight into the man and his views than I ever could. I suggest you read the entire article. In the same way, I suggest reading this Wikipedia article on Seitz and this one regarding Richard Lindzen. You will likely need several hours to read the articles and check the references – yes, if you are going to be a scientist you have to do that – so don’t just read headlines. In the case of Lindzen – consider where his paper on climate change was published and how he got to that point. I could tell you, but its better for you to find out for yourself.

Science has no Sacred Cows.

Scientists are not saints. They too can be swayed or coerced, by publicity and money, in how they interpret data or what data they choose to use to support their interpretation. It is up to us as readers and consumers of that information to thoroughly read and review their findings to ensure it meets the requirements of true scientific inquiry.

Many theories have been debunked over time. We humans like to make sense of what we can see and relate it to some hypothesis as to what it is and how it works. In the early days of studying (human) cells, the concept of a homunculus was suggested to explain human reproduction. As our techniques (for example microscopes) got better this theory was discarded.

Consider also the theory of phlogiston proposed by Becher in 1667 – a fire-like element that was supposedly present in combustible matter and was released during combustion. In the 1770’s de Lavoisier’s experiments debunked the phlogiston theory, and these same experiments led to the discovery of Oxygen!

This article provides examples of scientific theories that have been proven wrong (debunked, discarded). They were all proven wrong by applying the scientific method. Since we can not prove a theory or hypothesis to be true, we take great pleasure in proving it wrong!

However we prove a theory/hypothesis wrong by conducting controlled experiments, collecting valid data, and analyzing that data – not by shouting loudly that we don’t trust a particular theory or hypothesis, or science in general.