"I think, therefore I am", Descartes said. "A rose by any other name, smells just as sweet.", someone else said.
Ask me anytime of the day on why i would not believe a religion by faith, and i would answer by saying that there is no science to it. One can postulate the existence of God, one can genuinely believe to have seen the works of gods, one can claim of past lives and an adherence to a karmic cycle. From arguments by morality, free will, intelligent design, meaning of life, definition of English words, misinterpretation of second law of thermodynamics, right down to Pascal's wager. I would say that i fail to believe due to the lack of adequate evidence.
What about Einstein's theory of special relativity? Why should i believe Einstein? Have i personally conducted science experiments to prove his theory right or wrong? And if John Doe wanted to buy a can of fizzy drink from a vending machine, should i tell him to stop and do a science experiment to prove that the capacitors in the electronic circuits within the vending machine does indeed works the way that scientists and/or engineers claim them to?
"But i just want a drink." John Doe would probably say.
With pseudoscience never dying down and people, with impressive qualifications no less, start performing experiments and claim to have applied proper controls, and passing off and/or publishing it believably as science, how then is the common man like me, who cannot afford or construct or even understand the said experiment to believe what is true?
Would not belief in Newton's laws of motion become just a leap of faith? How do i know that Newton did not have some flaws in his experiments? When i catch someone staring at me, how can i say it is not not pattern finding but PSI energy generated from the brain of the person staring at me?
Incidentally, it seems i am adopting Descartes's method of discourse as seen in his Meditations on First Philosophy? That nothing i see and sense could be believed to be true. That some malevolent being might be lying to me, could possibly even be meddling with whatever science experiments that i conduct, so i would never know the truth.
But Meditations on First Philosophy has a serious flaw. I think, therefore i am. But no more. Nothing else can be proven. I can prove my existence, i can prove mathematics, but that's about as far as we could ever go with total discourse. To disbelieve everything would then amount to irrational paranoia, resulting only in stagnation, for nothing else can be proven.
I shall digress and talk a little about Mediations on First Philosophy. Descartes suggest that nothing can be believed to be true as a malevolent being could be lying to him. The apple he sees might in fact not be an apple. But if a malevolent being was lying to him, then he must be existential to be lied to. With this, Descartes uses as proof that thinking beings exists, cogito ergo sum (i think therefore i am).
Why does Mathematics exist as true then? "A rose by any other name smells just as sweet". One plus one equals two. You can use any language, call it by any other name, but the only way to count an accumulation of things is or atleast is the equivalent of the addition of one and one.
And from these simple mathematics, we can expand into many other things like Pythagoras Theorem, c² = a² + b². From that, we know that right-angle triangles exists. Shapes exists. But one can only prove that it exists conceptually, no more.
Perhaps Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy encounters such obstacles because it does not consider tangibility. An apple, even if it is a lie, interacts tangibily with its surroundings. One can reach out, grab the apple and eat it for sustenance. Sure it might all be a lie, but within the system itself, it is producing reliable reactance. John Doe need not care whether the vending machine exists anot, he only needs to insert his coins, press the buttons and he'll have a can of fizzy drink.
Which brings us back to square one. That for the common man, believing in physics seems to be no different than believing in pseudophysics. For all the common man like me would know, there is absolutely no difference. All it takes is a certain amount of faith.
But that is most certainly not true. For if ever the common man did start to conduct his own experiments, he would find that science experiments are replicable while pseudoscience experiments are not. Given that, is it still truthful to believe in pseudoscience?
One might then argue that to totally disregard pseudoscience is to be narrow-minded and unscientific. They contend that pseudoscience is pseudo only because of the limitations of current sciences, that pseudoscience is infact actually protoscience or undiscovered science. More importantly, proponents of psychic abilities, spirituality, alternative healing, creation science or pseudoscience, would always claim that their 'research' are protoscience. However, pseudoscience often discard failed experiments, focus on the people's tendency towards superstition and publish only successful tries in their experiments.
Where do we draw the line between the open minded and full blown credulity?
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cheem leh...
ReplyDeleteBut i like yr writing style leh..
interesting...
wah lao.. next time can use english?
ReplyDeleteWa liao... must say i wanna marry Ponz Goo then can make it meh?
ReplyDeleteI guess the difficulty is where you draw the line between science and pseudoscience. Just about everything that is scientifically accepted today would at some time in history have been pseudoscience.
ReplyDeleteFor goodness sakes, at the relevant period in history, which rational, logical, scientific person would have believed in the existence of bacteria or electricity, or the possibility of Lycra, a telephone or a space rocket or chemotherapy, or the idea that the earth actually revolves around the sun? Anyone who spouted such ideas would likely have been dismissed as a quack, an idiot or a dishonest charlatan.
Yet in the times just before those relevant periods, there must have already been persons who DID believe in the existence of bacteria or electricity (or else they would not have endeavoured to prove it) or the possibility of a telephone or a space rocket or chemotherapy (or else they would not have tried to invent these things).
Another interesting point to note is that certain disciplines, quite well-accepted in the world today, employ methods which probably wouldn't stand up to Popper's scientific method of proof.
ReplyDeleteYet in our schools, we teach economics; psychology; political science; mass communications; human geography; business management;
each field chock-full with theories that cannot be scientifically proven -
yet would you therefore disbelieve all of them?
Mr Wang,
ReplyDeleteWhen i was younger, and my baby tooth fell out, i placed my tooth underneath my pillow. I was hoping that the tooth fairy would come and change the tooth with some diamonds. Weeks and months gone by, and i changed. I changed from waiting for the tooth fairy to deliver diamonds to delivering a diamond, then gold bars, then some coins. And then i changed even further, i was waiting for some coins, not from the tooth fairy but from my mum, hoping that she would indulge me.
The tooth, turned yellow, turned moldy, and eventually fell off my bed and got swept away, went down the chute presumably. And through it all, i was not a cent richer.
If i told you i still believed in the tooth fairy, and i wanted to prove her existence by conducting science experiments, tweaking variables like molars, incissors, sleeping postures, pillow type etc.
It seems a harmless experiment, until it comes to expenditure, buying pillows, books, paying experimental subjects and precious time etc. Nevertheless, i assert that one day, tooth fairy will become science. Imagine the breakthrough, invisibility, creation, and the question of authenticity of those coins.
Mr Wang, if such were the case, would you be moral enough to tell me to stop wasting my time with a delusion? Or would you say, "I must be open minded, let him continue, maybe it'll be proven one of these days."?
You mentioned Galileo. In fact, Galileo was unable to provide evidence that the earth revolved around the sun. Perhaps you feel that today's pseudoscience is a little like Galileo, heading in the correct direction, but unable to prove it. But do bear in mind, that Galileo stood up to, not against science, but against blind faith in the scriptures.
Science can be proven wrong. But whether right or wrong, it adds to the accumulation of science. Pseudoscience has not been known to stand up to honest quantitative and controlled experiments. Sadly, it has not been adding to the accumulation of science. But still, pseudoscience is being pursued tirelessly. I shall ask, "Why indulge in the tooth fairy phenomenon"
Perhaps you feel that current methods are inadequate. That psychic/spiritual (there really is little difference) experiments play a role. Tell me Mr Wang, do you really need anyone to scientifically prove spirituality to you? Or have you already believed in it irregardless of evidence or no. Or as you suggest, the amalgation of 'pseudosciences' points towards the existence of spirituality.
If you looked at astronomy and astrology (an issue i think you wouldn't feel so strongly about, imo), surely you would understand why astronomy is science while astrology is pseudoscience.
I am not asking anyone to stop pursuing innovation here. I'm asking... actually, my post was just saying why the common man like me should not believe in pseudoscience.
True, schools teaches many other fields economics, psychology, political science, mass communications, human geography, business management etc. that have theories that cannot be proven. But many of those theories, while not provable scientifically (imagine controlled experiments with supernovas, even if it were possible, imagine the outcry), are supported by observable evidence.
ReplyDelete'Observable' evidences for pseudoscience tend to demand a rather large (depending how skeptical you are) leap of faith.
Thus i cannot disbelieve those theories. But i will be skeptical if psychism or spirituality or intelligent design or flying spagehtti monsters were introduced into the syllables.
As I said, I guess the difficulty is where you draw the line. Tooth fairies - I personally draw the line; "flying spaghetti monsters" I have not even heard of. But in every area of science, literally every area, there would be the outer fringes where our knowledge comes to a stop, and whatever lies beyond is "pseudoscience". Yet those fringes move every day, yes?
ReplyDeleteI consider it quite impossible for the "common man" to live life only according to what current science can prove. For example, in this blog you write about your love life, and it seems there is someone you would like to meet and fall in love with; yet what is this phenomenon called "falling in love"? Can its existence be scientifically proven? Psychology does delve into these areas - even into questions like how your early childhood experiences with your parents will subsequently affect your choice of partner in adulthood - but psychology delves into methods and ideas which surely would not withstand the application of Popper's scientific methods. And if you are a truly scientific person, surely you must not believe that you can ever fall in love with anyone. The phenomenon, after all, has not been scientifically proven to exist.
Let me give one last example to think about. Suppose I say, "If Mr Wang climbs up to a high mountain cliff and waves his arms wildly, he can cause a hurricane 10,000 miles away", then you would surely say that Mr Wang is a fool and an idiot and this is more of his pseudoscientific nonsense. Yet maths and physics, at the most advanced levels, have come together to offer you that basic theory - see this, the famous butterfly effect - how come no one is saying that these scientists are crazy?
Yet if you ask the "common man", which of the following sounds less convincing, less possible to him:
1. On a certain date, when the stars and moon and planets have moved into a certain position, you will be likely to have good luck.
2. At a certain time, if three butterflies in the Botanic Gardens flap their wings together, they could cause a hurricane in Bangladesh.
... while frankly I am not sure what answer you would get.
Mr Wang,
ReplyDeleteAs i have said, if i were to contemplate the existenence of everything, begining from total doubt, i would achieve nothing.
Rather then ask you why you draw the line between tooth fairies and say.. the human soul (I assume you do believe in the thing called soul). I would ask you to ask yourself, "have you applied the same unbiased judgement on the soul concept as you have done with tooth fairies?"
You seem to define pseudoscience as undiscovered areas of knowledge of certain fields. Pseudoscience is not a classification of science, not knowledge or fields. Bad science are pseudoscience. Though one might argue that given the intangible nature of psychic/spirituality that the scientific method is inadequate, and hence redefining pseudoscience as undiscovered knowledge.
What is to fall in love? I cannot answer. Someone else probably could, in terms of enzymes, hormones and endorphines. Does it exist? I cannot confirm. It is a difficult question for me because i believe (unproven unscientific) that love is a learned behavior. And if i fall in love and i understand myself to be having biological changes akin to falling in love, then i would wonder, "what's happening to myself?" and attribute it to falling in love because it is reasonable.
Once more, i would say observable phenomenon are reasonable.
It seems my "common man" and your "common man" is a different man. My common man is simple one who does not understand difficult concepts like relativity special/general theory, quantum theory etc. Your common man, is a superstitious man.
Ask anyone which is more likely, astrology or butterfly effect, i would expect the person to say astrology. Should i stop here? Becoz millions of people believe in it there has to be some merit to it?
Why would i expect astrology to be more easily believable? Becoz its everywhere. In every sunday paper and every magazine, there's always a section on horoscope. In articles we read about feng shui masters and stories, even in email we read about the singapore one dollar coin. But other than a casual mention on an occassional article, there is nothing on butterfly effect.
The sheer amount of coverage serves as an indoctrination.
Um.. there really is no proof that the butterfly effect exist beyond lorenz attractor though.. If you want, i'll say they're crazy : D
Perhaps you could try an experiment yourself. Get a random sample of people, and randomly divide them into two groups. Tell one group that the planets alignment bodes them well and the other group that the planets alignment bode them ill. Then perform a survey and ask them how lucky/unlucky they felt they were. Of course, proper controls and double blinding must be employed.
Without having to conduct the experiment, what results do you think you would get? I leave you to your conclusions.
Regarding the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it is a rather recent meme, similar but different in ideology to that the invisible pink unicorn. It happened when the guys over at america were pushing for intelligent design to be taught side by side with evolution as an alternative. Someone then wrote a letter to their gahmen saying that Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is also very important and also offers an alternative and that it should be taught side by side with intelligent design and evolution.
Well, this is not going anywhere very quickly because I will give you examples of things which are not so "pseudo" and then you will give me examples of things which are quite pseudo (and this probably is what I meant when I said that the difficulty is where the line is to be drawn between science and pseudoscience).
ReplyDeleteI'm going to offer you a different way of looking at things - here is my analogy; this one is drawn more from my professional field, the law. As you know, in a court of law, parties will present their own version of the story, and the versions may be very different. The court will hear the witnesses, and different kinds of evidence may be offered etc.
How does the judge tackle this mess? Suppose one side says, "This is how it happened - ABC." The other side says, "No, she is lying, the facts are XYZ."
Well, there is a very complicated set of rules that the judge applies. For example, depending on the actual facts of the case, the onus may be on one side to prove a particular fact. In other cases, it may be on the other side. In some cases, something may be automatically presumed to be true. It is up to the other side to try to rebut the presumption. Then there are rules about what kind of evidence can be used, or cannot be used to prove certain kinds of facts. And there are rules about how well you must prove something, before the judge accepts it to be true. On a balance of probabilities? (ie more likely than not). Or beyond a reasonable doubt (extremely, extremely likely). Etc. It is all very technical - law students typically spend one year and six months studying the topic, in order to qualify as a new lawyer, and then they are still novices at it.
At the end of all the court action, the judge then decides, "Yes, I take this to be true - XYZ happened."
This is all very interesting, but what is my point? The point is this - how do we reach the conclusion that something is true or not true? We have to apply certain standards. However, the standards are completely man-made. We create the standards for ourselves. Thus if a case was heard in Singapore, the judge might correctly say, "I take ABC to be true." On the other hand, if somehow the exact same case was heard in the US, the same judge might correctly say, "No, I take XYZ to be true instead", when he applies the US laws of evidence, rather than the Singapore laws of evidence.
Nevertheless, we know that there IS a real truth ... Either ABC did really happen ... or XYZ really happened ... or a third set of events, PQR, really happened (but was not even raised in court). We do not know. Perhaps some people, who were present at the relevant place(s) and time(s) really know, but they were not believed in court (due to the application of certain rules), or perhaps they lied, or perhaps they were not even in court at all.
Still life must goes on. Society demands a decision. For the purpose of handing out a court judgement, the judge applies the rules and says, "XYZ happened." And that's that. The determination is based purely on a set of man-made rules.
Everywhere, we create these rules for ourselves, in deciding whether something is true or not. We apply different rules at different times for different situations. We apply criteria. Some of this is highly personal ("When I'm with her, I feel warm and nice and good itself, so it must be true that I'm in love"). Some of it is highly intuitive ("This is the perfect job for me! I can't explain it, but I know it's true"). Some of it is highly objective ("I have done my financial calculations carefully and I think that it is true that my personal net worth is $678,345"), some of it uses certain methodology ("According to our survey, it is true that more people prefer Colgate"). Some of it is institutionalised (eg the laws of evidence in the courts of Singapore).
These are conclusions we reach. They may actually be wrong (eg more people may actually prefer Aquafresh or Darlie) or they may depend on the criteria used (eg if you have a different definition of being in love); or they may be right, or if not right, they may nevertheless be adequate. Of course, the system used may also be flawed, incorrect, limited, wrongly applied etc.
One institutionalised set of rules is Karl Popper's scientific method. You know the criteria - just as a judge must go through a certain series of steps before he pronounces something to be true; so too a scientist must go through a certain series of steps before he can say, "I have scientifically proven this."
Yet these steps are all man-made. All these systems have their limitations. For example, suppose X is charged with an offence. There are four good witnesses who saw him do it. However, on the way to court, they meet with a traffic accident and die. Now there is no more evidence against X. The judge, applying the rules, has to say, "X is presumed innocent. As there is no evidence against him, I take it as true that he did not commit any offence."
So it is with science. When something doesn't make it through Popper's method, it is taken as scientifically unproven - "false", if you like. Yet we know that there are a wide variety of reasons why something could be true, yet not scientifically proven. The fields of economics, psychology, archaeology, social sciences etc abound with examples.
The other difficulty with "pseudoscience" is that in many areas, the practitioner is not very interested in proving the "rightness" of his methods in a scientific way. He is more interested in practising. Or if he feels no need to convince scientists.
For example, you have migraines and stomach ulcers and you meet a taichi master teaching taichi at a soccer field and he says that he can see your "qi" is blocked here and blocked there, and if you do certain gentle movements in a certain way for two weeks, your ailments will vanish, as qi can now flow freely through three key "energy points". So you try it and it really works, your headaches are gone! You have a few friends with headaches and they try it and their headaches vanish too! So you're convinced it works.
Well, of course, this utterly fails Popper's method. It is utterly scientific. If you wanted to be scientific, you'd need two groups of 100 people each; and one group is to do the exercises for two weeks; and the other group is to do nothing; and monitor; and record results; and then you have to look into variables, like type of headache, frequency of headaches; cause of headache; degree of headache reduction; and check that the people in each group are of comparable age, health, race, medical history etc etc.
Well, the thing is that the taichi master probably isn't interested in this. He's not a scientist. He doesn't get paid to do scientific research. He doesn't need convincing himself because he's already pretty convinced of the benefits of taichi. If you want to learn taichi, you can go to him and he'll teach you. You can enrol in his class - and there you'll meet all the different students who will tell you, from their personal experience, how taichi benefited them.
But all this is unscientific. And if you are very scientific, you would say, "Nonsense, nonsense, the benefits of taichi are not scientifically proven. I reject all this." So until some scientist somewhere bothers to assemble 200 people with migraines and divide them into two groups to do an experiment, you'll just have to sit there and suffer your own headaches.
Until the late 1970s, it was not actually proven that cardiovascular exercise reduces the risk of heart disease. Dr Kenneth Cooper(? - if memory serves me) proved that. Still, long before Kenneth Cooper's "groundbreaking" studies, many people were already running and swimming and cycling etc in the belief that this would help to prevent heart disease. Of course their friends and family would have said, "Bah ... so unscientific. Fancy getting up at 6 am in the morning to run in the cold weather. How could this possibly be good for your health?"
But I like to think that many of these runners etc did it because they knew that it was good for them. It wasn't scientific to think so, but they ran and swam and cycled, and they experienced the benefits for themselves. So they did it, long before Dr Kenneth Cooper made his amazing, scientifically-proven discovery that cardiovascular exercise is good for your heart.
I'm going to tell you a funny little true story, which I read from a book. It happened several decades ago.
ReplyDeleteA yogi in India says, "Through meditation, I can actually alter my state of consciousness and cause my brain to work in several different ways."
A scientist in India says, "I have a machine. If I attach the electrodes to your head, I can actually look at this screen and see if any changes in your brain really happen, as you meditate."
So the experiment is done. The yogi meditates, and the machine registers his brain waves, and every now and then, the yogi says, "Now I will progress to a deeper mental state," and within a few moments, the machine shows a new amazing change in his brain wave patterns.
At the end of the experiment -
"Gasp!" says the scientist in great astonishment. "It's true! You CAN alter the state of your consciousness through meditation! That's amazing!"
"Gasp!" says the yogi with equally great astonishment. "It's true! Your machine CAN indeed look into my brain. That's amazing!"
Each is amazed by his new discovery. But just as the scientist is not surprised that his machine can read brain waves, the yogi is not surprised that he can control his own brain waves.
Mr Wang,
ReplyDeleteHahaha, ok i give.. : )
But regarding your Taichi experiment, you can't just select 100 people into groups. They must be randomly grouped. And you can't have one group practiciing Taichi while the other group does nothing. Placebo have to be administered.
Oh Mr Wang, i just thought of something..
ReplyDeleteLet's backtrack a little and summarise the discussion. Pseudoscience is a classification of science that does not employ the scientific method. That much we're agreed on, i think.
What we seem to be discussing (sometimes i just lose track) is that whether believing in pseudoscience is a good thing. You think that mankind would be missing out if we choose not to believe in pseudoscience. Of course there is the line to draw, pseudoscience yes, fairytales no.
And for me, i would draw the line somewhere behind pseudoscience.
And taking your example of taichi and headaches, it seems pretty harmless because headaches are kind of trivial. I'm not saying all headaches are trivial, but having my own persistent non-incapitating headaches, they seem trivial to me.
Now if John (Yes i have something against John(s)) practices taichi from the master, and sometimes his headache goes away, and sometimes it doesn't. Those times that it doesn't, the taichi master tells John that the ying and yang are not balance, the stars not aligned etc.
Now, let's up the stakes.
One day, the headaches doesn't subside, John goes to see a doctor, and gets an xray. To his horror, he discovered that it is a tumor in his brain, but luckily for him, its one of those that can be removed with surgery. But as with all surgeries, there is the element of risk and John is afraid.
John then goes to find the taichi master, who has since become his friend. The taichi master tells him that with meditation, he can stabalise his five organs and with his internal qi and a vegetarian diet that does not include onions, he could purge himself of cancer.
Now all this seems very realistic to me, i've heard them over various times ago (including the onion part), except the cure for cancer part which i made up.
Now John is a firm believer in alternative healing, and instead of surgery, he meditates daily.
Here, i offer you one of the reasons, not unrealistic, of why pseudoscience can be dangerous.
There are people who genuinely believe in pseudoscience and try to perform experiments as scientific as possible. But there are also many frauds. And there are those, mistaken in their religious beliefs, detonates themselves, cuts their penis off (not circumsize, literally the whole thing off), deny children medicine, deny birth control medicine to rape victims.
The scientific method is not just a made up to satisfy a scientist. It is the application of logic, such that we can identify causes in correlations, expose con men, find out what is so wrong about what some journalists writes etc.
If we wiki pseudoscience, we can find the following defined as the characteristics of pseudoscience (empahsis my own):
- by asserting claims or theories unconnected to previous experimental results;
- by asserting claims which cannot be verified or falsified (claims that violate falsifiability);
- by asserting claims which contradict experimentally established results;
- by failing to provide an experimental possibility of reproducible results;
- by failing to submit results to peer review prior to publicizing them (called "science by press conference")
- by claiming a theory predicts something that it does not;
- by claiming a theory predicts something that it has not been shown to predict;
- by violating Occam's Razor, the heuristic principle of choosing the explanation that requires the fewest additional assumptions when multiple viable explanations are possible; or
- by a lack of progress toward additional evidence of its claims.
And regarding Occam's Razor and the taichi headache example, i could equally assert that aliens abducted John in a UFO for a split second and cured him of his headache with alien medicine. But of course, you might classify that as fairytale.
Draw the line between pseudoscience and fairytale, or draw the line between science and pseudoscience? If it does not harm anyone's health, is ethical and not immoral, i'll even accept the former.
Well, the way I see it, I earlier demonstrated that all of us use different criteria at different times in different situations to determine what is "true" or "false". Furthermore, the "scientific method" is just one of these methods, and in many situations confronting the common man, it is not necessarily the best or the most appropriate method.
ReplyDeleteThere are many stupid and/or dangerous things in this world that a person can do to himself. These stupid and/or dangerous things may or may not have anything to do with either science or pseudoscience. In the end, I think, the common man must use his own judgment and make his own decisions.
I will give you a simple example. When my grandmother was in her early 70s, she had cancer and the doctor advised chemotheraphy. Thanks to chemo, the cancer disappeared.
A few years passed, the cancer relapsed, and the doctor advised chemotherapy again. My grandma objected, because her last chemo experience was awful (vomiting, headache, hair fell out etc). The doctor said that she would surely die within six months if she did not do the chemo. However, the doctor also said that even if the chemo was done, the probability of success was low, and she would still probably die, but could live longer.
She thought about it, and decided NOT to do the chemo. "If I have to die, then I'll die," she said. "I am already so old." The doctor said, "Well, I cannot force you, but you may want to start arranging your final affairs."
She started taking plenty of Chinese tonics instead, a lot of it and very often; hoping to keep herself strong for a longer time, but still expecting to die.
Unexpectedly she was still alive after six months, and at the check-up, the doctor was surprised indicated that she would die within another six months ...
Six months later, she was still overdosing on her Chinese tonics, and at her checkup, the doctor said in astonishment that the cancer had gone into remission - it had disappeared. Not only was she still alive, she was cured - and she was quite convinced that it was her Chinese tonics.
She lived for many years (six? seven?) after that, quite healthily for a person of her age, until she was around 85 - during this time, she fulfilled her last dream - to see her youngest son (she had ten children) get married. Then the cancer came back again, and this time spread to her lungs, and this time she died.
As you and I both know, we cannot draw any scientific conclusions here (other than the fact that our scientific Western doctor consistently got his scientific medical predictions wrong - by about seven or eight years in total). However, what we can see here is a decision-making process by a common man (or woman) which is quite sound (regardless of whether you believe the Chinese tonics did the trick).
So this is what we can do - keep an open mind; consider the possibilities (bearing in mind that both science and pseudoscience can err); weigh the potential pros and cons of different courses of action; then make careful decisions about how we plan our lives.
Consider yoga for example. Obviously the nature of yoga exercises can improve your flexibility, body posture etc ("science" as well as "pseudoscience" would agree on that) but yoga makes other claims - there are spiritual elements to it - for example, that it can make you wiser, kinder, more intuitive, more creative, more in touch with your inner self etc.
Now if the common man is faced with the decision "Shall I take up yoga?" - no doubt it is true that the "spiritual" benefits of yoga are not scientifically proven (if indeed any kind of spiritual benefits can ever be scientifically proven). What should the common man do?
I think these are a few examples of sensible decisions:
"I'll just try it out. Sign up for a course with eight classes, and see how it goes."
"Well, even if there are no spiritual benefits, it's good for flexibility and backache, so I'll do it. If there are spiritual benefits, all the better."
"What do I have to lose? I've tried other things to grow spiritually and they don't work for me. I'll try yoga. If it fails too, my greatest loss is the $200 I paid for yoga class. I can live with that."
Etc.
There is a flip side as well. For example, scientifically you may reject the notion that ghosts exist. However, say you're sleeping in a hotel room one night and you feel a strange presence in the room. You hear mysterious footsteps or voices, where none should be. You feel a hand on your shoulder, but when you turn around, no one's there. Assuming that you, like most people, would be afraid of ghosts if they existed, what should you do?
"Scientifically, ghosts do not exist. Therefore I will stay here."
"Yikes! I'm getting out of this room right now!"
I suggest to you that the scientific approach is not advisable here. Leaving the room is probably a better idea.
Mr Wang,
ReplyDeleteLet's examine the three situations you've given me.
In your grandma's case, i would hardly consider any part of it as pseudoscience.
She made the decision not to go for chemo a second time, was it because that science didn't work? Or was the decision based on other factors like quality of life and costs, these two being the most common factors in situations like this.
Why would you consider chinese tonics as pseudoscience? I do believe whether chinese tonics works anot are very much verifiable if one set out to do it.
From this very non-pseudo situation, you gave me another, a rather pseudo situation, the yoga exercises.
The yoga situation is a variation of Pascal's wager. It is not correct to say that the greatest loss will only ever amount to $200 for the yoga class.
I spend $200 ($200 is quite alot for many people) to go to a yoga class, go through all the stances, and what if i didn't feel any more enlightened spiritually? The yoga master would then tell me not to give up, practice makes perfect. And in this, extensive amounts of time is the greatest loss. Time that could have been better spend learning other things, with family, and in my case, finding a family.
What about the scores of other exercises/procedures/beliefs which claim to also improve spirituality? Following the argument, the greatest loss would only ever be monetary. Shouldn't i try them all?
Given Pascal's wager, i would choose not to make a bet.
In the last situation, i probably would not have left the room. And in this, sadly, i am totally biased. Even if a spiritual being, God/god/ghosts, appeared before me and said to me, "I exist, therefore I am.", I would be more likely to believe that i am hallucinating and in need of psychiatric attention.
Well, Bandit, firstly I would like to remind you of two previous posts written by yourself about ghosts. Here they are:
ReplyDeletehttp://lbandit.blogspot.com/2005/08/ghost-in-toilet.html
http://lbandit.blogspot.com/2005/08/ghost-on-road.html
Strangely, you didn't seem very calm or scientific at those times, heheh.
Back to Chinese medicine. Why would I regard it as pseudoscience? Well, simply because most of its remedies and cures and medicines are not "scientifically verified" (although of course there are exceptions). Traditionally, Chinese sinsehs pass their knowledge through the generations - from father to son and so on. They do not conduct experiments in the laboratory with control groups etc nor consult peer-reviewed journals. By your own definition, this would make TCM pseudoscience.
On the yoga example - ok, time and money could be wasted if yoga does not actually work. It seems a reasonable risk to me, considering that people frequently waste their time and money anyway on much more obviously useless things. The greatest possible loss is in any event quite different from the other examples which you earlier cited:
" ... And there are those, mistaken in their religious beliefs, detonates themselves, cuts their penis off (not circumsize, literally the whole thing off), deny children medicine, deny birth control medicine to rape victims."
Etc.
Also, I think that perhaps you do not give sufficient weight to experiential knowledge. What do I mean by this? Let me illustrate. When I feel stressed or anxious, I like to go running or swimming. After exercise, I feel better.
Now if I go and google for some scientific evidence, I am sure I can find some scientific study somewhere which says that aerobic exercise helps to relieve stress. However, I do not NEED a scientific study to tell me that. For me, far more convincing evidence lies in my personal experience. In fact, if no such scientific study existed, I would still believe that aerobic exercise helps to relieve stress. Why? Because I know it. I experienced it for myself. I'm sure you have too.
Let me give another example. I meditate regularly. I have read in books about meditation that meditation helps you to concentrate better. And I find it to be true, from my personal experience. If I am meditating regularly, I find myself better able to concentrate on anything I do, eg at work. The books I read did not offer any "scientific evidence" on this point - that is, they did not quote scientific studies with control groups etc etc - they merely asserted that meditation can help you concentrate so much better. I believe this because of my personal experience.
Why should I believe that I am wrong? I could be wrong, certainly that is conceivable, for I may merely be imagining that I am able to concentrate better. But the starting point is that I must assume that my own perception and senses are not fooling me. Otherwise why should I even believe that I am sitting here in front of a computer typing a message to a person called Lbandit.
"Bah!" I think I hear you say. "This is pseudoscience. Meditation is just another one of those pseudoscience nonsense. I can't believe that people have been believing in this meditation crap for the past 1000 years."
Well, just to satisfy yourself and myself, I opened up another Internet Explorer screen and went googling. Here you have it:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8317
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20051111/sc_space/meditateonthisbuddhisttraditionthickenspartsofthebrain
Naturally, if you stare closely enough at the studies, you can probably say why they don't conclusively prove that meditation improves concentration. Sample size too small? So what if brain cortex thickens - is the link between concentration and a thick cortex well-established? Etc. And you might say, "Bah, until I read another dozen scientific studies addressing the various question marks over these studies, it would be unscientific of me to really accept that meditation improves concentration."
Well, I'm glad for the hundreds of thousands or millions of people over the past 1000 years who didn't wait for scientific evidence about the benefits of meditation, before taking up meditation. Because I know from my personal experience what I know. :)
Incidentally, PM Lee Hsien Loong meditates too. :)
Yoga, btw, is tied closely to meditation.
ReplyDeleteThere is a yoga asana called "mountain pose" which basically just requires you to stand straight. Like this. This seems remarkably easy, so easy that it seems ridiculous to regard this as a form of "exercise".
However, if you really take yoga seriously, then when you do the mountain pose, you need to concentrate hard, and yet be relaxed at the same time. "Mindful" is the word they use. You need to focus on being perfectly still, and perfectly balancing your body weight on your two feet.
If you conscientiously do your yoga and/or meditation, you end up developing this kind of "mindfulness", which leads to your superior concentration, which starts manifesting in all other aspects of your life.
As your powers of concentration grow, you can turn them at will. For example, while attending a meeting or lecture, you can turn them on and you find that somehow you can stay focused without effort, and you don't get sleepy, and you absorb info and retain it better than you used to be able to do, before you started your yoga/meditation practice.
At the more extreme end, and this is where I again hear you beginning to snigger, the powers of concentration grow to levels which are no longer what we regard as ordinarily human. Some assert that you can develop psychic powers; read minds; be clairvoyant etc. Heheh. More on that, another time perhaps.
Ah... Mr Wang,
ReplyDeletePerhaps you do not believe it, but i do not snigger and sneer at every thing that i do not disagree with : ) Maybe its my words, if it is, i apologise.
You put me in a position that i am not taking. I mentioned in this post that i will not take descartes position, as it leaves me stagnant with nothing else to believe in other than my own existence.
For the sake of simplicity, i'll stick to yoga for the moment.
I am not saying yoga doesn't work. I'm not asking the millions of people to perform science experiments before practicising yoga. Practicioners of yoga don't even need to think that it works, for all we know, his/her 'spiritual' health could be improving without him/her knowing it.
What i'm saying is that pseudoscience doesn't work. Pseudoscience claim to prove but it does not prove what it asserts.
Maybe yoga works. Hell, no, i should say yoga works. It make a person better and healthier. How? I don't know. But more importantly, i do not claim to know. And i do not use what i do not know as evidence/proof for something else, and in yoga's case, spirituality.
Regarding my close encounters with the spiritual kind.. you humiliate me and hurt my pride : p Nah, just kidding. I do believed i mentioned before in a post while i was in malaysia, that the concept of ghosts and spirits is very deeply ingrained in my culture. If there is one thing that i would not apologise for failing, it is failure to control instinctive reactions.