SGU Episode 49

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SGU Episode 49
28th Jun 2006
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SGU 48                      SGU 50
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
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Introduction

You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. This is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. Today is Wednesday, June 28, 2006. We are having a special episode this week; the skeptical rogues are on vacation. Now, don't worry; they'll be back next week. The—actually, the only reason they are out this week is because I'm out of town, actually vacationing in the wilds of Cumberland, Maryland, which means I do not have access to broadband. Now, many of you may not realize this, but we record our show each week completely over the Internet, using Voice over IP applications. In fact, each of us, myself and all of the skeptical rogues, the entire panel of skeptics are in different cities at the time that we record. Rebecca Watson is in Boston and the rest of us are in different cities in Connecticut. So, without access to broadband, I've no way of conferencing with the other members of the show. We decided rather than skipping a week that I would do a solo show just so that we have something to hold over our loyal fans until next week. Now, the format of the show this week will be pretty similar to other shows; we have no guest and obviously no group discussion. I will still do a Science or Fiction at the end of the program. Although, of course, the panel of skeptics will not be here to offer their thoughts, but this one will be just for you. I'll also do a Name that Logical Fallacy. In addition, I will also give the answer to last week's skeptical puzzle and give a new skeptical puzzle.

Questions and Emails (2:02)

But the bulk of this show, I decided to get caught up on all of the great emails that we get. I'll take this opportunity to thank our listeners once again for sending in so many great questions and emails. We certainly do appreciate the feedback, the constructive criticism which helps us improve our show. And the questions are great topics for discussion. In fact, we have so many good emails now that we can only touch on a small percentage of them on the show. So I figured this week I would get caught on some of our better email questions. So let's get right to them.

Darwin's "Theory" of Evolution. (2:40)

The first email comes from Curt Nelson from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Curt writes:

Dear Skeptics,

Im an avid listener. Thanks for your show. In listening to your recent podcast on evolution 101, I heard you (Steve)

—that's me, the host—

say something I think really confuses people who want to understand evolution. You referred to the fact of evolution and the theory of evolution, and I know what you meant by that, but I'm sure its confusing to a lot of people. Maybe it even sounds wishy-washy to those who tend to be sympathetic to creationism. When anyone discusses Darwins theory of evolution, a couple of things should be defined up-front:
1) Evolution is a fact things do evolve (but without changing into a new species, as far as has been observed).
2) Darwin's theory is that evolution causes speciation, and is the mechanism that produced all the magnificent life we know, starting from bacteria. This is a huge leap from the fact of evolution. (For what its worth, I believe this.) Keep up the good work.
Sincerely yours,

Curt

Well, Curt, this is a topic that does come up quite frequently when discussing evolution, especially in the context of creationism. Creationists are wont to say that evolution is quote-unquote "only a theory", although I'm usually fairly careful in referring to the fact versus the theory of evolution, and I do take exception to the way that Curt defines it in his email. Now, this has been pointed out in many venues before, but I will take time to go over this briefly. The word "theory" as used by scientists is different than the way it is used colloquially by the public at large. Typically the word "theory" is used to refer to a guess or a speculation or assumption, but scientists use it to refer to an explanatory system; an idea or a unifying concept that brings together multiple lines of evidence, multiple phenomenon into one ex— one cohesive explanatory system. It doesn't really say anything about how much evidence there is for or against the theory. A theory can, in fact, range the spectrum from discredited to highly speculative to established beyond all reasonable doubt. I would characterize the theory of evolution as being established sufficiently to be considered a scientific fact, meaning over a very long period of time—150 years, about—it has withstood any attempt at falsifying it, and there have been many potential ways in which evolutionary theory could have been falsified. There have been numerous independent lines of evidence all validating the theory of evolution to such a high degree, and we have reviewed many of them on this show before. For example, fossil evidence, transitional fossils, morphological pattern of species occurring in an evolutionary pattern of relatedness, the molecular is, I think, the most profound and is irrefutably shows all life on Earth is not only related to each other but is related to each other in a branching evolutionary pattern. So, evolutionary theory deserves the label of established scientific fact, which means it's the best explanation we have for now. I will also further point that within the over-arching theory of evolution, there are several sub-theories that are worth mentioning, and often we talk theories within evolution, we're talking about one of three kinds of theories. 1, there are theories of mechanism, meaning how does evolution come about? Now, Darwin's theory is—refers specifically to the mechanism of survival of the fittest, or differential survival based up adaptive characteristics. Or, you can also state it as natural selection acting upon variation within populations. That's Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest, which is, again, just one kind of theory within evolution. The other kind of theory are theories that refer to the tempo and pace of evolution. For example, how do species, populations, and ecosystems change over geological time? Darwin's theory of tempo is known as Darwinian Gradualism, which is the idea that all species pretty much are changing slowly and imperceptably all the time. This idea, this sort of Darwinian Gradualism still has its adherents, but there are competing newer theories such as the theory of puncuated equilibrium first proposed by Stephen Gould and Niles Eldrige. This competing theory says that species are stable most of the time and that this equilibrium, this stability is punctuated by brief, geologically brief, meaning five to fifty thousand years, episodes of rapid evolution and speciation. So, and in fact, creationists have exploited disagreements about these subsets of theories of evolution to—and misinterpreted them as doubt about the overall theory of whether or not things in fact evolved or not. The third type of theory is theories of relation; what's related to what; what evolved from what? For example, the notion that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs, which fit under this category. And again, that is perhaps the most speculative part of evolution at this point in time. We have a very incomplete puzzle of the history of the tree of life, of evolutionary life or phylogenetic relationships. And again, the ideas about what evolved into what are changing all the time, almost every time we pull a new, previously unknown fossil out of the ground, it's changing our picture of this pattern that, in fact, occurred. That's kind of a long answer, but that essentially, in a nutshell, is—are the fact of evolution versus the theories of evolution.

Agnosticism (9:03)

E-mail #2 discusses a very different issue. This one comes from Donald Flood who gives his location only as the USA. Donald writes,

If the empirical evidence for the existence of God is no greater than the empirical evidence for Invisible Pink Unicorns, is it logical to be agnostic with respect to the existence of God yet "atheistic" towards the existence of IPUs?

Donald Flood

USA

Well, Donald, the short answer to your question is yes. It would be illogical to be agnostic towards god and atheistic towards invisible pink unicorns and that is not, in fact, my position nor have I ever heard anyone specifically espouse that position so I think that's a bit of a straw man but it's based upon a very common misunderstanding that I get all the time. I do advocate personally an agnostic position towards claims which are not falsifiable. Claims which lie outside of the realm of science. So, and again, we have covered some of this ground before but again let me encapsulate the position that I take with regards to agnosticism. What that basically mean–and this is the sense that T. H. Huxley who actually invented, or coined, the term agnosticism to refer to his own beliefs–Agnosticism means that there are certain questions which cannot by their very nature ever be known or they cannot be explored scientifically. There is no way you could possibly validate or falsify them, therefore they are forever outside the realm of knowledge in the scientific sense and Huxley concluded that they're therefore outside the realm of anything that can meaningfully be considered knowledge. So, one can only say about that, if one were taking a consistent, logical, scientific approach, that it's unknowable. You can't know that it is true but neither can you know that it isn't true. Further, extrapolating from this you could say that there's no point in believing in any proposition which is unknowable because there are an infinite number of unknowable propositions. It's limited really only by your creativity but you could sit around and weave un-falsifiable notions all day long. None of them will ever be known and that's all that really you can say about them. Any belief in un-falsifiable notions is by definition faith and faith is therefor, by definition, outside of the realm of science and personally I choose not to have a arbitrary belief either for or against such notions and to me it's sufficient to say they're unknowable and unknowable notions are of not value to human knowledge. So that is where it reasonably ends. So therefor I would say I am agnostic toward the existence of invisible pink unicorns or any other fantastical notion that you want to come up with such as, to paraphrase a recent book, flying spaghetti monsters.

Gerald Schroeder on God (12:05)

Skeptics,

I have just recently found your podcast after listening to quite a few "paranormal/ufo/etc" podcasts for quite a while. I would consider myself, probably much like most people who are interested in these subject matters, an interested skeptic--I love considering the possibilities of these unusual subjects, but am not about to agree to something without proof.

On your most recent podcast, one of the major discussions was about evolution versus intelligent design. I have read several books by Gerald L. Schroeder, a MIT graduate with a Ph.D. in Physics and a Talmudic scholar. His books have, in my limited opinion, the most well thought out argument for the possibility of a God. I was wondering if any if any of the podcast members were familiar or had read any of his books on the subject?

In my personal experience, most real-life disagreements and arguements are not as simple as: one person or side is right and the other is wrong. His approach to the ID vs. big bang theories is not to show fallacies of one or the other, but instead to look for similarities and convergences of them. Regardless of one's particular disposition to either "side," I think his material is well-thought out, interesting, and worth considering.

I would love to hear something about these books on your podcast and your, skeptical, opinions about the subject.

Thanks and keep up the interesting podcast,

Luke

Indiana, USA

Magnets for Migraines (19:30)

While looking over today's news articles I spotted this article about a new magnet based device for the treatment of migraines.

I'm not sure at all of the scientific vorasity of using magnets to treat pain, but I can add that my father did have some success using a magnetic bracelet to treat arthritis.

Mostly i'm linking to the article to spark a discussion. Since you have people on hand with some real knowledge of medicine it would be interesting to hear what you've read from the medical literature.

Though the linked article dosen't go into great detail the price seems rather staggering for a large magnet. 1000 pounds could buy quite a stack of rare earth magnets.

To the truest definition of the term, i'm skeptical. I'd love to hear everyone discuss this and hope some good information is drawn out of the discussion.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=391915&in_page_id=1774&in_a_source= Anthony Petruccione Texas

Regulating Supplements (30:20)

On your most recent podcast you mentioned the US has the worst regulations when it comes to herbs and "suppliments". I would argue, as a skeptic, that perhaps the US has the best regultions, since that nation has the most unregulated rules. I think skeptics should eschew government intervention and regulation. Don't you feel that if the government is always jumping in and saying what is and what isn't safe that people in the long run will become less skeptical about these things on their own and will pretty much trust that everything on the market is safe, since everything on the market is regulated?

Sir Mildred Pierce Antarctica

Neuroethics (39:17)

Hey guys this question is mainly for Steve since Neurology is right up his alley. What do you know about this new field called "Neuroethics" that I continully hear about. A great quote defining what is Neuroethics by Michael Gazzaniga author of "The Ethical Brain" is "the examination of how we want to deal with the social issues of disaease, normality, mortality, lifestyle, and the philosophy of living informed by our understanding of underlying brain mechanisms" In his opinion "It is-or should be-an effort to come up with a brain-based philosophy of life. They also bring up questions such as "When is a fetus considered a person?" and "When is it moral to end a braindead person's life?" They also question "What truely is "Free Will"? He argues that we are not a ghost in the machine per se. But that we are our brains and that me, self, and I are simply illusions. That The illusion is feed by 6 characteristics working in harmony. To me morals are obviously part of the human condition, and where and why in the mind humans evolved morals is still under questioning.

Elias Luna Bronx, NY

Name that Logical Fallacy (44:51)

Thanks again for a very informative podcast. I would like your help understanding the logical fallacies you might apply to improperly used "what are the odds" arguments. For example, religious fundamentalists often absolutely mangle statistics when they come up with their "what are the odds" arguments about our "special place in the heavens." Specifically, I'm not talking about the false premise of randomness so much as the looking backwards and being amazed at the improbability of an outcome after it as occurred. What logical fallacies might you apply here, other than simple math ignorance, since you could apply the same logic to flipping a coin 100 times, noting the odds of getting the exact sequence, and declaring it therefore a miracle.

Thanks! Marty Steitz Forest Lake, MN

Science or Fiction (48:38)

Item number 1: University of Minnesota urologists have researched ways to reduce the vexing problem of kidney stone formation in astronauts. Item number 2: NY University at Buffalo researchers, reviewing data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, found that, contrary to prior belief, wearing seatbelts did not significantly reduce the risk of fatality in an automobile accident. Item number 3: A team of researchers at the University of Alberta have patented a device that uses ultrasound to regrow teeth.

Skeptical Puzzle (56:25)

Last Week's puzzle:

Two men, both were freemasons: Man A invented an instrument that Man B used as part of a pseudoscience that he invented.

Man A also famously debunked the claims of Man B.

Who were the two men, and what was the instrument?

Answer: The two men were Benjamin Franklin and Franz Anton Mesmer; the instrument was the glass armonica.

New Puzzle:

In the old game show, Let's Make A Deal, contestants were asked to pick which of three doors they thought contained a valuable prize. Once the contestant picked a door, the host, Monty Hall, would often open one of the two doors not chosen and then ask the contestant if they would like to change their pick to the other door left unopened. The question is, should a contestant stick with their original choice, change to the other door, or there is no difference statistically?

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society. For information on this and other podcasts, please visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Please send us your questions, suggestions, and other feedback; you can use the "Contact Us" page on our website, or you can send us an email to info@theskepticsguide.org. 'Theorem' is produced by Kineto and is used with permission.

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