Sometimes I wish I was a relativist.
If I were a relativist (or whatever fancy name they have now) then I don't think I would have tied myself into such epistemological knots as I did just a few hours ago. I was doing a bit of web research for my previous blog post on academic publishing and Web 2.0. Specifically I was trying to find out about arXiv (the document sharing platform used by physicists, mathematicians and the like), even more specifically I was researching the claims that some physicists (including Nobel Prize winners) were blocked simply because of who they were rather than the content of their articles. Terrible stuff.
One of the articles I referred to (by Frank Tipler) consisted on an excoriating attack on the weakness of the peer reviewing process, arguing that (1) nowadays 'genius' papers are likely to be reviewed by 'stupid' (his words) people, and (2) some topics will be dismissed out of hand because they go against current scientific orthodoxy. I found myself nodding in half agreement at these arguments while expressing a certain caution at his choice of words which tended to be rather bellicose.
Then I read on.
It turns out that one of the topics he believed was off limits was intelligent design as espoused by Michael Behe and William Dembski and argued that these folk should have a voice. "OK" I thought, maybe he has a point. Researching Tipler a little further it turns out that he has a pretty glittering career in mathematical physics (Nature and Science publications). Then I read this in Wikipedia:
"In his controversial 1994 book The Physics of Immortality,[4][5][6] Tipler claims to provide a mechanism for immortality and the resurrection of the dead, consistent with the known laws of physics, provided by a computer intelligence he terms the Omega Point and which he identifies with God. The line of argument is that the evolution of intelligent species will enable scientific progress to grow exponentially, eventually enabling control over the universe even on the largest possible scale."
Err....
Tipler's article is fascinating but problematical for four reasons. The first I have already dealt with above, should I believe the opinions of someone who believes what appears to me to be crackpot ideas? The second concerns the fact that the article is of uncertain provenance. Rather undermining the argument of my previous post I kept asking myself "was this peer reviewed". My suspiscions were further aroused by the fact that (third reason) there was no reference section and (fourth reason) it contained typos. Surely in the title
"Refereed Journals: Do They Insure Quality or Enforce Orthodoxy?"
"Insure" should be "Ensure", no? (OK, I guess he could have used either but "ensure" seems more traditional). Further, physicist Max Planck is referred to at one point as"Man Planck".
I do typos too of course (I'm sure you're aware of this, as doubtless there are some in here) but this is an opinion piece, dashed off, rather than a deeply considered piece of writing. The more serious a piece is the more typos matter.
Typos and the like aside, theoretical physics messes with people's heads because it relies on fiddling around with mathematics until it tells you something. The great thing about doing this is that it can lead you to some really surprising predictions (e.g. the quantum indeterminacies that underpin the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment) unfortunately psychology seldom avails itself of such mathematical reasoning which is possibly why most of its theories (if not its data) are almost indistinguishable from common sense. Maths does that, it's not that these guys necessarily believe their theories. This kind of jiggery pokery leaves belief far behind; the maths tells them that it must be so, even if what it is telling them is weirder than the worst acid trip. Physicists are in this way as much a slave to their equations as the "computer says no" benefits operative. Of course the other way of doing it is to simply start with a random belief, that God is made from cheese, say, and prove this as an ineluctable fact by similar mathematical jiggering and pokering -- which approach Tipler used is hard to judge, though I have my money on the latter.
It's not just theoretical physics, though, determining the truth is a tricky task. In many ways science makes things easier (no, really) because it provides (more or less) an agreed-upon framework for testing hypotheses. And in much of my own domain -- psychology -- I can usually make some kind of a judgement as to whether a particular hypothesis is supported or not by the data by examining the results sections of academic papers. But on some of the stuff, I haven't a clue. I've tried reading some of the stuff on game theory -- the really heavy mathematical stuff-- and I'm just not equipped to judge. Likewise theoretical physics, likewise pretty much anything outside my narrow domain of expertise.
So what do I do? I do what everyone does; I rely on (a) authority and (b) consensus.
For (a) I happen to have a few folk whose views I happen to hold in high esteem. I know Richard Dawkins isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I have a deep seated admiration for his singlemindedness, his powers of explanation and (sharp intake of breath) his humility (honestly). (I think I also like him because his voice reminds me of Oliver Postgate of Clangers and Bagpus fame, which is why I think Charlie Brooker -- whose views I also admire but not on issues such as these -- describes Dawkins as "looking and sounding exactly like Professor Yaffle” the aforementioned bookend, carved into the shape of a woodpecker was voiced by Postgate.) The philosopher Daniel Dennett is someone else whose opinions I will take seriously. I don't blindly follow them, of course, but in certain areas I will follow them somewhat myopically.
For (b) well everyone does this don't they, at least in some areas? And don't we keep hearing with reference to global warming about the 'scientific consensus'? Well if consensus was what mattered the scientific consensus 60 years ago was that plate tectonics (or continental drift as it was known then) was nonsense leaving its founder (Alfred Wegener) an object of ridicule among the scientific community. Not that I am a climate change denier*, of course, just to point out that one era's consensus is another era's pseudoscience (phlogiston anyone?).
So here I am in an epistemological knot. Not knowing what to believe. If I were a relativist I would be untroubled, if there's no such thing as the truth then there's no need to be concerned when I can't lay an easy hand on it. But is anyone a relativist, really? I had a colleague, a Sociologist, who used to refer to himself as a "nine-to-five relativist". Relativism was his day-to-day stock in trade, he wrote papers about it, used it as a interpretive framework for his academic research which was on the social construction of learning in the planarian flatworm [!] (he also smoked a pipe). But when he was driving home and saw a red light he would put his foot on the brake: traffic signals might be socially constructed but he clearly wasn't going to put his life on the line testing his own world view.
He might have been a nine-to-five relativist but I’m a 24/7 realist and as a result the truth always bothers me, whether it’s the true location of my door keys or more arcane philosophical truths. The truth hurts, that’s for sure, but its absence hurts even more.
*The word "denier" is a funny one. If you look it up it most commonly refers to a measurement of textiles. Female readers will be most familiar with it as a measure of the density of what used to be called 'hosiery' in the department stores of my childhood. With this interpretation I advance a new product with the following strapline "climate change denier: tights that keep your legs cool as the world heats up."
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