Stars – the unscientific way

So when setting up this blog I was struck with one of the options in the Profile page.

Show astrological signs?

Fair enough… I understand wanting to stay “hip” and “With it” but seriously… no one really believes that stars that might not even be there any more can dictate the events of our lives.

Oh...

“31% of the public believes in astrology including 36% of women and 43% of those aged 25 to 29 but only 17% of people aged 65 and over, and 25% of men.”

So a third of the American populace believes in Astrology. OK, maybe the poll was flawed. It was from that long off time of 2003. Maybe a more recent poll would be more accurate.

Sigh

At least this revises the number to one in four. It also shows that Canada and Great Britain have comparable numbers. As for the improvement, two data points just aren’t enough to go off on and the six percent is likely within the noise of the studies. Show me a third study with declining numbers and then we will have a possible trend.

So let’s start from the top with this astrology thing.

Astrology is the pseudoscience that claims to be able to make predictions based on the position of the stars and the planets. Since the prediction they make for you is based on your sign it means that everyone on the planet has the same prediction as everyone else with their sign. With six and half billion people and only twelve signs this equals out to over five hundred million people having the same type of day as each other. Oh of course you could get a ‘personalized’ prediction. Which, depending on which astrologer you ask might get you a different answer.

Here is a quote from Liz Green (an astrologer):

“It depends on what you mean by "real." The zodiac doesn’t exist in concrete terms. It is the apparent path of the Sun around the Earth, which we have divided into twelve segments; each segment is assigned an image and a set of meanings and behaviour patterns. But the zodiac doesn’t exist in the sense that there are animals floating out there. So, on one level, the whole system is not real. This table we’re sitting at now is the kind of thing that we define as real. If you take reality as something subtler, and you approach reality as being the connections, links, resonances, or correspondences between things, then, yes, these patterns are real. But there is no way that they can be measured in a quantifiable sense, according to instruments of so-called reality. When you ask me that, the whole problem is that I don’t know what you mean by real. Or, rather, I do know what you mean, but if Richard Dawkins asked, "Is it real?" he would mean something quite different by "real" than I do.”

There are two important things to take away from that sentence.

“But there is no way that they can be measured in a quantifiable sense, according to instruments of so-called reality.”

The reason we use science is that it is measurable. If anything has any effect on the world the it is measurable, because we can measure that effect. Also, “So-called reality” is quite the way to put it. Which leads me to part number two.

“if Richard Dawkins asked, "Is it real?" he would mean something quite different by "real" than I do.”"

Unfortunately for her there is only one reality (multiple universes excepted). There is only one set of laws that govern the universe, wishing them to be different does not change those laws.

Astrology perpetuates by taking confirmation bias to an art form, remembering only those rare days when some small portion of your astrological prediction for the day actually comes true (or even tangentially true) then forgetting the days and predictions that just fell by the wayside. Astrologers increase the number of ‘hits’ by making their predictions vague enough to be interpreted with post-diction. Even if you could predict the future it is useless if you can’t figure out what it means until after the event you predicted (I think Nostradamus is the king of post-diction, but that’s a different post).

Lets take a side experiment here, here is a list of question from an astrology site:

“Questions About My Astrologial Services

Isn't All Astrology Just A Load Of Crap?

If I Order A Reading From You, How Will That Help Me Conceive?

How Long Have You Been A Professional Astrologer?

If I Order A Reading From You, How Will That Help Me Conceive?

Have You Had Many Cases So Far And How They Fared?

Is Infertility Astrology The Only Thing You Do?

What Is Medical Astrology And How Can It Be Of Use To Me?

Should'nt Astrological Readings Be Free?

What Is The Greatest Benefit Of Having You Do A Reading For Me?

Why Do I Need To Provide The Natal Data For My Partner/Husband?”

These questions are actually never answered on the site, lets answer them shall we? Hopefully they will appreciate the service and put the answers up

Q: Isn't All Astrology Just A Load Of Crap?

A: Yes

Q: If I Order A Reading From You, How Will That Help Me Conceive?

A: Well since there really isn’t any way for the placebo effect to do to help you conceive (maybe it could lower your stress levels a little which might help, but a water pill could do that. Or a massage, or meditation, or ANYTHING ELSE.)

Q: How Long Have You Been A Professional Astrologer?

A: OK, can’t answer for the guy but I don’t like the proximity of ‘professional’ and ‘astrologer’. Professionals requires Consistency in their work.

Q: If I Order A Reading From You, How Will That Help Me Conceive?

A: … again, oh man I knew I should not have watched Primer last night, it messes with you.

Q: Have You Had Many Cases So Far And How They Fared?

A: I would much like to see the answer to this one, especially in lets say a controlled environment where we could measure the results… hmm pregnancy astrology. that has me thinking. Hey, Liz Green! found a way to test that ‘reality’ thing of yours.

Q: Is Infertility Astrology The Only Thing You Do?

A: I would hope not, very boring life. He should have some hobbies, get outdoors, meet people.

Q: What Is Medical Astrology And How Can It Be Of Use To Me?

A: Medical astrology? OK, that really is one I had not heard about before coming to this site. I suppose that so many things in nature cure people that it is actually impossible to get sick. On a side note, would any english majors please tell me if ‘astrology’ is a proper noun. It seems to be capitalized everywhere I go.

Q: Should'nt Astrological Readings Be Free?

A: If it were free it would just be a waste of time and not a con.

Q: What Is The Greatest Benefit Of Having You Do A Reading For Me?

A: If he has a good reading voice or can do impressions then could be entertaining. Wonder if he does parties, I would love to have someone do a live reading of fine literature.

Q: Why Do I Need To Provide The Natal Data For My Partner/Husband?”

A: Don’t do it! It’s a trap! OK, maybe I over-reacted. No one on the internet would ever want to misuse any information of yours ever. Especially when it’s something that couldn’t be used to steal your identity or make them seem more credible to bilk you out of money.

If I seem a little less serious about this issue it really is because I cannot take it seriously. It takes every bit of self restraint I have to not make this page an echo of the answer to question one. Constantly when debating astrology and when writing this the part of my brain that does it’s best to stop me from making straw men keeps telling me that I have to be making some of this up to make debating it easier.

Oh, and while writing this I have had this running in constant loop. That probably did not help the tone.

The descent of man: part 1 - misconceptions

Evolution is the one issue that truly strikes a chord with me when someone denies its existence. From young earth creationists to the intelligent design crowd they all seem to have a completely wrong interpretation of what evolution is. I can only hope that this was a joke, but I have met people that seem to have misconceptions like this. A complete failure to understand that evolution is something that not only makes sense but that we have more convincing evidence for its existence than we do for Einstein's theories. I could write forever about why evolution is right but instead I will simply recommend that you read the greatest show on earth, it goes much more in depth than I ever would.

With such a large body of evidence for it where do we get the misconceptions about evolution? Well it has to do with a few factors: a bad science education system, constant pushback from religious groups, and our inability to grasp the truly massive amount of time that has passed since the formation of earth and life upon it. How do we correct these misconceptions? Well, fixing the education systems would go a long way towards fixing both reasons one and two, but the resistance to think in geologic time is unfortunately part of how our minds work.  We just simply have not evolved to think about time in the billions of years.

There seems to be a lack of understanding about the difference between microevolution and macroevolution, and creationists will many times fall back to admitting that microevolution exists (because we can see it happening) but that macroevolution does not exist. But there is no dividing line between the two of them. Macroevolution is simply the accumulation of microevolution over very large periods of time. Microevolution is simply a small change that happens in a gene pool from generation to generation. Microevolution is as simple as a dog having puppies with slightly longer tails than it, or a bird with a wider beak. There are numerous examples of this that have happened within the span of humanity. Many refuse to believe that humans could possibly be involved in this, that we are immutable as a species. If that were the case then explaining the different features (like eye or hair color, skin color, etc) would be difficult. How could an original two humans create so many different human features if the genes did not slowly shift over time?

Creationists will also say that evolution does not explain where life came from, this is a given as evolution is not meant to explain where life originated. That has it's own theories. Evolution is used to explain where the diversity of life came from. The original concepts of evolution were in place before Darwin came along, the idea that animals changed over time. Darwin added the concept of natural selection, that living things compete with other members of their own species for food or mating rights. Those that do adapt to be better at getting food or passing along their genes will increase the likelihood that their children are going to also survive. It is not a competition between predator and prey, predators simply add pressure on prey to become better at hiding or not being eaten while prey add pressure on predators to be better at finding and catching the prey. They are not competing for the same resources like those within the same species do.

Some people will actually use the 'Only a theory' argument when trying to disprove evolution (aside from other crazier ways, with simple rebuttals). This is a complete failure to understand what a theory is. The germ theory of disease is ONLY a theory, relativity is ONLY a theory, reality itself is ONLY a theory. In science a theory has weight behind it, it is something that evidence supports and is not likely to be toppled. Most people think of 'theory' in the sense of a hypothesis, which is basically an educated guess. It is unfortunate that some people try to use the nomenclature to change how people think about some things (this is also seen a lot in politics, giving bills more positive names to try to increase support for them. Such as the patriot act, no child left behind, or the clean air act). In the end this is only a name, and regardless of how we perceive it the truth does not change.

Some creationists have said things such as 'I'll believe evolution when a chimpanzee gives birth to a human' or 'if evolution happened why are there no crocoducks then?'. Chimpanzees are not the ancestors of humans, they are our cousins, they branched off from the primates that eventually became humans. This argument is also mixing up the concepts of microevolution and macroevolution. As for the crocoducks… the argument is ridiculous, why would a crocoduck exist? What niche would they be able to fill and what pressures would have to be put on a species in order to create one? Evolution does not mean that every animal possible must exist, just that for every animal alive today there were intermediary animals to their ancestors.  Just as your parents are intermediaries to your grandparents.

Moving on to other misconceptions is the idea that evolution is random.  Evolution is an incredibly complex process but it is anything but random, the different pressures exerted by the environment, mates, lack of food, and predators create an incredibly complex system.  It is not random, it is just not planned either.  Not being planned does not mean that some things wouldn't be repeated if evolution were run again.  if the same pressures apply then the same result is likely (but not definite).  This is how we get features evolving in multiple groups, such as fins in fish and in dolphins.  These certainly did not evolve at the same time or through the same method but they did evolve to fulfill the same role.

The last thing I want to talk about is the idea that evolution is impossible because the second law of thermodynamics holds that entropy always increases, not decreases.  But this does not really have anything to do with evolution.  This is more due to a misunderstanding of thermodynamics, then applying that misunderstanding to evolution.  I could go into further detail but PZ Myers has done it better job of it.

I guess evolution is something of a sore spot for me because I find it to be the most beautiful field of science, things changing to adapt to fit into an environment that is ever changing.  Growing up with a love of paleontology and reading books like this one probably doomed me into this mindset.  Because the more we learn about dinosaurs the closer they come to modern birds.

Though science has had a couple of instances of fraud or exaggerations in the quest for knowledge of evolution, it was scientists who uncovered the fraud of Piltdown man and scientists who first questioned the hyperbole used to promote the Ida fossil (which is still a very fascinating fossil, but is certainly not the best transitional fossil we have for humans).

If you are wondering how we can fix these misunderstandings, the answer is to teach better evolution science in schools.  Good and bad news there though…

If you have not already seen it, please do watch Judgment Day: intelligent design on trial.  It does a great job showing how the creationists have tried to adapt their strategy to get into the public schools.

Reality denial – an introduction

It seems that I am constantly meeting people who live in their own reality bubble, not really paying attention to pesky things like facts.  Their own little bubble of reality will gloss over facts and other opinions or interpretations of said facts, replacing them with something completely different.  The subjects range from conspiracy theories (like the moon hoax crowd, the 9/11 truthers, or the free energy people), scientific ideas (Evolution denial, global warming denial, the anti vaccine groups), Political movements (the birthers, nearly every chain E-mail about politics).

Although students of philosophy (and those smoking the good stuff) might argue that reality is as we perceive it, I don’ think reality is subjective.  I believe that reality is something that is immutable and unchanging, regardless of our views on it.  To quote a poem I read once in school “Truth does not grind away like a stone”, I don’t remember the rest of the poem or the author but that line stuck with me.  We cannot change the truth, only our perception of it.  It is that perception that I wish to write about.  Polls like this one show something is fundamentally off with peoples perception of facts here in America.  It really isn’t just here though, Homeopathy and other equally crap based medicines are big in Europe and even have Prince Charles rallying to promote them.

That is why I am making this blog, it might not get even a single person to ever read it but I feel like just sitting at home wasn’t really a good use of my free time if there was something I could be saying about this.  Besides, I need a skeptical outlet besides the stern looks I give my co-worker who is always toting around books telling him how to unlock his sixth sense or how to become an astrologer.

As an ending note to this first entry, I truly believe that there is nothing more amazing than how the universe works.  From the tiniest Planck length particle (or string) to the Vastness of the cosmos as a whole.  The way everything interacts with everything else is, in my opinion, more than we will ever need to keep us forever learning.  So we don’t need things like astrology or bigfoot to make the world an interesting place.  We can find enough to do in reality without their help.

- Ian