You Say You Want No Evolution, Well, You Know...

Drawing: Capt. James Cook voyage 1768-1771
(scientific, pre-Darwinian)

... you're too late to change that world. An old friend of mine from middle school through college, a fundamentalist Christian who home-schooled his kids, nonetheless taught them that facts cannot be debated. No doubt he and I differed on what establishes an assertion as a "fact." But a Missouri legislator has decided to test that concept in the most aggressive way possible: he has proposed a law that would

... require the school district or charter school to notify the parent or legal guardian of each student enrolled in the district of:

(1) The basic content of the district's or school's evolution instruction to be provided to the student; and

(2) The parent's right to remove the student from any part of the district's or school's evolution instruction.

The late lamented Stephen Jay Gould once presented a touring lecture appearing (among many other places) at Rice University in Houston. The title of the lecture began "The Fact of Evolution..." and concluded something like "as Explained in Darwin's Theory," or something similar. The distinction is absolutely critical to the understanding of science education: some things are facts established beyond a reasonable doubt by physical evidence and/or experiment, on the one hand, and on the other, some things are theories created by human minds, explanations of facts consistent with all known established facts.

For example, "evolution," in the sense of "descent with modification" is such a fact: the fossil record proves to any observer with an unbiased mind that later life forms derived from earlier ones. By contrast, "Darwin's theory of evolution," a very specific explanation of the mechanisms by which the established physical fact of descent with modification took place, is a theory. Theories are debatable; indeed, in a scientific context, theories can even be replaced with better theories more consistent with known facts, including new facts learned over time. Facts, on the other hand, in general are not subject to wholesale replacement.

Occasionally, as with the onset of quantum physics, facts previously established are found to be in error to a degree or in a manner that requires a re-evaluation of their particulars. But the whole of physics did not collapse with the first evidence for quantum mechanics, nor was Newton's work literally replaced by Einstein's, Bohr's etc. Some ID creationists are quick to shout "A-HA! Newton was never right in the first place! No eternal truths there!" Perhaps not, but Newton's work was good enough for humankind to navigate from the Earth to the Moon and back, to place satellites in geosynchronous orbit, etc., even if it took Einstein's work to insert the relativistic corrections to make your GPS work properly.

Such deliberate misconstructions might be merely silly, and one might legitimately simply mock people who insist on them. But in today's America, some of those people have in mind to establish their "higher [religious] truths" in our system of public education, by statutory law. Such people must be stopped.

In America, people are free to establish their own religions according to their own beliefs, however nutsy those beliefs may be. People may even form their own schools within the context of their religion, and teach their own kids all sorts of unsupported or even contrafactual things. But religion is not science, ever, even in the best of cases, and the First Amendment to our Constitution assures us that our government may not establish a religion, and that is exactly what the introduction of religion-based "science" contrary to best available present-day scientific thinking into government-sponsored schools amounts to.

Enough is enough. If the courts will not put a stop to this willful distortion of our kids' science education, the show is over, and we might as well strike the set and close the theater.

US No Longer #1 In Science Since The Year 2000

Let's see, what else happened in that year? A religious nut-job from Texas won stole the presidency, instituted a surely unconstitutional Office of Faith-Based Programs (aside: at first I misunderstood, thinking Bush had appointed Tammy Faye Bakker to a new Office of Face-Paste Programs), and de-emphasized science to the point that serious young science students began thinking of careers elsewhere in the world. Note this is the judgment of the students, not of a commercial publication trying to sell newspapers or magazines, who often saturate their top 10 lists of colleges in the physical sciences with American universities. And it is the judgment of talented American students, who must at least consider moving elsewhere, and non-American students, who are less likely to come here for their education than they were a couple of decades ago.

How much of this is GeeDubya Bush's fault? It's hard to tell. As far as I can see, a GOP tradition of dismissing higher education in science began approximately in Ronald Reagan's presidency, and has worsened in every Republican administration since then. In many fields, the best students know not to come here. And America was once so secure in that #1 spot! It seems a crying shame to have let it slip away.

Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Tunnel Interior, Switzerland and France

But slip away it has. Prof. Matt Strassler, a theoretical physicist on the Rutgers faculty, is currently happy to be on loan to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). currently the world's most powerful particle accelerator, built... sorry, Americans; not in America... built by CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research, headquartered in Geneva), in a tunnel spanning parts of Switzerland and France. A comparable American project, the Superconducting Super Collider, was envisioned and debated, but fell victim to political greed when it lost the support of every Senator whose state was not its proposed location. Strassler, who blogs at "Of Particular Significance" (it's on the blogroll), has this to say, pointing to the words of Bruce Alberts, Editor-in-Chief of the major journal Science as a basis for Strassler's own thoughts:

A mere twenty years ago, this nation was clearly the best place in the world to do scientific research. Since 2000 the decline has been precipitous, and though the U.S. still surely ranks in the top ten, few would say it clearly is the best anymore. In general, the country remains a relatively great place to live and work. But any excellent young scientist from abroad has to think carefully about coming to or staying in the U.S. for a career, because there might not be enough money to support even first-rate research. Similarly, any young U.S. scientist, no matter how devoted to this country and no matter how skilled, may face the tough choice of either going abroad or abandoning his or her career. (It’s not just young people either, as I can personally attest.)

Whereas before the year 2000 it was easy for U.S. universities to attract the best in the world to teach and do research at their institutions, and to train the next generation of American scientists, the brain drain since that time has been awful. (I see this up close, as more and more often I fail to hire talented individuals specifically because they see a better scientific and personal future outside the United States.) And it is getting worse. All of this affects our economy’s future, our society’s health, and even our ability to defend ourselves, especially since some of the most active spending on science is being done by countries that are hostile or potentially hostile to the free world.

It’s easy to blame this on the recession. “Oh, these are bad times and we all have to share the pain.” That’s true, but this problem started long before 2008. The system became threadbare during the Bush administration, and now, in the ensuing recession and political chaos, it’s at risk of falling apart.

...

So there you have it, from a respected theoretical physicist, one who himself had to move to Switzerland to pursue his high-powered career (pun intended): America once had it, but America lost it, its system of scientific research collapsing in a heap during the Bush administration. One man's opinion, you say? I'm afraid a lot of other physicists concur. America has plenty to spend maintaining a war machine well-suited to fighting the nuclear war we never had (thank goodness), but we can't afford to support first-rate scientific research. This scarcity of research funds (for any research not of military consequence) has unfortunate implications: most American scientists, even eminent figures in their fields, inevitably spend large portions of their workdays not on science but on spinning the research they wish to do, to Congress of course, but also to the public; to hear them tell their story, every forthcoming breakthrough is new, radical, of overarching significance, etc.

It's a helluva way to run a nation's science programs.

Krugman, Rubio And The Age Of The Earth

Paul Krugman points out that Marco Rubio's evasiveness when asked how old the Earth is is more than just a gesture to appeal to religious fundamentalists in the GOP's base: it is a direct, full-fledged abnegation of science in pursuit of the truth... and an indirect rejection of the economic prosperity that can only be based on Americans' widespread knowledge of the sciences. Krugman is right; indeed, he could scarcely be more right. Conservative biblio-babble notwithstanding, in these days, without science, the American economy... any human economy... is nothing.

The Earth? It is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years old. Some Bible-bangers... Rubio, perhaps? will tell you figures in the vicinity of 6000 to 7500 years; others give longer spans from 12000 to 20000 years. A mere 6000 years? I had a great‑grandmother who was older than that... [/snark]

The point is this: science is not necessarily always right, but it is always rooted in physical reality as best researchers can determine that reality. Religion may occasionally be factually right, but it is always mythology, with no obligation to factual accuracy. As mythology, it may have some moral instructive value (or not); but as myth rather than fact, it is a poor basis for formulating public policy... let alone teaching science.

The End Of Science In America?

Paul Krugman:

...

Like others doing similar exercises — Drew Linzer, Sam Wang, and Pollster — Nate[ Silver]’s model continued to show an Obama edge even after Denver, and has shown that edge widening over the past couple of weeks.

This could be wrong, obviously. And we’ll find out on Election Day. But the methodology has been very clear, and all the election modelers have been faithful to their models, letting the numbers fall where they may.

Yet the right — and we’re not talking about the fringe here, we’re talking about mainstream commentators and publications — has been screaming “bias”! They know, just know, that Nate must be cooking the books. How do they know this? Well, his results look good for Obama, so it must be a cheat. Never mind the fact that Nate tells us all exactly how he does it, and that he hasn’t changed the formula at all.

This is, of course, reminiscent of the attack on the Bureau of Labor Statistics — not to mention the attacks on climate science and much more. On the right, apparently, there is no such thing as an objective calculation. Everything must have a political motive.

This is really scary. It means that if these people triumph, science — or any kind of scholarship — will become impossible. Everything must pass a political test; if it isn’t what the right wants to hear, the messenger is subjected to a smear campaign.

...

This strikes me as yet another manifestation of the right-wing concept of science as simply a belief system, like Catholicism or Islam or Mormonism: as though, if you don't like one "faith," you can choose another; if you are offended by one scientific theory, you can replace it, based not on whether the replacement truly describes the world we live in, but on whether it is compatible with your political outlook. It's the same situation as in any other search for truth in reality: you don't get to choose your own facts. Honest seekers across the spectrum freely acknowledge this. Right-wingers, even the ones who are not utterly nuts, do not: the facts themselves, as they see them, are subject to reshaping based on one's political philosophy.

That simply doesn't work... at all... in scientific research. You cannot "pray away" global climate change. You cannot merely assert loudly, or even pass a law in Congress, that the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe has no ongoing environmental consequences. You cannot pass a law about when human life begins, and thereby change the physiology of the process. And as Krugman reminds us, you cannot legislate underlying motivations for human economic behavior, the ones that are truly wired in, as if they were simple matters of policy. You can't make trickle-down supply-side economics "true" by fiat. You can deny Keynes until you're blue in the face, but his message will nonetheless haunt you in the real world if you ignore it.

Newton

Galileo

There have always been science deniers; this is nothing new. Indeed, before a few people in 17^th-century England, Italy and Germany framed the basics of how one does science, of the notion of a hypothesis to be tested, of experimental confirmation, of mathematical description, there was not a great deal of science done anywhere. (The age of Archimedes, c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC, mathematically enlightened and technologically clever as he was, was all too brief, and had no thread of historical succession directly connecting him with the beginnings of science as we know it.) For millennia, most people did not think in scientific terms; those who did often paid dearly for their troubles. Today's science deniers would take us back to that time. (Hey, the torture apparatuses are already in place, thanks to the political system!)

And that is the crux (!) of what is frightening about right-wing politics: the wingers wish to establish a new age of "truth" by fiat, not truth through research in scientific matters, not even political truth by honest debate among people of differing interests, but truth by reference to authority. Regular use of the argument from authority leads almost inexorably to more emphasis on the authority than the argument. Spare us, please!

To The WaPo, When It Comes To Global Climate Change, 'Science' Equals 'Opinion'

Somewhere on Earth

That's right. NASA scientist James Hansen's column, "Climate change is here — and worse than we thought," is published in the op‑ed section, under the header "Opinions." His article is paired with one of those "but on the other hand" articles, presumably to appease the right-wing nut-jobs who increasingly control the paper (no link from here, mofo's).Yeah, right, all that A/C we're using just to keep the temp in Our House tolerable is caused purely by opinions. Still, as expected, Hansen makes a compelling argument that most of today's extreme weather events are indeed due to climate change; please read the article. Opinion, my ass. Maybe I need a new section label something like "when good newspapers go bad." Still, at least they published it somewhere. Here's a sample:

...

In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.

This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.

...

Taylor Creek, MT, July 2012

As somebody said in Bored of the Rings, "the fewmets have hit the windmill." Global climate change is not an opinion: it's a demonstrated fact, supported by  both scientific and casual observation (see photo, right). Not even a WaPo editor can change that fact.

Should Republicans care? Here's Hansen again:

This is the world we have changed, and now we have to live in it — the world that caused the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed more than 50,000 people and the 2011 drought in Texas that caused more than $5 billion in damage. Such events, our data show, will become even more frequent and more severe.

Climate change deniers: do you want Earth to look like Mars? or maybe Venus? do you want to spend billions attempting to repair the damage, and yet failing? Sorry, but... no. It's your world, but it's not your world to spoil.

From NASA Goddard, here is the research news release including two videos, and the science brief, presuming you're not scared of charts. Here is an abstract, which I reproduce in full here:

"Climate dice," describing the chance of unusually warm or cool seasons, have become more and more "loaded" in the past 30 y, coincident with rapid global warming. The distribution of seasonal mean temperature anomalies has shifted toward higher temperatures and the range of anomalies has increased. An important change is the emergence of a category of summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (3°) warmer than the climatology of the 1951-1980 base period. This hot extreme, which covered much less than 1% of Earth's surface during the base period, now typically covers about 10% of the land area. It follows that we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small. We discuss practical implications of this substantial, growing, climate change.

And finally, here is the rather long .pdf of the report itself.

ASIDE: at Our House, we are on a 100% wind power plan. Apart from busting our budget, we at least don't contribute to the problem.

Republicans: Pushing Medicine Into The 19th Century

Republican Surgeon's Kit

Paul Krugman, in a short post called What You Don't Know Can't Heal You, examines the teabagger House of Representatives' proposed ravages of the Affordable Care Act Health and Human Services funding bill:

Austin Frakt looks at the Republican health legislation, and finds (quoting a report from AcademyHealth) that

[I]t completely eliminates the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (Sec. 227), and prohibits any patient-centered outcomes research (Sec. 217) and all economic research within the National Institutes of Health (Page 57, line 19).

And remember the hatred aimed at comparative effectiveness research.

Health care is one of those disciplines in which the invisible hand of the market, likely as not, raises its invisible middle finger at us all. The market cannot determine rational behavior here, and omitting the necessary research... which only the government has incentive to do, on behalf of the citizenry... is sure to drive an irrational, profit-obsessed, dangerous outcome. Only actual knowledge of outcomes of treatment approaches, as determined by actual research by people trained in performing that research, can tell us whether a given approach is worthwhile or just a waste of patients' money. Doctors are not gods who can simply "know" these things, however vast their professional experience. I cannot imagine that even insurance companies, rapacious as they are, think that this knowledge-free approach is a good idea.

But ranting radicals in today's House... I won't dignify their position by calling it "conservative," because it isn't and they aren't... would discard (indeed, forbid!) the government's support of medical-care quality research and medical economics research.

I suppose it would be useless to remind them that one of the stated goals of our Constitution is to "promote the general Welfare," and I suppose they consider it utter folly to acknowledge that that "general Welfare" includes establishing the validity and cost-effectiveness of medical treatments. The GOP War on Science knows no bounds.