In2-MeC

Timisoara, Romania
20 July 2004

Special Guest Essay: How to Think Like a Scientist

Dr. Don Key Returns to In2-MeC

Not wanting to become the cause of the loss to ISKCON of a valuable contact in the academic world, we at In2-MeC felt bad about the irritation we caused to Dr. Don Key when we interviewed him day before yesterday. Dr. Key, as the reader may recall, is Professor of Religious Sciences at the University of Vineland. We've asked Dr. Key to teach our In2-MeC readership a lesson on how scientists reason.

"Thank you. You know, a Krsna devotee told me not long ago that the logic I employ is bizarre. Well, I beg to disagree. It's not bizarre, it's different. It's the logic of science. I thought it might be useful to give a little seminar today on how that logic works. If you devotees could train yourselves to reason as we do, it might improve your relationship with the world of academia. Who knows? You might even rise above fundamentalism and come to a more open-minded understanding of the world we live in.

"There's a website called Bad Astronomy that's run by an astronomer named Phil Plait. His intention is to counter with scientific logic the unauthorized speculations that run rampant in the field of astronomy, particularly those speculations propagated by persons with an agenda to discredit mainstream science. Phil's website is quite interesting, and his arguments illustrate nicely the sort of logic I want to teach today. So I thought I'd refer to his work to get across to you the basic thought processes of scientific reasoning that you need to understand.

"We'll look at how Phil deals with a controversy that has sprung up around this photograph, which was taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera on board the Mars Global Surveyor. As you can see, the central feature of the photograph is a structure that looks for all the world like a giant earthworm. It's about a mile long and hundreds of feet wide. It appears to be cylindrical, glassy, transluscent, to have a regular rib-like structure, and to be shiny compared to the rest of the photograph. It seems to be clinging to a canyon wall on the Martian surface.

"Now here's the controversy: some people suggest that this really is a photograph of a giant worm. Even Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the famous science fiction author and inventor of the telecommunications satellite, said as much in an interview with Louis Friedman of the Planetary Society. Others say if it's not a worm then it must be an artifact designed and constructed by a Martian intelligence. Phil Plait starts off by replying to these people, 'I'm guessing no. ' Beautifully put, Phil! By that remark, you've taught our readers the first rule in how to reason like a scientist: Start Off By Sounding Humble.

"'I'm guessing no' signals that Phil's not coming off as an absolutist. He's expressing his opinion, which is his solemn right in a democracy. Keep in mind the issue Phil is dealing with: a high-altitude photograph taken of the surface of planet Mars, 140 million miles from Earth. It's obvious you can't just jump in feet first proclaiming that the photo proves this or that. That's what the nutcases do--excuse the derogatory language! It may look like a worm, but it is highly unscientific to argue right off the bat that it is a worm.

"Actually, this photograph of Mars stands very well for all sense data. It's certainly true that science relies upon sense data as evidence. In the same way, sense data is evidence in the courtroom. It is the main proof of the inductive process of knowledge, you see. Induction means you draw a conclusion from 'the facts'--what your senses tell you--whereas deduction means you receive a conclusion from a self-evident authority, or from a self-evident process of reasoning like arithmetic: two plus two equals four. The essential difference is the degree of speculation. In deduction, ideally there is no speculation at all. Something understood deductively, ideally can't be any other way: "All men are mortal," for example. Therefore no scientists are off exploring the Amazon to discover the Fountain of Youth, a body of water around which we'd find people of perpetual youth. We don't know that there is no Fountain of Youth in the Amazon, but deduction rules it out. So why speculate about it? With induction, on the other hand, speculation is inherent. Just as in a police case: the detectives arrive at a scene of a crime where it isn't obvious who did what. The detectives have to assemble clues--sense data--at the scene and speculate what these clues have to say about the crime.

"And so it follows that this photograph from Mars is simply a clue. It establishes nothing with deductive certainty. The main task of the inductive speculator surrounding this clue is to try to eliminate what could not have happened. In an ordinary police case that would be helped along by digging up more and more clues. But since we're talking here about a photograph taken high above the surface of Mars, which is 140 million miles away from the nearest human investigator, there's not much we can do 'on the ground. '

"In science there are many similar problems. For example, the problem of consciousness. We have prima facie evidence that consciousness exists--each of us is conscious, of course--but what is it? And where does it come from? It's quite a strange situation that while nothing can be nearer to us than our own consciousness, the task before the scientist of finding out what consciousness is and where it comes from is quite like the task of finding out what this photograph from Mars really shows us. We haven't found a way to dig into consciousness to get to its root. Whatever we do in our investigation, we remain conscious of. You see? Just like, here we are looking at this photograph, wondering what it means. We can't dig into it to find out more. Whatever we may do, at the end of the day we'll still be here on Earth looking at this picture from Mars.

"Phil's admission from the start that he's guessing shows honesty. So friends, that's where you start when you want to sound like a scientist grappling with a hard problem. Be very reasonable. Don't shout from the getgo that you have The Answer.

"All right. Phil's guess is the photograph is not of a worm nor an artificial structure. Why? Now we come to rule two of how to reason like a scientist: Avoid Stating Your Axiomatic Assumptions. Phil only brushes up against one such axiomatic assumption by mentioning in passing, "the lack of food for something this size precludes a natural biological origin for it. " Nicely put in scientific-sounding language, Phil! Reading that, most people won't even pause over the briefest thought that if the thing in the photo is a burrowing worm, it might find its nourishment in the minerals of the Martian soil. Never mind! Giant extraterrestrial worms are a staple of popular science fiction (Frank Herbert's Dune series of novels). It's just too far out. But you don't want to state that openly. Because if people think about it, they'll start asking themselves, 'Wait a sec--why is it too far out?'

"There are reasons why it's too far out. One, obviously, is that giant worms on Mars are a scientific impossibility! Here's another reason I'll call the problem of 'non-rational connectivity. ' Suppose the thing in the photograph--against all scientific probability--actually is a giant worm. What does that mean? See, that's exactly the problem. People will start to ask themselves: 'What the hell does that mean?' They'll consider how, years before it was discovered on Mars, a science fiction author intuited such an extraterrestrial life form. Does that mean, they'll ask themselves, there is a connection between the dreamy, fantasizing, non-rational side of human consciousness and the true nature of the universe?

"With regard to Mars, this problem of non-rational connectivity is not a new development. Mars is orbited by two small moons, Phobos and Deimos. They were officially discovered in August 1877 by the U. S. Naval observatory. These moons are extremely small. That is why they were hidden from astronomers for so long. The telescopes of the 1720s, just 150 years before their discovery, were too primitive to be able to spot these little Martian moons. Yet in Chapter III of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, which was published in 1726, we find this strange paragraph:

They have likewise discovered two lesser stars or satellites, which revolve about Mars; whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary planet exactly three of its diameters and the outermost, five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half.

"The actual facts regarding the Martian moons are as follows:

a) The innermost one, Phobos is at 5,800 miles from Mars as opposed to 12,300 miles (3 diameters) as Swift said.

b) The outermost one, Deimos, is at 14,600 miles from Mars as opposed to 20,500 miles (5 diameters).

c) Phobos orbits around Mars in 7. 2 hours compared to the 10 hours which Swift wrote of.

d) Deimos orbits around Mars in 33. 6 hours compared to his prediction of 21. 5 hours.

"There is no known way of inferring beforehand how many satellites a planet should have. So the mere guess that Mars had two is of itself quite amazing since the number of moons a planet may have will vary from none to a dozen or more.

"On top of that, the various measurements given above are not all that far out. There is no rule which science knows of to predict the distance of satellites from a planet by theory alone. The orbital times given are nothing short of staggering. Phobos orbits in 7. 2 hours compared with the 10 hours which Swift wrote of. The time for Deimos's orbit is also not far wrong. Note that he predicted that the innermost one would be at a distance of 12,300 miles--which is very close to the distance of Deimos (the outermost), which orbits at 14,600 miles! His biggest error therefore lies in his prediction of the distance of Phobos.

"This isn't the only case of an accurate physical discovery coming from a non-rational insight. Friedrich Kekule was a chemist born in Darmstadt, Germany on September 7th, 1829. He began life as an architect, but became fascinated with how chemistry could be used to solve crime. So he turned to chemistry. He loved the theoretical work involved, and became fascinated with how molecules were connected together. One afternoon he was taking a bus in London when he fell asleep. Suddenly he had a clear dream in which he visualized how molecules connected together. He had another dream when he was studying benzene, which helped him realize that benzene formed a ring shape. His dreams helped guide his research and form the basis for modern organic chemistry.

"Such uncanny events are only grudgingly admitted by science. We pass them off as coincidences. We do not admit that such events have any kind of regularized validity as means of knowledge. The problem scientists have with these non-rational insights is the connectivity factor. If it turns out that the hidden nature of the universe is understandable through dreams and fantasy, then doesn't that connect to the 'revelations' found in what we scientists call mythological literature? Like your Srimad-Bhagavtam, for example, in which a sage named Vyasa went into mystic trance and envisioned capital-R Reality! The question, 'Is there a connection between mysticism and cosmology?', is obviously connected in turn to the question, 'Is there a God?'.

"If we scientists have to entertain such questions, we'll stray far off the course of the scientific method. Axiomatic to that method is the assumption the universe is more or less a mechanism open to human analysis. Thus the basic key to understanding this mechanism is physics, which we try to keep as rational as possible. Otherwise we lose control of what we are trying to accomplish in science--which, after all, is control over matter.

"And so--getting back to Phil Plait's exemplary line of reasoning--a scientist has to strive to keep the discussion of 'the way things really are' within the bounds of scientific controls. But the thing is, as soon as we start clearly pointing out those bounds, we call attention to the non-rational realm outside--the realm which Carl Sagan called 'the demon-haunted world. ' So while striving to keep the discussion within the bounds of scientific controls, we shouldn't spell out the axiomatic assumptions of those controls. Phil's done that very well.

"What Phil does next is positively brilliant. Since the photograph is the only piece of evidence we have for solving the puzzle of what this so-called worm is, Phil manipulates the photograph in different ways so as to argue that it does not show what it seems to show! This is rule three of how to reason like a scientist: When All Else Fails, Manipulate the Data.

"He presents us with these images of a crater. On the left is the original image, on the right is the same image reversed; flipped, as it were. Thus the right image looks like a dome. The left image looks like the opposite of a dome: a crater. Yet they are the same image!

"Why does Phil offer us the image of the crater and its reverse? Well, he says about those who call the strange Martian object a worm or an artifact:

First off, they claim the object is convex, that is, popping out of the image as opposed to being a concave valley. However, I think this claim is false. To see why, look at the images above. They demonstrate an illusion where craters can look like domes if flipped upside-down.

"Most impressive! You see what Phil has done? He has cleverly introduced the idea that the 'worm' photograph has illusory characteristics when in fact there was no such question of illusory characteristics at the beginning of the discussion! After all, it is an official NASA photograph. No-one has suggested it is reversed. Neither is Phil suggesting it is reversed. He is suggesting that those who see it as a worm or an artifact are seeing it in reverse!

"He then provides us with a reversed image of the 'worm' and says:

Is it a worm or a valley? When I look at [this picture], the convex worm. . . becomes a concave valley. . . The transverse markings suddenly look a lot more like long hills. As far as I am concerned, this makes it pretty clear right away that. . claims about this feature [being a worm or an artifact] are completely wrong. If it's not a convex tube, then everything else he says is perforce wrong.

"Frankly, ha ha ha, I have to admit that this reversed image of the 'worm' looks hardly different to me than the original. I don't see it as concave. But Phil's argument is persuasive enough to get me to call my way of seeing this reversed image into question. Of course, being a scientist myself, I'm thankful to him for that.

"I like how Phil reminds us of the 'Start Off BY Sounding Humble' principle of scientific reason by saying 'As far as I am concerned. . . ' See? He's expressing his opinion. But he goes on to strongly assert that if he is right, then his opponents must be wrong. Thus rule four of how to reason like a scientist: When The Time Is Ripe, Jump From 'Guessing' To 'Professing. '

"Rule five is: Introduce Irrelevant Examples And Make Them Relevant! Phil draws our attention to this image from another region of Mars. He argues:

There are gullies all through this region, and they are consistent with flowing water. At the bottom appear to be more entrained dunes. The channel in which they sit is much more clearly a channel, and not a raised tube! So it looks like Mars can make features like this in channels. It's not a stretch at all to see that the same thing is happening in the valley claimed to be a giant worm.

"Personally, I don't see much connection between this photograph and the one of the 'worm,' but Phil is on a roll, and he's defending scientific reason, so more power to him!

"He's not done yet. He tints the 'worm' photo red and then argues:

I made the image red, and changed the contrast a little. Suddenly, the "glassy" appearance is gone, and it looks more like what it really is: a long winding channel with ridges. This in itself shows that the interpretation of glassiness depends on how the image is displayed, and not necessarily on any intrinsic shininess of the feature.

"An astonishing feat of science, Phil! And an illustration of the sixth rule of scientific reasoning: Fudge, Don't Budge!

"Rule seven is, State your Conclusions As Proven Truth. In other words, start off with humility, but by the end, throw all hesitancy to the winds and go for the big prize: Absolute Certainty! Here's how Phil winds up his presentation:

So what have I shown? Let's be clear:

1) This is not a raised tube, like a worm on the ground, but a channel. It's concave, not convex.

2) The ridges are in fact ridges, and not ribs or etchings. They are most likely sand dunes entrained by aerodynamic forces (that is, wind).

3) The glassiness is another illusion, created by the contrast level in the image.

4) This object, far from being inexplicable, is actually explainable as a gully perhaps carved by water flow. The ridges are wind-entrained dunes or possibly more solid erosion features from flowing water.

"And so ends my seminar on how to reason like a scientist. I'm not concerned whether the Mars photo I used in my presentation is of a worm or a gully. I simply wanted to demonstrate to you the method of reason we scientists apply to such evidence, whatever it may mean in reality. In2-MeC readers, I hope you will now have more appreciation for the hard work we do in arriving at our exacting explanations about the factual nature of our universe. Don't let your dogmatic leaders put words in our mouths and accuse of things we do not do. Science can have a place of honor in your life too!"

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