KellanStec

I went into the event with as open of a mind as I could have. The ones who put it on seemed genuine in their efforts to have a real, rational discussion on creationism and evolution. I was, however, very disappointed. The preacher’s main point was to convince the audience to be critical of science and what it tells us. This is good, but his methods were not convincing in the least. His presentation indulged in non-sequiturs, false dichotomies, false analogies, out-of-context quotes to set up strawmen, and question begging. I didn’t expect to hear much in the way of science at this event, but he could have at least had logical arguments rather than authoritative dogmatic assertions of biblical inerrancy.

Brian Young cited few sources, and the sources he did site were some off-hand, foreign magazine or something. There were no peer-reviewed sources cited. A peer-reviewed source would have been much more acceptable since peer-review generally is a quality control mechanism that filters out things that do not hold up to scientific scrutiny. I doubt he cared about scientific scrutiny though, since science is typically wrong in his eyes. And he said this while using a microphone system and projected his powerpoint presentation from his computer. Biologists use the exact same process (the scientific method, experimentation, and peer-reviewed research) that brought us such innovations as these. The only difference was that modern biology doesn’t fit into his bronze-age mythological interpretation of history. Aren’t double-standards fun?

I have some suggestions for Brian:

• Take science courses: If you’re going to act like you’re educated in the fields, at least follow through. Your education level in the sciences is obviously not as high as I was led to believe. Some of the comments you made (such as that man and woman evolved separately or that suddenly a new species is born of another) are patently untrue. Any person enrolled in an intro to Biology course could could tell you this much. We didn’t “come from monkeys”. Educate yourself so you don’t look like such a fool.
• Update your information: Update the image of the skeletal remains of Ambulocetus to reflect what we actually have now. Remove the airplane example that supposedly refutes ice layer dating–this is not a parallel representation of how ice core samples are taken. See part 2 for more detail. Having updated information means more accuracy in your presentation, and it also means that people like me won’t call you on your deception.
• Cite your sources, and present real evidence: A story in some foreign magazine is not evidence. This is called anecdotal evidence, and it should not be considered real evidence unless it has more external verification to back it up. This type of evidence should be considered fallacious by default.
• Don’t screen questions: I provided typed questions with sources cited in hopes that they would be answered. I was assured that they would not be screened. This was one of my main gripes about the format of discussion: the audience could never know if you really answered the question. You didn’t make an attempt to answer my question specifically, but only parts of it that you had a prepared answer in your powerpoints for. The rest of the question, it seemed was intentionally skipped over. Incidentally, these were the parts I would have preferred an explanation for.
• Remember the burden of proof: Providing evidence against science does not, be default, prove your case. When you are the one making the claim (the earth is ~6,000 years old), you must provide evidence positive that this is the case. Doing the opposite is called the negative proof fallacy. You can’t just make an assertion that is assumed true by definition. This is not how to make a good case for what you believe.

At the conclusion of this presentation, I was honestly stunned. Stunned that someone would take his ignorance and misinformation and mislead an entire audience of people. Some of this was demonstratively false, such as the misrepresentation of the completedness of a fossil discovered 15 years ago. Some of it defied common sense, such as suggesting that the banana sized, razor-sharp teeth of a Tyrannosaurus would be “perfect for eating something like a pumpkin”. This is completely unacceptable from someone who claims to be an informed speaker on the subject. He could have at least kept up-to-date on the literature and refreshed his knowledge of the subject.

Finally, I’d like to write a couple of points from a discussion I had after the presentation with a creationist student here on campus. The conversation itself I think represents something greater: a patten of misinformation and willful ignorance on behalf of the creationist students as a whole. I have had a number of conversations with some of them in the past, and there is always a false factoid or misconception that I’ve had to clear up. It’s sad that some people either don’t know how or choose not to do the research necessary to validate or falsify their claims or beliefs.

At first, we were discussing the lizards that grew an entirely new structure, a cecal valve after ~30 years of isolation from the parent population. Not only that, but they had fundamentally changed other parts of their anatomy. Their legs grew smaller, jaws larger, and they slowed down to adjust to a life as vegetarians. This student asked me “But, is it still a lizard?”. This was obviously the “only produce after their kind” nonsense that is perpetuated in the creationist community. I agreed that it was still a lizard. The difference, I noted, was how different this species had become from the parent population. I don’t know if he expected a wombat to hatch out of a lizard egg or what. I told him that studies had not been done to determine if they could still breed with the parent population, but that it would be a good indicator of how changed they really were.

He proceeded to tell me of a blue bird book that his uncle/grandfather/family friend had (I can’t remember which) that said that a sparrow and a robin could breed and produce viable offspring. I was unable to find such a case anywhere. I am guessing this is the book he was talking about, but I can’t find any commentary to confirm that it contains that piece of information. I also wasn’t able to find a biography to verify the author’s credentials. But seriously–this is the evidence he had? I had a peer-reviewed scholarly article depicting the measurements taken, and all the research done to show that the lizards had changed dramatically, and he had a book written by someone who seems to be an outdoors man who writes about nature and preserving meat.

This is the standard for evidence that was presented at this event. I doubt I will be attending an event similar to this in the future, as it provided nothing useful to me.

“If you’re willing to abandon any requirement for evidence, you can also ignore any evidence that counters your opinion.” — PZ Myers

Let’s talk about transitional fossils. One bold statement was made by Mr. Young: There is no such thing as a transitional fossil. Based on his knowledge of evolution that he had demonstrated thus far, there wasn’t much reason to believe the things he said at this point. Once again, Mr. Young makes a number of either false or deceitful claims in a failed attempt to turn evolution on its head.

First, not every living being is fossilized. This is why we do not have a complete fossil record, showing gradual transitions within a species. So, expecting to have abundant transitional forms is a very demanding expectation. Additionally, how many transitional forms would it take to create a gradual timeline of evolution? For each transitional form entered into a morphological timeline, it opens up two more holes that need to be filled.

One of my questions dealt with whale evolution. Here is my exact question:

There are a number of examples of transitional fossils for many currently existing organisms. One of these examples is the cetaceans, or the group of animals that includes whales, porpoises, and dolphins. We know that these animals’ ancestors were probably land dwellers because 1) they require to resurface for air, 2) their bone structures in their hands resemble land mammals more than they do fish, and 3) the movements of their spines are more characteristic of mammals than they are of fish, who move their spines horizontally. Thus, we would expect to find some transitional fossils filling this gap between land dwellers and sea dwellers.

We’ve found them. We have numerous fossil examples that demonstrate a transition from land-dwelling to sea-dwelling creatures. Ambulocetus, Rodhocetus, and Basilosaurus were discovered in successive geological strata, and have bone structures we would expect to find in an animal that is slowly changing for life at sea. We see shortening of hind limbs, change from feet to flippers, and shift of the nasal cavity towards the top of the head, as well as numerous other developments. We also see the partial development of hind limbs in the embryos of modern whales today. Does creationism have a rational explanation for the existence of this phenomena accounting for both the skeletal similarities between the seemingly transitional fossils and modern whales, and the embryonic development features of today’s cetaceans?

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. May 30, 2006 vol. 103 no. 22 8414 – 8418

Mr. Young proceeded to open up his powerpoint of prepared answers, and showed the audience a picture of only one of the specimens I mentioned (pictured right). He did not even bother to answer the rest of my question, and skimmed the first paragraph, so there was no context for the question. His point in showing this photograph was that we don’t even have a complete skeletal specimen, and that there wasn’t even a pelvis in this fossil. He mocked scientists for jumping to conclusions.

The problem is, he was either blamelessly wrong, or was deliberately trying to fool the audience. The photo is sort of deceiving anyway, since it is two-dimensional and does not show us the other side of the skeleton. The fact of the matter is, we have much more of the fossil than the photo leads us to believe. He was absolutely dead wrong.

Pictured to the left is that we actually have of the fossil now. This is after another summer of digging, and more of the specimen being collected. This remainder was dug up 15 years ago. We now have much of the pelvis, and much of the spine. It might not look like much, but remember that animals are usually symmetrical. Having a bone on one side means having it on the other. Mr. Young has had plenty of time to fix his mistake, why didn’t he? Why didn’t he analyze the other specimens I mentioned in this manner? Wasn’t this speaker supposed to be well-informed on this very subject?

I’m not finished. Another tool used to mock science was the Lucy skeleton. He used a clip from the Nova Evolution series in which it demonstrated a scientist piecing together the pelvis. The way it was originally pieced together didn’t fit with other skeletal features that showed it was bipedal. He again used the clip to mock scientists for forcefully making the pieces fit the assumption that Lucy was bipedal with a grinder, after which he dismissed the fossil as “just a chimpanzee”.

First of all, there is much more than a simple preconceived notion of bipedalism that made Dr. Loejoy believe that the bone was in the incorrect form. There are biological reasons they believed this; one of them being the knee joint:

I was surveying late one afternoon when we were out collecting some elephant teeth, and I looked down on the ground and found in a couple of pieces of this knee joint … As Lovejoy pointed out, the joint had all the hallmarks of a creature that moved around on two legs, not on all fours. Walking upright is something that only humans can do. And it needs a special kind of knee joint, one that can be locked straight. A chimp gets around on all fours. If it tries to walk upright, its knee joint doesn’t lock. It’s forced to walk with a bent leg and that’s tiring.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2106hum1.html

You can read more about Lucy and reconstructing the pelvis here. I won’t go into further detail, but the article does a good job of describing what happened and why.

Young himself made the point in his presentation that one can not be absolutely certain of anything, because absolute certainty is omniscience–something that only a supernatural being possesses. He contradicted himself with the bold, absolutist statement “there is no such thing as a transitional fossil”. Omniscient Brian ignores evidence and recycles bad Answers in Genesis arguments.

I disagree with his statement that you can never be certain of everything to a degree. I believe that through rational thought and scientific inquiry, one can know the world to near certainty. To step outside of the bounds of evidence should lead to an “I don’t know” conclusion. Through numerous fossils, biological and behavioral similarities, and DNA evidence, we can be nearly certain that Humans and other primates share a common ancestor. This is not based on belief in anything besides physical and empirical evidence, for me at least. Had Young at least kept up with the scientific literature in the past decade, he could have avoided these gaping holes in his argument and done some actual research.

This concludes posting number three. The next will most likely be the last. I will conclude with my thoughts on the speaker, and discuss a conversation I had after the presentation.

Throughout Brian Young’s presentation, he seemed to offer many reasons to believe that the theory of evolution is false and offered little evidence of why Creationism is the logical choice other than presenting it in such a way that it was self-descriptive within the context of itself. What I mean by this is that he seemed to have an explanation for everything, and it all seemed to make sense under the YEC (Young Earth Creationist) world view.

However, there are two things wrong with this method of persuasion. First, the whole argument is a logical fallacy called a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy is also known as a false dilemma: a problem in which only two solutions are offered, when in fact there are more (often many more) alternatives. Mr. Young offered us two options: either evolution or creation. There are many alternatives to this, particularly other religions’ creation myths.

Second, the fact that the creationist world view makes sense within itself is not convincing at all. After all, science does the same thing–as do many other religions. Mr. Young seemed to be presenting the case that this alone was reason enough to cast doubt upon the theory of evolution, therefore, making creation more likely.

To put this into perspective: take the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. One can adopt this world view to explain things, and the Church seemingly does it. Why are the earth’s temperatures on the rise? The pirate population is decreasing. It only makes sense that, as pirates grew smaller in number, the global temperatures rise. Recently, there has been news of pirate numbers increasing. And wouldn’t you know–the temperature has been going down in the past couple years. Even Google Trends highlights this link. Furthermore, it has explanations for natural phenomena. Why have humans been growing taller recently? Simple. He is running out of noodly appendages which he uses to push us all down since our population is expanding.

This world view makes perfect sense within the context of itself. It has explanations for everything. And if something can’t be explained? It is simply the will of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The beauty of this world view is obvious: a Flying Spaghetti Monster (God) can’t be disproven. Therefore, the theory of evolution is false.

This is essentially what was done. Mr. young had bits of anecdotal evidence (I’ll get to that later) that evolution was wrong, so YEC must be right. Disagree? Prove him wrong. Note that he didn’t use much evidence to support his Creationist conclusion. He only supplied anecdotal evidence that evolution and science were flawed. Incidentally, he supported any science that agreed with his conclusion, disregarding the strength of the evidence supporting it.

For example, he offered a case of a World War II aircraft being buried under ice. The layers of ice visible seemed to reflect hundreds of thousands of years, when this is impossible based on the time buried. This was to cast doubt upon ice core samples. Not surprisingly, he didn’t cite a reputable source aside from a creationist magazine. For all we know, no research at all was done at all to support this conclusion. Was an alternative explanation offered for this case? No. Only the usual “science is wrong” response, and the conclusion that ice cores don’t take thousands of years to form was provided to the audience.

So, what happened to this plane? No idea. But there’s a rational explanation both for the discrepancies between these layers and the scientific ice core studies as well as the validity of the studies. Since the plane was near the coast, it could be that it simply snowed that much since it crashed. The many layers could represent melting periods, rather than seasonal differences. The Greenland coasts do receive snowfall in the order of feet per year, and it’s not quite as cold as where the scientific ice core samples are taken, especially on the southern coast. This means more melting periods throughout the year.

Furthermore, glaciologists and the like do much more than a superficial “counting of the layers”, as Mr. Young seemed to believe. This link will tell you about the different methods used in dating ice cores at GSIP2. One of the methods involves testing volcanic ash content in the cores against known eruption dates, and has at numerous times verified the validity of ice core sampling. What evidence was presented that supported the conclusion that the scientific dating model is wrong? None besides a superficial layer count by non-scientists, done outside the normal, peer-reviewed relevant scientific field of study.

Young had other examples of science being wrong, such as Archeoraptor. He mocked the science community for believing it was a missing link discovery from dinosaur (he said reptile) to bird. Yes, it was a hoax. And scientists now recognize it as such. The irony here is that the hoax was created by combining multiple animals. One of them was Microraptor–a dinosaur in the Dromaeosaur family with feathers both on its front and hind limbs. I am sure Mr. Young would dismiss this animal as “just a bird” as he did with Archaeopteryx. I’m sorry, but this comment is incredibly stupid. These animals had teeth and a bony tail. These features alone would uncategorize them as “birds”, but what do people like Young do? Glance at an artist rendition, see feathers, and conclude “bird!”. No science here.

This concludes the second posting. The third will cover “missing links” and Young’s misconceptions about them.

Recently, a campus group presented a creationist speaker. I thought it would be nice to have a voice of reason in the audience, so I decided to go along with some of my heathen friends. I compiled a list of questions, and even cited some sources from the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.

I had never been to a creationist speaker before. I had watched some of the videos from Kent Hovind, and was never convinced. I had a struggle determining if they were serious about what they were saying. This speaker was not much different. His name is Brian Young, and he is the founder of the the Creation Instruction Association. I can’t find a video or anything, but trust me when I say he used most of the same tired creationist rhetoric–right down to T-Rex eating pumpkins nonsense. Just youtube Kent Hovind and you will find basically the same thing.

I will be going over some of his talking points in this series of posts, and replying to some of the things he said. I will also cover his responses to my questions, as well as pointing out things he said that are entirely untrue factually. Additionally, I will go over some of the things that were said to me after the presentation by a few of the attendees. I will start with some misconceptions he seems to have about evolution itself.

Mr. Young, at one point, said that “evolutionists” (why do they use this term?) believe not only that man had evolved to its complexity today, but a woman had also evolved alongside man, separately, as if they had nothing to do with each other before they started reproducing. I’m not sure if this is really what he meant or if I am incorrect in my understanding, but either way, what he said was wrong. It was either wrong because it is not factual (gender and sexual reproduction far pre-dates humanity according to the theory) or because it was misleading (he was preaching in front of an audience eager to nod their heads at his every word). Bad comment either way.

Another comment he made was that evolution is racist. He made the comment that “white people are more evolved than black people” and looked at the colored people in the audience, as if questioning them if they believe this. This is also completely false for both reasons mentioned above. Racism is the idea that certain races are “better” than others. The theory of evolution takes no position on “good” or “bad”. The only related claim it makes is that some adaptations are more beneficial. Now, the misunderstanding here is that, since the idea is that white men migrated out of Africa, they are somehow more evolved since their skin became lighter, thus, evolving. This is untrue. There is nothing inherently better in evolving, because the organism is only adapting to its environment. Better for the environment, yes, but there is no ideal formation here. Only different formations. Black, white, green, and purple skin are all equally evolved.

Another misconception was the constant referral to dinosaurs as reptiles. Note to creationists: do not do this. It is wrong (partially). The common perception of dinosaurs is scaly skin, and reptile-like. They, however, were not reptiles. Scientists classify animals based upon a lot more than outward appearance. Dinosaurs are in the same class as reptiles under the current taxonomy system based on skull and skeleton structure. and are technically considered Reptilia. However, so are birds. I wouldn’t call a bird a reptile any more than I would call a dinosaur one in the same context as Mr. Young’s comment.

One related misconception is that he seemed to think that evolution tells us that all dinosaurs evolved into birds. He made the audience laugh by envisioning a T-Rex turning into a chicken. Not many serious biologists will believe anything close to this. The idea is that only some of the dinosaurs evolved into birds. Again, this is not based on a superficial glance at either group. This is based on specific skeletal similarities and other features, such as behavioral habits.

Another misconception that he seemed to have, is that organism lose things that are not useful by choice. He used a tail example (again, with a comic on screen of a person opening a door with their tail) as reasoning we never should have lost our tail, because he would use it all the time if he had one. This is just silly. No organism (except perhaps for humans in the future) is able to choose which body parts to evolve. The theory of evolution says that there must have been some type of selective pressure to evolve without a tail. It is not based on how much our ancestors liked their tails.

Think of it this way: when our ancestors were not bipedal, they needed their tail for things since they couldn’t use their hands all of the time. Perhaps it was balancing in a tree or something. Once the primates moved from the trees, the primates were able to use their hands to carry things, and no longer needed their tails to support themselves in a tree. It also could be that they were incapable of supporting themselves in a tree due to weight–look at gorillas. I don’t know why the apes lost their tails, but there must have been some type of selective pressure against them. Saying “Hell, I’d use one if I had one” is a horrible argument, and represents a huge misunderstanding of how evolution works.

One thing that bothered me about these misconceptions is that the speaker was advertised as talking about creation and evolution in a fair manner. However, with so many misconceptions about evolution–even ones that have been used by creationists for years–leads me to believe he doesn’t know a whole lot about evolution or science in general.

This is all for the first posting. The second will cover the idea that demonstrating that since scientists are occasionally wrong, this leads us to believe that the Judeo-Christian creation story from the Bible is accurate.

This semester, I am taking a course that is new to my college’s catalog: Philosophy of Religion. It is an introductory Philosophy course, and in it we cover various topics pertaining to problems within theistic religion. The first topic of discussion is the Problem of Evil. The syllogism is as follows:

1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omni benevolent, and omniscient.
2. If God is omnipotent, then he would have power to eliminate evil.
3. If God is omniscient, then God would know of all the evils that exist.
4. If God is omni benevolent, then God would have a desire to eliminate all evil.
5. Evil exists.
6. If evil and God exist, then God either can not eliminate evil, will not eliminate evil, or doesn’t know about evil.
7. Therefore, God (as defined) doesn’t exist.

The syllogism is logically valid, but are the premises true? 1-4 are true by definition, so let’s look at just 5 and 6. 5 is probably the most debatable, because what can be defined as evil? There are a number of defenses to explain the existence of evil: the Free Will Defense, the Greater Goods Defense, and the Greater Unknown Purpose Defense. I will look at these defenses and see if they hold up.

Free Will Defense
The Free Will Defense states that in order to have beings that are significantly free willed, they cannot be causally determined to do only what is right. In other words, free will necessitates evil because in order to choose between good and bad, a bad choice must be made available. This seems reasonable at first, because it shifts the blame for the existence of evil towards free-willed creatures making evil choices. God didn’t voluntarily choose these evils. In order to create free creatures, he had to allow evil as an unfortunate byproduct.

However, there are certain cases in which this does not apply. For example, in cases of natural evils. That is, evils independent of man. These evils can include the suffering that occurs as a result of some animals being carnivorous. Surely there are ways around allowing animals to be killed for food by sharper-toothed animals. Perhaps all animals could be vegetarian–or even photosynthetic. Other natural evils include hurricanes, disease, and earthquakes. How necessary is it to have such things on our earth?

The Greater Goods Defense
The Greater Goods Defense states that perhaps some evils are necessary to create a greater good in the end. This goes along with Leibniz’s work, and is his core argument in attempting to solve the problem of evil. In his writings, he called this world the “best of all possible worlds” by which he meant that maybe there was no other way to create a better world containing any less evil. He reverses the problem and states that since God possesses the qualities stated in the premises, that this must be the best of all possible worlds. However, this creates a weak argument, because one only has to find a single example of something that would make the world better off overall. It also suggests that God is constrained to do all that is good. In that case, then in what sense does God exercise free will?

This argument is demolished by my photosynthetic animal I mentioned above. If no animal consumed meat, then there would be much less gratuitous suffering in the natural world, and as a result, a better overall world. It’s also hard to see why the world is better off with things such as AIDS, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Sure, things like that bring people together, but there must be alternatives to putting thousands of people through misery, death, and displacement. It doesn’t seem like a reasonable trade to me. Maybe I just can’t understand the purpose. This brings me to the final major defense: the Greater Unknown Purpose defense.

Greater Unknown Purpose Defense
The Greater Unknown Purpose Defense states that we as humans are incapable of understanding what the purpose of evil might be. It is outside of our boundaries to judge something that God does as good or evil anyway, since he makes the rules. But then, on what criteria do we say that God is benevolent?

Some say that we must go through this period of injustice, which is justified in the end through eternal life in either heaven or hell. However, if evil is a necessary byproduct of free will, then how will evil be kept out of the afterlife? Will there be free will in the afterlife? If choices are prevented from being made in the afterlife and we experience only eternal bliss, then why even bother with this period of injustice and free will business? Why not skip to the bliss part?

Other responses
There are some more, less popular responses to this problem. One states that we as humans are sinful creatures, and that evil is punishment for sins committed. However, I do not see a child being tormented by a pedophile as a sinful creature. Children are innocent to me, incapable of truly understanding something is wrong and choosing to do it. In addition, if this were true, we would see proportionally more bad things happening to bad people. Instead, we see both bad and good things happening to both bad and good people.

Here is my response to the problem of evil: I question the fifth premise: evil exists. The universe I see is one with no good and no evil. There is nothing inherently evil about anything. Nature is indifferent to everything. It just keeps moving along, unaware of anything going on within it. Yes, there are people who choose to do what we call “evil”, but the fact that carnivores, hurricanes, and diseases exist do not mean that evil exists. I think the way that evil is defined, it is constrained to human activity. A creator, nature, or whatever you want to call it is not evil, because evil is something that man does. I would also question the first four premises since there is nothing to indicate that any of them are true, but I will probably get to those later on.

Conclusion

If we are going to suggest that a creator being could be evil, I would do it like this:

1. If God exists, then God is omniscient.
2. If God knows through his omniscience before creating anyone whether or not they will spend eternity being punished in hell, then God can be considered evil.
3. Hell bound people are created.
4. Therefore, God is either evil or imaginary.

It’s not an airtight syllogism, because I am not a trained philosopher, but my logic is this. The more data we are able to collect from our surroundings, the more accurate our predictions can become. If we know the weight of a falling object from x height, and the acceleration due to gravity, we can predict with extreme accuracy the force that object will have when it hits the ground. If we know the mass of a falling object from x height, and the acceleration due to gravity, we can predict with extreme accuracy the kinetic energy that object will have when it hits the ground. (Thanks, Nick.)

Similarly, an omniscient being would know all data that is possible to know about everything–right down to the atomic level. This would allow this being to make ~99.9% accurate predictions about everything, accounting for all variables that can affect any outcome. This includes our thoughts, since our thoughts are ultimately products of (presumably predictable) physical processes. With this knowledge at hand, God would know whether or not a person will end up in hell (he has the criteria for determining such a fate), and chooses to create that person anyway. This sounds evil to me. Free will doesn’t even come in to play–the person’s free choices were known beforehand!

Predeterminism and free will seem to be mutually exclusive, so we are right back in square one. What do you think?

The following is a paper that I wrote for my ethics and values class about Michael Crichton’s views on global warming and the ethical implications of his views. I know I havn’t written anything in a very long time due to classes and stuff, so I thought I’d post at least something that I have written.

Introduction

After reading Michael Crichton’s State of Fear, I was intrigued by his opinions and thoughts on global climate change. In the appendix of his book, Crichton briefly summarizes his views on the subject. Crichton believes that:

1. we know very little about the climate or what changes it,
2. humans are the cause of rising carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels—but are contributing little to warming,
3. it is much more likely that there are external factors that we are overlooking causing what little warming trends there are, and
4. we have better things to worry about than infantisimal global climate change.

Crichton sees that there are many things that go unnoticed when studying climate change, such as solar warming and land usage. If these are contributing a little to warming, how much blame is left for CO₂—and not only all CO₂, but emissions solely from human activity? It stands to reason that if our effect on the environment’s temperature is minimal, we have better things to be worrying about.

Crichton goes further to say that a scientific consensus says nothing of the validity of that consensus. There is no possible way of knowing what will happen in the future, so to make major decisions and enact policies based on models involving abundant superfluous variables is ludicrous. There were no airplanes and very few cars one hundred years ago. This demonstrates how much a global civilization can change in one hundred years. How likely is it that in one hundred years we will even still be using fossil fuels as energy?

Taking Crichton’s view, I plan to demonstrate that the only reasonable and ethical approach to the problem of climate change is to ignore it. If we really are not responsible for a majority of the climate change, and whatever change we do make cannot have immense unfavorable effects, then we have no responsibility to control it. By taking this approach, we can focus our attention, energy, and money on sensible objectives such as eradicating disease and ending poverty—not unlike Bjorn Lomborg’s views.

I will begin discussing how Crichton agrees and disagrees with the current scientific consensus. I will then move on to reasons why he believes these things and criticisms of his beliefs. Finally, I will analyze his beliefs for myself and discuss why I agree or disagree with his ideas and conclusions.

Crichton’s agreement

I would like to start detailing the areas where Crichton agrees with mainstream scientific consensus. In the Author’s Message of State of Fear, Crichton tells us that he agrees that the Earth’s CO₂ is increasing in quantity, and the probable cause is anthropogenic. He does admit that there are truths within the global warming community, and is not shy about making his agreement one of his first points: “Atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing, and human activity is the probable cause”. In a video interview with Charlie Rose, Crichton states that he believes that the earth is getting warmer—about six tenths of a degree in the past century. He also believes that environmental awareness is “desperately important”, as he learned from his environmentally aware mother.

His views here are undeniably part of the majority consensus, and are outlined in detail in mainstream reports and studies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The 2007 IPCC report summary for policymakers outlines the anthropogenic cause of CO₂: “The primary source of the increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial period results from fossil fuel use, with land use change providing another significant but smaller contribution”. Crichton states in the Charlie Rose interview that “I absolutely believe that warming is occurring, humans are involved, and it’s going to continue for the next 100 years”. Clearly, the IPCC and Crichton are on the same page here.

Crichton’s disagreement

So, Crichton does agree with some of the science behind climate change. He believes that we should be both aware of and careful with our environment, as well as believing there is an anthropogenic cause for global warming in the form of our CO₂ emissions. This is, however, where the similarities end. The difference between Crichton’s skepticism and mainstream science is how serious of a threat he believes global climate change to be. I will now outline what Crichton believes, backed up by secondary evidence sources.

First and foremost, Crichton points out the fact that a scientific consensus means absolutely nothing. Case in point: The Geocentric Model was once held by the majority of astronomers until at least the sixteenth century. So was the idea that the continents did not move. Consensus is the business of politics. Science requires only one investigator who happens to have gotten his numbers right. Crichton believes that the most relevant element of science is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great mostly because they broke the consensus. It is a fact of history that the consensus has been wrong in the past. As Crichton elaborated his position in an NPR debte, he is not saying that this consensus is wrong, but rather that the consensus itself is not indicative of its truth.

While he believes that we should care for our environment, he does find major flaws in the thinking of the Global Warming movement. He stated on his website in January 2005:

In my view, our approach to global warming exemplifies everything that is wrong with our approach to the environment. We are basing our decisions on speculation, not evidence. Proponents are pressing their views with more PR than scientific data. Indeed, we have allowed the whole issue to be politicized—red vs blue, Republican vs Democrat. This is in my view absurd. Data aren’t political. Data are data. Politics leads you in the direction of a belief. Data, if you follow them, lead you to truth.

This is one of the main issues he has with the global warming movement. We have allowed the science of climate change to become political. He believes that there are many examples of this in the past, citing fear mongers from his childhood warning him of overpopulation and resource scarcity.

Crichton’s website demonstrates one example of how the data has been faintly distorted to meet a political end. Refer to figure 1 below to see this example. Figure 1a is the graph used when the goal is to inspire alarm and concern. All of those jagged edges appear extreme. Figure 1b is the exact same graph, but with the bottom sixteen degrees. After it has been stretched out proportionally, those jagged edges are in reality miniscule quiverings in comparison to the total temperature. This is much like magnifying the seemingly smooth surface of a ball bearing—only to find out that it is rough up close.

Figure 1a. (Src: http://michaelcrichton.net/speech-ourenvironmentalfuture.html)

Figure 1b. (Src: http://michaelcrichton.net/speech-ourenvironmentalfuture.html)

Crichton does not solely blame human activities for all or even most of the warming trends. He thinks it is much more likely that there are external factors, as well as mistakes made in calculations that predict and measure climate change. The uncertainty is also beyond a reasonable level on which to base major and expensive decisions such as conforming to the Kyoto protocol. In fact, the first point he makes in his book covers this: “We know astonishingly little about every aspect of the environment…in every debate, all sides overstate the extent of existing knowledge and its degree of certainty.”

This level of uncertainty is illustrated by the IPCC’s own reports. Since any prediction is based only on models with many variables, all predictions made will naturally vary to some degree. The example Crichton uses is the chart of predictions for temperature changes for the year 2100. Temperature anomalies range from one and a half to six degrees Celsius in the positive direction. Crichton points out that in the real world, a four hundred percent variation is unacceptable. Does your vacation last fifteen days or sixty days? Will the new construction cost one and a half million dollars or six million dollars? In the real world, people simply do not take bets on such high uncertainties.

The reason the uncertainties are so high is that the data heavily rely on scenarios to predict the future climate change, since there is no way of knowing what the future will be like with complete certainty. Again, these scenarios involve many, many variables, and it is very difficult to know how tweaking one variable will affect the others. However, the IPCC still submits the scenarios in its summary for policy makers in the form of a graph as seen below in Figure 2.

Figure 2. (Src: http://www.ipcc.ch/present/graphics/2001wg1/large/01.05.jpg)

Crichton’s skepticism of anthropogenic climate change is enforced by research that is done considering factors other than CO₂ as the main temperature-rising culprit. In a 2002 research paper in Astronomy and Geophysics magazine done by Sami Solanki, the main conclusion of the paper was that solar warming trends have the capability to provide significant warming to the earth’s temperature:

This [graph relating sunspots to climate change] is consistent with a causal relationship between the two [temperature and solar activity] and supports, but by no means proves, the view that the Sun has had an important, possibly even dominant influence on our climate in the past.

This study suggests that the sun may be responsible for up to twenty five hundredths of a degree Celsius of warming in the past century. This is known as the solar variation theory. An addition cause of global warming could be land usage. Additional research done by Ming Cai and Eugenia Kalnay from the University of Maryland suggests that there is a strong effect of both urbanization and land use on the mean temperature for that area. The study suggests that the total effect of these factors contributes around three tenths of a degree Celsius for the century.

Crichton wonders that if these estimates are correct, then that leaves only five hundredths of a degree of this century’s warming—six tenths of a degree—can be attributed to CO₂. Yes, there is a correlation between CO₂ and temperature increase, but nobody knows how much of a temperature increase can be attributed to purely CO₂. It does not seem like it makes much sense to spend time, money, and energy reducing carbon emissions if they have little effect on the global temperature.

Ethical Implications of Crichton’s View

Crichton believes very strongly that it is a big mistake to concern ourselves with global warming. The central facet of his argument is based on the question “What crisis?”. He does not see a crisis in global climate change, and believes that there are much better things to worry about right now.

It bothers Crichton that we are concerning ourselves with something that might or might not happen in one hundred years, based only on models with so many variables that try to account for unpredictable human behavior. He believes that we will naturally make the transition from carbon to hydrogen fuels, just as we have done in the past. Crichton reminds us that as far as he knows, nobody had to mandate automobile purchases to get people off of horses. Humans will naturally pursue better and more efficient methods of luxury, and nothing needs to be forced, especially if it is based on uncertainty.

The following is a quote taken from an NPR debate, and I think it’s telling of Crichton’s ethical position on the subject:

Everyday 30,000 people on this planet die of the diseases of poverty. There are, a third of the planet doesn‘t have electricity. We have a billion people with no clean water, we have half a billion people going to bed hungry every night. Do we care about this? It seems that we don‘t. It seems that we would rather look a hundred years into the future than pay attention to what‘s going on now. I think that’s unacceptable. I think that‘s really a disgrace. This doesn‘t need to happen. We‘re allowing it to happen. And I don‘t know what‘s wrong with the rich self-centered societies that we live in the west that we are not paying attention to the conditions of the wider world. And it does seem to me that if we use arguments about the environment to turn our back on the sick and the dying of our shared world, and that’s our excuse to ignore them, then we have done a true and terrible thing. And it‘s awful.

In summation, Crichton believes there are much more serious matters at hand than what might happen in one hundred years.

Our ethical responsibilities lie with developing the world, and helping people who are living in poverty. We should not feel responsible to saving the planet until we have sufficient evidence that it is going to hell. The worse estimates predict warming of a few degrees Celsius in the next one hundred years. We have only warmed six tenths of a degree in the past century. This hardly seems like an emergency to Crichton.

Critics of Crichton

Crichton holds many controversial views, and naturally, this has drawn his fair share of critics. Scientists involved deeply with global warming have written responses to Crichton’s claims, including James Hansen. Crichton claims in his book that Hansen was off in his estimate by three hundred percent. Hansen does not know how Crichton calculated that number, and demonstrates that he was only off by fractions of a degree in all three of his scenarios.

Environmental Defense is another organization that is critical of Crichton. In a March 2005 article, they analyze State of Fear and conclude that Crichton is flat out wrong in some cases and very selective in the evidence he uses to prove his point. While Crichton believes that many scientists are “cooking” their data, Environmental Defense dismisses this claim as nonsensical. Crichton offers little data to back up this claim.

They go further to point out that in theory, it is best not to act upon uncertainty. Crichton would agree with this statement. However, this is not the way that things work in practice. We use seat belts while driving and take out life insurance policies. They state that the worst possible things we can do is sit on our hands in the face of the mounting evidence that global warming is occurring and having harmful effects on our environment. The ecosystem risks far outweigh the inconvenience of cutting carbon emissions, so Crichton’s concerns of uncertainty are moot.

RealClimate has also written a review and analysis of State of Fear. In it, they cover multiple areas of the book, including Crichton’s example of a data skewer—the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE). The website agrees that the UHIE does make a difference in urban areas, but makes the argument that obviously the climate scientists have accounted for these differences. After all, the data are not skewed on windy days opposed to non-windy days, as the UHIE would dictate. Wind is known to diminish the effects of the UHIE, but a recent paper published in Nature has shown that the effects are minimal or even nonexistent.

Another point that RealClimate brings to the table is Crichton’s claim that, since we do not know everything about climate change, we actually know nothing. Just because we do not know everything, this does not mean that we do not know something about climate change. We do know enough to act, and make a difference in carbon emissions. Some of the scenarios involve changes in human activities, such as carbon emission. This is one of the reasons the scenarios differ so much—they account for all kinds of variables. So, if these scenarios and predictions are right, we really can make a difference by reducing emissions.

Summary and My Opinion

Crichton’s website states that he will no longer be discussing issues regarding State of Fear and related themes—this includes the topic of global climate change—in the future. However, in the time that Crichton has dedicated to discussing the issue, he has laid a foundation for skepticism against the majority scientific consensus. In his numerous interviews, speeches, books, and publications, he has given very clear reasons for his skepticism. He believes that there simply is not enough evidence to show that global warming is derived anthropogenically through carbon emissions.

Crichton believes that humans are likely the cause of global greenhouse gas increase. He also believes that the earth is warming, although he believes it is nearly impossible to tell what an “average” might be with something as varying as climate. He does not believe that there is enough evidence to demonstrate a solitary correlation between greenhouse gas increase and temperature increase, because there are other factors actively involved in climate change. Humans cannot be solely to blame when other elements are considered.

For the most part, I agree with nearly all Crichton has to say. I do not believe that six tenths of a degree temperature change in either direction is enough for cause for concern. I think that there are many things that we do not know, and the simple fact that there is a consensus says nothing of the validity of a claim. In fact, the consensus may fight to actively perpetuate something that is not there.

I think we have more important things to worry about than miniscule climate change. We have people going to bed hungry, people without electricity or access to health care services. It makes more sense to me to develop the world economically and not worry about warming of a couple of degrees. A couple of degrees are nothing. We have more of a variation between city and country due to the heat island effect. If the earth does warm, we can—and will—survive just fine. I suspect we will probably also be glad we did not waste our time keeping it a couple of degrees cooler. The newly developed world can afford air conditioning.

Sources

A conversation with Michael Crichton. Rose, Charlie. PBS. 19 February 2007. Link.
“Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers.” 21 October 2007. Link.
Crichton, Michael. State of Fear. New York: HarperCollins Publisher, 2004.
Hansen, James. “Michael Crichton’s ‘Scientific Method’.” 02 November 2007. Link.
Kalnay, Eugenia and Ming, Cai. “Impact of Urbanization and Land use on Climate”. Nature. 423 (29 May 2003): 528-31.
Malakoff, David. “Global Warming is Not a Crisis.” 22 March 2007. Online sound. NPR. 31 October 2007.
“Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion”. 30 October 2007. Link.
Parker, David E. “Large-scale warming is not urban”. Nature. 432 (2004): 290
“Separating Fact from Fiction in Crichton’s ‘State of Fear‘.” 30 October 2007. Link.
Solanki, Sami K. “Solar Variability and Climate Change.” Astronomy and Geophysics 43 (2002): 5.9-5:13.
“The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming.” 20 October 2007. Link.

Looks like Alberto Gonzales is resigning, effective September 17. He hasn’t given a reason, nor has a replacement been chosen.

I’m sure you all remember his testimony to congress about the firing of all those district attorneys, when he had to choose between coming clean about it or lying; thus exposing his incompetence. Or maybe you don’t recall. Gonzales sure didn’t. His official testimony contained over 70 variants of “the dog ate my homework”. For old time’s sake, here’s a video.

A Texas megachurch has backed out of providing a service for a deceased Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because he was gay.

It’s okay though. Their justification for doing this has me convinced that it was the right thing to do.

We did decline to host the service — not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based on principle.

Right. Based on their principle of…hating and discriminating gays?

Most Christians like to believe their faith conveys the virtues of love and understanding more effectively than any other. What the church should have done was have the memorial service in spite of the man being gay, on principle. What a statement that would have made. Imagine if the pastor would have instead said this:

We are choosing to host the service — not based on tradition, not based on conventionality, but based on the Christian principle of “love thy neighbor”.

“It’s not that we didn’t love the family”, he continues. Tough love I guess. The man isn’t even alive to feel the hatred. His family, however, is. They have done nothing wrong. By mere accident of birth, they happen to belong to the same family as a gay man. They can feel the hatred after this church metaphorically kicked them in the balls.

I’m curious to know why the church thinks this is not discrimination.

Thanks to PZ for the link.

Are primates really that closely related to us? I have had people tell me that it is demeaning to even consider the idea that we are related to any animal. Myself being an animal, I have no problem believing we came from a different animal. But how different are we from primates, really? Is it that much of a stretch to see the resemblances in our phenotypes, genotypes, and culture? (Yes, primates do have culture.)

I hadn’t thought about this much recently until I read an article on the Guardian detailing a primate closely related to chimpanzees found only in the Congo. Time also wrote about this in 2005. Initially all that was known about these animals was known through the locals describing “lion killers”. There isn’t much evidence for the primates killing large cats from what I can tell. From the evidence, the idea stops at legend.

There is another species of chimp living in the same area commonly known as Bonobo. The term is used to describe a type of “pygmy chimpanzee”, although they are not noticeably smaller than a normal chimp. The scientific term for the species is Pan paniscus. The species shares a common ancestor with the other chimps, Pan troglodytes. This common ancestor, then, shares a common ancestor with modern humans. This means that humans are more closely related to chimpanzees than chimpanzees are to gorillas.

I thought I should clear that up, because when I begin writing about some of the traits this species has, it would be easy to think that this species was more closely related to humans than the other species of chimpanzees, and this is simply not the case. To the left, you can see the phylogenic tree for primates. If you are wondering how we are able to map this tree, please read this.

The Bonobo were discovered in 1928 by American anatomist Harold Coolidge. The find was represented only by a skull, and was at first mistaken for an juvenile chimpanzee. We now know that they are a separate species.

There are a number of things that distinguish this species from the rest of its primate cousins. The Bonobo have a gait that is commonly upright in situations where they need to carry things, such as food or nest-building material. They seem to have much less problems accomplishing this than the other chimpanzees. They are able to walk upright about 25% of the time.

What got me interested, though is not what makes them different from other primates, but what makes them similar to us. It is not only the Bonobo and other chimps that share suprisingly similar characteristics with humans, but most of the closelt related primates do. If you’d like to read more about the similarities, see this page. It is very interesting to see that things we would normally consider human–maternal bonds, depression, guilt, shame, love–are not unique in humans at all. Even their sexual behavior is astonishingly similar.

I’d like to direct your attention to a talk that I watched on TED a while ago. Taken directly from the description:

Savage-Rumbaugh asks whether uniquely human traits, and other animals’ behaviors, are hardwired by species. Then she rolls a video that makes you think: maybe not. The bonobo apes she works with understand spoken English. One follows her instructions to take a cigarette lighter from her pocket and use it to start a fire. Bonobos are shown making tools, drawing symbols to communicate, and playing Pac-Man — all tasks learned just by watching. Maybe it’s not always biology that causes a species to act as it does, she suggests. Maybe it’s cultural exposure to how things are done.

Give it a watch. It’s very interesting.

In what year was Jesus born? Many would say somewhere around the year 0. It’s way more confusing than most people realize.

Well, there was no year 0, but the historical equivalent is AD 1. AD 1 immediately precedes 1 BC on the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Got it? Okay.

Now, once Jesus was born, the world did not begin using the AD years. The year was not calculated until AD 525, and was not widely adopted until the 8th century. Confused yet? Me too.

Okay, in the year 525, Dionysius Exiguus did come calculations to determine the number of years that had passed since the birth of Christ. I’m not sure how he got that number, and I don’t think anyone else is either. That’s not what I’m concerned with anyway.

We’re using the same system that Dionysius devised, so it’s safe to assume that Jesus was born somewhere around AD 1, right?

Let’s check the Bible.

We’ll look at the first Gospel, Matthew. In chapter 2, Matthew talks about the flight to Egypt to avoid Herod’s slaughter of the innocents.

Then they [the Magi] had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night an departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet [Hosea 11:1] might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
Matthew 2:13-15, NAB

The latest this could have taken place was in 4 BC, when Herod died. Dionysius was only four years off. This is, of course, assuming that the slaughter took place in Herod’s very last year. Still, not bad for calculating the date five centuries later.

I wonder what the other gospels say. None of the other gospels mention the slaughter of the innocents. Seems like a significant detail to omit. It doesn’t have any historical standing outside of Matthew either. It also bears a striking resemblance to Moses’ story (Exodus 1:15-16,22). Interesting, but we’ll ignore all that for now. The only other Gospel that says anything about the birth of Jesus is Luke. Chapter 2. We’re talking about the census here.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
Luke 2:1-2, NAB

Okay, so when was Quirinius governor of Syria? It must have been somewhere around 6-4 BC.

Quirinius became governor in the year 6. See? I told you. I knew I–wait a minute. Does that mean AD 6? It does.

After the banishment of Herod Archelaus in 6, Iudaea Province (the conglomeration of Samaria, Judea and Idumea) came under direct Roman administration. One of Quirinius’ first duties was to carry out a census to assess the new province for tax purposes.

But that means…

The Bible is wrong? No, it can’t be! There must be a reason that there is a ten-year discrepancy between the only two existing accounts of Jesus’ birth–both of which seem to be (sort of) intertwined into (unverifiable) historical events.

Oh wait. I got it.

Time travel. It makes perfect sense now.

Who said the Back to the Future series was over? Excuse me while I write a script. Do you think I could get Lloyd?