The Nature of Science

The Nature of Science

The Nature of Science “Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you're in love, you want to tell the world.” CARL SAGAN

One of the most beautiful things about science is that it equips you to think for yourself

Adrian Gaylord

Ever since I was very young I've had an insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge. I can't remember when I fell in love with science but I guess it was quite early. My mother recounts a story of when I was about 2 years old and took apart my older brother's toy tank. It spit sparks from the the gun on the turret and I wanted to know where the fire came from. The mystery intrigued me. And I just had to know. Of course my brother was pissed because while I could take it apart, I couldn't (and either could he) put back together again.

Science has been my passion. It still is and will always be. Science is behind all of our modern accomplishments and conveniences. But it has also taught us how to think. And perhaps more importantly, how to think critically.

But what is science?

Most people have these common questions at some point in their lives. Who am I? What am I? How am I? Why am I? Perhaps metaphysics and spirituality are best for the why. Empirical science has the best answers for the physical nature of ourselves and the universe. And while I agree with my evolutionary hero Stephen Jay Gould that science and "religion" (as distinct from spirituality) are non-overlapping majisteria, I also agree with my astrophysist hero Carl Sagan that science and spirituality are rather complimentary. There is no need for conflict between them.

Research is essential to science!

Karl Popper on The Line Between Science and Pseudoscience

Baloney Detection Kit  Warning signs that suggest deception.  Based on the book by Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World. The following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments:  Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view. Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").  Spin more than one hypothesis -  don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.  Quantify, wherever possible. If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work.  Occam's razor - if there are two hypotheses that explain the data equally well choose the simpler. Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result? Additional issues are:  Conduct control experiments - especially "double blind" experiments where the person taking measurements is not aware of the test and control subjects. Check for confounding factors - separate the variables. Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.  Argument from "authority". Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavorable" decision). Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). Special pleading (typically referring to god's will). Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased). Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses). Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes). Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!) Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not "proved"). Non sequitur - "it does not follow" - the logic falls down. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "it happened after so it was caused by" - confusion of cause and effect. Meaningless question ("what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?). Excluded middle - considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the "other side" look worse than it really is). Short-term v. long-term - a subset of excluded middle ("why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?"). Slippery slope - a subset of excluded middle - unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile). Confusion of correlation and causation. Caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack. Suppressed evidence or half-truths. Weasel words - for example, use of euphemisms for war such as "police action" to get around limitations on Presidential powers. " An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public"  (excerpted from The Planetary Society Australian Volunteer Coordinators Prepared by Michael Paine )

Why is Science Important?

If you have read all the way down here...

Then you probably have discipline, patience, persistence and maybe passion too. 

The are qualities that I have seen in all the best scientists.

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© 2016 MU-Peter Shimon

Remembering Stephen Jay Gould

Remembering Stephen Jay Gould Today it's been 12 years since the passing of American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould. (Sept. 10, 1941-May 20, 2002) And I miss him. The story of how he and I met is linked below: Click here: A Gould-en Heart To see my tribute to this great man.

You may also like / Funny Wonderful Life / The Median isn't the Message / The "Theory" of Evolution / Punctuated! Economics? /
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© 2014 MU-Peter Shimon

A Gould-en Heart

Remembering Stephen Jay Gould September 10 1941 - May 20 2002

Years ago (circa 1989) Dr. Gould was invited to speak in the William Osler Series of talks at McGill University. I was just starting out as an undergrad at Concordia U at the time. Having read Ever Since Darwin, as well as having read his other books, I was also a subscriber to Natural History magazine just for his articles, so I was eager to hear him lecture in person. The lecture was amazing, yet, my girlfriend at the time and I along with some classmates, watched in shock as one woman stood up in the middle of the lecture and pointing a finger, started ranting and berating Gould (“Show me a tenth of eye Stephen Jay Gould… blah, blah, blah). Gould never lost his cool and simply but politely reminded the woman that everyone had come to hear HIM talk and not HER… So would she please SIT DOWN. She kept on going and security eventually escorted her out and his talk continued. But not without a good laugh. After the lecture, Dr. Gould hung out at the podium taking questions and what not, from a group of people gathered around him. My girlfriend knowing how keen I was, asked why I didn’t go down and join the group. She said, “This is a great chance for you to go and shake his hand.” In my youth I guess (I don’t know, I just didn’t like the groupie scene. It really turned me off.), I insisted “No thanks. I don’t want to shake his hand as just another 'fan'. I’d rather finish my studies and earn his handshake as a colleague.” We left soon after that and I kicked myself all the way home. For years I struggled with the feeling that I was too proud and stubborn for missing an opportunity to let him know his work was appreciated. Forward a few years later (circa 1993) and I was a graduate student. As fate would have it, this time Dr. Gould was invited to lecture by Concordia. After the lecture, The Biology Graduate Association (of which I was Co-treasurer) had invited him to a wine and cheese at our building across the street. Of course there were neo-Darwinists, Modern Synth and Dawkins fans in our dept. So you can imagine it was an amusing evening with much great discussion. At some point Dr. Gould and I got to talking alone and eventually I told him about the McGill lecture years before and the conversation I had with my girlfriend . Well, he slowly gave me a big smile and said “Peter, after talking with you tonight, I consider you a colleague...Put'er there..” He extended his hand, took mine and shook it vigorously. . . I can't put into words what that meant to me. And.. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't on the verge of tears... I believe he was a man to be admired as much for his generosity and heart as for his mind and his work. My cherished souvenirs of that night we first met, was a signed copy of Wonderful Life, our conversation... but most of all was that handshake and his calling me a colleague. A Gould-en heart.

Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In the later years of his life, Gould also taught biology and evolution at New York University. Gould's most significant contribution to evolutionary biology was the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which he developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972.The theory proposes that most evolution is marked by long periods of evolutionary stability, which is punctuated by rare instances of branching evolution. The theory was contrasted against phyletic gradualism, the popular idea that evolutionary change is marked by a pattern of smooth and continuous change in the fossil record. Most of Gould's empirical research was based on the land snail genera Poecilozonites and Cerion. He also contributed to evolutionary developmental biology, and has received wide praise for his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny. In evolutionary theory he opposed strict selectionism, sociobiology as applied to humans, and evolutionary psychology. He campaigned against creationism and proposed that science and religion should be considered two distinct fields (or "magisteria") whose authorities do not overlap. Gould was known by the general public mainly from his 300 popular essays in the magazine Natural History, and his books written for a non-specialist audience. In April 2000, the US Library of Congress named him a "Living Legend". (Wikipedia: Stephen Jay Gould) For more see: The Unofficial Stephen Jay Gould Site

You might also like: What Theories Need  / Punctuated! Economics? / Funny Wonderful Life  /
  The Median Is The Message

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© 2013 MU-Peter Shimon

The Median Isn't The Message

The Median Isn't The Message (or Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics)

“Many people make an unfortunate and invalid separation between heart and mind, or feeling and intellect. In some contemporary traditions, abetted by attitudes stereotypically centered on Southern California, feelings are exalted as more “real” and the only proper basis for action – if it feels good, do it – while intellect gets short shrift as a hang-up of outmoded elitism. Statistics, in this absurd dichotomy, often become the symbol of the enemy.” Stephen Jay Gould

Video version of The Median Isn't The Message (The voice over is not Dr. Gould)

"Variation itself is nature's only irreducible essence. Variation is the hard reality, not a set of imperfect measures for a central tendency"

The Median Isn't the Message by Stephen Jay Gould In 1982, I learned I was suffering from a rare and serious cancer. After surgery, I asked my doctor what the best technical literature on the cancer was. She told me, with a touch of diplomacy, that there was nothing really worth reading. I soon realized why she had offered that humane advice: my cancer is incurable, with a median mortality of eight months after discovery. The problem may be briefly stated: What does "median mortality of eight months" signify in our vernacular? I suspect that most people, without training in statistics, would read such a statement as "I will probably be dead in eight months" the very conclusion that must be avoided, since it isn't so.

My life has recently intersected, in a most personal way, two of Mark Twain's famous quips. One I shall defer to the end of this essay. The other (sometimes attributed to Disraeli), identifies three species of mendacity, each worse than the one before -  lies, damned lies, and statistics. Consider the standard example of stretching the truth with numbers - a case quite relevant to my story. Statistics recognizes different measures of an "average," or central tendency. The mean is our usual concept of an overall average - add up the items and divide them by the number of sharers (100 candy bars collected for five kids next Halloween will yield 20 for each in a just world). The median, a different measure of central tendency, is the half-way point. If I line up five kids by height, the median child is shorter than two and taller than the other two (who might have trouble getting their mean share of the candy). A politician in power might say with pride, "The mean income of our citizens is $15,000 per year." The leader of the opposition might retort, "But half our citizens make less than $10,000 per year." Both are right, but neither cites a statistic with impassive objectivity. The first invokes a mean, the second a median. (Means are higher than medians in such cases because one millionaire may outweigh hundreds of poor people in setting a mean; but he can balance only one mendicant in calculating a median).

The larger issue that creates a common distrust or contempt for statistics is more troubling. Many people make an unfortunate and invalid separation between heart and mind, or feeling and intellect. In some contemporary traditions, abetted by attitudes stereotypically centered on Southern California, feelings are exalted as more "real" and the only proper basis for action - if it feels good, do it - while intellect gets short shrift as a hang-up of outmoded elitism. Statistics, in this absurd dichotomy, often become the symbol of the enemy. As Hilaire Belloc wrote, "Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death." This is a personal story of statistics, properly interpreted, as profoundly nurturant and life-giving. It declares holy war on the downgrading of intellect by telling a small story about the utility of dry, academic knowledge about science. Heart and head are focal points of one body, one personality.

In July 1982, I learned that I was suffering from abdominal mesothelioma, a rare and serious cancer usually associated with exposure to asbestos. When I revived after surgery, I asked my first question of my doctor and chemotherapist: "What is the best technical literature about mesothelioma?" She replied, with a touch of diplomacy (the only departure she has ever made from direct frankness), that the medical literature contained nothing really worth reading. Of course, trying to keep an intellectual away from literature works about as well as recommending chastity to Homo sapiens, the sexiest primate of all. As soon as I could walk, I made a beeline for Harvard's Countway medical library and punched mesothelioma into the computer's bibliographic search program. An hour later, surrounded by the latest literature on abdominal mesothelioma, I realized with a gulp why my doctor had offered that humane advice. The literature couldn't have been more brutally clear: mesothelioma is incurable, with a median mortality of only eight months after discovery. I sat stunned for about fifteen minutes, then smiled and said to myself: so that's why they didn't give me anything to read. Then my mind started to work again, thank goodness. If a little learning could ever be a dangerous thing, I had encountered a classic example. Attitude clearly matters in fighting cancer. We don't know why (from my old-style materialistic perspective, I suspect that mental states feed back upon the immune system). But match people with the same cancer for age, class, health, socioeconomic status, and, in general, those with positive attitudes, with a strong will and purpose for living, with commitment to struggle, with an active response to aiding their own treatment and not just a passive acceptance of anything doctors say, tend to live longer. A few months later I asked Sir Peter Medawar, my personal scientific guru and a Nobelist in immunology, what the best prescription for success against cancer might be. "A sanguine personality," he replied. Fortunately (since one can't reconstruct oneself at short notice and for a definite purpose), I am, if anything, even-tempered and confident in just this manner.

Hence the dilemma for humane doctors: since attitude matters so critically, should such a sombre conclusion be advertised, especially since few people have sufficient understanding of statistics to evaluate what the statements really mean? From years of experience with the small-scale evolution of Bahamian land snails treated quantitatively, I have developed this technical knowledge - and I am convinced that it played a major role in saving my life. Knowledge is indeed power, in Bacon's proverb. The problem may be briefly stated: What does "median mortality of eight months" signify in our vernacular? I suspect that most people, without training in statistics, would read such a statement as "I will probably be dead in eight months" - the very conclusion that must be avoided, since it isn't so, and since attitude matters so much. I was not, of course, overjoyed, but I didn't read the statement in this vernacular way either. My technical training enjoined a different perspective on "eight months median mortality." The point is a subtle one, but profound - for it embodies the distinctive way of thinking in my own field of evolutionary biology and natural history. We still carry the historical baggage of a Platonic heritage that seeks sharp essences and definite boundaries. (Thus we hope to find an unambiguous "beginning of life" or "definition of death," although nature often comes to us as irreducible continua.) This Platonic heritage, with its emphasis in clear distinctions and separated immutable entities, leads us to view statistical measures of central tendency wrongly, indeed opposite to the appropriate interpretation in our actual world of variation, shadings, and continua. In short, we view means and medians as the hard "realities," and the variation that permits their calculation as a set of transient and imperfect measurements of this hidden essence. If the median is the reality and variation around the median just a device for its calculation, the "I will probably be dead in eight months" may pass as a reasonable interpretation.

But all evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is nature's only irreducible essence. Variation is the hard reality, not a set of imperfect measures for a central tendency. Means and medians are the abstractions. Therefore, I looked at the mesothelioma statistics quite differently - and not only because I am an optimist who tends to see the doughnut instead of the hole, but primarily because I know that variation itself is the reality. I had to place myself amidst the variation. When I learned about the eight-month median, my first intellectual reaction was: fine, half the people will live longer; now what are my chances of being in that half. I read for a furious and nervous hour and concluded, with relief: damned good. I possessed every one of the characteristics conferring a probability of longer life: I was young; my disease had been recognized in a relatively early stage; I would receive the nation's best medical treatment; I had the world to live for; I knew how to read the data properly and not despair. Another technical point then added even more solace. I immediately recognized that the distribution of variation about the eight-month median would almost surely be what statisticians call "right skewed." (In a symmetrical distribution, the profile of variation to the left of the central tendency is a mirror image of variation to the right. In skewed distributions, variation to one side of the central tendency is more stretched out - left skewed if extended to the left, right skewed if stretched out to the right.) The distribution of variation had to be right skewed, I reasoned. After all, the left of the distribution contains an irrevocable lower boundary of zero (since mesothelioma can only be identified at death or before). Thus, there isn't much room for the distribution's lower (or left) half - it must be scrunched up between zero and eight months. But the upper (or right) half can extend out for years and years, even if nobody ultimately survives. The distribution must be right skewed, and I needed to know how long the extended tail ran - for I had already concluded that my favorable profile made me a good candidate for that part of the curve. The distribution was indeed, strongly right skewed, with a long tail (however small) that extended for several years above the eight month median. I saw no reason why I shouldn't be in that small tail, and I breathed a very long sigh of relief. My technical knowledge had helped. I had read the graph correctly. I had asked the right question and found the answers. I had obtained, in all probability, the most precious of all possible gifts in the circumstances - substantial time. I didn't have to stop and immediately follow Isaiah's injunction to Hezekiah - set thine house in order for thou shalt die, and not live. I would have time to think, to plan, and to fight.

One final point about statistical distributions. They apply only to a prescribed set of circumstances - in this case to survival with mesothelioma under conventional modes of treatment. If circumstances change, the distribution may alter. I was placed on an experimental protocol of treatment and, if fortune holds, will be in the first cohort of a new distribution with high median and a right tail extending to death by natural causes at advanced old age. It has become, in my view, a bit too trendy to regard the acceptance of death as something tantamount to intrinsic dignity. Of course I agree with the preacher of Ecclesiastes that there is a time to love and a time to die - and when my skein runs out I hope to face the end calmly and in my own way. For most situations, however, I prefer the more martial view that death is the ultimate enemy - and I find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.

See also:  Marihuana,  The Forbidden Medicine by Stephen Jay Gould

The swords of battle are numerous, and none more effective than humor. My death was announced at a meeting of my colleagues in Scotland, and I almost experienced the delicious pleasure of reading my obituary penned by one of my best friends (the so-and-so got suspicious and checked; he too is a statistician, and didn't expect to find me so far out on the right tail). Still, the incident provided my first good laugh after the diagnosis. Just think, I almost got to repeat Mark Twain's most famous line of all: the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. Stephen Jay Gould

Dr. Gould died in 2002 at the age of 60, 20 years after his diagnosis ...but not from abdominal mesothelioma.

Enjoy

© 2013 MU-Peter Shimon