Category: Science

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus
is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science
is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees
that E=mc². Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus

is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science

is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees

that E=mc². Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we’re
asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?
And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody
lost their minds?

Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they
worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably:
Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all
the horse[manure]? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it
would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for
sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy
source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and
Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900.
Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was. They didn’t know
its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport,
or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet,
an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, . . . . [COPIOUS EXAMPLES
SNIPPED] . . . None of this would have meant anything to a person in
the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.

Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s
even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the
future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s
thought knows it.

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Yesterday I told you Scary Science Story #1, which ended more or less harmlessly because Virus W turned out to be more or less harmless to humans.

After that story, you could breathe a sigh of relief.

Now listen to this one:

1. Chimpanzees are out running around in the wild doing chimpanzee things.
2. Somehow these chimps develop a virus that we will refer to as Virus X.
3. Virus X spreads widely in their population.
4. Humans come and capture some of these chimpanzees.
5. They are then turned over to scientists.
6. The scientists vivisect the chimpanzees to obtain their kidneys.
7. The kidneys are used to culture a vaccine to cure a disease that harms humans: polio.
8. Somewhere in this sequence of events (possibly as far back as step 3 or as far forward as step 10), Virus X mutates into Virus Y.
9. Unbeknownst to the scientists who cultured the vaccine in chimpanzee kidneys, the process they are using does not kill Virus X or Virus Y, neither of which which
   has yet been identified by human science.
10. Virus Y piggybacks on the polio vaccine.
11. The infected vaccine is sprayed into the mouths of thousands of human beings in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).
12. Millions of people in the Congo become infected with Virus Y.
13. Surrounding nations become a region of pandemic Virus Y infections, with the Congo–and specifically the villages where the oral polio vaccine was distrubted–as its epicenter.
14. Virus Y is passed from people in this region to people all over the globe to the point that 80 million people have been infected worldwide.
15. Virus Y does not immediately kill humans, which is why it is able to spread so far.
16. But after about ten years, Virus Y creates Syndrome Z, which is 100% fatal.

The real name of Virus X is Simian immunodeficiency virus or SIV (technically, it’s one strain of SIV).

The real name of Virus Y is Human immunodeficiency virus-1 or HIV-1.

The real name of Syndrome Z is Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or AIDS.

The theory that Oral Polio Vaccine was the means by which HIV entered the human population is called the OPV AIDS Hypothesis.

The above story may be true, though it is highly controversial.

This is probably because HIV-1 does kill humans.

Since it does kill humans, the polio vaccine makers are
circling the wagons and impeding investigations of the matter–and
possibly lying about their vaccine cultivation methods in order to
cover themselves. All those are very human reactions.

Some have even been openly dismissive of why the matter should be investigated.

I’ll tell you why the matter needs to be investigated: Because if it’s true then it’s the biggest bloody medical disaster of all time and we need to know about it!

Even if it’s not true, we still have to be on guard against such things, for the case of SV40 (Scary Science Story #1) shows that things like this can happen.

READ WIKIPEDIA’S ENTRY ON THE SUBJECT.

READ AN EARLY ARTICLE THAT POPULARIZED THE OPV AIDS HYPOTHESIS.

READ A WEBSITE THAT CONTAINS THE LATEST ARGUMENTS AND COUNTER-ARGUMENTS.

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

This fascination with computer models is something I understand very
well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because
only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you
arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands.

But it is impossible to ignore how closely the history of global
warming fits on the previous template for nuclear winter. Just as the
earliest studies of nuclear winter stated that the uncertainties were
so great that probabilites could never be known, so, too the first
pronouncements on global warming argued strong limits on what could be
determined with certainty about climate change. The 1995 IPCC draft
report said, "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate
change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the
total natural variability of the climate system are reduced." It also
said, "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of
observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes." Those statements
were removed, and in their place appeared: "The balance of evidence
suggests a discernable human influence on climate."

In trying to think about how these questions can be resolved, it
occurs to me that in the progression from SETI to nuclear winter to
second hand smoke to global warming, we have one clear message, and
that is that we can expect more and more problems of public policy
dealing with technical issues in the future-problems of ever greater
seriousness, where people care passionately on all sides.

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While we’re listening to Michael Crichton talk about bad science, let’s add a couple of practical examples.

The story you are about to read is true.

Consider the following sequence of events:

1. Rhesus monkeys are out running around in the wild doing rhesus monkey things.
2. Somehow these monkeys develop a virus that we will refer to as Virus W.
3. Virus W doesn’t usually kill the monkeys, so it spreads widely in their population.
4. Humans come and capture some of these rhesus monkeys.
5. They are then turned over to scientists.
6. The scientists vivisect the monkeys to obtain their kidneys.
7. The kidneys are used to culture a vaccine to cure a disease that harms humans: polio.
8. Unbeknownst to the scientists who cultured the vaccine in rhesus monkey kidneys, the process they are using does not kill Virus W, which has not yet been identified by human science.
9. Virus W piggybacks on the polio vaccine.
10. The infected vaccine is given to tens or hundreds of millions of human beings, stretching over decades.
11. Virus W comes to exist in 23% of the human population (whether globally or in America isn’t clear).
12. Virus W is passable from one generation to the next and thus will persist in the human race for generations.
13. Fortunately, Virus W is not normally harmful to humans, though a slight correlation with a certain kind of cancer may exist.

It is not clear if Virus W was present in the human population prior to the polio vaccine distributions, but there is some evidence it was, though to a lesser extent than afterwards.

The real name of Virus W is Simian vacuolating virus 40, or just Simian virus 40, or just SV40.

This story is true, or strongly thought to be true and not very controversial  so far as I have been able to determine.

This is probably because SV40 does not normally kill humans.

If it did kill humans, then the polio vaccine makers would likely be circling the wagons and impeding investigations of the matter–and possibly lying about their vaccine cultivation methods in order to cover themselves. All those would be very human reactions.

And they would serve to make the matter controversial.

Like Scary Science Story #2.

I’ll tell it that one to you tomorrow.

(N.B. People who can guess what Scary Science Story #2 is likely to be about, do not spoil it for others in the comments box below!)

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In
the 1970s the world will undergoe famines-hundreds of millions of
people are going to starve to death." Ten years later, he predicted
four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million
Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and
it now seems it isn’t ever going to happen. Nor is the population
explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. In
1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by
2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and
falling. But nobody knows for sure.

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You know that dream where you’re back in college and it’s the end of the term is almost over and you suddenly realize that there’s this class you haven’t been to all semester? (Or, alternately, that you showed up in class one days and there’s a test that you haven’t studied for?)

I HATE that dream!

And I still get it–years after college.

So do my friends.

This leads me to wonder: What is it about college that produces this dream? Sure, college is an intense experience at a crucial, transitional time of life. But why do people have this dream so many years after college is over?

(BTW, sorry for spoiling future nightmares for any college-folk who are reading this but . . . this is what you have to look forward to–sometimes, anyway).

Human psychology is fundamentally the same in every age, though culture and circumstance do have their impacts. This leads me to think that people in other ages–before it was standard to go to college–likely had an equivalent dream. But what was it?

Perhaps in tribal societies, people who had long been made men had nightmares about being unprepared for the rites of manhood or something (and some of those could indeed be disturbing–like adult circumcision). Perhaps in societies where there are arranged marriages, people have anxiety dreams long after the fact about meeting their predestined spouse for the first time.

But such a predictable equivalent doesn’t appear in all cultures.

So that leaves me with a question.

No answers, just a question.

Collective brainpower, anyone?

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was "responsible

for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking

adults," and that it " impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of

thousands of people." In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven

studies it based its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and

that they collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of

1.19. (For reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action

by the EPA. or for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine,

for example.) Furthermore, since there was no statistical association

at the 95% coinfidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They

then classified second hand smoke as a Group A Carcinogen.

This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans

on smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned

public smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the

Christian Science Monitor was saying that "Second-hand smoke is the

nation’s third-leading preventable cause of death." The American Cancer

Society announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand

smoke. The evidence for this claim is nonexistent.

In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had

"committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had

"disregarded information and made findings on selective information."

The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: "We stand by our

science….there’s wide agreement. The American people certainly

recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings…a whole host of

health problems." Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps

science. In this case, it isn’t even a consensus of scientists that

Browner evokes! It’s the consensus of the American people.

Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A

large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have

well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read,

for example, that second hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At

this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand

smoke.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was "responsible
for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking
adults," and that it " impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of
thousands of people." In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven
studies it based its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and
that they collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of
1.19. (For reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action
by the EPA. or for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine,
for example.) Furthermore, since there was no statistical association
at the 95% coinfidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They
then classified second hand smoke as a Group A Carcinogen.

This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans
on smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned
public smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the
Christian Science Monitor was saying that "Second-hand smoke is the
nation’s third-leading preventable cause of death." The American Cancer
Society announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand
smoke. The evidence for this claim is nonexistent.

In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had
"committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had
"disregarded information and made findings on selective information."
The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: "We stand by our
science….there’s wide agreement. The American people certainly
recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings…a whole host of
health problems." Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps
science. In this case, it isn’t even a consensus of scientists that
Browner evokes! It’s the consensus of the American people.

Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A
large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have
well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read,
for example, that second hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At
this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand
smoke.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.