What Field Hockey can Teach us About Science

I had almost completed writing a post that responded to many of individual questions raised in the comments to two (1, 2) posts regarding B. Allen Wallace and his appearance on a couple of different skeptical podcasts a few years ago. Yet the format of answering questions didn’t make for the most interesting or easiest of reads, but through the act of writing those responses I did come to a unifying comparison that encapsulates many of those responses.

Field Hockey Vs. Science

I will compare the rules for the game of field hockey which were created in the Australian desert in an attempt to limit Canadian dominance of sports with hockey in the name and the rules of science. Take for instance this comment from Andree,

“On Eastern there are a plethora of explanations about consciousness based on introspection observation, and this is also falsifiable method just like looking through a microscope. But to reproduce an experiment you have to be trained with this instrument, meditation, just like a scientist have to be trained with microscope to see a cell. But Western science just reject meditation as a consciousness observation method, and prefer to find the answers through correlation between physical properties of brain and mental phenomena. The last method is not wrong, but why reject a direct method?”

There are multiple things to address as a few interesting points are being made in that comment. The first question is, is introspective observation a falsifiable and measurable method, equivalent to looking through a microscope? To his point when someone looks through a microscope and comes to a conclusion they are seeing something subjective and independent, which is similar to someone undertaking the act of introspection and making observations. The only difference is the person is ‘the microscope’ in his example, but there is a barrier of effort that limits scientists to becoming the microscope that Eastern people sometimes dedicate themselves into becoming. Further, there could be years of experience needed in recognizing the results observed by looking through the microscope that doesn’t allow someone else to see those results, the same way that a person wouldn’t be able to understand the subjective introspection.

I think this is a very strong argument, but first-hand reports of subjective experience don’t exist with the same reliability as something seen under a microscope. Someone can be standing by and confirm the observation in a way that is simply not possible for subjective experience. It may be argued that each person would require training and the finding wouldn’t be able to be verified by anyone else, but a picture or video can be taken of the microscope results which can be examined thoroughly by numerous people in a way that subjective experience cannot be examined. A person can undergo the same training and experience something like what that other person is describing in the eastern tradition but this wouldn’t be the same as the examination of the same microscope results. That person would be experiencing their own version of that phenomena and not, as with the microscope, viewing that same material. This would, admittedly, be harder for something like pain, but there are still correlates which can be looked at.  

While I point out reasons to doubt the microscope to personal introspection analogy as being successful, it does lead to the more fundamental question, are the methods of science biased against eastern understandings? This is where field hockey rules can add to the understanding of science and bias.

Field hockey was created with the intention of keeping the Canadian's from taking over the sport. There was a process of which had Trey Parker and Matt Stone, in a collaboration with Australia, purposefully make the rules of field hockey to be biased against Canadians. The Australians and South Park creators knew that research has shown that Canadian hockey players are more likely to be left-handed shots, so they made it so field hockey has the rule where only right-handed sticks are legal.  

Similarly, science could be seen as having rules that are purposefully biased against eastern knowledge or ways of finding knowledge. Both field hockey and science are biased, as field hockey hates Canadians and science doesn’t accept eastern knowledge.

Yet there is an important distinction that can be made, field hockey rules are purposefully biased against Canadian’s in an attempt to keep Jean McMaplepoutine down and science's rules are basic and limited in nature. While it is the case that field hockey could have left-handed sticks without changing the game and it would work, the same isn’t true about the broadening of the scientific method.

Science can be stripped down to being based on falsifiability and measurability. To be able to test, measure and retest, rules of which cannot be broadened to include other methods that are subjective and/or largely unmeasurable as their inclusion would change science in such a way that it would no longer be science. To that end science isn’t biased against eastern understandings in themselves it just can safely ignore them as interesting, but not science until there are ways of testing them with measurability and falsification. Take for instance the claim that with mediation there isn’t the need for food or water, that’s interesting, testable, result of the subjective experience and has been tested. Claims of a similar nature have been made by 'the Iceman' Wim Hof which are very interesting in the regulation of body temperature, but also in other areas, although they seem to be exaggerated.  There was a reasonable skepticism about those claims, but they can and were tested in the same way any other claims would be.

This shows two different systems, one where rules exist in a way that is purposefully biased for arbitrary reasons and one where the opposite is true and rules exist in a purposeful non-arbitrary way.

Bonus Take! –  Psi Will Never be verified by Science due to how it is ingrained with materialism which disallows it or it will never be verified because it is so biased against Psi that verification is impossible

I think many of the commentators to previous posts have the attitude that expressed in that description. I am not attempting to make a straw man, so if that isn't a fair summary than I am willing to change it, but I think that kind of arguments by psi proponents fundamentally underestimates the amount that scientists want to prove phenomena to be true, psi included. Any substantial finding in that area would instantaneously cause fame and fortune as it would be one of the most important findings in the history of science.This is why Daryl Bem and his tests received so much attention. Those tests were fairly well done and came to surprising results, but they failed to be replicated. 

The argument could even be made that science, as it currently exists, is biased in such a way that it would lean towards the proving the existence of psi-phenomena, due to there being a huge publishing bias towards new interesting results and the lack of interest in the publication of replications of other studies. Far from being ‘ingrained in materialism’ or having a system that works against Psi, the system is set up in favor of proving Psi, so long as it can be measured. I think this fact is a huge condemnation of the field, because if it existed in the way in which many people think it does then it takes a grand conspiracy to explain why it hasn’t been scientifically observed, on the scale of the level of conspiracy needed to believe in ‘chemtrails’ or ‘flat earth’.  The type of conspiracy so large that it falls apart under its own weight. 

B. Alan Wallace and His Criticism of Materialists

Well, I'm glad to see that my first post about B. Alan Wallace was pretty well received as far as I tell. I wasn't sure how interesting it would be, but I was sure that something had to be said about his criticisms and it also responds to the argument that skeptics aren't being skeptical. That last post was really just covered a defense of how I perceive skepticism at the current time, but B. Alan Wallace also attacks a view I hold with a charge that it is 'eurocenteric'. That view being materialism, or that all phenomena can be broken down and shown to have material causes. 

While the claim that materialism is 'eurocenteric' does nothing to combat the truth of the idea, nor does his appeal to the popularity of the existence of the non-physical, Wallace does make some real arguments. To support his contention he goes on to attack materialism through some pretty interesting facets. These arguments were taken, once again, from his appearances on both Skeptiko and The Skeptics Guide to the Universe and I will summarize and break them up here.

1.Materialists are making a leap of faith that everything must be physical. 

This is a major contention Wallace makes and I think this is more of an "Oh yeah!" argument that really is as shallow as a kiddie pool. It probably stems from non-materialists being accused of making a leap of faith, and he wants to be able to make the same accusation. The only problem with that assertion is that anyone who looks at the evidence finds only materialist explanations and really no overwhelming evidence for anything else. To say that materialists are making a leap of faith is to miss-characterize what is going on, they are not assuming that everything is physical, but rather inferring from everything we've found out so far. It may turn out that there is a non-physical realm, and materialists will have to adjust for that, but there is no unreasonable 'faith' behind materialism.Wallace's first point is more a contention in place of evidence and does nothing to further his cause. Which brings up an argument that actually has some meat to it.

2. The definition of what is 'material' has changed greatly over time, and the description really doesn't encompass what is known anymore.  (Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Electrons)

In this argument, Wallace talks about how what we know about what constitutes the physical has changed so much in the last hundred years that the term material doesn't really apply anymore. He goes further to say the materialist are constantly shifting the goal posts with any new information that is found out, the electron is discovered and it's a material, light is discovered to be a wave and a particle and it's still a material, dark energy is theorized about and it too seems to be a material.

There is a grain of truth to what Wallace is describing in his argument, the conception of the physical has undergone a lot of change in the recent past. Quantum Mechanics has some really weird and counter-intuitive findings, that have been incorporated into the description of the world. The description of the physical cannot stay constant, because people keep finding out more about it than was known before, the description must adapt or be useless. This is fine along as long as what is described as material and physical still accurately describes what is going on. For this to really be shifting the goal posts it would have to be shown that the definition of the physical is not just expanding, but fundamentally changing and I don't think that's the case. Wallace himself even goes as far to say that he wouldn't deny an electron a physical existence. I also don't think he would argue that light has a non-material existence and because he doesn't he keeps his scientific dignity, but fails to make his true point.

The point he tries to make through one last ditch effort. Wallace points out that nothing is known about dark matter, except that something like it must exist. It must exist because the weights of galaxies need it to hold them together as Zwicky discovered. Yet, other than their necessary existence, not a whole lot else is known about it. Wallace argues that even though nothing is really known about it, it is still described as matter and that is an assumption that is wrong to make. I would argue that it would be wrong if there were some non-physical explanation for other things. If prayer or meditation was proven to affect machines, if the mind could be proven to be able to float outside the body, if ghosts were shown to be real and still act as they reportedly do, there would be a reason to doubt that dark matter is in fact matter. Until then it is a safe assumption to make and there is still no reason to not be a materialist.

Thanks for reading,

-the moral skeptic

B. Alan Wallace and his Criticism of Skeptics

Hi, I hope you've all had a good weekend. It was my birthday over the weekend and I had a pretty good time, but at the same time found something I had to post about. Criticism of skeptics always interests me, whether it is someone saying that they aren't open minded or that they are really denialists, but B. Alan Wallace takes aim at skeptics 'faith' in what science has already proven. A quote from him that he used on Skeptico episode 23, is that, " They [skeptics] are skeptical of other things but not of their own beliefs, scientific materialists are as skeptical as religious fundamentalists."

Well I'm really not afraid to characterize myself as both a skeptic and a scientific materialist, given what the evidence has shown so far and as soon as some evidence, that meets the burden of proof, comes along to show that there is more than materialism to the universe than I will consider it and possibility change my opinion on the matter. Now that that is out of the way, I'll just summarize Wallace's opinion that he presents on Skeptico episode 23, and on The Skeptics Guide to the Universe Episode 73.

Wallace's main point can be summed up by the quote on the Skeptico episode 23 page where he is noted as saying, " This is what bothers me about many of the so called skeptics, they are defending the status quo, which doesn’t take a whole lot of guts frankly. They are about as skeptical as Billy Gramm.” He goes on to further say that, " The greatest impediment to scientific progress is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge, the belief that something is known."  

Before I talk about those quotes I'll just reference part of the conversation Steve Novella had with Wallace on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, that really goes along the same lines as what has already been stated. Some parts of the conversation have been skipped and some ideas have been slimmed down, but I haven't changed the meanings of anything either person said.

Novella – No one has demonstrated the quantum effects are meaningful at the level of the brain.

Wallace – I thought you folks were skeptics and you should be skeptical of that point.

Wallace – You demonstrated a complete lack of skepticism when you said that we know that quantum mechanics doesn’t play a part in brain function.

Novella – I did not say that. I said so far no one has demonstrated that quantum mechanics have any effect on brain function. There are no mysteries that we need to go beyond the brain model to solve.

Wallace – I find that profoundly unskeptical.

Novella – It’s not unskeptical. What’s the mystery?

Wallace – I’ll go back a bit and you call tell me what demonstrates an equivalent rather than a causal relationship between brain function and subjective experience.  

Novella – That is inappropriately shifting the burden. Can you show me an example where consciousness can exist outside of brain function?

The topic then is shifted, and gets more in depth about brain function and I encourage it to be listened to but those are the points I really want to talk about. 

What is really telling from the summation of what Wallace has said is that he has either taken the view that 1. That the past evidence doesn't mean anything or 2. That people should surround themselves in hyperbolic doubt rather than a reasonable level of doubt. 

I say this because with 1. he can write off the fact that Steve Novella asks him constantly about evidence and he either changes the subject or fails to provide that evidence, but still holds his view. This first position would also allow him to say you aren't being skeptical, not questioning that idea, because the evidence for that idea is besides the point for Wallace. No amount of evidence would convince Wallace of anything.

Which really leads into the second point that Wallace may live in a world of the hyperbolic doubt described by Descartes. This means that it is possible that everything we know is wrong and you really can't trust anything, so any beliefs you come to are just as likely to be true. 

The problem with either Wallace view is that science has been able to make predictions about the future, and has proven to be reliable enough to put trust into. Evidence does matter and hyperbolic doubt isn't necessary. This is not trust in any individual scientist, but trust in scientific consensus and the methods of science.  

That leaves Wallace's criticism that skeptics aren't being skeptical of scientific evidence, really without warrant. Skeptics have found the most reliable knowledge and method and have taken that as a starting point. They can still doubt science, especially where there is some controversy between the results/interpretation of results, but they don't have to have hyperbolic doubt about every fact just like people trust gravity by not leaving their homes via the window.

This is where I'd just like to make one point through an example with the use of evolution. A person can look at the topic of evolution and either believe that all the evidence is wrong for or has been misinterpreted by many different fields for evolution; They are in the midst of a conspiracy of gigantic proportions to convince people of evolution, or they can hold the view that what all the evidence points to seems to be consistent and able to make sense of all the given information. One view just seems more reasonable to me than the other. There is no reason to seriously doubt evolution given what is known today and to suggest that people aren't being skeptical if they don't doubt evolution doesn't follow. They have already taken a look into the issue and made a decision based on evidence, as any good skeptic should.

Thanks for reading

-The moral skeptic