There Are Four Lights

Here’s an nice example of creating a provocative, flashy title for your science article in order to draw readers; “Quantum magic trick shows reality is what you make it” – New Scientist. Yea, sure, fine…call it a ‘magic trick’, whatev~ But the misleading part is the claim that “reality is what you make it”.

This relates a bit to my last post where I discussed the problems in believing that science is just another narrative among many that you can “choose” to believe. People who subscribe to that view will jump all over this article and add it to their repertoire of examples where quantum mechanics legitimizes the position that whatever you choose to believe becomes real through the act of believe it alone; “reality is what you make it”.

But this is misleading. Quantum physics doesn’t support the position of “anything goes”. In fact, quantum physics makes extremely accurate predictions about the quantum world. This means that there are “rules” about how reality is working—-not that reality works in whatever way you choose it to. The spookiness of quantum physics makes it easy to exploit people’s misunderstanding of it. Typically, this is done to prop up unsupported beliefs using the legitimacy of science, like quantum physics, in order to lend a sense of  credibility to them.

A commonly used misunderstanding is that the term “observer” means a human or intelligence. It’s not the person’s consciousness or thoughts which effect the outcomes of the measurement, it’s the act of measurement itself—-it’s the fact that something is interacting with it. I find it a bit easier to think about it like this: When we look at big things (measure it) we’re observing it because light (photons) are hitting them and bouncing back into our eyeball holes. Because the objects are big, the photons hitting them don’t have much of an effect…a little photon bouncing of a chair isn’t going to going to knock it over; like bouncing a billiard ball at building isn’t going to effect the building. But if you want to measure particles, you have to bounce other particles off of them. Sorta like bouncing a billiard ball off another billiard ball. Then, add in the spooky, counter-intuitive fact that particles don’t actually have a fixed position ‘n stuff and you get that brain-melting feeling of confusion and throw your Brian Greene book across the room~aaaaaaagh!

My point is, there’s a lot I don’t know about quantum mechanics and plenty that I’m wrong about (most likely, most of the previous paragraph!). What I’m confident I’m not wrong about is that we can’t draw the conclusion from quantum experiments that reality is what you make it. At some point, there are ‘rules’ the universe follows. You can’t have a rule that says ‘there are no rules’.

Everything I say is a lie –Captain Kirk

There are no magic tricks in quantum mechanics that give you a loop hole for whatever belief you have which doesn’t conform to reality. The universe operates independent of our desires.

The following video contains the answers of Miss America contestants when asked if evolution should be taught in class rooms. Make all the jokes you want about the stereotype regarding how intelligent a beauty pageant contestant is (I was in a beauty pageant when I was in high school…so…uh…yea~), but their answers are pretty typical of what you’d get if you asked anyone from the general public. The problem isn’t just a lack of understanding of what a scientific theory is. There’s an larger problem at work here; the idea that knowledge is relative and that science is just another “story” among the many narratives we choose to tell ourselves.

A common view expressed by the contestants is that “both sides of the story” should be taught. One problem with this view is it seems there is the assumption that “creationism” means the Christian story of how life began. If you’re going to teach creation stories in school, then you should be teaching children all of the creation stories—-not just the Christian one. But the bigger problem is placing a scientific theory on the same level as a culture’s mythology.

It’s obvious that there’s a common misunderstanding of the term “theory” when used in the scientific context. Yes, evolution is a theory, but it’s the same kind of theory as the theory of gravity, germ theory, and the theory of relativity. Scientific theories are a collection of related facts which make testable predictions about the world. Gravity will still pull you to the ground if you step out your second story window regardless of your worldview. Germs will still exist and cause disease despite your disbelief in them and your GPS will guide you to your destination thanks to relativity whether or not you understand the theory. These are not “stories” or world views. These are facts about the world.

The same is true of evolution. Evolution is not another creation myth, therefore legitimizing the teaching of other creation myths. Firstly, evolution does not tell us how life began (creation). A hint is right in the title of Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species (By Means of Natural Selection). See that? It’s about the origin of species, not the origin of life. Evolution tells us about species—-their origin and their extinction. Evolution doesn’t deal with how life began, only with the the fact that different varieties of it have lived and died throughout history, and continue to do so. This is not a creation story at all—-it is a set of facts based on observations of the real world.

This all comes from the more general assertion that science is simply another narrative—-just another worldview that you can choose for yourself. This position has the advantage of sounding nice; it sounds tolerant and fair. But it’s an intellectually dishonest position with only one purpose; to avoid the discomfort of being wrong. If you say everyone is right, then no one (and most conveniently, you) can never be wrong. The argument that mythologies and beliefs are just as legitimately true as scientific facts is not presented in an intellectually honest manner. That is to say, when it’s brought up in debate it’s not being used to honestly critique the limits of knowledge but rather is only a strategy tolevel the playing field. The only condition in which mythologies and belief system won’t collapse is if you take away the weight of evidence. They require biased and fallacious thinking in order to stay intact. You have to destroy the concept of knowing and place yourself in a position where anything anyone makes up is true. You have to bring down science to the level of “just another story” because myths and mystical thinking never survive the attempt to bring them up to the standards of science.

You wouldn’t teach flat-earth views in geology, the geocentric model in astronomy, or holocaust denial in history. You realize how ridiculous that would be because the intellectually honest part of you understands that there are things which can be shown to be unambiguously false. When your personal belief clashes with scientific fact, it means your story doesn’t line up with reality.

All the hundreds of millions of people who, in their time, believed the Earth was flat never succeeded in unrounding it by an inch. –Isaac Asimov