# Mike Shermer's SciAm Column = Skeptics' Glurge **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 2, 2006, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980 "2006-08-02T05:22:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/1 "2006-08-02T05:22:59Z")
Oh, it had to happen eventually, I guess: Glurge for skeptics, atheists, and other cosmic party poopers. Let’s call it “sklurge.” Sklurge replaces the dimwitted and sentimental tone of glurge with the bitter, depressing, and hyperextended knowitallism of the kneejerk skeptic. Like glurge, however, it is all tone and dontchaknows–a data-add is completely absent. Indeed, a data-subtract may arise, owing to the urban legends contained therein. Let’s take a recent Shermer SciAm sklurge piece, [Folk Science: Why our intuitions about how the world works are often wrong](http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000A760C-14A5-14C1-94A583414B7F0181), as an example. The nature of incorrect thought is indeed an interesting one, but Mike fails to provide a single provocative example, instead trotting out a few cliches and skeptical truisms. His reasoning and fact management cannot be adequately described by words like “disingenous,” “sloppy,” and “falacious”: > [@](#): > > But much of physics is counterintuitive, as is the case in many other disciplines, and before the rise of modern science we had only our folk intuitions to guide us. Ludicrous, patently false, worthy of contempt. Before “modern science,” the Mayans were breeding crops, the Romans were building aquaducts, and the Chinese were predicting eclipses. A modern scientific method was not necessary for considerable progress both in the theoretical and applied sides of science. > [@](#): > > Folk astronomy, for example, told us that the world is flat, celestial bodies revolve around the earth, and the planets are wandering gods who determine our future. The flat earth canard!? According to Wikipedia, “The Earth’s circumference was measured around 240 BC by Eratosthenes,” who got very close to the correct figure. I suppose Columbus’s crew were afraid of falling over the edge–right, Mike? > [@](#): > > Folk biology intuited an élan vital flowing through all living things, which in their functional design were believed to have been created ex nihilo by an intelligent designer. Huh? The belief that God created the world has _nothing_ directly to do with “biology,” folk or otherwise. And I’m not sure which “folk” supposedly believed in an “elan vital.” Hey, you at least have to set up straw men before you can knock them down! > [@](#): > > Folk psychology compelled us to search for the homunculus in the brain–a ghost in the machine–a mind somehow disconnected from the brain. Here we see Mike being so completely lazy–there’s no other word for it–that he doesn’t both at all to pursue the purported topic of his essay. He’s not distinguishing between people being fooled by their senses (e.g., it the nature of objects to come to rest, the seat of emotions is in the heart as it beats harder and faster when strong emotions are experienced, etc.) and people coming to conclusions, in the past or present, with which 21st century skeptics disagree. The belief in the soul may very well be incorrect, but it has nothing to do with a pathology of “folk science.” > [@](#): > > Folk economics caused us to disdain excessive wealth, label usury a sin and mistrust the invisible hand of the market. This last one is rich, _rich_ I tell you! Mike has figured out economics–libertarianism and skepticism for all! Ol’ Sherm goes on to say precisely… nothing… of substance in the article: > [@](#): > > The reason folk science so often gets it wrong is that we evolved in an environment radically different from the one in which we now live. Again, stupidly phrased. The African Savannah of today is not so different as it was when we became homo sapiens. What he _means_ to say is that we have created a new environment for ourselves–physical, social, and technological–for success in which our brains are not necessarily adequate. This correct observation has nothing to do, however, with a concept of “folk science.” > [@](#): > > Our senses are geared for perceiving objects of middling size–between, say, ants and mountains–not bacteria, molecules and atoms on one end of the scale and stars and galaxies on the other end. Maybe I’m being picky, maybe I value accurate and truthful expression. I dunno, but this isn’t right. We _did_ perceive stars and galaxies many millenia ago, and we made what observations about them we could, many of which were correct. The reason why we were impeded in understanding the atom is completely different from why we did not immediately understand the nature of celestial bodies. Further, in either case, theory was just as important as observation: One doesn’t automatically understand what a virus is by looking at one through an SEM. > [@](#): > > We live a scant three score and 10 years, far too short a time to witness evolution, continental drift or long-term environmental changes. Yeah, but the point is? We _do_ now understand these things based upon observations and theoretical progress over time. He has made no valid point about “folk science” blinding us. > [@](#): > > Causal inference in folk science is equally untrustworthy. We correctly surmise designed objects, such as stone tools, to be the product of an intelligent designer and thus naturally assume that all functional objects, such as eyes, must have also been intelligently designed. Again, that wasn’t “folk science.” A belief in a creative force was the _universal_ belief of the species. The argument from design was not a cause of theistic belief but rather an effect. > [@](#): > > Lacking a cogent theory of how neural activity gives rise to consciousness, we imagine mental spirits floating within our heads. Puhlease. The ancients had to call consciousness _something_, right? So the Romans called it “spiritus,” and they may have had various incorrect notions about the operation of “spiritus,” but that doesn’t mean that their doing their best with what information they had makes them victims of “folk science” any more than our incorrect notions will make us seem victimized 100 years from now. If Mike’s point is that we have better science today than in yesteryear–no argument! But if Mike is claiming or implying that there was an “era of folk science” that greatly impeded our progress as a species, and from which we have been delivered by skepticism and atheism, then he simply hasn’t made his case. He hasn’t even made a sincere attempt. > [@](#): > > We lived in small bands of roaming hunter-gatherers that accumulated little wealth and had no experience of free markets and economic growth. A rich observation, this! Mike ends the article with the typical media skeptic cheapshot: > [@](#): > > The April issue of the American Heart Journal published a comprehensive study directed by Harvard Medical School cardiologist Herbert Benson on the effects of intercessory prayer on the health and recovery of patients undergoing coronary bypass surgery. The 1,802 patients were divided into three groups, two of which were prayed for by members of three religious congregations. Prayers began the night before the surgery and continued daily for two weeks after. Half the prayer recipients were told that they were being prayed for, whereas the other half were told that they might or might not receive prayers. Results showed that prayer itself had no statistically significant effect on recovery. Case closed. OK, lemme guess: Those prayed for actually recovered better–the difference just wasn’t “statistically significant.” I’m sure that’s the case, otherwise Sherm would have cackled, “Those prayed for actually did worse. Haw haw haw!” Not statistically significant, but “case closed”? That’s the only study that’s ever been done, and the only that ever need be done hereafter? Of course, no matter how many peer-reviewed, perfectly primped studies purport to prove the paranormal, it’s never “case closed.” Noooo, those cases are always open. Open! I’m sorry, but my woo-woo intuition tells me that even our hardline Doper skeptics are going to find that Sherm’s article fails to make the grade in many ways. In the meanwhile, please e-mail it to 5 friends, and tell them to e-mail it to five friends. Sklurge for all! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/2 "2006-08-02T06:17:37Z")
What’s the debate? That we shoudl abandon the Scietific method and return to folk science? Or was this suppsoed to be in the pit? I can’t say the article is the most coherent one written, but his point is well taken. The main thing you seem to be missing in the distinction between applied science (what we might call enigneering) and theoretical science. You claim that: > [@](#): > > A modern scientific method was not necessary for considerable progress both in the theoretical and applied sides of science. Which is simply not true. A theoretical structure of physics that was capable of making meaningful predictions didn’t get much off the ground until Galileo and Newton. Engineering can solve problems of the day, but theoretical science makes predictions about what we can do in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/3 "2006-08-02T06:26:56Z")
A while back I offered to stay out of your next psi-based thread (this roughly qualifies, I guess). Should I do so? I genuinely would like to take Shermer’s side (his name was enough to draw me into this thread), but I don’t want to you to feel that I’m somehow oppressing your beliefs, though I might disagree with them. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/4 "2006-08-02T06:30:12Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > I can’t say the article is the most coherent one written, but his point is well taken. The main thing you seem to be missing in the distinction between applied science (what we might call enigneering) and theoretical science. You claim that: I may be missing it, but I can’t _take_ that point from Sherm, as he didn’t present it in his article. > [@](#): > > Which is simply not true. A theoretical structure of physics that was capable of making meaningful predictions didn’t get much off the ground until Galileo and Newton. It’s a matter of opinion. Galileo used to measure time with his pulse. Newton was almost all theory and no experiment. Neither of them had the concept, or anything close to it, of what we’d call the “scientific method.” They both added to science, as had people before them and would after them. > [@](#): > > Engineering can solve problems of the day, but theoretical science makes predictions about what we can do in the future. It doesn’t cut so clean. There is both theory and practice in engineering, too. Theoretical scientific work was done by all the ancient and medieval philosophers: Lucretius and atomic theory, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/5 "2006-08-02T06:32:56Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > A while back I offered to stay out of your next psi-based thread (this roughly qualifies, I guess). Should I do so? I genuinely would like to take Shermer’s side (his name was enough to draw me into this thread), but I don’t want to you to feel that I’m somehow oppressing your beliefs, though I might disagree with them. Take his side, but I’m going to laugh if you think his article a) was well-written b) offered any insightful points. If I were an atheist, I’d still be embarrassed for him. In fact, I don’t need to argue against any of his specific end-user beliefs. It’s his notion of “folk science” and our modern overcoming of it that is so ludicrous. Plus the bad writing. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/6 "2006-08-02T06:56:22Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Take his side, but I’m going to laugh if you think his article a) was well-written b) offered any insightful points. I haven’t even _read_ his article yet. I just wanted to give you a chance to exclude me since I did once make that offer. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/7 "2006-08-02T07:17:35Z")
Huh. It’s a pretty short article about paradigms and such. Our perception of the universe changed as our instruments improved, letting us detect things beyond the senses evolution provided us. In many cases, the older paradigms hang around in one form or another. Sure, the ancients had a lot of impressive accomplishments. Arguably, that _was_ modern science in its earliest form, since it relied on procedures that were empirically known for consistent success, and not just the occasional lucky success that a soothsayer might get from examining goat entrails and making predictions. The Romans might have rendered prayers and sacrifices to the gods in hopes their aqueduct projects would succeed, but engineering and math did the actual work. Shermer doesn’t give nice tidy demarcations for the ancient vs the modern world. You have a valid point that some aspects we’d consider “modern” go back quite a ways, while Shermer’s point is that aspects that should be considered “ancient” are still around today. I don’t know what you were expecting from a 600-word essay. I got the impression from your OP that you were critiquing a much larger work. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/8 "2006-08-02T07:19:09Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > The flat earth canard!? According to Wikipedia, “The Earth’s circumference was measured around 240 BC by Eratosthenes,” who got very close to the correct figure. I suppose Columbus’s crew were afraid of falling over the edge–right, Mike? So, what are you contending here? That nobody ever believed the earth was flat? That it doesn’t LOOK flat, and like the sky rotates around us? ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/9 "2006-08-02T07:26:32Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Mike ends the article with the typical media skeptic cheapshot:OK, lemme guess: Those prayed for actually recovered better–the difference just wasn’t “statistically significant.” I’m sure that’s the case, otherwise Sherm would have cackled, “Those prayed for actually did worse. Haw haw haw!” > > Not statistically significant, but “case closed”? That’s the only study that’s ever been done, and the only that ever need be done hereafter? Oh, and incidentally, in that study, the people who knew they were being prayed for _did_ fare worse than those who weren’t prayed for, or those who were prayed for but didn’t know about it. But don’t let me interrupt your calm, reasoned discussion of Michael Shermer’s cackling. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/10 "2006-08-02T07:41:41Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I may be missing it, but I can’t _take_ that point from Sherm, as he didn’t present it in his article.It’s a matter of opinion. Galileo used to measure time with his pulse. Newton was almost all theory and no experiment. Neither of them had the concept, or anything close to it, of what we’d call the “scientific method.” That is incorrect. > [@](#): > > Newton invented a scientific method which was truly universal in its scope. Newton presented his methodology as a set of four rules for scientific reasoning. These rules were stated in the Principia and proposed that (1) we are to admit no more causes of natural things such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances, (2) the same natural effects must be assigned to the same causes, (3) qualities of bodies are to be esteemed as universal, and (4) propositions deduced from observation of phenomena should be viewed as accurate until other phenomena contradict them. > > These four concise and universal rules for investigation were truly revolutionary. From [here](http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Newton.html). While it is not the standard we use today, all those points are extremely valid. Second, the fact that Galileo did not have an accurate method of keeping time does not mean that he did not understand the importance of measuring time in experiments. He used what he had available at the time. It wasn’t even close to perfect but it was good enough for the experiments he was doing. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/11 "2006-08-02T12:30:48Z")
> [@chorpler](#): > > Oh, and incidentally, in that study, the people who knew they were being prayed for _did_ fare worse than those who weren’t prayed for, or those who were prayed for but didn’t know about it. But don’t let me interrupt your calm, reasoned discussion of Michael Shermer’s cackling. Yes, incidentally, Sherm misrepresented the study. From the [Harvard Gazette](http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/04.06/05-prayer.html): > [@](#): > > In total, complications occurred in 59 percent of those who were prayed for, compared with 51 percent of those who received no prayers, a significant difference. > > Deaths during the 30 days after surgery were similar across groups, 13 and 16 in the prayed-for group, 14 in the no-prayer group. > > The big mystery is why there was an excess of complications in patients who knew all those people were praying for them. The researchers admit they have “no clear explanation.” > > One theory is that those who knew so many outsiders were praying for them felt a stressful anxiety to do well. “It might have made them uncertain, wondering, Am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?” says Charles Bethea, a cardiologist at Integris Baptist Medical Center, who was part of the research group in Oklahoma City. > > “We found increased amounts of adrenalin, a sign of stress, in the blood of patients who knew strangers were praying for them,” notes Dusek, who is also associate research director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute. “It’s possible that we inadvertently raised the stress levels of these people.” So, there was, contrary to Sherm’s specific words, a “statistically significant difference.” Prayer made people do worse, and the researchers ended up struggling to find an explanation for _that_. My take is this: Intentions _do_ make a difference, as the study showed. Further, it’s clear that someone involved with the experiment had to inform the patients of their status (or not, for 1/3 of the group). It’s quite possible that these people (whether they were atheists or overhopeful theists) could have twisted the intentionality of the prayers to affect the subjects negatively. I find the “raise in stress level” explanation to be a little _just so_ unless they were really bugging these people about how they were being prayed for. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/12 "2006-08-02T12:49:37Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Huh. It’s a pretty short article about paradigms and such. Our perception of the universe changed as our instruments improved, letting us detect things beyond the senses evolution provided us. In many cases, the older paradigms hang around in one form or another. Nicely put. Add some interesting examples, and you’ll have written the article Mike should have written. > [@](#): > > Sure, the ancients had a lot of impressive accomplishments. Arguably, that _was_ modern science in its earliest form, since it relied on procedures that were empirically known for consistent success, and not just the occasional lucky success that a soothsayer might get from examining goat entrails and making predictions. And _my_ point, which you seem to be agreeing with, is that there is no need for an ancient/modern demarcation in the first place. Like it or not, religious/irrational belief has existed side by side with scientific/rational inquiry since time immemorial. > [@](#): > > The Romans might have rendered prayers and sacrifices to the gods in hopes their aqueduct projects would succeed, but engineering and math did the actual work. Which is not to say that the prayers and rituals did harm. At the very least, they made public the intentions of their society and helped to create cooperation for the task at hand, etc. > [@](#): > > Shermer doesn’t give nice tidy demarcations for the ancient vs the modern world. No, but he’s struggling to make a point that he never ends up making. It’s awful writing. > [@](#): > > You have a valid point that some aspects we’d consider “modern” go back quite a ways, while Shermer’s point is that aspects that should be considered “ancient” are still around today. I don’t know what you were expecting from a 600-word essay. I got the impression from your OP that you were critiquing a much larger work. I expect good writing and clear thinking from a media skeptic like Shermer who’s given a major pub as a soapbox. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/13 "2006-08-02T12:51:07Z")
Gulp. I agree with **Aeschines** for the most part. It’s sloppy, patronising and full of half truths. It’s glurge. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/14 "2006-08-02T13:43:59Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > > [@Michael Shermer](#): > > > > The reason folk science so often gets it wrong is that we evolved in an environment radically different from the one in which we now live. > > Again, stupidly phrased. The African Savannah of today is not so different as it was when we became homo sapiens. What he _means_ to say is that we have created a new environment for ourselves–physical, social, and technological–for success in which our brains are not necessarily adequate. I’d ask you to explain the relevance of this point, but that would be unfair (as it is impossible for you to produce that which does not exist). The current world is different from the world in which humans evolved, and as a result intuitions shaped by the former may be misleading in the latter. Whether those differences were caused by natural events, human engineering, or mice upgrading their world-computer is irrelevant. > [@](#): > > He has made no valid point about “folk science” blinding us. On the contrary. Let’s look at two of his examples (you know, those things you think he should have added because you didn’t notice that he already had): > [@Michael Shermer](#): > > We correctly surmise designed objects, such as stone tools, to be the product of an intelligent designer and thus naturally assume that all functional objects, such as eyes, must have also been intelligently designed. This **exact** argument is raised so incessantly that I’m morally certain that every creationist author has programmed his word processor to cut-and-paste it at a single keystroke. > [@Michael Shermer](#): > > We lived in small bands of roaming hunter-gatherers that accumulated little wealth and had no experience of free markets and economic growth. What’s your explanation for the blanket Biblical, Koranic, etc prohibitions on charging interest, if not a misapplication of a custom that makes sense in the context of helping a friend or relative through a rough patch but not in the context of modern business investment? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/15 "2006-08-02T13:51:17Z")
Sorry Aeschines, but you’re wrong. The distinction between knowledge before the modern scientific method and what we have today is decent enough to draw a telling distinction. You raise counter-examples that are basically just off point. While it’s true that people were capable of figuring stuff out prior to a scientific method being formally defined and widely accepted, and even many times getting things right, that doesn’t mean that the modern scientific method wasn’t necessary and didn’t radically change anything. It’s nice that someone figured out that the earth was round and even about HOW round (though, of course, they did it by applying something very akin to the scientific method), but the idea didn’t spread or survive or continue to be confirmed so that it was widely understood or appreciated. There was no large and persistent body of checks and counter-checks: just some guys who wrote some books that some other people read, maybe. And the fact is, Shermer is right, and you basically have to be in pure denial about history to doubt it: all sorts of beliefs with very little support or meaning at all survived and were even the basis for entire societies, all because there was little sense that all testible truth claims should be tested. All the examples he gives of this are perfectly valid. Again, it’s nice that some people figured out that the earth wasn’t flat with a dome. But the reality is that this is what most people believed for a long long time, unimpeded, in part because there wasn’t commonly any sense in which it made sense to anyone to test or question recieved thinking. That’s all different now. And while that doesn’t prevent us from being wrong, at least most of time we’re at least wrong for the right reasons (i.e. we figured things out as best we could, as opposed to simply taking mostly everything on faith). Trial and error works as a sort of proto-scientific method. But it’s not good enough, and pure trial and error without a large community of checks and challenges often ends up with all sorts of superstitious connections and elaborately wrong conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/16 "2006-08-02T15:01:10Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I may be missing it, but I can’t _take_ that point from Sherm, as he didn’t present it in his article. As I said, it’s a sloppy article. > [@](#): > > It’s a matter of opinion. Galileo used to measure time with his pulse. Newton was almost all theory and no experiment. Neither of them had the concept, or anything close to it, of what we’d call the “scientific method.” They both added to science, as had people before them and would after them. There is nothing unscientific about using one’s pulse to measure time. Given the instruments of the time, it was a reasonable thing to do. Galileo challenged the conventional wisdom about motion and falling bodies as no one had before him. His method of taking data and analyzing it mathematically was a revolutionary idea at the time. Perhaps it’s hard to see just how revolutionary that was because we take it for granted that mathematical models help us understand the physical world, but someone had to show us that first. Someone being Galileo. And Newton was fortunate in that he didn’t have to take a lot of measurements because other people had already done that. His brilliance was in developing a theory that not only explained the existing data, but made new predictions. That’s what science is about. For example, it’s one thing to observe a pattern of lunar inclipses and then being able to predict the next one. It’s another thing entirely to understand why lunar eclipses occur in the first place. > [@](#): > > It doesn’t cut so clean. There is both theory and practice in engineering, too. Theoretical scientific work was done by all the ancient and medieval philosophers: Lucretius and atomic theory, etc. How much of that theoretical work do we use today? ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/17 "2006-08-02T16:18:20Z")
> [@Steve MB](#): > > The current world is different from the world in which humans evolved, and as a result intuitions shaped by the former may be misleading in the latter. Whether those differences were caused by natural events, human engineering, or mice upgrading their world-computer is irrelevant. Can you think of any substantial difference than our technology and greater body of knowledge? To say “the world has changed” is a misleading way of saying, “Our evolution is slow, our pace of technical innovation is fast, and that mismatch continously causes problems.” > [@](#): > > This **exact** argument is raised so incessantly that I’m morally certain that every creationist author has programmed his word processor to cut-and-paste it at a single keystroke. I repeat: The argument from intelligent design was never a _cause_ of theism in ancient peoples, who universally believed in a higher power. It’s been part of Christian apologetics since the Middle Ages, perhaps earlier, but it was not a part of “folk science.” > [@](#): > > What’s your explanation for the blanket Biblical, Koranic, etc prohibitions on charging interest, if not a misapplication of a custom that makes sense in the context of helping a friend or relative through a rough patch but not in the context of modern business investment? Who knows, that’s a big sociological question? But do you think Shermer’s concept of “folk economics” gets us any closer to the truth (presumably the truth of libertarianism)? ---
**Author:** ![spazattak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@spazattak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spazattak)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/18 "2006-08-02T16:29:56Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Can you think of any substantial difference than our technology and greater body of knowledge? You mean other than the atmosphere, climates and resident plant an animal life? ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/19 "2006-08-02T16:58:31Z")
> [@spazattak](#): > > You mean other than the atmosphere, climates and resident plant an animal life? Those are “substantial differences”? The climate of Africa 100,000 years ago on the Savannah, the plants and animals, are substantially different? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980/20 "2006-08-02T17:08:49Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Can you think of any substantial difference than our technology and greater body of knowledge? “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln…” > [@](#): > > To say “the world has changed” is a misleading way of saying, “Our evolution is slow, our pace of technical innovation is fast, and that mismatch continously causes problems.” I don’t see how the shorter version is “misleading”; it’s just less precise. Either one is apropos to Shermer’s (perfectly valid) point that intuition can be misleading about phenomena that were not a common part of human experience until fairly recently. > [@](#): > > I repeat: The argument from intelligent design was never a _cause_ of theism in ancient peoples, who universally believed in a higher power. Yes, and they universally believed that the “higher power” had initially created the world. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-shermers-sciam-column-skeptics-glurge/366980.md?page=2)