The Alleged Threat of Scientism

I sometimes use an organizing tag of “Sometimes a Blurb is Enough” for books in which the blurb is enough to tell us we do not need the read a book. (The maxim is “don’t judge a book by its cover . . . so it is okay to judge them by their blurbs.)

The book I am looking at is “Science Unlimited? The Challenges of Scientism” and the blurb (off of Goodreads’ website) is:

All too often in contemporary discourse, we hear about science overstepping its proper limits—about its brazenness, arrogance, and intellectual imperialism. The problem, critics say, is the privileging of science over all other ways of knowing. Science, they warn, cannot do or explain everything, no matter what some enthusiasts believe. In Science Unlimited? , noted philosophers of science Maarten Boudry and Massimo Pigliucci gather a diverse group of scientists, science communicators, and philosophers of science to explore the limits of science and this alleged threat of scientism.

Long ago, the study of nature was called natural philosophy and we were all together. Along came “the Scientific Revolution” and modern science was born, as was specialization. Traditionally the “Scientific Revolution” is considered to have begun with Copernicus, but this is a subject of debate. But scientists did begin to “specialize” increasingly at about this time. Soon, there were botanists, astronomers, chemists, physicists, medical doctors, etc.

Scientific approaches to studying nature became more and more successful and science is now considered the primary tool for studying nature. If you suggest that botany could be studied more effectively through prayer, don’t expect your grants to get funded.

In fact science became so successful that other academic studies wanted to bask in a similar glory and so, well, changes were made. The “Social Studies” became the “Social Sciences.” Economics became immersed in math, when before it barely required accounting skills, now calculus is often required for undergraduate degrees in economics. And the “Nobel Prize” in economics is called the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences.” (It is not one of the original Nobel Prizes, so technically it is not a Nobel Prize, but it is just tacked onto the list.)

Psychology considers itself to be a science, etc. Whether it is or isn’t isn’t the point. What is the point is how much uncertainty is involved.

It is only human to think “if it worked over there, maybe it will work here.” So, many people in non-scientific fields have chosen to try out scientific methods to see if they work. As a result, the traditionalists in those fields take umbrage at those rejecting the more traditional approaches of those “studies” to use newfangled scientific approaches. The traditionalists are, in essence, defending their turfs.

Harrumph, a science of ethics, harrumph! Egad, science applied to religion, how dare they! Thus the pushback under an umbrella of “scientism,” being “an excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques.” And comments like “Science, they warn, cannot do or explain everything, no matter what some enthusiasts believe.” But . . . how can we know if no one tries? There is a big difference between an arrogant approach, e.g. “this will work” and a hopeful one “this might work.”

As to “privileging of science over all other ways of knowing” the phrase “other ways of knowing” is usually used in contexts in which people talk about learning through mystical/religious revelations. Note—the word revelation refers to something being revealed and implies a revealer, so you can see why this is popular with the god-botherers. What are these other ways of knowing? Why haven’t they been characterized and studied in detail? I suggest it is because it is better leaving them “as part of the mystery,” and in so doing allowing them to make their claims without dissenters.

Scientists were often accused of destroying the mystery of life. For example, nasty chemists and botanists studied the appearances of the “fall colors” of deciduous trees and found out why those colors changed. The mysterians moaned, “You are destroying the essence of the beauty.” On the other hand, I adore the fall colors and collect pictures of them, but my appreciation is deeper than those who just “look at the pretty colors.” I know why those colors appear and what chemicals are involved and that makes them even more profoundly beautiful.

It is telling that these “science is destroying the mysteries of life” folk don’t attack art historians who look at the brush techniques and paint compositions of master painters. They can tell a painting’s authenticity from the weave in the canvas it is painted on, or the woods used to make the stretchers. In those cases “destroying the mystery” includes identifying the forgeries. (And don’t get me started on the Shroud of Turin.) They just want some mysteries to exist so they can claim only their god can understand them.

Must See TV?

If you, as I, grew up as a Beatles fan, there is a fabulous interview of Paul McCartney on Hulu. It is called “McCartney: 3, 2, 1” (cute, counting in the interview)

There are tidbits galore, mostly about McCartney’s creative process and the Beatles process as well. You can learn what “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” actually referred to (Hint: it wasn’t lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD).

I found Paul McCartney forthcoming, even singing a bit of the first song he ever wrote (at age 14). He shared his fears, his loves, and all in between but mostly he shared his love for music. Numerous songs were played on a multi-track editing machine and using master tapes (copies, I hope) they were able to dissect various parts of the songs they attended to. I was, at first puzzled by strips of tape laid across this deck but finally realized that those tapes, when laid across the bottom row of “buttons” labeled what each track was on each particular recording.

It is clear that PM still loves music, loves his music and never reached the “I am so sick of this song” stage so clearly accessible to other artists. His enthusiasm and honestly were on clear display.

If you are a Beatles fan or just interested in the process of creativity you will love this extended interview of a musical icon.

Oh, Yeah, AIs are Going to Change Everything

So, AIs apparently are the shiny new toy for people to play with (closer to a laser pointer used to torment cats). The GOP must love AIs, because they are major distractions from real issues, and they hold the promise of replacing many workers. In any case, some enterprising person decided to ask an AI how it sees us. So, an avatar for every US state, if it were a person, was pumped out according to the AI asked.

Immediately one can see that this AI, and many others by implication, is a bullshit monger because the 50 state portraits showed mostly quite attractive people, a minority of homely people, and no truly ugly people. My estimation is that most people are homely looking, a substantial number are ugly, and very, very few are quite attractive.

Maybe the persons asking for these “portraits” were the State’s Chambers of Commerce or Bureaus of Travel and Leisure.

Then I got to the end of the list and . . . Whoa! Jesus is alive and well, hiding in Utah apparently.

Utah’s avatar, aka Jesus!

His second coming just couldn’t push Trump off of the front pages of the nation’s news organs.

Reread Much?

I am an avid reader, not fast just persistent. I enjoy greatly fantasy and science fiction works and I learned early on a simple lesson: don’t start a multi-volume work until they are all available. I learned this in college. I acquired a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring (the infamous Ace Paperback version) and while I had trouble getting going once I did, I stayed up quite late for several nights only to learn that it was the first volume of a trilogy. Like a maniac I drove to my favorite bookstore and was able to get The Two Towers, but they had run out of the third volume. So, I searched avidly as I tore through the second volume, finding the third volume just in time.

I followed this rule for a long time. I also broke that rule because several of may favorite authors wrote trilogies of trilogies, sometimes more. One of my favorites, C.J. Cherryh, has written 21 volumes in her Foreigner series (putting her on a path to a trilogy of trilogies of trilogies). I read each one when it comes out; they are just too good. (This series is like an old movie serial short, each book starts up where the previous one left off . . . and I have read all of her other works, too, many, many dozens of them.)

I did make a mistake, however, when I was sucked into the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. The author warned us that he planned on the thing to be 12 volumes. And if you look at the publication history (see below), you can see that the final 14 volumes took almost 23 years to publish. The problem with this kind of work is that it may never be finished. (Will George R.R. Martin ever finish Game of Thrones?) In the case of Robert Jordan, he died before the series was finished! But he left copious notes and Brandon Sanderson was hired to finish/write the last three volumes (which he did brilliantly).

Each book averages 306,277 words and 702 pages, which was good because there was like 21 months to wait for the next volume (on average). But I don’t read that slowly so when the next volume came around, it was many months since I finished the last one.

The Wheel of Time Publication Schedule

The Eye of the World  January 15, 1990
The Great Hunt           November 15, 1990
The Dragon Reborn    October 15, 1991
The Shadow Rising      September 15, 1992
The Fires of Heaven    October 15, 1993
Lord of Chaos             October 15, 1994
A Crown of Swords     May 15, 1996
The Path of Daggers    October 20, 1998
Winter’s Heart             November 7, 2000
Crossroads of Twilight January 7, 2003
Knife of Dreams          October 11, 2005
The Gathering Storm   October 27, 2009
Towers of Midnight     November 2, 2010
A Memory of Light      January 8, 2013
Totals   11,898pp (PB) / 10,173pp (HB)           4,410,036 words            19d 5h 25m reading time

So, for my last birthday, I gave myself a gift. I had since given away my hardbound copies of the Wheel of Time books, so I purchased the Kindle versions and I am re-reading the series. I am currently in volume six. And I am frankly amazed.

I wonder if this is how people with Alzheimer’s disease feel. It is as if I am reading this for the first time. I do remember most of the main characters, but much of the details about them I remembered incorrectly or not at all.

And I love long books. I have read Tolkien’s trilogy many times (as well as listening to the audio versions several times (while commuting). But the number of characters and storylines in this work borders upon the bizarre. And, like many male authors, I find his characterizations of his female characters shallow. I have to ask myself whether half of the characters and storylines advance the narrative at all and we would be better off without them. One count lists 2,782 characters in the series, 148 of which are point of view characters at one point or another. I wish Jordan had followed the Rule of Parsimony, like Jack Vance, say, and trimmed this down to six or seven volumes.

I find myself skipping through parts that drag, being able to pick up the narrative fairly easily down the road. And, yes, things are always more complicated than we think, but this is supposed to be an entertainment, not a lesson in realpolitik.

I am enjoying the effort but find myself shifting to another book for a while when the plot drags. On my eBook reader, another book is just a tap away and I, as usual, have several dozen “in progress.”

I Love eBooks!

I have spent a good part of my life hunting books. Some took years to find, others took weeks or months. Back when there were small bookstores, actually now bookstores of any kind, I almost couldn’t drive past one; I had to stop for a quick browse. One set I collected over many, many years was the Andrew Lang “Fairly Books” that were differentiated by color, e.g. the Yellow Fairy Book, the Green Fairy Book, etc. These books were collections of fairy tales from various countries, and these were the non-Disneyfied versions so I found more than a few shocking.

There is a scholarly opinion that these tales were written to prepare children for the greater world around them, so scaring the Hell out of them was appropriate.

In any case, I just got all nine volumes, which I think that is the whole kit and caboodle, in two sets for . . . wait for it . . . less than $5, total. I gleefully paid $5 for a single volume at a Friends of the Library sale, often more.

Now eBooks do not have all of the feels and smells of physical books, but they also don’t have the weight or require the book shelf space as those paper books, either. And I do miss cruising around in bookstores. But. . . .

I am oh, so happy!

Postscript I have been lightening the load over the past years (so my son won’t need a dump truck when I die) and have given away many, many books (and more, but books are what I had most of). This is why I no longer had the hard copies of those books. And, if a book is cheap enough, I will buy it and donate my hard copy to the Friends of the Library or other good steward.

Repetitious Comedy

One of my favorite comedians is Jim Gaffigan. (Relax, I also like Dave Chappelle.) In any case Mr. Gaffigan was quoted in an interview recently, saying:

“As a standup, I’m on my 10^th hour now. And I view standup shows as a conversation among friends. And the friends we really like, they challenge us. Whereas the people that only want to have the same conversation with you, over and again – you get bored of them.”

When I read the phrase “the people that only want to have the same conversation with you, over and again – you get bored of them” two words popped into my head—Victor Borge.

As far as I can tell, Mr. Borge, a Danish-American comedian, told the exact same jokes for at least 60 years. I saw a live performance of his in San Francisco very late in his career, and it was very funny and very enjoyable, yet we all knew what the punch lines were and when they were coming. (Mr. Borge’s timing was world class.)

Now, Jim Gaffigan was making the point that stand-up comedians had to evolve, while at the same time doing familiar bits to satisfy the wants of the audience. I suggest that the wants of the audience are often “tell the ones I know,” rather than “whip a new one on me.” If you have ever attended a rock concert, the loudest audience responses are from the “old hits.” Maybe we just want top hear our favorite recordings in live performance, I don’t know. I do know that bands like the Beatles admitted that they often rearranged their old hits so they wouldn’t be bored to tears playing them, so there is that aspect, too.

A Response to the Salman Rushdie Attack

After seeing the attack on Salman Rushdie, I felt powerless to do anything and then I remember the Barbra Streisand Effect. So, I went online and bought a copy of Satanic Verses and I will read it, thereby spreading the message the religious idiots wanted to suppress. I suggest that you do the same. It puts a few dollars in the author’s pocket and spreads words that the zealots don’t want spread. Let’s drive Satanic Verses to the top of the bestsellers lists . . . again.

Signposts on the Way to Oblivion

I just read this year’s (2021) list of winners of Nebula Awards. Of the writings listed I discovered that I had just bought one of them (at a great discount, which I assume will disappear now the book is a Nebula Award winner).

I have been reading science fiction and fantasy books since I was 13. I am now 75, so it has been 62 years over which I have read myriad such books (all of Edgar Rice Burroughs, all of the Wheel of Time, all of Andre Norton, all of C.J. Cherryh, Tolkien, Jules Verne, all of Isaac Asimov, most of Robert Heinlein, all of Robert Silverberg, all of Michelle Sagara, All of C.S. Friedman, much of Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey, all of Jack Vance, all of P.K. Dick, much of Katherine Kurtz, and on and on . . .) and I still read dozens and dozens of such books every year. The interesting thing to me is that when I looked at the Nebula Award works, including the runners-up, I did not recognize a single author’s name, not one.

I have officially been passed by.

Netflix, Please Give the Atmospheric Scores a Day Off

I tuned in to watch a new Netflix movie, Without Remorse, with Michael B Jordan, an actor I like to watch. I had to turn it off several minutes later because of one of Netflix’s bad habits. It funds many movies and most of them have very “atmospheric” soundtracks, that is the music is almost continuous and mood setting. It also makes the movies hard on those of us who are a bit hard of hearing.

After struggling to hear and then make sense of the dialogue, I get frustrated and just turn the show off. And it is not that I haven’t tried other things. I watch a fair number of foreign generated shows, which use subtitles for those who don’t speak Korean, or Japanese, or Spanish. I do not mind this but it has certain limitations. When an English language show is on, I can go to the bathroom or the kitchen and still follow what is happening. If I am dependent upon subtitles, if I lose sight of them all I hear is words I do not understand. I either have to pause the show or rewind it when I get back (sometimes the bathroom calls strongly).

I do understand what a good movie soundtrack does, but I am learning what a bad movie soundtrack does now. Are any of you experiencing the same issue?

Made You Look—A Documentary

Last night I watched an interesting documentary about a massive art fraud in New York City. In the late 1990s and much of 2000s $80 million of fake paintings were sold as if legitimate. The pieces had sketchy provenance, so they were often “authenticated” by experts.

This is a fascinating documentary, well done, but a number of points were never mentioned or were glossed over.

The Authenticating “Experts” Were Full of Shit
Various experts were asked to “authenticate” these paintings and often did so wholeheartedly, even though they turned out to be fakes. This process has been shown to be flawed over and over but keeps being used. If a new painting is discovered, one not seen in catalogues of the artist’s works, an expert should go no further than to comment something along the lines of “It appears to be in this artist’s style and the painting appears to be of an appropriate age.” That’s it. But these “experts” were stumbling all over themselves to state that the paintings were authentic, something that couldn’t be told without extensive testing. When the extensive testing was done, some of the pigments hadn’t been invented until after the artist died, which is kind of a clue, don’t you think?

The experts basically should limit there comments on a previously unknown painting to “is worth further testing.”

Collectors were Glowing About the Fakes
When the fakes were purchased, the new owners loved those paintings, gushed about how beautiful they were, etc. so they were good art, no? But when they were proved to be fakes the collectors were outraged. Clearly they were not buying art for the sake of the art. They, instead, wanted to brag about how much money it cost, or that it was painted by a famous painter, or looked at it as an investment, but these people never say things like: ”It was such a good bargain, I could see myself selling it for a nice profit is just a few years.” or “I wanted to snatch this up before a bidding war started. It will be much more valuable in time.” So, these hypocrites gush over the quality of the painting but are outraged when they find out that it was faked. Apparently they can distinguish between fake beauty and real beauty . . . not.

This Has Been Going On for Years
This was mentioned a couple of times. It was not a surprise to find out that the forger/painter was a Chinese gentleman. Whether he was a willing participant in the fraud was not determined because there is a tradition in China of copying other works (and not just China). These copies are often sold quite cheaply to people who could not come close to affording the real thing. Much like we have posters of famous art works to hang on our plebian walls. It was suspicious, of course, the lengths gone to to use period and artist correct materials, which would not be necessary for “decorative art pieces.”

Art students are often seen in museums copying masterworks as exercises. And when the originals are being sold for millions, the temptation is there. In this case the works copied were those of American Expressionists (not my cup of tea) which are random enough to be more easily copied, also materials of the age these were created (1950s and 1960s) are still available.

Fueling all of this were prices of hundreds of thousands paid by the art dealer for paintings that sold for much more, even millions. This was a point critics say should have cause alarms to go off, but since greed is the driving force of this age, no one noticed anything sketchy for over a decade.