Sexual economics, a theory in need of reworking

Recently, my attention was caught by the idea of the "sexual marketplace".  Specifically, there's a theory of sexual economics created by Baumeister and Vohs.  If you'd rather not read the paper, the Austin Institute* made a fancy video about it:



*Apparently, it's a think tank run by Mark Regnerus.  Yes, that Mark Regnerus.

Note that the video makes a bunch of claims about how people should behave, rather than just how they do behave.  I'll get to that part later. 

Basic Sexonomics

Baumeister and Vohs (B&V) model sex as an exchange that takes place within a marketplace.  We're ignoring everything except straight sex because, sure, that's ~90% of the sex.  So far, fine with me.  Since I'm a physicist I think you can make a simple model of anything.

But B&V add one extra component to the theory.  Men like sex more than women.  Therefore, sex is "sold" by women, and "bought" by men.  Men don't typically pay in money, but instead may offer

a fancy dinner, or a long series of compliments, or a month of respectful attention, or a lifetime promise to share all his wealth and earnings with her exclusively.

I'll just grant, for the sake of argument, that men really do want sex more than women, and I won't discuss whether that's cultural or biological.  The idea that women are "sellers" doesn't follow.

In general, sex is an exchange where both parties benefit, regardless of whether anything is bartered for it.  There are people who don't like sex, but they're not really participating in the market.  You'd think people would just have sex all the time, but I suppose you need time for other stuff and there's probably diminishing returns.  I also suppose there's also some opportunity cost associated with having sex with this person rather than that one.

Anyway, you can imagine supply and demand curves, where the demand curve is the marginal value to men, and the supply curve is the marginal "cost" to women.  Since sex is valuable to both parties, the "cost" is actually negative, but whatever.  The efficient market price is at the intersection of the supply and demand curves.  Since men want more sex than women, the efficient market price is positive (from men's perspective).

I worked really hard on this graph so you know it's right. 

However, it is not clear to me that the pricing will be the same across the board.  That may be true in the case of interchangeable products like bread, but is clearly not the case for people.  It may be the case that on the margins, paying women for sex can be the only way to make mutually beneficial agreements, but it's not obvious that this applies to the market as a whole.  For people who positively value sex, a large range of prices are possible (anywhere between the supply and demand curve shown above).

It is not merely that each person has a different valuation of sex.  It's that the value of sex is a function of both who you are and who you're having sex with.  I don't know how you get from this two-variable function to the supply and demand curves. I don't know if it's even sensible to speak of supply and demand curves.  You can't just assume that all human variation automagically averages out.

B&V also repeatedly emphasize that men are paying by giving the women committed relationships.  So the sexual market, where women sell sex, is coupled to a relationship market, where men sell relationships.  The thing is, like sex, relationships also benefit both parties, and again they ignore that aspect.

This all makes me wonder, where are B&V getting this from?

Although not many others have explicitly discussed sex as a female resource, we believe that that view is implicit, though often unstated, in many writings.  For example, Wilson (2001) recently published a widely influential sociological analysis of the decline of marriage in Western cultures, in the course of which he found it necessary to invoke unsupported assumptions such as [...]

Translation: "We may not have much evidence for our theory, but other researchers don't have evidence for our theory either, so nyah!"

In fairness, they offer a bunch of other evidence, such as prostitution, and societal attitudes towards infidelity in men and women.  And certainly, you can fit some facts about our culture into the theory.

However, at times it just seems like B&V are really fishing for the "that totally confirms my pre-existing prejudices" response:

Advanced Sexonomics

Typically, a group of men brought back meat for the group and all the meat was shared.  Miller et al. argued that this arrangement obscured individual hunting ability, and therefore women could not easily use gifts of material resources as a sign of long-term mate potential.

Here's the obligatory evopsych just-so story.

A low price of sex favors men, whereas a high price favors women.  Therefore, men will tend to support initiatives that lower the price of sex, whereas women will generally try to support a higher price.

And that's why feminists are in favor of slut-shaming.

Why should a woman care whether men in her community purchase pornographic materials and masturbate? But if pornography satisfies some of the male demand for sex, then it may reduce the total demand for her own sexual favors, and as a result the price she can obtain will be lower.

I guess that is one explanation.

Sexual decision making is likely to be more complex for the woman than the man.  Faced with a suitor desiring sex, she may feel pulled in conflicting directions.

Is there some economic principle that I'm unaware of that says "sellers" are more emotionally conflicted than "buyers"?  (It should be noted that B&V are not economists.)

As social exchange theorists emphasize, the value of any commodity rises and falls with scarcity. [...] By analogy, sex would have high value if the woman has had few lovers or is known to be reluctant to grant sexual favors, whereas the same activity might have less value if the woman is reputed to be loose or to have had many lovers.

In my understanding of economics, the value of a commodity rises and falls with global scarcity.  If one person can sell more of a commodity, they simply earn more profits.  So maybe there are some people who prefer sex with sexually inexperienced people, but that's just an ad hoc preference, not a rational response to the market.

Both men and women said they would be more upset if their partner had sex with a man than a woman.  This fits the view that, in sex, women give and men take.

Again, B&V make it out like this is a rational response to the market, rather than an expression of ad hoc preferences.  I really don't see how this could be.  Most sex benefits both parties, and it only "costs" women in that there is an opportunity cost.

[cw: rape] A milder version [of this theory] thus holds simply that female coercion of male victims lacks an important dimension, namely theft of the resource, and so the trauma and victimization are less severe.

I really don't think the theft of resources is the most important factor for trauma!  It's not like hiring a prostitute and having your check bounce.  Alright, I'm done with this paper!

Normative Sexonomics

Even aside from the merits of sexual economic theory, the video at the top is awful.  It argues that sex has become cheap (because birth control), and therefore men are less likely to pay women with marriage.  The video argues that this is bad.  Therefore, women should collude to make sex more expensive again.

Within their own stupid theory, if there's more sex and less marriage, this satisfies men's preferences.  Why is it bad for men to get what they supposedly want?

Message: Men's desires are destructive to society.

Collusion is kind of a ridiculous idea.  In theory, if enough women collude, this could give them an advantage in a market.  However, the women who are not part of the collusion reap even more benefits, so there's not much incentive to collude.  The only way collusion is possible here is if it's coerced.  For example, by public shaming of women who have sex too freely.

Message: We need more slut-shaming.

Saying "sex is cheap" sure makes it sound bad.  However, within the theory, the more expensive sex is, the less equitable the market is, so cheaper sex means more equality.  Note also that as sex becomes cheaper, sexual economic theory becomes less valid.

Message: Men and women have become more equal, and it's making our theory break down, so we need to stop it!

Five awful things about "God's not Dead"

I saw God's Not Dead, a Christian film that appears to be based on that absurd chain e-mail about the brave Christian student who faces down an atheist professor.  This movie got a 16/100 on metacritic, but still ended up a big box office success.  If you want to know what happens in it without watching it, I recommend this synopsis.

In the world of God's Not Dead, atheists are horrible people who mock their girlfriends in public, abandon people close to them when they're dying, and secretly hate god.  The movie joyously depicts atheists dying by cancer or car accidents, and gloats over their last minute conversions.  Also, all atheist arguments are arguments from authority or assertion (oddly, so are the Christian arguments).

But a lot of that has already been said.  So here I present five things that were awful or bizarre about God's Not Dead that had nothing to do with atheism.

1. The girlfriend from middle school

The main character, Josh Wheaton, mentions that it's his sixth anniversary with his girlfriend.  He's a college freshman.  ...  I suspect the writers didn't think the math through, and just wanted it to seem like they had a long-time commitment.

The six-year commitment makes it all the more devastating when they break up!  Josh's girlfriend demands that he stop trying to challenge his professor, because they need to get good grades so they can go to law school together, like God wants.  Josh stands his ground, so she threatens to break up with him, and then she does.  Wow, how did they stay happy together so long in such an obviously abusive relationship?  Josh, naturally, has no emotional reaction to the breakup whatsoever.

2. A distillation of Muslim stereotypes

Another character, who is utterly unrelated in any way to the protagonist, is Ayisha.  In the presence of her "traditional" Muslim father, she wears what I think is supposed to be a niqab, although it's not remotely accurate.

Her whole plot arc seems to be based on the view that Muslim women wear covers because of direct coercion by male figures in their life, such as their husbands or fathers.  This is pretty much explicit when a student goes up to her and says, "I wish you didn't have to wear that".  Later, when Ayisha converts to Jesus, her father, who loves her very much, beats her and kicks her out.  Gee, I knew these were Muslim stereotypes, but I've never seen them represented so succinctly.

3. The car that won't start

Two Christian pastors are trying to drive... somewhere.  It was explained at some earlier point in the movie, while it was still throwing random characters at us, and I didn't know there was anything worth paying attention to.  But they can't get there because their car won't start.  And then a car rental guy drives a car over to them, and that car won't start either!  And then the scene with the car rental guy is repeated again, for good measure.

Get this: the car rental guy is going to audition for a role in Death of a Salesman.  Why is that relevant?  Who the hell knows?  I don't even understand how he gets to his audition without any transportation.

This whole time I'm thinking, obviously their car doesn't start because God doesn't want them to get on a train that God plans on crashing.  Turns out it's actually because God wants them to convert an atheist and then dance over his grave.  Props to the movie for being unpredictable.

4. That Chinese kid

There's one Chinese student on campus, and he is a visiting student from China.  His entire story arc is that he converts to Christianity, which his family finds inconvenient because maybe the Chinese government won't let his brother visit the US anymore (??).

I am Chinese American, and this is one of the most blatant examples of tokenism I've ever seen.  Couldn't they imagine that some Chinese people actually aren't from China?  It's also suffering from White savior syndrome, wherein a white American male hero rescues a foreigner from his ignorant foreign culture.  I'm pretty sure the Chinese Christian communities are much more effective at converting Chinese people, thanks.

5. The Duck Dynasty cameo

Early in the movie, a character has an interview with the guy from Duck Dynasty.  This served no purpose whatsoever, except to allow some celebrity to spout stuff about Jesus and ducks.  Later I found out from the synopsis that the interview was supposed to be hostile, because the character is an angry blogger.  I totally missed that because the rest of the blogger's story arc is about how she's dying all alone from cancer.

In case you didn't get enough of Duck Dynasty, he makes a second cameo.  For no apparent reason, he shows up at a music concert and encourages everyone to participate in a viral texting campaign (send "God's not dead" to all of your contacts!).  This is, of course, a very good idea, and is well-received by all.

Made in Criticalland

Massimo Pigliucci started a new blog Scientia Salon, which is already bearing fruits.  I enjoyed this essay by Alan Sokal (yes, that Sokal) about academic postmodernists and extreme social constructivists.  In the 80s and 90s there were many such academics claiming that science was entirely based on prejudices.  Interestingly, Sokal claims that they have now backed off from the most extreme views, particularly because they were upset at the way the Bush regime used postmodernism to justify its anti-science policies.

Sokal's primary citation for this is "Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern" by sociologist of science Bruno Latour in 2004.  I thought it was worth a read.

 Latour actually says a lot of great, quotable things about critical theory:

What has become of critique when my neighbor in the little Bourbonnais village where I live looks down on me as someone hopelessly naı̈ve because I believe that the United States had been attacked by terrorists? Remember the good old days when university professors could look down on unsophisticated folks because those hillbillies naı̈vely believed in church, motherhood, and apple pie? Things have changed a lot, at least in my village. I am now the one who naı̈vely believes in some facts because I am educated, while the other guys are too unsophisticated to be gullible: “Where have you been? Don’t you know that the Mossad and the CIA did it?” What has become of critique when someone as eminent as Stanley Fish, the “enemy of promises” as Lindsay Waters calls him, believes he defends science studies, my field, by comparing the laws of physics to the rules of baseball? What has become of critique when there is a whole industry denying that the Apollo program landed on the moon? What has become of critique when DARPA uses for its Total Information Awareness Project the Baconian slogan Scientia est potentia? Didn’t I read that somewhere in Michel Foucault? Has knowledge-slash-power been co-opted of late by the National Security Agency?

Of course conspiracy theories are an absurd deformation of our own arguments, but, like weapons smuggled through a fuzzy border to the wrong party, these are our weapons nonetheless. In spite of all the deformations, it is easy to recognize, still burnt in the steel, our trademark: Made in Criticalland.

Latour uses an extended war analogy, although it's not clear who he thinks his enemy is.  It's something something capitalism something.  He talks about reassessing our tools of war as the times change, which seems to really mean changing his epistemology to better fit the conclusions that he had already decided on.  He only knew his epistemology (ie scientific facts are purely social constructs) was wrong when other people used the same epistemology to come to conclusions he didn't like.  But okay, his epistemology was terrible, so it's probably a good thing if he gets rid of it.

A third of a way through the paper, it takes a sudden turn towards the incomprehensible.  I found it so baffling, that my mind could only interpret it as a series of non sequitur jokes.  So I laughed.  I feel the same way I do about many an unwanted commenter on my blog.  "It's not that I disagree with you, it's that I literally don't understand what I would be agreeing or disagreeing with!"

It begins with Latour introducing his solution to critical theory's problem:

What I am going to argue is that the critical mind, if it is to renew itself and be relevant again, is to be found in the cultivation of a stubbornly realist attitude—to speak like William James—but a realism dealing with what I will call matters of concern, not matters of fact.

Curiously, "matters of concern" and "matters of fact" are crucial to Latour's thesis, but they are not immediately defined, nor ever defined.  I can only guess at the definition based on contextual clues scattered throughout the article.

This is immediately followed by a long discussion of Heidegger's distinction between objects and things.  (I can see why Heidegger is famous for being so opaque, even compared to other philosophers.)  A handmade jug is a thing (which is a celebrated category), while a can of Coke is merely an object.  On first glance it sounds like Heidegger is merely conveying his prejudices, his romanticization of handmade objects.  Latour appears to agree.

But rather than dismissing the distinction between objects and things, as I would, Latour argues that objects and things have been complicated in the modern era.  For instance, when the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia had their disasters, they transformed from objects into things.  I don't know what conclusion Latour draws from this, because I cannot make sense of how he describes his conclusion:

My point is thus very simple: things have become Things again, objects have reentered the arena, the Thing, in which they have to be gathered first in order to exist later as what stands apart.

 Latour goes on to describe the current state of critical theory:

We can summarize, I estimate, 90 percent of the contemporary critical scene by the following series of diagrams that fixate the object at only two positions, what I have called the fact position and the fairy position—fact and fairy are etymologically related but I won’t develop this point here. The fairy position is very well known and is used over and over again by many social scientists who associate criticism with antifetishism.

To Latour's credit, he at least immediately defines what the fairy position is, though I don't understand his definition.  I'm not sure why it is necessary to observe the etymological relation between fact and fairy--perhaps in Criticalland, unlike everywhere else, etymology is destiny?

 

 Figure 2: I think that the dark circles represent "facts" and the white circles are "fetishes".  I think the circles on the left might be the "fairy" position, and the ones on the right the "fact" position?  I'm honestly not sure.  This is the first in a series of diagrams, none of which have captions.  I'll spare you from the others.

Latour goes on and on about this.  But to be honest I couldn't read the whole thing, because at this point my palm was in the way.  I'm not saying that Latour's article is nonsense because it's incomprehensible--papers in my own field, condensed matter physics, are also notoriously impenetrable.  But I get the sense that the underlying things being described are rather simple, and that nothing really justifies being so opaque.

Why this person is no longer a skeptic

I found this essay called Why I am no longer a skeptic, by Stephen Bond, and I was immediately sympathetic.  I think that one can agree with the values of skepticism, and feel disconnected from the skeptical identity, the community, and the institutions.  The essay seemed to express this view, at first.

Then it turned out that the whole thing was a bunch of mischaracterizations and unsupported assertions.  The essay successfully explains what it purports to explain--why the author is no longer a skeptic.  It does not make a persuasive case that anyone should follow the author.

Are skeptics elitists?

Stephen Bond talks about how skeptics like to make fun:

I'm not going to plead innocence here: I've often joined in with the laughter, at least vicariously; laughing at idiots can be fun. But in the context of skeptic sites, the laughter takes on a bullying and unhealthy tone.

I appreciate that the author honestly has this impression, but when I compare it to my own impressions, it seems off-base.   Your impression against mine, not a good argument, eh?  People like to make fun, and can be bullies about it, but skeptical institutions do their best to discourage it.  On the Skeptic Society's about page, there's a quote by Spinoza, something to do with understanding human actions rather than ridiculing them.

Compare to say, social justice "call out culture" which also leads to bullying.  People have brought up the issue, but I don't see people discouraging it to the same extent bullying is discouraged in the skeptical community.

If anything, I'm convinced that most [skeptics] would prefer to keep the resources unequal. The average skeptic has little time for spreading the word of reason to the educationally or intellectually lacking.

Like the entirety of the skeptical movement is dedicated towards educating people and disseminating information.

About ten years ago there was a short-lived movement to rebrand skeptics as "brights". This proposal was widely derided within the community, perhaps because it revealed too much about the skeptic mindset.

That was more the atheist community, not the skeptical community, but whatever.  If "bright" had been a popular term, it would have confirmed Stephen's belief that skeptics are elitist.  Since "bright" was not a popular term, it still confirms Stephen's belief?  One wonders why Stephen even bothers with evidential arguments.

Are skeptics sexist?

Women are present on skeptic forums in much the same way that women are present in early Star Trek episodes: while the men can take on a variety of roles, the women are always sex characters. Their every attribute is sexualised and objectified. Intelligence in a male skeptic is taken for granted; intelligence in a female skeptic is a turn-on.

Actually I largely agree with this section.

Are skeptics Islamophobic?

I think Stephen Bond might be conflating the skeptical community and atheist community, especially since their primary example is Richard Dawkins' infamous "Dear Muslima" comment.  Not really the best example, since that comment caused large swaths of the atheist community to become disillusioned with Dawkins.

[Dawkins] builds us a generalised picture from a number of isolated and unrelated instances. Female genital mutilation, for example, is nothing to do with Islam, as Dawkins probably knows, though he's quite happy to throw it in there and suggest it's endemic. The effect of his screed is to portray Islam as a kind of institutionalised woman-torture in which all Muslim men are complicit, thus slandering about half a billion people

You know, I can accept that Dawkins was a tremendous ass, and that the atheist community can be Islamophobic, and that Dawkins in particular is Islamophobic.  But I don't agree that this is an instance of Dawkins being Islamophobic.  I mean, Dawkins does not really say or imply that female genital mutilation (FGM) is endemic among Muslims.

And while it's bad to slander half a billion people, this argument largely seems like an attempt to shut up criticism.  When Bond stated that skeptics are sexist, you didn't see me complaining that the they were slandering skeptics, who are not all sexist.  Sexism is a problem among skeptics, it needs to be said, alright?

Are skeptics neoliberals?

Allow me to summarize the argument in this section.

1. Metaphors are necessary for political, social, and economic advance.
2. "Skeptics, in insisting on the primacy of scientific knowledge, deny the value of non-scientific metaphors in future scientific advance."
3. Skeptics, therefore, must believe that "western liberal democracies have made all the political, social, cultural and economic advances they need to."
4. Skeptics want to spread scientific thinking worldwide, and therefore want to spread liberal democracy worldwide.
5. That's neoliberalism, and it's bad.

Aside from the unfounded claim that skeptics reject metaphors and therefore political progress, what I'm hearing is that Stephen Bond can't stand any community that has capitalists in it.  Fair enough, he has his political differences, but it hardly seems like an indictment of the skeptical community specifically.

Is science affected by politics?

The idea that politics could or should have any input into science is anathema to skeptics.

Says who?  No citations are provided. It seems clear to me that science is affected by politics, so I don't know what they're disagreeing with.  But perhaps we don't agree on the extent of it.  The author thinks skeptics should avoid "cheerleading indiscriminately for all science, any science."  In particular, the author criticizes medical science, evolutionary psychology, linguistics, and economics.

Actually I don't see skeptics really cheerleading for these fields.  Linguistics and economics simply aren't discussed much.  The medical establishment is frequently criticized--it basically has to be criticized in any discussion of alt-med, because we seek to understand the motivations of alt-med users.  Evolutionary Psychology is also a frequent target of criticism (in my experience, even in offline groups).  And at the same time we also express the value of those fields.  Overall I'd say we get a much more balanced view than that of Stephen Bond.

Are fortune tellers bad?

Here the author argues that fortune tellers are just used as entertainment, that the clients of big name psychics know that they're being lied to, and the placebo effect helps people.  I note that the Stephen Bond himself sincerely believed in superstitious things before identifying as a skeptic, so the argument apparently does not apply to him.  Also psychics have done lots of demonstrable harm, so Bond largely comes across as an insensitive jerk.

Earlier he was accusing skeptics of wanting to keep resources unequal, but now I just think this is true of Bond.

Also,

Their crimes pale next to those of our financial institutions, and all the others who convince the public to throw their life savings at the stock market, take out mortgages they can't afford, buy junk they don't need with money they don't have, and pay for the fuck-ups of bankers and the greed of speculators.

Come to think of it, why do we ever discuss problems that aren't capitalism?  Like sexism, why did the author bring that one up?  Wait, no, I suppose sexism is capitalism (but psychics are not).  Nevermind then.

Is skepticism just about comforting people?

Here Stephen argues that people believe in nonsense because it is comforting to them.  The same is true of skepticism.

But as much as hocus-pocus is a comforter for the disenfranchised, skepticism is a comforter for nerds. Even the privileged need to be reassured in their ways; no one is too old or too grand to be tucked in at night with a conscience soother.

This is not much of an argument, because anyone can accuse their opponent of only believing what they do because it is comforting.

And as long as it does no harm to them and others, I wouldn't want to disabuse anyone of their faith, or deprive them of their warming blanket.

Okay, now I'm really convinced that Bond has no interest in spreading the value of reason, and instead "prefers to keep resources unequal".

Is skepticism positivism?

...skeptics have no time for philosophy; many skeptics hate and fear it. It's the skeptic Kryptonite. As a fundamental, rigorous, intellectually respectable but defiantly non-scientific discipline, philosophy makes a lot of skeptics feel threatened.

There's basically no way that Stephen Bond's essay stands up to philosophical scrutiny, but maybe philosophical scrutiny isn't really the correct standard to use.  I use a lower and more casual standard, which Bond still fails.

Next, Stephen identifies skepticism with the discredited philosophy of positivism.  Based on what I know of positivism, it is unlike modern skepticism in very relevant ways.  Any philosophy people want to comment?

Is skepticism ugly?

The truth is, I became a skeptic for aesthetic reasons, and the truth is, its aesthetics now repel me. I increasingly find the core skeptical output monotonous and repetitive: there are only so many times you can debunk the same old junk, and I've had it up to here with science fanboyism.

I did not personally come to skepticism for its aesthetics.  Indeed, I don't really care for Saganesque "awe and wonder at the universe" aesthetics, and resent that people expect me to have these aesthetics just because I study physics.

I think aesthetics are largely irrelevant, although it may decrease or enhance your personal enjoyment of a community.  If you don't like the aesthetics of skepticism, that is a perfectly good reason to focus on something else you find more enjoyable, although it doesn't really say anything about skepticism.

Conclusion

While Stephen Bond's criticisms seem completely off the mark in most cases, I now seriously suspect they are in fact applicable to whatever skeptical forum that he used to frequent.  I don't know which forum it is, and the only representative I know of is Stephen himself.

And indeed Bond is very guilty of many of the same things he criticizes.  He seeks to mock rather than to understand.  He seems to have picked up bad arguments such as, "You just believe that to comfort yourself," and "Why talk about that when there are bigger problems?"  He doesn't believe in "spreading the word of reason", and would "prefer to keep the resources unequal".  And he clearly knows very little about philosophy.

"Why I am no longer a skeptic" is a serious indictment of skepticism, not because Stephen points out many things wrong with skepticism, but because he himself exhibits so many bad beliefs and terrible arguments.  I don't have a problem with people departing from the skeptical community, but I sure hope they leave in a better state than this.

Ref: Debunking Denialism also fisked the same post.

Quantum Mechanics for skeptics, redux

When I was an undergrad, I gave an informal talk on quantum mechanics for my friends in the skeptical student group.  Unfortunately, the website hosting the slides went defunct, so it's no longer available.  I offered to give a similar talk to the atheist student group at my current university.  So I'm redesigning it as a chalk talk.  It will probably be a bit more serious this time, since I'm not an undergrad, but it's still very informal.

To organize the talk, it helps me to write a blog post along the same lines.  So that's what you're getting.  Apologies if it's a bit rough.

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Quantum Mechanics for Skeptics

I.  Introduction

(These quotes will be handed out on cards)

I think I can safely say that no one understands quantum mechanics.
-Richard Feynman

The physical world, including our bodies, is a response of the observer. We create our bodies as we create the experience of our world.
-Deepak Chopra

The physical process of making a measurement has a very profound effect. 
-David Albert

We're all connected by an energy field.  We swim in a sea of light, basically, which is the zero point field.
-Lynn Mc Taggart

Light and matter are both single entities, and the apparent duality arises in the limitations of our language.
-Werner Heisenberg

I wake up in the morning and I consciously create my day the way I want it to happen... and out of nowhere little things happen that are so unexplainable, I know that they are the process or the result of my creation.
-Joe Dispenza

There's all sorts of universes sitting on top of each other, and they're splitting apart and differentiating as time moves on.
-Sean Carroll

A shift in quantum state brings a parallel lifetime. The relationship to you and your environment is lifted... You are now in a parallel existence.
-Ramtha, channeled by J.Z. Knight

Some of these quotes are from physicists, and some are nonsense. I do not intend for them to be difficult to distinguish.  Most of the nonsense comes from people interviewed in the documentary What the Bleep Do We Know?

Richard Feynman of course was a famous physicist.  But despite what he said, it is clear that some people understand quantum mechanics better than others.  Now, most of you don't study physics (are there any physics majors in the audience?), so you probably don't understand quantum mechanics.  The question is, how can you tell the nonsense from the science?  Can you do it without deferring to an expert?

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II. A quick overview of quantum mechanics

A. The context of quantum mechanics in physics

First I need to give some context.  I am not a quantum physicist.  The fact is that quantum physics is very well established, and isn't a topic of cutting edge research.  Almost every physicist uses quantum physics as the framework to study something else.  I'm a condensed matter physicist; I apply quantum theory to extremely large numbers of atoms.  The fundamental rules of the game are well understood, it's scaling it up that's hard.

But yes, there are some things about quantum theory that are not well understood.



But quantum gravity isn't really relevant to this talk.  Everything here is well understood.  In fact I'll stick mostly to quantum mechanics.

B. The wavefunction and measurement

Quantum mechanics describes matter as made of things that are like particles and also like waves.  Take for instance the electrons in atoms.  The electrons can be in many possible states which we describe with a "wavefunction".  This is usually represented with pictures of orbitals around the nucleus of the atom.  But it's actually just some mathematical function, which I'll plot as a function of position.



The first consequence is that the possible energies of an electron are discrete.  The energy of the electron is roughly related to the number of times this wave wiggles up and down.  It needs to wiggle up and down an integer number of times, so there are discrete energy levels.  In particular, there's a lowest energy level, which is a good thing.  Otherwise the electrons would collapse into lower and lower energies, causing all atoms to implode.

There's the question of what this wavefunction actually represents.  Well say that you had an ultra-precise way of measuring the position of the electron.  The probability of finding the electron in any position is equal to the square of the wavefunction.  So even if you prepare lots of electrons in the same way, you can never predict exactly where they are.

And here's where it gets weirder.  Say that you make two measurements, one right after the other.  The second measurement will agree with the first.  So even though the position was uncertain to begin with, by measuring it you make its position certain.  One way to describe this is by saying that the wavefunction has changed after measuring it.  This is referred to as wavefunction collapse.



C. Quantum uncertainty vs classical uncertainty

The picture I've just drawn sounds a little bit like we just don't know where the electron is.  After we measure it, and then we know where it is.  I call this "classical uncertainty".  But the uncertainty in quantum mechanics is different.

For instance, let's say that we don't know whether an electron is in a 1s state or a 2p state.  But it's not just that we don't know in the classical sense, let's say we don't know in the quantum sense.  In quantum mechanics, you represent this by adding the wavefunctions together.  Now we can take two kinds of measurements of this system.  If you try to measure the energy, sometimes you'll get the 1s energy and sometimes you'll get the 2p energy.  Then the electron will collapse into the 1s or 2p state according to what you measured.



But suppose that we instead measure the position of the electron.  We would mostly see the electron on the left side here and not on the right side.  Now if the electron were really in the 1s state, we'd see it on the right and left sides equally.  And if it were in the 2p state, we'd see it in the right and left sides equally.  But it's not merely that we don't know whether it's in 1s or 2p, it's that in some sense it's in both states.

This, by the way, is entirely a thought experiment.  Practically speaking, we wouldn't be able to control whether the electron was in a 1s + 2p state or a 1s - 2p state.  If it's 1s + 2p, the electron would appear on the left, and if it's 1s - 2p, it would appear on the right.  Since we don't know which one it is, we're back to the situation of classical uncertainty rather than quantum uncertainty.  But there are other experiments that really do demonstrate that quantum uncertainty is special.

D. Entanglement

One of the strange consequences of quantum mechanics is that you can have correlations between particles, even if those particles are far away from each other.  For instance, there's a way to prepare two photons such that they have the same polarization, even though we don't know the polarization of either individual photon.  Again, it's not that we are ignorant of the polarization, it's that it's actually in a superposition of vertical/vertical and horizontal/horizontal



Sometimes people use entanglement to argue that if we think positive, positive things will come to us by the law of entanglement.   But generally, if far-apart particles are correlated at all, there's no particular reason they would be correlated vs anticorrelated.  If the particles are interacting with a random environment, they would switch between correlation and anticorrelation such that, effectively, there's no correlation at all.

---------------------------------------

III. How to recognize quantum nonsense

A. Vocabulary

Quantum nonsense uses lots of complicated terminology in order to confuse people.  People also feel afraid to challenge it because maybe they just don't understand.  The problem is that real science also uses lots of terminology, and if you're not an expert in the field, you may not be able to tell the difference.

It's difficult to make a rule of thumb to tell the difference, but here's what I propose:  Look at who the intended audience is.  If scientists are talking to other scientists, they need terminology in order to communicate precisely.  If a scientist is speaking to the public, they may use terminology because they're not really sure how to say it in plain language.  But plain language would be ideal.

In contrast, pseudoscientists are almost always talking to the public, and use scientific terminology intentionally.  It's not that they don't know clearer ways of speaking, they actually want you not to understand.

B. Ignoring scale

In What the Bleep do We Know? there's a clip where they show a basketball bouncing in many places on a court.  Then the basketball player looks at it, and it's only in one place.  This is an okay illustration of quantum mechanics, but they neglected to explain how this only occurs on very small scales.

The appropriate scale is the atomic scale.  When you have electrons in an atom, you don't know where the electron is, but there's an extremely high probability that it's not very far from the nucleus.  The uncertainty of the basketball is on the same scale (smaller, really, since it's a heavier object).

In fact the picture is very much complicated by a system which is made by more than a few particles. As I said earlier, in my research I apply quantum physics to very large numbers of particles, such as what you would find in a grain of dust.  Quantum physics has a big impact (for one thing, the atoms aren't imploding), but large objects do not behave like small ones.  Unless the system is really cold (ie at the very limits of our cooling technology), there's too much randomness.  This randomness turns quantum uncertainty into classical uncertainty.

C. Observers

My favorite part of What the Bleep was the following argument.  In order to cause wavefunction collapse we need conscious observers.  Human cells can cause wavefunction.  Therefore, human cells are conscious beings.  What follows is a computer-animated segment with anthropomorphic human cells.  And when you think negative thoughts, the human cells have decadent parties and destroy your health.  Long story short, you should throw out your medication and just think positive.

But seriously, there's nothing in quantum mechanics that requires conscious observers.  Really what you need is some large complicated system, such as a grain of dust which introduces randomness.  This makes a quantum system behave classically, and that's what wavefunction collapse is, more or less.  Quantum mechanics doesn't say you're special (although you're free to think you're special anyway).

D. Quantum Interpretations

Now there are a few different interpretations of quantum mechanics, as to what it really all means, on the bottom of it.  The most popular interpretations are the Many Worlds Interpretation and the Copenhagen interpretation.

The Copenhagen interpretation is more or less what I've already described.  There's a quantum system which follows certain rules.  And you can measure or observe the system, which causes the system to change.  In the Many Worlds interpretation, there's nothing fundamentally different about the observation process.  The system just interacts with a measurement device, and becomes a superposition of two states.  These two states don't really interact and for all intents and purposes are independently evolving worlds.



These two interpretations are equivalent to each other, at least experimentally.  There is no experiment that can be performed to distinguish between these two.  So if someone says something that makes sense in one interpretation, but totally contradicts the experimental predictions of the other interpretation, then it's probably nonsense.

For example, when someone says that quantum mechanics requires conscious observers, you know that's wrong because there are no observers whatsoever in the Many Worlds Interpretation.  When someone says that you interact with the parallel worlds, you know that's nonsense because in the Copenhagen interpretation there are no parallel worlds to interact with.

--------------------------------------- 

IV. Conclusion

Quantum Mechanics is a little strange.  Quantum uncertainty is fundamentally different from what we usually think of as uncertainty.  We can have correlations between far away particles.  But it does not make conscious observers special, and nobody "chooses" reality.  I hope this helps you to distinguish quantum science and quantum nonsense.  But if not, you can ask an expert.  I can take questions now.

Debates are okay, not great

I don't watch debates.  Mainly it's an accessibility issue--spoken word doesn't really work for me, and I'll skip it unless I have a good reason not to.

So of course I also did not watch the Ken Ham/Bill Nye debate over creationism.  In fact, why am I even trying to write an opinion about it?  I would instead defer to Jason Rosenhouse, who is an expert on this issue.

A lot of people have questioned whether the debate is a good thing.  It was a fundraiser for the Creation Museum, so there's that.  It also appears to be lending legitimacy to creationism.  By pitting a creationist against a scientist we appear to be putting them on the same level.

Jason Rosenhouse rejects this particular view:

That is not the case with creationism. It is already such a socially acceptable view, even socially dominant in some areas, that I’m not so worried about making it seem more legitimate. It is evolution, and science generally, that needs to get the word out. Creationists have no trouble injecting their poison into the public discourse, and they have a lot of superficially plausible arguments to make. Scientists willing to take on the grim task of offering folks an alternative view should not automatically be excoriated for doing so.

 And I agree.  Anti-evolution, in the US, is really one of the most popular forms of anti-science around.  Rosenhouse puts anti-evolutionism around 50% of the population and young-earth creationists at 10-20%.  While some forms of antiscience are such small fries that they are best ignored, creationism is the very last thing I would call a "small fry".

Furthermore, Ken Ham is a young-earth creationist, and that particular group doesn't really feel the need for scientific legitimacy.  They believe in the Bible as a higher authority than science.  Now if Nye were debating an Intelligent Design supporter, that might have been more of an issue, since Intelligent Design tries much harder to pretend to be scientifically legitimate.

My major complaint about debates is that there's hardly any correspondence to who "wins" a debate, and who in the debate is correct.  Debates instead favor whoever is a more skilled debater.  Historically, this has often favored creationists because scientists usually have better things to do than hone their debate skills.

Debates are bad, but are other formats for arguments any better?  I think written format is far better, although it has less popular appeal.  In written format, it is much easier to provide citations, which are an indispensable part of truth-finding.  Even arguments in a court of law are better than the debate format.  US courts have mostly consistently ruled against the various forms of creationism.  I know many people have a very dim view of the court system, so here I suggest that you should have an even dimmer view of debates.

While the usual case against debating creationists is that we shouldn't give creationists attention, I see this as its main advantage.  Debates are an awful format, but many people pay attention to them.  I said at the beginning that I can't watch debates, but many people have the opposite problem--videos are fine, but they don't have the attention span to read about it.  A little extra attention to creationism can be a good thing.  Though anti-evolution is so common, it's easy for many people to ignore it.  I live in a major urban area and work at a university, so I never meet creationists.  People like me should nonetheless be aware that anti-evolution is a major issue in the US.

Skeptical arcana

In France, my roommate was from Russia, but studied in the US.  He seemed to be some sort of 9/11 truther.  Or maybe he was just playing the devil's advocate, he liked to do that.  He didn't know much about the subject, but seemed to think that it was reasonable to think that the US government allowed a terrorist strike so that they might justify an attack on Iraq.  He compared to some terrorist attacks in Russia that he thought were staged by the government.  (Looking it up, I'm now sure he was talking about the Russian Apartment Bombings.)

Because I've hung out with lots of skeptics, I know a few basic facts about 9/11 truthers.  I know that the movement only became popular around 2006 or so, due to the documentary Loose Change.  I know that it is now declining in popularity after Obama's election.  I know that there is a difference between LIHOP (let it happen on purpose) and MIHOP (made it happen on purpose) truthers.

I know that they make at least a few ridiculous arguments.  In particular, I remember there was a firefighter on TV who said "pull it", referring to pulling the firefighters out of the building.  Truthers argue that "pull it" is controlled-demolition terminology, and that this slip of the tongue gives the conspiracy away.  Probably truthers have less ridiculous arguments, but this is the sort of stuff that we like to laugh about.

I know that I don't have the ability to argue against 9/11 truthers.

9/11 conspiracy theories are too specialized.  You really need to do your research to argue effectively.  It's all very well to look at the surface and mock it for fun.  Or you can listen to arguments and point out fallacies.  But to understanding how to recognize good and bad arguments can only get you so far; what you really need is knowledge.  Without knowledge, the best I can do is defer to other sources.

I think of 9/11 conspiracy theories as belonging to skeptical arcana.  Obscure knowledge is required.  Unless you know your stuff, you can't argue about it.  Your opponent is likely to know more than you, because they're more invested in it.

What other things qualify as skeptical arcana?  Pretty much all conspiracy theories.  Cryptozoology.*  UFOlogy.  Those crank theories that people often mass-e-mail out to physics faculty.  Denial of anthropogenic climate change.

*People often deride bigfoot skepticism, because bigfoot seems so hokey and ridiculous, it would be pointless back-patting to debunk it.  However, I think the ridiculousness of it means that only the most devoted people believe in cryptozoology; they're likely to know much more about the topic than you do.

What doesn't qualify as skeptical arcana?  Creationism is one example.  Most people with a college education understand enough evolutionary theory to rebut Creationist arguments.  And anyone can argue against Biblical authority.

Skeptical arcana is frustrating for many armchair skeptics like myself.  I don't have the knowledge to talk about it, and I'm not willing to put in the effort to research every little thing.  But it is better to recognize this limitation rather than deny it.  I believe the best solution is an institutional one.  We have a community of skeptics, and just a few people need to be experts on any given subject.  Those experts do the research and present the arguments, and the rest of us use them as a reference.

The psi gulf

Skeptoid recently did an episode on Ganzfeld Experiments.  These are parapsychology experiments looking for telepathy.  A sender concentrates for 30 minutes on a target object, while the receiver wears headphones that play white noise and can only see uniform red light.  Then the receiver tries to pick out the target object from a line-up based on their impressions.  The theory behind the experiments is that any psi abilities we have are washed out by everyday noise.  The receiver is placed under conditions of reduced noise so that psi abilities may emerge.

Ganzfeld Experiments were able to find some small effects, one review showing a success rate of 30% (which is significantly higher than the 25% success rate from chance alone).  But there are numerous biases compromising the results, such as sensory leakage, the file drawer effect, and poor statistical analysis.  Ultimately, researchers seem to have seem to lost interest, and there have not been further attempts to replicate.

In this discussion, I was struck by the gulf between parapsychology claims and psychic claims.

In the Ganzfeld experiments, there's an effect of 5% increased success rate, and that's if you believe the methodology is sound.  It's also under perfect conditions with as little noise as possible.  I suspect that few psychics make specific claims about their success rates, but I gather that they're supposed to be right most of the time, with just enough exceptions that it doesn't hurt them when you point out a few past errors.  They're obviously claiming something better than 5%.

If it were only a 5% difference, I don't think we'd even be able to tell.  Are you able to estimate the probabilities of everyday occurrences in your life with precision of 5%?  What's the probability that there are enough seats when I get on the bus every morning?  What's the probability that I'm the first person in the office?  What's the probability that it will be warm enough for me to unzip my jacket?

If the parapsychology researchers are honest, then they have to admit that the small effects they observe have nothing to do with the paranormal perceived by most people.  This also goes for experiments on the efficacy of prayer.

FYI: Statistics on belief in paranormal.

Entangled minds

Sometimes people use quantum entanglement as an explanation for psychic communication between minds.  The idea is that my neurons are entangled with yours, and whatever my neurons see would be the same as yours.

Being a physicist, I know that's wrong.  Even if psychic communication exists, quantum entanglement would utterly fail to explain it.  But at the same time, as a physicist, I feel compelled to get the technicalities right.  There's a nagging technicality here: Yes, our neurons are in fact entangled.  But that doesn't mean what you think it means.

Most people are told that entanglement is about correlations over large distances.  What someone measures here will be the same as what someone measures over there.  But what you may not have known is that entanglement is also about anti-correlations over large distances.  What someone measures here could be the opposite of what someone measures over there.

So suppose that I feel a twinge of sadness.  I interpret this to mean that you are experiencing sadness right now, because my sad neuron must be correlated with your sad neuron.  Except, maybe they're anti-correlated.  Maybe you are feeling the exact opposite way, and your neuron is happy or whatever?

Or suppose that I think happy thoughts.  Surely happy thoughts are correlated with happy things in the world via entanglement, so if I think positive thoughts I will attract good things to me.  Except, maybe my happy thoughts are correlated with the opposite, and are actually attracting bad things to me?

So if we have two neurons, are they correlated or anti-correlated?  Under carefully-controlled experimental conditions, involving small numbers of particles (ie much fewer than the number of particles in a neuron), and isolating those particles from the random interactions with the outside world, physicists can produce things that are definitely correlated or anti-correlated.  But under any less-controlled conditions, it's essentially random.  There's no way to know.  Every time it happens, it will be different.  It will be completely unpredictable.  On average there will be no correlation at all.  We say that the neurons are decoherent.

(Because there is no observable correlation, some physicists would say that the neurons are not entangled.  This appears to contradict what I said, that the neurons are entangled but decoherent.  We're not really saying different things, we're just using different words to communicate the same ideas.)

Trying to explain psychic ability by quantum mechanics is no better than trying to explain it by thermodynamics.  Thermodynamics is all about the random motion of molecules.  Thermodynamics says that there is a miniscule chance that the molecules in my neuron will just happen to move in the same way as molecules in your neuron!  But out of all the ways molecules could move, why should we single out this particular way, except that it makes us feel fuzzy inside?

Some other gross simplifications I've made:

1. To speak of "same" and "opposite" results presumes that there are only two possible configurations.  I'm sure that neurons are complicated enough that they have a very large number of configurations.  If each neuron has three possible configurations, then we have nine total possible combinations.  Because the neurons are entangled, some of these combinations are more likely than others, but all the probabilities themselves are essentially random.

2. There's no reason to think that entanglement should only involve two things.  In general, entanglement involves every possible configuration of everything.  But imagine that we have just three things: two neurons and my aunt's left foot.  And imagine that each of these has two possible configurations.  Now there are 8 possible combinations.  Some are more likely than others, but the probabilities themselves are essentially random.

QM broke logic!

Stand to Reason is some sort of Christian apologetics organization that I don't know much about.  They have this program for high school students where they come up to UC Berkeley and meet godless university students, presumably to "inoculate" them.  They did it last year, and it was all quite civil.  I didn't blog about it probably because nothing piqued my interest.  They're doing it again tonight, but I probably won't blog about it.  In fact I might not go at all, because I'm feeling a little sick.

But I was amused to have a glimpse of their YouTube channel.  For fun...



The main problem with this video is... who the hell claims that quantum mechanics casts doubt on the laws of logic?  I'm not sure if he actually met an atheist who said that, or if he misunderstood something an atheist said, or if it's made up from whole cloth.  The rest of the argument is well-reasoned enough, but he kind of missed the crucial step of citing his opponent.

Also, while it is true that we shouldn't be dazzled by complicated jargon, this is only heuristic reasoning.  Clearly there exist valid arguments which are difficult to understand and involve lots of jargon!  One possible resolution is to ask an expert.  As a physicist, I can tell you that quantum mechanics does not cast doubt on logic, and does nothing of the sort.

Asexuals are not X-men

There was another thing that really bothered me about the House episode featuring an asexual couple, which was something the writer said afterwards.

Originally, part of my dialog included thoughts about whether as a species we've grown past sex. Any time we tackle a subject, we risk the possibility of not doing it justice. I apologize that you feel I did you a disservice. It was not my intent.
...
Asexuality is a new topic for me and definitely one I find fascinating. It is a subject I would like to continue to explore here or ..on future shows I write for. I think it speaks to where humans are now and where we are going. I will do my best in the future to do it justice. Thank you for feedback and please share any and all thoughts.
[emphasis mine]

Of all the things you could possibly say about asexuality, this one really gets me.  It offends me as an asexual and as a skeptic.  If there's one way to make House's portrayal of asexuality even worse, this is it.

I'm not really sure where people get this idea, that asexuality is the future.  It's comparable to Creationism in how wrong it is on evolution.  It's a magical worldview, where cultural saturation of sex will somehow spawn asexuals as a spiritual counterweight.  It's a false equation between "evolution" and "progress".  It's a mythical view of the pure, superhuman asexual.  It just doesn't make any sense no matter how I look at it.

Nonetheless, this is not the first time I've heard it.  In fact, I hear it from several different quarters.

1. People who think they're helping.

Sometimes I get this response from non-asexuals who are trying to affirm asexuality.  How else to affirm it, but by saying what you think is great about it?  Maybe you think chastity is christ-like, or that society is so oversexed that it's desensitizing itself.  Asexuals sure sound chaste, and maybe they're part of the coming Great Desensitization!

Ugh!  If asexuals are chaste, it's not usually because they hold it up as a virtue.  It's because they would rather be chaste, regardless of whether or not they happen to think it is a virtue.  I certainly do not regard chastity as a virtue; furthermore, like many other asexuals, I am not chaste.  I find it really offensive to stuff these "values" into my mouth and pretend that's what I asked for.

If you talk about how extraordinarily great asexuals are, that's missing the point.  Asexuals are ordinary people.  Sexuals are ordinary people.  Neither is a choice, and both can result in functional human beings, so why is it suddenly a moral thing?  And what induces a person to say that they themselves are in the immoral, lesser group, I'll never understand.

2. People who think that's what I say.

Observe that the religious right is always stuffing their values of "purity" into your face.  Asexuals sure sound pure.  They think they're better than us!  They're be hijacking the discourse of sexual identity in order to advance the "family values" agenda!

If I really were advocating everyone be more abstinent, and if I really were using my identity as a way to protect my politics from criticism, then my critics would be absolutely justified.  This is what I am afraid would happen in House.  An asexual character, written by a clueless non-asexual, says something clueless.  And then viewers (especially my friends in skepticism) would call out the BS, and they would be right to do so.

Meanwhile, in the real world, asexuality actually made me even more liberal on sexual issues.  Before I knew I was asexual, the only way I could make sense of the world was by assuming people were almost like me, but exaggerating their sexuality.  Now I know better.  Now I recognize that there is wide variation in sexuality, and what seems unthinkable to one person is the reality of the next person.  I've heard so many times the idea that more sexuality is better, and that's wrong.  But if I simply reversed it, saying less sexuality is better, that would also be wrong as well as hypocritical.

3. Asexuals who say it, putting me down.

A corollary of "asexuals are ordinary people" is that some asexuals will also believe some wacky things.  They're put in a senseless position in life, and they have to make sense of it.  And why not make sense of it in a self-flattering way?  I'm not weird, I'm above it all.  I'm the next step.  Sex has been cheapened and no one takes it seriously anymore.

The trouble, besides the blatant misunderstanding of evolution, is that other asexuals don't "fit" into this picture.  As a gray-A, I definitely don't fit into the picture. To them I'm not a "real" asexual, I'm just a sexual trying to be like them.  As if I would try to be like anything.  I have one foot on each side, and I didn't get to be this way by thinking one side is "better" than the other.  What am I to them, a pervert, half a pervert?  I don't know what they think of me; I suspect they don't think of me at all.

Because this view is fundamentally harmful to the community, I usually only see it coming from a few newbies.  Presumably, they're either soon disabused of the notion, or they stop participating in the community.

tl;dr: The idea that asexuality is the next stage of humanity is just wrong and offensive from all angles.  I just lost all confidence in the writer for House, and would really rather she never "explore" asexuality again.

The "absurdity" of Hilbert's Hotel

This is a continuation of "A few things wrong about the cosmological argument," an ongoing series.  Today we will discuss William Lane Craig's treatment of Hilbert's Hotel.  I will assume you are familiar with Hilbert's Infinite Hotel; if not, you can read William Lane Craig, me, or any other source on the internet.

William Lane Craig (WLC) thinks Hilbert's Infinite Hotel is absurd.  If Hilbert's Hotel is full, then you can add or remove people and it will still have the same number of guests.  Absurd!

Can anyone sincerely believe that such a hotel could exist in reality? These sorts of absurdities illustrate the impossibility of the existence of an actually infinite number of things.

This is an argument from absurdity, which has the following form:

A implies B.
Both me and my opponents agree that B is obviously false.
Therefore we should agree that A is false.

There is nothing wrong with an argument from absurdity if it is done correctly.  But it is not done correctly.  I can agree that Hilbert's Hotel is absurd.  But not all infinities are necessarily absurd.  We can have infinities without specifically having an infinite hotel.  Hilbert's Hotel is absurd because we will never have the resources, the manpower to create such a hotel.  We don't have the people to fill it, the means to maintain it.

Of course, WLC thinks there is a more abstract property of Hilbert's Hotel which is absurd.  Specifically, he claims it is absurd that you can add or remove things, and still have the same number of things.  I do not think this is absurd.  The argument from absurdity relies on my agreement at this point, but I do not agree.

(An aside: WLC makes a technical error here.  We do not say that there is the "same number" of things, we say that the two sets of things have the "same cardinality".  Neither set has a well-defined "number" of things, since both sets are infinite.  There is a reason we use technical terms like "cardinality", and it is to avoid making mistakes by accidentally applying intuition where it does not apply.  WLC may have simply wanted to avoid technical jargon...)

WLC cites a couple people who objected, like me, that infinities are not absurd.  His basic response is, "It looks pretty absurd to me."  "Nuh uh."  "Yeah too."  We seem to be at an impasse.  If you're keeping track, that means WLC lost, since he is the one presenting the argument, and he has failed to convince.  But let's stop keeping track, and focus on resolving the impasse.

An anecdote: I first learned about infinite sets in high school.  This was back in the day, when the internet was still a novelty to me, and I wasn't smart enough to use a pseudonym.  I used to exchange puzzles with people and argue about mathematics.  In one of these arguments, someone told me to read about infinite set theory.  It was crazy!  Infinite sets blew my mind.  But by the time I got to college, they became intuitive and familiar, like a favorite old joke.  Non-math people think that when math people get together, they make jokes about pi and squares.  In my experience, they make jokes about infinite sets.  And yet, the set of untold jokes about infinite sets remains as big as ever.

I contend that infinities are not "absurd" in the sense of "obviously false".  Rather, infinities are only counter-intuitive (and only at first).  Infinite set theory is well-established in mathematics.  Due to some complications*, it is impossible for me to simply prove that set theory is consistent.  But we think that set theory is consistent for the same reason we think arithmetic is consistent, and I don't see WLC waving his arms incredulously at arithmetic.

*See Godel's second incompleteness theorem.

This is a point that clearly needs a response, so WLC has already responded to it.

Hence, one could grant that in the conceptual realm of mathematics one can, given certain conventions and axioms, speak consistently about infinite sets of numbers, but this in no way implies that an actually infinite number of things is really possible.

WLC distinguishes between "logical" possibility and "real or factual" possibility.  Unfortunately, this places infinite sets in a very odd place.  What kind of absurdity is this, that is too absurd for the real world, but not absurd enough for mathematics?  And for what kind of "real" is it too absurd for?  Lastly, if there are different degrees of absurdity, how do we know which degree it is?

There is no way to answer these questions, because "absurdity" is an intuitive idea.  Either we think something sounds absurd or it doesn't.  Intuition doesn't whisper in our ear, "It is absurd in reality, but not mathematics.  Also, 'reality' is a category that includes past events, but not future events, and it excludes inconvenient counterexamples."  Anyways, my intuition never says anything like that to me.

Put it this way.  If WLC didn't know anything about what mathematicians said, he would have guessed infinite sets were bad math.  And then when he finds out that it's good math, what is the appropriate response?  WLC's response is to say that infinite sets are still absurd, just not in mathematics.  I think the proper response is to revise what we previously thought was absurd.

I must say one last thing, as a physicist.  WLC thinks absurdity is a good argument against a physical theory?  Even when said absurdity is mathematically consistent?  I question his knowledge of modern physics.

"A few things wrong about the cosmological argument"
1. Actual and potential infinities
2. Actual infinities in physics
3. What is real?
4. The "absurdity" of Hilbert's Hotel
5. Interlude: God is infinite 
6. Forming Infinity, one by one 
7. Uncertain beginnings
8. Entropy: The unsolved problem  
9. Kalam as an inductive argument
10. Getting from First Cause to God  

Old news: Today is the end

Here's an old story from May 24th:

Harold Camping, who announced the Rapture would occur Saturday [May 21], has had another revelation: The world will now end on October 21.

Harold Camping claims the world will end by earthquake.  I'm not sure what exact hour.  Actually here we had a couple of quakes yesterday!

I'd be sort of interested if the same prediction was made by the quake quack.  That would be like alignment of the planets, but instead of planets, different spheres of woo.  Alas!  A glance suggests that there is no such alignment.

Daydream: Healing Touch

Today, I underwent a very painful (but not at all risky!) medical procedure to drain an abscess.  I had a short daydream about what would happen if a nurse tried to use healing touch on me.

Nurse hovers hands above me, moves them back and forth.
"Uh, what are you doing?"
"I'm manipulating your bioenergetic field with my hands.  I'm a trained practitioner of healing touch."
"You're using healing touch?  On me?  I know the placebo effect is most effective on subjective symptoms such as pain, but do you realize that I don't even slightly believe in the effectiveness of healing touch?  The placebo effect won't do me any good."
"It's not the placebo effect.  Studies have shown..."
"Stop it already!  It's stressing me out!"

I imagine healing touch rather than any other alternative medicine because we talked about it a lot at UCLA.  I remember at the UCLA hospital, they allowed someone to give a lecture on healing touch, and we were pretty mad about this.  She also swung a pendulum with her hand to assess patients' energy fields.  I find myself wondering how this reduces patient stress, knowing that your nurse practices spiritual medicine in addition to real medicine.

Of course, my daydream is completely counterfactual, so there's no reason to think that's actually what would happen.  However, I do remember hearing that healing touch is also practiced on sleeping patients.  Why?  Even if we felt the practice was justified by the positive placebo effects, the placebo effect is not going to work unless the patients are at least aware that healing touch is being used.

(Also, part of the placebo effect, though not all, is a self-reporting bias.  Patients want their medicine to work, so they report less pain, even if they are not actually experiencing less pain.)

More panadaptationism: cognitive biases

Someone sent me a link to a NY Times article called "Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth".  (The age of the article tells you something about how long these ideas sit in my draft bin.)  It's about "argumentative theory", which claims that human reasoning evolved to win arguments, rather than to reach truth.  In this view, even our many cognitive biases are adaptations to improve debate skills.  This goes against the more common view that cognitive biases represent limitations of natural selection.

Given these two diverging views, I was curious about the evidence for each side.  But I was disappointed in how little evidence the article presented.  In fact, it presented no evidence at all!  I've decided the article is a self-referential parody.

The article instead talks about how resilient cognitive biases are. 

Mr. Mercier, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, contends that attempts to rid people of biases have failed because reasoning does exactly what it is supposed to do: help win an argument.

If cognitive biases are adaptive this does not imply that they are harder to be rid of.  If cognitive biases represent limitations of evolution, this does not imply that they are easier to be rid of.

“People have been trying to reform something that works perfectly well,” he said, “as if they had decided that hands were made for walking and that everybody should be taught that.”

Never mind that no evidence has been put forward for argumentative theory, let's march onwards to even more questionable conclusions!  In this case, the inference is that if we're adapted for something, we better not mess with what nature wants.

Later, the article gets into the political implications of argumentative theory.

Because “individual reasoning mechanisms work best when used to produce and evaluate arguments during a public deliberation,” Mr. Mercier and Ms. Landemore, as a practical matter, endorse the theory of deliberative democracy...

I'm not sure what this has to do with argumentative theory at all, but then, we don't even know whether argumentative theory is true or not, so what does it matter?

The NY Times article does cite its original source, which is a hundred-page paper in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.  I not willing to read this paper, so I will remain agnostic as to whether the lack of evidence is NY Times' fault, or the scientists' fault.  However, my boyfriend was trying to read the paper earlier, and said it was merely a review of evidence for cognitive biases, without any evidence that these are adaptive.  There is additional hearsay from Massimo Pigliucci, who says, "The first substantive thing to notice about the paper is that there isn’t a single new datum to back up the central hypothesis."

I could write a rant about panadaptationism, but then it's not like these rants are in short supply.

How common is belief in the Second Coming?

The idea that the Rapture will occur tomorrow is, of course, extremely silly.  And since I'm in the mood to speak seriously, it's not worth speaking of at all.

Or is it?  If lots of people believe it, that in itself is serious.

I tried searching for statistics, and most numbers I found lacked citations.  For example, this article claimed its numbers came from Pew Research Center, but failed to actually cite the survey.  I couldn't find any such survey fitting the description.  Also, the "return of Jesus Christ" is not equivalent to the Rapture.  FAIL

But I eventually found a relevant study from 2006 produced by Pew Research Center (see page 19-22).

 Graphic comes from Pew.  The survey included 2,003 US adults, but the above graphic only shows statistics for the 1,670 respondents who identified as Christians. [Edit: clarified]

Unfortunately, the survey did not ask about belief in the Rapture, much less Rapture specifically on May 21st.  You can't always get what you want.  I'm not sure, but I think the best proxy is the belief that the world situation will worsen before the second coming.  Pew identifies this belief with "pre-millenialism", which is one of the varieties of Rapture beliefs.

Are these numbers higher or lower than you expected?

HBS pseudoscience

Now I want to show you an example of skepticism as applied to a queer issue.  Skeptics will appreciate the article I found, but first I need to explain a lot of background.

Like any other community, the trans community has its internal politics and factions.  What's more surprising is that there are some trans factions which are... I don't want to poison the well, so let's just say that they believe there is a hierarchy of trans people, and that they themselves belong at the top.  I should emphasize that these factions are necessarily small because they're built on exclusivity.

The most extreme of these factions are the people with Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS).  Named after a doctor who would probably not support them, HBS is an invented intersex condition causing the brain to develop as one sex, and the rest of the body to develop as the other sex.  True HBS women conform to conventional gender expressions, down to the shopping, makeup, handbags, and painted nails, and any transwomen who fail to fit this are not real women.  HBSers set themselves apart from "all the gay, lesbian, bisexual, crossdressers, transvestites, transgenders, genderqueers, autogynes, non-ops and others who claim to be afflicted with exactly the same condition that Harry found when in fact they have nothing but various degrees of mis-nurturing to account for their weird urges."*  They even distance themselves from "transsexuals", since they believe the word has been tainted. 

*Quote from here.

In short, HBSers feel that they are different from, and better than all people who fall under the transgender umbrella.  And in fact, they could be right.  About being different.  Trans people are quite diverse, and it is likely that it is really a collection of different conditions with different etiologies.  HBSers might even be right about belonging in a separate movement from transgender.  After all, people who undergo complete transition do face some distinct issues.

But I doubt that HBS is quite as different as they suppose.  And even if it were, this would not justify the way HBSers invalidate transgender people.  And it does not justify, nor is it justified by, the pseudoscience they use to support their claims.

The article I found is called "The Science behind HBS", critically investigating the scientific arguments used in a book by HBS author Rose White.

White quotes an article by Zhou, Hofman, Gooren and Swaab from Nature 1997 (my emphasis):
"HBSS Harry Benjamin Syndrome Sufferers have strong feeling, often from childhood onwards, of having been born the wrong sex. - A female-sized BSTc was found in male-to-female HBS's -- the size was not influenced by sex hormones in adulthood and was independent of sexual orientation. - Investigation of genetics, gonads, genitalia or hormone levels have so far produced any results that explain HBS."

The paper is about statistical differences in the brains of people with gender dysphoria.  Of course, when you actually look at the referenced paper, you find that the paper never referred to HBS, and was instead referring to transsexuals.

White has changed the text in order to make it look like these researchers support the use of the term Harry Benjamin Syndrome instead of the problematic word "transsexual". This is interesting, given that no official medical or psychiatric organisation anywhere in the world recognize the syndrome or use the label.

I find it interesting that they feel the need to go beyond quote mining into deliberate misquotation.  But there's more.

The six transwomen Swaab & Co autopsied for their 1995 paper were not checked for HSB. They were dead and would not have been able to answer, anyway. All you can say is that they were M2F transwomen who had had sex reassignment surgery (or "sex affirmation surgery" to use White's term).

White agrees that a majority of those who transition are not HBS women. The chances are, therefore, that a majority of these six transwomen had been crossdreamers [ie autogynephiliacs] as well. If that is the case the paper could be said to have proved that crossdreaming has a biological basis.

And if that weren't enough, there's actually a paper that contradicts the claims of White.  In White's view, only male-oriented transwomen could possibly be real women, but that's not what the studies show.

White does not mention a later paper by Swaab & Co, where they look a related part of the brain, the INAH3. In this study they did check for sexual orientation, and found no differences between gynephilic [female-oriented] transwomen and androphilic [male-oriented] transwomen:

Go ahead and read the rest of the post, and the rest of the series on the Crossdreamers blog.  HBS is a pretty obscure issue, but a fascinating one, and I appreciate any smackdown as well-done as this.