The Alternative Science Pages of Richard Milton re.pdf

Table of Contents

The Internet Bunk Page

Robert Todd Carroll

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SkepDic.com

The Alternative Science Pages of Richard

Milton

The Skeptic's

Refuge

Richard Milton's defense of "alternative" science is a textbook case of

Why Intelligent People Believe Dumb Things . Nearly every logical

fallacy and psychological foible that hinders us from being fair and

accurate in our assessment of claims and arguments regarding science and

the paranormal is exemplified by Milton.

Internet Bunk

features WWW

sites that provide

false, misleading

or deceptive

information

regarding scientific

matters or alleged

paranormal or

supernatural

events. Because

there are millions

of such sites, we

try to present only

the most

egregious and

offensive.

selective thinking

Let's begin with his version of the "they laughed at Galileo, so I must be

right" fallacy, a non sequitur variation of selective thinking .

In his book Alternative Science, and on his website under what he calls

Skeptics who declared discoveries and inventions impossible , Milton

lists a number of inventors and scientists who struggled to get their ideas

accepted. Many were ridiculed along the way. But, like many others who

commit this fallacy, Milton omits some important, relevant data. He does

not mention that there are also a great number of inventors, scientists and

thinkers who were laughed at and whose ideas have never been accepted.

Many people accused of being crackpots turned out to be crackpots. Some

did not. Thus, being ridiculed and rejected for one's ideas is not a sign that

one is correct. It is not a sign of anything important about the idea which is

being rejected. Thus, finding large numbers of skeptics who reject ideas as

being "crackpot ideas" does not strengthen the likelihood of those ideas

being correct. The number of skeptics who reject an idea is completely

irrelevant to the truth of the idea. Ideas such as alien abduction ,

homeopathy , psychokinesis , orgone energy , ESP , free energy , spontaneous

human combustion , and the rejection of evolution --all favored by Milton--

are not supported in the least by the fact that these ideas are trashed by

thousands of skeptics.

anomalies and coincidences

Like many believers in the paranormal, Milton is quite impressed with the

statistical data of people defending claims that they have scientific

evidence for such things as telepathy or psychokinesis .

Humans have an innate tendency to attribute

significance to anomalies and coincidences. --- John Allen

Paulos

He cites Dean Radin who defends the ganzfeld experiments and The

Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research. In both cases, impressive

statistics are used to support the belief in paranormal phenomena. It does

not seem to occur to Milton that there might be alternative explanations

for the statistics. Nor does it seem to occur to him that the defenders of

these claims have not done a very good job of providing compelling

evidence of anything significant. Milton seems to think that the

parapsychologists are rejected because they pose some sort of threat to

mainstream science. There is no threat. If a reasonable explanation of

paranormal phenomena is ever made and compelling evidence is produced

to support belief in ESP , etc., mainstream scientists will jump on the

bandwagon as they have in the past (see below, the examples of

continental drift and pre-Clovis Americans).

ad hominen

Another common fallacy committed by Milton is to attack the motives of

those who criticize and reject "crackpot ideas." Milton claims

Some areas of scientific research are so sensitive and so

jealously guarded by conventional science that anyone

who dares to dabble in them -- or even to debate them

in public -- is likely to bring down condemnation from

the scientific establishment on their head, and risk

being derided, ridiculed or even called insane. *

These allegations may be true, but they are also irrelevant to whether the

"sensitive" ideas are true or not. The charges are not true in at least two

areas where Milton claims it is forbidden to do research: cold fusion and

Darwinism. Research continues at several labs into cold fusion , although it

is apparently the case that the Department of Energy considers cold fusion

to be forbidden territory. [Note: In March 2004, the Department of Energy

said it would review over 15 years of cold fusion research (what it calls

"low- energy nuclear reactions." The report came out Dec. 1, 2004. The

bottom line? "While significant progress has been made in the

sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject in 1989, the

conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in

the 1989 review.")] Darwinism (natural selection), on the other hand, has

been attacked from within the ranks of scientists almost from its inception.

Even Darwin didn't think natural selection could completely explain

evolution (See The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex ) .

Like many critics of evolution, Milton does not understand Darwinism.

But that is another fallacy.

the straw man

Milton's attack on Darwinism is an attack on a position quite distinct from

the theory of natural selection. Milton attacks an idea few, if any, hold

today. He attacks an ideology he characterizes as a godless philosophy of

materialism, embracing the meaningless of life in a dog-eat-dog world of

brute aggression. Darwinism implies nothing about the existence of God

or a spiritual realm. It implies nothing about a Creator who does or does

not meddle in evolution. It implies nothing about the kind of social world

we have or should have. An evolutionary biologist is certainly free to

believe that God designed evolution.

more selective thinking

Milton ignores the fact that science has nothing to gain by believing what

is false. Unlike Milton, who sees scientific beliefs as essentially

ideological, scientists as a group have nothing at stake should the facts of

nature turn out to be otherwise than currently believed. Of course,

individual scientists from time to time get stuck in ideological and

idiosyncratic corners, but science as a whole is an enterprise that is self-

correcting. He attacks scientists for not accepting the criticisms of thinkers

and writers who criticize Darwinism. But he does not see that these ideas

are rejected either because their authors are barking up the wrong tree

(attacking straw men) or they have not made their case convincingly.

Milton should review the Alfred Wegner case for an example of how

science really works, because it is quite different from his notion of

conspirators guarding the gates of error and rejecting such things as

homeopathy or iridology "because they threaten to violate the accepted

canons of scientific rationalism." * Milton seems to have little appreciation

for the fact that it is easy to find confirmation for just about any hypothesis

and that one must constantly be on guard against confirmation bias , self-

deception , wishful thinking , and other psychological hindrances that can

lead to pathological science . Examples abound in his pages, but one of the

weakest arguments he has is given in favor of a Russian astrophysicist,

Mark Zilberman, who has found a correlation between the 11-year cycle

of solar activity and winners of the lottery in Russia and France. Milton

seems to think this is an amazing feat and indicative of ESP "modulated

by external geophysical factors." He can't understand why scientists are

not beating a path to Zilberman's door.

Alfred Wegener and continental drift

In The Origin of Continents and Oceans Wegener proposed the theory of

continental drift against the prevailing theory that the earth was formed by

cooling from a molten state and contractions. "Wegner's mode of

reasoning lent itself to criticisms and counter-arguments. Wegener made

assertions that could be checked and refuted as further evidence came in.

He left room for his speculations to be superseded" (Radner & Radner,

92). Wegener did not have disciples, but sympathizers who "acted like

scientists." Yet, Wegner's idea that continents move was rejected by most

scientists when it was first proposed.

Stephen Jay Gould notes that when the only American paleontologist

defending the new theory spoke at Antioch college (where Gould was an

undergraduate at the time), most of the audience dismissed the speaker's

views as "just this side of sane" (Gould, 1979, 160). A few years later, all

the early critics of the new theory would accept it as true. Why? Was it

simply a matter of Wegener and a few others jumping the gun by

accepting a new theory before the evidence was sufficient to warrant

assent? Were the latecomers 'good' scientists, waiting for more facts to

confirm the theory? Gould's view is that dogmatic adherence to the view

that the ocean floor is solid and unchanging was the main stumbling block

to acceptance of the new theory. Most scientists rejected continental drift

because it did not fit with their preconceived ideas about the nature of the

earth's crust. They assumed that if continents did drift they would leave

gaping holes in the earth. Since there were no gaping holes in the earth, it

seemed unreasonable to believe that continents move. The theory of

continental drift, says Gould, "was dismissed because no one had devised

a physical mechanism that would permit continents to plow through an

apparently solid oceanic floor." Yet, "during the period of nearly universal

rejection, direct evidence for continental drift--that is, the data gathered

from rocks exposed on our continents--was every bit as good as it is

today." Continental drift was considered theoretically impossible by some,

even if it were physically possible for continents to move. The new theory

could not be made to fit the theoretical model of the earth then universally

accepted.

The theory of plate tectonics was then proposed--the idea that the

continents ride on plates which are bounded by areas where new crust is

being created from within the planet and old crust is falling into trenches.

This provided a mechanism which explains how continents drift.

Continental drift, according to Gould, came to be accepted not because

more facts had been piled up, but because it was a necessary consequence

of the new theory of plate tectonics. More facts were piled up, though--

facts for the new theory of plate tectonics, of which the theory of

continental drift is an essential element. Today, it is taken as a fact that

continents move. Yet, the exact mechanism by which plates move is still

incompletely understood. This area of science will no doubt generate

much debate and theorizing, testing of hypotheses, rejection and/or

refinement of ideas.

The continental drift episode is a good example of how science works. To

someone who does not understand the nature of science, the early rejection

of the idea of continental drift might appear to show how dogmatic

scientists are about their pet theories. If scientists had not been so devoted

to their belief that the earth's crust is solid and immovable, they would

have seen that continents can move. That is true. However, the fact that

Wegener's theory turned out to be correct does not mean that he and his

few early followers were more reasonable than the rest of the scientific

community. After all, Wegener did not know about plate tectonics and he

did not provide an acceptable explanation as to how continents might

move. Wegener argued that gravity alone could move the continents.

Gould notes: "Physicists responded with derision and showed

mathematically that gravitational forces are far too weak to power such

monumental peregrination." Alexis du Toit, a defender of Wegener's

theory, argued for radioactive melting of the ocean floor at continental

borders as the mechanism by which continents might move. "This ad hoc

hypothesis added no increment of plausibility to Wegener's speculation,"

according to Gould (1979, 163).

It is true that the idea that the earth's crust is solid and immovable has been

proved wrong, but Wegener didn't prove that. What his theory could

explain (about rocks and fossils, etc.) other theories could explain equally

well. However, in the end, the idea of continental drift prevails. It prevails

because the dogmatism of science--the tendency to interpret facts in light

of theories--is not absolute but relative. Gould notes with obvious

admiration that a distinguished stratigraphy professor at Columbia

University (where Gould did graduate work), who had initially ridiculed

the theory of drifting continents, "spent his last years joyously redoing his

life's work" (Gould, 1979, 160). It is hard to imagine a comparable scene

involving any of the scientists admired by Milton.

ad hoc hypotheses

One characteristic of Milton's "alternative" sciences that distinguishes

them from real science is their reliance on ad hoc hypotheses to explain

the mysterious mechanisms behind homeopathy, psychokinesis, ESP,

perpetual motion machines, spontaneous human combustion, etc. How

homeopathy is explained will serve to demonstrate this point.

Homeopathy is a system of medical treatment based on the use of minute

quantities of remedies that in massive doses produce effects similar to

those of the disease being treated. Advocates of homeopathy think that

concoctions with as little as one molecule per million can stimulate the

"body's healing mechanism." They even believe that the potency of a

remedy increases as the drug becomes more and more dilute. Some drugs

are diluted so many times that they don't contain any molecules of the

substance that was initially diluted, yet homeopaths claim that these are

their most potent medications! Critics maintain that such minute doses are

unlikely to have any significant effect on the body. The critics base their

belief on what they know about the body and how it works. Homeopaths

base their belief on anecdotes and the metaphysical notion that like heals

like. They have resorted to various ad hoc hypotheses to explain how a

negligible or non-existent amount of a substance could have any effect on

the body. They have appealed to various healing "energies" of "vital

forces" bringing this, that, or the other into "harmony." The explanation

that seems to have the most favor among "alternative" scientists is,

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