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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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