Science yes, but to what end?

Alright, this has been a pretty pro-science blog and that is more or less by design. Science and technology have brought lots of great things into our modern lives. I really don't want to imagine a world without indoor plumbing and vaccinations to name just a couple. Above and beyond just practical applications, scientific reasoning has increased by leaps and bounds humanity's understanding of the world.

It is not 100% positive though, most technologies are a mixed blessing. Let's take for example, our friend the airplane, in just over a century of flight, it has really transformed the way people from technologically advanced countries think of distance. It can also really be a help, loaded full of relief supplies and personnel, it can speed up the recovery from natural disasters and the like. On the down side, the same airplanes could be filled with soldiers to invade a country or hijacked by fundamentalist chuckle heads and smashed into buildings. To take an example from more recent headlines, an airplane could seal a hundred or more people in a flying aluminum can with a carrier of swine flu and deposit all those people several hundred miles from where started to distribute the virus to a whole different geographic region. The point I am trying to make is that science and technology too often taken into our lives without critically analyzing the full effects down the line.

Another point to make here is that science if great, science as the obedient lapdog of business and industry, not so good. If you want to go into medicine, great but try and model your career more after Jonas Salk than after the team of pill pushing ninnies who brought you Cialis. If you want to be an engineer, look to the people who designed the H2 and H3 Hummers as a cautionary tale, not as role models.

Continuing with the polemic rant, next up is the scientific world view. While it is certainly preferable to the world view that produced the Spanish Inquisition (no one expects the Spanish Inquisition) the scientific world view does have a disturbing habit if devaluing any other way of knowing. Forget all your traditional lore, historical place knowledge and things like that, all that stuff is devoid of value unless it can be quantitatively verified by somebody in a white lab coat with a clip board and advanced degrees from a properly accredited institution. Of course, a lot of this is more a problem with how science is done in modern society than with the idea of a scientific understanding of the world. If you stop and think about it, it an expert comes forth and says do X, a scientific society would look at their research, try and reproduce their experiments and then, maybe, if they came up with similar findings, they would go along with X. That is not what happens most of the time. More often the expert is taken at their word because the social institutions of science and technology are losing their ability to be self critical.

In conclusion, be skeptical of new technology, don't trust a businessman further than you can throw them, and be sure to tell the next expert you are confronted by that they are full of bologna.

Q&A with Derek Colanduno of skepticality.com

Derek Colanduno is one of the hosts of the skepticality podcast. You can find out more about him and the podcast at the skepticality website.

Here, we'll treat this first question like it's the first day of a graduate seminar. Could you introduce yourself to the group and talk a bit about your educational background and research interests?

My education in college was a degree in Computer Science, but it didn't start that way. At first I was a Pre-Med student, then realized that, even though it interested me greatly, I knew I wouldn't have the rigor to follow through with the work that I wanted to do, time, amount of school, etc... I wanted to be a surgeon. When I talked to other surgeons at the time, I realized that I wouldn't make it in the end, so I switched to Computer Science, which was VERY easy for me, my father pushed computers on me since I was around 7 years old, and I learned how to program before there was even a 'real' home computer.

Tell us a bit about skepticality and how you became involved with the podcast.

Podcasting was just me wanting to do what I always wanted to do. Back in college I worked for old-school over the air radio doing engineering and also on-air DJ work. I worked as the engineer for National Sports Radio Network, (which I think was bought by ESPN), and also one of the last privately held Rock stations left, which was an Alternative Rock Station doing late night on-air stuff now and then as a fill-in. Swoopy would come to the studio back then and we'd like to toss on music WE liked, since it was the middle of the night and the boss types were all long asleep. So, when we heard about Podcasting, we had that moment of, "HEY we can do the show we ALWAYS wanted to do!" And since we had tons of Audio/Video equipment already, it was easy to start doing it.

What impact do you hope skepticality will have.

At first when we started our show, we were shocked at how many groups there were out there. We knew about the JREF, and CFI (CSICOP), but had no idea just how many other groups there really were. So, I don't know how much of a hand we had in 'growing' it, as much as giving people who were content that no one else was giving them. So it gave people who thought like us an alternative to what seems to be the mainstream of talk radio, or big media. Something that would speak to people who have always wanted to hear about the information/issues they identify with. That and the world needs more critical thinking in terms of history and science. And that was a big goal of our show when we started. Hope that continues to be the case.

Skepticality is the podcast of Skeptic magazine. Would you care to comment on how critical thinking and scientific literacy are being presented on both, "Traditional Media," and "New Media?"

I think the Skeptical message, when it gets out to the 'Traditional Media', is very much the same as the message on New Media. The big difference is that media is changing quite a bit these days, so things like Podcasts, Blogs, and Online Video are where the younger eyes and minds are going currently. So, hopefully, the Skeptical outlook won't be seen as 'fringe' come 5+ years from now.

How do you think that increased scientific literacy can improve the functioning of a democracy?

Definitely, if you look back at the beginnings of Democracy, it started with some of the first, great, minds of science and philosophy. Learning to think critically, which is what science does, leads you to embrace the power of ideas such as democracy and how laws and countries are run at their roots.

Do you think that advancements in science and technology can impair a democracy?

The only way I can currently see that to be the case, would be when bad people USE the advancements in science and technology in ways to hamper democracy. Such as, blocking access to specific information out on the internet, or controlling messages via censorship. Which, has happened in countries that are not democracies at all. But, I don't see how just the advancement of science and technology would do that on its own.

The word skeptic is a loaded term to some people. How do you define the term and what does it mean to you?

I think if you grab an issue of Skeptic Magazine and turn to the front cover, there is a great definition right there. " Some people believe that skepticism is the rejection of new ideas, or worse, they confuse "skeptic" with "cynic" and think that skeptics are a bunch of grumpy curmudgeons unwilling to accept any claim that challenges the status quo. This is wrong. Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims. It is the application of reason to any and all ideas: no sacred cows allowed. In other words, skepticism is a method, not a position. Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are "skeptical," we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe. Skepticism has a long historical tradition dating back to ancient Greece, when Socrates observed: "All I know is that I know nothing." But this pure position is sterile and unproductive and held by virtually no one. If you were skeptical about everything, you would have to be skeptical of your own skepticism. Like the decaying subatomic particle, pure skepticism uncoils and spins off the viewing screen of our intellectual cloud chamber. Modern skepticism is embodied in the scientific method, which involves gathering data to formulate and test naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena. A claim becomes factual when it is confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement. But all facts in science are provisional and subject to challenge, and therefore skepticism is a method leading to provisional conclusions. Some claims, such as water dowsing, ESP, and creationism, have been tested (and failed the tests) often enough that we can provisionally conclude that they are not valid. Other claims, such as hypnosis, the origins of language, and black holes, have been tested but results are inconclusive so we must continue formulating and testing hypotheses and theories until we can reach a provisional conclusion. The key to skepticism is to continuously and vigorously apply the methods of science to navigate the treacherous straits between "know nothing" skepticism and "anything goes" credulity. Over three centuries ago the French philosopher and skeptic, René Descartes, after one of the most thorough skeptical purges in intellectual history, concluded that he knew one thing for certain: Cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am. But evolution may have designed us in the other direction. Humans evolved to be pattern-seeking, cause-inferring animals, shaped by nature to find meaningful relationships in the world. Those who were best at doing this left behind the most offspring. We are their descendants. In other words, to be human is to think."

In his inaugural address, President Obama stated that he would, "restore science to its rightful place." If you were given an opportunity to talk to him about science, technology and education, what would you say?

I'd probably have to mention some issues such as internet neutrality, and somehow making it almost impossible to have more push into schools by people who are anti-evolution or anti-science. Not sure what my exact words would be though! :)

Finally, anything important I missed? Any shameless self promos you'd like to get out there?

I think you covered the main points about me. I hope some of your readers will come and check out our show at www.skepticality.com. And also, hope to see some of them at the big Skeptic Track events at North Americas Largest Culture Convention, Dragon*Con!

I would like to thank Derek for taking the time to thoughtfully answer some questions for this blog. While I have not made the trek out to Georgia for Dragon Con, I hear it is quite the event. The fact that the skeptic track of events is just one of more than thirty event tracks at the event give some idea of the scale of the convention. Mr. Colanduno's optimistic view on the future of new media and the gradual rate of change and influence is interesting. To twist an old cliche, "The hand that makes the podcast is the hand that shapes the world." Who knows, it could work out that way.

University of the People

Okay, this is a little far afield from what I want this blog to focus on, but it's an interesting concept in any case. The name of the university alone is great.

Coming April 2009, the University of the People, an online institution that will run on a tuition free model. The idea is to bring the possibility of higher education to those who have been economically or geographically prevented from seeking higher education. Their plan is to use collaborative and open-source e-learning while embracing peer-to-peer teaching under a peer-to-peer pedagogical model. (If that wasn't enough jargon for you, you have a serious problem.) The idea here is to increase the democratization of education by giving better opportunities for upward mobility to those who have limited life chances. Nothing like poverty and geographic isolation to hem a person in. The university will be staffed by volunteers, university faculty, librarians, educators and others. Yes, they will be looking to become accredited as soon as the waiting process has been met.

Shai Reshef is the founder of the University of the People. He has previously worked in online higher education and is the current chairman of the board for cramster.com, an online study community. He was interviewed on APM's Future Tense this week and the University of the People was the subject of a recent article in the New York Times.

And now, my two cents worth on the topic:

It seems that the University of the People might find more success dealing with geographical impairments to higher education than economic ones. It is conceivable that a person who is in a rural area might have the technological resources at their disposal to be successful at an online university. It is more difficult to see how somebody from an impoverished background would be able to overcome the digital divide to utilize this resource. This is not to say I don't think this is a worthwhile effort. I hope the project is a success and they are able to reach out to the thousands of students they hope to serve. What may turn out to the this project's strength may also be where the challenges arise. By relying on volunteers and peer-to-peer cooperation, the university is placing a lot of faith in people's good will. If the volunteer faculty and staff are diligent and the student body both supportive and collaborative, then the school may very well be successful. If the volunteers get busy with other obligations and the students are self absorbed, the whole thing could grind to a halt. I hope the former turns out to be the case and educators in other venues can see how the peer-to-peer pedagogical model has worked and, perhaps, think of ways to use it elsewhere.

There is something to be said about the lingering effects of the colonial era in the fact that this university will carry out all it's classes in English. But that's a rant for another day.