Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions
This is a great talk by Sam Harris, albeit old.
This is a great talk by Sam Harris, albeit old.
I find surprising the amount of commonly held misconceptions there are about evolution by natural selection. Popular misconception all too often leads to misinformed discourse. I offer the anecdote of a discussion I once had with a college philosophy teacher who, when teaching the basic principles of biological materialism and Darwinism, asserted that natural selection was an idea founded on a principle he described as ‘survival of the fittest’. Whilst one can make the intellectual leap in using the term ‘fit’ in an archaic context, it ultimately ends up confusing modern people who are simply seeking to gain a grasp on Darwin’s powerful ideas.
Within this one misnomer there exists a library of discrepancies with Darwin’s original phrasing, providing loopholes which tend to usher in unwarranted criticism. The first of which is the assumption that Darwin himself coined the misleading term. Darwin never used ‘survival of the fittest’ to describe the process of evolution by natural selection, as popular culture, fueled by a host of BBC documentaries, would have you imagine. In fact, the rather disgusting little piss-term was first used by one Herbert Spencer in Principles of Biology some half a decade after the publication of On the Origin of Species (1859). When one actually reads Darwin’s original text, it becomes apparent that ‘survival of the fittest’ is not a tautology, but a grave misinterpretation. Let’s examine Darwin’s own words on exactly the same subject (I have highlighted the important sections in bold type):
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
It seems uncontroversial to state that this makes perfectly clear Darwin’s intention to actively dissuade a ‘survival of the fittest’ type of interpretation of his work. He asserts that neither strength nor intelligence are the fundamental characteristics of a species well inclined for survival. Rather, both of these are resulting properties of adaptation. It might seem intuitive to think of an array of characteristics like strength, intelligence, speed and size as crucial to the survival of species and, for many examples, they are. However, when one considers the examples of species such as ants or the crane fly, it becomes apparent that there isn’t a characteristic in the animal kingdom which can’t be outmatched by a member of another species. Put simply, where one species excels others might fail.
Other examples include a hypothetical fight between a lion and a bear. Since the lion has always relied heavily on its speed and upper body strength to bring down antelope, it has never had any biological necessity for a particularly strong skull. In this sense the lion has been completely successful in its evolution, but it soon becomes apparent that it would not necessarily fair well if it was forced into locations anew. Consequently, if a lion were to ever come into contact with a grizzly bear of the forest it would likely have its head caved with a single strike. This is because the lion has adapted its attributes based on its surroundings, rather than simply evolving specific ones. If the individuals of a species cannot be successful in their versatility then they are likely to perish. Perhaps if the lion’s ancestors had been moved to a different part of the world by the continental drifts we might look upon a completely different animal. It might not even exist today. We cannot predict with any degree of certainty though since, being completely absent of consciousness, evolution has no foresight.
This notion of biological adaptation is central to Darwin’s theory. Herbert Spencer’s ‘survival of the fittest’ not only undermines the power of natural selection as a general theory, but also grossly misleads and prevents a wide understanding of the topic. It can tend to encumber people with unfounded and poorly researched criticism. Unless one wishes to read On the Origin of Species in the same sense that they might interpret a metaphor, Darwin could not have been clearer about his meaning. Natural selection is not survival of the fittest, it is survival of those that adapt to their ever changing surroundings.
I have just attended a debate between Professors Brad Hooker and David Oderberg at Reading University. The topic of debate was whether or not banker’s pay, high pay in particular, was morally justifiable. I would just like to make a commentary on one proposition which Brad Hooker made that I felt was a little frivolous, in retrospect. Obviously, he is a Professor of Philosophy and I am a mere undergraduate and so I am a little anxious as to make frivolity calls in his direction. Nevertheless, the statement has unsettled me for most of the day and sadly he had to teach a class directly after the debate and so I couldn’t question him personally. That being said, like the internet whore that I am, I would like to blog it!
During the Q & A period of the debate the topic of risk taking came up and Brad Hooker made the proposition that the taking of a risk is not morally unjust. This can be said to be true in the case of a stand alone risk made by an individual where only that individual is implicated by the risk itself. However, I belief he forgot to factor in, as is the case with bankers, that where the risk has a probability for negative implications on surplus individuals it can be said to be morally unjust.
For instance, if I decided to take the risk to jump down a flight of stairs and the probability of a negative impact on my state of personal well being was the only factor to consider, then clearly there is no moral question whatsoever. The decision to do that is mine and mine alone. There is no risk of me hurting any other individual and the only issue in question is my sanity. However, if I gathered together a group of ten individuals and had each one of them pay me ten pounds to jump down the flight of stairs, adding the stipulation that I would divide the money equally between the ones that manage to survive the fall without a scratch, whilst the remaining injured parties would recieve nill and feeding all of the individuals “valid” reasons why the should in fact take the plunge, I think there is questionable morality in taking the said risk.
With that little banking analogy, I would like to close by saying that the debate was unexpectedly engaging. As the first debate of term I was expecting a little more of a simplistic topic, but the current issue of the financial climate was a great way to get things started.
That is all.
Religious apologist: If there is no God, then where do morals come from?
I: Morals are a tool which evolved to facilitate altruism. We’d all be dead by now if people couldn’t behave nicely towards one another.
That is all.
“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” – Aristotle
Sadly, the postmodern era has given rise to a dangerous idea. Dangerous in the sense that it is in idea in disguise. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, waiting to pounce. It is, you realise after a few glances, a despicable notion. It is one that can have quite terrifying implications and yet dresses itself as a sweetly innocent and fair concept, drawn up with bows ribbons. Some might even be blind enough to praise it as a virtue in these modern times. I am speaking, of course, of the idea that everyone’s opinion holds equal merit.
This idea is appealing to the postmodernist and can be preached from that perspective with a kind of justice, but that justice is misplaced. In practicality the idea breaks down instantly. Like most examples of bad thinking, this one derives from a common misconception. People usually make some sort of salient connection between an individual’s opinions and their character value. The perception is that if someone makes commentary on a person’s opinion or beliefs, they are also making a commentary about that person themselves. This is not the case. Opinions are transient and can be altered by many factors, including the acquisition of knowledge. Using the learning process, opinions can gradually be proven fact (or at least, as close to a fact as humanly possible). In fact, if our opinions didn’t change during the course of our lifetime, or even daily lives for that matter, living and progressing in linear time would be made impossible.
Opinions are not facts. Wittgenstein defined facts as states of affairs within the model of reality. Facts are truths about our picture of the world. Facts are that which is. Opinions are can be described as subjective statements made about those facts. There is a great distinction. We as humans also have an odd tendency, due to our powers of imagination, to use opinions as a substitute for facts where knowledge of the said fact is nil. For example, when people encounter a phenomena that they cannot logically explain they tend to dub it a “paranormal” experience. However, terms like “supernatural” and “paranormal”are, in themselves, paradoxes.
Think about it for a second. Words and ideas like “reality” and “nature” are directly describing what is true about existence. Something either does or does not exist in reality. Reality means what truly is. Therefore, to introduce a term like “supernatural” means nothing, because once you have discovered a fact about the natural world then it is obviously part of that reality. Nothing can exist outside of reality because reality is, by definition, everything that exists. The purpose of science is to discover that which is real so that we might have a better understanding of the way in which existence works. If some tangible evidence was discovered tomorrow that ghosts and goblins existed then they would become part of reality and could be explained by scientific means. It would be accepted that they have always been part of reality. However, since we can’t seem to find any real evidence for this kind of phenomena, besides personal and subjective testimony, they remain consigned to the category of “non-existent” and will do so until proven otherwise.
Likewise, if far in the future we were to discover that some higher dimensional space existed outside of our own universe (which, by the way is right on the frontier of contemporary physics) it would then become part of our understanding of reality and would be accepted as a natural part of existence. Until then, theories such as Superstring Theory will remain within the realms of scientific opinion rather than fact. I hardly need to mention that up until incredibly recently in human history, we were ready to believe that the Earth was a flat surface and created laws prohibiting sea captains to sail their crews too far into the horizon under threat of death, for the fear of plumeting off its edge. However, with the benefits of modern science we can now casually verify, in everyday conversation, with incredible conviction and accuracy that the Earth is, along with most other heavenly bodies, a globe. Not to mention the fact that a select number of us have actually seen the globe from outside of Earth’s atmosphere and photographed it.
This is a perfect example of how learning from a massive convergence of evidence can help to substantiate the truth of our world model. This is the only aim of science. It is not, as “alternative thinkers” would have you believe, to sit in its rocking chair, smoking its pipe blissfully whilst sarcastically making a mockery of every piece of black magic, voodoo hogwash that scuttles across its highly vacuumed Persian rug.
The comedian Dara O’Briain phrased this next paragraph better than I ever could, but I will try all the same. Pedallers of “hollistic”, “homeopathic”, or “nutritionalistic” remedies would screech to the hilltops the value of herbal remedies and their healing properties. Scientists would counter that they spend a great deal of time scouring the world for those herbal and naturally occurring chemical compounds that work and turning them into what we know as medicine. During that process they also spend a great deal of time testing and double testing things that might work so that there can be no real argument.
It is with these maxims and this frame of thought in place that we must pass judgment on individual’s opinions. It is, quite frankly, ridiculous that the opinionated belief systems that drive multimillion dollar industries such as homeopathy or psychic-mediumship run unchecked whilst science with its massive convergence of evidence and research remain criticised. People even choose to believe those blatant falsehoods over what is real, substantiated and proven. This is proven and propagated time and time again by media corporations and our government who shout that we must not disagree with our fellow’s opinion or belief system in public discourse. It’s not even enough that we have to respect their belief system any longer. We literally cannot voice an opposing opinion and contend that someone is talking rubbish anymore in the name of political correctness.
Examples of this can be found literally every day on BBC programming. It seems to have opted to produce a “junk-food” style of public debate, centered on equality of opinion, rather than focusing on delivering informative facts to people and allowing them to come to the best possible decision based on them. This in itself feeds bad thinking. If people are allowed into an intellectual discourse, before reviewing any real fact-based material, believing that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old as creationists do then the whole concept of being informed and intelligent is thrown out of the window.
I simply ask the question of why? I have absolutely no problem with respecting an individual’s privacy, relationships, personal choices or any of the things that make them who they are, but this is different from actually being made to respect the content of their subjective opinion. I don’t even mind respecting the fact that they hold the opinion. It’s the content that should be allowed to be brought into contention.
For instance, I am a Manchester United fan and it happens to be my opinion that they are a good team. The statistical data over the past 20-25 years also swings to support that hypothesis. However, I am constantly criticised by friends and peers who inform me that they are a terrible team to support and that I am a moron of the highest order. I have no problem with that. There is no problem with that whatsoever. They are criticising the content of my subjective opinion. My opinion about Manchester United is not based on a vast array of supporting evidence. I simply like them. When asked why I like them I can’t really come up with any satisfactory argument. Neither could any other fan of sport. Some might support their local team because they were born in the general area, but they have no real ties with the club anymore than they have real ties with the geographical area. All reasoning behind sport-based opinion making is generated by a sense of pride within the individual fans themselves.
So the name-callers are not trying to lie to me, criticise me as a human being or trying to alter my perception of what is true in any way. In reality, Manchester United re no better than a lot of other teams in the Premier League.
This sort of opinion, about football, is clearly not equal to that of a medical practitioner who tells me that, through the convergence of evidence including my personal testimony, objective blood testing and some cardiovascular monitoring, they have concluded I have a viral infection. Nor is the unfounded opinion that a mashed toad will cure my headache equal to the conclusion that each living human has 23 pairs of chromosomes, one pair from each parent, based on genetic evidence. Understanding this principle is essential to formulating opinions that hold merit and real-world application. The opinions of those rancid individuals who remain in denial of the holocaust do not hold equal value to those who believe it did certainly happen based on the massive amount o f evidence which proves that it did.
Everyone has the right to their own subjective opinion and we must completely respect that. That is the purpose behind the concept of opinions. However, as we have seen, this does not make them equally valuable by default in the realms of intellectual discourse and real-world application. Therefore we do not, or should not, be made to respect the content of those opinions or belief systems in the name of a false sense of balance. No individual on this planet is better than anyone else, but that is not to say that their view point is equally valid.
People can be wrong and that is one of the wonders of progression.
So if you come to me with any of this mumbo jumbo… Take a deep breath and then remove the silly dunder-thoughts from your brain-capsule. Then stick them up your toffee-bott.
Anybody that has ever held any interest in looking for objective truth in the world will likely have stumbled across the concepts of rationality, reason, science and logic at some point during their perusal of pertinent proofs. Ever since the postmodern era was unceremoniously ushered into western culture, bringing with it all of the counterintuitive paradigms that facilitate abominations such as homeopathy and psychic mediumship, we seem to have all fallen prey to the immensely bad idea that what is true for me could be a completely different state of affairs to what is true for the next individual.
This idea, of course, seems immensely appealing since it allows us to fill our respective boots with the warming notion that we alone can know a truth that nobody else can know. It makes us special from within our own perception. Homeopathy does this immensely well. It makes claims about the real world that simply will not be tested and verified by any worthy method, and then goes on to add the clause of, if you don’t believe then it won’t work.
This clearly creates a problem, because the real world just does not work in this way. If all truths are simply inside our heads then there is nothing out there at all. The whole concept of universal truth is reduced to introspection and nothing of what is outside of our own head can ever be known. However, we know that there is something beyond our own perspective because we experience and interact with it every day of our lives. We have theories that can model the universe, from the very big to the very small, with staggering accuracy and absolutely repeatable real-world practical application. We’ve put men on the moon, invented satellites that measure the background radiation from the big bang and can show us ‘baby pictures’ of our universe. We don’t claim that these theories are entirely complete, but humanity is working on it.
If something works then it works, and should be able to be repeatedly tested and verified as a truth. If it doesn’t hold up to a convergence of processes that attempt to both prove and disprove the validity of the claim, then it is likely amongst thousands, perhaps millions, of phenomena that are simply anomalies that can be explained by minute mathematical probability. Evidence is the key. We call this way of thinking science.
Science tries immensely hard to place it’s perspective outside of the mind and perceptual framework of the observer. The scientific mind knows some of the many psychological biases that impede our judgment and can take steps to attempt to eliminate them from any experiment that you care to mention. Here I have compiled some of these biases and attempted to sketch an outline of the way that they affect our perspective of what is truly out there in the real world. (Note: they affect everybody. There is nobody that doesn’t experience these every day of their lives. It’s part of being human.) :
The Confirmation Bias
The confirmation bias is the psychological process which filters out the misses and only notices the hits in support of what we wish to believe. This is the human trait that most psychic mediums who work on a face-to-face basis prey on when they employ the ‘cold reading’ technique. They make use of a set of sweeping, generalised statements, designed to probe at the sitter’s (the poor person who has usually paid good money to experience this violation is called a ‘sitter’) personal situation. Usually, the sitter gives enough information away, either by physically indicating or actually answering, for the medium/cold reader to continue making general statements and if the ‘hits’ outweigh the ‘misses’ the sitter goes away feeling that they have just been given an incredibly specific reading. This example actually goes one step further, since the sitter will often ignore misses anyway and simply cling to what fits and ‘feels right’ for the sake of not feeling stupid.
Whenever proper testing has been carried out on such proprietors, they tend to get results of roughly (mostly below) 50% which is a slightly lower result than you can achieve for guessing.
The Blind Spot bias
A Princeton University study has revealed that test subjects can recognise the cognitive biases of other subjects but fail to see the same biases in themselves.
The Self Serving Bias
Studies have also shown that people have a tendency to perceive themselves in a more positive light than the light in which others view them. In other words, we all tend to believe we are the main character of our own ‘life movie’, and why should we not? After all, we evolved with survival as a primary concern. At a primordial level, surely if we view ourselves as the central roll then we can focus on making the most of our own life.
Studies to support this include national surveys which reveal that 60% of American high school seniors would place themselves in the top 10% in, “ability to get along with others.”
B.F Skinner’s Habitual Pigeon Experiment
It turns out, as American psychologist B.F Skinner revealed in his infamous experiments, these cognitive biases are not local to homo sapiens. He, quite roughly I should imagine, threw some pigeons into cages and after shaking them profusely set about beginning the experiment… I am obviously lying. B.F Skinner was never, to my knowledge, charged for animal cruelty. He did however monitor the ritualistic habits of such animals. He would place the little blighter into a bird box and have a food releasing mechanism, wired to a timing device, thrust pellets of food unto them at random intervals. He observed that they would carry out rituals, such as tapping their heads on the floor, in an attempt to make the food appear faster. If their ritual seemed to them to be effective no more than a few times, they would adopt it as a behaviour and continue to do it regardless of the fact it had no bearing on anything other than possibly giving them a headache.
This phenomenon is symbolically representative of human behaviour such as prayer. Usually, if a person’s prayer appears to be answered, even in completely coincidental terms, they will repeat the process for the rest of their life. They completely disregard the reality of the matter in favour of what seems to be the truth for them subjectively.
Consider for a moment that a person of religious faith would pray to feel better after two days of suffering from the common cold virus. She has been taking paracetamol regularly for the past day, but nothing seems to be effective in making her feel better. On the third day, after the prayer, she wakes up and feels much more healthy. She completely disregards, or remains ignorant of, the fact that a cold virus runs it’s course over a three day span. In all likelihood the antibodies in her immune system have done their natural job and neutralised the virus. Besides, there is no medical cure for the common cold, so paracetamol would only serve to lessen her neuralgia symptoms. She would mistakenly ascribe the increase in her mood and health status to the prayer, usually without thinking about the reality of the scenario, because it is simpler than considering the truth.
The Bandwagon/Cromo Effect
This will likely be a well recognised cognitive phenomena. The notion is simple. A belief, claim or idea spreads more quickly if there are more people that have already invested in it. For example, if there is a group of three friends and two of them become interested in a particular musical artist, the third is likely to become interested in it too. In turn, each of them will likely pass it on to their respective friends who will do the same, ad infinitum. This allows fads, trends and cult thinking to form quickly. However, if ideas form under the influence of the aforementioned bias, we can easily see how bad ideas can spread into mainstream culture. This is how we have arrived at this age of bad thinking in the first place, so quite a literal sense bad thinking can self perpetuate.
Placebo Effect
The placebo effect is immensely interesting and involved. I could never hope to do it justice with a tiny outline in a blog that no one will ever read and so I will keep it short. The placebo effect proves that the grimy subject of pain is indeed just that: subjective. During some operations, surgeons discovered that they could operate with lower, or in some cases no, anesthetic if the patient ‘believed’ they were under the influence of such a drug. More recently placebo pills (usually just a combination of sugars) have been shown to reduce pain in test subjects if they believe it to be some form of medicine. However, as a rule of thumb this only has efficacy in pain related ailments, so don’t expect that eating sugar is going to regrow your broken arm, or cure your viral infection. That’s just a cuckoo idea.
Since we humans are generally looking out for our best interests, I would imagine most of you will be wanting to gain something from this lengthy and likely exhausting lecture. (Yes, a lecture) So what can you selfish, idle miscreants expect to take from all of this wisdom that I have kindly enforced upon your supple minds? I suppose the main point would be never to invest in an idea or belief system, such as new age paradigms or mystical frameworks, that somebody else subscribes to without investigating it for yourself first. In the same vein, never invest in it just because ‘it feels right’ to do so. We have seen how ‘right’ something can feel even though it holds no real-world application, validity from evidence or any repeatable substance thanks to cognitive bias. Is that so much to ask? Literally just asking some questions about these beliefs before granting them room inside your, I am sure, well organised filing cabinet of a mind.
The next time your mystical friend tells you she has some wonderful energy crystals (believe me, these people do exist) that will accelerate the growth of your petunia bush (take the euphemism as you will) simply ask her if she has ever considered trying to grow a separate pot of the same flower in the same conditions, but without use of the crystals. This is merely healthy curiosity. It doesn’t even borderline the dreaded notion of skepticism that so many people are ready to leap away from at the sign of the first venom-tipped pincer. In likewise fashion, if anyone has ever tried to force echinacea upon your vulnerable and influenza ridden form, then take heed to this wonderful factoid. Echinacea has recently been proven no more effective than a placebo. That’s a sugar pill to you and I.
Additionally, never ever believe that something that has real-world application (i.e. medicine) can work for you and you alone. Neither is it a good idea that it will work if you simply believe it. That, my wonderful little bosom-chum, is just silly-talk. You have to consume a little opiate for that.
TED is an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design which initally began in the 80′s as a conference to bring the fields together. Since then it has grown into a kind of forum for leading thinkers to project their ideas and achievements to the world.
Intellects like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett have both given TED talks over the years (to name but two of the hundreds), along with perpetrators of more art and design based fields.
I would like to point you in the direction of the website, where you can view most of the talks for free and generally peruse the themes at your leisure. They really are incredibly interesting and will help you keep you up to date with the frontiers of human development, including those of future technology, design, science and philosophy.
They will also allow you to bypass the vast majority of hefty reading involved in appearing intelligent… Or else direct you to further reading if you genuinely are.
Click here for the TED website!
Alongside this I would like to post links to a few of my personal favourite talks, because… well it’s my blog so screw you:
Daniel C Dennett’s Talk on being sexy
Daniel C Dennett’s Talk on Consciousness
Johnny Lee on Wii Remote Hacks
My brother Mathew, an artist, favours these TED Talks:
Scott McCloud on Understanding Comics
Don Norman on how Design Makes You Happy
We both agreed that this TED talk was particularly powerful:
A previous post of mine (here) was a reference point to what is allegedly the most expensive sandwich in existence. A freaking £100 hunk of steak in a bap. The post came complete with a wonderfully glorious, Google Image searched photographic marvel. (That’s a picture of the costly comestible to you, short-change!) Ideally this picture would have to represent the sandwich in the best possible light, showing off it’s culinary masterwork for as far as the eye could see. Being that the price tag was so hefty, I was quite happy to comply with my preconceived notion that the sandwich looked, at best, edible. Therefore it was my initial decision to order this sandwich from the United States-based company that dabbles in such delightful deals.
However, the more I rested my gaze upon it’s worthy visage the more a problematic conundrum seemed to arise. At first I couldn’t seem to pinpoint the cause. Try as I might, I simply couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that arose from my tum-tum cavity. After some time of chewing the end of my pencil uneasily (that’s not code, I swear…) and biting my fingernails to stubs, the conclusion hit me. It was so simple. Why hadn’t I spotted it before?
The sandwich looked frigging hideous.
I mean, sure, it contained ingredients that seem to be vaguely collaborative and the bread was surely of high quality. Despite this simply fact I couldn’t seem to reconcile the over-a-ton price tag with the mangled heap of squelchy-looking, garbage water-carrying bilge filth before my eyes. My whole belief system and faith in the food industry was shattered.
I was devastated. I moped around the house for days… (Or at least quarter of an hour…) The world’s most expensive sandwich looked like a pile of crap. That’s not even paraphrasing for the sake of crudeness. It looks like a steaming hump of crap. However!
However…
My mission to be fulfilled by the wonders that only a sandwich containing a healthy portion of meat can bring was not to be thwarted yet! I realised that my purpose on this planet, at least until the next time my sole interest was taken up by another passing craze, was now abundantly clear. It was my mission to create the best sandwich. Not the most expensive sandwich, but simply the one that makes my own heart melt down into my stomach and dissolve there and then probably be subject to my digestive system simply so I can poop it out and eat it again, just to restart the process. The. Best. Sandwich.
So the heat is on! Literally and metaphorically. I am currently cooking what is potentially the greatest sandwich in existence as we speak! I won’t give in until it’s complete. You can expect pictures, make no mistake. You can’t expect to buy it from me since it will be in my belly. That’s right! No Sandwich of Glory for you!
Le Fin
