Why Do Humans Believe Nonsesnse? (Gardner's Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science)

 

      Martin Gardner. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1957) The book that made Gardner’s reputation as a skeptic. In most of his writing, he focussed on mathematics, and for many years wrote a mathematical recreations column for Scientific American.
     This book is a revised and expanded version of his 1952 book In the Name of Science. It deals with then current pseudosciences, cults, medical fads  and quacks, and con-artists of the technical kind. As evidence of the effects of semi-literacy, wishful thinking, and envy of expertise it is as relevant as ever. Mystery-mongers are more plentiful these days, and have a wider reach, with slickly made videos purporting to tell the “suppressed” history of Atlantis, ancient civilizations, alien surveillance of (and interference with) humans, and so on. Political conspiracies are seen everywhere, and all the old pseudo-scientific notions are revised to fit the latest physics, and to signal political virtues to match the current political animosities. Time travel is enjoying a vogue on YouTube, with an astonishing number of videos claiming to show photographic proof.
     The last 60-odd years have yielded insights that a allow some new responses to 1950s foolishness. L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics has morphed in the Church of Scientology, which sues anyone who questions its bona fides as a religion or theory of the higher realities. Nutritional science has advanced, and lately the researchers have been edging towards the conclusion that diet is idiosyncratic, and that the only generally valid advice is to eat a large variety of different foods, and to limit caloric intake. Rhine’s investigations into psi have been consigned to a footnote of the history of science even as the belief in ESP etc continues to muddle thinking about statistics.
     On the other hand, the dissemination of relativity and quantum physics has given the quacks an updated vocabulary of nonsense, and medical pseudoscience in particular has become a plague. New Age piffle is still with us, and has begun to claim that all the traditional emanations, levels of consciousness, and mental powers impinge on our universe from the multiverse that surrounds us.
     And so on. The book is well done. This is a reread, and my general impression is that a modern version of it would differ only in the names of some cranks and the dates of their works. ***

Homo Faber: Technology (Lapham's Quarterly XIV/1)

 

 Lapham’s Quarterly XIV/1 Technology (2021) Simon Winchester in his introduction to this collection adduces three phases of “technology proper”: the mechanical, the electronic, and the atomic, and argues that despite the Greek aptitude for mechanical devices, the mechanical age did not begin until an arrangement of mechanisms powered by steam was invented by Watt and his contemporaries. I think this view of technology is limited both conceptually and historically, even though it’s wider than the current most widely used meaning of the word. “Technology” these days usually means electronics, and often (more narrowly) electronic digital devices. More seriously, Winchester ignores spinning and weaving: I wonder who had the wit to put an image of a spinning wheel on the cover.

     I think that technology evolves out of tool making. Homo sapiens and its relatives became the dominant hominids because they went beyond the shaping of natural objects into tools, a process they refined over several hundred thousand years. But then they figured out how to combine shaped pieces of hide, wood, bone, and stone into more complex objects, and how to combine pieces of animal hide into clothing. They discovered a method of invention. Invention is an exponential process. We now have such rapid development that our habits, customs, ethics, and laws all fail to keep up with it.

     I recently came across the thesis that technology as such begins with the invention of spinning and weaving, a far more complex process, which depends on more than the recognition that reshaping a natural object may make it more useful. There is simply no natural analogue to textiles. They may have been inspired by spider webs, but they are a wholly new human invention. Through most of human history textiles were a more precious material than any others. Since the invention of the power loom, textiles have become so cheap that we think nothing of throwing them away. In fact, we make too much of the stuff, and even the poorer countries of the world no longer want our cast-offs.

     The next major phase of technology was the production of new materials, ceramics and metals. Both require exquisite control of fire and raw materials. Both put a premium on the human ability to imagine consequences, to observe and infer effects from causes, to imagine possibilities and find ways of testing them. The industrial revolution that Winchester adumbrates as the beginning of technology began when some European “natural philosophers”, inspired by Arabian examples of extensions of ancient knowledge, devised methods of systematic investigation of the world around them. By so doing, they accelerated that process of the mutual interplay of inquiry and technology that Winchester describes in his introduction. We live with the effects, in a system of constant invention and (occasional) improvement. This collection shows us how we have become more aware of both the process and our inability to escape from it.
     Another well done overview. ****

Government ain't easy: Democracy (Lapham's Quarterly XIII/4)

 

 Lapham’s Quarterly XIII/3 Democracy (2020) Though most of recorded history, “democracy” was a word and concept that struck terror into the hearts and minds of the rulers. Forgive the cliche, but when it comes to politics, it’s all cliche. Such as the equation of democracy with mob rule, which will destroy peace, order, and good government as certainly as the most heinous of tyrannies. And despite the example of Athens, that’s what democracy tends toward.
     Athenian political theory is quite clear: Oligarchy will give way to democracy, which will morph into mob rule, which will attract a tyrant or king to restore order. The king may found a dynasty, but the next phase will be an oligarchy, and so the whirligig of politics will bring in its revenges. History doesn’t suggest easy way to escape this cycle.
     This collection does have a few surprises, however. For example, the Haudenosaunee or Five Nations Confederacy, which pre-dated European contact, operated on consensus. (It comprised the Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga and Mohawk.) No decision was made until a consensus had been reached, even if it took days of talk. There is documentary evidence that democracy in the modern sense owes much to this model, for the American Revolution contained two strands, the one urging democracy, the other frankly oligarchic. Oligarchy won, and ever since the USA has been attempting to create the democracy that the Declaration of Independence aspires to describe, and which justified the Revolution.
     I think the inference from the evidence is that democracy is possible, but it requires constant effort, and constant re-invention.
     I’m puzzled that this collection omits what I think is the best comment on the whole business of government, Thoreau’s first two sentences of Civil Disobedience:
 

I heartily accept the motto,— “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,— “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.
     

In the meantime, we must make do with whatever governance we are able to tolerate. As usual, an excellent collection of word and image. ****

A Family Holiday: Summer's Lease (John Mortimer)

 

 John Mortimer. Summer’s Lease (1988) Molly Pargeter, who carries the burdens of family life, arranges a Tuscan holiday in a rented villa for a her family. Her husband Hugh will of course take credit for the idea and the planning. Her randy father, a writer of occasional pieces for local newspaper, tags along. What follows is an apparently casual but carefully plotted ramble of a story, in which Molly’s obsessive search for the truth causes a calamity of which she is blissfully unaware. Some rifts are mended, some ambitions frustrated, nostalgia gets its due. Well done. ***

Unintended consequences: Noninterference (Harry Turtledove)

 

Harry Turtledove. Noninterference (19881). The Federation Survey Service is surveying Bilbeis IV. The local ruler, a woman of remarkable character, is dying of cancer. The Terrans decide to give her “immune system amplifiers”. The Bilbeis biology is close enough to human for the drug to work, but different enough to have unforeseen consequences. Those consequences and their effects provide the bones of the plot. Turtledove adds convincing characters and sociological insights to make a well-constructed entertainment that also asks serious questions about governance, polity, bureaucracy, historical hinge points, and of course the effects of individual quirks on other people’s plans.
     Turtledove is also known for alternate histories and historical fiction. His Wiki bibliography lists an enormous number of books. This one I  rate well above average for the genre: ***

Two for the Price of One: Robinson's Piece of My Heart

 Peter Robinson. Piece of My Heart (2006) Two linked crimes, separated by forty years. A rock band that figures in both. Two cops, Inspector Chadwick, the damaged army vet who investigates the first one, and DCI Alan Banks, who investigates the second one and establishes the links. Justice of a sort is achieved, but moral and legal guilt and innocence are not the same. Banks and Annie continue their adjustment to each other as friends and colleagues. A new, careerist Superintendent causes grief. Family dysfunction slows and complicates both investigations. Robinson plots and writes competently, as usual, with fewer of the puppet strings visible. Still, he could have done with a sterner editor, who would have pruned the lists of pop-music trivia. Or maybe not. **½

 

Early Bloomers

 Early bloomers (in our garden today).

 Violets, Primulas, Bloodroot (sanguinaria canadensis) and Berginia  (sp. cordifolia.)