Thoughts On ...

August 22, 2005

Flying Spaghetti Monster

I have updated my "featured area" to include a link to the Flying Spaghetti Monsterism website. What is FSM? Well, you can follow the link -- or you can keep reading.

In short, its a parody of Intelligent Design -- or more accurately its a recasting of intelligent design in a way that makes it easier to see the fallacies that lie at the heart of the argument.

Now, I could spend the rest of this entry saying what I think of the debate, but that you can get elsewhere (and I doubt readers of this blog are in suspense about where I stand on the issue of Evolution), so instead I want to say something about the language of the debate -- and more specifically about why the scientists are even being challenged.

In short: Being Right isn't enough, you have to care about how your message is delivered, if you want people to agree with you. So many people are expending energy on why evolution is so obviously correct, that they are missing how demagogues and pundits are using language -- comfortable, plain ordinary language -- to make it sound so far fetched.

Now, the typical geek response is to say "well, if people are so dumb as to fall for that sort of thing, that's their problem." But the fact is, when you take this stance (and too often, its done with an air of disdain and even arrogance) you kick the door wide open for someone to swoop in and, simply by virtue of tone and specious argument, make anything sound true.

The other problem is assuming that those people are swooping in because they are too stupid to know otherwise. Wrong! The real reason, is that they hope to influence others, to gain power. They can, they will, and they are.

I see this happen all the time to programmers. They *know* they are right, they know the manager, or other non-technical person hasn't a clue, and they see no reason to do more than assert their correctness -- and they scratch their heads in wonder when things don't go their way. What they don't understand is that people are motivated by their emotions, and their beliefs -- the geeks have just aligned their emotions and beliefs with so-called facts, and so think they are objective.

What is so wonderful about the flying spaghetti monster approach, is that it doesn't step back in righteous anger and argue more facts, it reaches directly into the realm of fallacy, and -- with no logic or even fact -- makes a much stronger argument than any explanation of evolution -- or even science. By making intelligent design seem absurd by association, it moves the argument into the comfort zone of the average human being -- where this argument needs to be won, if it is to be won at all.

In short, people are not logical (not even geeks) they are emotional -- and *how * things are said matters. For geeks, the *how* is based on science, critical thinking and otherwise their understanding of what is "correct." For most other people, it is much less rigorous, but no less strong. The key to making a difference is: no matter whether what you say is actually "correct" or not, you *still* have to pay attention to how you say it. Them's the facts.

Posted by wcaputo at August 22, 2005 11:34 PM
Comments

I accidentally deleted a comment placed here by Marc Brooks. I am replacing the contents of that comment and I have removed Marc's URL from my blacklist.

Marc's Comments:

I'm so glad your belief system gets its jollies out of making fun of others'. Hope you are proud of being so much smarter.

Posted by: Bill at August 23, 2005 04:21 PM

Hi Marc,

My belief systems are not what's in question here. Neither are yours. My entry is about *how* language affects the receipt of a message. For example, the tone of your comment is sarcastic, and rather negative -- my emotional response was to see it as comment spam and delete it.

I think you want to address the author of the FSM site about how he chooses to address other's beliefs, since I made no comment on the debate itself, other to imply that I think the Kansas School board is making a mistake (which I do believe).

For some, any attempt to look at their beliefs in a critical way is automatically seen as an attack on their person. If you reread *my* post, I did no such thing.

I understand and respect that people out there believe in Intelligent Design, Creationism, FSM'ism and a host of other ideas, however I also understand that science is not defined by belief, but by measurement. We shouldn't conflate the two.

There are many things I believe that have yet to be shown valid via scientific enquiry -- although I try hard to adjust my understanding to include what such enquiry reveals, even when its uncomfortable. It doesn't follow that I should redefine what science means, or try to dictate that others believe as I do, in order for me to hold those beliefs. I simply believe, and get on with my life.

The key thing in all of this though is that what's going on in Kansas has nothing to do with questions of faith and belief, or even science and religion but power and manipulation of people's emotions -- Its a scary and dangerous development in our society that we are willing to throw away what we've learned because some scaremongers make it sound like its the end of what we believe and hold valuable in this world.

So Marc, feel free to disbelieve evolution, but don't let your convictions lead you into following demagogues -- or throwing away the power of basing our understanding of the world around us, on measurement instead of tradition. If your beliefs are true, then no amount of measurement can undo that. If they are not, why would you want to hold them?

But regardless of what you believe, I will ask you to refrain from ascribing motives and actions to me when I haven't actually done them. That doesn't help us communicate with each other, nor does it fit the notion of proper behavior from any moral teaching that I am aware of. You are welcome to post here, but I won't continue this discussion if you can't raise the level of disucssion beyond 'ad hominem' attacks.

Posted by: Bill at August 23, 2005 04:42 PM

Maybe your point could be more impactful if you also include examples from other domains such as political advertising. Just be sure to include a balance of examples from the 'left' and the 'right'. But then again, you may not want to do that as you will then have everyone angry with you, not just those of us who believe in Intelligent Designer.

Another suggestion: maybe your main point can be better made if you left out comments like 'realm of fallacy' and 'absurd' in your description of Intelligent Design. Your bias got in the way of Marc Brooks getting your point. Pay attention to how you say it...

One other thing. I am not bothered by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I think it is pretty funny. But most people miss the real problem that Intelligent Design brings to education and what is at the heart of FSM. Because Kansas is going to allow a belief system (Intelligent Design) to be taught in it's schools, who is to say that the Flying Spegetti Monster belief system shouldn't be taught? But last I checked, Evolution is still a theory and therefore a belief system. You may feel that there is enough science behind Evolution to embrace it but scientists still refer to it as a theory.

So the real problem is: how many belief systems are we going to teach in public schools?

Posted by: Tom Looy at September 3, 2005 03:30 AM

Hi Tom:

Three things:

1) No matter how I say it, mentioning this topic was bound to offend people -- I accept that.

2) I didn't describe Intelligent Design using the terms 'realm of fallacy' and 'absurd' I described the *FSM argument* that way. The FSM approach is a false analogy (i.e. a fallacy). The FSM author's purpose was to make Intelligent Design look absurd.

The lesson for fact-wielding geeks (my topic remember?) is that the FSM argument is arguably having a larger impact than any 'fact' based argument presented by them, because *people* are more often swayed by emotional arguments (which the FSM approach is) than they are by shouting dry facts at them.

3) 'Theory' in the scientific sense of the term doesn't mean 'belief' as it does in common usage, but something much more strict. This *is* the fallacy at the heart of the matter in Kansas.

(BTW this fallacy is known as 'Equivocation' where the same word is used in two different ways that changes the arugment -- see: http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/equiv.php -- while factual, this argument is not very compelling, most people don't find logical fallacies all that fascinating or compelling.)

A scientific theory isn't created when someone wearing a lab coat wakes up one morning and says "You know I have a theory..." (the scientific term for this is 'hypothesis'). A Theory is an explanation model supported by observation.

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory):

"In various sciences, a theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework describing the behavior of a certain natural or social phenomenon, thus either originating from observable facts or supported by them."

Now go look at the bottom of the wikipedia page (there is a long list of famous theories), should we replace the mathematical theories listed there with arbitrary popular beliefs? Physics? Geology? (and give up predicting Tsunami's?) Meteorlogy? (hurricanes?) Medicine? Where does it end? Should we abandon observation of the world altogether and return to simple philosophic 'enquiry'. The ancient greeks had theories of this sort -- but do we really want to go back to explaining the physical structure of the world in terms of everything being composed of water, or air, or fire, or some combination? Is it really in our best interests to replace the local high school physics curriculum with the teachings of the pre-socratics?

Consider if we were to ignore the evidence we have for the motion of the Earth around the sun so that we could give equal weight to the 'theory' that Apollo and his chariots are pulling the sun across the sky. The problem is not whether Apollo and his horses are really out there somewhere (and we just haven't found them yet) but that we are ignoring the evidence we've collected over the past 2000 years about the relative motion of the Earth and the Sun. Apollo might well be out there somewhere, but if so, he *must* be moving the sun in accordance with our observations, or we must refuse to believe anything we see, hear, taste or touch or smell.

That evolution (one of the most studied and experimented of theories) has surived (and yes been amended) over 150 years of scientific enquiry is being completely ignored in the debate, to give equal weight to a 'theory' that doesn't have -- by any definition of Scientific Theory -- equal weight. Why does that make sense?

I personally don't have a problem with people believing Inteligent Design -- I have my own beliefs too, and I use them to make decisions about my life (in that respect they are also decision making models). But when I encounter evidence that doesn't match my beliefs (whether it be about metaphysics, software development, or anything else), I can either review my beliefs, or deny my observations. I prefer amending what I believe to remain consistent in light of the new evidence rather than ignoring what I am seeing. Don't get me wrong, I delude myself all the time, but I try not to. And that is what scientific theory is for humanity as a whole: Our attempt at objectivity. Its imperfect, but its better than not trying at all.

And that's the only part of this debate that really frightens me -- the attempt to change the definition of science. Not that people believe in Intelligent Design (or the flying spaghetti monster, or anything else), but because simply relying on what sounds good, allows people like Pat Robertson to manipulate truth. And that frightens me a lot.

Posted by: Bill at September 3, 2005 12:46 PM

I saw that this posting had 8 comments on it and I got pretty excited thinking that we had stimuated a pretty good dialog! You can imagine my disappointment when I saw that four comments were for a dating service. Don't you just hate that?

Anyway, I think that we are off to a good start on a dialog because we are spending some time early on defining our terms and making sure that we are addressing the same issues. I plan on doing a follow-up posting but I want to go back to your original posting again after reading your response to make sure I am getting what you intend to say.

But I would like to mention now why I believe that Evolution is more a belief system than science. Intelligent Design requires an Intelligent Designer, a Higher Being, or in the case of the majority of us Intelligent Design proponents, the God of the Old Testament. Creation seems to me to be a simplier alternative to explain our complex world than to believe that life originated without some 'outside force' and then over billions of years evolved to what we are today. I also believe that simplier solutions can often be better solutions. Too simple a solution can end up being rediculous but I don't think that Intelligent Design even gets close to being rediculous.

But I think that the major premise of Creation (it requires a Higher Being and is mostly associated with the God of the Moral Majority) is offensive to many people and therefore they have to find an alternative answer to the question of origins. So, in my opinion, the motivation for Evolution is not because it is good science, but because it is an alternative to a belief system and therefore is another belief system, one that says there is not God.

I appreciate your thoughtful and respectful comments. I look forward to your response.

Tom

Posted by: Tom Looy at September 4, 2005 10:49 PM