I like to joke that Midland is a great place to be from because you never get homesick... but it was a good place to grow up.
I don't often feel like bragging about Midland, but on Sunday my local paper (the Austin American Statesman) published an article about fellow Midland-boy James Pennebaker - the chairman of the psychology department at the University of Texas at Austin.
One of Pennebaker's quotes in this article made my day:
"I'm a problem for a lot of people, because I'm not a true believer," he says. "True believers have a theory and a worldview and their academic job is to validate their worldview. I'll sell out my research in a minute if you show me that it doesn't work or has a problem. I'll dump it and walk in the other direction. What's exciting about all this is that I want to know how the world works. I don't know how it works, so anything's fine with me. "If those aren't the words of a True Scientist then I don't know what a True Scientist is.
As for me... I have to admit that I am a Serial True Believer. I always seem to passionately believe in something-or-other, and I often go overboard to "validate my worldview". I'd like to think that I'm getting better, but I'm a long way from following Pennebaker's example.
I think that most Scientists are True Believers. History certainly supports my belief... Johannes Kepler was a True Believer of the theory that planets move around the Sun in orbits that are related to spheres. He tried valiantly to prove this belief, but he couldn't... the data simply didn't support his efforts. The data indicated that planets move in elliptical orbits... and Kepler, though he hated the idea, had to finally admit it and publish his conclusions.
Personally, I think that Kepler's True Belief is what kept him going. His passion to prove something that he believed to be true gave him the energy to crunch through all of Tycho Brahe's thousands of observations. Folks like Pennebaker are rare... most of us need a "cause" to get us off the couch and away from the TV.
Unfortunately, folks like Kepler are as rare as folks like Pennebaker. Kepler was a True Believer who could give up his Belief when he discovered that it wasn't True.
Scientists are People... and lots of People are True Believers, and this can really give Science a black eye from time to time. Lots of Scientists are so passionate about their True Beliefs that they lose their objectivity. At best this leads to Sloppy Science, and at worse it leads to outright fraud (remember Piltdown man? Cold Fusion? Fossils in Martian Meteorites?)
So there's the conundrum... without passion most Scientists lack the drive to do the hard work necessary to decode the mysteries of the Universe... but with blind passion a Scientist can be led to abandon the Scientific Method altogether.
Given the problems that the world is facing, I Truly Believe that we need as many "True Scientists" (like Pennebaker) as we can get. Darn... there I go True Believing again ;-)
7 comments:
You wrote:
"At best this leads to Sloppy Science, and at worse it leads to outright fraud (remember Piltdown man? Cold Fusion? . . ."
Cold fusion was not sloppy or fraud. It was replicated by hundreds of world-class laboratories, and these replications were published in about a thousand peer-reviewed journal papers. See:
http://lenr-canr.org
Thanks for the link Jed... Seems like you are a True Believer in Cold Fusion.
I will do my best to not be a True Doubter of the phenomenon.
-John
You wrote:
"Thanks for the link Jed... Seems like you are a True Believer in Cold Fusion."
No, I am true believer in replicated, high-sigma peer-reviewed experiments, especially when they are performed at places such as Los Alamos and the Japanese National Synchrotron lab. In other words, I am a true believer in science.
Whatever the evidence proves, be it evolution, the big bang or cold fusion, I believe it.
People who believe in cold fusion are often portrayed in the press as fanatics or true believers. Actually, as Martin Fleischmann says, "we are painfully conventional people." To dismiss cold fusion you must first throw away the laws of thermodynamics, then repudiate most chemistry and physics going back to 1830 or so, and then you must convince yourself that replicated experiments, peer-review, x-ray film, mass spectrometers, calorimetry and thousands of positive experimental runs mean nothing.
- Jed Rothwell
Jed,
To be honest, I don't know squat about Cold Fusion... except that it was over-hyped when first announced. Sloppy press-hype does not necessarily equate to sloppy-science, so I'll admit that I am guilty of sloppy blogging.
My categorization of you as a "True Believer in Cold Fusion" was based impressions generated by visiting your web site: http://lenr-canr.org
You seem pretty passionate about Cold Fusion Jed... Compiling such a large body of cold fusion research (and Congressional efforts to suppress further research) certainly indicates to me that you have strong beliefs about the topic of Cold Fusion...
Have you created any web sites for other "replicated, high-sigma peer-reviewed experiments" - "performed at places such as Los Alamos and the Japanese National Synchrotron lab"?
If not, then you ought to admit that in addition to being a True Believer in Science, you're a True Believer in Cold Fusion. That's not a bad thing... as Kepler proves... just something to be aware of.
-John
"True believer" is loaded expression. It is derogatory. See, for example, the book by that title by Eric Hoffer. I think you should look for another word. How about "committed believer"?
You wrote:
"To be honest, I don't know squat about Cold Fusion... except that it was over-hyped when first announced."
I do not think it was, but that is a matter of opinion.
"You seem pretty passionate about Cold Fusion Jed...
Compiling such a large body of cold fusion research (and Congressional efforts to suppress further research) certainly indicates to me that you have strong beliefs about the topic of Cold Fusion..."
I suppose anyone familiar with the research and the politics will have strong beliefs. It is like the debate between creationists and biologists. You cannot remain neutral if you know the first thing about biology.
"Have you created any web sites for other "replicated, high-sigma peer-reviewed experiments" - "performed at places such as Los Alamos and the Japanese National Synchrotron lab"?
No, I don't have the time, the resources or the expertise. I feel as strongly about other controversies such as Creationism, but I can't fight every battle. I give financial support to other groundbreaking engineering and science, such as plug in hybrid automobiles and "cultured meat" (in vitro meat).
"If not, then you ought to admit that in addition to being a True Believer in Science, you're a True Believer in Cold Fusion."
The two go hand in hand. A person who truly believes in the scientific method is forced to conclude that cold fusion is real. The evidence is overwhelming, and it convinces most people -- as far as I can tell. I know hundreds of people who have read the literature extensively. They include most of the top academic electrochemists in the world. Only five of them do not believe the effect is real (Huizenga, Hoffman, Britz, Jones and Morrison). Also, we have had about 1.2 million visits to LENR-CANR.org, and hundreds of people have contacted us with comments, corrections or asking for more information. One or two said they didn't believe a word of it; the rest seemed convinced it is real.
Perhaps skeptics are less inclined to contact us, but after all, there must be hundreds of thousands of readers, so we have heard from more by now if they were prevalent. By the same token, there have only been about a dozen peer-reviewed papers that try to prove cold fusion does not exist, written by the authors listed above. (We have most of their papers at LENR-CANR.) Whereas there are over 1,000 positive papers. There is no doubt in my mind that among people who have read the literature and who are well qualified to judge the research -- or actually do the research -- the overwhelming majority agrees with me that the effect is real.
Obviously, if cold fusion is real, it is one of the most important discoveries in history. If it can be made practical it will end the energy crisis, end the threat of global warming, and save millions of lives every year. So anyone who is convinced it is real is likely to be strongly in favor of the research.
- Jed Rothwell
Jed,
"Committed" or "True"... Regardless of the term, let's get back to the point of this blog entry...
When people (scientists are people) have passion for a theory (or a cause) it's "normal" for them to give more credence to data that supports their theory than they do to data that conflicts with their theory.
The first step to combatting this natural tendency (to be biased) is to admit that we are biased... Being aware of our biase is our best defense against becoming slaves to our biase.
Your original comment exposes me as having a bias against Cold Fusion. When searching for examples of "sloppy science" Cold Fusion immediately came to mind.
Yup, guilty as charged... I am biased. I need to keep an open mind.
-John
You wrote:
"When people (scientists are people) have passion for a theory (or a cause) it's 'normal' for them to give more credence to data that supports their theory than they do to data that conflicts with their theory."
That's true, and very important. Social science researchers are well aware of this, but people in other fields (including physics) may not be.
- Jed Rothwell
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