Killing Mind

More than a century ago Albert Einstein laid out his theories on relativity. Ever since, countless complex debates have raged in scientific journals and physics laboratories, challenging the veracity of the theory. Even today there is little consensus on whether relativity reflects the actual state of affairs, or just conveniently models certain physical behaviour. In the meantime however, Engineers have rolled out a global positioning system that allows anyone with a few hundred dollars to burn, to plot their location on Earth to an accuracy of a few metres. If those Engineers had failed to include the theory of relativity in their calculations however, the system would accumulate errors of about 10km per day¹ and quickly become a global positioning mess. Yet, despite the complex scientific principles at work, the global positioning system is accessible to a vastly wider audience than the latest debate on the challenge to relativity theory posed by, say, gravitational lensing or black hole warping.

In 2009, a century after Einstein disturbed the space time continuum, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum delivered an impassioned plea for enhanced scientific literacy in their book, “Unscientific America”. The authors cite dismay with the lack of educated leadership on fundamentally scientific challenges such as global pandemics, climate change and the energy crisis. They voice a call to arms for an army of ambassadors to translate scientific knowledge into material ready for consumption by the wider public. The primary recruits for the new army are scientists and scientific advisors, but consider this - what proportion of the wider public you know would turn glassy-eyed in a discussion on the bending of space-time but at the same time would barely raise an eyebrow when their GPS tells them to take a left at the next lights?

Fellow engineers, our profession is the link between science and the wider public. Our craft is responsible for delivering science to the people. Make no mistake, this is our call to arms.

Before you drop your soldering irons to don iron arms however, let us consider what is at stake.

Humanity has always had unanswered questions. Are we alone? How does consciousness arise? Why do we die? And we accept that any answers to these questions are necessarily matters of faith. Humanity’s body of knowledge is not substantial enough to rely on rationality. The complication we face today however, is that these unanswered questions have extended to matters of our own creation. Are vaccines safe? How does my GPS work? Why is nuclear power generation dangerous? In these matters our body of knowledge is enough to substantiate rational answers, but it is no longer feasible for any one person to consume the entire body of knowledge. Humanity wants answers however, and as is human, people will turn to faith to find them.

So far there is nothing wrong with this scenario. It is unreasonable to expect that every question one faces should result in scientific investigation, so we need to take some answers on faith. However, like the bifurcation point in a chaotic system, the decision on where that faith is placed causes radically different paths to be taken. Due to the innate “in-group” effects of trust in human psychology, the initial formation of a source for matters of faith has powerful ramifications. In particular, the bonding effect of trust gives the bifurcation point its typical point-of-no-return quality, and is such a powerful motivator that people regularly abandon their personal values to adhere to it.

Still there is not necessarily any dilemma here. Humans will seek to place their faith in a source for matters that are beyond their immediate rational comprehension. This faith will naturally form groups and members of the group will often act in the interest of the group, rather than their own. Many constructive organisations are based on these principles. Political parties, companies and community groups all operate well when their members - initially inducted by some shared appeal - continue to row in the same direction.

The dilemma arises subtly. It starts with a group who base their faith on principles that are unambiguously orthogonal to scientifically established knowledge. Even then, no immediate peril awaits - we would be much worse off in a world without dissenting opinions. No, the dilemma arises through the interaction of incorrectly formed faith, and the perpetuating effects of groupthink. Psychologist Irving Janis describes the results of groupthink as a “fiasco”², for once a harmless conclusion has been established due to faith in incorrect principles, it becomes exceedingly difficult to extricate members of the faith when logical application of its existing conclusions form new, dangerous conclusions.

But how exactly can an awry explanation of some physical phenomena lead to a dangerous conclusion? Consider the following hypothetical conversation between a well-intentioned enquirer (WIE), a rationally-minded aid (RMA) and a kind helper (KH):

WIE: I’ve got a crook knee. What should I do about it?
RMA: Looks swollen. It could be an autoimmune disease causing an inflammatory response. You might need some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen.
WIE: Okay thanks. I’m going to get a second opinion just to be sure.
KH: Hmm, I think your second chakra might be blocked by stress and the healing energy is not getting to your knee. You’re under a bit of stress aren’t you? Yes, that’s okay, I have just the thing. Try this homeopathic remedy, it’s great for soothing the second chakra.
WIE: Okay. It’s safe is it? I’ll give it a try.
RMA: You tried what? It’s just bloody water! Why didn’t you try some naproxen?
WIE: Um, well, I already feel much better.
RMA: You idiot, it’s just the placebo effect!
WIE: Oh, okay. By the way, I was thinking about getting my kid vaccinated but Kind Healer was saying something about it leading to Autism.
RMA: Kind Healer is a dangerous crack pot. Don’t listen to anything she has to say. By skipping vaccination you are risking outbreaks in the general population of diseases that can be safely controlled. All drugs have side-effects but do you really want to jeopardise the eradication of plagues that have killed millions?
WIE: Um. I guess not. Um… I’m going to see what Kind Healer has to say anyway.

Individual freedom to form scientific conclusions based on faith in principles that are at odds with established scientific knowledge is worth defending. Any pressure to give up this freedom is a slippery slope towards the Brave New World dystopia of Aldous Huxley. As author Neil Gaiman says, “Freedom to believe means the freedom to believe the wrong thing, after all”³. Dissenting opinions should be welcomed, if only as opportunities to check our own assumptions.

How then, can we prevent a benign misunderstanding of the way the world works from perpetuating a destructive application of groupthink? First consider why, as “Unscientific America” claims, science has so far ultimately failed to bring about enlightenment.

For making assessments of the mechanisms of the world, to enable prediction for how it will operate in the future, the scientific method is the best we have. And it is mighty good - a great deal of the natural processes around us are well understood and can be precisely modelled to formulate generalisations about how they work. For the technically trained, the scientific method seems about as natural and suitable as eating and laughing. But, and here’s the rub, the scientific method is not a great way of sharing scientific insights with those without a technical background or a aptitude for technical thought processes.

The failure of the scientific method to garner support is particularly well illustrated by the Intelligent Design Movement. Advocates claim that Intelligent Design is a scientific theory⁴. Scientists claim that it fails to adhere to some of the tenets of the scientific method, in particular the requirement that predictions can be made, tested, verified and falsified. The debate often falls into a pit when an advocate asks why, since evolution is just theory, Intelligent Design can’t also be a theory. After all, isn’t having freedom to pose alternate theories what scientific debate is all about?

To most scientists, the claims are absurd. The misinterpretation of the scientific method is painfully clear to them. But arguing such is rarely a fruitful exercise and it is not long before accusations of defective intellect are made and nothing constructive will result.

The subtlety of the scientific method was no more dramatically and desperately demonstrated than on the 18th October, 2004, when the Dover Area School District board in Pennsylvania voted 6-3 to add the following statement to their biology curriculum:

Students will be made aware of the gaps/problems in Darwin’s theory and _of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design.

As part of the decision, teachers were required to read a statement to their Biology students in the following year that read in part:

Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence.

The three school board members who voted against the original curriculum change, resigned in protest. Ultimately a court order a year later ruled that the board had violated the First Amendment and that intelligent design was not a science so shall not be taught in a biology class. But the widespread misunderstanding of the pursuit of science is evident. And history does not give much hope for change on this front, since the same fundamental controversy ignited the headlines more than 84 years ago, in the infamous Scopes Trial⁵. In 1925, John Scopes was charged with teaching evolution in a Tennessee school and the ensuing legal case brought fame to the sensitivity of teaching a scientific theory that offers challenges to an established faith.

This disconnect between a scientist’s methods and the general public’s methods is at the core of the failure of science to bring enlightenment to the masses.

In a recent Lateline interview, Chris Mooney offered some suggestions as to why people had lost touch with science and therefore what prompted his “Unscientific America” book. Mooney explained that the problem arose because scientists are rewarded for technically dense work. They are not taught to, and not compensated for, distilling their work into approachable summaries. Mooney urged scientists to present their work to a wider audience and to make their judgements available to politicians. But what profession is based around adopting scientific developments for use by the general public? What profession is concerned with extracting the elements of science that have practical applications and producing those applications? Are not Engineers best placed to deliver science to the people?

In fact it goes deeper. Not only are Engineers uniquely placed to act as the bridge between the technically exclusive world of science and the reality of the public, but Engineers have the power of the tangible.

The truly frightening element of the declining respect for science is the parallel damage to trust. The general public is still curious enough to look for answers and concerned enough to base decisions on the word of their sources. But the impenetrable, dynamic, theoretical nature of good science has left people looking to other, more practical sources to relate to and trust. And there are few more practical sources than a tangible, physical artefact.

As psychologist Dacher Keltner⁶ has shown, physical touch has a strong connection to the experience of trust. For example, an experiment widely used to demonstrate the influence of touch on trust involves a host describing a task, while very lightly touching the backs of some of the participants. The participants who received the brief touch were more likely to cooperate with, rather than compete against, their partner. In short, the mechanism of trust is activated by the sensation of touch. If “I’ll believe it when I see it” then I can’t refute it when I touch it.

Fellow engineers, consider your role as the mediator between science and the people. Consider the tangible products of your work and their power to establish trust. Consider the good intentions of those without your technical training in their pursuit for knowledge. And consider the ramifications for all of us, if we fail to establish scientific knowledge as an authority for answers.

The onus of scientific enlightenment lies not with the scientists, but with the professionals who routinely create products of science - be they bridges, calculators or nuclear power plants - that the wider public can touch. Mere scientific rigour will not capture the trust of the people. A scientist’s unwavering subscription to the principles of rationality and deduction will do them few favours in capturing the minds of the people. As Rabindranath Tagore put it, “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.”⁷. Instead it is the engineer who must realise their role in bringing scientific enlightenment. It is the field of engineering that must encompass the challenge of ensuring cultural and political thought has strong rational influences. It is engineers who must be available to offer honest, dependable, humble and tangible solutions to the scientific challenges of the world.

1. As calculated by Richard W. Pogge, Ohio State University, published in Real-World Relativity: The GPS Navigation System and generously made available here.↩

2. Irving L. Janis’ seminal work concerning groupthink is Victims of groupthink; a psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes published in 1972 by Houghton Mifflin.↩

3. From page 435 of Neil Gaiman’s book, American Gods published in 2001 by William Morrow.↩

4. The Seattle based think tank, Discovery Institute, is well known for its advocacy of Intelligent Design. Their FAQ webpage summarises some of the claims made by advocates.↩

5. The trial of Scopes vs. The state of Tennessee, often called the “Scopes Monkey Trial”, tested the Butler Act, which states that any theory that denies Divine Creation and states that man descended from animals must not be taught in any state-funded educational establishment in Tennessee. The text of the Butler Act is available here.↩

6. Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at University of California, Berkeley, is a proponent of “positive psychology”. He is the directory of the Greater Good Science Center and explores the establishment of traits such as trust in his book, Born to Be Good published in 2009 by W.W. Norton & Co.↩

7. Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali polymath. This quote is from his 1916 poetic work, Stray Birds, translated to English by Tagore himself.↩