Michael Egnor has responded to my prior post in which I outlined his numerous failings in logic and misrepresentations of neuroscience. His response continues to be incoherent, but does offer some further teaching points.

One of the main points of contention is this – what can we infer from the relationship between damage to the brain and resulting neurological signs and symptoms. My position is that, if the mind is entirely caused by the functioning of the brain, then damage to the brain will damage the mind. I maintain that this is true, as far as we can tell from our current technology and understanding of neuroscience.

Egnor maintains that this is not true – that the relationship is “not the least bit predictable.” Further, that this lack of total correlation is evidence for dualism, that the mind is produced, at least in part, by something immaterial. There are both factual and logical problems with his position. To my criticism of his claims, he writes:

Mental deficits – specific defects in reasoning, judgement, planning, memory– are highly variable. One cannot look at a CT scan done after a head injury and predict with any certainty that ‘this person will have an inability to remember numbers’. High level mental function localizes very poorly to specific brain regions. This is odd, if, as Novella claims, the material brain is entirely the cause of all mental function.

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One of the things I like about blogging is that it is as much a dialogue as it is as it is a venue for one person’s opinions. Often the comments section becomes more interesting than the post itself. I also occasionally blog in response to someone else’s blog, and it is not uncommon for a blog conversation (or argument) to break out. Responding to someone else’s comments (even if they are from some random or anonymous blogger or commenter) can make a discussion more interesting.

For example, I have blogged numerous times in the past about the “god of the gaps” style of argument, and the philosophical nature of science. This has garnered the occasional response from creationists, which is always amusing. Recently a blogger named Mariano Grinbank wrote a response on examiner.com. His response is largely an exercise in naked assertion and ad hominem style arguments. Responding to my mind/brain discussion he writes:

Just how is it clearly established that the brain causes mind? It could actually be said to be much more clearly established that mind causes the brain.

It could be said – but it would be wrong. The question is disingenuous because I outline exactly how it is clearly established that the brain causes the mind, in numerous posts, including the one that Grinbank refers to (although does not link to – perhaps he was just relying on Egnor’s responses to my posts). I will outline the evidence yet again: The hypothesis that the brain causes the mind (and does not merely correlate with the mind) makes a number of specific predictions:

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Humans are not entirely rational creatures. We all know this from daily experience, although we happily assume that we are more rational than other people (which is just one of our irrationalities). We are motivated by the need for meaning, and for esteem. We tend to pick sides, and then invest our egos in that side, defending it at all costs.

We are also motivated by the need for simplicity and control. The world is a very complex place, overwhelmingly so. Therefore we need to simplify it in our minds, so that we can deal with it. We use schematics, and categories, and rules of thumb to impose a manageable order on the chaos of reality. These devices are quite adaptive, as long as we realize that they are just that – human devices to approximate reality in a way we can handle.

But too often we confuse our simplistic models of reality with reality. Further, we like our morality plays to be black and white. The villains are villains, without redeeming qualities. The good guys wear white and have no major flaws (nothing beyond an endearing quirk). The ambiguities and gray of the world make us feel uncomfortable. This tendency, by the way, leads to certain logical fallacies, such as poisoning the well. If Hitler believed something, and everything Hitler did was bad, then that belief must also be bad.

We can see this need for moral clarity and scientific simplicity at work in the anti-vaccine movement. Their core belief is that vaccines are not safe, that they are causing harm to our children. They are incorrect in this belief, but that is the bedrock of their movement.

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A recent quote from physicist Stephen Hawking is causing a bit of a stir – actually, not much of one when you think about it. But those who take an interest in such things are, well, interested.

In an interview with the Guardian he is quoted as saying:

“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

This is an elegant statement from a respected scientist. Hawking personalizes his view by putting it in the context of his own life. To him the prospect of death is an old friend. He faces his own mortality with acceptance. But at the same time he affirms his love for life – life is possibility and he wishes to make the most out of his own brief existence, which he also hopes is not that brief.

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In my opinion society is best served with open and vigorous debate about important topics of the day. Such debates are most effective, however, when proponents of opposing views are actually engaging directly with the claims and beliefs of the other side. This requires effort – to understand what the other side believes and why they believe it. This should be taught as a basic intellectual skill in school. Whenever confronted with a controversy, make a sincere effort to understand the best case that each side is putting forward.

In my (admittedly biased) experience, what I will call “fair engagement” is more the exception than the rule. It is easy to slip into accepting a straw-man caricature of the other side. We all do it to some degree. The danger for skeptics is to focus on the most extreme examples of a belief as if they are representative, while ignoring the more reasonable (if still wrong) end of the spectrum. But while there is a continuum, there are those who make a sincere effort to treat their opponents fairly, and those who are stramenticidal maniacs (sorry for my lack of Latin scholarship, but that’s as close as I can come to someone who likes to murder straw men).

The alternative medicine (CAM) community in particular seem to enjoy engaging with straw men of their opponents. It is partly a result of their genuine lack of understanding of our criticisms, but it is also a result of their propaganda. The CAM community (at least collectively) have mastered the marketing of their ideas. They manage to frame the discussion in a way that completely distorts the actual points that are in dispute – in their favor.

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In his latest book, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking gives his opinion that the philosophy of science has outlived its usefulness – it is “dead”. The reason he gives is that modern philosophers have not kept up with the cutting edge of science, and therefore their musings have become irrelevant.

Not surprisingly, philosophers have not taken kindly to this suggestion. I find myself siding with the philosophers on this one. But Hawking’s observation is not without merit, especially if you give it one critical tweak - some philosophers of science have not kept up and their musings about science are largely irrelevant. I could also says that some scientists are not up on their philosophy and this hampers their efforts as scientists.

Christopher Norris does a good job defending philosophy (in the link above), so I won’t repeat the same points here except to summarize. Norris observes:

By the same token, scientific theories are always ‘underdetermined’ by the best evidence to hand, meaning that the evidence is always open to other, equally rational interpretations given some adjustment of this or that ‘auxiliary hypothesis’ or negotiable element of background belief. All the same, I don’t want to push that line of argument too far, because among some philosophers of science it has now become an article of faith; a dogma maintained just as fixedly as any precept of the old, unreconstructed positivist creed. Moreover it has given rise to a range of relativist or ‘strong’ sociological approaches which use the theory-ladenness and underdetermination theses to cast doubt on any distinction between true and false theories, valid and invalid hypotheses, or science and pseudo-science.

Very likely it is notions of this kind – ideas with their home ground in sociology, or cultural studies, or on the wilder shores of philosophy of science – which provoked Professor Hawking to issue his pronouncement.

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For the last half a century (more than my entire lifetime) industrialized nations have lived a relatively bedbug-free existence. This year, however, bedbugs have started to make a comeback. Reports of bedbug infestations in hotels, theaters, stores, and homes have increased dramatically. Bedbugs, it seems, are not a thing of the past. Rather we have been living in a brief respite from these parasites, which will now resume their former levels of feasting on the blood of sleeping humans.

To me, this story was surprisingly surprising – meaning that I was initially surprised that we had not permanently dealt with the bedbug problem, and then I was curious as to why I was so surprised. Perhaps it is a result of some cognitive bias worth exploring.

But first – the story of bedbugs.

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If ever there were an oxymoron it is this phrase: “scientific heresy.” I understand it may be used at times as a bit of poetic license,  a metaphor for a new and seemingly outrageous (but scientific) idea, but I despise it none-the-less. The phrase is more often used as a direct or implied criticism of science and scientists, and generates deliberate confusion.

The notion of heresy is – well, Wikipedia actually has a good summary:

Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one’s religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion. The founder or leader of a heretical movement is called a heresiarch, while individuals who espouse heresy or commit heresy, are known as heretics.

Heresiology is the study of heresy.

Now, I’m no heresiologist, but it seems to me that the core of the notion of “heresy” is inexorably tied to the notion of dogma – a fixed set of beliefs promoted and sustained through authority. Dogma and heresy are anathema to science.

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Anti-scientific creationist propaganda is always a good source of unintentional irony. Recently at the Disco-Tute’s propaganda blog they posted a piece about scientific consensus, prompted by a recent study on the public reaction to scientific consensus.

The study, by Dan Kahan et al., finds that the public may be sharply divided on factual questions about which the scientific community largely agrees, like evolution, global warming, and nuclear waste. The authors explored the reason for this disconnect and found that members of the public tend to form their beliefs about the existence of a scientific consensus based upon their cultural views.

This certainly reflects common experience – the acceptance or denial of the existence of a scientific consensus on man-made global warming tracks with political ideology. It seems unlikely that individuals are mostly making independent and rational assessments of the scientific evidence, and just happen to be coming up with the conclusion that is favored by the ideological culture in which they are embedded. It is a common conceit, however, that one’s own views are rationally evidence-based, and it is the other side that is ideological.

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A new study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics reports on a survey of various characteristics of physicians – specialty, ethnicity, and religious faith – and the way they deal with end of life care. According to these results, ethnicity had little to no effect. The specialty of the practitioner has the greatest effect, with hospital-based doctors discussing and using methods that may hasten death in the terminally ill at 10 times the rate of palliative care specialists. But the most widely reported result is that doctors who are agnostic or atheist were twice as likely to use such methods as deeply religious doctors.

As with most such studies, the two types of questions to ask are – are the results reliable, and if they are reliable what do they mean. To the first point, this is a very weak study. First, it is a self-reporting survey. This is the weakest kind of survey, because it is not strictly scientific – there is a huge effect from self-selection bias. The surveys, in other words, may mostly reflect who is willing to answer the survey, which can overwhelm other factors.

In this survey 8,000 doctors were contacted, and less than four thousand responded. That right there is a massive self-selection factor that renders any results of this survey preliminary at best. Such a survey can be used to generate hypotheses to be confirmed, but not something upon which specific recommendations should be based. Regardless, the authors do just that, recommending:

Greater acknowledgement of the relationship of doctors’ values with clinical decision-making is advocated.

Rather the authors should have concluded: Further testing of the possible relationship between specialty, religious belief, and decision-making is warranted.

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