What the Bleep Is Wrong With Everyone?

I believe in science. I do not rely on the fuzzy feelings of my heart or the experiences of my friends and colleagues to tell me what is true. I believe in double-blind testing, sampling error, and control groups. Peer-reviewed journals turn me on. So when I was sitting around a table with two -- let's call them "metaphysically-minded" -- friends who were extolling to me the values of The Secret (the power of positive thinking) and the like, I was understandably skeptical. Based on my scientific interests, they suggested I see the movie What The Bleep Do We Know because it was a bunch of "scientists" talking about everything we don't know, the universal questions.

Well, I saw the movie. And I have a universal question: what the bleep is wrong with everyone?

As is finely reported in this Salon article, the "documentary" is a loosely disguised propaganda film for the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, a fringe-y New Age group. Their "scientists" go unnamed and are in fact disciples of Ramtha, real scientists whose views are misrepresented, professors at highly suspect schools, and, of course, a middle-age woman channeling a 35,000-year-old warrior-spirit from the lost city of Atlantis. The "evidence" they cite has critical omissions, highly biased data collectors, and "independent" review boards comprised only of people sharing similar New Age views.

I don't care so much that this movie is propaganda and pretends to be otherwise. What does bother me is that it expounds decidedly unscientific principles under the veneer of science -- and that this doesn't seem to bother anyone else. Science is supposed to be a higher standard, an ideal of truth and rigor to strive for even if we cannot achieve it. But when I brought the facts, the real story behind What The Bleep to the friends who recommended it to me -- and anyone else who would listen to me on the subject -- the reaction was the same: "Interesting. But it's just like everything else -- 99 percent spin."

The cynicism of our culture runs deep. Fox News, the punditocracy, the politicization of the executive branch, Jayson Blair, blogs, balkanized media have all created an environment in which we trust nothing that is presented to us. We see a film whose ideas are attractive to us like What the Bleep but whose methods would make a Fox News producer cry foul -- we're willing to ignore it because, after all, it's just a few feet further into the abyss of falsehood that we've been falling into anyway.

All of which, in my mind, goes a ways towards explaining the un- and pseudo-scientific thinking that seems to be on the rise in our culture. If we can't trust studies, documentaries, talking heads, newspapers, the only thing we have left is our own experiences. Once upon a time, media of communication were tools to raise our eyes up from our individual experiences and focus on the larger concerns of a nation, a city, a cause. Now, all they do is leave us disgusted, pointing our eyes back down. It's no wonder we don't know any better.

Comments

[ethantw]

I'm glad to have touched off this discussion.

Lon, I'm not saying that this kind of thinking is anything new. What's new to me is that nobody cares when these two polar lines of thought are obviously and deceitfully confused for the purposes of propaganda. This kind of stuff used to be able to raise an uproar. Now all it gets is a shrug.

[Lon]

The only thing to take issue with is the idea that this is anything new. That there has been a contingent on the left that has embraced "metaphysics" in the place of science (and in the place of what philosophers call metaphysics) has been true as long as I can remember.

If there is anything harmful in this it is only that it provides cover for the much larger anti-scientism on the right which rejects evolution and thinks that whether people are dying in Iraq is a matter on which we can each have our own theory.

I suppose the one place that it has had harmful effects is on the rejection of vaccines on metahysical grounds. My mother-in-law, whose ex was among the last to get polio, actually sent me e-mails when my son was born arguing that vaccines have never worked and were a health industry sham. (Although she noted she did not necessarily believe them just thought I should see both sides). And I was left scratching my head as to how she had missed the whole polio vaccine thing.

But the fact that people have used quantum mechanics to try to prove bizarre metaphysical theses has been true since quantum mechanics hit the public consciousness.

[Aramingo]

These are the people that turn Schrodinger's Cat into the "we exist as the sum of our possibilities" stuff. The process of science can only discern "how" the universe works. Those who turn to it to answer the question "why" are barking up the wrong tree.

Someone, and I believe it was Edison, said "There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking". I think that's the essence of Ethan's blog.

[seasalt]

On the subject of the scientific method, you are correct, Mr. Todras-Whitehill. Science is not about "belief". Science posits a method for growing human knowledge: the scientific method.

Ever since the dawn of science, there have been great upheavals in what is "known" BECAUSE OF the scientific method: new research, new findings, new technology results in new theories. Science is engaged in a never-ending search for the truth.

Some people find science very stressful, especially when they can't understand (or won't bother trying to understand) how the process works. They don't want to be party to an endless search for new information; they want their facts to sit still and never change.

Religious cults can be comforting to some people, especially if their cult leader says, "I know everything worth knowing; turn over your will to me and I'll tell you what you need to know." Others are happy to spend their entire lives searching for new knowledge, new understanding, new truths.

It's the classic clash between comfort and curiosity.

[seasalt]

I used to live near enough to "ramtha's" ranch in Washington state that I drove past it several times per week. Those of us living in the area call her cult members "ramsters". The image of small rodents should quickly come to mind.

When people give up their critical thinking and rationality, they are volunteering for a fast slide into "ramsterism" of one sort or another.

The number-one antidote to "ramsterism" is learning to think for yourself and learning how to seek out and evaluate TRUSTWORTHY sources of information. FOX news isn't a trustworthy source of anything. Neither are the vast majority of blogs on the Internet. I certainly take everying on Wikipedia with a HUGE dose of skepticism. And anything put out by partisans or corporations needs to have the source considered before believing a word they have to say.

I think that bringing back the fairness doctrine in the the media would go a long way towards FORCING media to at least TRY to present balanced, factual news. Right now, they are focused on ratings, ratings, ratings and money, money, money.

They have been destroying their own credibility for two decades, and what we now see is the result of this madness: a constant deluge of information that no intelligent, thoughtful, logical person can trust.

[Thad]

It's been a couple years since I saw it, but my recollection was that it had a solid middle act which had some pretty decent observations about human psychology, but that it was sandwiched between misapplied physics and the rather dangerous notion that the power of positive thinking is a good substitute for pharmaceuticals.

And it's not that quantum physics doesn't make for a good metaphor for philosophy -- I took a rather interesting course a few years back called Philosophy of Physics whose final essay broke down to a two-part question, "Does objective reality exist, and are we as humans capable of perceiving it?" (I argued "yes" and "no", respectively.)

[ethantw]

MrWashy--that was exactly my impression watching the film, and what bugged me so much. They co-opted science to defend their decidedly unscientific views, and no one cares because "science is just another form of belief." Which it isn't. Which it never was. It is a set of rules and regulations designed to keep belief and bias out of the picture and put us in touch--as much as possible--with real facts. But no one gets it.

[lepton]

I agree for the most part, that basic science is reality and not belief (gravity, inertia...) because it's impossible to argue otherwise. But when it comes to certain things, quantum theory for example, things get muddy. Then we get into a world of theories, some with supporting evidence, some without, but rarely do they have hard proof. Yes, we can prove gravity EXISTS, just jump and see what happens. We can't prove however, WHY this happens. We used to think light was made up of imaginary waves flowing through the airs and occasionally interfering with each other. But we needed an explanation for certain phenomena, so we found some energy, found it can be quantized, and called it a photon. So now light is BOTH of these things! We quantized electrical charge to the constant e-, but that didn't explain everything, so we broke it up into 3rds, and then into spins...etc... Science is observations to explain things that happen. Religion is the same thing, the observations just happened a long long time ago, so lots of people are skeptical. This makes perfect sense though, scientific observations that happened less than 100 years ago are being disproven all the time. It's all beliefs to me.

[MrWashy]

Lepton, I can't disagree with you more, especially on your misunderstanding of what constitutes a theory. Scientific theories are not nearly was fluid as you are describing them. They are not simply super-hypotheses, as many think; scientific theories are grounded in provable and constant scientific laws. Theories are meant to unify those laws by providing a cohesive description of how the the Universe functions via those laws. Theories do have some fluidity, they have to, so that we can modify them as we obtain more accurate and precise data about our universe. Note however that to change a theory takes no small amount of data and years of research.

I think you've hit on the fundamental here. Many people really don't understand science, they shirk from the critical thinking that takes place, they hide from the cognitive dissonance that it can cause. Ask a 10 year old if a heavier object falls faster than a lighter one. After the tell you the "obvious", try showing the reality to them and watch the reaction on their face (don't forget to explain the existence of air resistance!). That look of confusion they have because you just challenged something that they "know" to be true is cognitive dissonance. The reaction of an adult to cognitive dissonance is not only outright disbelief, but occasionally open hostility or anger. Or, worse yet, as you have displayed, a neutral fall back position that says, "it's all beliefs".

Some notable theories from Wikipedia (or beliefs, as you would have it):
-Atomic Theory: the existence of atoms
-Cell Theory : Living being are made up of cells
-Circuit Theory: doing work by routing matter through a loop
-Acoustic Theory: how sound propagates through air

[MrWashy]

It seems to me that part of the problem lies in the area of belief: what do we believe versus what do we know. As a high school science teacher I am constantly combating the idea that belief is a necessary part of science. It isn't. We don't need to have faith in science, it's there whether we believe in it or not. Your "belief" in science is irrelevant, the acceleration of g of earth is 9.8 m/s^2.

The movie "What the Bleep..." is, at the beginning, scientifically correct, and if I recall, has some pretty darn cool visuals. However, like an ill-informed newscaster or politician or even the guy next door cutting his lawn, it quickly dissolves those wonderful facts and hard, provable ideas into faith and belief structures. This is probably the worst kind of violence that can be done to science. It leads to unsubstantiated, unscientific ideas such as Intelligent Design, Young Earth and mysticism.

While uncertainty and skepticism are natural parts of science, belief is not. Using ideas such as Heisenberg Uncertainty and chaos theory to reinforce the underpinnings of faith is just as bad an idea as using the explanation "god made it that way" in science.

[ethantw]

jaq, I think that's a misconception. I think most scientists are intellectuals. I would define an intellectual as someone interested in ideas, and certainly scientists qualify. Some, of course, have very narrow research projects, but I tend to find that behind that narrow thinking is a very broad and far-reaching engagement with the world of ideas.

veracitatus, I think that while of course this kind of thinking has been prevalent throughout history, I think the moment we're in now is one where people are moving further and further away from any trust in what they read and hear. Not too long ago, we were churning out scientists and journalists who all believed in some kind of objectivity, or at least the ideal of objectivity, and strove to reach it. Now the idea of objectivity has been replaced by head-butting subjectivity, and the outlets that still do try for the former are deluged with complaints of the latter. Maybe it's all the tearing down of this illusion of objectivity that we've lived with for so long, or maybe it's something more insidious.

[ORSunshine]

I watched that movie and walked away shaking my head: it's like a cult. Some people want to believe in something, so there you have it, the movie gives them something that not only allows them to believe in their own power, but allows them to feel superior to others who don't believe what they do.

However, as for the culture of antiintellectualism in 'Merica... umm, well this week with all the storms the news channels keep interviewing residents of the afflicted areas... did you hear the people talk? These people are not exactly critical thinkers. They're doers, they're 'Mericans, and they probably are the reason the the "plain talking" GW Bush is in the White House.

[veracitatus]

Here is a hypothesis most of you will not like or even want to consider. The human species is not equipped with the necessary brain capacity to handle the world we humans created. There is a growing body of psychological research in the field of wisdom. There is also a growing body of work in neuroscience on the functions of the brain, specifically the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex - involved in judgment. I prefer the term sapience to wisdom as this emphasizes the brain function and capacity without the historical and cultural baggage of the word wisdom. This brain area is the newest structure to expand in recent evolutionary times to address the increasing needs for social interactions, planning ahead and altruistic overrides of the limbic system. But an increasing amount of evidence suggests that it has not expanded sufficiently to deal with the scope of issues (global) we face today.

What the bleep is wrong with everyone? The vast majority of humans have a low capacity for sapience - sound moral (in the utilitarian sense) judgment based on knowledge and experience. Wisdom, the natural accumulation of knowledge that results from sapient processing of life experiences, is not just in short supply in the population, it is actively selected against in modern cultural evolution (co-evolution). And this isn't something we can fix.

V.

[TIME]

There's a hurricane of information coming at us, especially through our new technology. This confuses what is actual fact, and what is propaganda. There are those (who don't know better) willing to believe anything presented in a professional manner, or sadly, in a less than professional manner.

We all need a little more sales resistance. We all need to investigate claims made to us, or at least be curious enough to ask a question.

Old sayings do come in handy:

If it sounds to good to be true, it's probably not true.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Don't judge a book by its cover.

A little common sense, goes a long way.

And on, and on, and on.

[jaq]

Interesting that someone would read about the lack of scientific thinking and reply with "Intellectuals". I usually don't equate "intellectuals" with scientists or scientific thinking. It seems quite within the framework of being an intellectual to discuss all sorts of bizzarre philosophical and metaphysical stuff that scientists would not touch with a 10-page procedure.

[nyquist27]

like charm, strangeness and 26 dimensional space that may only be suggested as the mind of man is but to small to grasp =;]

[UncleDave]

It's all symtomatic of the process of the dumbing- down of America. A well-educa­ted,bright­,critical-­thinking populace is anathama to corporatocracy. Smart people are harder to fleece.

[NYDamien]

BINGO!

[Desiderata]

Science? I remember science. Wasn't that some kind of fad years ago that peaked right after that faked astronauts on the moon thing in 1969?