Science and Commons

In the book "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America" (which I reviewed on Goodreads.com), Sean Lawrence Otto describes how the U.S. is facing a major crisis brought on by its growing unwillingness to embrace the freedom of inquiry into objective reality, a basic prerequisite for science and democracy, and the use of its results to inform and ground discussions of public policy. With politicians and citizens alike increasingly unable to discern opinion from fact on a range of issues (not the least of which being greenhouse gas-induced climate change), our access to vast technological and economic power coupled with near-ideological pursuit of the tragedy of the commons on a global scale has made the U.S. a (if not the) key player in an unfolding disaster that may doom most of life on Earth.

Otto argues that the best way to deal with this is for scientists to actively promote awareness of the process of science, which would add credibility to the knowledge it produces and make it more meaningful and useful to the majority of citizens. I have no doubt that this is true: it was the basis of much of my work with my father on attempting to transform math and science education in the 1980s. If you can enable people to observe and respect objective reality, understand how it works, and appreciate the value of testing their most basic assumptions, then you are empowering them to achieve their maximum happiness without compromising the ability of others to do the same.

The role of government as protector of the commons is explored in the book, as a means to prevent the tyranny of the few, with the power to consume more, over the many who either cannot consume as much (or choose not to out of respect for others). I look at it as the equivalent of preserving enough resources for everyone to meet their basic needs, and enabling them to do so, with the remainder as open to basic market competition subject to personal ability and effort. Critical to this is the universal availability of knowledge about what people's needs are, what it takes to meet them, and what variables in nature and human behavior may change these; science is a valuable tool for providing this, and therefore should be nurtured.

In my own work, I've tried to be careful about identifying what is conjecture and what is fact. However, much of what I write, this entry included, is a mixture of both which I don't pretend is strict science, but rather a collection of ideas that can be used to spur further investigation into the areas I've explored. The freedom to hypothesize, to play with ideas, is as important as the freedom to test one's beliefs and identify how the Universe really works, but we must exercise both in order to create something truly worthwhile. If you're familiar with complex mathematics, I see it as the equivalent of operating on imaginary space to derive an object or relationship in real space that can actually be observed. Just as entertainment provides pretend experiences that can inform how we live our lives, we still have to live our lives and be able to understand the difference. This is a facility we appear to be in the process of losing, a process which must be reversed if we, and those who depend on us, are to survive and thrive.

Reality Check

I've spent a lot of time lately on one of my favorite themes: the future of humanity, and what my admittedly simplistic mathematical models say about it. My recent examination of how those models apply to the future of other species has been especially enlightening – and controversial – although I see its convergence with emerging scientific understanding (particularly relating to global climate change) as a sign that my reasoning doesn't necessarily match that of, as one critic put it, a “crackpot.” I've never (intentionally) portrayed my work on these issues and elsewhere in my blogs as anything but an attempt to make sense out of the world in my own way, sharing what I've learned so that others might find something of value to their lives, and perhaps ask a few more questions (and seek a few more answers) in the process.

That said, there is a considerable amount of verifiable fact mixed into my speculations, mainly because I intentionally want my world view to reflect reality as much as possible (for fiction, you can check out my Art page). My research, in all its gory mathematical detail (including references), is laid out on my Bigpicexplorer Web site. Note that much of it is based on “curve-fits,” mathematical descriptions of data that suggest relationships between variables. I've attempted to tease out what's real and what's an artifact of the analyses, both on the site and in my blogs, in some cases testing the reasoning by putting it into a narrative along with related facts to see if it made sense (and hopefully elicit some helpful comments from readers if it didn't make sense to them). Readers are effectively witnessing the evolution of a theory in these cases, beginning with observation, developing hypotheses, and testing those hypotheses against other knowledge and new data.

Because what I do isn't pure science, I've also exercised my prerogative as a writer to explore the possible implications of things found during the process, often suggesting avenues for future investigation or speculation. I haven't been afraid to address philosophy, values, faith, economics, politics, and anything else that interests me (which is a lot), much of which can't be tested to even the modest level of rigor I've applied to my research. I intend to continue doing so, because these are much of what makes the rest relevant to our subjective experience of life.

Note that I started Brad's Pithy Comments, the Land of Conscience blog, and the Comment of the Day (which now is more like, “This is what last pissed me off about the news,”) to divert my more subjective commentary away from the serious observations and speculation I want to reserve for Bigpicexplorer and the Idea Explorer blog. Spillover between the blogs and related communications has been perhaps unavoidable (such as my growing, and to some, irritating use of the term “planet killer”), mainly because most of my discussion is motivated by my developing value system. For example, if our collective actions are driving other species extinct, an action I perceive as far more heinous than genocide, and I happen to be describing the destruction of ecosystems in scientific terms, I won't be afraid to comment about how I feel about it – and why.

Now, back to the fun stuff.