My old friend Keith Henson has just been arrested again in his long conflict with the Church of Scientology, and his wife fears for his life. Keith’s side of the story seems persuasive, but in good conscience I’d prefer to withhold judgement until I heard the other side. Yet though Google finds 185,000 links on "Keith Henson" and "Scientology", I can’t seem to find any of them that present the other side. Still, the law has officially taken Scientology’s side.
Looking as if you might mean Cohen GD. The magic bullets are blanks. Purported shortcuts to improving the aging mind. The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. 1998;6(3):185-95.
Lyle Burkhead is another famous critic of MNT, in fact, back in the late 90s he was the only critic on the web who showed a more than rudimentary familiarity with the subject. That he also denied the occurrence of the Holocaust was also somewhat noteworthy.
I agree that the bigger issue here is to explain the silence of the majority. Nevertheless, I have to admit I found it striking to learn that the most prominent and authoritative critic of MNT not only believes that MNT is impossible but also that "it is clear that" biological evolution is impossible.
If I introspect on how I form my opinion on the feasibility and time scale of MNT, it seems that part is a direct assessment of how plausible it seems on technical grounds, part of it an assessement of how reliable the different parties to the dispute seem to be. The fact that I have read Drexler and talked with him, and found him very smart and insightful, helps boost my credence in MNT. I didn't meet Smalley, but this new revelation casts doubts on his reliability. I think that how one interprets the silence of the majority might depend on one's preliminary assessment of the plausibility of the claim at issue. If the claim seems absurd, then one might interpret the silence as confirmation of this impression - it's probably so absurd that it's not worth commenting on. If on the other hand the claim seems independently plausible and is supported by people one finds believable, and is opposed mainly or only by people one finds unbelievable, then one might begin to attach greater probability to alternative explanations for why the majority is silent. For example, maybe the majority does not have a strong view on the topic. Maybe they have a biased view and find themselves unable to articulate compelling arguments for their view, and therefore choose to remain silent. Maybe they face some kind of political/funding pressure to remain silent.
Anders, there's no obvious connection between slow discounting and irrational persistence. Slow discounting is relevant when deciding whether to undertake a sunk investment (based on its ex-ante expected return), but once the investment has been incurred the sunk cost should be ignored as having no bearing on further decisions.
When most authorities are silent, the few who deviate to talk will likely be odd in some ways. So finding that a vocal critic is odd doesn't seem to offer much evidence one way or the other on the main dispute. The main issue is explaining the silence of the others.
When official criticism is scarce but not completely absent, it is worth determining whether those who do invest in criticism are representative. The views of elite scientists and Nobel laureates should generally be weighted quite heavily in our deliberations, but Smalley's belief in creationism is highly atypical among that class. We can then ask whether his unusual characteristics affected his engagement with the nanotechnology debate.
If the answer is yes, then we can distinguish between effects on his belief formation (to the extent these exist his opinion should be discounted as a representative of elite or Nobel laureate thinking), and his motivation to enter debate (it would not be surprising that the few scientists who bother to engage in generally shunned debates have unusual motivation).
"Evolution has just been dealt its death blow. After reading Origins of Life with my background in chemistry and physics, it is clear that biological evolution could not have occurred."
[edit] On GodRecently I have gone back to church regularly with a new focus to understand as best I can what it is that makes Christianity so vital and powerful in the lives of billions of people today, even though almost 2000 years have passed since the death and resurrection of Christ. Although I suspect I will never fully understand, I now think the answer is very simple: it's true. God did create the universe about 13.7 billion years ago, and of necessity has involved Himself with His creation ever since. The purpose of this universe is something that only God knows for sure, but it is increasingly clear to modern science that the universe was exquisitely fine-tuned to enable human life. We are somehow critically involved in His purpose. Our job is to sense that purpose as best we can, love one another, and help Him get that job done.May 2005, letter sent to the Hope College 2005 Alumni Banquet where he was awarded a distinguished alumni award; his illness prevented him from attending in person
[edit] On evolutionThe burden of proof is on those who don't believe that "Genesis" was right, and there was a creation, and that Creator is still involved.October 2004 address at the Tuskegee University's 79th Annual Scholarship Convocation.
Agreed. More generally though, you note "I admit that I do not always take the time to respond to every criticism I see of my claims on the web." Yet, you probably should spend equal time, given your goal is removing bias and revealing truth. After all, you thought enough of your original claim to post it, why not back it up unpreferentially? Taken in aggregate, these sorts of micro-decision tradeoffs for your limited time may help explain the "conspiracy".
After all, it's impractical to give equal time, and you have to introduce some sort of bias in determining what gets your attention and what doesn't. Clearly the bias isn't "truth value", and it's probably something more like "do I care what this particular critic thinks" or "who else will I impact in my response" or "can I even effectively communicate my message to this critic". The first and third are very subjective, and the second is easily prone to error.
Rafe, I agree that my responses to blog comments tend to be terse, and that this reflects a more general phenomena whereby less prominent material gets less attention. So the indicator we are looking for is something like how much detail a response is given relative to the amount of detail one might expect, given the amount of attention the other side has gotten.
Robin, your original question about how to react to or interpret imbalance in criticism may be illuminated by your own intellectual style, as I've observed it anyway. My observation is that you provide very well-articulated arguments for you own ideas, yet on the flip side when responding to others' arguments you are often "tersely cogent". You may have extremely well reasoned arguments encrypted in your responses, but without being more explicit and providing examples it's hard to tell. You are not alone in this intellectual style, I suspect it's quite rampant.
Proof of my claim should be easily found in this very blog by comparing OWC:CWC ratios for each primary poster. OWC is the average word count for original posts, and RWC is the average word count for comments/responses. By "primary poster" I mean a person on the Contributor list. It would be interesting to see a ranking of each Contributor along this dimension...
Looking as if you might mean Cohen GD. The magic bullets are blanks. Purported shortcuts to improving the aging mind. The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. 1998;6(3):185-95.
This link seems to be dead - any help you can provide finding the relevant article would be gratefully received, thanks!
Lyle Burkhead is another famous critic of MNT, in fact, back in the late 90s he was the only critic on the web who showed a more than rudimentary familiarity with the subject. That he also denied the occurrence of the Holocaust was also somewhat noteworthy.
I agree that the bigger issue here is to explain the silence of the majority. Nevertheless, I have to admit I found it striking to learn that the most prominent and authoritative critic of MNT not only believes that MNT is impossible but also that "it is clear that" biological evolution is impossible.
If I introspect on how I form my opinion on the feasibility and time scale of MNT, it seems that part is a direct assessment of how plausible it seems on technical grounds, part of it an assessement of how reliable the different parties to the dispute seem to be. The fact that I have read Drexler and talked with him, and found him very smart and insightful, helps boost my credence in MNT. I didn't meet Smalley, but this new revelation casts doubts on his reliability. I think that how one interprets the silence of the majority might depend on one's preliminary assessment of the plausibility of the claim at issue. If the claim seems absurd, then one might interpret the silence as confirmation of this impression - it's probably so absurd that it's not worth commenting on. If on the other hand the claim seems independently plausible and is supported by people one finds believable, and is opposed mainly or only by people one finds unbelievable, then one might begin to attach greater probability to alternative explanations for why the majority is silent. For example, maybe the majority does not have a strong view on the topic. Maybe they have a biased view and find themselves unable to articulate compelling arguments for their view, and therefore choose to remain silent. Maybe they face some kind of political/funding pressure to remain silent.
Anders, there's no obvious connection between slow discounting and irrational persistence. Slow discounting is relevant when deciding whether to undertake a sunk investment (based on its ex-ante expected return), but once the investment has been incurred the sunk cost should be ignored as having no bearing on further decisions.
When most authorities are silent, the few who deviate to talk will likely be odd in some ways. So finding that a vocal critic is odd doesn't seem to offer much evidence one way or the other on the main dispute. The main issue is explaining the silence of the others.
When official criticism is scarce but not completely absent, it is worth determining whether those who do invest in criticism are representative. The views of elite scientists and Nobel laureates should generally be weighted quite heavily in our deliberations, but Smalley's belief in creationism is highly atypical among that class. We can then ask whether his unusual characteristics affected his engagement with the nanotechnology debate.
If the answer is yes, then we can distinguish between effects on his belief formation (to the extent these exist his opinion should be discounted as a representative of elite or Nobel laureate thinking), and his motivation to enter debate (it would not be surprising that the few scientists who bother to engage in generally shunned debates have unusual motivation).
Carl, I don't understand the relevance of your comment to this post.
These quotes lowered my confidence in Smalley's MNT critique:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/re...In an endorsement of this creationist book, Smalley wrote:
"Evolution has just been dealt its death blow. After reading Origins of Life with my background in chemistry and physics, it is clear that biological evolution could not have occurred."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wik...
[edit] Sourced
[edit] On GodRecently I have gone back to church regularly with a new focus to understand as best I can what it is that makes Christianity so vital and powerful in the lives of billions of people today, even though almost 2000 years have passed since the death and resurrection of Christ. Although I suspect I will never fully understand, I now think the answer is very simple: it's true. God did create the universe about 13.7 billion years ago, and of necessity has involved Himself with His creation ever since. The purpose of this universe is something that only God knows for sure, but it is increasingly clear to modern science that the universe was exquisitely fine-tuned to enable human life. We are somehow critically involved in His purpose. Our job is to sense that purpose as best we can, love one another, and help Him get that job done.May 2005, letter sent to the Hope College 2005 Alumni Banquet where he was awarded a distinguished alumni award; his illness prevented him from attending in person
[edit] On evolutionThe burden of proof is on those who don't believe that "Genesis" was right, and there was a creation, and that Creator is still involved.October 2004 address at the Tuskegee University's 79th Annual Scholarship Convocation.
That wasn't my point at all. Rather that the very nature of deciding which critics to give more or less time to necessarily introduces bias.
Rafe, giving equal time to all critics regardless of other context seems to me a very bad rule. You try it first and let us know how it works for you.
Agreed. More generally though, you note "I admit that I do not always take the time to respond to every criticism I see of my claims on the web." Yet, you probably should spend equal time, given your goal is removing bias and revealing truth. After all, you thought enough of your original claim to post it, why not back it up unpreferentially? Taken in aggregate, these sorts of micro-decision tradeoffs for your limited time may help explain the "conspiracy".
After all, it's impractical to give equal time, and you have to introduce some sort of bias in determining what gets your attention and what doesn't. Clearly the bias isn't "truth value", and it's probably something more like "do I care what this particular critic thinks" or "who else will I impact in my response" or "can I even effectively communicate my message to this critic". The first and third are very subjective, and the second is easily prone to error.
Rafe, I agree that my responses to blog comments tend to be terse, and that this reflects a more general phenomena whereby less prominent material gets less attention. So the indicator we are looking for is something like how much detail a response is given relative to the amount of detail one might expect, given the amount of attention the other side has gotten.
Robin, your original question about how to react to or interpret imbalance in criticism may be illuminated by your own intellectual style, as I've observed it anyway. My observation is that you provide very well-articulated arguments for you own ideas, yet on the flip side when responding to others' arguments you are often "tersely cogent". You may have extremely well reasoned arguments encrypted in your responses, but without being more explicit and providing examples it's hard to tell. You are not alone in this intellectual style, I suspect it's quite rampant.
Proof of my claim should be easily found in this very blog by comparing OWC:CWC ratios for each primary poster. OWC is the average word count for original posts, and RWC is the average word count for comments/responses. By "primary poster" I mean a person on the Contributor list. It would be interesting to see a ranking of each Contributor along this dimension...
Mooshu, you are right, there is at least something here.
The "other side" of Keith's story can only be found on www.religiousfreedomwatch.org
Scientology, Inc.'s own hate site against Keith Henson.