My Nitpicking Gets Me in Hot Water with Dr. Steven Novella

First off, before I get to the exchange between Dr. Novella and me that I mentioned in yesterday's post, let me remind everyone that Science-Base Medicine (SBM) and The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (SGU) are being sued for no good reason. If you care at all about free speech and our ability as free thinkers to criticize charlatans without going bankrupt hiring enough lawyers to defend a right which should be inarguable, if not inalienable, you (yes, YOU) should go over to the donation site and help in whatever large or small way you can to send a clear message to those who would abuse our legal system in this manner.

Secondly, this blog entry will relate to climate change only indirectly, and mostly will deal with Pope Francis' recent statements about evolution.

Finally, before diving in below, you should probably go over to the SGU archives, and listen to show #486 in order to understand the full context of what was behind my decision to contact. The discussion should be fairly easy to follow, if you choose not to do that, however.

OK, now that all the little lectors have met their caveats, and the caveats their lectors, or whatever, here goes...

After listening to the linked episode above, I wrote the SGU crew the following message on Monday of last week (Nov. 3rd).

Category: Feedback

Subject: Handy bit of absolution for the Pope (and others)

Message: Hey, guys, big fan. Just wanna pick a nit here, however…

At about 36:20 of last week's show (#486), during the evolution discussion, Steve provides an interesting bit of apology for Pope Francis.

"Some people are saying, 'Yeah, but he's still saying God created man.' Of course he is; he's the goddamn Pope!"

I'm just wondering what other beliefs he espouses, without providing convincing evidence, are equally unassailable, such as, geez, I don't know…exorcisms, which Evan thankfully brought up shortly thereafter. Why was this met with derision instead of animated defense? Why did no one on the show say, "Of course he believes exorcisms work! He's the goddamn pope?"

And why stop with the Pope? Doesn't opening the door for baseless assertions like this allow us to now say things similar to "Of course he believes in quantum healing; he's goddamn Deepak Chopra!"

As an atheist, I think we have a classic case of special pleading here, or, if not an argument from authority, selective excuse-making for authority. That's all I'm saying.

Still love the show to pieces, and sorry to insist on fully picking this nit.

To which Dr. Novella responded...

Planet Evans,

Thanks for writing. I don't agree with your assessment, however. I was not making an argument from authority or special pleading. I was also not defending belief in god or the supernatural, by anyone. My point was simply - what do you expect?

To take that a bit further, this is a common discussion we get into in skeptical circles. The question is - how do we respond to situations in which a person or institution is moderating their supernatural or unscientific beliefs? For example, what should our attitude be toward "evidence-based chiropractors?" Should we advocate for the profession being more scientific, or take the uncompromising line that nothing short of eradication is acceptable?

Same for religion. We are all atheists. I have very strongly held philosophical reasons for being an atheist and a naturalist. That is what I advocate. However, does this mean we cannot acknowledge when a mainstream religion moves toward a less crazy version of religion? Is it OK to say, "well, if you are going to believe in God, at least don't deny science. At least try to accommodate your faith to existing provable science."

This is not the same thing as defending faith.

My point was, it is OK to approve of the Pope saying that the church does not deny science without pointing out that he still advocates belief in God. Of course he does. The former is the difference between fundamentalist crazy religion and contextual less crazy religion, the latter is the difference between religion and no religion. If you are holding out for the Pope to say there is no God, then any incremental improvement in the church would mean nothing.

Exorcism is different. That is a harmful medieval practice. It is also often performed on people who have mental illness, and in practice is a denial of mental illness and even neuroscience.

I hope this clarifies what was said.

Cheers,

Steve

Like a knucklehead, I didn't check my email until a week later, at which point I replied...

Dr. Novella,

Thank you for responding. I honestly did not expect it, so I haven't bothered to check my email for about a week now. BIG MISTAKE on my part. With all the responsibilities you must have, both personally and professionally, where the heck do you find the time? :) It is greatly appreciated that you do, however.

I agree that a science-friendly church is much, much, much better than a science-phobic church, and that it is essentially absurd to expect the Pope to stop believing in God. Though I'm an atheist, I generally wouldn't even suggest this to your average religious Joe or Jo-Ann, unless my opinion on the matter is courted/requested. People are free to privately practice whatever beliefs and traditions they wish, in my mind (assuming no one gets seriously hurt). However, I think we still have a fundamental disagreement over the acceptability (or lack thereof) of the Pope - or any other respected public figure - openly and proudly making evidence-free assertions like "God created man" or that evolution and the "notion of Creation" do not conflict (I suppose Pope Francis uses "notion of Creation" to tiptoe around the more obvious incompatibility of evolution and creationism). Certainly, everyone has a right to express such nonsense, but I do indeed believe it is harmful to let it go unchallenged for many reasons, not least of which is the inherent discouragement of, if not outright hostility toward, critical thinking embodied by statements like the Pope's. And, if I can stack my soapbox a little higher here, I would further argue that religion and belief in supreme or supernatural beings is the Grandaddy of all pseudoscience, so if we are truly concerned with harmful, denial-laden practices like exorcism, it's probably best to admit and state what the root of the problem is rather than shrug our shoulders.

BTW, I'm one of those blowhard blogging critters (whac-a-troll.blogspot.com), and although it's predominantly a climate change blog, this exchange has relevance to a few posts I've made, including one about Bill Nye's recent "CBS This Morning" appearance. Would you mind if I posted these emails? Being that you sent your reply to me and not the world (i.e.: all four of my readers), I will certainly understand if you prefer that I do not, and I will respect your wishes.

Thanks again for responding, and, more importantly, for the SGU podcast!

Planet Evans

And finally this morning, Dr. Novella wrote back...

Planet Evans,

Feel free to publish them. My only final comment is that I agree, we should point out the role that faith plays in promoting pseudoscience and lack of critical thinking, and we do. This does not counter my main point, though, that we (at least some of us) should advocate for improved scientific and critical thinking all along the spectrum, and not just for pristine critical thinking atheism. Otherwise the vast majority of the world is unreachable. In a way it's like advocating teaching only advanced level post-graduate courses on science because they are the most accurate and complete, rather than teaching at a level appropriate to the student.

My approach has been to try to get people to advance one step further along the path to critical thinking. Then maybe they can take another step.

Regards,

Steve

Well, dear blog readers, who has the right of it here in your opinion? Should the Pope and other public figures be taken fully and relentlessly to task on each and every one of their unscientific statements, as I have suggested? Or is what Novella advocates (and Bill Nye, seemingly) — a more forgiving, incremental approach that allows leaders representing their somewhat biased and misinformed followers to draw lines in the sands of their cherished belief systems, past which even those who know better should not cross to criticize, until such time it is deemed appropriate — the better way to go? He brought up the convincing analogy of higher education. That is, what I argue for is essentially like asking college freshman to digest postgraduate-level lessons and/or produce masters or doctoral theses. Are there other ways you can imagine to bring my argument to a logical conclusion in order to weaken it?

Am I proposing a false dichotomy here? Should both approaches be applied simultaneously by their respective proponents to achieve some maximum of cultural reform, as Novella hints at in that last message?

I posted this exchange, because I, like Novella, believe it touches upon a genuine matter of open disagreement and debate within the skeptical/rationalist/atheist communities. And I personally feel it can have troubling implications for serious issues which rely on public understanding and acceptance of science like climate change. If you've followed along closely here at whac-a-troll, you know where I generally stand on such matters, though I must admit to the occasional quandary, or second thought about being such an implacable jerk, which every now and then make me see things pretty much exactly as Novella does. However, I keep coming back to the fact that we've run out of time for the kid glove treatment, and therefore the conclusions of scientific consensus must be defended at all costs, and leaders like the Pope, who should be old and wise enough to know better, must be rebuked unflinchingly at each and every turn, especially when they make tired arguments even theologians frown upon.

A Longwinded Nitpick for Dr. Steven Novella

I love, love, LOVE me some Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (SGU) podcast. Along with a regimen of other science/skeptic/atheist podcasts, it makes it onto my MP3 player every week, and I look forward to it reducing the mind-numbing monotony of errands/chores/shopping/walking to the gym/etc. Yup, you got it, I'm a dork, and, obviously, a big fan of SGU (maybe that's redundant).

So, while doing some yard work a few days ago with ye ole earphones stuck in my head, I cringed jeeeeyust a little bit while listening to this part of last week's show:



Now, I, like Novella, wish to tread very carefully here. He is clearly not a climate change denier, and I am not an anti-GMO crackpot. That being said, GMO food and the science behind its safety have only been around for a few decades. Science which establishes the inarguable role of human emissions in our changing climate, on the other hand, has been around for well over a century. I know Novella was only expressing his opinion, not some precise quantitative measurement that he made in the lab, or something, and I know he probably likes to research/read about GMOs more than global warming, unlike me, but the idea that 30 years or so of findings behind something that hit the grocery shelves only 20 years ago can compare, and even outshine, the veracity of the century-old physics and science underpinning man-made global warming does not sit well with me.

Again, this is not to say that GMOs are in fact dangerous to us; it is only to establish the equally-solid footing, in my opinion, that both areas of study share. And if one could be said to possess a stronger and sturdier set of scientific "legs" under it, it would have to be anthropogenic global warming, because it has stood the test of time for much longer. If I were forced to list the three scientific fields mentioned in the episode excerpt above from greatest to least reliability of evidence, it would be evolution first, man-made climate change second, and GMO safety last, though, once again, I wish to stress they are all pretty much inarguable at this point.

Here's where I extract some quotes from the excerpt and probably really come across as a nitpicking churl...

"I actually think our evidence for the safety of GMO is more robust than our, you know, models about climate change...There are degrees of robustness; I think, like, the notion that evolution happened is far and away the most robust scientific conclusion that's out there."

Honestly, I think Novella just misspoke in the first part of this quote here. I don't think, or at least I hope it's not the case, that he is falling for the classic denier false dichotomy which ignorantly compares the predictive capacity of climate models to the core findings in other fields. This is comparing apples to oranges. If you want to compare robustness between fields, you have to compare the science to the science, not the models to the science, so a fairer comparison would be the contrasting of research which has all but eliminated natural causes being behind the observed modern warming against the evidence for GMO safety. Would Dr. Novella find it fair if I compared the accuracy of models in his own field that attempt to simulate neural networks and the brain to the body of work in another research discipline, and then say the robustness of neuroscience is inferior to those other discoveries because the simulations are far from exact? Another way of stating this, while addressing the second part of the quote, would be to challenge someone to make computer models that predict what animals will look like hundreds, or thousands, or even millions of years from now. G'head. What? Your evolutionary biology is not strong enough to manufacture precise model outcomes? Frogs won't stand upright in 124,997 CE like your models indicate?

"Even the IPCC is saying 95%. Yeah, that's pretty good, but 95% is 95%, whereas evolution is like 99.9999... whatever percent that that's the explanation for the diversity of life."

This one's easy. Technically, the IPCC said 95% or greater. Leaving that last part out fails to accept that its conclusion allows for, but does not guarantee, "99.9999... whatever percent." Also, I think if he researches climate change science as fastidiously as he does GMOs, he will soon come to the realization that IPCC declarations of any kind regarding climate change are conservative to a fault.

From the Real Climate link (bold text to distinguish it from Novella's quotes):

"That the IPCC often needs to correct itself 'upward' is an illustration of the fact that it tends to produce very cautious and conservative statements, due to its consensus structure – the IPCC statements form a kind of lowest common denominator on which many researchers can agree."

When you get away from the IPCC and start looking around the climatology field itself, you find out quite quickly that it is more like a "99.9999... whatever percent" consensus anymore.

However, as Novella rightly points out by specifically referencing this GMO crop study and bringing up the larger body of scientific work which all but absolves them of causing any serious or significant side effects in humans and livestock, we need not fear their consumption. My main issue with GMOs is that their proponents are as determined to exaggerate their benefits for "saving humanity" and the potency of the "greenies-gone-wild" war against them, as opponents like Jeffrey Smith are to play up imaginary health impacts. Sure, that's not the fault of the GMO industry, but I think it provides some necessary perspective.

Reinforcing the idea that GMOs receive way too much credit, I would even go so far as to say that they owe the lion's share of their success to the impressive efficacy of the newest generation of neonicotinoid insecticides that are commonly used in conjunction with them. At the risk of getting my atheist membership card revoked, these newer insecticides were a, well, godsend. We desperately needed something effective at killing pests without poisoning vertebrates, which was one of the unfortunate side effects of organochlorides (DDT), organophosphates, and carbamates. Presto, right about the time GMOs were being perfected/patented, along came neonicotinoids which had little or no toxicity in higher vertebrates, but sure as heck did a number on pesky, parasitic invertebrates.

Oops. Turns out, maybe they do too good a job, and maybe it's fair to make GMO crops share some of the blame, because, again, they owe a great deal of thanks for their success to neonicotinoids, if you ask me, but that discussion, dear blog readers, does not change what was stated above (in a vacuum, and by themselves, it can rightfully be argued GMOs are safe...that is, if neonicotinoids and their dangers are ultimately eliminated, you can bet your booty GMOs will still remain in use), and is maybe for another time...

And thanks, SGU, for all the awesome podcasts! Continue to make like a buh-zillion more, please! I would like to remind all five of my readers that SGU is still being sued for no good reason. If you care at all about free speech and the ability to criticize charlatans without legal repercussions, you can help out here.

/nitpick