Reality vs. allegory

Today's topic came to me a couple of days ago while I was watching a new video by one of my favorite YouTubers, Sabine Hossenfelder.

Sabine's channel is called Science Without the Gobbledygook, and is well worth subscribing to.  She's gotten a reputation for calling out people (including her colleagues) for misleading explanations of scientific research aimed at laypeople.  Her contention -- laid out explicitly in the specific video I linked -- is that if you take the actual model of quantum mechanics (which is entirely mathematical) and try to put it into ordinary language, you will always miss the mark, because we don't have unambiguous words to express the reality of the mathematics.  The effect this has is to create in the minds of non-scientists the impression that the science is saying something that it most definitely is not.

It reminded me of when I was about twenty, and I stumbled upon the book The Dancing Wu-Li Masters by Gary Zukav.  This book provides a non-mathematical introduction to the concepts of quantum mechanics, which is good, I suppose; but then it attempts to tie it to Eastern mysticism, which is troubling to anyone who actually understands the science.

But as a twenty-year-old -- even a twenty-year-old physics major -- I was captivated.  I went from there to Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, which pushes further into the alleged link between modern physics and the wisdom of the ancients.  In an editorial review of the book, we read:

First published in 1975, The Tao of Physics rode the wave of fascination in exotic East Asian philosophies.  Decades later, it still stands up to scrutiny, explicating not only Eastern philosophies but also how modern physics forces us into conceptions that have remarkable parallels...  (T)he big picture is enough to see the value in them of experiential knowledge, the limits of objectivity, the absence of foundational matter, the interrelation of all things and events, and the fact that process is primary, not things. Capra finds the same notions in modern physics.

In part, I'm sure my positive reaction to these books was because I was in the middle of actually taking a class in quantum mechanics, and it was, to put not too fine a point on it, really fucking hard.  I had thought of myself all along as quick at math, but the math required for this class was brain-bendingly difficult.  It was a relief to escape into the less rigorous world of Capra and Zukav.

As a basis for comparison, read a quote from the Wikipedia article on quantum electrodynamics, chosen because it was one of the easier ones to understand:

(B)eing closed loops, (they) imply the presence of diverging integrals having no mathematical meaning.  To overcome this difficulty, a technique called renormalization has been devised, producing finite results in very close agreement with experiments.  It is important to note that a criterion for theory being meaningful after renormalization is that the number of diverging diagrams is finite.  In this case the theory is said to be renormalizable.  The reason for this is that to get observables renormalized one needs a finite number of constants to maintain the predictive value of the theory untouched.  This is exactly the case of quantum electrodynamics displaying just three diverging diagrams.  This procedure gives observables in very close agreement with experiment as seen, e.g. for electron gyromagnetic ratio.

Compare that to Capra's take on things, in a quote from The Tao of Physics:

Modern physics has thus revealed that every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction.  The dance of Shiva is the dancing universe, the ceaseless flow of energy going through an infinite variety of patterns that melt into one another.  For the modern physicists, then Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter.  As in Hindu mythology, it is a continual dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos; the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomenon.  Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes.  In our times, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Arpad Horvath, CERN shiva, CC BY-SA 3.0]

It all sounds nice, doesn't it?  No need for hard words like "renormalization" and "gyromagnetic ratio," no abstruse mathematics.  All you have to do is imagine particles dancing, waving around their four little quantum arms, just like Shiva.

The problem here, though, isn't just laziness; and I've commented on the laziness inherent in the woo-woo mindset often enough that I don't need to write about it further.  But there's a second issue, one often overlooked by laypeople, and that is "mistaking analogy for reality."

Okay, I'll go so far as to say that the verbal descriptions of quantum mechanics sound like some of the "everything that happens influences everyone, all the time" stuff from Buddhism and Hinduism -- the interconnectedness of all, a concept that is explained in the beautiful allegory of "Indra's Net" (the version quoted here comes from Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid):

Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions.  In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number.  There hang the jewels, glittering like stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold.  If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number.  Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.

But does this mean what some have claimed, that the Hindus discovered the underlying tenets of quantum mechanics millennia ago?

Hardly.  Just because two ideas have some superficial similarities doesn't mean that they are, at their basis, saying the same thing.  You could say that Hinduism has some parallels to quantum mechanics, parallels that I would argue are accidental, and not really all that persuasive when you dig into them more deeply.  Those parallels don't mean that Hinduism as a whole is true, nor that the mystics who devised it somehow knew about submicroscopic physics.

In a way, we science teachers are at fault for this, because so many of us teach by analogy.  I did it all the time: antibodies are like cellular trash tags; enzyme/substrate interactions are like keys and locks; the Krebs cycle is like a merry-go-round where two kids get on at each turn and two kids get off.  But hopefully, our analogies are transparent enough that no one comes away with the impression that they are describing what is really happening.  For example, I never saw a student begin an essay on the Krebs cycle by talking about literal microscopic merry-go-rounds and children.

The line gets blurred, though, when the reality is so odd, and the actual description of it (i.e. the mathematics) so abstruse, that most non-scientists can't really wrap their brains around it.  As Sabine Hossenfelder points out, we might not even have the language to express in words what quantum mechanics is saying mathematically.  Then there is a real danger of substituting a metaphor for the truth.  It's not helped by persuasive, charismatic writers like Capra and Zukav, nor by the efforts of True Believers to cast the science as supporting their religious ideas because it helps to prop up their own worldview (you can read an especially egregious example of this here).

After a time in my twenties when I was seduced by pretty allegories, I finally came to the conclusion that the reality was better -- and, in its own way, breathtakingly beautiful.  Take the time to learn what the science actually says, or at least listen to straight-shooting science vloggers like Sabine Hossenfelder and  Derek Muller (of the amazing YouTube channel Veritasium).  I think you'll find what you'll learn is a damnsight more interesting and elegant than Shiva and Indra and the rest of 'em.  And best of all: it's actually true.

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Quantum fuzziness

I'm of two minds when laypeople write about science.

On the one hand, I applaud anyone who is willing to delve into the often deep waters of scientific research.  To put it bluntly, science ain't easy.  After all, by comparison to actual researchers, I'm a layperson myself, despite a degree in physics and the fact that I've taught biology for 31 years.  So to any non-specialist who puts in the time and effort to truly understand something from actual scientific research, I have nothing but admiration.

Also in the positive column is the incalculable benefit that has come from popularizers, people like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson.  While they themselves are scientists, they've made abstruse topics accessible to the masses -- something for which they are sometimes criticized, a stance about which I've written before and which I truly cannot understand.

However.  The problem with laypeople leaping into science writing is their potential for getting things wrong, for interjecting fuzzy-headed ideas, and thus misrepresenting the science itself.  It's usually done with the best of intentions; unlike some of the people I write about here, it's seldom about self-aggrandizement or making a profit.  But it does create the difficulty that a person can read an article and actually understand less about the science involved when they're done than they did before they read it.

I ran into a particularly good example of this in the online magazine Medium a couple of days ago.  The article was "Quantum Mechanics and Existentialism: Removing my Fear of Death" by Alex Vervloet.  It starts off promisingly enough; a description of Vervloet's curiosity about subatomic physics and quantum mechanics, which spurred him to do some research and reading on the subject.  (The book he chose to read, Reality is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli, is one I'm unfamiliar with, but Rovelli himself is a theoretical physicist and one of the founders of the theory of loop quantum gravity, so he certainly has sterling credentials.)

In any case, Vervloet starts out right, both in his search for information and in his article.  But about halfway through, he had passages like this:

You and I are both made up of a seemingly countless number of particles, and those need energy.  Now, when I say energy, I’m not just talking about one thing — there are many different types of energy.  As early as Elementary School we learn about Kinetic and Potential Energy.  Later on we learn about Gravitational, Nuclear, Electromagnetic, Chemical, and other types of Energy.  Calories, sleep, sunlight and water are all converted into Chemical Energy for our bodies.  This in turn gets converted into Electromagnetic Energy for our nervous system, Heat Energy for our blood and skin, Kinetic Energy for our organs, and Potential Energy for our muscles.  Some of it remains chemical as well.

And my expression changed to something like this:

Amongst the many things wrong with this passage is the idea that we convert "calories, sleep, sunlight, and water... into chemical energy."  This is either some metabolic pathway I've never heard of, or else he's just making shit up.

My vote is for the latter.

He also throws in a mention of the Oscillating-Universe Model -- put simply, that the outward motion of the galaxies will eventually be reversed, and we'll have a "Big Crunch" followed by another Big Bang -- and treats it as if it were accepted science, when in fact it is at the moment a mere speculation.  (I could write a whole post on the subject of the mass of the universe, and the possibility of our expanding outward forever or eventually collapsing, which brings in some of the least-understood parts of physics -- dark matter and dark energy.)

Then he takes these pieces and runs right off the cliff with them, with his "theory" -- which I will quote rather than trying to describe, so you can get the full effect:

We know that when certain particles of mass combine, they create elements, and those elements make up the universe.  But what about energy?  What happens when certain energies combine?  Explosions. 

I believe this is the secret to our consciousness.  Just like the universe began with The Big Bang (or bounce), so did we.  Every human being is the product of a Big Bang.  The right combination of entangled energy particles combined into a sperm cell and ovum to create us.  Our body and consciousness explodes into existence and expands to adulthood, then shrinks until it reaches its inevitable death (every mass is eventually converted back to energy and visa versa).  It’s then either buried in the ground to be converted into energy for plants, cremated into heat energy, or donated to science, where the energy leaves the body, and another body can use its energy to power the part(s).

Oookay.  Where do I start?

"Combining energies" does not create explosions.  In fact, I'm not even sure what he means by "combining energies," given that he seems to be using the woo-woo definition of "energy" to mean "the cosmic interconnectedness of all beings" rather than the rigorous scientific definition of "what is introduced to a system either to heat it or to give it the potential to do physical work."  But then he goes even further off the beam with quantum entanglement causing consciousness, there being entangled particles in sperm and eggs, and that the energy in our bodies can be "converted into energy for plants" (which is wildly wrong; plants are solar powered, so while the materials of a dead body might be recycled into a plant, the energy in the body would be devolved as heat during decomposition).

He then goes off into cycles and reincarnation and various other odd tangents, but at that point I kind of stopped paying attention.

Okay, I'm not trying to be mean, here.  Vervloet sounds like his heart is definitely in the right place, and a lot of his muddled ideas could be fixed (and hopefully will be fixed) if he continues researching what the physicists are actually saying.  But what bothers me here is that the publishers of Medium chose to post his article, which is really just the meanderings of someone with a rudimentary grasp of the topic.  (As evidenced by his use of the word "theory" to mean "something I just pulled out of my ass and which could be wrong as easily as right.")

All of which makes me sound like a humorless know-it-all.  And I acknowledge readily that there are tons of topics about which I am mostly ignorant -- but I refrain from writing about them, because whatever I wrote would be irrelevant.  The problem is that a publication, even an online one, becomes a conduit of information, and this is giving a completely wrong impression of what the science actually says.

In any case, I hope Vervloet keeps reading and keeps learning.  It's certainly a fascinating, if difficult, topic.  Ignorance, after all, is a universal condition, but it's completely curable.  You just have to be willing to admit where your understanding falls apart, and find someone who knows more than you do to remedy the situation.

Bring on the documentaries

I was in my junior year of college when Carl Sagan's Cosmos first aired.  I, and several of my friends, were absolutely riveted.  After each episode we'd eagerly discuss what we'd learned, what amazing stuff about the universe Dr. Sagan had expounded upon.  I was blown away both by the visual artistry (although it looks antiquated today, back in 1980 it was seriously impressive), and by the music, which was and is absolutely stunning.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

I also remember, however, the backlash Sagan himself received from other scientists.  He was derided as a "popularizer," scorned as someone who presented pretty pictures and watered down, common-language analogies rather than actual hard science.

I thought this was pretty mean-spirited, but I didn't realize how common that perception was in the scientific world.  Four years later, as a graduate student in oceanography at the University of Washington, I found out that there was really only one pair of words that was considered so vulgar that no one was allowed to utter it: "Jacques Cousteau."  Cousteau was an object of derision, not a "real scientist" at all, just a guy who spoke in a cheesy French accent and liked to get filmed while scuba diving.  In fact, my adviser once told me that he made a point of never accepting a graduate student who mentioned Cousteau's name in their interview.

So this irritation with people who make science accessible to the layperson runs deep, although I have to hope that this is changing, with a few truly first-rate scientists writing books to bring the latest research to the masses (Stephen Hawking, Sean Carroll, Brian Greene, Kip Thorne, Roger Penrose, Lee Smolin, and Lawrence Kraus come to mind).

It's a good thing.  Because to judge from a piece of research published this week in Advances in Political Psychology, there's more to be gained from popularizing science than just encouraging children to pursue science as a career; fostering a fundamental curiosity about nature is essential to eradicating biased thinking across the board.

Called "Science Curiosity and Political Information Processing," the paper, written by Dan Kahan of Yale University et al., looks at how best to move people from leaning on their own preconceived notions to evaluating the strength of claims based on evidence.  The research looked at how watching science documentaries engenders a curiosity about how the world works, and correlates with a lower likelihood of biases in arguments on subjects like anthropogenic climate change.

Kahan spoke with Chris Mooney, science writer over at The Washington Post, and explained what the research by his team had shown.  "It just so happened that, when we looked at the characteristics of [people who watch science documentaries], they seemed to be distinct politically," Kahan said.  "They stood out by being, as a group, less likely to feed the current polarization of political opinion on scientific matters such as climate change.  The data we’ve collected furnish a strong basis for viewing science curiosity as an important individual difference in cognitive style that interacts in a distinctive way with political information processing."

The most fascinating part of the research is that the difference doesn't seem to be related to scientific training, but scientific curiosity.  Having established a scale for measuring curiosity, Kahan et al. looked at both liberals and conservatives and assessed them for biased thinking.  Mooney writes:

Armed with the scientific curiosity scale, Kahan’s new study first demonstrated that while liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans with higher levels of proficiency in scientific thinking (which he calls “ordinary science intelligence”) tend to become more polarized and divided over the scientifically supported risks involved in both climate change and fracking, Democrats and Republicans with higher levels of science curiosity don’t.  Rather, for both groups, the more curious they are, the more their perceptions of the risks tend to increase...  [T]he study also contained an experiment, demonstrating that being possessed of heightened levels of scientific curiosity appeared to make political partisans more likely to read scientific information that went against their predilections.

The final statement is, to me, the most important.  An absolutely critical feature of the scientific view of the world is the ability to continually question one's base assumptions, and to look at the data with a skeptical eye.  And I am not using the word "skeptical" to mean "doubting," the way you hear people talk about "climate change skeptics" (a phrase that makes my skin crawl; no actual skeptic could consider the evidence about climate change questionable).  I am using "skeptical" in its literal sense, which means giving a rigorous look at the data from every angle, considering what it's telling you and examining the meaning of any trends that you happen to observe.  Which, of course, means entertaining the possibility that your prior understanding may be incorrect.  To me, there is no better indication of a truly scientific mind than when someone says, "Well, after examining the evidence, turns out I was wrong about that after all."

So we should be thankful for the popularizers, who follow in a long tradition of work by such greats as Sagan and Richard Feynman.  Children need to have their curiosity about the universe piqued early, and the flames fanned further by watching cool science shows that open their eyes to what a fascinating place we live in.  Think about what it would be like if we had a nation full of people who were committed to looking at the world through the lenses of evidence, logic, and critical thinking instead of prejudice and stubborn adherence to their own biases.

It's a nice possibility to think about, isn't it?