Have you ever heard someone arguing in favor of a position with which you disagree, but their arguments are so bad that you can’t help but think “Man, I could do a better job arguing for their side than they are, and I don’t even agree with them!” I thought it might be interesting to do exactly that — consider some interesting issues, and come up with my own versions of what the people who I think are wrong should be saying.
The rules would be: (1) The claims would be somewhat judgmental, rather than straightforwardly empirical. I’m not going to waste my time arguing that the universe is not expanding, or anything like that. (2) I have to stick to making individual statements that I really do believe, even if I don’t think they are sufficient to support the ultimate conclusion. I reserve the right to come up with more rules as I think of them.
Here are some possible claims to be considered:
- God exists.
- The Iraq war was a good idea.
- Women scientists shouldn’t complain about discrimination.
- Research on string theory is a waste of time.
- Talking about the multiverse is intrinsically non-scientific.
- We shouldn’t worry about global climate change.
Any other suggestions? I’m sure there are lots of things I don’t believe, but could come up with better arguments for than I usually hear. It’ll be like being on the debate team again.
I like your list, but there’s no sex.
7. Same sex couples should not be allowed to marry.
That’s a great choice, I’ll have to look into that one.
I like “Gun control is bad for fighting gun-related crimes” myself.
lol Sean,
can’t wait to read your argument for “God exists” or is that God exits
Will this god evolve from mankind and discover he/she is omnipotent, with a big bang proceed to create a whole new universe (somewhere in the landscape) with perfect laws of physics and imperfect beings with imperfect genes?
or will this god simply send everything down a massive blackhole and start the whole thing all over again – hope I’m not giving away any bollywood movie plot
intelligent design is pure distilled science.
Many moons ago, on talk.origins, I participated in a group that came up with a better theory for explaining Noah and the flood. The vapor canopy is so, so lame. An oceanographer working for NASA came up with the PIMPLE theory, that stated that sudden upthrusts of mesa-like areas on the ocean floor displaced the water, for instance.
I handled the animals. The physical dimensions of the ark were too small for all the animals and the space they’d need, plus they’d have to eat. I proposed that the animals were frozen in ponds into a state of suspended animation. when the waters rose, these became icebergs that were towed in a line behind the ark. I even proposed that the last iceberg broke free, and drifted to Australia, to explain the unique animal species there.
How about:
“It’s better to be single than married.”
“Not having kids is better for long term happiness.”
And this, a hard one:
“Microsoft makes good software.”
“The ends really do justify the means” seems perfect.
Re: Gavin’s #1 — I seem to recall that Belle Waring did an exercise like that at some point (being similarly frustrated by the stupidity of the arguments usually advanced). Maybe I’ll find the link later….
Well, since you asked about this stuff, I have every excuse to argue some of the points yet again 😉
#1, for “Yes”:
There is, serious as a heart attack, no genuinely logical way to define “existence” above and beyond logical description. IOW, no way to define “matter” aside from the structural descriptions of it, other than appeal (ironically) to metaphysical issues like the realness of our experience, etc. Now you might say, no big deal, since you can imagine just thinking of “the universe” as being pure mathematics/structure (which is evasive since it leaves out experiential qualities, but I digress.) The trouble then is, you have to admit all the other “descriptions” (not just “simulations”) as being equally pseudo-real as well, like it or not (modal realism.) That’s what Max Tegmark says he believes in, roughly. Then, you’ve got a mess on your hands.
Here’s the problem: All possible worlds really means all possible descriptions. If so, one has a vanishing Bayesian probability of finding oneself in a world that continues to be lawful instead of one of the infinitely more that were like this up to this point and then begin to diverge. Why? Because of all the changes from then on to different laws and variations and distortions of laws that can be described, and indeed the entirety of what behavior can be described after that point which certainly includes a gigantic set of chaotic futures, etc. It’s like once your in the world of “already came up heads 100 times in a row” or similar, then even so it’s not likely the subsequent flips will continue to be orderly.
Hence, I think there really needs to be a manager of some sort, to ensure placement in effect of observers like us in a world that really has laws, since logical possibility is just too inclusive. Think of that as you wish. (Then there’s our having experiences etc., but that gets into consciousness issues and I am just making the argument relating to physical conditions and our being here.)
#5, against the proposition:
If the underpinnings of our world promote variation in kind (different kinds of laws, etc.), then the use of the Multiverse and application to it of Bayesian etc. type reasoning (about what more to expect given what we already see) seems unavoidable and scientifically useful. For example, if there’s a “Landscape” of possible ways for the universe to turn out, given “strings” as the fundamental building block, etc., then we have to ask: if we are in a certain subset of what is possible from that matrix, what likelihood for other features? I mean, suppose that 10% of those Landscape-possible universes (total including their chance of existing, not just as portion of description space) sharing our currently known properties, should also have property X. Then “at random” there’s a 10% chance our world has property X – do you agree? It can even be tested to some extent: See how many of the predictions come true, of course. (BTW that looks pretty much like ordinary Frequentist probability theory after all.)
“Drugs are bad.”
Speaking as a religious scholar, I think you’ll have to be careful about that first one, since in order to put forth any argument at all, you’ll have to very precisely define which conception of “God” you’ll be defending (there are so many, after all, not merely the American Protestant version). Some early Christian apologists, in an attempt to defend the existence of God according the principles of the Greek philosophical tradition with which they were familiar, ended up identifying “God” with existence itself. It would difficult to make a case against existence existing, after all. On the other hand, what you end up with is a tautology, albeit an interesting one.
#2 – The USA spends much more on arms per year than any other country, by a wide margin. Though in theory this is for defense, it makes some of the populous, and the governing class feel invulnerable and that this expenditure should be used. For the first time since Vietnam, the USA has gone all out in a foreign country where it did not need to fight. As happened the last time, the overwhelming dollar amount of armaments cannot overwhelm the belief and persistence of guerilla fighters. This humbling may prevent the USA from picking unnecessary fights with other countries for a further generation, hence the invasion of Iraq has had a positive effect on the USA and the world in which she lives (for a generation at least).
Voting republican will make our nation safer…
Funny, I often think I could do a better job of arguing the case for string theory than people I end up arguing about this with. One April 1 I almost wrote a blog entry doing so.
As for the multiverse, not so much. Arguing the case for a science is one thing, pseudo-science would be much harder….
The Secret really works!
Apparently I should consider arguing that the Vietnam War was a good idea, too.
“So let me break it down for you here: it’s fun.”
*meerp* *meerp* wrong.
“The lure of crazy ideas is what draws a lot of people to science in the first place.”
The lure of crazy ideas that allows afterlife, superheroics, magical powers, telepathy, power, and did I mention magic and power?
Arguing about special place of the human observer, and multiverses appeals to people who enjoy superhero comic books because they personally want more specialness than physics otherwise affords. That’s how I break it down.
Apologies for the snark.
oops wrong comment thread!
should have been here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/08/21/ask-a-string-theorist-or-an-atomic-physicist/#comments
Hi Sean,
A couple of serious suggestions meeting your criteria:
1. The middle path of peace and balance is a strategy only for the weak.
2. The fellow who shouts the loudest is clearly the most knowledgeable.
And also, more importantly:
3. We all live on a yellow submarine.
If we don’t fight them “over there” we’ll have to fight them here.
Elliot
Israel is _____ .
George.
—–“our friend”
—–“our key ally in an unstable region”
—–“a great place for our soldiers to get laid while fighting a war for oil” (not original. I think it was Joseph Heller)
Blogs aren’t as good/informative/authoritative/objective as mainstream media.
m
No poem – painting – song – can right a wrong inflicted and endured.