The Varieties of Crackpot Experience

Frank Tipler is a crackpot. At one point in his life, he did very good technical work in general relativity; he was the first to prove theorems that closed timelike curves could not be constructed in local regions of spacetime without either violating the weak energy condition or creating a singularity. But alas, since then he has pretty much gone off the deep end, and more recently has become known for arguments for Christianity based on fundamental physics. If you closely at those arguments (h/t wolfgang), you find things like this:

If life is to guide the entire universe, it must be co-extensive with the entire universe. We can say that life must have become OMNIPRESENT in the universe by the end of time. But the very act of guiding the universe to eliminate event horizons – an infinite number of nudges – causes the entropy and hence the complexity of the universe to increase without limit. Therefore, if life is to continue guiding the universe – which it must, if the laws of physics are to remain consistent – then the knowledge of the universe possessed by life must also increase without limit, becoming both perfect and infinite at the final singularity. Life must become OMNISCIENT at the final singularity. The collapse of the universe will have provided available energy, which goes to infinity as the final singularity is approached, and this available energy will have become entirely under life’s control. The rate of use of this available energy – power – will diverge to infinity as the final singularity is approached. In other words, life at the final singularity will have become OMNIPOTENT. The final singularity is not in time but outside of time. On the boundary of space and time, as described in detail by Hawking and Ellis [6]. So we can say that the final singularity – the Omega Point – is TRANSCENDANT to space, time and matter.

All of the signs of classic crackpottery are present; the vague and misplaced appeal to technical terminology, the spelling mistakes and capital letters, the random use of “must” and “therefore” when no actual argument has been given. Two paragraphs later, we get:

Science is not restricted merely to describing only what happens inside the material universe, any more than science is restricted to describing events below the orbit of the Moon, as claimed by the opponents of Galileo. Like Galileo, I am convinced that the only scientific approach is to assume that the laws of terrestrial physics hold everywhere and without exception – unless and until an experiment shows that these laws have a limited range of application.

Compares self with Galileo! 40 points! There is really no indication that the person who wrote this was once writing perfectly sensible scientific papers.

Perhaps you will not be surprised to find that Tipler has now jumped into global-warming denialism. In just a few short paragraphs, we are treated to the following gems of insight (helpfully paraphrased):

People say that anthropogenic global warming is now firmly established, but that’s what they said about Ptolemaic astronomy! Therefore, I am like Copernicus.

A scientific theory is only truly scientific if it makes predictions “that the average person can check for himself.” (Not making this up.)

You know what causes global warming? Sunspots!

Sure, you can see data published that makes it look like the globe actually is warming. But that data is probably just fabricated. It snowed here last week!

If the government stopped funding science entirely, we wouldn’t have these problems.

You know who I remind myself of? Galileo.

Stillman Drake, the world’s leading Galileo scholar, demonstrates in his book “Galileo: A Very Short Introduction” (Oxford University Press, 2001) that it was not theologians, but rather his fellow physicists (then called “natural philosophers”), who manipulated the Inquisition into trying and convicting Galileo. The “out-of-the-mainsteam” Galileo had the gall to prove the consensus view, the Aristotlean theory, wrong by devising simple experiments that anyone could do. Galileo’s fellow scientists first tried to refute him by argument from authority. They failed. Then these “scientists” tried calling Galileo names, but this made no impression on the average person, who could see with his own eyes that Galileo was right. Finally, Galileo’s fellow “scientists” called in the Inquisition to silence him.

One could go on, but what’s the point? Well, perhaps there are two points worth making.

First, Frank Tipler is probably very “intelligent” by any of the standard measures of IQ and so forth. In science, we tend to valorize (to the point of fetishizing) a certain kind of ability to abstractly manipulate symbols and concepts — related to, although not exactly the same as, the cult of genius. (It’s not just being smart that is valorized, but a certain kind of smart.) The truth is, such an ability is great, but tends to be completely uncorrelated with other useful qualities like intellectual honesty and good judgment. People don’t become crackpots because they’re stupid; they become crackpots because they turn their smarts to crazy purposes.

Second, the superficially disconnected forms of crackpottery that lead on the one hand to proving Christianity using general relativity, and on the other to denying global warming, clearly emerge from a common source. The technique is to first decide what one wants to be true, and then come up with arguments that support it. This is a technique that can be used by anybody, for any purpose, and it’s why appeals to authority aren’t to be trusted, no matter how “intelligent” that authority seems to be.

Tipler isn’t completely crazy to want “average people” to be able to check claims for themselves. He’s mostly crazy, as by that standard we wouldn’t have much reason to believe in either general relativity or the Standard Model of particle physics, since the experimental tests relevant to those theories are pretty much out of reach for the average person. But the average person should be acquainted with the broad outlines of the scientific method and empirical reasoning, at least enough so that they try to separate crackpots from respectable scientists. Because nobody ever chooses to describe themselves as a crackpot. If you ask them, they’ll always explain that they are on the side of Galileo; and if you don’t agree, you’re no better than the Inquisition.

109 Comments

109 thoughts on “The Varieties of Crackpot Experience”

  1. You sure do demonstrate a lot of care for someone who insists they don’t care. It’s obvious that you do care, but for some bizarre reason you don’t want people to think you do. And that’s a position which is self-contradictory.

    You’re not even truthful with your own self. How much less can you be truthful with anyone else. Needless to say, you’re in no position to start commenting on things which you yourself effectively admit you know nothing about. Not only are you an effective self-admitted ignoramous, but you also are out of the closet with your mental contradictions.

    I in all sincereity recommend that you stop attempting to argue with me. I love a genuine intellectual discussion, but you’re just pathetic. I say that for your benefit–truly. I love you as a child of God, but you’re one of His slower children (and that by your choice).

    And beyond that, I’ll here elaborate on the whole absurdity of these responses. Indeed, I don’t even get the point of them. Are they motivated by the whole culture of “We’s goin’ to mess you up” because someone heard something they are unfamiliar with or which they dislike? As far as everthing I have seen, that is the sum total of the motivating factor in the cases vis-à-vis the Omega Point Theory, since in all my years of research in attempting to find critiques of the Omega Point Theory, that is what all the responses come down to. They don’t even attempt to address factual matters. It’s just “Dat person said someding dat we don’t like, derefore he wrong–and he dupid for even dinking about such dings.” (And no, that jocular phrasing isn’t impinging upon any particular social group, as plenty of rednecks talk like that, too.)

    Caligula, you’ve already admitted that you “don’t care” about this matter, and you’ve effectively admitted that you know nothing about it, yet that hasn’t stopped you from wasting my time. Have some decency. Stop being a gnat buzzing around someone’s brow just because you can. If you have some point of fact which you disagree with, then state it in a direct manner. Otherwise, stop being a troll.

  2. > I in all sincereity recommend that you stop attempting to argue with me.

    I’m not arguing with you. I’m calling you a loon, and telling you one way that would help alleviate why most people also believe you are a loon. If that means I’m “effectively admitting I know nothing about it”, fine–but we have very different ways of interpreting things.

    > yet that hasn’t stopped you from wasting my time

    Those compulsions must be terrible–originally I was (mostly) kidding when I said you couldn’t help yourself. Apparently you actually can’t. I find that funny, in a sad sort of way.

    > I love you as a child of God, but you’re one of His slower children (and that by your choice).

    Wow.

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  4. To those who say that Tipler physical theory is rubbish: may you bother to point out where his mathematics and physics are mistaken?

  5. Crackpot apprentice

    Interesting topic. I think that the number of outrageous proposals coming from physicists and mathematicians has increased in the past 50 or so years. It could be that the huge advances physics has made in the past century have resulted in a lot of “frustration” at it having stopped short of explaining fundamental phenomenas like existence, origin of the universe, God, etc.
    I, still doing my Bachelor in physics, have experienced a lot of episodes of crackpottery over the years. I always find myself inclined to search really hard, using whatever physics i know, to explain “Existence”. Found myself thinking about quantization of space-time and how that could solve something i don’t yet know lol. And I did catch me comparing myself to Einstein a couple of times.
    I think it takes a mixture of psychological factors and the right scientific environment to produce a crackpot.

  6. Crackpot apprentice

    Oops. I just realized that this post had taken a serious left turn somewhere. I hope i don’t get myself caught in the crossfire.

  7. Gak

    The Historian Tippler quotes is most definitely giving a crap representation of why Galileo’s views where rejected, which is primarily to do with politics, and the frame of Galileo’s arguments in a Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, that’s covered rather nicely on wikipedia…

    Stillman Drake is also doing things a trained historian should know better not to do, namely anachronisms and lying by omission. Since at that time, Natural Philosophy was very much embedded within the larger Theological endeavours of the times. And was seen as revealing God’s laws, iirc my history and philosophy of science courses right, a view that was quite common up till the 19th century.

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