POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
This is real news, stuff that changes understanding of the
universe and our ability to do things with the understanding.
Not the sad stuff that fills most of the columns and
broadcasts, leaks and rumors and propaganda of various sorts to benefit the
interests generating them.
What an admirable effort by the scientists.
What is especially interesting is the standard towards which
they work: it involves levels of probability.
The big question is whether the CERN analysis to be
announced yields five-sigma (0.0003%) certainty or just four sigma (0.005%).
Five sigma is the gold standard, and it means there is only a 0.0003% chance
that the finding is not real.
Most scientists, and people, would say that an event that
has only a 0.0005% probability of being not real is indeed real. But the
physicists have set a standard above that, giving themselves a huge analytical
task.
Five sigma is a very high standard of certainty, but even at
that, no statement can be made in the sense of certainty as most people use it.
The universe is stochastic in nature. There are no
certainties and no "laws" as traditionally understood. Only
probabilities.
To the person citing Einstein's, "Science without
religion is lame. Religion without science is blind," all I can say is
that the quote is the great mind at its worst. Even genius makes mistakes,
sometimes very big mistakes.
Einstein, one of the most admirable people of the 20th
century in many ways, also made a mistake when he spoke of God not playing with
dice, rejecting early quantum mechanics.
But in fact, we understand now that quantum mechanics is a
very accurate way of describing how things work.
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There is apparently a genetic tendency in people's minds
towards credulity and superstition and belief in gods.
That is the root of all religion.
And when I say religion, I include such secular religions as
communism or American super-patriotism - anything, in short, which is embraced
as an ultimate cause or purpose or explanation.
Science cannot compete with this genetic tendency, in part
because it cannot make statements with the kind of absolute certainty that
people seem to crave.
But not everyone has that genetic tendency, just as a minor
portion of people are endowed with left-handedness.
Neither of these divisions of humanity can likely ever
convince the other of their point of view: it is much like expecting
right-handed people to become left-handed.
But as science progresses, the apparent likihood of the
religious explanation of things becomes more and more remote.
It is that implicit threat which always brings out the more
tyrannous-minded of the religious camp to bellow and castigate and even
threaten.
We should remember that for the first time in human history
we have a world-wide culture of science: tens of thousands of very clever
people are highly trained and equipped with equipment as never before and they
work regularly towards understanding how things actually work. It is a process
that perhaps will never end.
They will never speak with the same certainties as the
religious-minded because they know the universe is stochastic in nature, but,
bit by bit, they will astound us with their findings and ability to mimic
nature's ways.
The whole phenomenon of movements like the Religious Right
are at least in part a fearful reaction against this reality, but it is very
interesting that all the phony old pitchmen of fundamentalism bellowing against
science still like their cars and televisions and plane travel.
