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During a recent friendly debate with some religious acquaintances, I was asked if I could name any arguments for the existence of a god that actually seem “plausible” to me on any level.  Suffice it to say that none of the standard religious arguments are in any way convincing, given a moment’s thought. However, there is a relatively recent argument that’s been gaining popularity over the last few years, and it requires more than a trivial amount of effort to dismiss. This is the argument from fine-tuning.

In case you’re not aware of the argument, it takes the following form:

Take any physical constant that we know of (e.g. the coupling constant of the strong nuclear force, the cosmological constant governing the expansion of the universe, etc).  If that constant had been a fraction of a percent different, then life wouldn’t exist (or star formation wouldn’t be possible, or the universe would collapse back in on itself, etc).  Therefore, there must have been some intelligent agent who created the universe with the precise physical constants needed for stars and planets to form, and for life to eventually arise.

There’s no denying that it sounds like an interesting, even powerful argument. In fact, some people with whom I’ve recently spoken claim this as the most compelling argument for their continued belief in a god.

Well, let’s carefully analyze this argument, and see why it, too, ends up being less than convincing.

To begin, the universe isn’t exactly overflowing with life.  The universe is more than 99.99% empty space. Most of our solar system is completely uninhabitable, except for a small rocky planet that is on a constant knife-edge of environmental stability, and is just one asteroid away from mass extinction.  It certainly doesn’t appear like the universe was created with us “in mind.” If anything, our presence in the universe is an infinitesimal smear polluting a stupefyingly vast nothingness.  Some “design,” wouldn’t you say?

I might be willing to believe in the fine-tuning argument if we had discovered that there was no universe beyond the Earth, and that the sky was just a canopy above the Earth with the stars being points of light on the canopy.  This should sound familiar:  it’s what we believed two thousand years ago, before we learned better.

So it seems like the desire to believe in the fine-tuning argument is a throwback to the pre-scientific need to feel special, and to cling on to the infantile philosophy that the universe is made specially for us. But we know that every lesson that we’ve had from science over the last 500 years has been a lesson in humility. With each discovery in physics or astronomy, we find that we’re less and less special.

It’s a bit of a straw man argument, as well, and it also smells of the “god of the gaps” fallacy. It’s saying that just because physicists don’t yet understand where Constant X comes from, it must have been designed by a supreme designer.

Just because an “unexplained” constant exists in physics doesn’t mean that it’s free to be adjusted. No one brings up an argument like, “if pi (π) was 3.15 instead of 3.14..., then mathematics wouldn’t be possible.”  It’s meaningless to change the value of pi, because pi simply represents a geometric relationship between circles and diameters. In other words, the value of pi is not a degree of freedom for the universe.  The same could very well be true for many of the physical constants which we haven’t explained yet.

At the same time, it’s possible that there are many other universes apart from this one, where physical constants are in fact different, and we’ve simply won a lottery of universes by being born in this one, just like we’ve won a lottery of planets by being born on this planet, and not another similar planet in a distant star system.

The more basic point I’m approaching here is that physicists don’t yet have an explanation for a great many things. We’ve only had quantum mechanics for less than 100 years. We don’t have an explanation for the expansion of the universe. We haven’t unified all the forces yet. We’ve only unified electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force 40 years ago.  So it’s extremely premature to say that we know anything about these constants in any deeper sense than “they exist.”  And it’s absolutely presumptuous and unwarranted to say that not only do you have a deeper understanding of the physical constants than all physicists in the world, but that you have specific knowledge that a designer-god tweaked some knobs to make the constants the way they are.

We’re in no position to make any judgment about this, given the state of our current knowledge of actual physics.  And anyone who claims to have special knowledge about where the physical constants come from deserves suspicion by default.

Lastly, even if we suppose that the fine-tuning argument suggests some kind of god, the only type of god it can possibly be is a sort of Deistic god;  a god who might have “created” the universe and left it alone.  In no way does it suggest a god who intervenes in people’s lives or answers prayers, and it’s certainly not an argument for the god of the Bible.  It takes just as much work to go from a Deistic god to a prayer-answering god than it does from no god at all.

So, to summarize, we don’t know where some of our physical constants come from, or why their values are what they are.  Or rather, we don’t know yet.  But the point is that it’s okay not to know!  Not knowing is the driving force behind every facet of human inquiry.   Perhaps one day we might discover that the universe really was built by an intelligent designer. But that discovery will be made with the same scientific rigor as all discoveries before it, instead of being built upon holes in our current knowledge.

The fine-tuning argument is therefore precisely that:  an argument that depends on lack of knowledge.  I submit that this realization by itself should disqualify the argument from honest use in debates. It should also disqualify the argument from being a plausible reason for belief in a god.

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at a roundtable debate hosted by the Cleveland Freethinkers. The theme of the debate revolved around how atheists should present themselves in public discourse: should atheists be "accommodating" of their religious colleagues and acquaintances, or should they actively confront such acquaintances and directly challenge their beliefs at any reasonable opportunity? I was on the "confrontationalist" side, and the following is an approximate dump of some of my statements during the debate.

A case against accommodation

The biggest problem with religion seems to be that, no matter how moderately religious a society is, it inevitably creates a slippery slope towards extremism for those few adherents who take it a bit too literally; and there will always be those few. The reason for this is that religious moderates are basically the same as religious extremists, except that the moderates have (thankfully) allowed themselves to be tempered by the secular social norms of our time. By default, religious moderates are tolerant of extremists, because after all, the extremists actually believe what they say they believe, unlike the moderates who water down their religion to make it more palatable in the modern world.

And it seems to me that, from the atheist perspective, being an “accommodationist” would only help perpetuate that same kind of slippery slope that's already made abundant by the religious moderate majority.

My rhetorical question to the accommodationists would be, "To what end?" Surely there must be some extreme forms of religion that you're not willing to accommodate? If you're willing to accommodate some forms of moderate Christianity, or moderate Islam, but not the more extreme forms of the two, then that would be just as hypocritical as the moderate Christians who cherry-pick which verses of the Bible to take literally, and which ones to take metaphorically. Religion should be an all-or-nothing deal. When it's not all-or-nothing, there's always some hypocrisy to be found.

Speaking of hypocrisy, it feels like we have a certain amount of intellectual integrity at stake here. We atheists are, to a reasonable extent, certain about the truth of our convictions. I don't mean to speak for everybody, but that's generally the case; we arrive at certain conclusions with some amount of certainty, and we consider these conclusions "true," or at least tentatively true, insofar as the scientific method allows us to define truth. We don't "believe" in things in the same sense that religious people believe in things, because our conclusions are backed up by evidence and observations, which makes the truth of our beliefs that much more meaningful and convincing.

So, taking all of that into consideration, why on earth should we be accommodating toward beliefs that are clearly false, or beliefs that are clearly lies, or beliefs that are demonstrably harmful to the well-being of their adherents? What does it say about our intellectual integrity when we allow falsehoods to be perpetuated, no matter how much false hope or false happiness they might bring to the people who believe them? I would think that we should be doing our best to expose such beliefs for what they are, and uproot them from the consciousness of our society using tools like education, debate, and scrutiny.

There’s a theory of why religious people get so offended when their faith is questioned. And the theory is that religious people are actually embarrassed by the things they believe, but they just don’t consciously realize it, which is why they get so defensive when their beliefs are put under the microscope. It's embarrassing to believe the Earth is 6000 years old; it's embarrassing to believe that a woman can give birth to a child without a man's contribution to the zygote.

If I put myself in the mindset of a religious person, I can see how it would be embarrassing when science explains yet another thing that used to be attributed to God, and having my God demoted again and again, to the point where the very definition of "God" becomes so nebulous that it loses all meaning. And all I'm left with is profundities like “god is the universe,” or “god is beyond human logic,” or “god exists outside of space and time” -- that’s my favorite.

The thing is, for truly religious people, that kind of embarrassment is buried deep down in their unconscious mind. Instinctively they're perfectly aware that it's all nonsense. But those instincts have been repressed by their conscious religious training, or indoctrination, or whatever. So when those beliefs are questioned, the conscious mind has no answer, so it turns to the unconscious mind, which says that it's all nonsense, which directly butts heads with the conscious indoctrination, and that's where the defensiveness and the anger comes from.

That’s only a theory, anyway. But my whole point here is that our goal as responsible atheists should be to bring that unconscious embarrassment to the foreground of consciousness. Not just the consciousness of religious individuals, but the foreground of our social consciousness. It should become outwardly embarrassing to keep believing in an all-powerful creator god. It should become embarrassing to keep believing in prayer, or believing in hell or heaven.

Believing in a god is on the same theoretical footing as believing any other figment of imagination for which you would otherwise be called crazy. It just so happened that this particular god was the one that got ingrained into the fabric of our society. But aside from that, there's absolutely no reason that we shouldn't attach the same kind of negative stigma to people who believe in the Abrahamic god, or the literal truth of ancient folk tales.

I'm not saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to believe whatever they like; of course they should. What I am saying is, we should work towards creating a society where the moment someone considers taking religion literally, it should be readily apparent to that person how embarrassing, counterproductive, and unwise that would be. So, in that kind of society, no one would have a reason anymore to turn to religion for any purpose, so therefore no one would have a reason to go down the slippery slope toward extremism.

That's the kind of state we should be striving for; a state where it's just as embarrassing to believe in the god of Abraham as it is to believe in Zeus or Poseidon or Xenu; because they are all on the same footing of pre-scientific wishful thinking. And I don't see how accommodation will help us get there. Theism in general belongs in the Bronze Age, because it’s based on Bronze-age thinking, and because the Bronze Age is already the resting place for all other gods ever invented by men. There’s just one more to go!

When people who promote the merits of religion run out of arguments, they usually retreat to the last-resort argument, which is something like, “Well, at least religion gives people comfort, or hope, or a sense of purpose...” Well, that might be true; but the problem is that all those good things are for the wrong reasons, and all those things only happen when religion is at its very best. That's more like an idealization of religion; that's the infomercial promise of religion. The reality is quite different. In reality, when religion is not at its best, the same religion that brings the hope and the comfort will also bring fear, shame, intolerance, and guilt. And we know all too well what happens when religion is at its worst... it makes otherwise decent people commit unspeakably evil acts, for those very same reasons!

The other problem with that argument is that it’s rather condescending towards religious people. It assumes that religious people are too weak-minded to cope with the real world without religion, and I don’t think that’s true at all. I’m fully confident that even the most devoutly religious people will be able to find their moral bearings without a god telling them what’s right and wrong. I think people might be afraid to let go of religion, because religion has been pretty much the only option for thousands of years. But the solution to all of that, as with anything else, is education; not just education, but actively combating ignorance.

A proper education should start at the very beginning. Religion’s biggest offense is the indoctrination of young children. Nobody should have any kind of opinion or dogma forced onto them from birth, and yet this happens every day, in many millions of households, in the form of religious upbringing. I wish more of us would recoil when we hear parents label their young children as “Protestant” or “Jewish” or anything else, before the children are capable of objectively evaluating the implications of such a label.

That’s why I’m not advocating forcing atheism onto anyone. What I’m talking about is subtracting the forcing of religion (which is pretty much the definition of atheism anyway)! Atheism isn’t a viewpoint that can be forced onto someone. Atheism is a natural, “clean slate” state of mind, and children should be raised with a “clean slate” until they’re ready (and educated enough) to decide which ancient Babylonian deity to worship.

To put it plainly, we simply cannot afford to accommodate irrational beliefs anymore. It would be great to accommodate them, in theory, if only people’s irrational beliefs didn’t influence their actions, and if only people with irrational beliefs didn’t get elected to public offices, and didn’t allow their irrational beliefs to influence their policies. If that were the kind of world we lived in, then, by all means, accommodation would be very fitting and reasonable.

But we live in a country where half of the population refuses to accept basic facts about biology, and half of the population can’t tell you how long it takes for the Earth to make an orbit around the Sun. And we live in a world where we have an explosive growth of a religion that has a doctrine of military conquest literally built into it, and a growing minority of that religion that’s plotting our destruction as we speak.

We cannot afford to accommodate religions that are inherently anti-human, which all three of the world's "great monotheisms" absolutely are. The moment when a religion places more value on things that are supposed to happen after we die, rather than focusing on doing good deeds in this life for its own sake, is a warning sign that such a religion needs to be eradicated, and fast.

Our battle is nearly vertically uphill, and the last thing we should be doing is pretending that there’s any good to be found in letting people cling on to their irrational beliefs just a bit longer. Religion’s function has been to divide people, divide communities, and stifle scientific and intellectual achievement. We should be doing our best to phase it out, instead of accommodating it. To put it as charitably as I can, religion has been the training wheels of our morality. And at some point, training wheels become more of a hindrance than a benefit. Our civilization is long overdue to take the training wheels off, and throw them away.

Today I'd like to briefly discuss the issue of open-mindedness, since I grow more and more alarmed by the rate at which this issue comes up in debates between skeptics and "believers" in alternative medicine, religion, the paranormal, the supernatural, and all sorts of other products of human imagination.

At this point the astute reader might point out, "Aha, you're already presupposing that these things are products of imagination, so your mind is already closed to other options!" This is not the case. I believe that these things are products of imagination because that's what they appear to be, based on all available evidence, so they are very probably imaginary. Is it possible that they are real, and not imagined? Of course! Show me evidence that is convincing enough (that is, evidence that's as grandiose as the claim itself), and you'll make me a believer (that is, you'll make me believe that your claim is very probably real)!

I have changed my mind regarding various claims plenty of times in the past, precisely for this reason: I was shown convincing evidence (or found it myself) that made me reverse my views on a particular subject.

A brief analogy. Okay, not so brief.

When I was younger, I used to believe that I exerted some sort of energy that made street lights turn off exactly as I would drive underneath them in my car (this is apparently a common illusion). This didn't quite sit well in my mind: why me? Am I really that extraordinary? Why doesn't every driver cause street lights to go out? Then I decided to research the facts: I found out how street lights work, and I read up on some of the workings of human psychology, namely selective memory. And before long, I understood that the light bulbs are on a duty cycle (they periodically turn on and off to prevent overheating), and that my mind was assigning special significance to the times when a street light happened to turn off directly above me!

Did I feel saddened by the notion that I was no longer extraordinary? Maybe for a brief moment, but the reality check was soon overtaken by a feeling of enlightenment. It felt good to understand the real reason behind a phenomenon that was poorly understood (by me, at the time). Instead of living with a superficial pseudo-understanding of how things work (where I am endowed with street light powers), I felt extraordinary because I gained a much more meaningful understanding of the real world.

So what does this have to do with an open mind? Well, consider this. Suppose I meet a person (let's call her Alice) who absolutely insists that the street light phenomenon is actually genuine -- that people do, in fact, emit an energy field that causes street lights to turn off above them.

When I present all the research I did regarding street lights and human psychology, Alice dismisses it as inconclusive and insufficient. When I say that there is a perfectly good natural explanation for the phenomenon, Alice claims that her explanation is better because it feels right to her. She gives me a list of testimonials from her friends who have also experienced the phenomenon, and says, "they can't all be wrong, can they?" When I show her the mathematics that proves how statistically likely it is to see a street light turn off during any drive, she insists that the number of times that she's seen it can't be a coincidence.

When I ask her to show me peer-reviewed publications on the reality of this effect, she says that she doesn't have access to them at the moment, but assures me that they exist. When I ask her if she would be willing to perform a blinded test of her abilities, she refuses, saying that the street lights turn off only when she doesn't think about it or least expects it.

When I ask her to explain the physical processes that she thinks are behind the phenomenon, she begins talking about quantum mechanics, saying that all particles are entangled, that our intentions can change the course of quantum reality, and that we, as observers, can choose the outcome of wavefunction collapse.

When I try to correct her naive understanding of quantum mechanics, she says that science doesn't have all the answers. When I tell her that I used to believe in the same explanation that she does, except I learned better, she proceeds to state that I am hopelessly closed-minded and, with a tone of pity, says that I will never be able to control street lights like she can, because I don't believe in it enough.

Sound familiar?

While the above analogy is a bit of a straw man (or straw woman in this case), the vast majority of debates between skeptics and "believers" take on exactly the above format. The believer, frustrated by the skeptic's unwillingness to accept her extraordinary claim without sufficient evidence, resorts to calling the skeptic closed-minded.

Let's think about the definition of an open mind. I would consider an open-minded person to be someone who is able to objectively evaluate new evidence, and integrate it into his or her framework of theories regarding the world. "Objectively" evaluating evidence means evaluating it regardless of personal interests, emotional appeal, profit motive, or peer pressure.

It is abundantly clear that, in the above scenario, it's Alice who is closed-minded, because she is either unable or unwilling to honestly evaluate the real reasons for the street light effect.

However, the question remains: Am I closed-minded for being unwilling to consider Alice's theory that she has psycho-kinetic powers? Well, that's a bit of a loaded question. First of all, Alice does not have a theory that explains the effect. Saying that the effect is caused by telekinetic powers is a bit like saying, "It's magic" -- it doesn't constitute an explanation, because it doesn't explain how the process actually works.

Alice would have to define what exactly her powers are, their range and intensity, and how these powers can be reconciled with currently known laws of physics. If she claims that current physics are insufficient to explain her powers, or that she has tapped into a "new" law of physics, she suddenly has an entire world of physicists to contend with, all of whom agree on well-established physical laws that preclude such powers.

The only thing that would pique the interest of the world's physicists is a simple test -- an experiment that shows, repeatably, that the laws of physics do not apply to Alice. Is that too much to ask? As long as such an experiment does not exist, we have no reason to believe that Alice has any powers except an overly active imagination.

Replace the street light effect with any other extraordinary claim (energy medicine, life-force, zero-point fields, astrology, dowsing, etc), and the conclusions turn out the same: if the claim is real, it would undermine one or more laws of physics. In any case, the evidence for such a claim would have to be at least as spectacular as the claim itself.

In short, I am open-minded to any new evidence, whether it supports my worldview or contradicts it. However, I have some sensible constraints on what passes as "evidence." As the immortal saying goes, I have an open mind, but not so open that my brain falls out.

If you are making extraordinary claims that are not supported by our current theories about the world, all I ask is that you demonstrate something, anything, that supports your claims, and shows that whatever you're demonstrating isn't just in your mind.

I had a conversation with God last night. Really, I did! I was just re-reading through portions of Neale Donald Walsch's wildly popular Conversations with God series, and I couldn't help but wonder how any self-respecting God, if one exists, would allow such lunacy to continue. And, wouldn't you know it, God responded!

An uncommon dialogue

DB: Son of a bitch, this stuff is giving me a migraine...

God: Hello!!! This is... Gaaawwwwwwwwwwd.

DB: Holy crap, you do exist! Silly me, I thought you were a logical impossibility!

God: Oh, I am an impossibility. Of awesomeness!

DB: But how do I know it's really you?

God: Well, I can't really prove anything to you at this point. Maybe it's really me, or maybe it's a drug-induced hallucination. And the headcheese hoagie you ate for dinner can't be helping, either.

DB: You know--

God: I'm--

DB: Oh, sorry, go ahead.

God: No, no, you spoke first.

DB: I've actually had a few burning questions to ask you, now that you're here. Do you mind?

God: Burning questions are better answered by Satan. Get it?!

DB: Wow... that is just awful.

God: I'm just joshin' you. Go ahead and shoot away.

DB: You know who Neale Donald Walsch is, right? He has built a multi-million dollar empire from his "Conversations with God" books.

God: Yes, I've heard... such things.

DB: Well, was it really you speaking to him? Because, forgive me, but it sounds an awful lot like Walsch's conversations are between himself and his gigantic ego, instead of a deity like yourself.

God: You're absolutely right. I've never spoken to him in any way, not in print, writing, thoughts, or conversation. He is a dangerous cult leader, and I'm amazed that more and more people keep on feeding his ego trip. You can quote me on that.

DB: Oh, good, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. It will be interesting to see what my readers think of your opinion on this, o Lord. So, let me ask you this. How can I make a million dollars from this conversation that we're having right now?

God: It's simple! People are idiots. I created them that way, because I felt like it. All you have to do is sprinkle this conversation with some positive messages, appeal to their fantasies and desires, and subtly inject your own agenda at your leisure! Tell people that, by just reading this conversation, their lives will improve and become filled with happiness. Also, use words like "Eastern" and "alternative." Then all you do is sell, sell, sell!!! Write books, have seminars, workshops, retreats, cruises, and charge as much as you want! They'll pay, and beg for more! Make sure to nickel-and-dime at every turn, so they get used to paying whenever they hear your name. And of course, make sure to copyright everything you do, and insist that you're the only one with the true message.

DB: Awesome! But what if people's lives don't improve from reading this conversation?

God: Tell them it's their own damn fault. Use an excuse like "you create your own reality" or "you are your own god." That will shut them up real quick, and give them some much-needed guilt, so they'll buy even more stuff from you! If they still insist that their lives aren't changing, wave your hands in the air and tell them that they haven't "opened their mind" enough, and offer to clear their mind for an additional charge.

DB: Wow, it sounds so simple when you put it like that!

God: I know, right?! Oh, and one more thing. When selling this stuff, you really have to stand out, or no one will notice you. You have to be really flamboyant. I mean extremely flamboyant. Flail your arms around when speaking, and dance around on the stage. Change the emotion in your voice randomly from one sentence to another, just to throw them off.

DB: But what if people accuse me of being a fraud?

God: So what? Just tell them they can believe whatever they want! Maybe you spoke to God, maybe you didn't! Here's a good one to throw at them: "we're all god!" I'm God, you're God, this rock is God! Did you talk to a rock today? Boom, you talked with God, and I just blew your mind! Is that profound enough for you? How about them apples, Debbie Downer?

DB: Okay, let me give it a try real quick, and tell me if I've got it.

God: Alright, let's see what you've got.

DB: [Clears throat] Umm...

Eastern religion... is... awesome. You people are... fantastic. Leading a healthy lifestyle is... great. Come to my workshops and, for $500, I will repeat these platitudes to you!

God: No, no, no, you have to do a lot better than that! First of all, you can't just ask for money. What are you, a wimp? You have to demand money. You have to make them assume that they need to give you money to get anywhere!

DB: [loosens up] OK, let me try again...

We're all connected! If you try hard, you can accomplish things in life! Don't harm animals! America! Sex is good for you! Think about money and it will come to you! You must give me $1200, so that I can show you how to make $500!

God: Ehh... good, not great. Here, take an example from the master. Now watch what I do, and listen closely: I'm just going to speak naturally, and say whatever comes to mind... [Clears throat]

According to the scientifically proven Law of Attraction, which we all know is true, quantum reality can be manipulated by something as simple as your thoughts! Since your consciousness exists both in the physical and spiritual realm, according to scientists, you can consciously use quantum effects like entanglement and superposition, to literally change the world around you. Once you master this simple skill, which we're all born with, you can attract prosperity, health, love, power, and anything else you want in your life.

At my upcoming workshop, for an introductory fee of $10000, I'll teach you to channel your life-force energy through scientifically verified quantum field points on your body, allowing you to heal yourself and others, enjoy a better love life, create wealth, and finally be the master of your quantum world. Also, for an additional $200 per 10 minutes, I will hold an attunement session with you, where I will use my mastery of the quantum field to unblock your chakras, one at a time, and re-enable the flow of magneto-electric spiritual energy throughout your body!

...You see? Damn, I'm good! I didn't even have to think about that! The bullshit just flows so naturally. It's a gift, really, but you too can learn to talk like this, if you keep practicing.

DB: Wow, I am speechless. I threw up in my mouth a little, but that is just brilliant! God, you're a genius. Let me just write this all down...

God: Well, what did you expect, a retard for a god? Would a retarded god sacrifice himself to himself to atone for the sins of his own creations?

DB: Hmm... why don't we save that question for a future conversation?

God: Absolutely! Feel free to contact me anytime. You know how to reach me!

DB: Actually, I'm not sure how I reached you. You just started talking to me.

God: Exactly! Cheerioooooo!...

DB: Wait, just one more thing! How can you, in good conscience, allow people like Walsch to continue to do what they do?

God: How am I supposed to do anything when I don't exist? Jackass.

Money, please!

So there you have it, dear readers, straight from the horse's mouth. Neale Donald Walsch never had a conversation with anything but his own giant head. I spoke with the real God, as you can plainly see above. So... give me money. Come on, cough it up.

When proponents of pseudoscience talk amongst each other, any doubts about the validity of their claims hardly ever arise. When two pseudoscientists have roughly the same beliefs, they will never question one another, and no attempt to verify their claims will be made. It's assumed, as a given, that what they believe is real and true.

It's only when pseudoscientists are confronted by skeptics that they try to cobble together actual pet theories of how their claims can be justified. These theories are usually ad hoc (as in, invented right on the spot), just to get the skeptic off the pseudoscientist's back. There are, however, certain theories that seem to permeate the pseudoscientific community, and are used universally for all brands of quackery.

One of my favorites is the argument that each of us "creates our own reality." And that's not in the weak sense of "our life is what we make of it," with which I completely agree. It's in the strong sense that physical reality actually bends to our will in real time! This is reminiscent of the philosophy of solipsism, where all of reality is in the mind of the observer. The pseudoscientists, however, dress up the argument in the usual array of loosely-knit scientific terms hijacked from quantum mechanics, such as taking the idea of quantum entanglement to mean that "everything is connected," among other nonsense.

To the untrained skeptic, this might seem like a powerful argument. And it is, in most cases, a debate-stopper. I mean, if we all create our own reality, then surely we can create whatever physical laws we like! Skeptics create realities of strict, unchanging physics and lead boring and unfulfilled lives, while pseudoscientists create realities where "anything is possible." Or so the argument goes. This argument, however, is a debate-stopper for the wrong reason: not because it's so airtight that it checkmates the skeptical opponent, but because it's so devoid of meaning that no further discussion can logically continue.

Because of this, the "argument" serves as the foundation for the most weasely excuses for why a quack treatment won't work on skeptics:

• My treatment won't work on you because you created a reality that stops it from working!
• You have to want the treatment to work. You must open your mind to it.
• Your skeptical presence in the room will stop the treatment from working.
• The outcome of the test will be whatever you believe it should be. Your presence will skew the results in your favor.

Poverty of the argument

My contention is that the idea that "we create our own reality" is an empty philosophy, a cowardly withdrawal from reason. It's intellectually lazy, and ultimately useless as a means of understanding our existence. Allow me to illustrate how I arrived at this with a series of observations and rhetorical questions.

• If we create our own reality, then why don't we have intimate knowledge of its innermost workings? For instance, why isn't everyone endowed with instinctual knowledge of physics? And I don't mean Newtonian physics, or even quantum physics, but the "true" physics that governs all the fundamental forces and encompasses what quantum mechanics and general relativity only approximate? If we are the architects of our world, surely we should know how it works!
• On a related note, how is it possible that so many discoveries about our world have been totally counterintuitive, like the roundness of the Earth, heliocentricity, or the curvature of spacetime? If we are the ones who create our world, it would stand to reason that our intuition should naturally guide us towards understanding its nature. And yet, from the most profound breakthroughs in our history, we've observed the exact opposite.
• Taking the above points a bit further, how can there be anything in the world that is "unknown" to me? That is, why am I not omniscient with respect to my reality, since it's all my creation? For example, how can I be surprised when I taste a certain food for the first time? Why am I awed when I walk into a cathedral I've never visited before?
• If I create my own reality, why are there people in the world who are better than me at various activities? For example, if I pick up and start reading Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, there's a good chance that I won't understand a word of it. But why is that? If Andrew Wiles and his proof are products of my imagination, then why can't I understand the proof that my imagination created?
  

  Because you wanted to create a proof that you couldn't understand.
   
   

  No, I didn't! Being a world-renowned mathematician was one of my earliest dreams. So why hasn't that reality been realized?

Because you created a reality wherein you have to learn and grow in order to understand it.
 
 

If this is the case, then the whole argument becomes an easy candidate for Occam's Razor. Why would I voluntarily limit my understanding of reality, and then spend my life attempting to rediscover this understanding, while never quite approaching the level of understanding I must have had in order to create reality in the first place?

If our understanding of reality is deliberately limited, then attempting to expand our understanding of it would ultimately require cautious use of the scientific method, which is precisely what we do in understanding the real world! It should be apparent that this argument eventually achieves a one-to-one correspondence with plain old realism, albeit in a roundabout way that has emotional appeal for those unwilling to face realism head on.

• Why is the reality we create imperfect? This boils down to the Problem of Evil, which is ever so inconvenient for believers in omnipotent, benevolent gods. When someone uses the argument that "you create your own reality", they're essentially transferring the burden of the problem from God to "you," since you now become the god of your reality.

  So then why do I, as a god, create a reality that is not perfect? At what point did I decide to create a reality where I'm a common citizen who has to work for a living and deal with the everyday problems of middle-class life? When did I decide to give HIV to a quarter of the population in Africa? And when did I decide to create a vast number of people who delude themselves with imaginary realities and magical thinking, and kill each other over whose beliefs are holier? None of the above creations are things that I ever wanted. And yet they exist.

• If we create our own reality, then why is reality so difficult to alter? Specifically, why doesn't reality automatically bend to our will, like the pseudoscientists say it should? If the state of reality is guided by our deepest desires, why doesn't reality rebuild itself according to what we want at any given time? It seems like the only way to make actual changes to our reality is by doing physical work, or paying someone to do it for us. It almost seems like we have no cognitive control over external elements in our reality!

I could go on, but the conclusion will remain the same. No matter how we approach this argument, like any other pseudoscience, it will eventually reduce to absurdity. So, please, next time you hear this nugget of pseudo-reasoning, recognize it for the intellectual poverty it represents, and challenge the speaker with a much-needed dose of skepticism.

Unknown to me until now, Lynne McTaggart (author of The Field and The Intention Experiment, discussed in my previous post) has apparently been spearheading a series of actual "intention experiments" online. This is done by giving online readers a certain task to "intend" upon, and observing the results.

I found a very interesting discussion thread on the JREF Forum that details the various iterations of McTaggart's website over the last several months. Apparently, every "intention experiment" promoted by the website is referred to as "the first intention experiment." When that experiment fails or produces inconclusive data, the next experiment is called the "first," and so on.

The "experiments" themselves appear to be completely nonsensical. For example, one of the experiments was to measure the emissions of "biophotons" from plants that were being intended to glow by distant observers. According to the website:

Our first experiments examined the alteration in the tiny light — called biophoton emissions — being emitted from living things. We chose to look at this tiny current of light, because it is infinitely more subtle than, say, cellular growth rate.

Of course! Why measure something tangible, when you can measure something "infinitely more subtle"!

The current incarnation of the Intention website doesn't even brag about the results of the experiments anymore, but instead directs visitors to purchase McTaggart's books and DVDs, and join an online community that's reminiscent of some kind of sad, pathetic support group for people who are uncomfortable saying, "won't you pray for me?"

Here's an example of the Intention website's community posts:

...In 2001 I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. I had a mastectomy & chemo (experimental) that just about killed me. I had a bad reaction that left me with nerve damage and constant bone/joint/muscle stiffness & pain. Last week I had my annual mammogram on the remaining breast. I rec. a letter saying there was a "suspicious" area, so I have to return on 8-8-07 for more films/sonogram. I would really appreciate as many members as possible to send the intent that all will be fine...

Wait a minute... for some reason that has a very familiar ring to it. What if we replace the word "intent" with the word "prayer"? Isn't this the exact same thing?!

Who are they trying to kid? Instead of praying to an invisible supernatural deity, they're simply praying to an invisible supernatural "field"! Well, I'm afraid the old adage still applies: Nothing fails like prayer.

A friend of mine recommended that I read a book called The Field by Lynne McTaggart, and referred to the subject matter as thought-provoking, if not life-changing. A cursory examination of the book on Amazon.com revealed overwhelmingly positive reviews and similar "life-changing" testimonials. So I obtained The Field for myself, as well as McTaggart's more recent book, The Intention Experiment.

The moment I read the back cover of The Field, I knew what I was getting myself into:

Science has recently begun to prove what ancient myth and religion have always espoused: There may be such a thing as a life force.

Naturally, I become suspicious of a book that demeans and cheapens science by putting religion on a pedestal, and claiming that "ancient myth" knew something all along that science is just now discovering.

The idea of "uniting science and spirituality" is nothing new. Whenever a new buzzword gets coined in science (especially physics), within a month or so, someone will publish a book relating the buzzword with auras, spirits, energy fields, and how anyone can harness the new buzzword to improve their health, marriage, and credit rating. The hot topic in this case is the zero-point field, or more generally, quantum mechanics.

Essentially, both of McTaggart's books are opinions on various studies and articles published over the years that, according to McTaggart, show a connection between the will (or "intention") of the mind, and physical reality. With the logical agility of an acrobat (albeit a retarded one), she concludes that, through the effects of quantum mechanics, it's possible to influence the world around us using nothing but our intentions, hence the "life-changing" reviews associated with the books.

To begin, it doesn't help that McTaggart is an "investigative journalist" (instead of, perhaps, a physicist?), with no formal training in physics or biology, which are the very subjects she's writing about.

Nevertheless, McTaggart digs up an impressive handful of studies whose results are certainly curious, as long as we interpret the results the way she wants us to. But then, like most other authors in the genre, she blatantly disregards the vast, overwhelming body of evidence that proves that people do not have psychic powers, that we cannot move objects with our minds, and that we cannot change the world through our intention alone.

Even if we suppose that the results cited by McTaggart are in some way anomalous, there's no reason to assume that ESP or some other paranormal influence was involved. This kind of assumption would only be made by someone who is predisposed to believe in such things to begin with. A competent researcher would instead look for more plausible factors that may have skewed the results, and inevitably such a factor will eventually be found.

Appeal to Vanity

People like to feel smart. And books like this appeal to this desire. The average casual reader who is intrigued by quantum physics would love to understand the staggering complexity of the science surrounding it. If only there was a shortcut to understanding quantum physics at the same level as the researchers at Cambridge or MIT....

Unfortunately, there is no such shortcut. Anyone who claims to understand quantum mechanics without any formal training is either misinformed, deluded, or has an agenda. Quantum physics is an extremely complicated subject. It's quite possibly the most hard-to-understand theory in all of science, ever. To even begin to grasp it, one would require several years of advanced mathematics beyond the undergraduate level, as well as a very firm grasp of classical physics.

But then, a book like this comes along and suggests that it can make you understand quantum physics in a paragraph! And not just quantum physics, but how it relates to any number of completely unrelated topics. It makes the reader exclaim, "Wow, I can understand quantum physics in a day! Sucks to be the losers who spent so many years actually studying the subject!"

People also seem to like the fuzzy, addictive feeling of "understanding" or "enlightenment," even if the feeling is completely false and unwarranted. Well, books like this do just that -- provide the reader with a feeling of enlightenment without presenting any actual science or any useful information. The best analogy for this would be mental masturbation -- tell the readers who are likely to believe this stuff exactly what they want to hear, and they'll eat it up like candy.

But in the end, after reading this type of book, all the reader "understands" is just a cleverly-worded regurgitation of the same old pseudo-intellectual nonsense that has no bearing in reality. It is certainly not quantum mechanics.

Recall Richard Feynman's famous quote, "If you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory." McTaggart (the investigative journalist) thinks she understands quantum theory.

Taking Analogies Too Far

Now, to be fair, a lot of scientific concepts, including aspects of quantum theory, can be easily explained to a layperson using analogies with commonplace objects and phenomena. But any analogy is liable to be taken a bit too literally.

For example, in electrical engineering it's a highly useful analogy to compare an electrical circuit to a system of pipes with water. The flowing water is electrical current, a pump is a battery, a one-way valve is a diode, a very thin pipe is a resistor, and a tank is a capacitor. However, if taken too literally, the analogy falls apart. If a pipe cracks, water will leak out of it; this does not happen in an electrical circuit. Also, the motion of water in a pipe is caused by the physical pressure of water molecules on each other; in an electrical circuit, the energy is propagated by fields produced by each electron.

Taking analogies too literally is dangerous, and ultimately paves the way towards pseudoscience and voodoo. As you may have guessed, McTaggart takes quantum analogies to the extreme, and beyond.

The biggest error anyone can make in trying to understand quantum mechanics is to make the extrapolation that, since quantum effects occur on quantum scales, they must also occur on large scales. They don't!

For example, in quantum mechanics, the position of a particle is defined by a complex wave function, the square of which represents a probability density -- the "chance" of finding the particle in a given area of space. A naïve interpretation of this would be that "there's always a slight chance of finding any particle at any point in the universe."

As profound as that may seem, it only applies on a quantum scale. It does not mean that something as large as a watermelon, or a baseball, or a blood cell can suddenly blink out of existence and reappear somewhere else in the universe!

Similarly, the concept of quantum superposition refers to the idea that, before a particle is observed, it exists in a "superposition" of possible states, and only "collapses" to a certain state once it's observed. From this, McTaggart makes the generous extrapolation that, since our mind is "the observer," we can choose which state something will be in when we observe it, thereby creating our own reality!

And finally, the zero-point field refers to the nonzero energy of pure vacuum, the existence of which is a requirement of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. But just because the zero-point field isn't fully understood doesn't mean that it must be the unifying force of all things in the universe (whatever that means)! And it takes an even greater leap of logic to suggest that our intentions (patterns of tiny electrical impulses) can have an effect on the zero-point field anywhere outside of our brain.

Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Pauli, and Planck must all be spinning in their graves -- I doubt that any of them intended for their theories to be so grossly misinterpreted and misapplied. There is nothing in quantum theory that states that any quantum effects occur on a macroscopic scale. To state otherwise would be intellectually dishonest.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Here's where I get a little personal. To an actual scientist, this kind of book is more than just innocent fun and games -- it's actually insulting; it's a slap in the face to anyone with the slightest scientific background. Some say that religion is the enemy of science -- well I think this is way more dangerous than religion. At least religion doesn't claim to be scientific in nature. But these "theories" go out of their way to show how they're "backed up" by science!

So then, what should we tell the thousands of children in the war-torn countries of Africa who are dying of starvation and disease? Surely they "wish" for food and medicine every minute of their miserable day; surely they "intend" for a world of love, joy, and prosperity for themselves, so... where is it? Are they not intending hard enough? How can we, in good conscience, even entertain such a despicable idea? McTaggart apparently can. The message in her books is clear: you can intend your world into existence; and if it's not working, you're not intending hard enough.

But did McTaggart "intend" her own prosperity into existence? Of course not! She simply wrote a bestseller that happens to appeal to the wants, needs, and fears of suckers gullible enough to believe her.

All that The Field and The Intention Experiment boils down to is the age-old quest for the genie in a bottle, or rather the embodiment of human laziness: "you can get whatever you want by wishing for it." Sadly, this is not how the world works.

Resources

The articles that McTaggart cites in her "amazing" exposition are either studies done by people who already believe in this stuff, or simply articles that talk about actual studies and reinterpret their results as they see fit, much like McTaggart has done, to a second degree.

It's sufficient to examine just one of McTaggart's sources to see the quality of data she's working with:

F. Sicher, E. Targ et al., "A randomised double-blind study of the effect of distant healing in a population with advanced AIDS: report of a small scale study," Western Journal of Medicine, 1998; 168(6): 356-63

This was a study where 40 patients with advanced AIDS were selected, some of them randomly chosen to receive "remote healing" treatments, while the rest continuing their course of regular treatment. According to the study, subjects who were "healed ... acquired significantly fewer new AIDS-defining illnesses," plus other positive effects, although there were "no significant differences in CD4+ counts" (darn).

Upon reading the abstract of this paper, numerous glaring red flags emerge. The most obvious of these, I think, is that the healers who performed the "psychic healing" were "located throughout the United States during the study," meaning that the healing was completely uncontrolled.
Furthermore, if the healers and the subjects "never met," how did the healers know where to direct their "intention for health and well-being"? Did they direct their intention at a photo of the subject? And if so, how does "The Field" know to redirect the intention from the photo to the real person? Wouldn't this be a line of bullshit that's even crazier than McTaggart is willing to push?

Curiously enough, there is a note from the editor of the Western Journal of Medicine (Linda Hawes Clever) at the top of the paper:

...Does the paper prove that prayer works? No. The authors call for more research, as do we and the reviewers, for a number of reasons. We note that the study was relatively short and analysed rather few patients. No treatment-related mechanisms for the effects were posited. The statistical methods can be criticized....

We can tell from the editor's tone that she was being charitable by publishing this paper in her journal, and inserted her note to avoid embarrassment. If studies like this are the "definitive evidence" that McTaggart uses to support her claims, then her theories don't have a leg to stand on.

Return to Reality

On the other end of the spectrum (the rational one), here is a brief list of studies that I have found that show conclusively that prayer, intentions, and "distant healing" do not work, as well as papers that show why studies attempting to measure effects from prayer are fundamentally suspect:

• Abbot NC, et al. Spiritual healing as a therapy for chronic pain: a randomized, clinical trial. "...there were no statistically significant differences between healing and control groups..."
• Astin JA, et al. The efficacy of distant healing for human immunodeficiency virus--results of a randomized trial. This one is especially relevant, since it has Elisabeth Targ's name as one of the authors! "Distant healing or prayer from a distance does not appear to improve selected clinical outcomes in HIV patients..."
• Aviles JM, et al. Intercessory prayer and cardiovascular disease progression in a coronary care unit population: a randomized controlled trial. "As delivered in this study, intercessory prayer had no significant effect on medical outcomes after hospitalization in a coronary care unit."
• Benson H, et al. Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer. This study actually showed a reverse effect: "certainty of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with a higher incidence of complications"!
• Cleland JA, et al. A pragmatic, three-arm randomised controlled trial of spiritual healing for asthma in primary care. "Spiritual healing does not appear to have any specific affect [sic] on patient asthma related quality of life."
• Gaudia G. Searching in the Darkness: About Prayer and Medical Cures. "We scientists make a great mistake when we agree that there may be value in investigating the potential of prayer as a cure."
• Harkness EF, et al. A randomized trial of distant healing for skin warts. "Distant healing from experienced healers had no effect on the number or size of patients' warts."
• Hobbins PG. Compromised ethical principles in randomised clinical trials of distant, intercessory prayer. "...many studies did not meet basic ethical standards required of clinical trials of biophysical interventions, making application of their results ethically problematic..."
• Matthews DA, et al. Effects of intercessory prayer on patients with rheumatoid arthritis. "Supplemental, distant intercessory prayer offers no additional benefits."
• Matthews WJ, et al. The effects of intercessory prayer, positive visualization, and expectancy on the well-being of kidney dialysis patients. "The effects of intercessory prayer and transpersonal positive visualization cannot be distinguished from the effect of expectancy."
• Sloan RP, et al. Science, medicine, and intercessory prayer. "...these studies claim findings incompatible with current views of the physical universe and consciousness..."
• Walker SR, et al. Intercessory prayer in the treatment of alcohol abuse and dependence: a pilot investigation. "Intercessory prayer did not demonstrate clinical benefit in the treatment of alcohol abuse..."
• Wirth DP, et al. Complementary healing therapies. Once again, in this study the opposite effect was observed: the people being "healed" got worse: "Results showed significance for the treated versus the control group but in the opposite direction from that expected."

...but what do I know. After all, I'm not a fancy investigative journalist!

or What America is in Danger of Becoming

Apparently several disgruntled fundamentalist christians have set up their own "alternative" to Wikipedia that they're calling Conservapedia (subtitled "A conservative encyclopedia you can trust"). Their biggest gripes with Wikipedia appear to be their perception of a "liberal bias" in Wikipedia, as well as Wikipedia's use of C.E. (Common Era) in dates instead of A.D. (Anno Domini). In short, the authors of Conservapedia fear that Wikipedia is becoming "increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American."

No doubt, Conservapedia was founded by a couple of angry guys whose edits on Wikipedia got deleted for being too preachy and uncomfortably fundamentalist. The guys may have even been cranky enough to get banned from Wikipedia altogether, which is what probably gave them the bright idea to start their own encyclopedia, so that subsequent generations of fundies can be as ignorant and hypocritical as they are.

After a few minutes of browsing Conservapedia, it becomes clear that 90% of its articles are one-liners (these are articles where the authors don't care to make a political statement). All of Conservapedia's articles on Biology, Chemistry, and Physics are one sentence long, and appear to come from a series of textbooks by Jay L. Wile, a conservative christian author whose books urge their readers to study science, but only while wearing the dunce-cap of biblical inerrancy and basking in the glory of the lord-our-god.

In the articles where it does attempt to make a statement (that is, articles that are longer than one sentence), Conservapedia offers us nothing more than the usual regurgitations of creationist arguments that have long been discredited and put to rest. These include old-time favorites like "no transitional fossils," "irreducible complexity," and other arguments favored by creationist all-stars like Kent Hovind and Ken Ham.

What really disturbs me is the mind-boggling hypocrisy of Conservapedia. The authors complain that Wikipedia has a "liberal bias," and that its editors regularly edit articles to have a decidedly "anti-christian" tone. This is certainly not true, but we'll come back to that. The point is, even if Wikipedia displays some kind of bias, it's blatantly obvious that the bias seen in Conservapedia is vastly greater! We can guess with some certainty what would happen when someone adds content to Conservapedia that doesn't conform exactly to their infallible beliefs.

Conservapedia actually has a page that lists all of the purported "examples of bias in Wikipedia." My first thought was, "What credible encyclopedia goes out of its way to show how it's better than other encyclopedias?" My second thought was even better: "An article entitled 'Examples of bias in Conservapedia' would pretty much contain the entire website!"

Wikipedia is not anti-christian. It is, by definition, not biased at all. If a certain article appears to have an "anti-christian" tone, it is precisely because the editors removed a pro-christian bias from the article.

I agree that Truth is not a democracy. However, there is such a thing as scientific consensus. Many of the people who edit Wikipedia articles are experts in their respective fields, like biology, chemistry, physics, and history. These people are qualified to represent the current scientific consensus on various matters, including evolution, origins of the universe, abortion, gay marriage, Christianity's influence in the Renaissance, etc. (These are all subjects that the Conservapedia authors have a hard-on for disputing).

Religious rants from fundamentalists belong in personal web pages and blogs (of which there's no shortage, I assure you), or better yet, stored away safely in the minds of religious fanatics. They certainly don't belong on websites that claim to be a source of actual information for the general public.

Looking at Conservapedia, I can see many disturbing parallels between it and the current state of affairs in the United States. It is exactly this kind of thinking, this kind of hypocrisy and ignorance, that will eventually revert this free and enlightened nation to a 15th-century theocracy where atheists and any other non-christians will be burned at the stake once more. Of course I'm exaggerating, and I'm by no means fearful for my life at this point, but I do get a chill down my spine when I see yet another website showing that such beliefs still exist in the 21st century.

... unless the whole thing is a hoax, in which case, well-played!