George Johnson and Matt Ridley
I Was a Crop-Circle-Making Alien
By Matt Ridley
Posted Wednesday, June 14, 2000, at 6:43 PM ETDear George,
I once spent a few days at CERN when Margaret Thatcher was trying to get Britain to back out of it to save money and the Economist wanted an article saying whether it was value for money. The only thing harder to understand than the particles themselves was whether it was value for money (so I wrote a piece saying it was). The big thing then was the Higgs boson, and I don't remember gluons being mentioned much. When discussing quarks, I feel like I'm walking down a staircase in the dark with no banister; I just do not know how to tell right from wrong.
Talking of which, there was an intriguing interview on British TV last night with a crop-circle maker. Do you recall crop circles? They are regular patterns that have appeared in crops of wheat every summer in southern England since the late 1980's--usually circles but more recently including elaborate fractal patterns and all sorts of amazing designs that look extraordinary from the air.
I found the interview especially apposite because I used to make crop circles. I did so to satisfy myself, and prove to others, that they were man-made. I found the experience very frustrating because absolutely everybody, even hardheaded journalists, continued to believe that they could not all be man-made, however many we made. Ah, they would say, but there are too many, or there are no footprints (easy--walk on bar stools) or there are strange lights in the sky when they appear or there are weird noises (these turned out to be the song of the grasshopper warbler).
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Even when the television filmed people making one, then filmed the "experts" pronouncing it "genuine" the next day, they still concluded the program by saying some are inexplicable. (The guy who made the program is now a minister of education in the government ...) When the two men who started the whole craze owned up, a similar disbelief greeted them, and I was ridiculed and called a member of MI5, the spy agency, for my debunking attempts.
It taught me a lesson, the one I started this exchange with--that people prefer mystery to explanation. Which brings me back to the guy on TV last night (I didn't catch his name). He had this very clever line. He said that he made lots of crop circles every year, including some very elaborate ones, but this did not mean that all crop circles were man-made. Some were definitely "genuine"--i.e., made by alien spacecraft or whatever. Moreover, some of the ones he made were also "genuine" in that they had attracted strange phenomena such as lights in the sky and unexplained additional patterns. What a brilliant way of weaving mystery into your art and having things both ways.
Matt
I Was a Crop-Circle-Making Alien
By Matt Ridley
Posted Wednesday, June 14, 2000, at 6:43 PM ETReader Response from The Fray--to be read after the most recent entry:
Granted America has an unmatched record of turning science into technological achievement, but the attitude to science is probably a lot more healthy in other developed nations. Where else in the world do we have creation science, reliance on polygraphs, fawning adherence to Freudian psychology and other such scientific nonsense apart from the USA? At least in Europe there is a debate on GM foods. In the U.S. it seems to be axiomatic that what is good for agribusiness is good for the citizen. Even the very compelling example of golden rice needs some analysis which I have not seen: how much will it cost the local community over some extended time to buy the seeds versus buying equivalent vitamin A supplements in another form? I guess the U.S. readership likes to lap up the stories about timid, misinformed limeys. But in itself that is inaccurate--non-scientific.
--Disgruntled Australian
(To reply, click
here.)
Regarding the Human Genome Project, I think one of the most interesting aspects of genomics and proteomics is how the science of biology has moved out of the test tube and into the super-computer. How has the interaction between biologists and computer scientists altered the way either camp tackles their problems? Has the partnership been an easy one? I would be curious to know if the increasing reliance on computers in the life sciences has challenged the way life scientists view their pursuits and problems. And if any explanation is forthcoming, please refrain from using the phrase "paradigm shift".
--Brandon
(To reply, click
here.)
[Ann Finkbeiner
liked
Brandon's ideas. Follow the thread to find out what happened
next.]
Matt is absolutely right here. Typically, people weigh the risks of doing something against a presumably riskless nothing. But in fact, where things like golden rice are concerned, doing nothing does not present a risk of harm--it presents a certainty of harm. And the harm is often enormous; it's just ignored. I worry that Britain--and even more so continental Europe--serves as in incubator of toxic anti-science and anti-progress ideologies that might burst forth and damage the world. Fortunately, however, my many friends from Third-World countries have a sensible view of technology: they want it as soon as they can get it, because it beats starving and dying.
--A.G.Android
(To reply, click
here.)
To A.G.Android: In fact the Precautionary Principle is very weak in the U.S. as compared to Europe. Primarily because most Americans don't seem to give a damn about what's going on around them if it doesn't immediately affect them. Not because all Americans are good empiricists, but because they're lazy. I'm not too familiar with the golden rice, but certainly there are things to be wary about re: GM organisms. Terminator seeds for instance: there are certainly ethical considerations to take into account with regard to repurcussions around the globe. Severely limiting genetic diversity in populations is not a good thing--Dawkins has said as much in articles bashing (rightfully) Prince Charles. I would not advocate an anti-science attitude, though I would certainly advocate caution with technology such as this, which we can not pretend to begin to understand (yet).
--Recycla
(To reply, click
here.)
If only scientists and science writers would stop taking themselves so seriously. Really, they make it sound like monks locked up in high-tech scriptoria, hand-illuminating on parchment each genomic sequence. If that weren't bad enough, these folks are working in and writing about science. But, really, that tin god is about as effective as any other--carnival palm-readers, "new economy" economists, lesbian anarchists, mambo-salad people from outerspace. Put another way: while scientists are now more ready to admit what they do not know, they are quick to say "we've got a better idea then anyone else!" Umm, OK. We've all grown up with the wonders of science (moon shots and microwaves) and the blunders of science (nuclear arsenals, liquid soap dispensers). This reality-tunnel is firmly engrained in everyone in the Western world. But it would be refreshing to see the institutions of science be more accepting of play and ideas. I don't mean that we need to spend millions on researching ESP, but wouldn't be nice to have an exchange between occultists and physicists on the mysteries of life? Could be rather inspiring to us all.
--Tarquin
(To reply, click
here.)
[John Brown replied: We have that. It's called the Kansas legislature. The occultists won.]
To Tarquin: If all you want science to do is "spark my imagination" you're every bit as bad as the carnival palm-readers and anarchist lesbians you despise. The business of science is to get at the truth, not entertain, and science delivers on its promise--not just with the truth but with physical benefits. How else do you think the technology that lets you spatter your personal reactions over the Fray came to exist?
--Edward Brynes
(To reply, click
here.)
[For another thread on science and the occult--take your psychic powers to Las Vegas and then you'll be able to hire all the scientists you want--click
here.]
(6/14)
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Reader Response from The Fray--to be read after the most recent entry:
Granted America has an unmatched record of turning science into technological achievement, but the attitude to science is probably a lot more healthy in other developed nations. Where else in the world do we have creation science, reliance on polygraphs, fawning adherence to Freudian psychology and other such scientific nonsense apart from the USA? At least in Europe there is a debate on GM foods. In the U.S. it seems to be axiomatic that what is good for agribusiness is good for the citizen. Even the very compelling example of golden rice needs some analysis which I have not seen: how much will it cost the local community over some extended time to buy the seeds versus buying equivalent vitamin A supplements in another form? I guess the U.S. readership likes to lap up the stories about timid, misinformed limeys. But in itself that is inaccurate--non-scientific.
--Disgruntled Australian
(To reply, click here.)
Regarding the Human Genome Project, I think one of the most interesting aspects of genomics and proteomics is how the science of biology has moved out of the test tube and into the super-computer. How has the interaction between biologists and computer scientists altered the way either camp tackles their problems? Has the partnership been an easy one? I would be curious to know if the increasing reliance on computers in the life sciences has challenged the way life scientists view their pursuits and problems. And if any explanation is forthcoming, please refrain from using the phrase "paradigm shift".
--Brandon
(To reply, click here.)
[Ann Finkbeiner liked Brandon's ideas. Follow the thread to find out what happened next.]
Matt is absolutely right here. Typically, people weigh the risks of doing something against a presumably riskless nothing. But in fact, where things like golden rice are concerned, doing nothing does not present a risk of harm--it presents a certainty of harm. And the harm is often enormous; it's just ignored. I worry that Britain--and even more so continental Europe--serves as in incubator of toxic anti-science and anti-progress ideologies that might burst forth and damage the world. Fortunately, however, my many friends from Third-World countries have a sensible view of technology: they want it as soon as they can get it, because it beats starving and dying.
--A.G.Android
(To reply, click here.)
To A.G.Android: In fact the Precautionary Principle is very weak in the U.S. as compared to Europe. Primarily because most Americans don't seem to give a damn about what's going on around them if it doesn't immediately affect them. Not because all Americans are good empiricists, but because they're lazy. I'm not too familiar with the golden rice, but certainly there are things to be wary about re: GM organisms. Terminator seeds for instance: there are certainly ethical considerations to take into account with regard to repurcussions around the globe. Severely limiting genetic diversity in populations is not a good thing--Dawkins has said as much in articles bashing (rightfully) Prince Charles. I would not advocate an anti-science attitude, though I would certainly advocate caution with technology such as this, which we can not pretend to begin to understand (yet).
--Recycla
(To reply, click here.)
If only scientists and science writers would stop taking themselves so seriously. Really, they make it sound like monks locked up in high-tech scriptoria, hand-illuminating on parchment each genomic sequence. If that weren't bad enough, these folks are working in and writing about science. But, really, that tin god is about as effective as any other--carnival palm-readers, "new economy" economists, lesbian anarchists, mambo-salad people from outerspace. Put another way: while scientists are now more ready to admit what they do not know, they are quick to say "we've got a better idea then anyone else!" Umm, OK. We've all grown up with the wonders of science (moon shots and microwaves) and the blunders of science (nuclear arsenals, liquid soap dispensers). This reality-tunnel is firmly engrained in everyone in the Western world. But it would be refreshing to see the institutions of science be more accepting of play and ideas. I don't mean that we need to spend millions on researching ESP, but wouldn't be nice to have an exchange between occultists and physicists on the mysteries of life? Could be rather inspiring to us all.
--Tarquin
(To reply, click here.)
[John Brown replied: We have that. It's called the Kansas legislature. The occultists won.]
To Tarquin: If all you want science to do is "spark my imagination" you're every bit as bad as the carnival palm-readers and anarchist lesbians you despise. The business of science is to get at the truth, not entertain, and science delivers on its promise--not just with the truth but with physical benefits. How else do you think the technology that lets you spatter your personal reactions over the Fray came to exist?
--Edward Brynes
(To reply, click here.)
[For another thread on science and the occult--take your psychic powers to Las Vegas and then you'll be able to hire all the scientists you want--click here.]
(6/14)