Not Wrong Enough To Be Right

Maybe it is a simple matter of Zeitgeist, but I was pleasantly surprised to read Michael Shermer’s column in the November Scientific American. Shermer is well-known as the publisher of Skeptic and his monthly Skeptic column. Although his subject is not exactly the same as what we have been discussing the last several columns, it is close. In particular, he emphasizes the difference between the various degrees of “wrong.”

In common speech, we tend to lump all the things we think that are true into one pile and those that we think are false into another, but in fact that simple sorting can lead us astray.

Consider the distinction I’ve made many times between theories, hypotheses, and conjectures. To be a valid theory, it must be falsifiable. That is, there must be an experiment or analysis that could in principle disprove the basis of the proposed theory. If you cannot even in principle disprove a conjecture, then it is not even good enough to be wrong. In a sense, being proved wrong is a powerful argument in favor of a conjecture having had some merit.

But how wrong is wrong? When Einstein showed that special relativity gave different answers than Newtonian physics, did that mean that Newtonian theory is wrong? Obviously not; we lead our lives and direct our satellites by Newtonian calculations. But now we know the theory is only valid over restricted ranges and is violated when the relative speeds between two objects approach the speed of light.

Shermer quotes from Gardner’s example of the difference in being wrong between believing the earth is flat and believing it is spherical. Certainly the person who believes in a flat earth is more wrong than one who thinks the earth is spherical. After, all, the earth is nearly spherical.

Suppose you meet someone who truly believes the universe was created in six days about 4,000 years ago, and that it was created with a complete, but false, history so that it appears to have been around for fifteen billion years. Properly stated, that conjecture cannot be falsified. Therefore it doesn’t even rise to the level of being wrong. It simply isn’t testable. The true believer will likely refer to this conjecture of a theory, but it is far from reaching that status. Of course, you are unlikely to make headway in explaining these points to a true believer.

Contrast this with the slow accumulation of evidence for the age of the universe and the evolution of life on earth. Hundreds of thousands of scientists in dozens of fields have studied evidence from the sub-atomic to the extra-galactic. Most formed conjectures to explain their data. Some of these conjectures became hypotheses and a few achieved status as recognized theories, but that is not the end of the story. Most conjectures were shown to be wrong in various degrees. Even theories are constantly changed and expanded as new data is found. These changes do not mean the original statement of the theory was faulty. It might have been the best explanation of the data available at the time. And ultimately, that is what this series of columns is about. How can we use data collection and analysis to gain the best understanding possible of the world around us?

Decision theory and statistical analysis are tools to help organize real world data so that theories can be developed. These same tools also can help us make the less weighty decisions about how to get through life. They can help us to realize when someone is feeding us a line that is so bad it is not even wrong. Who could ask for more?

In response to the interest my original tutorial generated, I have completely rewritten and expanded it. Check out the tutorial availability through Lockergnome. The new version is over 100 pages long with chapters that alternate between discussion of the theoretical aspects and puzzles just for the fun of it. Puzzle lovers will be glad to know that I included an answers section that includes discussions as to why the answer is correct and how it was obtained. Most of the material has appeared in these columns, but some is new. Most of the discussions are expanded compared to what they were in the original column format.

[tags]theory, conjecture, decision theory, skeptic, Michael Shermer[/tags]