The Heretics, by Will Storr

Review: The Heretics – adventures with the enemies of science, by Will Storr

It was a new experience for me to read a book where people pop up in the text that I have had mail conversations with, met for a cup of coffee, or had dinner with. People that are acquaintances of mine and that I have as friends on facebook. This implies that this review will be biased in some way but one lesson from the book is that all reviews are biased anyway, because they are the product of a mind that is defending its own conception of how the world is. I also recognised a lot of the books referred to in the text as standing in my own bookshelf, so it is no surprise that The Heretics was a very suitable birthday gift that I devoured quickly.
In the interest of full disclosure I should point out that one reason that I liked the book might be that within the skeptics movement I am somewhat of a heretic myself due to my Christian believes. I am sure that there are also some Christians that consider me to be a heretic but that is not the kind of Christians I hang around with.

The Heretics in the book are people that have a world-view that is very different from the scientific one and who often feel that they are treated unfairly by the scientific establishment. Some have had to leave academia after, as they see it, being branded as heretics. Others may see it as that they had to leave since they gave in to what they wished to be true instead of following the evidence.
In the book many of the biases that we suffer as humans are discussed, not least how we tend to see what we want to see and stop investigating an issue after we have found sufficient evidence to confirm our preconceived ideas of how the world should be. The refreshing and interesting thing with this book is that it apply this also to the scientific community and the skeptics. Because if these biases are human and scientist and skeptics are human there is a risk that also scientists and skeptics will be victims of these biases.
Will Storr describes how he talks to skeptics that are against homeopathy (as we are) without having read the scientific studies and without having tried to look at the evidence themselves. And he juxtapose this with believers in fringe theories and pseudoscience that also haven't read the research and can't remember what was the name of that article that proves beyond a doubt what they believe is true. He has a very good point although I don't agree with it 100%.
No person can be up to date with all research in all fields and at some point we have to trust the people that can give a summery of the research. If you believe that an authority has more knowledge than you of a topic, use the same scientific method as you would use, and is an honest person, it is all right to trust what that person says. At least until evidence to the contrary materialise. In the skeptic community we are interested in the promotion of science and critical thinking in general and are just a little less trusting of our leaders than the believers. So we skeptics should show some humility in regard to our believes.
Unfortunately on the other side you often find the ”experts” that are not trying to avoid bias and are not up to date on the scientific research, and you find people selling ideas and products with a confidence that they have no ground for. To me there is a difference between the skeptic taking an overdose of homeopathic sleeping pills to make a point without being as well read as Edzard Ernst and the homoeopath selling homeopathic anti-malaria pills without understanding what it is, how it works and if it works.
But the book is not about the skeptical movement it is about what it is like to be a human. Storr tries to understand not just how the heretics can hold their believes and preach them to others but also why they hold those believes. And he is not afraid to scrutinise himself and the stories he uses to justify his own beliefs and opinions. He gives a glimpse of the humans, some are easier to understand than others, some take larger liberties with the truth than others to defend their story but they all share the illness and blessing of having a brain. A brain that will create an image of the world as it suits us to see it. Storr doesn't spend much time describing science as the solution to our faulty vision but that is the way he treats it. What makes the book interesting is that he doesn't divide everything into black or white, pseudoscience and science, some people are just better at applying critical thinking even to themselves, but no one is perfect.
For a moment consider the opinions that you have about global warming, the Middle East, GMOs, the distribution of wealth, and all the other opinions that you have. What opinions that you have are wrong? You know that not all of your opinions can be correct, but you have no way of telling which of the things that you believe at this moment are incorrect. Some opinions no one can say if they are correct or not, but that doesn't help. No one is perfect, we don't live in a black and white world. That is what is important and that is what this book is about. In my mind the moral of the story is that the virtue of humility is still very important. We who want to think of our selves as guided by science must listen to what people experience and doubt our old truths enough not to miss new knowledge. In my opinion (which might be wrong), Storr have written a book that all skeptics should read since it is not the hero story that we are used to. We still need and we also have, heroes in the skeptical movement but we should not have any saints. It is also a book that highlights the human condition of having a brain that creates an image of reality and not a reflection of it and what problems that will follow because of this difference. It is a book that will let the interviewed heretics question what is sane and what is not, even so far as to entertain that hearing voices in your head is just another way of being sane. Read this book.

So can you be a Christian if you also want to be scientific about things? In this book it is stated that several studies show that religious people are happier than atheist. I doubt that being religious is a choice but if it was, the atheist would be in the same category as smokers, doing something that science know is wrong. (Since this is a written text I should point out to my atheist friends that this last bit is written partly in jest and partly to show that we live life in a complex world without right and wrong answers to many questions.)

What I do for a living

Just so that no one forget it, what I do for a living is to lie an cheat. And people actually like it, at least that was the impression I got from the applauds for my show this last Saturday. I don't talk about my performances unless they are public and since I do mainly private parties, corporate events and university related gigs I don't say much about work here.

Since this was a public event I can tell you that this Saturday I was filling in for a fellow performer who got sick. Usually we do three days in a row when we perform at Magic Bar (Karlaplan 6). But now I only did one night and performed with Tom Stone who was one of the scheduled performers. Because you get to see at least two magicians when you visit Magic Bar Thursday-Saturday.

Is the source important?

I saw a friend posting a link to an article on facebook about the 911 memorial in New York and the motto that has been chosen. If the motto is good or not is of course subjective. What is also to some degree subjective is what the motto means. We can compare that with the motto above the entrance to the auditorium of Uppsala University “Att tänka fritt är stort, att tänka rätt är större” (To think free is great, but to think right is greater). Over the centuries people have had many different ideas about the meaning of those words. Some hate them and some love them, but usually they just disagree about what the meaning is.
What is less subjective is where the motto is from and what it was originally about. But does that really matter?
The motto at the 911 memorial is: “No day shall erase you from the memory of time.” - Virgil.
That is actually quite impressive, a quote by Virgil, it is from the Aeneid and concern events in book 9. It would never work in Sweden were people have hardly no classical education at all. But perhaps the only reason it might work in the US is that people lack a classical education there as well. (You might notice that the quote is not in the original Latin.)

A key-chain that will be sold at the museum bears the inscription.
Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

The sentence is about two Trojan soldiers and lovers, and I guess that some would object to their relationship. But perhaps more importantly is that in the Aeneid they are killed after something similar to a suicide mission where they attacked the Greek army killing soldiers in their sleep.
It does seem a bit wrong if you want to remember the civilians that died at World Trade Centre. It works much better at the Valiants Memorial in Canada, which commemorate soldiers and where the quote is also used (but in Latin).
But is the source important? It is true that the person that know about the story behind the quote might find it objectionable. Celebrating young men who willingly embrace death after killing people in their sleep might not be the best quote for a 911 memorial. (To my Canadian friends I can reassure you that there are a bit more to the story so it is not as strange on a military memorial.)
To be honest though, how many are aware of who the “you” are in “No day shall erase you from the memory of time.”? Most people have never heard about Virgil, and If you heard of Virgil (before reading this) it is not likely you read anything of him. Though if you have read something by Virgil it is likely to be the Aeneid.
Now is it actually important what a few academics think about a motto?
If not what is the use of academics? The reason that we have a society where people can be experts in something like old Latin poetry is because these academics are societies bank of knowledge. Scientists are frequently asked to contribute their knowledge, now when people who study the classics are finally in a position where they can contribute why not listen to them?

Great Magic

This blog is supposed to be about magic among other things. So I thought I might actually post something that has to do with magic. I know about a few very creative minds in magic. This video is from one of the greatest, Lubor Fiedler. And I mean that he is really worth watching.



If you don't understand exactly how these effects are done don't worry, most professional magicians don't have a clue.

Concerning Dunning

A few days ago I posted a speculation about how the Dunning-Kruger effect could in part explain why Americans that cannot find Ukraine on the map are more likely to support military intervention. And now there is a recent interview with Dunning online. This is about why we tend to think of ourselves to be better than people in general.

An observation

During yesterdays activity on facebook in relation to my birthday I made an interesting observation. I have friends in a few different places, also I know some people better than other, and although this is not statistically significant I did find that people seem to use facebook differently in different countries.
Many of my Czech friends didn't write on my wall they sent me personal messages instead. Of my Swedish friends even close friends wrote on my wall. It seems like Czech people prefer to write directly to people instead of using the built in facebook option of writing on someone's wall when they have a birthday. I don't know if Czech people are more private or what it might be. But about 50% of my Czech friends who congratulated me wrote private messages and less than 2% of other people.
Concerning my next birthday, number 40, I just want to point out that it is a boring number not worthy of celebration. But 41, that is something different:

The expert and the non-experts

This is a good and funny video about the position an expert often find him- or herself in. I must say it has quite a bit of resemblance to my experience of talking with, among others, believers in new age and pseudoscience.

Knowing the map and asking for war

In the Washington Post one could read about a survey where Americans (here used incorrectly as a synonym for U.S. citizen) were asked about what they thought the US should do about the situation in the Ukraine. But they were also asked to show where they thought Ukraine was on a map One interesting correlation that was found in the study of ~2000 people was that the more off you were in placing Ukraine on the map the more likely you were to be for a military intervention. This was significant to 95% according the report.
Any keen critical thinker would at this point consider the question if the correlation reported was the only one that was investigated. Statistical significance is a little bit like the lottery. The odds are poor for one player, and thus a win is significant. But if you are looking for many different correlations in your material this is equal to observing all players in the lottery and find that someone won, not that amazing.
But what is this report telling us? Well one thing it is telling us is that apparently the saying that ”War is God's way of teaching Americans geography” is wrong. Another thing might be that people that are less informed are more sure about their opinion and what action to take. That would be in accordance with the Dunning-Kruger (D-K) effect, although not following from it automatically. The D-K effect tell us that people that don't know something also don't know that they don't know. My guess is that people with fewer doubts are also more likely to support extreme actions. This is as I state a guess, but if their is a research done in this area I would not be surprised if it shows this to be true. Combined with the D-K effect that would imply that less knowledge leads to proposing more risky solutions to problems.

A Quick affair

Once upon a time Sweden had the strange honour of having one of the worlds most peculiar serial killers. His name was Thomas Quick. He killed people and that made him a serial killer. He used different methods, he killed at different places, and his victims could be of any age, sex, and ethnicity. He also forgot a lot of information about his acts and could remember almost nothing about the murders he confessed except some precise details.
Now Sweden instead have one of the worlds strangest miscarries of justice. A person who has taken back his old name of Sture Bergwall instead of Thomas Quick, has been found not guilty to all the murders he was previously sentenced for. And people are wondering how the police, the psychologists, the attorney, and even Thomas Quick's own lawyer, all could believe that he was guilty.
Given the change in what is reported to be the ”truth” it is perhaps not surprising to find that some of the people most involved in the original case are meeting to discuss the case of Thomas Quick. They are: the academic who stated that the way Quick's memory ”worked” was consistent with him being the murderer, the prosecutor who based his career on the case, the policeman responsible for many of the interrogations of Quick, the journalist from a local paper that suddenly was reporting on a case of world wide interest, and finally the chancellor of justice who declared that there was no miscarry of justice right before all the sentences were appealed and revoked one by one.
You can read about the meetings in the local paper Dalademokraten (DD).
If you like to see it from their point of view they are suffering from the media's change of heart, all due to some journalists that got everything wrong. Even if Quick has been acquitted in a court of law from all the murders he was sentenced for that does not imply that he didn't commit them. And if only the media had not changed their angle Quick would still be locked up and justice would have been served. It is now up to them to explain this to the people so that they understand that it is only due to some legal technicality that Sture Bergwall is a free man.
From a different point of view it might look like the people responsible for the unlawful imprisonment of a liar and for the fact that several real murderers walks free are either still suffering from their delusion or are trying their best to save themselves. If there has been a miscarry of justice they are all responsible for it and many might feel that they should face other consequences beside being told about their responsibility in the press.
For those who have not studied all the cases this is an interesting exercise in critical thinking. What is most probable: that one man managed to kill a huge number of people without leaving any technical evidence, confessed to the murders and managed to walk free after a retrial when he changed his plea, or that a number of professionals and the media was duped by a liar on heavy medication to believe in a spectacular lie? The odds are not great for either of the two and yet one is the truth. What a critical thinking individual has to do is to listen to the arguments that are presented and look at the evidence.