Once a German Professor, Always a German Professor

I am a great admirer of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, as I have been since I was first introduced to his writings in the late 1990's when I began to learn about the Catholic Faith.  He is obviously a man of great learning and wisdom.  However, like all of us, Benedict has been shaped by his experiences, and reading his writings it is often obvious that he was once a German professor.  

Often this shows in his selection and presentation of material.  One problem faced by a scrupulous  academic is that what he wishes to be both accurate and very precise.  All too often, this approach backfires.  Care for precision can sound like doubt, and the delay in coming to the point can be extremely frustrating.  Of course, this sounds familiar to those who know some German, in which language the meaning of a sentence is often impossible to guess until the last word.  More seriously, though, the bulky verbiage can be confusing to those not used to it, and especially to those (in the secular media, for example) who do not believe the fine distinctions represent important differences.

Another noteworthy characteristic of the German language is that it uses long words where English would use phrases.  The main practical difference is that we would tend to vary the phrase more than a German would find synonyms for the long word.  Also, these words tend to be logical to the point of being very funny.  For instance, in English we have a "wrist", but in German the same joint is called a Handgelenk (= "Hand Joint").  In English, we have a "glove", but in German gloves are called a Handshuh (= "Hand Shoe").

All these things stand out clearly to me as slowly work my way through the last encyclical that Benedict wrote alone -- Caritas in Veritate, or Charity in Truth.  The subtitle of this encyclical is On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth, and the phrase "integral human development" occurs 21 times within the body of the text.  I'm not sure, but I suspect that the phrase works much better in his native German than it does in English.  Regardless, this and certain other stylistic elements have made this encyclical unduly difficult to work through.  Isn't there a better English expression for the same concept?

I think there is; I suggest the word "flourishing".  Flourishing has the connotation of robust, energetic, holistic growth -- growth for both the individual and the society, growth that encompasses the spiritual, physical, moral, cultural, and economic spheres.  This is the main gist of what Benedict was trying to say:  laws and policies must be designed to promote the flourishing of all affected parties, while in the process never doing evil that good may result.

This explains why so many Catholics saw this as an attack on Capitalism.  Even at its best, Capitalism has as its goal the prosperity of each participant, each looking out for himself, ideally while never doing evil that good may result.  If society as a whole also prospers, or if other affected parties prosper, it is a happy coincidence.  The same can be said of the other aspects of flourishing -- the moral and spiritual dimensions, for example.  Capitalism has, of course, provided greater material prosperity, though very unequally.  A quick glance at the headlines clearly indicates that it does not lead to great advances in the cultural, spiritual, or moral spheres.

It's a sad thing that I have to point out that this is by no means an endorsement of Socialism.  Nearly a quarter century after the end of the Cold War, many people are still stuck in the idea that there are only two possibilities:  unrestricted Capitalism or Socialism/Communism.  No; but trusting to dumb luck is not wise, and we can set the bar higher than the egocentric pusuit of material prosperity.

The Axis of Evil and Geocentrism

In a comment on an earlier post, a reader asks if the "Axis of Evil" in the Cosmic Microwave Background doesn't indicate that the Earth enjoys a privileged spot in the universe.  Isn't this similar to how the axis of the Earth passes through Earth's center? 

Not really, though it's understandable how it might seem that way.  The problem is that the term "axis" is used in two different ways by physicists.  Sometimes it is used as a directed line, as when calculating a torque.  A directed line can either pass through a point or not.  At other times, though, it is really meant to indicate a direction only.  A good example of this would be the "axis of symmetry" of a liquid crystal (properly called the director).  A direction need not be associated with any point -- "parallel to the x-axis" is a perfectly good direction that treats every point exactly the same.



That is what happens in liquid crystals, at least in the simplest case. 

In the illustration above, the "isotropic liquid" has no preferred direction whatsoever; a molecule is equally likely to point in any direction, so no direction is special.  This is how we normally think of the universe; the laws of physics should not depend on where you are or what direction you face.  You might think that the difference between "down" and "sideways" when describing the motion of a baseball show that this is wrong; the ball falls down, it does not fall sideways.  Actually, though, this happens not because "down" is a special direction, but because the Earth is a big object, and all objects exert a gravitational pull on each other.  It is the circumstances that make "down" seem special, not the laws -- just like his behavior might send one man to prison while another man's behavior leaves him free.

At low temperatures, though, we see a crystalline solid.  In this case there are three special directions:  "up/down", which is the direction the long axes of the molecules point, "left/right" and "in/out", which specify the directions of the axes of the square lattice on which each plane of molecules is ordered. 

At intermediate temperatures, though, there is sometimes (as in this case) a liquid crystal phase can emerge.  In this illustration, the horizontal planes are disordered -- there is no hint left of the square lattice.  That means two of the special directions have been eliminated, but one remains.

In fact, the idea that liquid crystals can be used to model the evolution of the universe goes back to the 1980's, when liquid crystals were used to understand theoretical objects called cosmic strings.  However, the liquid crystal analogy was never taken to mean that there was an actual preferred direction in space.  After all, very detailed experiments have failed to show such a preference.

Anyone who follows science news knows that claims are made of exciting new observations that will force the overturn of cherished ideas are made on a weekly, if not daily, basis.  Because most of these claims end up being shown to be erroneous, most scientists adopt a skeptical, wait-and-see attitude, especially towards the more extravagant claims.  Regarding the Axis of Evil, I'm still in the wait-and-see camp.  

It's worth noting, though, that the possible violation of isotropy is NOT being buried by scientists.   Scientists are the ones who found the Axis of Evil, and scientists are the only ones talking about it.  Scientists are the ones testing the hypothesis and the ones coming up with possible explanations for it.  The idea that the Axis of Evil "is being assiduously avoided for obvious reasons" is so untrue as to be borderline dishonest.  If it were really being avoided, the public would never have heard of it.

UPDATE:   I never clearly stated that the Axis of Evil, if it is real, would in fact be expected to be closely analogous to liquid crystals -- that is, due to spontaneous symmetry breaking in some particle field.  This still would not make Earth a "special place" from the point of view of physics, but it would be very exciting in that it might help us get beyond the Standard Model, where particle physics has been stuck for 30 years or more.

Left and Right

Not many years ago, when the therapeutic value of human embryonic stem cells first began to be touted, I frequently came across comments (usually, but by no means always, from the political Left) that can be paraphrased as follows.

The Pope has no business moralizing on this topic because he has no experience and minimal education in cell biology.  He should stick to theology.  After all, "Science has become the cornerstone of modern life, and it is marvelous in our eyes.  And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."  Science is justified in going on without regard to what the Vatican might decide.

This would usually be followed by claims of the goods to be produced by the use of human embryonic stem cells, claims that are not actually realized in the real world.  

Lately, after comments by Pope Francis on some of the moral problems found in modern economic systems, I come across comments (usually, but by no means always, from the political Right) that can be paraphrased as follows.

The Pope has no business moralizing on this topic because he has no experience and minimal education in business.  He should stick to theology.  After all, "Economics has become the cornerstone of modern life, and it is marvelous in our eyes.  And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."  Business is justified in going on without regard to what the Vatican might decide.

This is usually followed by claims of the goods to be produced by Capitalism, claims that are not actually realized in the real world.

The complaints really are that parallel.  In both cases the claim is that if the Pope really knew just how much more pleasant and comfortable life could be made for the powerful, he would accept the sacrifice of a few of the weak.

Don't bet on it.

Sky Burial

Is burial a religious institution, or even a religious ceremony?  It can be, but even atheists don’t just leave their dead lying around.  There is a reason from the natural law, a compelling state interest even to even secular governments, that something must be done to dispose of the dead that will limit the spread of disease and, frankly, the smell.

Now imagine that the New Age becomes very popular in the US (not much of a stretch), and there is a growing interest in practicing “sky burial” in imitation of the Tibetans and some American Indians.  (“Sky burial” means simply exposing the dead body to the elements and to scavengers.)  The argument would be made that “sky burials” must be permitted at every cemetery, that laws and attitudes prohibiting it are merely bigoted and out-of-date, and that coffin-makers must be required to provide the platforms on which the dead are exposed.

Many people would find this distasteful, but for some the reaction would be merely be aesthetic, and they could easily be won over as long as the argument was about abstractions like “freedom” and “equality” and not about what actually happens.  They would soon enjoy the thrill all sophists feel when they think they are clever enough to get away with something they really know they should not be doing.

Many people would argue (correctly) that sky burials are not “burials” at all, and that "burial" means the covering of a body, not its exposure.  They would say that whereas "burial at sea" stretches this notion, “sky burial” simply annihilates it; "sky burial" is a ritualistic way of refusing burial.  They might find themselves having to attempt legislative definitions of the word “burial” as “the covering of a dead body sufficiently to prevent the sight and smell of decay and to prevent any scavenging of the body by birds or dogs” -- even though they thought that definition had been obvious to everyone.  The success of this argument in the courts cannot be guaranteed.

Does this mean that sky burial is inevitable, and we had all better get used to the idea of the neighbors tossing grandma's corpse up in the nearest tree?  Is our only defense that we find such behavior contrary to our religion?  Not at all.  

[Edit 7-3-2015:  There should be a paragraph break here.  What I was talking about up to this point really had to do with what we can know with reason, even if we do have religious reasons to accept it.  We must not abandon reason even if everyone else does, because like God, Mother Nature is not mocked, and she is considerably less forgiving to those who abandon reason and so fail to foresee the consequences of their actions.  

The remaining sentences are a reminder that we do have religious certainty that no sinful fad is truly permanent.

By the way, I assume the reader understand that this is meant as an analogy for a topic much in the news today.]

We can be very sure -- on the explicit basis of Divine Revelation, in fact -- that things will, sooner or later, get much, much worse than they are now, when people will gladly cut off their noses to spite their faces, or more accurately, to mar the image of God in them.  But things will also get much better than they are now, and great saints will bring the Gospel to all corners of the earth, including the USA.

Geocentrism and the Three Sillies

The Three Sillies illustrated by Arthur Rackham, as found on Project Gutenberg.

Every once in a while, I come across the claim by some well-intentioned Catholic that Sacred Tradition demands that we adopt a geocentric model.  I'm not really sure what drives this kind of misconception; it may be an honest mistake about what the point of Church Teaching is, or it may be the same kind of thrill with being one of the few "in the know" that has led me to compare cryptozoology with pagan mystery religions.  Periodically these claims are disposed of by Catholic apologists, and it is not my intention to deal with the whole issue here.

Instead, I would like to deal with a more subtle argument that is occasionally tossed out by geocentrists.  Many of them have enough education to know that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity allows us to correctly describe the mechanics of the universe using essentially any coordinate system, including coordinate systems in which the Earth is non-rotating, stationary, and at the center.  Nature is satisfied with such a coordinate system.  If that coordinate system is as good as any other, surely preference should be given to the one used by the Church Fathers?

Of course, this misses the fact that Relativity specifically denies that the idea of a center is physically meaningful, and it is only physically meaningful distinctions that are in dispute.  No one will deny that the Earth is the center of the baseball universe, for example.  But is it true that just because it is possible to make correct physical descriptions in any coordinate system, no coordinate system can be said to be "better" than another?

The answers to a surprising number of basic questions can be found in folk tales. The one of relevance here is an English folk tale called, "The Three Sillies".  Please read the whole story, but the passage that most pertains to this case is as follows.

And the inn was so full that he had to share a room with another traveler. Now his room-fellow proved quite a pleasant fellow, and they forgathered, and each slept well in his bed.
But next morning, when they were dressing, what does the stranger do but carefully hang his breeches on the knobs of the tallboy!
"What are you doing?" asks young squire.
"I'm putting on my breeches," says the stranger; and with that he goes to the other end of the room, takes a little run, and tried to jump into the breeches.
But he didn't succeed, so he took another run and another try, and another and another and another, until he got quite hot and flustered, as the old woman had got over her cow that wouldn't go up the ladder. And all the time young squire was laughing fit to split, for never in his life did he see anything so comical.
Then the stranger stopped a while and mopped his face with his handkerchief, for he was all in a sweat. "It's very well laughing," says he, "but breeches are the most awkwardest things to get into that ever were. It takes me the best part of an hour every morning before I get them on. How do you manage yours?"
Then young squire showed him, as well as he could for laughing, how to put on his breeches, and the stranger was ever so grateful and said he never should have thought of that way.
"So that," quoth young squire to himself, "is a second bigger silly."

Although the stranger managed to eventually get his pants on each morning, the reader (or listener) is supposed to understand immediately that this is the wrong way to put on pants. 

What the geocentrists would have us do is just as silly.  Most mechanics does not really require Relativity; usually Newton's Laws are sufficient, and they can be taught to students with no more math than algebra and trigonometry.  

An example would be the trajectory of a satellite in a circular polar orbit.  For this, we can choose a coordinate system in which the Earth is stationary, but we still need to allow the Earth to rotate under the satellite.  Everything is easy to explain; the satellite is in uniform circular motion, and its centripetal force is supplied by gravity as specified by Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation.  

If we maintain that the Earth does not rotate, though, the eastward rotation of the Earth will have to be explained as a westward force on the satellite, a force that varies with latitude and is hard to justify in simple terms.  The real justification comes from a relativistic phenomenon called frame-dragging, in which the motion of a massive body "drags" the inertial reference frame with it.  In sane coordinate systems, this is hard to measure except near a massive, exotic object like a black hole or neutron star.  A very sensitive experiment, Gravity Probe B, was required to see this effect from the rotation of the Earth.  To calculate the relativistic forces from first principles requires coupled partial differential equations of tensors -- higher math than most people will ever see, let alone master.

The final answers for what will be observed are, of course, identical, just as the final result of putting on their pants was identical for the young man and the stranger.  Just as trying to jump into the pants is the wrong way to put on pants, though, the geocentric approach is the wrong way to do physics.  To top it off, the people with the attachment to the geocentric model always prove to have never even attempted to solve physics problems in what they insist is the uniquely correct way.

What Do Neon Slugs Tell Us About Bigfoot?

Nothing, really.  How could any reasonable person expect them to?

Some fans of cryptozoology, though, think otherwise.

Mount Kaputar in Australia is apparently a kind of snail paradise, serving as home to a number of rare species of snails and slugs with little predation from vertebrates.  New Guinea may have its birds of paradise, but Mount Kaputar has the slugs of paradise -- large, hot pink slugs.  (Sexual selection drives the colors, patterns, and displays of the birds of paradise, but the reason for the hot pink color is not yet known.)  Until recently, these were thought to be just a variant of the red triangle slug, but careful morphological and genetic studies now indicate that these slugs should be grouped under a new species name.

Although this has nothing obvious to do with cryptozoology, it was reported on cryptozoology web sites (to which I will not here link), usually with the "therefore ..." unstated -- until, predictably, one of the regulars filled in what the take-home message was supposed to be:

You can have something like that crawling around, suddenly Bigfoot ain’t so farfetched, eh?

A statement like that isn't just pseudoscientific; it's pseudorational.  It's pseudoscientific because it seems intended to be the same kind of statement as when biologists say that, based on what we have discovered so far, probably around 90% of all species remain undescribed, whereas in fact, the writer's confidence that Bigfoot is a real, corporeal animal has no relationship whatsoever to science.

First a caveat regarding the word "species".  Sadly, determining what constitutes a species is not at all as straightforward as it seemed in my elementary school textbooks.  Those books said that two animals are of different species if they cannot produce offspring with each other or if, as with a horse and donkey producing a mule, the offspring is always infertile.  That is not really something that paleontologists can usually confirm or deny, though, so they have tended to create new species names whenever the differences seemed large enough to justify it -- in the process creating far too many species names, since sometimes two pieces of animals (for example, heads and legs) would be found separately and assigned different species, or juveniles would be mistaken to be different species than the adults, or the differences between males and females would be mistaken for the differences between different species.  Even when genetic information is available, though, the meaning of "species" has changed, as is clear when we are told that most of us are hybrids of two or three "species" of humans -- Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and for many, the Denisovans.  (Even this is messed up, since according to taxonomic convention, Carl Linnaeus is the "type specimen" of Homo sapiens, meaning the species is defined by him.  Because he was a European, though, he must have had some Neanderthal ancestry, if the genetics studies are correct.)  In many cases, species boundaries are fuzzy, indistinct, and ultimately dependent on the varying criteria used to set them.

What can we infer from the discovery that the bright pink slugs of Mount Kaputar are a different species?  Extrapolations can be constructed on the basis of a "sample space".  A sample space has to be a collection of genuine possibilities, of which the observed cases can be said to be a typical sample.  For example, the trans-Neptunian object Sedna is near the limits of modern telescopes even when it is closest to the sun (at about 76 times the earth-sun distance), but it follows a very eccentric orbit.  Kepler's 2nd Law insures that Sedna is most often near its farthest point from the sun -- 937 times as far away as earth is.  Our sample space would consist of all possible numbers (consistent with current observations, that is) of Sedna-like objects at random locations on their orbits.  If Sedna is unique, we have been remarkably lucky to catch it in the brief period it is close enough to the sun for us to see.  It is much more likely that there are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of Sedna-like objects orbiting the sun.

What would be a corresponding sample space for these slugs?  As with the case of Sedna, it would have to be built of a population of possibilities that are related to the discovery about the slugs, so how would the discovery be described?

• The existence of the pink slugs had been known already; in that sense they were not a new discovery at all.  
• They are obviously somewhat different in appearance than red triangle slugs, but not so different in coloration or size to be obviously a different species.   
• It could not have been "ethno-known" that they are a different species from red triangle slugs, since "species", with all its caveats and technicalities, does not entirely correspond to any concept outside modern biology.
• The slugs are restricted to a remote, relatively inaccessible, and geographically limited range.
• This was an evolutionary, not a revolutionary, change for science.  That's not an insult -- almost all science is that way -- but it serves to put the discovery into context.

Reasonable inferences, then, would include the following.

• Genetic studies will show that other isolated populations of invertebrates with no visible differences are in fact different species.  (This happens all the time.)
• Genetic studies will show that other isolated populations of land animals with no visible differences are in fact different species.  (Again, this is common.  It happened just recently with crocodiles, even though their populations do not appear to be as completely isolated.)

Every time the sample space is expanded, though, the inferences become less useful.  We're approaching the season of predictions for 2014, so we can take an example from the kinds of predictions psychics make. 

• An actor who played a central character in MASH will die in 2014.  This has a very small "sample space", making it an interesting prediction.  It might well come true, but probably has no more than a 10% chance of coming true at random.
• An actor who played a character on at least one episode of MASH will die in 2014.  This includes many more actors, so it is easier for this to come true. However, the implications of this for Alan Alda aren't quite so scary.
• An actor who played a character on TV during the 1970's or 1980's will die.  It would be something like a miracle if this did not happen.  It's a prediction so safe as to be utterly useless.

Now let's look at the characteristics of a discovery of Bigfoot.

• The mere existence of Bigfoot is not recognized by science at all.
• Anything that could be called a "Bigfoot" would be obviously different from any animal known to have ever existed.  It would be larger and heavier than known human relatives like Paranthropus, and with different feet.  No other ape is known to be fully bipedal, including Gigantopithecus.
• It is claimed that Bigfoot is ethno-known, on the basis of both modern alleged sightings and American Indian folklore.
• Alleged Bigfoot sightings come from every U.S. state other than Hawaii and several of the Canadian provinces.  Depending on whether cryptids like the Almas, Yeti, and Yowie are considered the same thing as Bigfoot, this range might be extended to cover much of the world.
• The verified discovery of a real Bigfoot would be a revolutionary discovery for (at least) primatology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology.  It would easily be worth a Nobel Prize.

In order to expand the sample space to include the discovery of Bigfoot, the sample space would have to include the addition of a new species of any land animal, important or unimportant, known or unknown, obviously different of visually indistinguishable, with a range of any size whatsoever.  With a sample space that big, only thing that can be said is that new species of animals remain unnamed, a fact as indisputable as that someone who has appeared on TV will die in the next 12 months.  The implications of this for the existence of Bigfoot, though, are even less than the implications of "an actor will die" for Alan Alda.

Soldiers and Umbrellas

To expand a bit on yesterday's post:  A soldier makes you free in the same way an umbrella makes you dry -- an umbrella that someone else is holding.  An umbrella can protect you from some of the external threats to your dryness, but not all of them -- it can't stop you from getting wet from the side or below.  Also, if you are already wet, it cannot really dry you off.  Likewise, a soldier can give you partial protection from external threats to your freedom, though some threats might be seen as sneaking in "from the side".  For example, censorship, rationing, the draft, and the like are real limitations to freedom, and these are often imposed in the face of external threats to freedom.  What's more, if you do not have the habits, culture, and internal disposition of freedom, a soldier is not really able to provide you with them.  

But perhaps most importantly, what an umbrella actually does depends on the skill and intentions of the person holding it.  An umbrella can be used to keep someone dry, but it can also be used to make someone even wetter than he was before (by channeling water onto him or dumping the accumulated water on him).  In a similar way, what a soldier actually does depends on the skill and intentions of the government employing him.