There are a lot of topics that don't lend themselves to a full column of rant against empirical science. They do, however, affect how we view the world because they are the result of an unexamined belief in the validity of the empirical viewpoint. They keep popping up in conversations and they really demand comment, so here goes.
Why the Sky is Blue
Let me quote a description of Stardust's return to Earth. Stardust was the NASA project to collect material from the tail of a comet. It collected the stuff, I mean, we all know it's snow and ice and stuff like that, don't we, on January 2, 2004, and reentered the Earth's atmosphere January 15 of this year. Here's the description: Stardust was literally on fire, first bluish in color and then becoming a deep red. As it streaked across the dark Utah skies, Stardust's luminescent trail next painted an almost unbelievable yellowish-orange line. The Quote is attributable by William Henry, the author of the Stardust article, to an eminent empirical scientist, Dr. Donald E. Brownlee of the University of Washington, the Principal investigator of the project. He's apparently well known for his discovery of the cosmic particles in the stratosphere named after him. That sounds like a real good one.
In any event, here we have an empiricist telling us that the capsule entered the atmosphere, immediately creating the greatest amount of friction (after all, friction equals heat, heat equals color. Blue is supposed to be the hottest, so the capsule, glowing blue, was moving really, really fast. Unfortunately, there's not much atmosphere where it entered.
Next, the capsule starts encountering drastically low friction, because it turns red, and red is the color associated with the lowest heat. Might be, because the atmosphere is slowing it down, but unfortunately, the atmosphere is slowing it down because it's becoming thicker and thus causing more friction. But, what can I say, empirical science knows what it knows.
Then, the capsule must have speeded back up, because it turned a yellowish orange, which, of course, indicates more heat than the red glow would indicate. Seems the more friction it encounters, the slower it goes, and the hotter it gets. Unfortunately, the fact that's it's going slower would indicate that there wasn't as much friction.
So, blue, red, yellow. Friction apparently has nothing to do with heat.
The cover of my book Light, Replacing Three Centuries of Misconceptions, seen here, shows the spectrum as it really is, with the longest frequency blue, then green, then red, then yellow. See column 11-05, Reversing the Spectrum. This reversal of the spectrum tells the real Stardust reentry story. The deeper into the atmosphere Stardust moved, the greater the friction, and the greater the heat. Thus, it starts off blue, turns red (in heat phenomena, as in sunsets, green is a rare color) and when it reaches its hottest, it is emitting the shortest frequency of light, yellow. Our credentialed empiricist can't see the implications of what is in front of his eye, coming out of his mouth, and solidified in words.
Which leads us to another pervasive fact, apparently over the head of all empiricists, why the sky is blue. Empiricists, because they believe blue is the shortest frequency, make up some nonsensical blather to explain the color of the sky. They say, out of a clear blue sky, that the atmosphere scatters the shorter wavelengths, and that's all we see. This is a pile of so many misconceptions, it's hard to keep from laughing. First, it uses the mistake that light is a wave. Then it says the atmosphere scatters light. Where did this come from? Glass doesn't scatter light, so why would the atmosphere? If the atmosphere scattered light, wouldn't it scatter the longest waves before the shorter ones? In this interpretation, the atmosphere is scattering the strongest light and letting the weakest through unhampered.
Of course, this is the result of putting blue on the wrong end of the spectrum. If we're stupid enough to look at the sun when it's overhead, we'll see the strongest frequencies, yellow, maybe a little orange or red, but never blue. Why not? Because blue, the weakest frequency, is being filtered out by the atmosphere, and that's why we see the sky blue.
This leaves the glorious red, yellow, orange, and rarely, green sunsets. As the sun sets, we are looking at it through more and more layers of atmosphere, and the atmosphere is filtering out more and more of the colors. As more and more frequencies are filtered, the filtering process is seen the colors and the image of the sun enlarges.
Ancient Astronomy
The mainstream empirical community refuses to recognize the "sophistication" of ancient structures such as Stonehenge and the Mayan calendar. There's a very simple reason for this. The people that constructed these configurations or plotted out the Mayan calendar and other similar ancient curiosities, with one exception, weren't sophisticated. It doesn't take a genius to put a stick in the ground and follow the shadow as the tilted Earth circles the sun. The shadow in the Northern Hemisphere will move from south to north as the Earth moves toward the sun and from north to south as it moves away the sun. The days grow shorter in winter, longer in the summer. This is simple observation and allows anyone to compute the orbit of the sun with a simple stick.
The rub for empirical science, however, is the stick method doesn't agree with its astronomical calculations. Astronomy does not look at reality to compute the position of the Earth, it looks at theory. The first inaccurate theory, Kepler's law, that the Earth sweeps out equal areas in equal times, doesn't agree with actual reality, so reality has to be ignored. See column 08-06. Then it begins to factor in its fallacious mass/gravity nonsense, see column 06-06, and it comes up with its "sophisticated" astronomy. It claims that astronomy knows the exact dates of comets throughout history, but in reality, and much to my recent surprise, although I don't know why, this is nothing but a crock. See column 50-05.
Empirical science scorns ancient measurements because, measured against realty, they don't agree with the cooked up theories of empirical science and are therefore wrong right out of the gate. When ancient measurements agree with empirical measurements, as they do in the great pyramid, and those measurements are accessible because they involve the Earth itself, not its movement, and therefore can't be fudged, why, the ancient measurements just don't exist. They're all made up by modern cranks that can manipulate measurements to mean anything they want, something empiricists presumably are above doing.
Probably a question of semantics, what does sophistication mean? In the case of astronomy, sophistry.
People with Degrees
How many times have I read someone musing about what someone with a degree knows they don't? It's more of an attitude than a comment, although I see the comment occasionally. This attitude is deep seated and is the basis of empirical science's power. The mind works by comparison, and when there is nothing to compare, we feel uncomfortable. Thus, we tend to visualize someone who's spent half their life in school getting degrees having all these comparisons we don't. We don't want to feel uncomfortable, so we accept the answers degreed people give us about reality. We really don't have anything to rebut what they say. We are helpless in the face, not of their knowledge, but of their degrees.
The reality of a degree, however, is the more study it takes to get, the narrower the focus of the people getting it. As people advance along the degree road, their interests grow narrower and narrower. They become, in effect, ignorant about reality. Lawyers talk with lawyers, doctors with doctors, astronomers with astronomers, particle physicists with particle physicists. Their storehouse of knowledge to hold up as a comparison to reality diminishes until all that's left is a narrow focus on what they're degreed in, and total ignorance about everything else. They don't wonder about anything else because they are totally preoccupied with the focus of their degree.
Thus, the answer to the question, what do the degreed people know that I don't, the answer is, not much. That's why associations, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have so much influence. The associations conglomerate various areas of focus. They are staffed by degreed people in the area, but also by a bureaucracy of entrenched managers, and the result is like the government, presidents come and go, but the bureaucracy never goes anywhere.
And I mean that literally. It's an unhealthy situation, and it's built into the framework of our minds to accept anything degreed people tell us simply because they know something we don't.
Television "Reality Dramas"
"Reality Dramas" are programs like CSI, or Crime Scene Investigation, Without a Trace or Missing, Bones and another CSI program NCIS, Boston Legal, House, and cop shows in general, which probably include all of the above, but for a different reason.
CSI and its clones probably represent the problem with this type of show pretty well. The CSI unit is located in spacious quarters. Everyone has up to date equipment (wait for the discussion on Bones to see how up to date) and every corpse, whether its some charred body found in the middle of the desert, a bum in 42nd street, or a rotting corpse in someone's basement wall, gets the full treatment, individual attention from teams of technicians with high officials personally supervising everything and detectives taking part in every step of the operation. The result is, no one solves a murder, the "evidence" solves the murder.
Well, visit a morgue, even one in a prosperous city like Los Angeles, and you'll find corpses stacked up all over the place. There are more bodies than can even be partially processed, and particularly public murders take weeks to get to. The detectives assigned the case have a hundred other unsolved cases, and have probably forgotten what the case is about if and when the ever do get an autopsy. The equipment is crap. In short, there's no connection between these dramas and reality, which is what dramas do, mold reality into a interesting tale.
The problem with the CSI programs, though, is they produce in the public eye a false impressions of empirical science. They feed the empirical message to the public that science is capable of doing anything, including solving murders. In the detestable Numb3rs, mathematical formulas are used to solve serial killings. Again, there's nothing wrong with this. We'd expect empirical science to use every means possible to keep the great unwashed ignorant. But here the harm is tangible, although causing harm has never been a problem with empirical science. The harm is, juries are already starting to let murderers, and other miscreants who would have normally been convicted, walk. Juries are starting to demand of prosecutors the standard of evidentiary excellence they see on the CSI programs week after week after week. The Law and Order programs might have been message programs, but they didn't undermine the law. Here we have programs pushing the excellence of empirical science that are starting to let murderers back out on the streets. Not good.
Bones and NCIS, both well-written dramas, are probably as damaging, but are also absurd. NCIS is a lab and morgue program, but more devoted to the computer. Its geniuses can trace instant conversations around the world and do other stunts that are seriously out of reach of current technology. Along with Bones, they have holographic imaging programs that allow the images to build themselves instantly in a sort of hazy light, and then they are rotated at will. The Bones technology can even instantly reconstruct a human face from a two hundred year old skull so it can be identified by, well, photography isn't that old, but what the hey. The damage here is to the perception what our government and other governments can do. It spreads paranoia. It's bad enough the government wants your ISP provider to permanently keep a record of everywhere you've been on the computer, which goes to show this all encompassing technology doesn't exist, but the fact is, these are paranoia producing fantasies that simply support empirical infallibility. Bones takes it one step further by having bones, rather than detectives, solve murders, giving it a double empirical whammy.
Programs like Without a Trace and Missing, which involve the FBI solving missing persons cases, are not that empirically based, but they give the widespread impression that anyone actually gives a darn when someone goes missing, thereby turning a missing situation into a greater tragedy than it otherwise would have been. Like the CSI programs, no matter what your status in life is, who you are, or how old you are, the FBI is on the case in a matter of minutes, a high level force of crack agents delving into every aspect of the case (although Missing has the added benefit of a psychic, definitely unempirical except for the fact that empirical science could only be dreamed up by psychics). Have your teenage daughter go missing and see what happens. Not only does the FBI not care, the local police will say, she's probably shacking up with someone, get in touch in a couple of days if you don't hear from here. It's horrible that a TV program can raise false hopes about a subject as terrible as this can turn out to be.
House is an unusually well written and acted drama dealing with unusual medical conditions. It takes place in a hospital, that bastion of healing where more people die in a year from conditions obtained after they entered the hospital than die in automobile accidents. Here we have empirical science at its best. Although House is someone no one would seriously consider employing because he is one nasty guy, he's a genius at interpreting test results, and test he does, sometimes to the point of killing the patient with the tests. But, it's not the human mind that is solving the medical problems, it's the hundreds of years of recoded tests and remedies attempted. House just knows how to access the knowledge, which makes him, as he pours over the books with his three student doctors, the perfect empiricist. The "ignore all costs" feature of these dramas is illustrated here by the fact that the hospital can't possibly financially outlive the life of the program providing all this assistance to non-paying customers. Also, I'm no expert, but House is practicing science fiction medicine. I've been there and this stuff simply doesn't exist.
All of these programs, the following included use a misleading dramatic device. Ever watched them try to trace a telephone call, and then say, didn't have time. That is so much bull. They're all traceable, including prepaid telephones unless those phones were purchased with cash. Then they can probably be found in a trash can.
Law Enforcement Programs
Using Boston Legal as a general introduction to the subject, it's a flippant program with Perry Mason type prosecutors who always lose. It is empirical in the sense that it uses baseless cases with nonexistent facts claimed to be actual facts (which wouldn't be a problem if it weren't a political program passing fantasy off as reality) and then applies nonexistent laws to those facts, solely to make a point. But the point I'd like to make about the law enforcement programs is anything but flippant. They, without question, have someone they want to question come into the police station. I know this saves on location costs, but in reality, the only way police or detectives can get you to go to the station is arrest you.
This almost universal example leads people to believe they have to respond to such requests. Under no circumstances do so. If they're going to arrest you, they've got enough on you, so you might as well let them get the process started. Going to the station only gives police further ammunition, ammunition they don't yet have. If you do go, take a lawyer. Which brings me to the second problem with these programs. They bruit about the belief that hiring a lawyer when you're a suspect is an admission of guilt. This encourages people to incriminate themselves by talking to police without a lawyer. They can lie all they want, you can't. Never, never, ever talk to any police official investigating you for criminal activity without a lawyer present. If you remain silent, they are either going to arrest you or not, so take advantage of your Miranda rights. Unfortunately, juries have been prejudiced by the, if you hire a lawyer, you must be guilty mantra, but believe me, not hiring a lawyer and not being guilty and submitting to interrogation is a guaranteed way to end up in jail.
TV Nudity
All broadcast media are pushing nudity to its limits. This has nothing to do with empirical science, but it has something to do with reality, which is something empirical science has nothing to do with. Actresses, although today, I think they're called actors, have to have a modicum of acting talent to make it in front of the camera. This rules out about 99.9% of the female population. If we assume that maybe 20% of the female population of voting age have bodies anyone would want to see, this means two things. First, most actresses have bodies they shouldn't show, probably accounting for how many make TV love in their bras, Second, a lot of people who can't act have tremendous bodies they should show. As the trend goes to nudity, many of the actors who are female are refusing to show certain parts of their body. The directors design the scene in films with a double. However, in TV, the tendency is to give quick shots of a girl's body part at parties or in beach scenes, or in some cases flirt with full disclosure in strip clubs. This is absolute insanity. TV will never be able to compete with the computer or the hardcore porn channels. There are millions of girls with better bodies than TV will ever be able to show and they're lined up crying to show their bodies nude. TV should simply stay out of the nudity business.
Except, of course, for Stacy Keibler, where TV stations should be required by law to show as much of her as legally permissible.
ADDENDUM: I should also add, Roller Derby Girls really, really know how to party. And, if anyone wants to see a matriarchy in action, pick up Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet. The most vicious always gets the food and there're not male.
Peter Bros is the author of the 9 volume Copernican Series and is President of The Far Museum of Dallas, an actual history museum, which will house its collection of 50,000 rare Eastern Mediterranean manuscripts and artifacts together with actual history displays and tours in a full-sized replica of the Egyptian Temple at Dendera to be built in the Dallas Ft. Worth area. Email:peterbros@therealskeptic.com