Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
Read More.Praise for Star Dragon
"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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Scientific Self-Help?
December 5th, 2008
One of my common themes is how to properly educate people to think more scientifically. I think the world would be a better place, more rational, more productive, if people made their decisions based on reliable information — the kind that comes from science. Unfortunately a majority of people don’t do this regularly, and even people who are so inclined wind up making big mistakes once in a while.
I’m not worried about the occasional mistake. We all make them and learn from them.
I’m worried about the vast numbers of people who are unaware they’re making mistakes, or, if they are aware, they often don’t know how to do better when given another chance.
I’m talking about people who think it’s reasonable to think that vaccines cause autism, and then don’t vaccinate their children. People who first didn’t acknowledge that global temperatures were rising, and then refused to entertain the idea the humans are responsible, at least without “absolute proof.” People who base their votes upon sound bites in commercials. People who consult their horoscopes to decide when to take a vacation. People who pay large amounts of money to mediums who claim to be able to speak to the dead.
There are a lot of good books about how to think better, how to apply scientific knowledge to life, how to spot pseudo science. You can pick up some science from hard science fiction novels, too.
And the target audience who needs these types of books doesn’t read them.
What we need are ways of reaching the average person who doesn’t read a lot. We need TV, movies when possible, and books that are consumed by the masses in large quantities: self help.
People who buy subliminal tapes to curb their diet or concentrate better surely would consider anything toward reaching their goals. How about science? I’d love to see “An Idiot’s Guide” or a Dummy book, with supporting audio files and websites, about how to think scientifically. I wouldn’t be above some hyperbole and overselling. I mean, science does give us the most reliable information about diet, drugs, vaccinations, and many issues. There is research that provides advice about how to live longer, happier lives, raise smarter healthier children, and more. Maybe science can’t help too much about investing money, or how to remodel a house, but it can offer plenty.
Get people to buy into it as a basic self-help principle that works better than crap like “The Secret” or whatever bone-headed shit is being shoveled this month, and it could catch on. It isn’t like science is a fad, and to the extent it changes and expands, new editions can be issued. It can be tested and shown to work better than the silly alternatives.
Maybe I’m being naive here, or maybe there’s already some books out there like this (some of the self-help books written by PhDs and real experts on various topics), but I think there’s a chance this idea can make inroads. How about a TV show “Science Challenges the Secret?”
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Ben Goldacre is always an amusing read for this reason: http://www.badscience.net/ In Oztraya we also have Dr Karl (http://drkarl.com/) who is funny as well as informative.
But then I used to patronise a bookshop that files economics books in with the other psuedo-scientific claptrap like horoscopes and homeopathy, and I get offended when New Scientist and similar magazines get filed under “science and other interest” with the “other interest” being UFOs, astrology and faith healing, so I’m perhaps not in the “needs help” group.
The people you want to get scientifically educated, I call believers. They hear about concepts, and if the like the concepts, choose to believe in them. They can read a book like “The Secret” or see a show on the History Channel about UFOs, or watch Star Wars and be enchanted by faster-than-light travel, and they become believers.
Most people do not want to take the time to study a concept, to learn if it’s valid, to find out its history and see how it evolved. They see a shiny new idea, it appeals to them, they embrace it.
Mike, what you are asking of people is to evaluate every idea they are exposed to and test it for validity. To be even minimally scientific, people need a level of critical thinking, of skepticism, and I’m not sure how you give that to them. People want to respond to new ideas emotionally, instantly, and without putting much study or thought into the decision.
To me, every nutty person with a weird idea, is just a believer. It doesn’t matter what they believe, angels or UFOs, The Force or The Secret, what’s important about them is they embrace an idea that can’t be seen by scientific instruments.
Now we all do this. There are many scientific ideas I embrace that I’ve never really evaluated in a way that I can understand them. I have to take a lot of scientific concepts on faith, like the quark or electron. And there are concepts like “love” and “justice” we’ll never see with the discipline of science.
The trouble with wanting to make the public more scientific is they don’t want to be more scientific. Reading Natalie Angier’s The Canon. See http://www.natalieangier.com/ – she’s working on this very same problem.
Jim, you’re totally correct. How does one get these believers to think critically? At least about things that matter, like how they vote, how they spend their money, how they raise their kids. How does one make science look appealing when it contradicts some of their intuitive beliefs?
We’ve just endured 8 years of an administration filled full of believers who believed that their gut feelings were the basis for decision-making, that loyalty made someone a better official than ability, that terrorism was best met with traditional country-to-country war, even if it was the wrong country. This should be the best time for an appeal to reason.
Maybe there’s a case study in Michael Shermer. He is now a leading skeptic but used to believe some weird, irrational things. Sometimes I worry he has just stumbled into a belief for science without understanding deeply, but I can give him the benefit of the doubt.
OK, I think this is the second time you’ve brought up The Canon. Natalie Angier hasn’t impressed me very much in the past (like Shermer, she doesn’t always seem to get it herself), but I’ll check it out.
The Canon is meandering, but Angier’s book is about the topic we’re exploring, so that’s why I recommend it. In the beginning of the book she explores how most kids love science up to a certain age, and then they turn against it. The implication is the school system is turning kids off to science, but I don’t know if that’s true or not.
She interviews lots of scientists, and that adds a lot to the book. One tidbit that I like was one scientist observed we teach science backwards in the schools: biology then chemistry then physics, and science should be taught: physics – chemistry – biology. That makes sense to me.
I wonder if in each school year, students were exposed to the entire history of science at the level of their development, and shown how it compares to everything else they are learning, they would acquire a sense for science.
Scientific thinking should be the foundation of learning and not some extra courses in high school. My guess is the only way the population at large will start thinking scientifically is if our educational system finds a way to make it second nature in kids before they start middle school.