How Carl Sagan Beat Pseudoscience (The Sagan Method)

at no other time in world history has humanity had access to the amount of information that it has today as access to information has increased a great many people myself included have excitedly anticipated surges of scientific literacy and critical thinking skills to sweep across the globe after all if people have access to nearly limitless high quality educational content online they are bound to learn from it right no not this time is totally made up well that view as plenty of my peers have pointed out is probably overly optimistic we do have access to more information than ever before yes but not just the good stuff misinformation has become more accessible than ever as well and much of the time misinformation spreads faster than truth in my optimism i've imagined a world which is increasingly united not by cultural customs government or even religious preferences but by a shared knowledge of the well-attested facts of our universe where we came from and how we became human as explained by evolution by natural selection how our minds work as explained by experimental psychology what we've done in our past and why as explained by historical scholarship how humans and other animals operate physically as explained by the field of biology you get the idea in many crucial ways we already are united by that shared knowledge advances in medicine agriculture communication transportation and countless other enterprises are made by the efforts of a diverse global scientific community still though it's evident that humanity not just when divided by oceans and borders but also when separated by little more than preferences in tv news programming lacks a common factual reality the impact of our lack of a shared reality has most recently led to widespread disagreement over whether a virus which has been well evidenced to have caused the deaths of millions worldwide is any threat at all this as could be expected has exacerbated the problem without a shared understanding of the reality in which we live we're unable to collectively make decisions for the public good we need to be able to make those decisions effectively so we need a shared reality the problem is no one myself included knows enough to flatly say these are the facts on every important issue we face no one source is capable of teaching us all what to think that's why i propose we look to those who have managed to come to a fruitful shared understanding of reality across dividing lines the global scientific community to learn for ourselves how to think in a way which reliably leads to truth in his final book the demon haunted world carl sagan described a kind of toolkit which scientists as a part of their training in any field acquire for use in evaluating new claims or ideas if as sagan said a new idea survives examination by these tools it's granted warm but tentative acceptance this is sagan's famous bologna detection kit in it are nine rules for skeptical thinking which i'll now present one by one wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts every source is vulnerable to bias conflicts of interest and honest mistakes so fully trusting a single source can sometimes lead us to false beliefs to avoid this we examine whether a claim has been backed up by multiple independent sources in the case of homeopathy for example there's a committed group of proponents which claim homeopathy can alleviate disease in their experience however when homeopathic substances have been tested through rigorously controlled scientific experimentation by multiple independent research groups this has consistently failed to be confirmed if homeopathy really has medical benefits anyone should be able to perform a well-controlled experiment and see that result until such a time as a claim like the medical efficacy of homeopathy can be independently confirmed we did not accept it encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view if something is true it can withstand scrutiny even from multiple perspectives conversely if a proposition is not true having knowledgeable people of various perspectives examine it together is an effective way to uncover shortcomings which may have been missed by an individual the key to this tool in my opinion is knowing what substantive debate looks like and who is knowledgeable on whatever the topic may be debate which includes name calling rhetorical trickery misleading statements distracting from the topic or anything else which serves to steal focus from the topic and place it instead on the individuals in the debate or anything else besides the topic at hand isn't substantive as for how to know who is knowledgeable on a given issue that can take some work those who have credible degrees related to a topic or publish work on a topic in peer-reviewed journals usually qualify i'd say but that's not the only measure of knowledgeability those who are consistent in citing credible sources avoiding fallacious arguments and utilizing the toolkit we're discussing right now can qualify as well do not accept arguments from authority as sagan said in the demon haunted world arguments from authority carry little weight authorities have made mistakes in the past they will do so again in the future perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities at most there are experts even if an authority figure puts forth a claim we must still examine that claim with the utmost scrutiny before accepting it because even authorities are fallible sagan took special care to stress this point in his writing as well as his interviews science is more than a body of knowledge it's a way of thinking a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility if if we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us that something is true to be skeptical of those in authority then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious who comes ambling along spin more than one hypothesis if there's something to be explained think of all the different ways in which it could be explained then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives what survives the hypothesis that resists disproof in this darwinian selection among multiple working hypotheses has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy as tempting as it can be to look at the available data connect the dots however seems most plausible or affirming of our existing biases and consider the matter solved that's not an effective way to figure out the best explanation of the data the practice of positing multiple hypotheses testing them all and then only upholding any hypotheses that survive a process of elimination allows us to come to much more useful and accurate explanations of the data it cuts through our own assumptions and biases much better than the alternative of going with our first guess try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours it's only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge ask yourself why you like the idea compare it fairly with the alternatives see if you can find reasons for rejecting it if you don't others will while i think this concept is one of the easiest on this list to understand it's almost definitely the hardest to put into practice humans are not rational we cling to our ideas and positions forcefully even conflating our entire identity or personal character with some of them to the point where if they're challenged we feel personally attacked what we have to remember though is that this process of skeptical inquiry is not aimed at hurting us by stripping away cherished beliefs it's a process we design to help us reach an accurate useful understanding of our world and it works as much as we may try not to get irrationally attached to certain ideas of hours it's still going to happen because that's how humans usually operate however you might have noticed that the other tools in this toolkit are designed to cancel out human bias in some way we may never be able to psychologically overcome our innate tendency to think in a biased way but we can in utilizing the other tools mentioned here subject our ideas to experimentation and the scrutiny of others in order to overcome our biases practically while not always a pleasant or popular undertaking humbling ourselves enough to discard ideas which don't withstand scrutiny is in my view a social responsibility we act on our beliefs if our beliefs are wrong we may act in a way which causes unnecessary harm to others so if we care to avoid causing unnecessary harm to others we've got to get into the practice of discarding beliefs however cherished if they do not stand in the face of the evidence i'll have sagan say a final word on this now i don't propose to tell anybody what to believe but for me believing when there's no compelling evidence is a mistake the idea is to withhold belief until there is compelling evidence and if the universe does not comply with our predispositions okay then we have the wrenching obligation to accommodate to the way the universe really is we we demand the most rigorous standards of evidence especially on what's important to us so if some guy comes up to me in a channeler or a medium i can put you in touch with your parents well because i want so terribly to to believe that yeah i know i have to reach in for added reserves of skepticism because i'm likely to be fooled and much more minor to have my money taken quantify if whatever you're explaining has some measure some numerical quantity attached to it you'll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses what is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront but finding them is more challenging language isn't as precise as mathematics numbers have immutable definitions and relationships to each other but words don't this is why explanations which rely on numerical quantities and relationships can be much more precise than those which rely on language alone let me explain this one by way of example when attempting to discern how someone's metabolism is functioning researchers may subject them to light physiological stress such as walking on a treadmill then instead of asking the person how do you feel or what's your energy level they measure the person's rate of oxygen intake which gives them the information necessary to calculate how quickly their metabolism using oxygen converts the chemical energy stored in their food into energy usable to the body information about the person's metabolism can then be communicated numerically and with great precision rather than by subjective self-reports of tiredness if there's a chain of argument every link in the chain must work including the premise not just most of them this is very straightforward if there's just one logical inconsistency or unsubstantiated claim within an argument the whole thing breaks down i most often see this tool ignored when larger theories rather than individual arguments are involved someone will hold to a particular view which is based on a great number of premises then when one of those premises is shown to be false the person claims they can keep believing in their view because the majority of their premises are still intact even though the argument for their view breaks down without all their premises remaining intact within an argument premises are the building blocks together they create something larger than themselves but when just one of them is undermined the structure falls apart occam's razor this convenient rule of thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler is an explanation which makes three assumptions more likely to be true than one which makes only two of course not if something can be explained with two assumptions a third is unnecessary if it's truth we're after making assumptions is to be avoided whenever possible in practice this means tossing out hypotheses which explain the data in a way which is more complicated than necessary here's a clip of sagan utilizing occam's razor while discussing the data involved in reports of alien encounters but one thing what is that before we leave ufos tell me about you and professor mack john mack is a professor of psychiatry at harvard who i've known for many years and many years ago he asked me what what is there in this ufo business is there anything to it and i said absolutely nothing except of course for a psychiatrist he is a psychiatrist well he looked into it and decided that there was so much emotional energy in the reports of people who claimed to be abducted that it couldn't possibly be some psychological aberration that it had to be true he believed his patience i do not believe his patience many of these stories are about waking up from a deep sleep and finding your bed surrounded by three or four short doer gray and sexually obsessed beings but many people awaken from a nightmare with profound emotional force that doesn't mean that the nightmare is true it means something went on inside our head always ask whether the hypothesis can be at least in principle falsified propositions that are untestable unfalsifiable are not worth much consider the grand idea that our universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle an electron say in a much bigger cosmos but if we can never acquire information from outside our universe is not the idea incapable of disproof you must be able to check assertions out inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result if there's no conceivable way to put an idea to the test it isn't one from which we can build any meaningful explanations an unfalsifiable proposition is one which can only have explanatory power if flatly assumed true and of course we're not in the business of making unnecessary assumptions in search of truth for those still unsure of this tool let's consider a world where instead of accepting ideas when they're evidenced to be true we accept ideas when they can't be proven false well i assert there's someone standing behind you right now you say you've turned around and you can't see them well that's just because the person is fast and they can stay out of your field of vision no matter how you move your back is against a wall oh well they can just move through solid objects no problem no one else says they can see them well that's just because they're being paid off by big standing behind you guy no matter how you object to my claim in a world where we accept claims because they can't be falsified you've got to accept it no matter how absurd it gets i could claim that the universe rests on the back of a turtle or that you popped into existence 10 seconds ago with all of your memories and you have to accept it any and every idea that couldn't be proven wrong would have to be accepted in such a world and that would lead to complete absurdity ensuring that our hypotheses are falsifiable keeps us grounded in the world where evidence is required for an idea to be considered true sagan's complete bologna detection kit as detailed in the demon hunted world goes on to cover multiple logical fallacies as well as some notes on experimental design but for the sake of keeping this video more concise and accessible i've chosen to stop here if you'd like to read through the entire thing for yourself and i do encourage you to do so you'll find the full version linked in the description as you utilize these tools for yourself remember sagan's concluding words on the subject like all tools the bologna detection kit can be misused applied out of context or even employed as a rote alternative to thinking but applied judiciously it can make all the difference in the world not least in evaluating our own arguments before we present them to others this kit is not some perfect solution to the world's problems but as it's been utilized over just the last few centuries it has enabled us to create technological innovations and useful explanatory models of our world more quickly and effectively than ever before my hope is that more of us will learn to utilize this toolkit ourselves and in doing so inch humanity a bit closer to a common understanding of the reality in which we all live if you haven't already i highly recommend that you read the demon haunted world in its entirety it's my favorite book for a reason as it manages to be touching and inspiring while simultaneously delivering massive blows to pseudoscience and conspiratorial thinking read the book either way but if you'd like to listen to it as an audiobook as i've done more than a few times and if you want to support my channel in the process you can get a 30 day free trial from audible by going to audibletrial.com gm skeptic the link is in the description as well as the pinned comment thanks for watching i've been drew of genetically modified skeptic a special thanks to my patrons for their constant love and support if you want to hear more from me subscribe and follow me on social media at the handles below as always if you're an apostate in need there are resources linked in the description to help you find community and mental health support remember to be kind to others in the comments and until next time stay skeptical oh yeah and uh merch soon maybe

Channel: Genetically Modified Skeptic

Views: 423,755

Keywords: atheism, atheist, agnostic, skeptic, skepticism, genetically modified skeptic, gm skeptic, Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World, Science denial, conspiracy theories, Demon Haunted World review, Ann Druyan, carl sagan predict 2020, saganism, carl sagan quote, Baloney Detection Kit, carl sagan debunking, alien abductions debunked, pseudoscience vs science, the fine art of baloney detection, how to debunk pseudoscience, the sagan method, scientific skepticism

Id: yUgdrno-2xY

Length: 18min 20sec (1100 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 20 2020