A survival guide to the misinformation age: scientific habits of mind

340 Pages·2017·5.176 MB·English

by  Helfand, David J

A survival
guide to the
misinformation
age
scientific habits of mind
David J. Helfand
A S U R V I V A L
G U I D E T O T H E
M I S I N F O R M AT I O N
A G E

DAVID J. HELFAND
A S U R V I VA L
G U I D E T O T H E
MISINFORMATION
AGE
scientific habits of mind
Columbia University Press New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2016 David J. Helfand
Paperback edition, 2017
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Helfand, D. J. (David J.), 1950–
A survival guide to the misinformation age : scientific habits of mind /
David J. Helfand.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-16872-4 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-16873-1 (pbk. :
alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-54102-2 (e-book)
1. Errors, Scientific. 2. Science—Methodology. 3. Statistics—Methodology.
4. Missing observations (Statistics) I. Title.
Q172.5.E77H45 2016
500—dc23
2015034152
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design by Alex Camlin
CONTENTS
Foreword vii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Information, Misinformation,
(cid:2)
and Our Planet’s Future 1
(cid:2)
1 A Walk in the Park 7
(cid:2)
2 What Is Science? 16
(cid:2)
3 A Sense of Scale 29
(cid:2)
Interlude 1: Numbers 46
(cid:2)
4 Discoveries on the Back of an Envelope 54
(cid:2)
5 Insights in Lines and Dots 74
(cid:2)
Interlude 2: Logic and Language 123
(cid:2)
6 Expecting the Improbable 130
CONTENTS
(cid:2)
7 Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics 152
(cid:2)
8 Correlation, Causation . . . Confusion and Clarity 171
(cid:2)
9 Definitional Features of Science 183
(cid:2)
10 Applying Scientific Habits of Mind to Earth’s Future 205
(cid:2)
11 What Isn’t Science 243
(cid:2)
12 The Triumph of Misinformation; The Perils of Ignorance 259
(cid:2)
13 The Unfinished Cathedral 269
Appendix: Practicing Scientific Habits of Mind 279
Notes 293
Index 309
FOREWORD
F
or nearly a century, the undergraduate college of Columbia
University has required all first- and second-year students to
engage in discussion and contemplation of some of the great
ideas that Western Civilization has produced. For most of that
period, the seminal works for these courses have been drawn exclusively
from the humanistic tradition. Since 1937, Columbia’s Core Curriculum
has consisted of seven courses that cover the intellectual and cultural
history of the West through the study of literature, political philosophy,
music, and art. Although the Core was described as the “intellectual
coats of arms” of the university, science and mathematics were absent.
In 1982, I chaired a committee that recommended this lacuna be recti-
fied by adding to the Core a course in science. Twenty-two years later,
in the university’s 250th year, Frontiers of Science was launched as a
class required of all first-year Columbia College students. In 2013, the
idea that science should become a permanent component of the Core
Curriculum was formally adopted.
Unlike most general education and introductory-level university sci-
ence courses, Frontiers of Science was not designed to impart to our
FOREWORD
students large quantities of information about a particular scientific
field—the products of scientific inquiry. Rather, the point was to use
examples drawn from a number of disciplines to illustrate what science is
and how it produces our understanding of the material universe. I devel-
oped a brief, online text called “Scientific Habits of Mind” in conjunc-
tion with Frontiers of Science as an introduction to the distinct modes of
thought that scientists use in producing their unique and powerful models
of the world. Habits form the core of this book.
Over the thirty-eight years I have taught at Columbia, the College has
vastly expanded its applicant pool and has significantly improved its selec-
tivity. Yet I have found that among the students now arriving on campus,
preparation in basic quantitative reasoning skills has declined at an alarm-
ing rate. In the 1970s, many of our students had not taken calculus in high
school; now the vast majority of those we admit have had at least one
calculus course. But their ability to use numbers, read graphs, understand
basic probability, and distinguish sense from nonsense has declined. And
in the larger population—among politicians, journalists, doctors, bureau-
crats, and voters—the ability to reason quantitatively has largely vanished.
This is scary.
We live in a world dominated by science and its product: technology.
This world faces daunting challenges—from energy supplies to food sup-
plies, from biodiversity collapse to the freshwater crisis, and, at the root of
many of these issues, global climate change. Yet we shrink from confront-
ing these challenges because we don’t like numbers and are more comfort-
able with beliefs than with rational thought.
Faith will not quell the increasing demands humans place on the Earth’s
resources. New Age thinking will not produce “sustainable development.”
It is not clear that any philosophy will allow this planet to sustain a popu-
lation of ten billion people in the manner to which contemporary Western
societies have become accustomed. But it is clear that, to assess the limits
the Earth imposes, to contemplate rationally what routes we might take,
and to plan a future free from war and want, quantitative reasoning must
(cid:3)
VIII
FOREWORD
be employed. Blind faith—in God during the Middle Ages, in creativity
during the Renaissance, in reason during the Enlightenment, and in tech-
nology today—is a shibboleth. It is a fantasy ungrounded from a rational
assessment, in quantitative terms, of what is possible and what is not.
This book seeks to provide a set of tools to be used in promoting a
rational and attainable future for humankind. It offers no formula for
financial success or any promise of a sleeker physique. Rather, its goals
are to cultivate rational habits of mind and to provide warnings against
those who would pervert this uniquely human capacity so that our species
might accommodate itself to the web of life that has been evolving here
for 3.8 billion years—to allow that life, and the fragile intelligence it has
produced, to remain a lasting feature of our planet.
(cid:4)
IX