Anti-Evolution Argument for the Month of August

This is a new feature of The Smiling Skeptic.  Instead of tackling the counter-points to evolution in one blog, which would be a very long one, I've decided to break the counter-points down to a month-by-month basis.

Since this is a new feature to the blog, I want to get something out of the way before we begin.  The most common argument against evolution is that it's "just a theory," and therefore, has no business being taught to children as fact, put before other hypotheses such as special creationism (Intelligent Design), transpermia, or panspermia.  There is, however, a fundamental flaw to this argument: The words just and theory don't, under any circumstances, belong in the same sentence with one another.  This is purely a misunderstanding and an indictment of the disconnect between the scientific community and the general populace.

The common colloquial definition of the word theory is an opinion, hypothesis, or conjecture.  The scientific definition of the word theory is very different.  In its scientific context, the word refers to an interpretation or idea that has been proven correct through experimentation or with other types of evidence.  The word theory applies to evolution just as it applies to gravity, the heliocentric theory of the solar system, and for that matter, the big bang.  The word means, in this context, fact.

That said, I don't blame the general public for making this argument.  It has a right to.  This is actually our fault.  And on behalf of the scientific community, I would like to take responsibility for this misunderstanding.  You see, while those of us of scientific disciplines speak amongst one another, we utilize the word theory completely interchangeably with the word hypothesis.  Amongst ourselves, we can infer from context which word the other person means.  But when we're talking to the general public, we shouldn't do this.  It confuses people.  When we're on television or radio shows, we should not use the two words interchangeably, because we're making matters worse, and giving those who would capitalize on the disconnect just that much more fodder to try to convince the public that science is one big conspiracy.

When you mean theory, then say, "theory."  When you mean hypothesis, then say, "hypothesis."  Especially when addressing those outside the community.  Every time we say the term string theory when we really mean string hypothesis or superstring hypothesis, or superstring interpretation, we're making things worse.  Every time we say many worlds theory, when we really mean to say the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, we're making matters worse.  This puts hypotheses on the same level as proven fact.  So, in conclusion, let's stop this, heh?  After all, we're supposed to be the smart ones.

Now, onto that matter at hand.  I've also decided to take one of the easier arguments this month, because it is one of my favorites - whenever I'm approached with it, I get a little fuzzy inside.  This, of course, is the second law of thermodynamics.

This is a favorite of mine for a lot of reasons. (1) It is a perfect example of the religious cherry picking certain aspects of one type of science in order to refute another unrelated science. (2) The use of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in this context, also refutes the First Law of Thermodynamics, which makes it an even easier argument to refute.  Let's begin, shall we?

I'm sure we'll all familiar with the laws of thermodynamics.  The zeroth law states that if systems A and B are both in thermal equilibrium with system C, then system B would have to be in thermal equilibrium with system A.  The first law is the law of the conservation of energy.  The second law is the law of entropy in closed systems.  And finally, the third law is the law of absolute zero.  That said, lets concentrate on the second law for now: "In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves a system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state."

A great way to illustrate what this law means would be to stop breathing right now.  Stop breathing and see what happens to the inside of your body.  You'll feel it as it happens - well, some of it.  What you won't feel is your cells not replicating or repairing themselves.  You won't feel your body as it stops producing hormones.  You won't physically feel your blood as it stops sending oxygen to your brain.  Despite not physically feeling any of this, your body is basically shutting down, because it needs to inhale something in the range of four parts nitrogen and one part oxygen, and expel carbon dioxide in order to properly function, just like it needs food and water.  You've made the decision to raise your bodies entropy by cutting it off, thus making it a mostly closed system.  Your body is in some ways, a closed system all the time, but its entropy is low, because, for the most part, it is an open system with a constant exterior replenishment of its needed fuels.  But despite your constant intake of fuel, your body still begins breaking down the second you're born, as even with this energy, your linear chromosomes' protective telomeres become gradually shorter, reducing their repairing effects, as well as their protection against chromosome fusion.  Telomerase is an enzyme that allows for this deterioration to be prevented in children, but it gradually decreases in the body, causing the telomeres at the end of chromosomes to start to fray and shorten.  There are, of course, options for prolonging this process, but make note that you are currently dying, and will someday complete the process.

One could also use the broken down car analogy, which is very popular: If your car runs out of gas (its external fuel) you will have to utilize the energy stored in your body and turn it into kinetic energy in the direction of the gas station.  Only when you replicate this process again (unless you get a ride) and put fuel into your car, will it run again.  In other words, it won't somehow start making its own fuel.  It's entropy increases with every measurement in which you drive it, because you're burning the fuel of an isolated system.

The Second Law is demonstrably true, yes.  But does it work as an argument against life's 3.7  billion-year (at least) evolution from unicellular microorganisms into the complex multicellular life we see today?  Not in the slightest.  There are many reasons for this, and they can all be summed up in one sentence: Earth is not an isolated system.  Every single atom of our being was forged in the furnaces of space (or the freezer of space, depending on the particular atom).  Every element on this planet was born in space during stellar collisions and/or explosions.  Without greenhouse gases trapping heat from the sun, we would all freeze to death.  Almost every bit of the body's essential vitamin D is absorbed from the sun.  Every single plant on the planet is provided its life by the sun, in the process known as photosynthesis.  Every animal we eat relies on either plants or smaller animals that live off the earth's flora and fauna, which feed off of the sun.  And the animals in group A all the way down rely on the sun for many things from essential vitamins, to the development of serotonin.  Without the sun, we would not last very long.  The sun is our fuel, and since the sun is an external body - well outside the earth's atmosphere - the earth is in no way considered to be an closed system.  This is why the earth flourishes.

If the earth were a closed system, as the creationists seem to think, then why is there still life at all?  Why would all life not deteriorated and succumb to entropy, as would a colony of bacteria inside of a tightly sealed glass jar with a limited supply of food would?  Because we're not in a sealed glass jar - we're on an open rock, floating through space that is in almost perfect harmony between gravity and centrifugal force (honorable mention for the role dark matter plays in that process as well).

Now that we've established - more than, really - that the earth is not in any way a closed system, and that the Second Law of Thermodynamics in no way applies to the life on the planet earth, lets step back a little bit to the First Law.  As I mentioned before, this is the greatest cherry-pick in pseudoscience history, because the second law is used to argue one aspect of science, while these same people choose to deny the existence of the first law, which disproves their entire hypothesis.  The first law of thermodynamics is the conservation of energy.  It clearly states this: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot under any circumstances be created or destroyed.  Every time we create kinetic energy, we're able to do so only because our body has stored other types of energy.  A neutron may decay, but it will decay into another particle, such as a muon, or it will collide with oxygen to make nitrogen.  All energy and matter on the planet and in the universe is the product of a cyclic transformation.  When we die, the atoms that make up our face could easily one day be the same atoms that make up another person's legs.  The carbon atom (the second most abundant atom in your body, just behind oxygen) that acts as a central composite piece to any amino acid in your body could easily have been nitrogen at one point.  Any singular atom of Nitrogen-14 that you breathe today could have been Carbon-14 at one point, and vice versa, as Carbon-14 eventually decays back into Nitrogen-14.  But keep in mind the half life of Carbon-14, which is 5730 years, give or take 40 years or so. This only means that in 5730 years, half of the atom would have decayed.  In another 5730 years, half of the remaining half would have decayed.  And so on, and so on, until you once again have a Nitrogen-14 atom, which could once again interact with cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere, starting the Carbon-14 process all over again, or if it were to bond with oxygen, it would create carbon dioxide.  Just like it could easily decay into another atom.  Atoms go on to bond with other atoms in order to share electrons, and other atoms bond with them, and others with them, and this is how we have matter.  When that matter breaks down, those same atoms will surely bond again, creating something else.  We are, if there ever was one, a grand example of the success of recycling.

The point of all of this rambling is that creationists make up the majority of the world's evolution denialists, yet creationists seem to think that energy can be created, yet it cannot be.  How did God create all of this energy and matter in violation of his own thermodynamic laws?  And since God would have to be energy and matter himself in order to exist, who then created God?  The Big Bang Theory (as much as I hate to use that term, as it was originally meant to be derogation) compensates for this quite easily, in that something didn't come from nothing, as the creationist would have you believe.  Instead, all of the energy and matter in the universe was compressed into one incredibly dense point, until it exploded, spreading out all of the matter and anti-matter that we know today, and from this chaos, emerged the chaotic system of space that we have today, where there is only order because of chaos.  There are other hypotheses as well, but most of them stem from the big bang, because not only have most of the big bang's predictions confirmed, as with the gradual expansion of the universe, but also, we've taken photos of the central point itself.  Lets remember, when we look into space, we're looking back into time because photons (light) can only travel so fast, and we only see because of reflections of light.  Many of the stars we're seeing in the night sky may have already been destroyed, and we'd never know it with the naked eye.  Our galaxy is 100,000 light years across, so it can take upwards of 100,000 years for us to see something happen in space in our own galaxy.  Our galaxy is one of 10,000 that we've already discovered, many of which could have been completely destroyed millions, if not billions of years ago, and we'd never know it.  Light itself stands as the single greatest evidence against the 6,000 year universe hypothesis, as if the universe is only 6,000 years old, then why can I see Andromeda, which is 2.5 million light years away?  According to creationists, we shouldn't be able to see God create Andromeda for another 2,494,000 years.  The second piece of evidence against creationism, included in the matter of light, is the photographic evidence of the big bang from NASA.  And, of course, The first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Thank you, and thanks for reading.  And don't forget to bring up Andromeda next time you're in a heated discussion about the age of the universe and of the age of the earth.  It's kind of a debate killer in and of itself, assuming your opponent understands light and human vision.  But I guess we can never assume that, can we?

I Have the Power...Bracelet

Oh, so many absurdities.  What is it about our civilization that seems to force at least a marginal percentage of the population into complete ignorance of empirical value?  What is it that has us put any level of trust into unsubstantiated claims - admittedly unsubstantiated claims?  There's a reason the psychic hotline commercials flash the words For entertainment purposes only at the bottom of your television screen.  There is a reason that the overpriced bottles of water you buy at your local homeopathic shops can never make any actual medical claims (and should be forced to read, "Very expensive pee inside.").  But what is the reason for the lack of disclaimer in the human brain that should say, "Hey, just because athletes are wearing this, doesn't mean it has any real-life relevance.  Maybe, just maybe, they're being paid to promote the product like the incredibly, unusually hot woman at the bar who keeps ordering the same drink and keeps talking to random guys about how good it is.."

In this particular sense, I'm talking about something I noticed back in 2008, and apparently I was a year behind the trend, per usual.  The trend is called the Power Balance bracelet, and packs within it some of the most unbelievably unsubstantiated, and at times, impossible, claims I've heard since I was first introduced to Astrology as a teenager.  These claims are also admittedly unsubstantiated by the makers of the product, which you can read about here in an article from Yahoo! Sports from January of this year.

The claims in particular is that these bracelets have the ability to interact with the body's natural energy to increase balance, speed, endurance, flexibility, strength (by 500%), and from something I read about a while ago, I heard they're also known to cause Spidey-Sense.  Now keep in mind, I'm not talking about the power bracelet worn by Link in The Legend of Zelda, I'm talking about a real life item here, that actually claims to have similar powers of magic and mystery, while interacting with an energy field just as magical and mysterious.  Even the great and powerful Shaquille O'Neal swears by them, citing they're the secret to his success.  Though, I don't remember him doing anything of note since I was a kid (and by "of note" I don't mean Shaq-Fu) and Power Bracelets have only been out since 2007.  Are they retroactive?  Do they posses the power of reverse time travel on top of all of their mystical powers?

The Evidence
Just briefly, for the sake of argument, let's examine the evidence in favor of the Power Balance bracelet.  The first piece of evidence is that the makers say the bracelets give you powers.  The last piece of evidence is that paid spokespersons say they give you powers.  Since both of these are merely unproven conjecture, let's move on to the evidence against the bracelets.  A study was performed by the Independent Investigations Group (IIG) in 2010 which used actual scientific methods - imagine that - to determine the effects of the bracelets vs that of placebo.  Four bracelets were used in the experiment, with only one of them being an authentic Power Balance bracelet.  All four were wrapped in tape so that none of the participants, nor the scorekeepers of the event, knew which person was wearing the authentic one.  According to the athletic trial results, in each trial, the results of placebo were exactly the same as the results of the bracelet. Zero statistical significance.  Conclusion A: Power Balance bracelets are placebo and nothing more.

Next, researchers at RMIT's School of Health and Sciences duplicated the above experiment, finding the same result.  Something to note: These researchers were chiropractors.  If you have people as low in the field of pseudoscience such as chiropractors saying that your product is bunk and has no empirical truth to it, that really says something.  Conclusion B: Power Balance bracelets are placebo and nothing more.

The website's own videos, before being removed earlier this year, showed videos of people stretching without, then with the power bracelet on their wrists.  One person would stretch a few times, then apply the bracelet, and stretch again, showing increased flexibility.  Problem A: There's no way of actually knowing if the person was stretching to their fullest extent in the first place.  Problem B: We have no time scale as reference.  Problem C: A person always becomes slightly more flexible from one stretch to another.  This is why it's called stretching in the first place.  This shows intent to provide misleading experimental results, and to me, in what I refer to as the d factor, counts as negative evidence, as deceptive experimental presentation not only demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the product, but that the producers of the conclusions know the product are completely aware.  Conclusion C: Power Balance bracelets are placebo and nothing more; and their product is knowingly deceptive (d=3x10^-4).

A Deeper Concern
What you're looking at in a Power Bracelet is a silicone version of a power crystal.  Yet, even after the company was forced to recant any and all claims that power crystals improve your performance in any way, people still buy them.  People still sell them in airports.  People can still by them on websites for ovarian cancer, which is deeply troubling to me, as it doesn't take a marketing genius to see the implications of that.  You can still buy them online for the same price they were before they were forced to admit their product was absolute hokum, and people still buy them.  Their projected sales in 2011 aren't that far off from their $30 million in sales the previous year.  Now, we all know definitively that the power of this product is entirely a work of fiction, but - I can't stress this enough - people are still buying them!

The company can legally no longer use the term "performance technology" in their ads or their packaging.  The company can legally no longer claim that their product increases performance of any kind beyond that of placebo.  The company had to, at its own expense, release a series of ads correcting previous claims of the bracelet increasing a person's strength, flexibility, or performance.  They can legally no longer say the bracelets are designed to work with the body's natural energy field.  Plus, they legally had to offer full refunds, with postage, to each and every person who had ever purchased their product.  The makers of the product were forced to publicly denounce their own product in front of the world to drive the point home that their product is for entertainment purposes only.  What more do you need?

This is indicative of a much deeper problem than just one product.  This is, itself, the entire reason I write this blog: People will continue to believe things, even at their expense, no matter the lack of evidence, or even the contrary evidence to the affects of a product, entity, or practice.  I understand that people these days have a level of mistrust toward science, and are therefore always looking for alternatives.  This is one of the reasons for the vast disconnect between science and the general populace.  Science is hard to follow in many ways for someone who doesn't maintain an interest.  "How can those physicists and cosmologists know the age of the universe when they weren't there?" someone may ask; although, if they read a little deeper and followed the fields with a level of interest, they would actually see how simple it is for them to know using very easy step by step processes.  They may also say that organizations such as the FDA are unreliable for certain reasons.  While I will admit there are conflicts of interest.  I don't understand for the life of me why most of it is made up of pharmaceutical executives (those who've only worked on the financial and monetary side of medical science) instead of the scientists who actually produce the medicines in the first place (those who may actually know what they're talking about and have a substantiated authority on matters of medicine).  However, this does not make the FDA untrustworthy in the long run.  In fact, I would venture to say that if even the FDA won't approve something, that says something about the value of the product itself (I refer you back to the Chiropractor point I made before regarding the magic bracelets).

I understand the distrust toward modern science, but it is entirely unsubstantiated and based on misunderstandings and disconnects.  Scientists are here to help people and make the world a better place.  If we weren't, we wouldn't have gone into our various fields, which, on average, have very limited earning potential.  Therefore, if the entirety of modern science is telling you that you're just throwing money down the drain by purchasing a product, then why would you not listen and at least investigate a little?  The claims made by power bracelets are no more absurd than the claims made by astrologers, psychics, homeopathic retailers; and I think most people know that none of those fields are worth the paper their professions' names are written on.  Why, then, do people still continue to visit the astrologer, the psychic, the homeopathic doctor, and the chiropractor?  Is it a pure lack of critical thinking, or are people really just that lazy that they'll just believe what they're told by any quack with a website (because they won't give just anybody one of those)?  I personally believe the latter.

Laziness is not a trait unknown to humans.  Let's face it: Many people would rather drive four blocks to the convenience store than walk it, even though it's only a few blocks away, and the walk might actually be beneficial to you and to the environment.  But that's not the laziness I'm talking about.  I'm referring to intellectual laziness, when combined for a desire for power and an unwillingness to do anything to gain it, this causes people to resort to believing crazy claims in the hopes that they can get that one hour workout in five minutes; they can see into the future to see what they should be doing in the present; they can burn a candle and speak a few archaic words and they'll somehow get rich; and worse than any of it, they'll actually believe a single word written in The Secret.  This creates a need for faith in people which is ultimately destructive to them.  These people will pump as much money as they can into crazy products, churches, sprititualists, "advisers", and other entities in order to obtain something without having to work for it.  Combine this physical laziness with intellectual laziness, and you have someone who would rather go broke than not subscribe faith into every shortcut that is offered to them, no matter how absurd it sounds, and no matter how unsubstantiated it is.  Just believing what they're told and having faith is easier than reading a little bit about such claims.

Intellectual laziness is a trait that is so common among people that it sort of hurts to think about - which is coincidental of me to say, because looking at so many people in this country, one would assume that thinking must be painful or at least incredibly straining.  Yes, it is easier to just believe what you're told than to compare all of the available evidence and come to your own educated conclusions.  Yes, just thinking that everything happens because it happens, is a lot easier than questioning why and how things happen.  It's much easier to just walk down the sidewalk without thinking about it at all, instead of thinking of all of the physical principles you're applying when walking, not to mention what's happening under your feet at the subatomic level with every step you take.  Many people don't find this interesting, and I think the only reason for this is because it all seems too daunting.  The big words; the hard equations; the imagination; the scientific method and process; it's all so much harder.  Yet, you'll notice that when you read one book on science, you have to read another, and another, and another, until you're a sponge soaking up information and you're doing your own experiments at home, in time, based after your own original hypotheses.  The problem is that most people don't take that first step because of a laziness that is brought about by fear - the fear that they may not be able to understand it.  But the more you read, the easier it all becomes, until you're up at 5:00 AM conclusively disproving the young earth creation story using the speed of light with one hand, and eating your Cheerios with the other (read about this here on August 1).

Just that one boost could be the difference between a life of ignorance and a life of scientific inquiry and success.  But most never receive that boost.  Their parents never encourage it, or they never get over the fear of feeling stupid, or they didn't have the best teachers, or any number of reasons.  Maybe they grew up in a cult and never had access to scientific papers.  Who am I to judge?  What I can do is say that this first step is something that we, as a society, need to start concerning ourselves with.  People need to see just how cool the universe is before they can develop an interest.  If that scientific interest were to be developed in more people, we would see psychics, astrologers, and Power Bracelets diminished within just a generation or two.  And how great of a world would that be?

Thanks for reading.  Next week, I'll be posting a few experiments I performed with face-to-face psychics and telepsychics a few years ago that were quite fun to perform, and should be very fun to read.  And on the first of the month, I'll be introducing a new feature to the blog called Monthly Arguments Against Evolution, where I'll be choosing one particular argument against the theory of evolution to burn to the ground on a monthly basis.  Keep smiling and always be skeptical.