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Fanatics and Fallacies @ 07:47 pm
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thoughtful
thoughtfulMusic: Computer fans and grocery store clatter.
A few weeks ago, one of my co-workers--whom I shall call Ron--discovered that I am an amateur astronomer. (How he did this is a side story which I won't relate at this time.) He gave me the URL to a Web site he said was full of good information supported by people with doctorates and degrees and experience. I thought, . o O ( Well, that sounds great, but I'll give him the URL of a site I like in return, then we can both talk about it. ) Ron pointed me at Enterprise Mission (warning: high image content and poor site design--everything is right on the front page). I pointed Ron at Bad Astronomy (a few site navigation issues, but basically a sound place).
Now, being a regular Bad Reader, I knew something of the (dodgy) Enterprise Mission already, but being that I like to know both sides of a situation or argument, I thought I'd go have another look. At least, I thought, I can brush up on the most recent nonsense and thus be better-equipped to speak with Ron when next we met at work. To his credit, Ron DID actually have a look at Bad Astronomy. But, when he approached me over the next few days, he was almost shouting--as though I had, in some way, insulted his personal hero. He talked about how Bad Astronomy didn't actually PROVE any of Enterprise Mission's claims wrong, but instead just SAID they were wrong (which isn't true).
I don't normally like to involve myself in quasi-religious debates--Windows versus Macintosh, Astronomy versus Astrology--but I tried to gently prod Ron into reconsidering some of his beliefs, encouraged him to read some of the Bad Astronomy pages. I hoped that with some sound, scientific information that he would at least entertain the possibility that the solar system is not littered with alien ruins or that NASA is not a covert agency focused solely on keeping "the truth" from the public.
Sadly, this was not the case.
For a little while, I tried talking to Ron on my own, rather than relying entirely on the Bad Astronomy information, but I discovered that debating things with a pseudoscientist is next to impossible. Not only did Ron actually swear at me and raise his voice, but he seems to know the ins and outs of the "theories" pretty well, while my knowledge of the nonsense is pretty minimal: therefore, it's impossible for me to argue against every point he might bring up. This single-minded behavior puzzled me. I agree with the Bad Astronomy pages because they make the most sense. Would I LIKE for the solar system to be strewn with the leavings of previous inhabitants? Sure! That would be amazing! But in the face of so much evidence to the contrary, how can a pseudoscientist maintain his religious fervor?
It took me a while to figure it out, but I think I've got it.
The psuedoscientists have lots of theories and predictions--they're really guesses and wishful thinking, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt. One of the Enterprise Mission predictions is called the Mars Tidal Model, and what it purports to do is predict where ancient Martian oceans once seethed on the surface. Thanks to the Mars Express orbiter from ESA, we're getting REALLY great images of the Martian surface. One of the recent images appears to be plates of some kind (think tectonic plates, though it seems unlikely that Mars ever had much tectonic activity)... and the current leading interpretation of these is: they might be plates of ice on a frozen ocean, covered over with dust. To me, this seems as likely as anything, given that we're now certain water once flowed across the surface of Mars. That's GREAT support for the Mars Tidal Model, as it would mean there's water EXACTLY where the model predicted it would be.
(Never mind, for the moment, that a lowland just off the largest, tallest, highest terrain feature on the planet is a LIKELY place for ANYONE to expect water to collect.)
Unfortunately, instead of simply accepting this information and adding it to their side of the "argument," the Enterprise Mission folks claim this PROVES they were right all along about another of their "theories." Which one? This one, about how an ancient Martian city lies buried in a sheet of ice beneath Cydonia. I've never had a logic class, so I don't know the proper name for this fallacy of argument, but it's just not CORRECT to say that something you've claimed all along is proved by a "leading interpretation" of some pictures. I'm sorry, it's just not.
This, I think, is where the psuedoscientists are getting their energy to continue fighting. I'm not prepared to say that everything they spout is incorrect--there's an excellent debunking of the "Apollo Moon Landing Was A Hoax!" theory, written by the Enterprise Mission's "principal investigator," Richard Hoagland. My view of the universe is it's sufficiently strange that anything might, in fact, be waiting out there. But I want to see some evidence before I believe it, and I think it's plenty strange already without our having to see aliens behind every surface feature of every non-terrestrial worldlet.
"For me, the causality is unconvincing."
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