Attack Logic, Not Data

Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

Pseudoscience is often based on bad data, and if we can conclusively show the data is wrong, or faked, we should do it. But very often the data is valid, but the conclusions drawn from it are wrong. Other times the data are dubious but widely believed, or so passionately cherished that any attempt to attack the data will fall on deaf ears.

In such cases, it's best to assume the data are true and focus on the logic. Very often, you can still show that, even if the data are valid, the conclusion is wrong. You spot your opponent a huge lead and still win.

The Bell Curve

One of the most controversial books of recent years was The Bell Curve. The title comes from the fact that many variables in statistics follow a bell-shaped curve. IQ scores do, and it is generally true that the average score for whites on IQ tests is higher than blacks. 

In the sketch at left, the upper curve represents the distribution for whites, the lower curve the distribution for blacks.

Some people will be offended no matter what I say, but a couple of caveats are in order. The curves differ in height for the simple reason that there are a lot more whites than blacks. And the curves are schematic - they are not meant to be exact.

The average score for blacks, the vertical line for the green area, is lower than that for whites, the vertical line for the blue area. Most psychologists believe that the difference, which is small, is not statistically meaningful, and is mostly due to differences in education and culture. Whites do pretty poorly on intelligence tests designed specifically for blacks.

The thesis of The Bell Curve was that the difference is real, and is due to genetic differences. Although there are sound scientific reasons to question that conclusion, the objections are likely to come across as self-serving to someone who's really convinced there is a difference. It's likely to be much more effective to attack the logic that people use to interpret the curves. In other words, assume the data is okay and demolish the logic. Show that, even if the data are valid, the conclusions are wrong.

For openers, there is no such thing as either bell curve. If you took everyone who took the tests and lined them up by score, the lines for the middle scores would be longest. Seen from the air, the crowd would outline the bell curve. But every point within the curve represents a specific individual. If a black person and a white person have the same score, what difference does it make what the average score for that racial group is?

In fact, we can go much further. Let's assume that IQ scores really do measure intelligence accurately. In that case, for any given IQ score, all the blacks above that score are smarter than all the whites below it.

Interesting, isn't it, how we never hear this point from believers in The Bell Curve?

The Missing Day

The missing day story has been repeated over and over for years in fundamentalist circles. Supposedly, NASA scientists uncovered evidence for the earth standing still (Joshua 10:12-14) or reversing as described inII Kings 20:8-11. The story seems to have been first published by Harold Hill in his book How To Live Like A King's Kid. According to Hill, the NASA scientists "were looking into the trajectories of known asteroids and meteors so we wouldn't send astronauts and satellites up only to have them bump into something." As they ran the calculations of the planets' positions back and forth over the centuries, "the computer stopped and put up a red flag. ... They called in the service department to check it out". When the technicians asked what the problem was, the operators replied "Well, the computer shows there's a day missing somewhere in elapsed time." Finally a religious member of the team suggested the answer might lie in the events recorded in the Old Testament.

Now, if you attempt to deal with this story by arguing that the miracles in the Old Testament did not happen, you will get exactly nowhere. So what to do? Assume the Old Testament accounts are true. The story itself is full of internal clues that brand it a fake:

So you can either get into a no-win argument with someone who is probably not ready to question the literalness of the Old Testament, or you can bypass that quagmire and attack the story for its own internal flaws.

Intelligent Design

Case in point: Intelligent Design. Advocates of Intelligent Design among the general public seem to think that if Intelligent Design triumphs, the whole Biblical literalist canon will follow. But even if we can demonstrate the  existence of an Intelligent Designer, that does not prove:

So if the concept of Intelligent Design is so far removed from proving the Biblical literalist position, why are so many scientists reacting to it with something akin to panic? Because unfortunately, a lot of scientists have not bothered to pick the logical chain apart. By reacting to Intelligent Design as if it were tantamount to validating Biblical literalism, they have in fact made it so in the eyes of Biblical literalists.

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Created 8 December, 2001, Last Update 24 May, 2020

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