A "what if" question

[dmallind]

Skeptics are often accused of having a closed mind which rejects any change to "settled" science. We are told often of our materialist bias" and that we can only accept the "obvious".

Well OK let's see if that's true. I confess I would have a tough time answering this one - in part because astronomy is one of my weakest sciences.

So - imagine you are a well educated layman but non-specialist in astronomy in the early 16th century, convinced as were most of that type and era that the sun orbited the earth. Your friend Nick Copernicus is trying to convince you otherwise, but you lack any of the knowledge or technology unavailable at the time. You also realize he knows way more astronomy than you, but you're suspicious because he has had some wacky ideas in the past.

How would he persuade you, and how easily would you be persuaded? What objections would you have to defend what you always "knew" to be true? It's difficult in this case to rely on empirical evidence beyond questionable observation after all.

If we can consider a (wildly hypothetical) modern analogy, what for example would convince you that there are parallel universes containing doppelgangers of yourself?

[lazarus]

1. in the first case

showing how the orbits shift (I seem to remember it's called precession) around the sun from our perspective should be enough to convince me of a heliocentric view.

As for parallel universes, I can accept it as a theoretical concept, but the maths are too hard for me to be able to do more than just take their word for it.

[Orrex]

2. As a general standard of evidence...

All else being equal, an explanation that is consistent with established and well-understood science is superior to an explanation that additionally requires certain poorly-substantiated assumptions to be made. In order to be true, many clams of extra-normal phenomena would require the total revision of our understanding of physics, biology, neurology, and/or chemistry. In contrast, a mundane explanation is frequently sufficient and requires no large-scale revision of existing science.

That is, if a cold spot can be explained by, say, a draft descending from a leaky air duct, then this explanation is superior to the explanation that ghosts or spirits or supernatural "energy" is at work, because we have no evidence (and no way to verify) those latter three, while the former explanation is easily confirmed and consistent with general experience.


Sure, there will be cases where the oddball explanation is the correct one (general relativity, for instance), but even in cases like that the explanation is powerfully supported by its underlying math, and it's verified by subsequent experiment. In the vast majority of cases, however, the esoteric or "non-obvious" explanation turns out to be either entirely bogus or fatally non-verifiable.


Regarding parallel doppelgangers, I say let's see the evidence. Absent such evidence, let's see the math, and let's see the implications of that the math borne out through subsequent experimental observation.

[Silent3]

3. In the time of Copernicus...

...it would be very hard to convince a non-astronomer of a Sun-centered "universe" (we can't call it a "solar system" until we've decided the Sun is indeed at the center). What Copernicus could demonstrate to you is how much better his predictions of the positions of the planets come out if we presume a Sun-centered system with the Earth as just another planet, and planets following elliptical orbits, than if we use a Ptolemaic Earth-centered system with complicated nestings of circular epicycles.

If you don't understand the math, if you don't rely on precise observations of the planets in your daily life to make these issues of precision relevant to you, and you do know that other supposedly learned people disagree with Copernicus, what Copernicus would have to say to you much to go on.

Even though you wouldn't be defending the ultimately correct answer, it wouldn't be that terribly unreasonable a position to simply side with then-current most popular view and say that it was Copernicus' burden of proof to unseat that view.

Francis Bacon wouldn't have even been born yet, so there's little chance you'd have anything close to an understanding of something similar to the scientific method by which to evaluate the relative merits of Copernicus views, grounded more in direct observation, and the more accepted Ptolemaic view, based more on detached intellectual arguments and ideological prejudices for things like perfect circles.

[salvorhardin]

4. Right on. Skepticism doesn't assure you of the right answers.

Skepticism means withholding belief in something until you have good evidence for it. Additionally, scientific skepticism (as opposed to philosophical skepticism) provides a set of tools, plus a body of knowledge, for weighing evidence and claims.

You can't equate skepticism with science either. Most skeptics do not have the necessary knowledge to make reasonable judgments about any given scientific field. Even those skeptics who are also scientists will not usually have more than limited knowledge beyond their primary field of study. Worse still, most fields these days are so highly specialized that even experts in one aspect of a particular field will not know much about other areas within their field.

So the best course of action for skeptics is to accept the scientific consensus for any given scientific topic as the best explanation that we have right now. The consensus may well be wrong, but without the knowledge and skills of the scientists working on that topic, how would you know? Would you even know the right questions to ask?

That doesn't mean skeptics can't question consensus science, but if your questioning leads you to believe differently than scientific consensus then you should be as skeptical of your conclusions as you are of the consensus. Which leads you right back to withholding belief again -- except this time you need to withhold belief in your own conclusions.

[Silent3]

6. I think it's the fear of eventually turning out to be wrong...

...combined with outcome bias (all the stories of things now accepted by science as true that were not accepted, maybe even ridiculed at one time, without a tally, for comparison, of all of the failed ideas that have never found success) that leads to a lot of woo -- the kind of ass backward thinking where objection to an idea by scientific consensus is taken as a positive sign that something is all the more likely to turn out to be correct.

[salvorhardin]

7. That sounds about right to me

No doubt it's more complicated, but definitely the innate human need to know the capital-A Answer plays a huge role.

[Silent3]

5. (self delete)

(replied to wrong message)

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. I haven't read Copernicus' orginal book, or Galileo's 'discusion' on it

but my understanding is that Copernicus' calculations, at least, weren't particularly convincing, because he too wanted to stick to perfect circles. Since the orbits are all actually ellipses, Coperncius had to fudge a few things to get his orbits as accurate, for prediction, as the long-standing Ptolemaic (sp?) predictions. It wasn't until Kepler used Brahe's observations to come up with his laws of planetary motion of ellipitcal orbits, with angular veloicty linked to the distance from the Sun, that the superiority of a heliocentric system became clear.

Copernicus was important because of a complete change in how you could look at motion, rather than being a fully presented, absolutely correct, theory, I think.

[Silent3]

9. You're right, I was leaping ahead a bit to Kepler

All Copernicus would have had then was a more elegant, simpler way to reach rough approximations of correct planetary positions than Ptolemaic epicycles, making his argument a less persuasive challenge to existing consensus at the time.