Trust me.....I'm a scientist

[dragon]

On the radio the other day, I heard a trio of eminent scientists – a mathematician, a psychologist and one other – provide a layperson’s explanation of a branch of mathematics called Game Theory. It was described as the mathematics of decision making. So influential has this mathematics become, that governments use it, economists use it etc., etc. The games discussed on the programme included a well known one called the Prisoner’s Dilemma, an important application of which is analysing how two countries might behave when locked in an arms race. Apparently over 2000 scientific papers have been published on this game alone. Other games include the Hawk and Dove, Chess and a game, not given a name, where two people meet on the pavement and each has to make a decision about passing the other before going on their respective ways. Underpinning Game Theory are two human behaviours: cooperation and competition.

Several things about the programme jumped out at me.

First of all, consider the ‘game’ of two people meeting on a pavement and passing each other. This game, the scientists claimed, is very simple. I disagree. As soon as two people come close enough to pass each other on the street, they are close enough to be communicating and so a supposedly ‘simple’ scenario actually becomes a very complex one. That the scientists were unable to appreciate this complexity raises questions right from the start. It could, therefore, be seen as alarming that government, economists and military strategists increasingly rely on these mathematical fantasies. Nor is it insignificant that one of the instigators of game theory had such ‘a beautiful mind’ that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, a mental condition which severely distorts a person’s view of other people. A man who suffered delusions and hallucinations, who lived in a completely hallucinatory world where every human being was a monster, a demon or an alien, is renowned and respected for his insight into human behaviour. Am I the only one who sees a flaw in this?

As previously mentioned, underpinning Game Theory is the belief of the scientists that they understand and can distinguish between cooperative and competitive behaviour. However, it is quite clear that they confuse teamwork with cooperation. They also completely fail to understand that these are not behavioural choices. If you are cooperative, you exhibit cooperative behaviour (harmony is a good word to use here), whereas if you are competitive, you exhibit competitive behaviour. A competitive person can never be cooperative, nor can a cooperative person be competitive.

Another factor that reveals the scientists’ failure to understand the difference between cooperation and competition is that they totally misinterpret behaviour in the natural world as very predatory and competitive. Scientists have put much time and effort over the years into investigating whether or not there are any instances of altruism which would imply cooperation in nature (the Hawk and Dove game is an aspect of this). The distinction drawn between selfishness and altruism is shockingly revealing of an abysmal failure to understand the difference between cooperation and competition. The simple fact is that to be selfish, to act with your own true and complete self-interest in mind, is not to compete with other people, is not to damage or hurt other people, but is to live in harmony with them. (I do acknowledge, however, that nature is red in tooth and claw, but all is not what it seems.)

Finally, some thoughts on the modern phenomenon of making science understandable to the layperson, as the scientists on this programme were attempting to do.

Imagine you have never seen or practiced cookery in your life, but have heard of a thing called baking. You ask someone to tell you what is this ‘baking a cake’. It is described to you in great detail so you think you know what ‘baking a cake’ is. You then get an opportunity to try ‘baking a cake’. But you then discover that you do not know what ‘baking a cake’ is after all. Only AFTER the experience of ‘baking a cake’ do you know what ‘baking a cake’ is. In the same way, you cannot understand what higher mathematics is about unless you have done it for yourself. So, what are these people doing who purport to be educating the lay public? They are advertising themselves and their subjects by jumping onto the celebrity bandwagon. Having said which, one can be very sure that there is very little truth in what one is hearing.

Since Gilbert and Sullivan coined this lyric “Things are seldom what they seem, skimmed milk masquerades as cream…….” the situation has become much, much worse and one might now say "sewage masquerades as cream.."

[bwoz]

Well, obviously you fail to realize the scientists are much smarter than you, so two people passing on the street really is a simple game. And I guess you fail to understand that scientists are the only people on this planet who have half an idea of what is or is not important, and that theory is more relevant that facts. Of course, they also need facts to back up their theories so why not just invent them. Look at the global warming (now called climate change) farce that "serious scientists" spewed into the societal main stream. It couldn't quite hold water (that it is all man caused) so they made up some numbers.

Of course I'm just kidding that you are not as "smart" as the scientists. Anymore, science is all about building notariety, to chase donations and grants so they don't have to have real scientist jobs. To me, the "real" scientists are those people who delve into the muck and mire of the world to discover, analyze, report and build knowledge -- and most are working out in the field, most don't make a lot of money, most spend a lot of time away from family....those hacks that invent crap from some university lab with other people's money give science a bad name.

So, good article. The title made me read it, and glad I did. I say we need 1/4 as many scientists, lawyers and politicians in the world, the gene pool would clear up in a hurry.

BW

[Sue]

Lots of generalisations here, Dragon. I find it simplest to answer that you merely cherry-pick the examples on which to build your argument.

It is arguable that the human sciences are much fuzzier than the physical sciences because, as you imply, the human race is such a devious lot. You don't seem to notice that scientists are also people! Therefore they too exhibit a wide range of behaviours, and so I suppose there must be some people working in science who hide facts, tell lies, or build theories on assumptions (ring any bells there?). Luckily, they are not the ones I have met nor the ones whose work lasts and is respected.

The problem is that the broadcast and print media are hungry for snippets of fact to present to their audiences/readers in a short time frame, and then it is possible for even the most rigorously accurate work to be badly misrepresented.

[Sooz]

Interesting article. My tuppence is that people are people and the competitor on Monday is the cooperator on Tuesday, it is dependent on time, mood, interaction and outside influence. How a person behaves in a situation with one person can be quite different when he interacts with somebody else. Concise and well written. It's good to stretch the mind elastic.

[dragon]

Thanks, Sooz, for your comment.

people are people and the competitor on Monday is the cooperator on Tuesday,.

My response to this is that in this age of science and technology, we have been sold the idea, consciously or otherwise, that the mind is like a computer. That is, you can use one set of software one day and change at will to another the next. No. Cooperative and competitive behaviour lie much deeper. It is, as it were, at the roots of the human mind and from those roots higher behaviours develop. So it is only on the surface, only to appearance, that behaviour changes. I stand by what I said.

[dragon]

Thanks again, Sue, for your comment.

[quote="Sue"] I find it simplest to answer that you merely cherry-pick the examples on which to build your argument.[quote]

Yes, I am cherry picking. This is a condition of the restrictions of this site. I could have picked from a whole mountain of cherries, but I could not have published them all here.

You comment: Luckily, they (scientists)are not the ones I have met nor the ones whose work lasts and is respected.

I could argue with this on the basis of much personal experience and evidence. If you knew the truth about Einstein and the history of physics from the inside, you might change your mind. But, again, there is not space here to spell out the case fully; so you'll just have to make up your own mind.

But a second point is this: one might say that it only takes one rotten apple and when that apple is at the apex of a peer review system i.e. has the power of veto over all publications, then that rotten apple has the power to ensure that the whole system is rotten.

[dragon]

Thanks, bwoz, for your comment.

Actually, I think the argument goes beyond the quality of scientists. Fundamentally, the sick man is science itself. Science is based on a set of beliefs. That is to say holding up the whole structure are a set of suppositions for which there is absolutely no evidence and for which there are perfectly viable alternatives which, if true, would change the whole body of scientific knowledge as well as the very way in which it is practiced i.e. the experimental method.

This has some far reaching and rather dramatic implications. However, as I have had cause to point out in reply to another comment, there is not the space here to do the subject justice.

[Keith exD]

I'm a scientist (or was before I retired) and I think I'm quite trustworthy really.

[Phil]

And you still insist you're not taking the rise?

Again, a piece full of wild generalisations, statements with no evidence to back them up.

I'm not going to defend all scientists - I'm sure there's some dreadful science going on out there - but let's get real. Alternative explanations? The Easter Bunny didn't invent a vaccine for small pox, that was a scientist last time I looked. (And sure, not a very nice person by all accounts.) It was a scientist who stopped my toothache. It was a scientist that designed the computer I'm working on etc...etc..

It appears to be lazy thinking and lazy writing; nonsense dressed as intelligent debate. If you have depth to this argument - and the other apparently crackpot ones you espouse here - perhaps it's time you laid them out instead of saying that you can't do it on GW. I'd be genuinely fascinated.

As we're on a writing site - I'd better direct this to the writing - but then everything I've said so far is about the writing. Because your ideas are not conventional, you have a hard sell. That's why I say lazy writing. This doesn't do it. Good scientists will tell you they are looking all the time to disprove a theory and then formulate the next. Good scientists use evidence for this. Your writing, while challenging conventional thought (nothing wrong in that) uses absolutely no evidence.

Phil (Who's yet to be won over.)

[Keith exD]

I am inclined to agree with Phil. Sometimes I suspect you are a psychology student, testing a theory for your studies to be a psychiatrist. Measuring reactions to the various degrees of eccentricity in your writing.

If I am wrong, I suggest you consider going to see one.