The Absurdity of Corporate-Flavored “Anti-Science” Charges

Nowadays the term “anti-science” is being used in some fairly ridiculous ways. The term should rightfully be reserved for those who are opposed to the scientific method, or who reject the majority of scientific findings established by some large branch of science. But nowadays I read many people abusing the term “anti-science.” Writers nowadays are often throwing around the term “anti-science” as a term of abuse used against those who reject particular technological choices. Such charges are usually absurd, because technological choices should not be confused with science.

Let's consider the case of GMO's – genetically modified organisms. A GMO is usually created when some scientist plays around with the genes of some organism that is used for food, in hopes of doing something like increasing crop yields. Whether it is a good idea to do such a thing is actually a very complicated issue, involving lots of related issues such as subtle potential side effects. But GMO proponents want to make the matter nice and simple – if you oppose GMOs, or want your food to have labels indicating whether it has a genetically modified organism, then you're “anti-science.”

Such reasoning is absurd, because a GMO is not science. It is a technological product made using some scientific knowledge. So is a Justin Bieber CD, which is a product made using scientific knowledge involving electromagnetism. If you decide not to consume GMO's, this would be no more “anti-science” than choosing not to purchase a Justin Bieber CD. Genetics is a science, but genetically modified organisms are not science. They are a technological product.

It is also an abuse of language to be using the term “anti-science” against people who choose not to use particular medical products, even vaccinations. Now let me make it clear: I believe in vaccinations, and I have made sure that my children have all the required vaccinations. If a person chooses not to get vaccinations for himself or his children, that is a decision that may be rightfully criticized in several sound ways. But a charge of being “anti-science” is not one of them. An injection is not science; it is a technological product. A person should never be charged with being “anti-science” because he chooses not to consume a particular technological product.

A particularly ridiculous use of the term “anti-science” is made by proponents of fracking, a messy process for getting natural gas by injecting water into underground rocks. There are many serious reasons why reasonable people might wish to urge caution about such activity. One is environmental, such as the concern that fracking in upstate New York might affect the water supplies that New York City relies on. Recently a new concern arose: the concern that fracking may be causing increased radon levels. A story in yesterday's Washington Post was labeled “Rise of deadly radon gas in Pennsylvania buildings linked to fracking industry.”

But proponents of fracking sometimes try to make the issue real simple: fracking uses science, so if you oppose fracking, you're anti-science.

 Some argue like this

When I read reasoning this absurd, it makes me wonder how an impartial person can make an accusation like that. Then I remember that the people who make these kinds of accusations are often taking money from some corporation that is making money from the technological product that is misrepresented as being “science.”

During the 1950's the government started to test nuclear bombs in Nevada, blowing up more than 100 A-bombs in the atmosphere. The health effects for people living downwind of the tests were often devastating. Those who complained about potential health risks were labeled as “anti-science,” "anti-American,”  and “anti-progress.”  We were assured by numerous authorities that nuclear fallout was pretty harmless. This is something to remember the next time you hear someone being labeled “anti-science” for expressing reservations about some product or activity.

Future Risks: My Take on the WEF Report

The World Economic Forum has been releasing annual reports on global risks. Their latest report, which makes some fascinating reading, can be found here. As the report is quite long, let me reproduce some key graphs from the report, which should make its findings easy to digest.

The report analyzes five types of future risks: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological. Here is their graph showing economic risks (click to expand):

The graph shows more likely events on the right, and events with bigger impact on the top. The graph only projects out to 10 years.

This graph seems pretty reasonable. Economic inequality (meaning the concentration of too much money in the hands of too few people) is correctly listed as one of the biggest risks. Fiscal imbalances (meaning that governments such as the USA have borrowed way too much money and are running deficits too high) is also correctly listed as one of the biggest risks. If we were to make a graph like this showing economic risks for the next fifty years, it would have to show a risk not listed on the above graph: the risk of widespread unemployment caused by automation and use of robots.

Here is the report's graph showing environmental risks (click to expand):

Upon seeing this you may complain that some serious environmental risks are not mentioned here, but it seems that to avoid having the graph too crowded, the authors split up the environmental risks and put some of them on their list of societal risks. Here is that graph (click to expand):

These two graphs cover most of the bases in terms of environmental risk, and correctly list water supply crises and food supply crises as two of the biggest risks. I don't know why the graph rates “rising religious fanaticism” as being more of a threat than “vulnerability to pandemics,” which doesn't seem to make any sense. The chance that you will be killed by some new pandemic (which might in a worst case kill hundreds of millions) is vastly greater than your chance of being killed by an angry religious fanatic; and I'm not sure there's any evidence the number of religious fanatics is increasing.

Here is the report's graph on geopolitical risks (click to expand):

There is one inexplicable omission from this graph and the other graphs: there is no mention of the risk of nuclear war. The graph merely mentions the risk of “diffusion of weapons of mass destruction,” which presumably means more countries acquiring nuclear weapons. The fact is that the world still has many thousands of nuclear weapons, and even if there is no further proliferation of nuclear weapons, we face a very serious risk that these weapons will one day be used. Every single year that thousands of nuclear weapons exist, there is a substantial chance that they will be used, due to accident, miscalculation, or an isolated case of insanity or rage by a local commander such as a missile sub captain.

Here is the report's graph on technological risks (click to expand):

This is the one graph in the series that I find to be something of a misfire. I don't know what they mean by “unforseen consequences of climate change mitigation”--is it a references to hazards of geoengineering? The inclusion here of “failure of intellectual property regime” as a major risk seems inappropriate, as does proliferation of orbital debris (a risk to astronauts, but not the average man).


A suitable graph showing technological risks over the next fifty years would list as major threats the following items (among others):

1. The risk of runaway nanotechnology reproducing out of control
   
2. The risk of the genetic engineering of lethal diseases
   
3. The danger of automation causing a large increase in unemployment
   
4. The risk that an electromagnetic pulse weapon will destroy our electronic infrastructure
   

Here is the report's graph listing the Top 5 Risks by Likelihood and Impact (click to expand):

My only objection to this summary graph is, again, that it inexplicably ignores the risk with greatest impact: the risk of nuclear war. A conservative estimate of the risk of a nuclear war is 1 percent per year. The United States has approximately 2150 active nuclear weapons (7700 in all), and Russia has 1800 (8500 in all). Every year those weapons continue to exist, there is a chance of nuclear war, through things such as a software error, a mechanical error (as in Fail Safe), a deliberate launch of weapons by a sub or missile base commander afflicted by insanity or rage (as in Dr. Strangelove),  or one side misidentifying something as a nuclear attack (such as happened in 1995, described here). Nuclear war should have been listed as the threat with greatest impact.

The Two Colliding Rivers That Will Decide Our Future

For a long time when people have imagined the future, they have used the simple assumption that mankind is being propelled forward by a river of technological progress. In this way of thinking, it is like mankind is a raft that is traveling down a river, a river of technical progress. The general thinking is that we are heading towards some desirable destination downstream on this river, a destination of cool robots, longer lifespans, less work, greater entertainment, and faster and smarter robots.

There is a lot of truth to this simple way of thinking, but it leaves a lot out. What about the fact that global warming is getting worse? What about the fact that our civilization is centered around cheap oil, and needs more and more of it to keep growing, but the global production of crude oil is expected to soon peak, and then start declining? What about the fact that we will soon face shortages of several important metals? What about the fact that our soil is being depleted by over-farming? What about the fact that our fresh water aquifers are being depleted? What about the fact that the earth's population is growing ever greater than the maximum sustainable population that Earth can support?

How do we reconcile these unpleasant facts with the simple idea of man being pushed forward by the river of technological progress to ever more wonderful destinations? Can we imagine all these problems as just being unpleasant little splashes as we travel down the river of technical progress?

No, it seems better to imagine not one river that is propelling mankind, but two rivers. And the two rivers are colliding with each other, pushing in opposite directions. Mankind is caught in the middle. Our fate will depend on whichever river is stronger.

Click to Expand

The first river is the river of technical progress, which tends to propel man forward towards greater levels of progress and comfort. The second river is what we can call the ecology crisis river. This river is tending to push man back towards situations we had hoped we had left behind forever.

There was once a time when energy was expensive, when watering your lawn was unthinkable, when food from around the world was available only to rich people, and when only rich people could afford electricity. If the ecology crisis river is strong enough, it may push mankind back to such an era.

Mankind's fate will be determined by which of these colliding rivers is stronger. If the technical progress river is strong enough, man will be pushed on to a desirable destination of greater progress. But if the ecology crisis river is stronger, we may end up seeing a reversal of human progress.

I am reminded of the famous story of the deathbed words of Alexander the Great. Seeing that he was dying, his generals asked: which one of us shall rule over your empire?

Alexander supposedly answered: whichever one of you is strongest.

7 Strange Contrasts of the Future

The future will be a strange landscape of sharp contrasts, where trends sometime move in opposite directions, leaving results that are diametrically opposed. Let us look at seven of these strange contrasts.

Our virtual worlds will get more beautiful, but our real world will get more ugly.

Virtual worlds are the artificial landscapes created by game designers and art designers working for television and movies. A few decades ago the best virtual worlds looked like crude cartoons, but progress in computer-generated imagery has been breathtaking. Video games such as The Elder Scrolls V: Sykrim and Fable II offer stunningly beautiful vistas, and if you see the latest Pixar movie you may see even more gorgeous make-believe landscapes. As computer technology improves, these virtual worlds will get ever more ravishing.

But as our virtual worlds get more and more beautiful, our real world will probably get more and more ugly. Overpopulation, sprawl, deforestation, and pollution all will play a part in decreasing the beauty of the natural world. We see an example of this in the Alberta Tar Sands in Canada, where a huge lovely natural area is being turned into something almost as ugly as a moonscape. 

There will be more forms of synthetic life, but far fewer forms of natural life.

According to the Wikipedia.org article on synthetic life, "In May 2010, Craig Venter's group announced they had been able to assemble a complete genome of millions of base pairs, insert it into a cell, and cause that cell to start replicating." Scientists will no doubt make many additional forms of synthetic life in the future.

But in coming decades the total number of natural species will sharply decrease. It is estimated that every day 100 species are being lost to deforestation. The National Wildlife Federation has estimated that 27,000 species are becoming extinct every year. Global warming is expected to increase the rate of species loss as more and more species become extinct because their habitat has changed.

The human population will grow higher and higher, but our resources to support it will grow lower and lower.

The human population is expected to grow by billions in the coming decades. Unfortunately, the earthly natural resources to support that population seem to be growing ever smaller. We are using up our reserves of oil, and may be near the peak of oil production; we may have only several decades left of regular crude oil. Several experts think we will hit Peak Coal in a few decades. We are depleting our supplies of fresh water, and the fertility of our soil is gradually declining. In addition, within a few decades we may soon run short on numerous types of metals and minerals such as phosphorus.

We will have more droughts, but also more floods due to rainfall.

Global warming is not making every place hotter and drier. Instead global warming is tending to make hot places hotter, and wet places wetter. A recent scientific paper states, “Climate models project increased aridity in the 21^st century over most of Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East, most of the Americas, Australia, and Southeast Asia. Regions like the United States have avoided prolonged droughts during the last 50 years due to natural climate variations, but might see persistent droughts in the next 20–50 years.”

But other places that tend to get a lot of rain will get even more rain. For example, last month a headline on monsoon floods in India stated: “5000 Missing in India Floods: Scientists Say Global Warming is to Blame.”

People will have more and more information, but the world will be more and more confusing and hard to understand.

Information is supposed to make things easier to understand. If you don't understand the Civil War, read a book or two on it, and you'll understand it. But as we pile up more and more terabytes of information, the world doesn't seem any easier to understand. The world seems to get more and more complex and hard to understand. Even as our science progresses, we add more and more baffling mysteries: black holes, the Big Bang, quantum entanglement, and dark energy, to name a few.

We'll get more effective ways of extending life, and also more effective ways of destroying life.

Scientists are working on exciting life-extension technologies. They know that as we age the units called telomeres at the ends of our chromosomes grow shorter and shorter. Scientists think there may be some way to stop these telomeres from shortening, and that may be the key to extending the human lifespan. Scientists are also doing work on stem cell research and artificial organs, which will offer hope for increasing the human lifespan.

But as this work continues, scientists will also continue work on artificial germs which could wipe out billions of us, drone aircraft which can bring death instantaneously from the sky, and nuclear weapons of increasing deadliness.

Our communication devices are getting ever more sophisticated, but our messages are getting ever more vapid.

Back in the time of Thomas Jefferson, people would use inkwells and quill pens, but they would write long letters to each other with sentences such as “It suffices for us, if the moral and physical condition of our own citizens qualifies them to select the able and good for the direction of their government, with a recurrence of elections at such short periods as will enable them to displace an unfaithful servant before the mischief he meditates may be irremediable.” 

But today the typical smartphone user does not write long letters, but sends out a slew of vacant, vapid little text messages such as “OMG DID U C HER? LOL”

Can Robot Children Help Save the Earth?

Our planet is in trouble because of the environmental impact of the world's growing population. Carbon dioxide levels will soon hit the level of 400 parts per million. Scientists predict that the average global temperature may rise between 2 and 5 degrees centigrade (as much as 9 degrees fahrenheit) by the year 2100. Fish stocks are declining, and the world's oceans are getting warmer and more acidic, which might one day cause a catastrophic mass extinction event. The global supply of fresh water is declining, and large aquifers in the US and other countries are being drained to dangerous levels. Soil fertility levels are declining, and more and more forests are shrinking because of the global pressure to turn forests into farmland or grazing land.

These problems are all related to the environmental footprint of human beings. As population grows, man's effect on the environment grows. As people consume more and more to mimic the lifestyle of the Affluent Society of western countries, man's ecological footprint gets worse. The average American's carbon footprint exceeds 20 tons of carbon per year. Over a 80 year lifespan, that adds up to 1600 tons of carbon being dumped into the atmosphere.

One way to reduce the bad effect of human society on the environment is to reduce population growth. But other than just sexuality itself, there is a major factor that tends to lead to population growth: the simple fact that having children around is lots of fun. When I am on my deathbed and want to think back on my best times on this planet, I will probably remember playing with my children in the park, or playing with my kids in my back yard, or reading a story book to my children. Quite a few parents may think that teenagers can be trouble, but almost all parents love having around the house a child of 6 or 7.

But what if there was some way to give couples the fun of having a small child around the house, without the heavy environmental impact of having a child? Before long, there may well be a way of doing that. The solution: robot children.

Robot children would be huggable humanoid machines designed to simulate small children. For a married couple the rationale behind obtaining a robot child would be to experience some of the joys of parenthood, with lots of nice companionship, but without the environmental cost of adding a new human being to the planet.

For such an invention to make sense from an environmental standpoint, we should not imagine a child robot that is moving around 14 hours a day. The best type of child robot would be one that would be designed to move around only a few hours on weekdays, after their parents returned from work. That would save a lot of energy. There are several ways in which that might be handled. The crudest way might simply be to equip the child robot with an on/off switch. Parents could then turn on the robot when they came home from work, and turn it off when they went to bed.

The only problem with that approach is that the parents would then be reminded every day that their child robot is not a real child. It might be best to avoid such reminders. One can imagine various ways of limiting the robot's energy use without reminding the parents that the robot child is just a robot. One way would be for the child robot to be programmed to take itself to bed every night. After saying good night to its parents, the robot could then plug itself into a recharging unit, lie on a bed, and pretend to be sleeping. It could then wake up when the parents returned from work the next evening.

Another approach might be for parents to drop their robot children off every morning to a kind of pretend school. Inside the school the robots would do nothing but silently recharge their batteries. The parents could then pick up their robot children from the school.

How soon could such robot children be available? As early as the year 2040. Creating a robot that simulates a small child is vastly easier than creating a robot that could pass for a full grown human being. The robot child would not need to be able to read, write, or do math, as it would not actually attend school. The robot child would merely need to be able to engage in simple conversations with the wedded couple that obtained the robot, and would also need to be able to play a few simple games such as catch and tag. The ELISA computer program created during the 1960's showed that a fairly simple computer program can fool people into thinking they are talking to a real adult person. It is presumably even easier to write a program that can fool you into thinking you are talking to a child.

Robot children could have additional programming allowing them to do chores around the house (or even look after very aged people). The average person would probably greatly prefer to have a household chore robot that simulated a real family member, than to have some big metallic robot helper like the robot maid in the Jetsons TV show.

We can imagine a government offering free robot children to married couples, to reduce the nation's carbon footprint. But the government might need to be selective about who qualified for getting the robot children. The rule should presumably be: the less intelligent the married couple, the more likely they should be to qualify for free robot children.

The rationale behind such an approach is rather obvious. When a very smart man and a very smart woman mate to have a child, it is good for the overall gene pool of the planet, because the child will probably be pretty smart. But when a stupid man and a stupid woman mate to have a child, it is not good for the overall gene pool of the planet. So imagine if a government offered free robot children to newly married couples with lesser intelligence (as determined by their grades, SAT scores, and college record). And imagine that the couples were told they would need to tearfully return their robot children to a government office (never to see them again) if the couple ever had a real child. This would help to increase the quality of the gene pool, by discouraging reproduction by couples with below average intelligence.

This might result in a “win/win” situation: a win for the planet (because it would help to curb overpopulation), and also a win for the human gene pool.