13 ms·

The Grandfather of Alt-Science

57 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

sushisource 9y ago
Nicely written piece. Lovely to read something that has a nicely balanced approach without overtones of distain or bias. People are complicated - clearly being a climate change denier seems like a pretty insane thing for an otherwise seemingly intelligent scientist to believe, but as the article mentions towards the end: Who knows, maybe the urine thing will be useful. There's no reason to dismiss it out of hand. I think using more nuclear power would be a good idea. So much of today's rhetoric seems to want to paint people in black and white, but everyone's a mix. Even Trump has the occasional flash of not-complete-idiocy (although, to be fair, I'm having a hard time thinking of one).
- davidkuhta 9y ago
  I appreciated the humanity of it. In particularly, Robinson reflecting on his past decisions: > "I don’t know where she [Robinson's wife] got that disease, but my guess is that if we’d stayed in La Jolla, she’d still be alive. It would have been a different life. So I look at all this, and I know I’m lucky — I’ve got six wonderful young people working here, and they’re all brighter than me so I’m having fun. But she’s dead and the [urine] profiling was delayed for many, many years. So if I could do it over again …" He paused.
scandox 9y ago
> ensorcelled verb literary past tense: ensorcelled; past participle: ensorcelled enchant; fascinate. Worth the price of admission for that alone
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Simulacra 9y ago
“Science is entirely a populist thing,” Robinson says again. “It’s a way of using the individual human mind. That means one man can be right, and everybody else can be wrong." What an interesting quote. I've never considered science in this light but... it's true!
- tacomonstrous 9y ago
  I'm surprised by this reaction. To me, the quote sounds like gobbledygook. Populism and the power of the individual mind are almost at cross-purposes.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    If you think of populism as "of the masses", then yes, it doesn't make sense. If you think of populism as "opposed to the established power structure", though, it actually makes sense.
    - bllguo 9y ago
      The problem is that only the first of those definitions of populism is technically correct..
      - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
        From dictionary.com: > populism > noun > 1. the political philosophy of the People's party. > 2. (lowercase) any of various, often antiestablishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional party or partisan ideologies. > 3. (lowercase) grass-roots democracy; working-class activism; egalitarianism. > 4. (lowercase) representation or extolling of the common person, the working class, the underdog, etc.: populism in the arts. So no, I disagree that "only the first of those is correct".
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    It’s basically Juche philosophy, so yes, gobbledygook.
  - roenxi 9y ago
    People have very limited amount of time to learn new things; and the scope of human knowledge is vast beyond any individual's ability to test even a meaningful subset of it empirically. Because of this, science is disseminated in the same way as religion, political action, superstition and gossip - an authority figure says something, and we take it as true. No differences. Same mechanism for all knowledge, correct or spurious. Society has special mechanisms for science to be tested against reality every so often (especially through the PHD system of selecting authority figures). Knowledge from a 'scientific' authority is more likely to be based on objective fact than anything else. However, there is still massive scope for error, especially in what the public believes if something is mis-identified as a scientific fact. I'm thinking things like dietary science. The public perception on what the science says seems to be somewhat malleable.
Chardok 9y ago
I've always been attracted to the idea of science and medicine becoming more "open source", in the sense that all knowledge could be free flowing and lowering the entry to understanding and contributing to it. It could be a great way for the "alt-science" and official academia to benefit each other. However, I am pretty skeptical on Robertson's approach to this, on several parts, but the most conspicuous is how his "alt-science" seems to be aligning a lot with modern GOP philosophies. For example, while he explains plainly, "that human activity has not harmfully warmed the Earth", the article he participates in comes to a bit different conclusion, which is "Meaningful integrated assessments of the environmental impacts of anthropogenic CO 2are not yet possible because model estimates of global and regional climate changes on interannual, decadal and centennial time scales remain highly uncertain", which seems a bit dishonest to say the least. Great article and fascinating read. Academia surely needs to be challenged, but I am afraid I would take more of Pauling's approach myself.
ansible 9y ago
From the first paragraph: ... padded across the carpet of his homemade lab in a pair of white athletic socks. I'm already not taking him seriously as a scientist. Who puts carpet in a lab? Any kind of lab, much less one that you're anything at all related to biology or chemistry.
- planteen 9y ago
  The picture of his machine shows it on tile. Maybe they were referring to his office adjacent to the lab?
unchocked 9y ago
I've crossed paths with the man, and attended a "Doctors for Disaster Preparedness" conference that he ran. He's undeniably brilliant, but that whole scene is filled with people whose primary emotional motivation is a sense of grievance that the scientific community does not share their personal theories. Every talk at that conference was framed as a brilliant insight that was being suppressed by the scientific community. Highlights, by my recollection, include that climate change is false, radiation is good for you, and most alarmingly in my opinion that HIV does not cause AIDS. Not surprised at all that Dr. Robinson has since got tied up in vaccine denial, and been extensively funded by the Mercers et al. Nor that he has since become a perennially losing congressional candidate in Oregon. There's a great quote at the end of this article, in which he says that science is fundamentally a populist endeavor, and that one man can be right and all others wrong. I'd point out that science is also fundamentally a human endeavor, and that those who practice it cannot escape their own motivations or cognitive traps. Perhaps Dr. Robinson and his crowd really are onto something the scientific consensus is blind to. But they're also creationists, climate deniers, and anti-vaxers. We know what cognitive biases drive people to those opinions, and we judge their research output accordingly.
- yters 9y ago
  Shouldn't you judge the research based on the research?
  - vkou 9y ago
    Research that contradicts the positions that anti-vaxers hold tends to not be judged by anti-vaxers on its merits. The typical narrative is wailing and gnashing of teeth about big pharma, sheeple, dogmatic self-serving faith by established academics, etc. The wonderful thing about research is that when enough research gets done, you can cherry-pick a research paper that will agree with any belief you hold. [1] If you then proceed to ignore all the results that contradict it, you have an unassailable position. After all, you're just a yet-unrecognized Leonardo. [1] https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/
    - 9y ago
DonbunEf7 9y ago
I'm an Oregonian. Art Robinson is well-known locally as either a wingnut or a genius scientist, depending mostly on whether you've actually scrutinized his words. His research might well be scientifically meaningful, but a lot of things he's advocated for are pseudoscience, and he doesn't come across well in discussions when he's cross-examined on his prior publications. As far as politics goes, he did not pick a great district to try to run for. The incumbent, Peter DeFazio (D), is beloved in the area for his populist attitude and progressive voting record; the Eugene/Springfield/Corvallis/Albany metro population consists largely of aging hippies and college students, and he's been consistently elected since the 1980s.
AzzieElbab 9y ago
I kinda expected this article to be about mr.Crowley
wizardforhire 9y ago
Uggggghhhh, it's all fun and games to read about these wackos until you have to experience them in real life. Until you witness the deaths their bullheaded stupidity cause first hand it's humane to be apologetic to their plight. We're all ignorant, only the stupid defend their ignorance. This is what makes them dangerous. It's hard to admit you're wrong when your entire sense of self is wrapped up in your world view. Here's a Feynman chasser/refresher on what science is. https://youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY https://youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY
humanrebar 9y ago
This article portrays "alt-science" as a right-wing phenomenon, but there are certainly left-wing flavors as well, including: - anti-nuclear sentiment (1, 2) - anti-wind sentiment (bad for birds) (1) - blanket anti-GMO (2), overly focused on organic products - homeopathy (2) - overconfidence in some forms of birth control: condoms as actually used are only 85% effective (3) birth control per year per couple - poor understanding, or at least wording, around prenatal development. Developed human fetuses are both human and alive. Scientifically, the abortion question isn't whether a human life is ended, it's clear that one is. The question is a philosophical (not scientific) -- whether the termination of a life is justified and who gets to determine that. I expect that some of these sentiments could be very true. Just like storing up thousands of samples of urine could provide scientific advancement. But the discussion on each issue is not scientific. In some cases, scientific inquiry itself can be seen as dangerous and harmful. (1) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-liberals-war-on-science/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-liberals-war-... (2) https://newrepublic.com/article/139700/democrats-party-science-not-really https://newrepublic.com/article/139700/democrats-party-scien... (3) https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/condom/how-effective-are-condoms https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/condom...
- elefanten 9y ago
  I agree it's good to point that out and add your examples to the discussion. But the article struck me as fair: -It's first and foremost a profile piece of a man who is definitively right-wing and has major ties to right-wing donors and interests. -It had a wary narrative on Pauling as well, who is clearly indicated as left-wing. -It offers warnings about alt-science in general in the closing paragraphs.
- emmelaich 9y ago
  I thought left alt-science got mentioned sufficiently. Linus Pauling features, and from the article ... > Pauling, who arrived there in 1968, was about to make a sharp left turn in his career, to pursue an alt-science theory of his own Although Pauling was already well to the left.

57 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

Nicely written piece. Lovely to read something that has a nicely balanced approach without overtones of distain or bias. People are complicated - clearly being a climate change denier seems like a pretty insane thing for an otherwise seemingly intelligent scientist to believe, but as the article mentions towards the end: Who knows, maybe the urine thing will be useful. There's no reason to dismiss it out of hand. I think using more nuclear power would be a good idea. So much of today's rhetoric seems to want to paint people in black and white, but everyone's a mix. Even Trump has the occasional flash of not-complete-idiocy (although, to be fair, I'm having a hard time thinking of one).

davidkuhta 9y ago
I appreciated the humanity of it. In particularly, Robinson reflecting on his past decisions: > "I don’t know where she [Robinson's wife] got that disease, but my guess is that if we’d stayed in La Jolla, she’d still be alive. It would have been a different life. So I look at all this, and I know I’m lucky — I’ve got six wonderful young people working here, and they’re all brighter than me so I’m having fun. But she’s dead and the [urine] profiling was delayed for many, many years. So if I could do it over again …" He paused.

scandox 9y ago

> ensorcelled verb literary past tense: ensorcelled; past participle: ensorcelled enchant; fascinate. Worth the price of admission for that alone

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Simulacra 9y ago

“Science is entirely a populist thing,” Robinson says again. “It’s a way of using the individual human mind. That means one man can be right, and everybody else can be wrong." What an interesting quote. I've never considered science in this light but... it's true!

tacomonstrous 9y ago
I'm surprised by this reaction. To me, the quote sounds like gobbledygook. Populism and the power of the individual mind are almost at cross-purposes.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  If you think of populism as "of the masses", then yes, it doesn't make sense. If you think of populism as "opposed to the established power structure", though, it actually makes sense.
  - bllguo 9y ago
    The problem is that only the first of those definitions of populism is technically correct..
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      From dictionary.com: > populism > noun > 1. the political philosophy of the People's party. > 2. (lowercase) any of various, often antiestablishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional party or partisan ideologies. > 3. (lowercase) grass-roots democracy; working-class activism; egalitarianism. > 4. (lowercase) representation or extolling of the common person, the working class, the underdog, etc.: populism in the arts. So no, I disagree that "only the first of those is correct".
- QAPereo 9y ago
  It’s basically Juche philosophy, so yes, gobbledygook.
- roenxi 9y ago
  People have very limited amount of time to learn new things; and the scope of human knowledge is vast beyond any individual's ability to test even a meaningful subset of it empirically. Because of this, science is disseminated in the same way as religion, political action, superstition and gossip - an authority figure says something, and we take it as true. No differences. Same mechanism for all knowledge, correct or spurious. Society has special mechanisms for science to be tested against reality every so often (especially through the PHD system of selecting authority figures). Knowledge from a 'scientific' authority is more likely to be based on objective fact than anything else. However, there is still massive scope for error, especially in what the public believes if something is mis-identified as a scientific fact. I'm thinking things like dietary science. The public perception on what the science says seems to be somewhat malleable.

Chardok 9y ago

I've always been attracted to the idea of science and medicine becoming more "open source", in the sense that all knowledge could be free flowing and lowering the entry to understanding and contributing to it. It could be a great way for the "alt-science" and official academia to benefit each other. However, I am pretty skeptical on Robertson's approach to this, on several parts, but the most conspicuous is how his "alt-science" seems to be aligning a lot with modern GOP philosophies. For example, while he explains plainly, "that human activity has not harmfully warmed the Earth", the article he participates in comes to a bit different conclusion, which is "Meaningful integrated assessments of the environmental impacts of anthropogenic CO 2are not yet possible because model estimates of global and regional climate changes on interannual, decadal and centennial time scales remain highly uncertain", which seems a bit dishonest to say the least. Great article and fascinating read. Academia surely needs to be challenged, but I am afraid I would take more of Pauling's approach myself.

ansible 9y ago

From the first paragraph: ... padded across the carpet of his homemade lab in a pair of white athletic socks. I'm already not taking him seriously as a scientist. Who puts carpet in a lab? Any kind of lab, much less one that you're anything at all related to biology or chemistry.

planteen 9y ago
The picture of his machine shows it on tile. Maybe they were referring to his office adjacent to the lab?

unchocked 9y ago

I've crossed paths with the man, and attended a "Doctors for Disaster Preparedness" conference that he ran. He's undeniably brilliant, but that whole scene is filled with people whose primary emotional motivation is a sense of grievance that the scientific community does not share their personal theories. Every talk at that conference was framed as a brilliant insight that was being suppressed by the scientific community. Highlights, by my recollection, include that climate change is false, radiation is good for you, and most alarmingly in my opinion that HIV does not cause AIDS. Not surprised at all that Dr. Robinson has since got tied up in vaccine denial, and been extensively funded by the Mercers et al. Nor that he has since become a perennially losing congressional candidate in Oregon. There's a great quote at the end of this article, in which he says that science is fundamentally a populist endeavor, and that one man can be right and all others wrong. I'd point out that science is also fundamentally a human endeavor, and that those who practice it cannot escape their own motivations or cognitive traps. Perhaps Dr. Robinson and his crowd really are onto something the scientific consensus is blind to. But they're also creationists, climate deniers, and anti-vaxers. We know what cognitive biases drive people to those opinions, and we judge their research output accordingly.

yters 9y ago
Shouldn't you judge the research based on the research?
- vkou 9y ago
  Research that contradicts the positions that anti-vaxers hold tends to not be judged by anti-vaxers on its merits. The typical narrative is wailing and gnashing of teeth about big pharma, sheeple, dogmatic self-serving faith by established academics, etc. The wonderful thing about research is that when enough research gets done, you can cherry-pick a research paper that will agree with any belief you hold. [1] If you then proceed to ignore all the results that contradict it, you have an unassailable position. After all, you're just a yet-unrecognized Leonardo. [1] https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/
  - 9y ago

DonbunEf7 9y ago

I'm an Oregonian. Art Robinson is well-known locally as either a wingnut or a genius scientist, depending mostly on whether you've actually scrutinized his words. His research might well be scientifically meaningful, but a lot of things he's advocated for are pseudoscience, and he doesn't come across well in discussions when he's cross-examined on his prior publications. As far as politics goes, he did not pick a great district to try to run for. The incumbent, Peter DeFazio (D), is beloved in the area for his populist attitude and progressive voting record; the Eugene/Springfield/Corvallis/Albany metro population consists largely of aging hippies and college students, and he's been consistently elected since the 1980s.

AzzieElbab 9y ago

I kinda expected this article to be about mr.Crowley

wizardforhire 9y ago

Uggggghhhh, it's all fun and games to read about these wackos until you have to experience them in real life. Until you witness the deaths their bullheaded stupidity cause first hand it's humane to be apologetic to their plight. We're all ignorant, only the stupid defend their ignorance. This is what makes them dangerous. It's hard to admit you're wrong when your entire sense of self is wrapped up in your world view. Here's a Feynman chasser/refresher on what science is. https://youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY https://youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY

humanrebar 9y ago

This article portrays "alt-science" as a right-wing phenomenon, but there are certainly left-wing flavors as well, including: - anti-nuclear sentiment (1, 2) - anti-wind sentiment (bad for birds) (1) - blanket anti-GMO (2), overly focused on organic products - homeopathy (2) - overconfidence in some forms of birth control: condoms as actually used are only 85% effective (3) birth control per year per couple - poor understanding, or at least wording, around prenatal development. Developed human fetuses are both human and alive. Scientifically, the abortion question isn't whether a human life is ended, it's clear that one is. The question is a philosophical (not scientific) -- whether the termination of a life is justified and who gets to determine that. I expect that some of these sentiments could be very true. Just like storing up thousands of samples of urine could provide scientific advancement. But the discussion on each issue is not scientific. In some cases, scientific inquiry itself can be seen as dangerous and harmful. (1) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-liberals-war-on-science/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-liberals-war-... (2) https://newrepublic.com/article/139700/democrats-party-science-not-really https://newrepublic.com/article/139700/democrats-party-scien... (3) https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/condom/how-effective-are-condoms https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/condom...

elefanten 9y ago
I agree it's good to point that out and add your examples to the discussion. But the article struck me as fair: -It's first and foremost a profile piece of a man who is definitively right-wing and has major ties to right-wing donors and interests. -It had a wary narrative on Pauling as well, who is clearly indicated as left-wing. -It offers warnings about alt-science in general in the closing paragraphs.
emmelaich 9y ago
I thought left alt-science got mentioned sufficiently. Linus Pauling features, and from the article ... > Pauling, who arrived there in 1968, was about to make a sharp left turn in his career, to pursue an alt-science theory of his own Although Pauling was already well to the left.