Mon pays

Philosophy of science—falsification

Imagine you have some hypothesis. We’ll call it H.

Now imagine you have come up with some experiment to prove that H is false. So if you get a positive result for the experiment, (P) then we know that H is false. In logical notation, we would write this as the following:

P→¬H

It may help to have an example. Imagine that your hypothesis is that air has a refractive index of 1. So what you do is you build a machine that shoots a laser through a sample of air and then measures the laser beam as it comes out the other side to see if it was refracted at all. If there is refraction, we would say that you got a positive result, P, and so your hypothesis H is false.

Now imagine you do the experiment. You gather air samples from all over the world, and for all but one of them, you get a negative result. In one case, you get a major and significant departure from an index of refraction of 1.

Here’s the problem: Can you actually conclude that your hypothesis is incorrect?

It might be the case that by the time you got to the last measurement, the equipment was having problems, or maybe the sample case wasn’t clean, or you gathered a sample that had a lot of pollution.

There are a whole bunch of secondary assumptions that you make when you do an experiment. You assume that the equipment is clean and functioning properly; you assume that the sample is pure; etc. If any of these is not true, it might still be the case that the hypothesis is true, even though you got a result of P.

So if {T1, T2, T3, …} are the set of all the background assumptions that go into the experiment described above, the logical notation for the refutation of H would be something more like the following:

P→¬(H^T1^T2^T3^…)

It becomes really hard to devise a way to logically separate the H from all the T’s when you think about it.

This is a problem not only for philosophers of science, but also for other sorts of intellectual pursuits. Consider doomsday prophets like Harold Camping.

Imagine that the hypothesis you’re trying to test is that numerology is a good way to discover knowledge about the future. An experiment to test this would be to find a prediction made through numerology, and if the prediction isn’t accurate, then you can be satisfied that numerology is false. Easy right?

The problem here is the same as in philosophy of science. You’d think that Camping himself would have learned by now that numerology isn’t going to produce any true knowledge of the future. When there was not a literal physical earthquake, Camping changed his story, but only very slightly. He claimed that the hypothesis was true (beginning of the end of the world on May 21) but that one of the supporting secondary assumptions was false (it was a spiritual judgement, not a physical one).

Camping has been interviewed, and he almost apologises on television. Now he says that the apocalypse is happening for sure on October 21.

There should be a fine for doing things like this, and I don’t think such a measure would do violence to a person’s right to free speech, or to the liberty of people to spend their finances in the way they want: In the same way that there are legal repercussions for yelling “fire” in a crowded building if there is no fire, maybe there should be legal repercussions for yelling “apocalypse” on a crowded planet if there is no rapture.

You can yell “fire” if you want and even pull the alarm, but if there is no fire, you should be ready to pay a hefty fine, and you should be ashamed of yourself. The firefighters could have been saving other people while they came to save you. People have been crushed in the panic caused by false fire alarms. Similarly, the money spent by this doomsday cult could have been used to actually save people’s lives, if given to charity or science, and many people’s lives were destroyed by Camping’s false prediction.

On the upside, no one euthanised their children or killed themselves in this doomsday craze (that I know of), but I bet that a bunch of dogs and cats were put down. (I realise this will hold little moral weight among Christians, who do not see animals as moral patients.) Further, millions of dollars were wasted, and perhaps most sadly, there were millions of people who honestly thought they were going to heaven, who even made plans for it, and who were disappointed. Harold Camping’s actions were, and continue to be irresponsible to the point of cruelty.

Edit (11.05.27): http://www.livescience.com/14295-failed-doomsday-rapture-suicides.html

May 24, 2011 | 2 comments | Tags: Philosophy Religion Why is this so hard?

Can’t say that Camping didn’t try to warn you

File photo of Harold Camping, credit BBC

In the spirit of all those terrible “Left Behind”-type videos and books that churches had added to their libraries in the 1990′s to be found by unbelievers after the rapture, I have set this entry to be automatically posted to my blog at 8h on the morning of Saturday, May 21, 2001, because that’s the day Harold Camping predicts a giant earthquake marking the beginning of the world’s destruction. I’ll delete this post in the morning, if the rapture and destruction of the world hasn’t happened.

So if you’re reading this, either Camping was right, or I slept in.

According to interviews with Camping, if you didn’t die in the initial earthquake, God plans on killing you by October 21. Just FYI.

It’s remarkable that Camping was the only man in history clever enough to figure out the secret codes hidden in the Bible. The smartest people of Western society have been reading that book for millennia, but it kept its secrets virginal and pure for Camping to find—and just in time too! In fact, most Bible scholars agree that even Jesus said that the exact day cannot be known. (Matthew 24:36) Turns out that Jesus was wrong and Camping was right. Score one for Camping.

I think the most shocking thing about Camping being right is that he’s been wrong before. The Bible gives something of a test for prophets:

When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. (Deuteronomy 18:22 ESV)

Camping did just that—he spoke in the name of the Lord, saying that the end would come in 1994, and it didn’t come to pass. But then again, that must be one of those parts of the Old Testament that Christians have decided do not apply to them.

At this point you’re probably wondering what you should do now that you’ve been left behind. You can start by reading this instructional comic from Chick Publications.

It may seem strange that I directed you to a Chick Tract. If you asked me yesterday about Chick Tracts, I would have said that they are a festering boil on the butt of Christianity, and an embarrassment not only to Christians, but to all humanity, as they are an example of some of the worst sort of the hatred, pride and contempt that humanity has produced. I posted that link because I wouldn’t recommend reading the Bible anymore, since only Camping and his ilk seem to be clever enough to figure out what it actually says.

So it turns out that the extremely conservative Christian cult groups were right. It’s time to issue an apology to all the Fred Phelpses, Jack Chicks, Harold Campings, and Mark Driscolls out there. I used to say they were little more than hate-mongers. I used to say that they were misogynists and homophobes. Probably because they thrived on fear, bullying, subjugating women and oppressing minorities. And by doing so, they made a tidy profit and did it all in the name of Jesus.

But it turns out they were right to do so all along. Live and learn! Well … not in this case, I guess.

May 21, 2011 | 16 comments | Tags: Angry posts Sketchy Weird

The Bonhomme Theme Song

Bonhomme Bonhomme, qu'est-ce que tu fais?

Do you remember learning about the Carnaval de Québec in French class?

There’s a particular song that they used to teach us during the unit on the Carnaval. It’s Bonhomme’s theme song, I guess. When I went to Québec this winter, there was a marching band that followed Bonhomme around playing it.

I used to think that the lyrics were, “Bonhomme Bonhomme qu’est-ce que tu fais? Bonhomme Bonhomme qu’est-ce que tu fais? Je vais jouer au violon! Je vais jouer au violon! …”

Translated to English, this means, “Bonhomme Bonhomme, what are you doing? Bonhomme Bonhomme, what are you doing? I’m gonna play the violin. I’m gonna play the violin.”

Turns out, according to a native French-speaker, that is not only incorrect, but also very creepy.

That it was creepy was not at all surprising. I mean, look at him. And I suppose, given the state of French instruction in Ontario, it shouldn’t be too surprising that I got it wrong.

Makes sense to me though. “Bonhomme Bonhomme, what are you doing? Bonhomme Bonhomme, what are you doing?”

In related news, my cellphone ringtone is now the theme song to Téléfrançais.

May 20, 2011 | 2 comments | Tags: Culture French Quebec Why is this so hard?

Surprisingly funny business names: Nettoyeur Clean-Marie

Nettoyeur Clean-Marie

I’ve walked past this storefront countless times in the past two years, but it wasn’t until about a week ago that I got the joke. The major street that runs through my neighbourhood is called “Chemin Queen-Marie.” The laundry place is called “Nettoyeur Clean-Marie.”

These people are now my heroes. This is the greatest thing I’ve heard since my mother defined the olympic luge as “when you don’t winge.”

May 19, 2011 | 2 comments | Tags: Around the neighbourhood Funny

Homographic homophonic antonyms

Dinosaur Comics are Awesome

I first started thinking about this a while back when I saw a Dinosaur Comic on this subject.

Homographic homophonic antonyms are words that are spelled the same and pronounced the same but have opposite meanings.

The example in the attached comic is “dust,” but a quick Google search reveals others like “weather,” (enduring something or eroding something). I’ve found that most of the examples are kind of contrived, though.

• “Out”—as in “the stars are out” vs “turn out the lights”—I guess, but that’s kind of stretching it.
• “Fast”—as in “to run fast” vs “to hold fast”—ehh … I guess.

I think the reason I don’t like these is because they’re different parts of speech.

I thought of one this week that works pretty well, although I’m not sure if it counts, since it’s two words—”lucked out.” I’ve heard it used to mean both experiencing something fortunate or something unfortunate.

“Wow! You caught the ball at the baseball game! You really lucked out!” vs “They didn’t have any left by the time you got there? You really lucked out.”

May 18, 2011 | Leave a comment | Tags: Grammar

No conventional way to get to space from North America

Yesterday was the last launch of the space shuttle Endeavour. This is significant because after the space shuttle programme ends, there will be no conventional way to leave the planet from North America. By “conventional way to get to leave the planet,” I mean things like rockets and space shuttles. Of course I can’t rule out, a priori, the possibility of things like inter-dimensional portals, unguarded Tardises or magic wardrobes.

I believe the date for the last planned flight of Atlantis is June 28th, so if you really need to get off the planet and you don’t want to book a seat on a Soyuz capsule (and you don’t have access to a non-conventional method of leaving the planet), this is the way to go. That said, the shuttles will be sent to museums after they retire, so you might try hijacking one of them if you are really desperate.

In related news, it turns out that Gliese 581g still probably might not exist maybe, but Gliese 581d might have liquid water.

“This discovery is important because it’s the first time climate modellers have proved that the planet is potentially habitable, and all observers agree that the exoplanet exists.” (Dr Wordsworth, a member of the team from the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace in Paris)

May 17, 2011 | Leave a comment | Tags: Making friends Space travel

Human research ethics and smartphone application development

I’m entering the final stages of working on my thesis, and not a moment too soon—I looked up my submission deadlines, and I need to make initial submission by June 13th according to the graduate studies website.

As many of you know, I’ve recently taken up iPhone application development. Less well-known is the fact that this was partly inspired by my work on my thesis. This may seem strange due to the fact that I’m working on human research ethics, and not on computer science, but stay with me.

Phase IV drug research

My thesis has to do with phase IV drug trials. “Phase IV” means that the drug has already been approved for regular medical use in humans. The problem with phase IV trials is that they are often initiated by the marketing divisions of pharmaceutical companies for the purpose of getting physicians used to prescribing the drug in question. They often have a very inefficient study design and they do not ask or answer a valuable scientific question.

Research ethics boards have a hard time criticising these studies, and often their members have to “hold their noses” and approve such studies because there would be no risk to the subjects of such research. (Of course not—the drug is being prescribed by physicians for regular medical use already!)

My thesis argues that we should criticise such studies on the basis that they threaten the integrity of the human research project. That is to say, human research is a collaborative project that requires a number of stakeholders—the drug company, physicians, human subjects, nurses, administrators, universities, research centres, hospitals, etc. All of these stakeholders come to the human research enterprise to pursue their different goals and desires, and bring different contributions to the project of human research. Because of the way that human research is set up, there are certain rules or practices that make the project of human research work better and certain rules and practices that interfere with its proper functioning.

I argue in my thesis that we should be able to criticise certain “bad” phase IV drug studies on the basis that they compromise the integrity of human research, completely aside from any paternalistic appeal to the risks or benefits that may accrue to the participants.

How is this related to iPhone app development?

Smartphone software development is also a collaborative enterprise. That is to say, there are also many parties in smartphone software development that come together with different goals and desires and contributions to the common project. There is the hardware producer, the company or organisation that produces the OS, the software developers, the vendors of both software (“app stores”) and hardware, phone companies, organisations that dictate software and hardware standards and other regulatory bodies.

All of these parties contribute different things to the collaborative project of producing smartphone offerings. All of these parties have different goals. Many of these parties overlap. For example, in the case of iPhone app development, the hardware producer, the OS developer, and the hardware and software vendor are all the same company—Apple.

Similarly to the way that certain restrictions, practices or rules on human research help these stakeholders to work together (or not), there are also restrictions, practices and rules that make smartphone development ecosystems better or worse.

These are things like pricing structures for apps, “openness” of the platform, hardware limitations and consistency, etc. Often it is actually the restrictions placed on a platform that make it thrive.

Consider this article from the BBC about the Android platform.

Even my choice to develop for the iPhone was influenced greatly by the fact that there’s only one iPhone to write for, combined with the fact that distributing the app is not a huge headache—Apple takes care of the details. That’s good and bad, but the restrictions that Apple has placed on the iOS ecosystem seem to have been conducive to producing thousands of apps.

Getting back to human research, similarly, placing restrictions on human research might actually make human research thrive better. By getting rid of “bad” phase IV studies, universities can avoid situations like the one outlined here.

This whole situation is having huge cascading effects on phase IV research and human research generally at that institution, and could have been prevented. By taking a little bit more of a “walled garden” approach to human research, we can actually make human research work better.

May 16, 2011 | One comment | Tags: App Dev Money Thesis

Plurals for hippopotamus and octopus

It is a popular and well-known fact that the correct plural for “octopus” is not “octopi,” but “octopuses” or “octopodes.” This is because the word “octopus” is Greek in origin, not Latin, and the Greek word for the word “pos” (foot) is “podes.”

Here’s my question: If it is incorrect to pluralise “octopus” as “octopi,” then why is it okay to pluralise “hippopotamus” as “hippopotami?” The OED says that this is an acceptable plural.

The word “hippopotamus” is also Greek in origin. It comes from “hippos ho potamios.” In Greek, “hippos” means “horse,” and “potamos” means “river.” The plural of “hippos” is “hippoi,” as I recall.

So shouldn’t the plural be “hippoipotamus” or maybe “hippopotamoi?”

May 13, 2011 | 4 comments | Tags: Grammar Why is this so hard?

A synopsis of Thor

Last night, I saw Thor. Here is a synopsis of the movie: God sends his son to earth, who dies and is resurrected, saves mankind and ascends to the right hand of the father, where he reigns on high until he will return again. (In the Avengers.)

Wait. I think I read that before somewhere.

Thor wasn’t life-changing, and it was somewhat formulaic, but it was passable. There were no obvious plot holes, and there was lots of punching and smashing and attractive-looking humans. (If you’re into that sort of thing.) I recall thinking at one point that the music was partly plagiarised. Some of the things that were supposed to be funny weren’t. Oh well. I did like Loki. I found that by the end I was rooting for him, and hoping that he would turn out to be the hero in the end, through his trickiness.

A funny thing happened to me at the theatre. For those of you who haven’t seen me recently, I’ve recently buzzed my hair to a length of approximately 3mm. I blame my current hairstyle for what happened at the theatre.

A guy came in wearing a red bandana on his head. He sat down as close to me as he could (my big black leather jacket was occupying the intervening seat—thank goodness) and he asked if I was “Justin Timberlake.” (Justin Timberlake is an American musician who has his hair buzzed short in some of the photographs that I found on Google.)

I told him that I’m not. He stayed right next to me the whole time, and after the film, he tried to make awkward conversation with me a number of times. I think he seriously believed that I was this famous person. He followed me around a little but I lost him by the time I got to the métro station.

May 12, 2011 | One comment | Tags: Films Weird

Rookie NDP MP Brosseau

Brosseau is getting a lot of attention, and her face is on news media everywhere. I think I’ve read more about her than about any other MP. Period.

Here’s a controversial statement that’s worth thinking about: Is Brosseau the most influential person in Canadian politics right now?

I mean, all of her actions recently (and many things she has never done, like visiting her riding) have been the subject of intense media scrutiny. If she said something—anything—she would have an instant audience for it, for good or for ill.

May 10, 2011 | 3 comments | Tags: Politics Weird