Ah! The Hypothesis

Ah!  The Hypothesis “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause  to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955)

What's so smart about daydreaming? I'm of two minds on this In my pursuit of practicing and promoting good science and life, among other things I have long been and am still exploring "human factors". Today I wish to touch on moments of spontaneous awareness and their role in scientific thought and discovery. This exploration started years ago reading Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) and my thoughts about it were also endorsed by none other than the Ah! man himself...Albert Einstein. The most mysterious thing I am aware of is life, (the universe and everything). Especially us, humans. And I believe it is our wonderful evolutionary adaptations, the natural abilities and harmonies of the human mind and heart, that leads to true discovery. Something I call: A clear and spontaneous awareness. The next mysterious thing to me is where do GREAT scientific discoveries come from? The questions aren't in the data. Data can be viewed many ways, all depending on how or which questions you ask. What conditions and state of mind produces the best of these insights? How can we promote and develop that, not only for scientists but everyone else. And lead to a better world of discovery in all fields. Wouldn't that help mankind? Neuroscience and psychology are discovering great fluidity and plasticity as well as other marvels existing in the structure and capacities of human brain. The corpus callosum is a particularly interesting region. It is the part bridging the two hemispheres. They do not normally function in complete isolation. They are deeply connected. However in the evolution of our lineage we see a reduction of this region yet more communication between "the two brains". What does this mean? The important scientific information here is that counter to what you might think, the corpus callosum functions more as an inhibitor. The idea that the rational mind and emotional mind are separate is a logical or philosophical expedient but now we can prove it is not a biological fact. Science has shown they are not so separate in reality. We have evolved both together in one system. And they are entwined with all kinds of sharing and feedback loops. It is now clearer...Thought moderates emotion and emotion moderates thought. The brain and body also, are only separate in our imagination. The West seems to have lots of unacknowledged integrity. I know that I am the most open to the wonders of life when I’m happy while working and then my kids playing in the background come to my attention, and I’ve suddenly solved a problem. Yes, it’s not the other way… I’m happy first and then I notice my kids, ah!. The openess to spontaneous insight is rooted in your emotional state. Cognitive science bears this out. Happiness and insight do correlate but the latest science show happiness usually comes first. (See Jessica Stillman) Perhaps life, is a Rorshach test. I have found that I have the most success, I’m the most creative and innovative, I Am At my BEST, when I’m already in a happy state of mind, "in flow”. For me, Zen and a little emotional intelligence of course, can help. Whatever works for you. Love yourself as you love your work. Then, you slip into a state of flow. Your brain waves and body chemistry optimize. That, is what gives the best results. In science or anything.

Where does the hypotheses come from? It just comes to mind So let it “The formation of hypotheses is the most mysterious of all the categories of scientific method. Where they come from, no one knows. A person is sitting somewhere, minding his own business, and suddenly –flash – he understands something he didn’t understand before. Until it’s tested the hypothesis isn’t truth. For the tests, aren’t its source. Its source is somewhere else.” Albert Einstein The Divided Brain Iain McGilchrist 'Einstein had said: “Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligible picture of the world. He then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it… He makes this cosmos and its construction the piveot of his emotional life in order to find in this way the peace and serenity which he cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience…The supreme task… is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws, only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them…” Intuition? Sympathy? Strange words for the origin of scientific knowledge.' From “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Maynard Pirsig When my kids say they are bored... I'm delighted. First it means I'm doing my job properly because they usually don't complain about that when all their other needs are met. But it also means that their minds and bodies are now free to explore outside the box. Whichever box, there's so many to choose from. Now, what I'm going to tell you may sound crazy but I have science to back me up. It is this... The best discoveries will likely come to you when you're not actually working. When your mind is free to be open and receptive to all the ideas you've been incubating. Your idea eggs may not have much chance to hatch successfully if you are constantly sitting on them. The pause can be an opportunity for them to break out and to be born(e) into consciousness.  Once born though a good diagnostic for the healthiness of your ideas is  Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit. (See excerpt below)

"Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” Albert Einstein Want to do more than just good work but great work? Look out the window. Relax and get distracted once in a while. Better still, get up and go out. Many times in science, the ah element, did not appear while the person was miserably struggling at their work or during tedious long hours, office politics, or the stress of a lack of resources… need I go on? No. That’s what we may affectionately call the incubation period. More often the really cool eureka moments happen while in a bathtub like Archimides. Or like Henri Pointcare and the non-euclidian geometry solution that came to him as he was stepping onto a bus. Or the revelation about the benzene ring coming via a dream. The examples are many. Einstein was a master daydreamer. He didn’t discover his theories in a lab or crunching numbers. He performed what he called thought experiments,.others may call that daydreaming. Works for me! Maybe you too. Here’s a question, have you ever had trouble recalling something in the heat of the moment, only to have it naturally come to you when you stopped forcing? Or when you made a good or bad decision… did you “rationally” decide out of fatique, fear, perhaps anger? When you knew things were right, when was that. A more calmly reflective moment, perhaps even after sleeping on it? "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”  Albert Einstein So when do think you’ll be likely to have that brilliant flash of insight? We know we can’t force it. How do we allow it to just spontaneously happen? Twisting ourselves against our biology for some ideological discipline or philosophy is not a healthy habit and is actually counter-productive. Best to go with the flow and be your natural best. Our two minds are not a duality but always a harmonious ONE

The Baloney Detection Kit Warning signs that suggest deception Based on the book by Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World The following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments: - Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts. - Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view. - Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities"). - Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy. - Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours. - Quantify, wherever possible. - If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work. - Occam's razor - if there are two hypotheses that explain the data equally well choose the simpler. - Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result? See Additional issues here: The Carl Sagan Portal Value your imagination and trust your intuition. Don't count your spring chicks before they hatch. And if or when they do hatch... PLEASE verify with good science My intuition told me this is true many years ago, now science is proving I was right.

Science and Rigor

Have fun, play safe

MU-Peter Science

© 2016 MU - Peter Shimon

Authoritative Science

Authoritative Versus Authoritarian Science

"Democracy means each citizen has a voice because each person is their own authority."
Peter Shimon

What do theories need? 
Authoritative or authoritarian voices?

Excerpt from  The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen Jay Gould CHAPTER ONE Defining and Revising The Structure of Evolutionary Theory Theories Need Both Essences and Histories In a famous passage added to later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (1872, p. 134) generalized his opening statement on the apparent absurdity of evolving a complex eye through a long series of gradual steps by reminding his readers that they should always treat "obvious" truths with skepticism. In so doing, Darwin also challenged the celebrated definition of science as "organized common sense," as championed by his dear friend Thomas Henry Huxley. Darwin wrote: "When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science." Despite his firm residence within England's higher social classes, Darwin took a fully egalitarian approach towards sources of expertise, knowing full well that the most dependable data on behavior and breeding of domesticated and cultivated organisms would be obtained from active farmers and husbandmen, not from lords of their manors or authors of theoretical treatises. As Ghiselin (1969) so cogently stated, Darwin maintained an uncompromisingly "aristocratic" set of values towards judgment of his work—that is, he cared not a whit for the outpourings of vox populi, but fretted endlessly and fearfully about the opinions of a very few key people blessed with the rare mix of intelligence, zeal, and attentive practice that we call expertise (a democratic human property, respecting only the requisite mental skills and emotional toughness, and bearing no intrinsic correlation to class, profession or any other fortuity of social circumstance).

Democratic thought and way of life in science "Democracy is an egalitarian form of government in which all the citizens of a nation together determine public policy, the laws and the actions of their state, requiring that all citizens (meeting certain qualifications) have an equal opportunity to express their opinion." (Wikipedia) I freely disclose my biases. I consider these two Evolutionary scientists, Charles Darwin and Stephen Gould (the first and third most cited names in evolutionary biology, C.G. Simpson is second), to have been the strong silent type of Leader. I also detect they had at least some of the characteristics of distruptive innovators. I recognize Gould's punctuated-equilibrium particularly in it. Disruptive and sustaining adaptations. I see evolutionary theory having a place in the economic and public sphere as well. And so, I am developing my own consulting business with evolutionary science. This, with the purpose of bringing scientific disruptive and sustaining innovations to the world of education, medicine and business for the good of all. When I was in my graduate studies, I was doing mating and reproductive experiments looking at a possible new species of Diaptomus leptopus. Yes, my first love is hominid evolution, but no one was going to give me a grant to experiment with a population of people for god knows how many generations (Haldane's dilemma notwithstanding). However, I also eventually did graduate work with Dr. Ken Jacobs in Paleo-Anthropology at another university and was on excavation teams at some of the most amazing hominid sites in Southern France, working with Dr. Serge Lebel and the legendary Dr. Henry de Lumley. Alas, more on that will have to wait for a future blog post. Diaptomus leptopus copepod  My thesis committee was to be composed of 3 professors (2 will remain nameless for discretion). The first was fortunately and naturally my supervisor and mentor Dr. Ed Maly. A wise Evolutionary Ecologist and in my eyes definitely a great scientist and human being (props to my man Ed). I chose as my second member Dr. "Smith" also a great microbiologist and human being... (had novelty at the time... a PCR machine in her lab) and who was helping me with DNA-sequencing and fingerprinting. BTW, some people think that electro-phoresis is a technique, but I have witnessed botched technique in some hands whereas in other hands, wow it's an art. But I digress... And finally, as my 3rd member, I chose Dr."Jones". Who excelled at numbers but had a completely different personality and even theoretical approach from mine (she was a Neo-Darwinist or Modern Synthesis person and very pro-Dawkins. She was tyrannically rigorous with stats. My first encounter with her was as an ungraduate, again in Ed's lab, watching a thesis presentation of one of Ed's grad students. Once the floor was open for questions she ripped into this girl's numbers, almost bringing her to tears before her profs and peers. I knew then I wanted her on my future committee. My hunch was right, (it turns out as I endured her courses over my undergrad years, and her grilling during graduate committee sessions) she would end up liking me. Apparently a drop of diplomacy and a dab of emotion intelligence go a long way. And I know she always had my best interests at heart. So here's my point. As a scientist or a business person or anyone. Trust your own mind and heart, but surround yourself with competent people who although are not always on your side in opinion, are nonetheless ultimately are on your side in common purpose, Quality and Excellence.

Think for yourself with a mind educated by rigorous science A majority of one. That's where it starts. Work shouldn't only seem like play. If you're doing it right, it should be play. “The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. To make this a living force and bring it to clear consciousness is perhaps the foremost task of education. The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.” Albert Einstein Letter to a minister November 20, 1950;  from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 95.

Science, Business, or Life There are no real authorities better than your own good judgement Charles Darwin When aged 46 in 1855, by then working towards publication of his theory of natural selection. He wrote to Hooker about this portrait, "if I really have as bad an expression, as my photograph gives me, how I can have one single friend is surprising." (Wikipedia) In my personal and professional adventures, I have had the good fortune of meeting many truely great people. Some famous, some not so famous. Here's one of my favorite scientists and human beings. A definite scientific and real life hero to me. Stephen Jay Gould A man I had the honor to know briefly. I am proud to say I have talked with him, shaken his hand. He gave me more than the ambition to great science, he flattered me greatly once by calling me a colleague. (I may not be worthy, but he made me feel like it.) Stephen Jay Gould is a man I will remember not only for his brilliant mind but his generous heart. I am humbled and grateful that even for a short time in life's long history, he shared his Wonderful Life with me. How I met Stephen Jay Gould Every moment was great.

Use your best judgement. Encounter and engage yourself  with good-hearted people and great minds Surround yourself with quality people, this includes the articles, books and media by the people who created them. Keep those that are the best, close. However, beware of the vox populi, for as the Buddha said, in the end you should only trust your own best judgement. Step back from the crowd and into the crowd to find out what that is. But, don't turn away so easily from opposing views. If your idea has mettle (courage and fortitude) and metal (formative stuff) it will stand the tempering. You will be up to it if you have the passion of your conviction. Science is a self-correcting process on many levels. (It can apply to business and to personal growth as well). Once really good ideas are hatched what they need is exposure to fresh air and other people. Exposure first perhaps to a close circle of expertise, the best people from a variety of perspectives. And eventually to an open science at all levels of society and an awareness in the public that it's there. Open, accessible information that is for all walks of life, those who wish to live by the wisdom of the best science available. From the CEOs, MBAs, MDs and PhDs to the BMWs (that's Bus, Metro, Walk... Metro is the name for the subway here) I believe that this may allow for better policy, synergy, collaboration, idea eggs for further research, critiques, improvements, tweaks, revisions, evolutions and revolutions for the good of all. In the development of design, the input of expertise is invaluable. Wherever it comes from, it must be credible and sincere.The building of great ideas is the building of quality relationships. This ultimately comes down to relationships with quality people. True in Science. True in Business. True in Life. Equilibrium evolution produces sustaining innovations. Punctuated evolution... disruptive innovations. I am basing my MU consulting on some of these evolutionary principles. It should be interesting. I think the incorporation of evolutionary science into corporate motives, decisions and actions can be of powerful benefit. It will be central to my MU consulting services for education, medicine and business.

Science and Rigor

Have fun, play safe

MU-Peter Science

© 2016 MU - Peter Shimon

Logic, Science and Theory

For Andrew: Happy Birthday! May the fourth be with you!

Logic, Science and Theory

"Science is a way of thinking."
Carl Sagan

Then logically, the more precise the thinking, the more accurate the science

Survival of the Fittest Logically, I have issues with this phrase.  It's good as short-hand or a sound bite. The thing is, it may not be meeting all the nitty-gritty criteria and conditions for good science. First, survival of the fittest, aren't Darwin's original words. It was coined by Herbert Spencer as a public short-hand or "sound bite" after reading Darwin's theory. This term strongly suggests natural selection, yet as Spencer extended evolution into realms of sociology and ethics, he also made use of Lamarckism. I just want to point out that it is not Darwin's theory itself, nor Darwin's words. As logical as it may be, it is fuzzy science. it misrepresents Darwin's theory. It should go away. Here's why. It is a tautology. Not that there's anything wrong with that.. as Seinfeld would say. Some tautology is useful especially when dealing with any system of complex interactions. Scientists use them all the time. This is true for science as well as economics. Tautologies are good for identifying all possible cases, organizing them and classifying them. Tautologies are often fantastic 20/20 hindsight. This kind of logical argument is a circular argument based on an premise that can't be falsified, (the invisible hand did it). Survival of the fittest as worded, does not readily allow isolating a variable and verifying that there are no confounding variables. In nature, stochastic events and confounding variables abound. Now there is next to no predictive theoretical contribution left in it. I think basing future knowledge and action on this is hazardous. It is missing the visible human hand of science and distorting an understanding of what a theory really is for use as policy. The real damage of this tautology is that it has been used as a logical model beyond biology and with regrettable results. Tautologies are a form of logic. Also from the root logos or word, it has nuanced characteristics. Differences in the meaning of words can be important to a clearer insight. My apologies to the pure rationalists but although logic looks at all possibilities its has practical limits too. Logic or deductive reasoning can make a valid construct, the field of all rational possibilities. But unbounded and untested information is of little value. Without proof of the particulars, tested, repeatable and falsifiable, in other words the application of a hands-on science, it should have limited use. A simple example is generated in statistics by plotting numbers and their inverses. Possible fields are the only things it describes and logic allows only one combination of pairs. It forms a 2 dimensional line and a 2 dimensional insight. Deductions from this are almost trivial. With more complexity, more problems. In even simpler terms, averages aren't great either. With your head in a furnace and your feet in liquid nitrogen, statistically... on average, you're perfectly ok. Something obvious is missing. See what I mean? With statistics, you have to be very clear not only what you are measuring but why and how.

Scientific Thinking Logic allows for covering all the possibilities. Science narrows down the search in the mountain of information to the more probable choices. Theories further isolate the research to the most likely or best fit and they offer predictive value. Mathematical models are logical definitions with numbers and so prone to tautological entanglements as well. Examples of tautologies and self-correlations abound in science, business and beyond. As a vague tautology, survival of the fittest, is scientifically unfit. Maladapted, it may be (over) due for extinction. Thinking Tools These are helpful tools for evaluating scientific theories Goal definition Relevance Immediacy Operationalism Accuracy Generality Precision Quantification  Economy of Effort Practicability  Simplicity Consistency Heuristic Power Extra caution with this last one  While it can generate research, it should be done with care.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics In statistics, the Greek letter sigma is only an estimate and not the actual parameter. It singles out what we measure. We should not lose sight of that. By the way, coincidentally the true parameter estimated by the statistical sample is called by the Greek letter MU. In order to see their implications, more elaborate investigation is needed when dealing with more complex tautologies. This applies to all kinds of equations, including logistic ones. But what is different is they are not really worded right for a hypothesis. Hypotheses can be empirically validated or not. It asks if the observed conclusions can be proven false. And not just from anecdotal evidence. In evolutionary science the difficulty arises in defining fitness. Mathematically the details are a niche that is a mutli-dimensional hypercube. A matrix better deals with this. Again as this is a complex system it can also be a mire of tautological entanglements as logical short-hands become inevitable. But with rigor and caution the entanglements can be dealt with. Coherence is built on conservatism but new "theories" are sprung by daring initiatives.

Speaking of Science Logic comes from the Greek "logos" or "word" Science is a descriptive narrative. In science the words can be in many languages. In fact many scientific fields use the language of mathematics for their descriptions. Statistics are also able to tell you something. To be understood, the words must have meaning and be logical. However, to be understood correctly, requires insight. Science uses a great deal of description, logic and insight. Scientific ignorance will not help us cope or survive in the long run A balanced and realistic approach to science literacy especially using media, outreach, and science communication would of immense benefit to science and society. The trick is how to do it.

Science and Rigor

Have fun, play safe

MU-Peter Science

© 2016 MU - Peter Shimon