Freedom of Science

I wrote that the meaning we ascribe to a statement is dependent on our knowledge of its author. Here’s a further proof of this assertion. I took two random answers from The Edge Annual Question — 2008 and let Britney Spears and Paris Hilton tell them to us. Here’s the transcript of their conversation:

Britney Spears

As a scientist, I am motivated to build an objective model of reality.

Paris Hilton

Me too. Growing up as a young proto-scientist, I was always strongly anti-establishmentarian, looking forward to overthrowing the System as our generation’s new Galileo.  Now I spend a substantial fraction of my time explaining and defending the status quo to outsiders.

Britney Spears

Yeah. Every fame seeker starts out as an anti-establishmentarian. When she thinks she has arrived she starts to defend the status quo against the upstarts.

Paris Hilton

It must be very depressing not to have been born into fame.

Britney Spears

We always have incomplete information. Therefore, it is eminently rational to construct a Bayesian network of likelihoods — assigning a probability for each possibility, supported by a chain of priors.

Paris Hilton

Britney girl, you are so awesome with math! As an undergraduate studying astronomy I was involved in a novel and exciting test of Einstein’s general relativity — measuring the precession of orbits, just like Mercury in the Solar System, but using massive eclipsing binary stars. 

Britney Spears

Weren’t you triple major in astronomy, physics and math?

Paris Hilton

Don’t believe everything you read in tabloids honey.

Britney Spears

Tell me about it! When new facts arise, or if new conditional relationships are discovered, probabilities are adjusted accordingly — our minds should change.

Paris Hilton

I change my mind as frequently as I change … [not audible]

[Laughs]

Britney Spears

When judgment or action is required, it is based on knowledge of probabilities. This method of logical inference and prediction is the sine qua non of rational thought, and the method all scientists aspire to employ.

Paris Hilton

As a scientist I aspire to employ the same as you said it so eloquently. However, the ambivalence associated with an even probability distribution makes it terribly difficult for an ideal scientist to decide where to go for dinner.

Britney Spears

Now I know better. Physicists who are experts in the field tend to be skeptical of experimental claims that contradict general relativity, not because they are hopelessly encumbered by tradition, but because Einstein’s theory has passed a startlingly diverse array of experimental tests. 

Paris Hilton

Startlingly diverse, indeed. It turns out to be almost impossible to change general relativity in a way that would be important for those binary stars, but which would not have already shown up in the Solar System. 

Britney Spears

Experiments and theories don’t exist in isolation — they form a tightly connected web, in which changes to any one piece tend to reverberate through various others.

Paris Hilton

Even though I strive to achieve an impartial assessment of probabilities for the purpose of making predictions, I cannot consider my assessments to be unbiased.

Britney Spears

In fact, I no longer think humans are naturally inclined to work this way.

Paris Hilton

I have always thought that humans are naturally inclined not to work at all.

Britney Spears

When I casually consider the beliefs I hold, I am not readily able to assign them numerical probabilities. If pressed, I can manufacture these numbers, but this seems more akin to rationalization than rational thought.

Paris Hilton

Also, when I learn something new, I do not immediately erase the information I knew before, even if it is contradictory. Instead, the new model of reality is stacked atop the old. And it is in this sense that a mind doesn’t change; vestigial knowledge may fade over a long period of time, but it isn’t simply replaced.

Britney Spears

Paris dear, I discover something new about you everyday! What a pleasure to listen to you talk science.

Truly, you are a model of learning that reminded me this beautiful parable that my grade school teacher once told us. It goes like this: A man didn’t understand how televisions work…

Paris Hilton

Oh! Puhlease!! We all know how television works! Big networks control it.

Britney Spears

We do, but this parable is about a man, and this poor man, like all men, did not know how television works and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at high speed.

Paris Hilton

Little men and little women and little celebrities like you and me.

Britney Spears

Yes. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen…

Paris Hilton

Do they still make cathode ray tubes?

Britney Spears

No. This is an old parable. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. “But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?”

Paris Hilton

Very cute! So this man in the parable still didn’t get how TV is full of celebrities not little men!

Britney Spears

He still doesn’t get it!

Paris Hilton

I find myself incredulous and a tireless defender of scientific orthodoxy — from classics like relativity and natural selection, to modern wrinkles like dark matter and dark energy. 

Britney Spears

In science, no orthodoxy is sacred, or above question — there should always be a healthy exploration of alternatives, and I have always enjoyed inventing new theories of gravity or cosmology, keeping in mind the variety of evidence in favor of the standard picture. 

Paris Hilton

But there is also an unhealthy brand of skepticism, proceeding from ignorance rather than expertise, which insists that any consensus must flow from a reluctance to face up to the truth, rather than an appreciation of the evidence.  It’s that kind of skepticism that keeps showing up in my email. . . . Unsolicited.

Britney Spears

I get so much unsolicited email from crackpot physicists telling me about their crackpot theories that it’s not even funny… As humans, we are inefficient inference engines — we are attached to our “little celebrities,” some dormant and some active. We always obey our celebrities. They order us to go buy this or that brand and we do as told.

Paris Hilton

And we love it!

Britney Spears

To a degree, these imperfect probability assessments and pet beliefs provide scientists with the emotional conviction necessary to motivate the hard work of science. Without the hope that an improbable line of research may succeed where others have failed, difficult challenges would go unmet. People should be encouraged to take long shots in science, since, with so many possibilities, the probability of something improbable happening is very high.

Paris Hilton

Britney!! Have you just made that up! You are a greater philosopher than Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker and Yogi Berra combined. And you being so wise as them is so improbable that it just happened as you said it would!

Britney Spears

The probability of something improbable happening is so high that it happens all the time.

Paris Hilton

At the same time, this emotional optimism must be tempered by a rational estimation of the chance of success — we must not be so optimistic as to delude ourselves.

Britney Spears

In science, we must test every step, trying to prove our ideas wrong, because nature is merciless. To have a chance of understanding nature, we must challenge our predispositions.

Paris Hilton

And even if we can’t fundamentally change our minds, we can acknowledge that others working in science may make progress along their own lines of research.

Britney Spears

By accommodating a diverse variety of approaches to any existing problem, the scientific community will progress expeditiously in unlocking nature’s secrets.

Paris Hilton

I know it well. Heresy is more romantic than orthodoxy. Nobody roots for Paris Hilton, as you are so fond of saying.  But in science, ideas tend to grow into orthodoxy for good reasons. They fit the data better than the alternatives.  Many casual heretics can’t be bothered with all the detailed theoretical arguments and experimental tests that support the models they hope to overthrow — they have a feeling about how the universe should work, and are convinced that history will eventually vindicate them, just as it did Galileo.

Britney Spears

What they fail to appreciate is that, scientifically speaking, Galileo overthrew the system from within.  He understood the reigning orthodoxy of his time better than anyone, so he was better able to see beyond it. 

Paris Hilton

You are just like Galileo, Britney. You stood up against the stuffy execs of the big entertainment conglomerates exploiting your talent and you lifted your skirt, I mean, your courage and showed them what you’ve got.

[Laughs]

Britney Spears

Our present theories are not complete, and nobody believes they are the final word on how Nature works.  But finding the precise way to make progress, to pinpoint the subtle shift of perspective that will illuminate a new way of looking at the world, will require an intimate familiarity with our current ideas, and a respectful appreciation of the evidence supporting them. 

Paris Hilton

Being a heretic can be fun; but being a successful heretic is mostly hard work.

Britney Spears

Life of a heretic celebrity is harder yet.

ShareThis