(Easter)Brook no Nonsense

Maybe you've heard of this Gregg Easterbrook character. Apparently he's some kind of a journalist. He used to write a column for someone, but then they fired him, and he hated Kill Bill, so he probably deserved it. Anyhow. Apparently he has some kind of blog thing of his own, and apparently he says a lot of stupid things.

Like this, here. This is a very stupid thing to say.

As you may or may not have noticed, I get very stroppy indeed when people start abusing science in defence of theology. Or try to equate the two. This Easterbrook character is doing precisely that, in a particularly smug and head-up-the-arsey way. It annoys me greatly.

And I am not alone! He has already been savaged by Kieran Healy at Crooked Timber, mauled at The Loom, and severely inconvenienced by Atrios. But he could still use an extra helping of abuse, and I am just the spoon to serve it up. With a healthy side of ridicule. And peas.

The thrust of the thing seems to be that Gregg Easterbrook doesn't understand string theory or quantum mechanics, thinks physics is silly, and pooh-poohs foolish 'scientists' for swallowing such things while rejecting the blatant revealed truth of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus H. Christ. He doesn't phrase it in quite such blatantly Bible-thumping terms, but he goes on about 'spiritual planes' in a way that's quite unmistakable: he's trying to seem like a rational, urbane, sophisticated, intellectual sort, but just beneath the surface there's a rabid God-boy just waiting to writhe out and start organising youth groups.

Now, it is not impossible, by any stretch of the imagination, for religious people to get science. It is far, far, far from impossible for scientists to be religious. Believing in God or a soul or something of that nature doesn't automatically make someone a giggling ninny. (Nor does being an atheist automatically make someone sensible, rational, benevolent, wise, and fun at parties.) However, being dogmatic and wilfully ignorant and intellectually dishonest does make someone a giggling ninny. Therefore, Gregg Easterbrook is a giggling ninny.

He's attempting to write about physics while clearly not knowing anything whatsoever about it. He admits in his very first paragraph that he doesn't understand the stuff he's discussing. Why does he keep talking? I asked myself that question again and again. Why, oh why? It's not that he's even interested in string theory or quantum mechanics. He doesn't give a fig. The facts he tries to flash around to boost his street cred are just plain wrong. I will now list these.

He claims superstring theory involves ten unobservable dimensions. This is false. Four of the dimensions in all string theories are the three spatial and one temporal dimension(s) we see around us. In the ten-dimensional versions, it's the other six that are compactified away out of sight. It's a really basic point; I don't know how Easterbrook could have misrepresented it in that way unless he'd just heard 'ten dimensions' somewhere and never bothered to find out any more.

He claims the very idea of other dimensions is 'mushy' and without any evidence. This is false. The idea is mathematically very precise and very well-defined, and while there aren't yet direct measurements in its favour, it makes a lot of sense in the context of the physical theories involved. Furthermore, on high enough energy scales, the idea is testable; physicists aren't just pulling this stuff out of their asses.

He conflates 'other dimensions' with 'other universes', and string theory with cosmology. Like so:

To make things mushier, many theories hold that other dimensions or other universes will always be impossible to detect, perhaps because they are moving away from us at the speed of light.

'Other dimensions' and 'other universes' are completely different concepts, outside the world of Star Trek. A dimension is not a place; it is a degree of freedom in the universe we live in. Here Easterbrook is vaguely recalling a cosmological idea with nothing to do with strings or other dimensions. The universe is expanding, space stretching so that galaxies see one another, by and large, receding; the farther away two points are from one another, the more quickly they will each see the other recede. Light from one has an uphill battle to make it to the other, since the distance it has to cross keeps increasing. When two points are far enough apart, light can't make it at all; the distance is increasing faster than light can keep up. These points can't observe each other. This is pretty clearly what Easterbrook was thinking of, though it doesn't connect to anything he's been talking about in the way he claims.

Then he suggests other dimensions play a role in the production of particles in an accelerator. They don't, and no-one, to my knowledge, has claimed otherwise. I think Easterbrook was just glomming around for cool-sounding buzzwords like 'virtual particles' so he'd sound like he knew things.

Then, after spewing tripe for a few paragraphs, he finally gets to his point. Ooh, other dimensions, aren't these silly? Aren't I sophisticated for pointing out this silliness? Doesn't the 'spiritual dimension' sound ever so reasonable now? Aren't I clever? Aren't I cute? Don't you love my dress? I just got a manicure! I'm dating a football player. I'm bound to be the Homecoming Queen now!

Or words to that effect.

If Easterbrook wants to talk theology, that's fine. That's great. There are whole departments devoted to it at Ivy League schools. Lots of physicists like to talk about that sort of thing, too. But if Easterbrook wants to be smug and airheaded and distort the truth to make pointless points, he should expect to be slapped around like a little bitch and left to cry.

Now, if you'll excuse me, 'The Elegant Universe' is on PBS.

Posted by aloysius at October 28, 2003 08:01 PM | TrackBack |