The Evidence Inversion Syndrome Blights Academia

It is a myth widely spread by scientists that when someone becomes a scientist he adopts some regime of logical thinking in which he believes according to the evidence. The truth is that you do not have to have any great training in logical thinking to become a scientist, and some scientists are guilty of believing contrary to the evidence. Many scientists fall into one of the worst types of thought traps a person could fall into, something I may call the evidence inversion syndrome. 

The evidence inversion syndrome occurs when someone has a state of mind in which evidence against a hypothesis he cherishes is treated as if it is evidence for the hypothesis; and even stronger evidence against the hypothesis is treated as even stronger evidence for the hypothesis. Similarly,  evidence for a hypothesis he dislikes may be treated as if it is evidence against the hypothesis; and even stronger evidence for the hypothesis is treated as even stronger evidence against the hypothesis. To explain the concept, I can give some hypothetical examples involving ordinary people. 

Let us imagine an old man living in Vermont who notices that during the winter his 10-meter front sidewalk was snow-shoveled by his neighbor. Suppose the old man's hypothesis is that his next-door neighbor is a cruel and thoughtless person. Now, the  removal of snow from the old man's front sidewalk should be taken as evidence of the neighbor's benevolence. But instead the old man treats the shoveling as evidence of the neighbor's wickedness, claiming that the neighbor is trying to make it more likely the old man will slip and fall on hard concrete rather than soft snow.  The old man has fallen into an evidence inversion trap. If the kindly next-door neighbor shovels the old man's walk many times during the winter, the old man may take this as all-the-stronger evidence of the wickedness of his neighbor, on the grounds that this will increase all the more the old man's chance of slipping and falling on hard concrete rather than soft snow.  And if the next-door neighbor ever gives the old man a big apple pie, the old man may treat this as even stronger evidence of the next door neighbor's wickedness, on the grounds that the pie has probably been poisoned.  

I can think of another example of the evidence inversion syndrome inflicting a person. Let us imagine a man named John who is a passionate supporter of Senator Smith in his run for the US presidency. Let's suppose Senator Smith is running against a Governor Jones. Now suppose a poll shows that 80% of the people will vote for Governor Jones. John may take this as very good evidence that Senator Smith will win, on the grounds that clearly Senator Smith is the better candidate, so if the polls show 80% favoring Senator Smith's rival, that just shows that the polls are rigged. 

Now, whatever results may be reported in the election, John will take them as being proof that Senator Smith won the election. If it is reported that Senator Smith got 60% of the votes, that will be embraced by John as proof that Senator Smith won fair and square. If on the other hand it is reported that Senator Smith's rival Governor Jones got 60% of the votes, that also will also be taken by John as proof that Senator Smith won the election, on the grounds that it shows that the voting was rigged. If it happens to be reported that 90% of the voters voted not for Senator Smith but for his rival Governor Jones, this will be interpreted by John as all the more decisive evidence that Senator Smith won the election, on the grounds that it proves all the more decisively how rigged the election was. John has fallen into the deep, deep hole of an evidence inversion syndrome. Evidence fhat should be interpreted as evidence for Senator Smith's defeat in the election will instead always be interpreted by John as evidence for Senator Smith's victory in the election. 

There is a type of evidence inversion syndrome that can occur among the devotees of Darwinism. Darwinism is the theory that the impressive wonders of biology all were the result of mere random mutations, with a survival-of-the-fittest effect occurring, causing luckier random mutations to be more likely to be preserved.  Darwinists use the term "natural selection" for this claimed effect, although that term is misleading, because no actual selection is involved. Selection means a choice by a conscious agent, and Darwinists do not think that such a choice is occurring when so-called natural selection occurs. 

Now, it is generally true that the more organization is involved in something, and the more parts that are well-arranged in that thing, the less plausible are claims of a purely natural origin of that thing. For example, if I am at the beach, and I claim that a certain lump of wet sand was formed by purely natural processes, that claim may have some credibility. But imagine at the beach there is some gigantic sand castle quite a few meters tall, looking like it was a very elegant design produced by a master architect, something rather like the sand castle below:

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It would seem that  any claim of natural origins of such a thing would be preposterous. The example here illustrates a simple point: the greater the organization in something, and the more well-arranged parts the thing has, the more implausible-sounding are claims that such thing arose by purely natural processes. 

Given such a principle, there is a particular fact of the history of biology that should be extremely troubling for Darwinists. The fact is that the amount of discovered organization and the degree of seemingly fine-tuned arrangement of parts in biological organisms has risen exponentially since the time of Darwin. In Darwin's time scientists knew very little about the functional complexity and systemic interdependencies of living things.  We now know that every human body is a more impressive work of engineering and organization than a passenger jet with thousands of well-arranged parts. Now we know about the complexities mentioned in the table below, most of which were unknown to Darwin, who knew nothing about the complexities of cells or protein molecules. 

HUMANS CONSIST OF HUMAN BODIES AND HUMAN MINDS.	Human minds have displayed a vast number of capabilities, many of which mainstream scientists fail to properly study.
HUMAN BODIES MAINLY CONSIST OF ORGAN SYSTEMS AND A SKELETAL SYSTEM.	The human skeletal system contains 206 bones.
ORGAN SYSTEMS CONSIST OF ORGANS AND SUPPORTING STRUCTURES.	Examples of organ systems include the circulatory system (consisting of much more than just the heart), and the nervous system consisting of much more than just the brain.
ORGANS CONSIST OF TISSUES.
TISSUE CONSIST OF CELLS.	There are roughly 200 types of cells in the human body, each a system of enormous organization.
CELLS TYPICALLY CONSIST OF COMPLEX MEMBRANES AND THOUSANDS OF ORGANELLES.	A cell diagram will typically depict a cell as having only a few mitochondria, but cells typically have many thousands of mitochondria, as many as a million. A cell diagram will typically depict a cell as having only a few lysosomes, but cells typically have hundreds of lysosomes. A cell diagram will typically depict a cell as having only a few ribosomes, but a cell may have up to 10 million ribosomes. A cell diagram will typically depict one or a few stacks of a Golgi apparatus, each with only a few cisternae. But a cell will typically have between 10 and 20 stacks, each having as many as 60 cisternae.
ORGANELLES CONSIST OF VERY MANY PROTEIN MOLECULES AND PROTEIN MOLECULE COMPLEXES.	There are some 100,000 different types of protein molecules in the human body, each a complex invention. Protein molecule complexes are groups of protein molecules that work together to achieve a function that cannot be achieved by only one of the proteins in the complex.
PROTEIN MOLECULES CONSIST OF HUNDREDS OF WELL-ARRANGED AMINO ACIDS, EXISTING IN A FOLDED THREE-DIMENSIONAL SHAPE.	Small changes in the sequences of amino acids in a protein are typically sufficient to ruin the usefulness of the protein molecule, preventing it from folding in the right way to achieve its function.
AMINO ACIDS CONSIST OF ABOUT 10 ATOMS ARRANGED IN SOME SPECIFIC WAY.	Some amino acids have 20 atoms. Given 10+ atoms in amino acids, a protein molecule contains an average of about 4000+ well-arranged atoms. Amino acids in living things are almost all left-handed, although amino acids forming naturally will with 50% likelihood be right-handed.
ATOMS CONSIST OF MULTIPLE PROTONS, NEUTRONS AND ELECTRONS.	A carbon atom has 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons.

Now, under sound normal reasoning, it would seem that all of this gigantic functional complexity and fine-tuned arrangement of parts would seem to be evidence against Darwinist claims that everything in biology has arisen by blind natural processes. But in the mind of many a Darwinist, there is an evidence inversion syndrome under which the thinker may claim that such evidence shows all the more decisively that Darwinism is true.  The twisted reasoning goes like this: if modern science has now discovered that organisms require a billion times greater a suitable arrangement of parts than Darwin ever realized, that just proves all the more strongly the power of natural selection to create inventive wonders of biological engineering.

Similarly, if a person believes that everything in his neighbor's backyard was built by fairies, he may not be discouraged by coming back from his vacation and finding a new deluxe concrete swimming pool in his neighbor's backyard, one equipped with many ornate marble sculptures of swans and dolphins. This person may claim that this just proves all the more decisively the power of fairies to build things. This also involves an evidence inversion syndrome. 

We see the evidence inversion syndrome going on in the minds of many a neuroscientist. For example, a father employed as a French civil servant was found to have almost no brain. This was evidence against claims that the mind is made by the brain. But to some neuroscientists an evidence inversion went on. They claimed that this was merely all the more proof of the astonishing power of the brain. We can imagine them thinking to themselves: "That just shows all the more powerfully the miracle power of neurons!"

Similarly, if may be pointed out to a neuroscientist that no one has ever found a memory in the brain of a dead person, and no one has ever learned anything about what a person learned or experienced by examining the brain of a recently deceased person. The neuroscientist should regard this as evidence against his belief of a neural storage of memory. But he may say something like, "That just shows another of the endless marvels of the brain: its ability to store memories in so tiny a manner that our super-powerful microscopes can't even find them." 

Similarly, it is often pointed out to neuroscientists that while they claim that memories are stored in synapses, in truth synapses consist of proteins that last only a few weeks or less, and synapses are subject to constant random remodeling and random restructuring which makes them utterly unsuitable for storing memories that can last for decades or even years. The neuroscientist will say this just proves what marvelous molecular machines synapses are, and may claim synapses have the ability to maintain their information content despite a constant physical restructuring, like some book that automatically maintains all its words while replacing every one of its pages many times every year. If you point out that no things humans have ever invented have ever had such a capability, the neuroscientist may say that just proves the brain is the most complex thing in the universe, capable of wonders beyond that of any human machinery.  

The evidence inversion syndrome also appears when neuroscientists confront the paranormal. If you present them with a case of someone saying he floated out of his body and saw it from above, the neuroscientist treats this as a hallucination. If evidence is presented that a significant fraction of all people report having such an experience in their lives, the neuroscientist will say that this just shows that it is a purely brain phenomena, or else so many people would not report it. If evidence is presented (as it often is) that during such out-of-body experiences some person discovered something he did not know and should not have been able to find out about if we was merely hallucinating, the neuroscientist will claim that this is just more proof of the boundless powers of the brain, including a power to so often make lucky correct guesses. If all people reported floating out of their bodies ten times every month, the neuroscientist would then cite this as proof that it must be some common material experience, because so many people are reporting it. 

It's the same thing for apparition sightings. If 100 people report seeing apparitions of their dead relatives, the neuroscientist will claim such reports as hallucinations. If it is reported (as it has been reported) that a significant fraction of the human population (as high as 30%) have deathbed visions of their deceased relatives, the neuroscientist uses this frequency as proof of the commonness and naturalness of such reports.   (A survey of family members of deceased Japanese found that 21% reported deathbed visions. A study of 103 subjects in India reports this: "Thirty of these dying persons displayed behavior consistent with deathbed visions-interacting or speaking with deceased relatives, mostly their dead parents." A study of 102 families in the Republic of Moldava found that "37 cases demonstrated classic features of deathbed visions--reports of seeing dead relatives or friends communicating to the dying person.")

If every single person in the world were to report seeing and hearing their dead relatives every week, the neuroscientist would claim this as proof that there must be some common brain glitch causing people to see and hear their dead relatives.  If many  people report (as they have done) seeing apparitions of their dead relatives or friends at the time such relatives or friends died, before they knew of such deaths, the neuroscientist will say this just proves that incredibly improbable  coincidences often happen. If multiple witnesses report seeing the same apparition (as has happened many times), the neuroscientist will say that this just proves that brains must be the source of our minds, because they can cause mass hysteria. 

You may carefully cite to a neuroscientist some of the more spectacular cases in the history of the paranormal, well-documented cases of minds acting with powers or experiences utterly inexplicable of explanation through any idea of brain function, cases witnessed and carefully described by distinguished doctors and professors and investigative committees. The neuroscientist may claim that such cases just prove all the more decisively that those reporting the paranormal must be crazy or liars, on the grounds that obviously someone is lying or hallucinating if he describes some mental action that cannot be explained by the brain. 

In all these cases, what is going on is people taking evidence that should be regarded as evidence for human souls, and trying to twist it into evidence against human souls, and for the dogma that brains make minds. Like most people who suffer from the evidence inversion syndrome, many a neuroscientist is very ingenuous at trying to make evidence against his belief dogmas sound like evidence for his belief dogmas. 

Basically there is nothing that can ever convince people who have been blighted by the evidence inversion syndrome to change their minds about some cherished belief, for they have bottomless ingenuity in explaining away all evidence against their beliefs, and violently twisting such evidence into something that they can say is evidence for their beliefs. Such people have an endless capacity for claiming that something that looks black is really white, and that something that looks white is really black. 

Of all the cases of the evidence inversion syndrome that have occurred in human thinking, the most dramatic cases are those involving multiverse reasoning. Physicists and cosmologists have discovered many powerful reasons for suspecting that our universe was very precisely fine-tuned to allow the existence of living creatures such as ourselves. One of the most dramatic examples involves the very precise equality of the absolute values of the proton charge and the electron charge. In our universe each proton has a mass 1836 times greater than the mass of each electron. But the electric charge of each proton is one particular value (+ 1.602176634  x 10^-19 Coulomb) that is the very precise opposite of the electric charge of each electron  (-1.602176634  x 10^-19 Coulomb). 

 On pages 64-65 of his book "The Symbiotic Universe," astronomer George Greenstein (a professor emeritus at Amherst College) said this about the equality of the proton and electron charges (which have precisely the same absolute value): 

"Relatively small things like stones, people, and the like would fly apart if the two charges differed by as little as one part in 100 billion. Large structures like the Earth and the Sun require for their existence a yet more perfect balance of one part in a billion billion." 

In fact, experiments do indicate that the charge of the proton and the electron match to eighteen decimal places. The example given here is one of only many cases of very precise fine-tuning in our universe needed for it to be habitable (other cases are discussed here). Because of the dependency of stars on a very delicate fine-tuning of fundamental constants, you can state it this way: a random universe would be both lifeless and lightless.  The table below lists some of the fine-tuning and interlocking dependencies by which our universe is habitable.

 

 

Faced with such evidence that we live in a purposeful universe which was very precisely fine-tuned to have the conditions needed for stars and planets and living creatures, how is it that such evidence is treated by atheistic physicists? Such physicists claim that such evidence shows that there must be some infinity or near infinity of random purposeless universes, and that our universe was just the luckiest of such universes.  So given evidence that our universe is not random, but the product of purposeful intention, such physicists claim that such evidence is evidence not for one purposeful universe but instead evidence for some near infinity of random, purposeless  universes.  This is every bit as silly as someone getting evidence that a two-year-old child does not understand quantum mechanics, and claiming that such evidence shows that there must be a million billion trillion quadrillion small children who do understand quantum mechanics.  

The multiverse reasoning of atheistic physicists is the most dramatic case example in history of the evidence inversion syndrome. Such physicists take very dramatic evidence of purpose, and claim that it is evidence for an infinity or a near-infinity of purposeless randomness.  Such is the "hall of mirrors" madhouse that can arise when the evidence inversion syndrome occurs, under which evidence for whiteness is treated as evidence for blackness, and evidence for blackness is treated as evidence for whiteness. If there is a wiser age following this age of academia foolishness, such an age may regard the multiverse reasoning of atheistic physicists as being the lowest nadir of reasoning degradation, the most topsy-turvy perversion of the logical thinking that was supposed to be the basis of physics.