Customer Reviews

Nine Crazy Ideas in Science: A Few Might Even Be True

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Do more guns result in less crime? (Or is it the other way around?) Is AIDS caused by HIV? Is sun exposure beneficial? Are low doses of nuclear radiation beneficial? Does the sun have an unseen companion star, the so-called Nemesis hypothesis? Do oil, gas and coal have abiogenetic origins? Is time travel possible? Do faster than light particles exist? Is the Big Bang a cosmologist's fiction?

These are the nine "crazy" ideas George Mason University Professor of Physics Robert Ehrlich examines. He rates the level of craziness of each idea by assigning zero to three "cuckoos." (A fourth cuckoo, meaning "certainly false" is not used.) Some of his conclusions might be surprising. For example, he likes the idea that oil, coal and gas have abiogenetic origins, a view I like as well, but one that goes against the conventional wisdom. He considers the idea that there was no Big Bang as "crazy"(a three cuckoo idea) as the idea that AIDS is not caused by HIV.

This certainly is a great idea for a book. Unfortunately I think Ehrlich spends too much time on the fine points of statistical analysis, especially in the first four chapters, and not enough on the crazy ideas themselves. For example on the possibility that low doses of radiation might be beneficial (Chapter 5) he gives us eleven graphs representing the data from various sources. The graphs require a significant involvement and effort on the part of the reader to appreciate, as does the accompanying analysis. If you are not familiar with statistical terms and ideas, this will be slow going.

At other times, Ehrlich seems unaware of what the reader would like to know. For example, on page 86 he mentions a "group of female workers" who "ingested radium while painting watch dials...when they put the small brushes in their mouths...to keep them pointed." He goes on to note that the radiation they received was "localized" and therefore "a number of them survived doses that on a whole-body basis would surely have been fatal." However he doesn't say how many women were involved or even give a ballpark figure. He doesn't say how those who did not die suffered. He only shows a graph giving a percentage of workers who had tumors.

In one case, I think that Ehrlich got lost in the data and failed to note the obvious. In the chapter on the possible benefits of sun exposure, he notes that the instance of coronary heart disease is less among people spending more rather than less time in the sun. He concludes that the idea is not crazy (zero cuckoos). I won't argue with that, but I suspect that the lower rates of coronary heart disease by those with more sun exposure is better understood as a result of those same people getting more exercise. Just being out in the sun implies getting more exercise that staying indoors. This is a factor that Ehrlich does not mention. He talks about gardeners being out in the sun more than non-gardeners, but seems unaware that gardening is good exercise!

I am also troubled by any analysis of causation based purely on statistical models. If the instance of lung cancer is twelve times higher among smokers than non-smokers, surely smoking is implicated. However, as in the analysis of violent crime stats in areas with more guns versus areas with fewer (from Chapter Two), the differences are in the order of small percentages. Putting aside statistical measurements of error, the fact is, as Ehrlich rightfully notes, there are so many other factors that are unaccounted for in such data that any conclusion must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

Ehrlich admits he has "a strong affinity" (p. 11) for one of the ideas, namely that particles exist that travel faster than the speed of light. But I also think he has other biases that he may not be aware of. His enthusiasm for the possibility of time travel to the past allows him to gloss over and downplay some of the problems. For example on page 171 he notes that "we can say for sure" that "backward time travel that allowed you to kill grandpa is impossible," but he fails to note that this same logic forbids the time traveler from doing anything at all, period. The very physical presence of the time traveler would change something even if it's only at a microscopic level, even if it resulted only in microbial paradoxes! Also, chaos theory's "butterfly effect" might flap its mighty wings, disturbing future events in incalculable ways.

When Ehrlich goes easy on the stats and concentrates on imparting information and explaining in denotative language, he does very well. There is a lot of worthwhile and interesting information here for the general reader. I learned, for example, that the orbit of a planet around a binary star is only stable if the planet is at a great distance from the orbiting stars, or if one of the stars is at a great distance from the planet orbiting the other star (p. 102). Also the reason the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is referred to as the "K-T" boundary and not the "C-T" is that "C" is already used for the Cambrian period (p. 104).

The latter chapters, especially the one on faster than light particles, were a little too technical for me. I had the sense that Ehrlich was addressing his colleagues rather than the general reader.

This is an interesting book with some controversial conclusions that will be of interest to many people, marred by not being as readable or as accessible as it might have been.

This is an excellent idea for a book. In it, Robert Ehrlich looks at a number of scientific hypotheses that have on some level become ingrained into the public consciousness as "fact" and considers the possibility that different hypotheses might be possible. At the risk of sounding "crazy," Ehrlich tries to open our eyes a bit.

For example, many people would probably agree that sun exposure causes skin cancer. Ehrlich points out, however, that sun exposure has been shown to be quite beneficial on the whole. Though there is a risk involved, for the vast majority of people the benefits quite outweigh any potential harm.

He covers a number of topics such as these and, even though I try to keep up with what is current in science, I found a number of interesting surprises here. I was particularly interested in the chapter describing how it is very likely that oil and natural gas are not fossil fuels and may be much more abundant that we previously thought. I also found the chapter on the possibility of our solar system having two suns to be quite an eye-opener.

Unfortunately, I found Ehrlich's abilities as a writer to be a bit lacking. His prose is very uneven and often unnecessarily dense. Though I found most of his topics to be quite exciting, some chapters came across as quite boring. In the hands of a better writer this book could have been magnificent; instead, it feels rather average.

Still, as a science teacher, I try to stress that science is a field of hypothesis rather than a field of fact and this book illustrates that point very nicely. It reminds us that we must keep an open mind to a wide variety of hypotheses to solve scientific questions. Additionally, Ehrlich shows us that we cannot be open to just any hypothesis. All hypotheses must be held up to the same scientific rigor. Imagination and flights of fancy often lead to exciting new ideas but they must be able to be supported by data. This is the heart of what science is and is something of which even working scientists must be reminded from time to time.

Sometimes, not often, crazy scientific theories turn out to be right. Alfred Wegener's 1912 theory of continental drift is one famous example.
Of the nine current crazy theories analyzed by physicist Robert Ehrlich, he judges three to be strong candidates -- he awards them zero "cuckoos."
It would spoil the fun to say which three, but the nine are: more guns mean less crime; AIDS is not caused by HIV; sun exposure is beneficial; low doses of nuclear radiation are beneficial; the solar system has two suns; oil, coal, and gas have abiogenic origins; time travel is possible; faster-than-light particles exist; and there was no Big Bang.
Ehrlich, a writer of gratifying clarity, says he tries to distinguish between crazy theories and nutty ones. The nutty ones are either unscientific (because they are untestable) or violate basic physical laws that are very firmly confirmed, like conservation of energy.
It may not matter much, in daily life, whether the Universe started in a Big Bang or not, but some of the crazy theories have obvious everyday implications, like the one that says sunshine is good for you.
We are bombarded constantly with "scientific" ideas that are not supposed to be crazy but may, in fact, be bogus. The techniques Ehrlich uses to examine these nine far-out ideas are meant to be guides to "how you can sort out the more promising ideas without having to rely on the opinions of experts," equally useful in judging mainstream claims.
In perhaps the only bland statement in the book, he says, "in such areas as the environment and human health, the political biases of proposers may play a large role in how honestly they deal with a controversial idea." No kidding.
A great many of the conundrums presented by these nine crazy ideas concern making sense of statistics, and misrepresented or misunderstood statistics are probably the biggest source of confusion in hot-topic science issues, from global warming to threats to health.
"The human mind has a wonderful ability to see regularities in numerical data, even when none really exist," writes Ehrlich, a professor at George Mason University whose other popularizing books include "Why Toast Lands Jelly-side Down" and "Turning the World Inside Out and 174 Other Simple Physics Demonstrations."
Although "the great majority of strange ideas that are testable are simply wrong," Ehrlich says, "a few might even be true."
There are enough out there that he says he is considering a sequel, "More Crazy Ideas in Science That Might Be True," and he's looking for nominations. (He did write a sequel, "8 Preposterous Propositions," see my review.)
It's a bold physicist who solicits theories -- most have more crank letters than they want -- but Ehrlich's e-mail is rehrlich@gmu.edu.

Robert Ehrlich reveals his potential for bias as early as p10, where he dismisses die-hard enthusiasts of cold fusion. The reality of the effect, observed in at least a half dozen labs, may be seen in the book by Charles G. Baudette, Excess Heat, Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed, 2000. The effect is being re-investigated by the Dept.of Energy.

In Chap 2, More Guns Means Less Crime, Ehrlich did indeed catch John Lott in a double faux pas in the graph on p23. First, the ordinate does not begin at zero, and this is not indicated on the Y-axis with a break, so the effect noted is exaggerated. Secondly, the perfect fit of points to the curves was an artifact of the computer graphing program in which the points calculated by the program from the real data are shown, not the real data. This may come as surprise, but I have seen this before, in a curve used by the Heart Institute of the NIH to predict all-cause death rates from blood pressure (BP) as a continuous graded thing. In fact, there is little risk until BP reaches the 90% percentile for age and sex (Port S, et al., Lancet 2000;355:T175-180).

But Ehrlich promotes trigger locks on guns in the complete absence of evidence they reduce accidental shootings of children. Ehrlich used an increase in violent crime rate without an adjustment for population growth. He tried to use a selected 10 states to give an overall picture USA robbery rates relative to gun ownership laws. Ehrlich also failed to note crime rate changes in other countries that passed anti-gun laws. All in all, Lott makes his case despite his mistakes; Ehrlich does not.

In Chapter 3, p48, a graph of HIV-positive hemophiliacs in the UK shows no drop in death rates after the year in which AZT was introduced. Ehrlich has no conception of the toxicity of AZT (Moss RW. Questioning Chemotherapy, Brooklyn, NY: Equinox Press, 2000, p124). HIV passes only the first of Koch's postulates. It has not been isolated in pure form and passed on in pure form. The HIV test gives false positives with TB and other diseases, and has not spread as alarmists predicted in developed countries (Hodgkinson N, AIDS: Scientific or Viral Catastrophe, J Sci Exploration 2003;17(1):87-120).

In Chapter 4, Ehrlich falls into the trap of using relative risks without absolute risks, a common error [Joel M. Kauffman, Bias in Recent Papers on Diets and Drugs in Peer-Reviewed Medical Journals, J. Am. Physicians & Surgeons, 9(1), 11-14 (2004).] He is blank on the difference between UVB, which produces vitamn D, causes sunburn and the easily treated skin cancers, and UVA, which causes the deadly melanomas. He fails to note the benefits of UVB in reducing rates of breast, colon and prostate cancer. He fell into the trap that eating cholesterol causes coronary heart disease, and that red wine significantly prevents it. He is blank that vitamin D is made from cholesterol by UVB. (See The ProteinPower LifePlan, by Michael R. Eades, MD & Mary Dan Eades, MD. New York, NY:Warner Books, 2000.) He wrote that diet is not related to obesity, as shown by trials; but he was blank that all the trials he referred to were on low-fat diets, and that all the low-carb trials he ignored have been beneficial for obesity [Joel M. Kauffman, Low-Carbohydrate Diets, J. Scientific Exploration , 18(1), 83-134 (2004)]. On p67, Fig. 4.3, he shows cholesterol concentrations with no units, a sure sign of an amateur. On p71 he thinks that the disappearance of all ozone from the stratosphere would zap everything with UV from the sun; this shows his abysmal ignorance that ozone is made from oxygen by very short UV from the sun, and it would soon re-appear.

In Chapter 5, Ehrlich's dismissal of radiation hormesis manages to avoid all the papers by Calabrese, Wolff, Cuttler, Luckey, Feinendegen, Muckerheide, and many others with 4,500 examples of hormesis in 1,000 papers. By drawing straight line thru data in in Figures 5.4 and 5.5 (pp85,87) he ignores effects at low levels, and shows his bias [See Joel M. Kauffman, "Radiation Hormesis: Demonstrated, Deconstructed, Denied, Dismissed, and Some Implications for Public Policy", J. Scientific Exploration, 17(3), 389-407 (2003).]

This comedy of errors made it foolish for me to continue reading the rest. Buyer beware. -----22 Apr 04

In this challenging book Mr. Erlich has picked a set of dubious-sounding assertions and acted as both skeptic and devil's advocate for each of them, with variable (but invariably interesting) results. The chosen ideas are as follows:

1. More guns result in less crime.

2. AIDS is not caused by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus).

3. Sun exposure is beneficial.

4. Low doses of nuclear radiation are beneficial.

5. Our solar system has two suns.

6. Oil, coal, and natural gas did not arise from ancient biological material.

7. Time travel is possible.

8. Faster-than-light particles (tachyons) exist.

9. There was no Big Bang.

The author takes these problematic propositions seriously and produces lengthy, balanced appraisals which, while pitched to the general public, seem advanced enough in places to make even an expert think twice. Frequent surprising insights and occasional humor help keep the reader engaged. An example bonus topic is his lucidly-stated resolution of relativity's traveling twin paradox in the chapter on time travel. Since Erlich is a physicist, one might wonder if he is qualified to discuss the first two topics which deal with gun control and molecular biology, but he appears to take them in stride quite easily. His whimsical device for rating the credibility of the ideas is to award a number of symbolic or virtual "cuckoos" ranging from plus three to zero in order of decreasing wackiness. This device struck me as a bit strained, but effective enough in the end.

I throughly enjoyed this book and I recommend it to most people interested in any of the 9 ideas or just in science itself. I am hoping for and anticipating a sequel to this book. I have also gotten the Albert Lea High School library to buy it.

Lots of fine books on the market describe the various logical fallacies inherent in our "arguments." This book does a good job of describing how science works without getting bogged down in descriptions of those fallacies. True, he refers to Occam's Razor, among other things. Those are sort of staples in the argument line. But his is more of a "practical approach" more than theoretical--if I may stoop to that dichotomy.

As other reviewers have noted, Ehrlich assigns a number of cuckoos to various ideas. That the ideas may be unorthodox does not, in itself, discourage Ehrlich from examining them. For instance, as to whether "fossil fuels" may be abiogenic, he assigns no cuckoos. In other words, there is enough evidence from those who have proposed that theory to take it seriously.

The only "objection"--and that's too strong a word to use but I lack a better one--I have is that he too cursorily covers either equations of certain scientific principles. An example I can think of is his description of "carbon whiskers" in the subject of whether there was a big bang or not. I wish he'd described some of those concepts a little more thoroughly (though had he described them in too much detail, the book would have been boring! So, yes, there's a thin line to consider.) Some of these issues came up too in the section on tachyons, i.e., whether faster-than-light particles exist. I guess I'll have to get better versed in those subjects in other books.

Anyway, it was a fine book, in its readability and its relative brevity, to describe how science works. In his epilog, he even covers the issue of "falsifiability," an essential element in scientific reasoning, "any theory that deserves the label 'scientific' must be capable of being tested and proven wrong." These scientific principals must be taught in early and high school levels and this book may be a means of doing so.

In the epilog, Ehrlich also suggests he may write a sequel to the book and asks readers for any "crazy ideas" they might hear of. I'll keep my ears pealed, Dr. Ehrlich. Thanks for this one.

Science is an area where the crazy idea of today can become the fundamental fact of tomorrow. However, not all of them make it to that exalted level, as some crazy ideas never rise higher than that. In this book, Ehrlich examines nine ideas currently considered to be on the fringe of science. He begins by setting down some criteria for consideration.

*) The idea must be verifiable. For example, the premise that the Earth was created by God in six days but made to appear as if it was billions of years old is not verifiable.
*) The idea must be championed by a respected scientist. No idea put forward by a self-educated person was considered.

He examines each of the following positions:

*) More guns means less crime (3 cuckoos).
*) AIDS is not caused by the HIV virus (3 cuckoos).
*) Sun exposure is beneficial (0 cuckoos).
*) Low doses of radiation are beneficial (1 cuckoo).
*) The solar system has two suns (2 cuckoos).
*) Oil, coal and gas have abiogenic origins (0 cuckoos).
*) Time travel is possible (2 cuckoos).
*) Faster-than-light particles exist (0 cuckoos).
*) There was no big bang origin of the universe (3 cuckoos).

After presenting the current state of evidence both for and against the idea, he assigns it a number of cuckoos from zero through four. Zero cuckoos means he considers it possible, one means that it is probably not true, but there is no convincing evidence against it, two means very likely not true, three means most certainly not true and four means certainly false. Ehrlich's discussions are also a lesson in how science is performed. The rules and techniques that are used to test new scientific ideas are described. As he points out several times, data is often ambiguous and it often takes years of collection and analysis to remove the uncertainty. Non-scientists often have the misconception that scientific proof is certain, when in fact it is not. The explanations are written at a level where the amount of technical knowledge needed to understand the ideas is kept to a minimum.
Science progresses in many ways. In some areas, it is a steady progression of better data gathered over many years, where theories are worked out to the next decimal place. In others, new data require a modification of the theories, but in some cases, radical new ideas are announced and meet with a great deal of entrenched skepticism. Most of those ideas go nowhere, but some turn out to be true. That is one of the most fascinating aspects of science and Ehrlich succeeds in capturing some of the charm by describing his opinion of nine of those radical ideas.

Although the title may seem a bit corny, and the cover graphics even cornier, the book's content is very serious. In a writing style that flows beautifully and logically, the author presents nine "crazy ideas", one per chapter, and proceeds to review the evidence, both for and against them. By quoting recent research results and analyzing them in the light of other, often conflicting, evidence, the author does a superb job of illustrating how science works and how some seemingly "crazy ideas" may turn out to be not so crazy after all. In fact they can (and some have) led to important scientific discoveries. If this book and books like it were required reading by everyone, they would contribute towards making the general population less gullible about various, often pseudo-scientific, claims and would provide people with the basic tools needed to form their own opinions. This book is a valuable contribution to the world of science. A tremendous book!

Ehrlich's use of "cuckoos" as a rating system is just pejorative and obnoxious. If this book were intended as a serious attempt at getting the popular audience to consider offbeat ideas, think for themselves, and examine data, Ehrlich would have chosen something neutral, such as stars.

Another deficiency is its limiting the scope to ideas that haven't been accepted, rather than including ideas that have recently come into acceptance (such as the preClovis sites like Monte Verde), or even ideas which are considered established despite substantial evidence to the contrary (such as "plate tectonics").

As other reader reviewers have noted, Ehrlich rates Gold's abiogenic hydrocarbon theory quite highly. Because of that rating, I'd rate this book as probably worth a look.