I have a theory...

Most people in the US know about of the "Theory of Evolution," the "Theory of Relativity," experienced the "Theory of Gravity" and heard of the "Theory of Intelligent Design." Noticing a theme here? The word theory, however correct its usage might be, has been misinterpreted by a lot of folk and I want to set them straight.

What theory is.

When viewing phenomena or the results of the phenomena a person might see some relation between the different events. The relationship observed might have some reason for the correlation between the events. A person can then come up with their own explanation for why the events work together. This explanation is a theory. At this point the theory is not usually well known because there is no specific proof to establish the theory and because they just came up with it.

Theories can take three courses at this point:

1. The idea is declared self evident by the creator of the theory and spread around like truth. This is quite often followed up with certain logical proofs that might or might not stand up to scrutiny. If someone does take the time to scrutinize the theory supporters of it will either attack the scrutinizer or dismiss the criticisms given by the same or both.
2. The originator or their colleagues find ways to test the theory by forming hypothesis and testing them. If enough evidence is given that the theory is correct then the theory is published with its supporting tested hypothesis. This publication is then distributed to people who would care about such things and they test the theory with the same or new hypothesis. If all this testing supports the theory then a new discovery is presented to the world with “Theory” in its name.
3. The idea is marked “interesting” by the originator and forgotten. It might be discovered later by someone else.

The major drawback to the idea of a theory is that it is inherently not certain. The best way to explain this is that a theory has a probability of being right. As we test the hypothesis related to the theory the probability of it being correct either moves toward or away from 100%. Theories, by their nature can never be 100%. They can be 99.9999% correct, but never 100%.

Oh yeah, but what about…

Two plus two is four, right? Well if I have a cup and I add water to it I have two items. Is it a cup of water? The water and cup are made up of billions of atoms. Are they more than one cup of water? Nothing is certain and that is why people have a problem with theories.

People like certainties. They know grass is green, like macaroni and cheese, CSI is their favorite show, 1+1=2, the sky is blue and Elizabeth Hurley is hot. They don’t want to forget to water their lawn, buy Mac & Cheese at KFC, see Big Bang Theory, pour water in a cup, or see Elizabeth get old. So when the scientific community says “we saw a correlation between these things, came up with a few theories, tested them and found this one to be the most likely with a 97% certainty” people tend to be a bit put out:

“What do you mean 97% certainty?”
“Well, a better revision of our explanation might come along.”
“So why did you tell us?”
“Well we thought it was important. It allows us to predict these other things that might lead to better technology.”
“Develop technology from an uncertainty. How can you build on a shaky foundation?”
“Can you come up with a better explanation?”
“No.”
“Then this is the best one you have.”
“Yes, but it’s not certain.”
“Augh!” Scientist goes to bang his head against the wall.

Of course!

So far I’ve been talking about theories that take course #2 (above). These would include things like the Theory of Relativity, the Theory of Evolution and the Theory of Gravity. Course three would include the Theory of Evolution at least till Darwin got a hold of it. Gregor Mendel saw that his plants could evolve based on natural selection and marked it as interesting. Darwin picked it up later and said this was something more than just interesting.

Course #1 is where we find Intelligent Design. Someone came up with that, supported it with some circular logic and announced it to the world. Then the hypothesis testers got a hold of it and, well, tested it. It didn’t fly. The supporters of the Intelligent Design (who avoid calling it a theory) then dismissed the scientists as bias against their cause and promptly ignored the scientist’s findings. Sad. The Theory of Intelligent Design has a lower chance of being correct than the Theory of Evolution and so therefore we follow the Theory of Evolution. If something else with a higher probability of being correct we’ll follow that. I find this to be unlikely.

Gimmie the odds

Science is all about probabilities. It’s not easy to accept, but think of the things you accept every day that are not certain. Dinner. What if it gets burned? Job. You might get a better offer somewhere else. Girlfriend. Well, you’re not married. Jell-O? Wait, no. You can always be sure about Jell-O.

Be theoretical.

Skeptical Inquirer

I've got a new blog. One that I'll actually update once in a while. I guess my purpose here needs to be defined. Why am I here...at blogspot and such?

Well, being a Mormon Skeptic does not mean I'm against the LDS church. Quite the opposite really. I just apply good old fashioned Skepticism to examine the world around me. I also want to show that just because you want to use the rules of skepticism does not mean you have to be atheist (even though it often leads there). It means that I am willing to take a second look at things and change my views when I'm wrong.

Be good.

Catholic Geneology Ban

Ok, I wanted to wait until the follow up article or at least a statement from my church, but this irks me enough to say something before I have all the facts. So sue me.

Filing suit now.

This is in response to the information provided in this article:

Catholics told not to give LDS parish data

To sum up, the Catholic church disagrees with our doctrine of proxy ordinances so they are telling their priests not to allow our membership access to their parish records. You'll have to read it to get the long form.

Mormons, not allowed...

Ok, I get it, they don't like us. We like them though, but that's beside the point. We do geneology. That's one of the things we're good at and everyone know it. So, of course, I have a few problems with their request:

1. Since we are so good at geneology everyone comes to us when they want to do it. We have publicly available geneology libraries open every weekday in most cities in the US and most major cities around the globe. I visited one and found that about half the people there were not members of our church. So by cutting us off their cutting everyone off. Including nuns, priests and the Catholic membership. Real smart.
2. How will they know who is LDS or not? Can you imagine them allowing the public access to the records and not us? That's blatant discrimination. We're used to it and we probably won't do anything about it. Not our style, but what about the rest of the populace? Will they have to sign waivers stating they will not share the info with us and what if they convert? Will they have to give all the info back? Will they seek prosecution of people who do share any information by entering it into our databases? I'd love to see the stink that would cause. Even though we won't fight it, non-mormons will.
3. Three is a cool number. It's stuck there between the rather even and boring two and four. I like having it there to mix things up and tell us when we have a crowd.
4. The reason they don't want us to have access to these records is because we believe in vicarious ordinances for the dead. A better explanation would be that we believe that someone, somewhere will grow up without the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We also believe that everyone must receive the physical ordinance of baptism to enter paradise and that those who have passed do not have physical bodies. So those of us with physical bodies can stand in for them for baptism much in the same way that Christ stood in for our sinful penance. Those in the spirit world can then choose to accept this proxy baptism or not, it is ultimately up to them. So even though the Catholics believe in proxy they do not believe in our proxy and don't want us doing it. Hence the info access ban.
5. This is an amendment to #4. If they don't believe that what we're doing has an effect on anything why do they care? This ranks right up with accepting evolution and fixing the limbo mistake as one of the more contradictory statements they have made recently. Yay ignorance.

What now?

The LDS Church will keep on doing what they do best: work. We will find other indexes to file, records to publish and plod on until the Catholic records are made available.

Be reasonable.

Update 2013

No new statements, either from the LDS or the Catholic churches have established a change in this ban. I did find an article where they talk about parish records somehow making their way into familysearch.org. I guess it's a don't ask don't tell situation where as long as neither side acknowledges it, no action needs to be taken. Yay?