Blind Faith in Science

[Gav]

Another article from the Fundamentalism stream in New Scientist. This one is all about Scientific Fundamentalism.

Blind faith in science

* 08 October 2005
* Bryan Appleyard

RELIGIOUS fundamentalists frequently inspire mockery or fear in the secular-minded for their reliance on faith and rejection of reason. In response, the fundamentalists argue that secularism is underpinned by a faith or world view far more groundless or arbitrary than their own. That faith may be said to be liberalism, democracy or progress, but, most commonly and most correctly, it is identified as science.

Science is indeed the faith, system, theory, methodology - choose your own term - that sustains liberal democratic secularism. There are two primary reasons for this. The first is the effectiveness of science, specifically as expressed through technology. Nobody prayed their way to the Pentium 4 chip or the Boeing 747. The second is the uniquely cumulative nature of scientific knowledge. Ethically we have not moved beyond Jesus Christ, artistically we have not moved beyond Titian, and politically we have not moved beyond Jefferson. Scientifically, however, we are moving forward all the time. Newton may be the greatest of all scientists but Einstein is more important now for the simple and unarguable reason that he knew more.

So the secularist may reply to the fundamentalist: "I do indeed have a faith but, unlike yours, it works and gets better all the time." The fundamentalist may retort: "We did pray our way to Pentium 4s; you were just deluded in thinking you could make them yourself." You may find his argument implausible, but it is at least complete. If God really does work in mysterious ways, then guiding us to the fabrication of silicon chips may well be one of them. He doesn't necessarily have to restrict Himself to parting the Red Sea.

At this point the secularist/scientist would be well advised to shut up, because almost anything he says to strengthen his position will topple him over into a fundamentalism of his own. For there is a scientific fundamentalism, too, and it is, in its way, just as dangerous as the religious version.

The secularist is on solid ground only when he says that science works - at least in achieving the aims to which it reasonably limits itself - and that it accumulates. The fatal extrapolation to make from this position is that it must, therefore, potentially be omnicompetent and omniscient. Scientific fundamentalism is the belief that the world is accessible to and ultimately controllable by human reason.

This is a profoundly unscientific idea. It is neither provable nor refutable. Obviously it is a leap of faith to insist that human reason is capable of fully understanding the world. We seem to have some access to its workings, but it would be wildly premature to believe that the human brain is capable of comprehending all reality. The idea that it is up to such a task is an arguable hypothesis based on a very optimistic view of human rationality, but that is all.

Yet the belief in the possibility of human omniscience has been as strong in recent years as it was in the 1930s, when scientistic fantasists dreamed of a world run by a collection of hard-headed scientist-oligarchs. This is, in large part, a result of the successes of biology. Genetics offers the possibility of direct effects on our species in terms of disease, behaviour, life choices and so on. It offers, in short, precisely what previous disciplines like psychology and sociology have failed to deliver: an effective scientific analysis and intervention in the human world. Thus, via biology, the dream of omniscience has become the fantasy of omnicompetence. We could control the world and make people better, perhaps even perfect.

Philosophy and magic

Now obviously I know - and I need to make this very clear - that most scientists do not hold this view. Indeed, the majority would see that it is a view that gets in the way of good science and offends against one of the most obvious characteristics of all science, its provisionality. We know - or should know - that all contemporary science will be modified or overthrown by the science of the future. This is not to take the postmodern view that science is just one interpretation of the world among many others. Rather, it is simply to say that the scientific truth of one era may later come to be seen as no more than a rough approximation.

So there is a clear logical and equally clear practical and historical objection to what I have called scientific fundamentalism. Neither objection demeans science in any way, yet both tend to inspire apoplexy in the hard scientistic thinkers who have dominated recent discourse. Scientific fundamentalism is alive and well.

That scientific fundamentalism is dangerous should be evident to any serious thinker looking back on the 20th century. Fascism was an anti-Enlightenment creed, but its most lethal expression in Nazism was founded on science. Hitler's Mein Kampf leaned on the biology of Ernst Haeckel, which, at the time, was perfectly respectable. Communism, an ideology that sprang directly from the scientific Enlightenment, was based on Marx's conviction that a science of history had been discovered. The slaughter of the Jews, Stalin's massacres and Mao's deliberate starving of millions were all executed by people persuaded they were justified by scientific insights.

Of course, it might be said this was bad science. But that is no more of an excuse than saying the Spanish Inquisition was bad religion. In that case, people twisted benignly intended human value systems to evil ends. There is nothing whatsoever in science - and this should be shouted daily from the rooftops of every scientific institution - that makes it immune from such abuses.

Some scientists will dispute this, claiming that the values of open, objective enquiry, mutual criticism and protection of learning in the accumulated wisdom of science amount to an ethical system which, if applied to the world, would make it a better place, potentially protected from future horrors. This is not wrong, it is just fantastically utopian. Such values are not exclusive to science; they preceded it. Science sprang from philosophy, theology and even magic. The reason it became modern science at all was because of the direction these disciplines took in the course of the Renaissance. That these values worked so triumphantly in science is unarguable; that they have failed to work anywhere else is equally unarguable. The brief period of calm we currently enjoy in the west floats on the usual sea of war and genocide.

The human world is very different from the one seen through the telescope or in the test tube. To say it would be nice if it wasn't is to say nothing. To say it should be and we can make it so is downright sinister - fundamentalist, in fact. But that is precisely what many scientistic thinkers, dazzled by the success of science, have been saying. The human world is perverse, complex, violent and utterly indecipherable. There is no science of history and no technology that will save us from the future. Scientific fundamentalism deludes us with dreams of competence; it expects too much of this world, just as religious fundamentalism expects too much of the next.

For the moment, the tide of hard scientism is ebbing, perhaps because people have grown bored with the frantic marketing of implausible claims and moved on. It will return, though. Human delusions are nothing if not robust.

[dcmdale]

So I have been arguing elsewhere that secularism is a form of religious fundamentalism and here I find that the same issue admits it... kinda takes the wind out of my sails. Actually, he doesn't admit to *religious* fundamentalism, but its a short step.

Of course, the implication, were we able to establish this in court, that secularism was a religion would trigger the establishment clause and cause secularist curriculum to be banned from public schools in the U.S.

So suppose I am lead attorney in Federal District Court to purge the local high school's science curriculum of this religious bias. What do I ask to have removed? Probably very little. In most "kick evolution out of the public schools" cases, the debate usually devolves down to the level of arguing about the wording of a few sentences.

What I probably *do* want is strengthened curriculum in the philosophy of science: nature of empirical knowledge, the scientific method and the role of repeatability, the relationship of methodological tools (e.g., Ockham's Razor) to scientific inquiry, and the relationship of science to other disciplines where observability and repeatability are inheritantly not available.

Why? I submit that secularism, as a religion, has less to do with empirical knowledge than with the mis-application of Ockham's Razor and the difficulty that many within the scientific community have in participating in and relating to other fields of inquiry--even matters as mundane as criminal proceedings.

[Army Fencer]

This is a very good article, Gav. Thank you. Indeed, I think that some scientists can be as closed minded as some Christian fundamentalists, because they don't understand what philosophy drives their work.

I don't think it's good enough for schools to teach the scientific method, I think they should teach the whys of the scientific method as well. Through a better understanding of the philosophy of science, we can create better scientists.

[sabreur]

The scientific method is a process for testing how well a hypothesis fits observed data (I use the word data in the place for fact, because data is always to some degree contingent on method of observation--if you get a better methodology or technology for making your observations, then the data may change--the word avoids the loaded connotations that adhere to the word "fact").

Essentially, science is a process of applying statistical analysis to data, to see how well a hypothesis explains the data.

There are two basic statistical concepts involved--one is reliability, and the other is validity. Reliability refers to the internal coherence of the hypothesis and the data--i.e., if you repeat an experiment X number of times, you can rely on the results being the same a certain percentage of the time--in the social sciences, one usually aims at a reliability of 95% at whatever margin of error one is trying to achieve--that is to say, if you ran the same experiement (or gathered the data in the field) twenty times, the results would be the same as those you achieved in your sample 19 of the twenty times. The reliability required by experiments in the harder sciences (chemistry and physics) is much greater.

Validity reflects how well the data and the hypothesis map to whatever it is that you are trying to describe. Validity is much trickier than reliability. Basically, there is an assumption that if your sample is large enough and adequately represents the larger population of events that you are investigating, you will end up with valid results. There are a lot of tests of validity, but it can be quite a sticky subject. Once the validity of a hypothesis is accepted, it can be very difficult, for cultural as well as scientific reasons, to upset it. The Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine was given this year to two men who discovered that a bacteria causes most stomach inflamation and ulcers--this discovery went against long-established medical doctrine that no bacteria could survive in the acidic environment of the stomach, and it took the medical community quite a while (and a lot of rancor) to accept it. To a scientific viewpoint, nothing is ever given a final, unchallenged claim to be "true." Any hypothesis is always subject to further testing, and possible revision.

The scientific approach to data is obviously difficult to reconcile with religious belief, but it is fundamentally different from the approach to data used in religious belief. Kierkegaard described the quandary of someone wishing to adhere to religious belief in a world where scientific testing of data had begun to influence world views--his conclusion was that you simply had to believe--you had to have faith. God is not a testable hypothesis. As far as I know, there is no reliable or valid evidence for the existence of God. But then, for someone of faith, there should be no need for reliable or valid evidence of God--you just have to believe.

The error that fundamentalists make is that they try to intrude into the realm of science and claim that hypotheses, which have been shown, according to the rules of science, to explain data with acceptable validity and reliabilty (evolution is clearly one such hypothesis), are in fact untrue according to the rules of science. Such claims, although couched in language that can confuse someone who is not sophisticated about what science is and how it works, are wholly and completely spurious.

Part of the problem is that almost all scientists do not have the training in philosophy (theology being a subordinate subject of philosophy, after all) to argue philosophical implications of their work, and in fact are taught from a very early stage NOT to draw philosophical conclusions from patterns of data.

Another part of the problem is that the essence of science is to always question and never accept any explanation of a pattern of data as final, while the essence of religions is belief--to accept an explanation for a pattern of data (my life, the life around us, the nature of the world, good and evil, etc.) regardless of evidence to the contrary.

Science is not another religion--it is in fact antithetical to religion, because its fundament is to question everything.

The power of science to explain is not based on any received knowledge, but rather on the continuous testing of hypotheses against data. In philosophical terms, its strength is not belief, but doubt. It actually makes little or no sense to test the postulates of religion against the hypotheses of science--they are derived from wholly separate ways of viewing data, and accepting the reliability and validity of the data--if you believe the Bible isthe literal word of God, then you, a priori, are not going to accept hypotheses that do not conform with the Bible's explanations, nor are you going to accept a method of dealing with data that is based on doubt and continuous testing of hypotheses.

[BrianH]

Very nice explanation here. Thank you.

[dcmdale]

Thank you for your response, sabreur. I think there is a lot of grist here for intelligent conversation.

Originally Posted by sabreur

Science is not another religion--it is in fact antithetical to religion, because its fundament is to question everything.

<wink>One of the hallmarks of any fundamentalism is the firmly held belief that *your* views are different and better than those other groups... precisely because *yours* is the truth.</wink> Winking aside, it is a mistake to think that fundamentalist religions don't have intellectuals engaged in the same kinds of questioning/refining processes as the sciences or other academic areas. That the academic community doesn't see them has more to do with academic bigotry and the fact that being "outted" as a believer can end your career than it does with the academic qualifications of believers. This is unfortunate because it means that the responses of the real intelligencia rarely get tested between the groups.

Originally Posted by sabreur

The scientific method is a process for testing how well a hypothesis fits observed data (I use the word data in the place for fact, because data is always to some degree contingent on method of observation--if you get a better methodology or technology for making your observations, then the data may change--the word avoids the loaded connotations that adhere to the word "fact").

Essentially, science is a process of applying statistical analysis to data, to see how well a hypothesis explains the data.

There are two basic statistical concepts involved--one is reliability, and the other is validity. Reliability refers to the internal coherence of the hypothesis and the data--i.e., if you repeat an experiment X number of times, you can rely on the results being the same a certain percentage of the time--in the social sciences, one usually aims at a reliability of 95% at whatever margin of error one is trying to achieve--that is to say, if you ran the same experiement (or gathered the data in the field) twenty times, the results would be the same as those you achieved in your sample 19 of the twenty times. The reliability required by experiments in the harder sciences (chemistry and physics) is much greater.

Validity reflects how well the data and the hypothesis map to whatever it is that you are trying to describe. Validity is much trickier than reliability. Basically, there is an assumption that if your sample is large enough and adequately represents the larger population of events that you are investigating, you will end up with valid results. There are a lot of tests of validity, but it can be quite a sticky subject. Once the validity of a hypothesis is accepted, it can be very difficult, for cultural as well as scientific reasons, to upset it. The Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine was given this year to two men who discovered that a bacteria causes most stomach inflamation and ulcers--this discovery went against long-established medical doctrine that no bacteria could survive in the acidic environment of the stomach, and it took the medical community quite a while (and a lot of rancor) to accept it. To a scientific viewpoint, nothing is ever given a final, unchallenged claim to be "true." Any hypothesis is always subject to further testing, and possible revision.

Yes. I have been around long enough to remember when plate tectonics was categorized in libraries under the "A's" (where they put crackpot theories) rather than the "Q's" (science).

Defining "Science" in terms of statistical methodology bothers me somewhat--more from an academic perspective than a religious one. Over the last few decades, there has been (what I will call) a fad to try to move scientific methodology from the traditional sciences to fields of inquiry that traditionally have been more intractable to empirical techniques without really dealing with the underlying differences in the fields. My observations is that this has done wonders in terms of increasing the opportunity of publication and thereby getting professors to tenure, but I wonder at the actual advances to the fields.

Since religious fundamentalist disputes over science teaching usually occur in the "hard" sciences, I am going to reserve fuller discussion, but will state that when the limits of science become fuzzy, it muddies the overall debate.

Originally Posted by sabreur

The scientific approach to data is obviously difficult to reconcile with religious belief, but it is fundamentally different from the approach to data used in religious belief. Kierkegaard described the quandary of someone wishing to adhere to religious belief in a world where scientific testing of data had begun to influence world views--his conclusion was that you simply had to believe--you had to have faith. God is not a testable hypothesis. As far as I know, there is no reliable or valid evidence for the existence of God. But then, for someone of faith, there should be no need for reliable or valid evidence of God--you just have to believe.

The Kierkegaadian approach is anathema to the funamentalist. Rightly or wrongly, a fundamentalist believes in the truth of what they believe.

Originally Posted by sabreur

The error that fundamentalists make is that they try to intrude into the realm of science and claim that hypotheses, which have been shown, according to the rules of science, to explain data with acceptable validity and reliabilty (evolution is clearly one such hypothesis), are in fact untrue according to the rules of science. Such claims, although couched in language that can confuse someone who is not sophisticated about what science is and how it works, are wholly and completely spurious.

"Intrude" is an interesting choice of words. I completely understand the annoyance factor of having to explain to a freshman what the Second Law of Thermodynamics really says for the umpteenth time; however, as you argue later, science is all about the continuous process of questioning and testing. If so, the questions raised by those who believe in God should be treated no differently. However, where honest questions are met by ridicule, hatred, and professorial abuse, as is common on college campuses, it feeds the anti-scientific/anti-intellectual side of fundamentalism. Frankly, many college classrooms for a believer have more in common with the Inquisition and Nazi Germany than they do with the dispassionate search for truth. Don't discount how much that common college experience feeds into the political side of the fundamentalist movement.

Originally Posted by sabreur

Part of the problem is that almost all scientists do not have the training in philosophy (theology being a subordinate subject of philosophy, after all) to argue philosophical implications of their work, and in fact are taught from a very early stage NOT to draw philosophical conclusions from patterns of data.

Science, of course, is historically another derivative field of philosophy, so I am not sure what that has to do with the failure to train scientists at least in the foundations of their own discipline.

Originally Posted by sabreur

Another part of the problem is that the essence of science is to always question and never accept any explanation of a pattern of data as final, while the essence of religions is belief--to accept an explanation for a pattern of data (my life, the life around us, the nature of the world, good and evil, etc.) regardless of evidence to the contrary.

....

The power of science to explain is not based on any received knowledge, but rather on the continuous testing of hypotheses against data. In philosophical terms, its strength is not belief, but doubt. It actually makes little or no sense to test the postulates of religion against the hypotheses of science--they are derived from wholly separate ways of viewing data, and accepting the reliability and validity of the data--if you believe the Bible is the literal word of God, then you, a priori, are not going to accept hypotheses that do not conform with the Bible's explanations, nor are you going to accept a method of dealing with data that is based on doubt and continuous testing of hypotheses.

I agree with much of your characterization of science. What fundamentalists (and other academic disciplines, BTW) challenge is the implicit (and not scientifically provable) assumption that science is the only way to get to truth.

I often try to illustrate the limitations of science by presenting a mathematical sequence: ..., 40, 42, 44, 46,... Philosophical empiricists will generally be fairly circumspect about making any conclusions. Scientists usually jump in with both feet. Either way.

I then add what, in Law, we would call "testamonial evidence." The testimony is as follows: "The series is a trick series that I, as the creator, designed to frustrate your expectations. It neither starts at zero, nor is it linear."

So here is the fun: how does science (or, even more interesting, the scientist) deal with my testimony regarding the nature of the series? The testimony, of course, while you may be able to verify that I said it, is not particularly verifiable. What happens with my testimony in light of the observable sequence?

BTW-- the next numbers, according to my generator, are ..., 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60,...

[keith]

Originally Posted by dcmdale

I agree with much of your characterization of science. What fundamentalists (and other academic disciplines, BTW) challenge is the implicit (and not scientifically provable) assumption that science is the only way to get to truth.

Which is just a straw man set up by those who wish to critique 'scientific materialism'. Hit it all you like but it does not affect the question of what are, and are not, legitimate claims of scientific validity.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

I often try to illustrate the limitations of science by presenting a mathematical sequence: ..., 40, 42, 44, 46,... Philosophical empiricists will generally be fairly circumspect about making any conclusions. Scientists usually jump in with both feet. Either way.

Which nicely demonstrates that when you train a mind to look for and expect patterns it sees them - whether as tricks or real questions.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

I then add what, in Law, we would call "testamonial evidence." The testimony is as follows: "The series is a trick series that I, as the creator, designed to frustrate your expectations. It neither starts at zero, nor is it linear."

So here is the fun: how does science (or, even more interesting, the scientist) deal with my testimony regarding the nature of the series?

He points out that you should really stop hanging out with easily impressed undergraduates.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

The testimony, of course, while you may be able to verify that I said it, is not particularly verifiable. What happens with my testimony in light of the observable sequence?

Nothing - let us assume that various predictions are made;

the sequence is complete
the sequnce is extended partially upwards
the sequends is extended partially downwards

etc etc

All of these statements are equally valid as there is no basis to select one or the other which is why your philosopher is so circumspect when posed the question.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

BTW-- the next numbers, according to my generator, are ..., 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60,...

*shrugs*

You are not actually discussing empirical evidence of a type relevant to science. Unless you are in the habit of making these statements of numerical series in which case a statistical ranking of the predictions could be performed.....

[jBirch]

Like all mathematical communications, the problem lies in definition.

If you take as religion anything held as belief then you can certainly lump science into that bucket. After all, one needs to believe that statistics is a valid form of induction before the majority of scientific theory can be grasped. After all, I can't possibly make all of the measurements required to show statisitically that all valid scientific theories are correct. Instead, I believe my Science Teacher and/or other professionals whose credentials I admit. In this respect, both science and religion require belief.

If, however, you take science as the ability to accurately and reliably predict some phenomenae then religion falls hopelessly short. Religion can't show anything repeatable precisely because the process of taking a measurement (dying) is irreversable and destroys the measurement tool.

The key difference in practice is that religion takes an unprovable and supposes an outcome. I can't prove that God exists (I don't know anyone who has met Him), nor can I prove that Heaven and Hell exist (never been). Therfor it is irrational to say that God, Heaven and Hell all exist (just as it is equally irrational to assert that they do not).

Now, I can certainly take a rational risk-reductive position and say "heck, they might exist so I'm not going to take a chance" and rationally reason forward from that to get to a very fundamentalist position. I could even take a probabilistic approach and say that because there is no repeatable evidence that therefor God does not exist and rationally reason forward to a very similar fundamentalist position. To say that religion is therefor irrational is not entirely accurate either, as it is based on unprovable premises, not false ones. Where Science is "cleaner" is in the fact that science is based solely on provable, VERIFIABLE premises rather then nebulous unprovable, un-verifiable ones.

James.

[keith]

I hate to break it to you but Pascal's wager doesn't hold up.

Sorry.

[jBirch]

And for those interested in what the heck Pascal's wager is...

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/

[dcmdale]

Originally Posted by keith

Which is just a straw man set up by those who wish to critique 'scientific materialism'. Hit it all you like but it does not affect the question of what are, and are not, legitimate claims of scientific validity.

I didn't say that it did.

I have made comments about the lack of sound philosophy of science education. I have made comments about extensions of scientific methodology into academic fields where the empirical underpinnings are lacking. I have discussed professors who prefer to attack individuals rather than respond to ideas.

And I have agreed with the New Scientist article that starts this thread that there is a religious fundamentalism that some scientists fall into.

Originally Posted by keith

Which nicely demonstrates that when you train a mind to look for and expect patterns it sees them - whether as tricks or real questions.

Science types often do that because identifying patterns in data and making sense of them is a critical skill in science. That scientists, undergraduate or not, sometimes run out ahead of the data wasn't particularly the point of the illustration and nothing about the illustration is offered as a proof point. Probably a problem with my illustration.

Where I was heading with the illustration was the difficulty that many scientists have in integrating empirical information with non-empirical information (such as courtroom testimony) and evaluating the result.

Obviously, as a Christian, there is plenty in this area to debate. I haven't really been intending to attack here though. I saw some articles that I viewed as worthy of comment.

[keith]

Originally Posted by dcmdale

I didn't say that it did.

..sorry you seemed to be extending an arguement that runs from critising the inappropriate extension of scientific materialism to using this as a basis to support an idea of atheistic 'scientific fundamentalism' in science itself. While I happily agree with the first I have problems with the second.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

I have made comments about the lack of sound philosophy of science education. I have made comments about extensions of scientific methodology into academic fields where the empirical underpinnings are lacking. I have discussed professors who prefer to attack individuals rather than respond to ideas.

agreed, agreed, and agreed. Not that the last has much to do with science (or scientists) per se - perhaps more a by product of academic ego?

Originally Posted by dcmdale

And I have agreed with the New Scientist article that starts this thread that there is a religious fundamentalism that some scientists fall into.

this is where I have a problem - I think it is wrong to assign the responsibility to scientists. I recall some of the responses to Hawkings "A brief history of time" which in effect claimed the work as a some sort of metaphysical study - this is of course flawed at all sorts of levels and does support your perfectly valid point that scientific education, in general not merely 'amoungst scientists', is a serious problem.

That in many situation a 'scientific' opinion is given an undue respect when it moves from the a limited scientific materialism towards a metaphysical materialism is not just the fault of scientists. Someone has to be willing to buy the snakeoil after all.

I know scientists who have a quite diverse array of metaphysical opinions - some are even quite willing to argue for their opinions, thiestic and otherwise. Clearly the problem with 'appealing to authority' applies - I am sure Inq will appear to remind me of the correct latin phrase.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

Science types often do that because identifying patterns in data and making sense of them is a critical skill in science. That scientists, undergraduate or not, sometimes run out ahead of the data wasn't particularly the point of the illustration and nothing about the illustration is offered as a proof point. Probably a problem with my illustration.

...but I think your illustration is valid in the sense that it illustrates the limitations of applying a scientific methodology where empirical and non-empirical data coincide. There are plenty of examples of this in fields where hard empirical data flows into softer less quantifiable data - medical epidemiology springs to mind. There is hard data (rates of infection, etc) and soft data (behavioral parameters and how they are measured etc) which must be merged to provide a Scientific opinion which people can then act upon.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

Where I was heading with the illustration was the difficulty that many scientists have in integrating empirical information with non-empirical information (such as courtroom testimony) and evaluating the result.

Which is where it is important that scientific claims (if they can even be called that) which are based on such non-empirical information should be treated with caution.

As to dealing with the question of integrating empirical/non-empirical data and meaningfully putting it all together; that is general human failing. Otherwise philosophers and theologists would have been out of business a long time ago.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

Obviously, as a Christian, there is plenty in this area to debate. I haven't really been intending to attack here though. I saw some articles that I viewed as worthy of comment.

Apologies if my response appeared overly agressive - not my intention.