Deal with the feelz: what Trump has in common with the Swedish Green Party

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. 
                                                                        - Philip K. Dick

I've become a bit of a fan of John Oliver and the HBO show Last Week Tonight. I like the jokes (obviously), but also the amount of research that goes into them. Last Week Tonight is comedy, but it appears to be comedy intent on bringing to your attention things you don't normally think or hear about. (Also, this thing about science communication.)

Of course, Oliver also brings up things that are very much on everyone's mind. Like last Sunday, when he talked about the Republican National Convention and how Donald Trump is now one step closer to becoming president of the USA. (Which is terrifying, by the way.) Oliver made a very valid point: There is a surprising amount of talk about feelings from the Trump side. Not just any feelings, either, but feelings about things like immigration and crime rates that are allowed to overshadow any available facts on the matter. In one clip from CNN, a reporter asks Republican Newt Gingrich about crime rates, stating that the rate of violent crime is on a general downwards trend in the US. Gingrich completely dismisses this, saying that people feel that crime has become more prevalent and that as a politician, he's going to go with what people feel.

From a Swedish perspective it would be easy to dismiss this as general American weirdness, but what struck me was that I distinctly remember reading almost exactly those same words before, but in Swedish and on a very different topic. No, it wasn't about immigration. It was some ten years ago, it was by a representative of the Swedish Green Party (arguably the opposite of Republicans politically speaking) and it was about electromagnetic hypersensitivity. I'm unfortunately unable to find the quote at the moment, but the gist was the same as in the interview with Gingrich: Your research and statistics do not matter, because people have strong feelings on this issue.

Based on these two datapoints (which is not at all conclusive, but good enough for a rambling blog post), it seems that feelings overshadowing facts is something that happens across the political spectrum, but on different issues (for example, your Green Party member might scoff at research suggesting that electromagnetic hypersensitivity doesn't exist or homeopathy is bunk, but will cling to the statistics until their knuckles whiten when global warming is brought up). And of course, the other side in the debate will counter with facts, facts, and probably some name-calling, and finally throw up their hands and possibly label their opponents as "fact resistant". It seems to me that we are simultaneously taking the feelings and experiences we agree with too seriously, by treating them as reliable facts, and not taking the feelings we don't like seriously enough, by not acknowledging that feelings don't respond well to fact-based arguments (and that people won't stop feeling the way they do because you tell them they are stupid and horrible). 

To make matters more complicated, the tendency to accept feelings and personal experiences as fact can come from good intentions. You might see the suffering of someone who appears to be hypersensitive to WiFi, or the fear of someone who feels unsafe in their neighbourhood, and you don't want to insult them by suggesting that their feelings are unwarranted. After all, only they know what their feelings and experiences are, right?

Well, yes. But feelings and thoughts are not necessarily accurate representations of reality, and experiences will be interpreted differently depending on your preexisting beliefs. This does not mean that the feeling or experience should be dismissed outright, but that it can be beneficial to regard it from a different perspective. For example, if we accept that the symptoms denoted as electromagnetic hypersensitivity are not caused by electromagnetic radiation, it may be possible to uncover the real cause. If a feeling of insecurity is not caused by an actual increase in crime, there may be another reason.

The point, to the extent that I have one, is that I wish there was a way to talk about all these feelings and experiences in a way that acknowledges people's right to feel what they feel, but still make it possible to discuss the facts and underlying reality.  It's wouldn't stop Trump, of course, but in time it might make it a little more difficult for the local populists to refer to 'how ordinary people think/feel' as if that was the only thing that mattered. Of course, the Green Party might also face increased difficulty in promoting their favourite alt-med diagnoses, but that might be a good thing, too.

MAX IV och vad vi kan se

För en knapp månad sedan invigdes en forskningsanläggning som kallas MAX IV utanför Lund. I MAX IV accelereras elektroner till mycket höga hastigheter och leds in i en cirkulär bana. På grund av den kontinuerliga accelerationen (för att stanna i den cirkulära banan måste ju riktningen hela tiden ändras) ger elektronerna ifrån sig synkrotronstrålning, elektromagnetisk strålning med ett brett spektrum från radiovågor till röntgenstrålning. MAX IV är den mest intensiva synkrotronstrålningskällan i världen.

Så vad ska den vara bra för?

Ett sätt att förstå vad MAX IV är bra för är att fundera över gränserna för vad vi kan se. Det mänskliga ögat kan i regel urskilja saker ner till bredden på ett hårstrå, runt 20 mikrometer. I ett vanligt ljusmikroskop kan vi få syn på långt mindre saker, men det finns en gräns: För att vi ska kunna urskilja detaljer måste ljuset vi använder ha tillräckligt kort våglängd. Exakt hur kort den måste vara beror på hur bra mikroskopet är och kan beräknas med något som kallas Abbes kriterium, men tumregeln är strax under halva våglängden. Synligt ljus har våglängder mellan 0.4 och 0.7 mikrometer, eller 400 till 700 nanometer. Vi kan alltså som bäst se detaljer på några hundra nanometer.

Men om vi vill se nanopartiklar, som kan vara nere på tiotals nanometer? Eller var de enskilda atomerna i en molekyl sitter? Avstånden mellan atomer i en molekyl är oftast runt ett par Ångström, eller tiondels nanometer, tusen gånger mindre än vad vi kan urskilja med synligt ljus. För att studera sådana saker måste vi hitta något som har kortare våglängd, och det är här den bredspektriga synkrotronstrålningen från anläggningar som MAX IV kommer in i bilden. Man kan filtrera ut strålning med rätt våglängd för att studera ett visst material eller strukturen i ett visst prov. Röntgenstrålning, till exempel, har våglängder mellan 0.1 och 10 nanometer, så den är synnerligen lämplig för att kolla på atomers positioner, medan nanopartiklar kanske kan studeras med UV-ljus.

Så om vi nu vet hur våra molekyler och nanostrukturer ser ut, vad gör vi med den kunskapen? En sak vi kan göra är att börja fundera på hur vi kan ändra på den för att ge den egenskaper som vi vill ha. Molekylerna skulle till exempel kunna vara potentiella läkemedel vars egenskaper man vill förstå bättre.
Så det är något av vad MAX IV är bra för.