Science is evil...obviously
    Last night I engaged in my favourite hobby - stealing money from blind nuns.  After all, I'm a scientist and we're morally bankrupt.  We invented the atom bomb, chemical warfare and (as some conspiracists would have you believe) the Ebola and Zika viruses.  Scientists are the heartless people in lab coats electrocuting defenceless chimpanzees and cackling as they do so.  In fact, when you pledge allegiance to the Head of Science, you have to kill a puppy and bathe in its blood. 
    I'm exagerrating for comic effect of course (not much though) but there really are people who see Science in this light.  Some people seem to carry the notion in their heads that because Scientists want to understand how everything works, that means we are detached from the moral trappings of decency. 
    I was once asked whether Science had any moral compass or whether investigating the universe had to be done in a vacuum.  I gave a cursory answer, but it's a brilliant question which deserves more thought.  While there have been evil Scientists like Josef Mengele, Harold Hodge and Harry Harlow, is it true that all Scientists are destined to become purveyors of cruelty and sadism?  Does Science make people evil? 

Right and Wrong
    Everybody carries ideas in their heads about right and wrong actions.  To some people it's wrong to eat animals, to others it's fine.  Some people think it's wrong to dance with members of the opposite sex, while others think it's wrong to suggest there are such things as "sexes".  Some cultures on Earth readily engage in cannibalism while others see it as one of the ultimate taboos.  How do you agree on morality when everybody disagrees?
    Suppose a child slaps another child.  An adult might disagree with their action and, ironically, slap the aggressive child themselves (I've seen it happen).  Should we assume the adult's moral code is correct  because they have experienced more life?  If we decided that adults know what they're doing and children don't, you'd have to explain how Malala Yousafzai won a Nobel Peace Prize for  undermining the Taliban at the age of 11. 
    Even things we assume are obviously wrong are far from universal.  Telling lies is often considered immoral yet millions of parents tell their children about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.  Or (to paraphrase Immanuel Kant) suppose a mad axe-murderer came to your door looking for someone you knew was hiding there.  If it's morally wrong to lie, shouldn't you say "Yup, they're hiding in the closet, right this way!"  It's the axe murderer who then finds the victim and kills them, not you. 
    Or perhaps we could argue the mad axe murderer is not accountable for their actions because they are mad...perhaps they did nothing wrong other than obeying natural drives?  And what do we make of all the murders which take place during a war?  If a soldier shoots a terrorist that's still commiting a murder, any way you look at it.
    Human morality is inevtiably subjective i.e. it depends on a person's opinion.  You might think it's wrong to slap a granny but that's just it...it's what you personally think.  If someone else says it's fine to go granny-slapping, then it's a difference of opinion not fact.  But can it be resolved with Science?  After all, Science has a long history of settling debates by discovering "objective" truths i.e. facts independent of beliefs or values.  Could Science discover such a thing as an objective morality?

Objective Morality
      The notion of objective morality would be a moral code which could not be disagreed with.  Such principles would be an inherent part of the Universe, like gravity pulling objects together or heat  moving from high temperature to low.  Could we use Science to discover moral principles which are fundamental and transcend human opinion? 
    I'll be honest, I think the answer is no, and the reason is that Science is concerned with what is not what ought to be.    
    Let's take murder as an example.  Imagine I wanted to shoot someone in the face.  Science can tell me that pulling the trigger will kill the person.  I could ask "why should I not kill them?"  Science can then demonstrate that the man would no longer be able to enjoy life.  I could respond with "why should he be able to enjoy life?"  Science could point out that his death will cause suffering to friends and family.  But again, I could ask "why should I not cause suffering to others?"  
    Science could show that I would not like it if someone made me suffer and I could agree, but still respond "Why should I treat others the way I want them to treat me?"  The answer could be "Because it would be unfair" and I would respond with "Why should the world be fair?" 
    Science could even argue that a violent species is at risk of wiping itself out and that by commiting violent acts we could destroy the human race.  But still, the murderer could respond with "Why shouldn't we destroy the human race?" and we could go on like that forever, never resolving anything.
   No matter what we said to a murderer, we could not argue that the Universe requires them to not kill.  The Universe doesn't permit objects to travel faster than light through spacetime but it does allow murder to take place.  Clearly there is no fundamental law stopping it from happening, so a murderer has nothing preventing them from doing so, other than the belief it would be better if they didn't.
    If a person liked the idea of everybody being miserable, everybody suffering, and the human race going extinct, how could I show them they were incorrect for wanting that?  How can a desire be incorrect? 
    Science can definitely show that things like murder, theft, cruelty etc. make other people suffer and we can even show that their suffering is identical to ours.  But "the decision to not cause suffering" cannot be shown to be something nature prefers.  The Universe doesn't want or demand anything since it is not conscious and consciousness is required for morality.

Where would it come from? 
    If there is such a thing as objective morality, it must come from a supernatural source e.g. a God (a conscious entity not subject to natural laws).  This doesn't mean atheists are horrible people incidentally.  I've seen many religious apologists say something like "do atheists believe in objective morality?" to which the atheist has to logically say "not"...at which point the apologist springs their apparent trap: "Aha, so you think there is nothing objectively wrong with murdering people!"  This tactic is a little underhanded and I feel it gives apologetics a bad name.
    Atheists can still think murder is evil and condemn those who do it, it's just that they think this belief comes from their personal desire to end suffering, not from a God.  Atheists do not believe murder is objectively wrong but they also don't believe it is objectively purple.  They just think words like right and wrong don't apply in the context of desires and values. 
    Atheists would also ask the question: if morality comes from God, who holds God accountable?  In the Christian Bible for example the God of the Israelites threatens to make people cannibalise their own children (Leviticus 26:29 and Jeremiah 19:9) sends bears to maul 42 teenagers (2 Kings 2: 24) and seems to encourage the murder of babies and enslavement of virgin women (Numbers 31).
    What do we make of something like that?  What if we aren't comfortable with the idea of killing children and enslaving women?  Are humans allowed to disagree with such a moral command if it has come from God? 
    This, incidentally, is why many atheists reject the notion of morality from God, since God is sometimes willing to enforce suffering and death.  Many religious people find these questions difficult to answer, although for a fascinating defence of God's morality in the Old Testament, I reccommend the book Is God a Moral Monster by Paul Copan. 

Putting it to the Test
    The reason we would struggle to use Science as a measure of morality is also down to how Science works.  In Science, if you want to know the truth about something, you ask questions and carry out experiments.  That's the only way to do it. 
    But the moral question is as follows: should we do evil?  There is no experiment which can answer such a query because the answer is always going to depend on a human answer.  Electrons don't lose charge when you tell lies and black holes don't appear when you say mean things.  There is no "moralon" particle which influences other particles to prevent suffering.  Asking whether you should or shouldn't do something isn't a falsifiable question and Science only deals in falsifiable questions.
    To be abundantly clear, I don't like the idea of the human race being wiped out or people suffering needlessly but that's just it.  It is something I don't like.  It's a feeling based on my personal tastes. 
    If you wanted to prove morality does exist external to human opinion, you would have to find an example of a moral act being somehow wrong...without there being a mind involved.  And I am not sure such an experiment even makes sense.  The Universe seems to behave in a way which has no desire to appease or offend human sensibilities.  Gravity works because it works, not because humans feel it ought to. 

So...Scientists are Immoral after all?
    Science cannot prove the existence of morals but it also cannot prove that Batman is better than Iron Man.  It's a matter of opinion.  Scientists are still able to have tastes and opinions about the world, they just can't prove their tastes and opinions are objective...which puts them in the same league as everyone else.  Nobody can prove their tastes objective, that's sort of what makes them tastes (unless you're Batman, in which case everything you do is morally right).  So the answer is no, Science cannot help with morality, but I would like to make the case that it can help with something equally important: ethics. 

 Morals and Ethics
    Although the words are used synonymously, ethics are not the same as morals.  Morals are a person's individual decisions about what they consider good and bad acts.  Ethics are laws a society agrees on to make the world better for people.  For example, morality might tell you not to cremate a corpse (there are many people who believe cremation is evil).  That's fine because it's your opinion and you're entitled to it.  Ethics takes a different approach.  Ethics starts from the idea that we should try and make the world pleasant and minimise suffering wherever possible. 
    Cremation doesn't cause suffering to the deceased (they're dead), and it might actually solve the problem of overcrowding in cemeteries.  Ethics looks at what the facts are and then makes a decision based on the notion that suffering is to be avoided.  If the deceased's family would be greatly upset at their loved one being cremated, ethics could still decide cremation was wrong, but if the family had no objection and the family actually wanted them to be cremated, ethics says go for it.
    Ethics are still based on the opinion that we should do well as a species and end suffering, but it never claims to be objectively accurate.  It's interested in learning the facts and then making a decision as a result.  And this is where Science does operate.
    Some of the most controversial ethical/moral issues we face today are things like abortion, euthanasia, animal-testing, vegetarianism, capital punishment and what to do with psychopaths.  Morally, everyone might have opinions about each of these issues but that won't get the debate settled. 
    In order to answer these tricky questions we have to rely on ethics, which means Science is relevant.  Not in telling us what decisions to make of course, but in giving us the tools to make sure our decisions are well informed. 
    If we decide that causing others to suffer unnecessarily is something to avoid, then we can use Science to find out what causes suffering and how much is avoidable...but that initial decision still has to come from us.  And I think this is where we have reason to be hopeful, because one thing Science has definitely shown is that humans have the capacity for empathy, sympathy, altruism and compassion.  Just because the Universe is indifferent, doesn't mean we have to be :)

Image credits
Woman shooting dog: Edited from jameshyman (originally taken from the TV show Nathan Barley)
Voldemort: businessinsider
Jack Torrance: propstore
Is God a Moral Monster: Amazon
Gravity: ytimg

Everyone is Special
    Talking about intelligence can rile people up the same way talking about money or beauty can.  It gets uncomfortable because sooner or later you have to address the fact that some people have more than others.  To combat this discomfort, educational movements have often tried to avoid the problem by deciding there is either no such thing as intelligence or that everybody has it.
    It began in 1969 when the Canadian psychologist Nathaniel Branden published his landmark paper The Psychology of Self Esteem.  Branden argued that self-esteem was a need like food or water, and that if it wasn’t met the person suffered.  It was seized upon by witless educational theorists and the result was “The Self Esteem Movement”. 
    The idea was that telling children they were all highly intelligent would lead to more productive lives and greater happiness.  It’s a well-meaning sentiment but it backfired for a pretty obvious reason.  Praise is valuable, but if it’s given constantly and free-of-charge then it inflates egos, causes laziness, and eventually loses meaning. 
    The sociologist Kay Hymowitz conducted a meta-analysis of 15,000 studies on the effectiveness of The Self Esteem Movement and concluded that “Many children who are convinced they are little geniuses tend not to put much effort into their work.”  Funny that. 
    It’s a shame, because Nathanial Branden’s ideas were important and self esteem is necessary, but cheapening it to “tell every kid they’re brilliant” is not how you generate happiness.  It's how you generate narcissists.

Intelligent in your own way
    Another popular idea, proposed in 1983 by the American psychologist Howard Gardner, is that of multiple intelligences.  Gardner decided (pretty much off the top of his head) that there was no such thing as intelligence.  Rather, there were several different types, with little correlation between them. 
    Consider the footballing skills of former England captain David Beckham.  During his peak, Beckham could be in the corner of a large field with 21 players running in different directions, and calculate exactly where the ball should go in order to give his team a tactical advantage.  Not only that, he’d figure out how to move his muscles to apply the correct force at the correct angle to achieve his desired trajectory and could do it in a matter of seconds...in his head.
    Gardner would argue, quite reasonably, that Beckham was using his brain to achieve specific outcomes the same way Einstein did - just different types of outcome.  Beckham’s intelligence resided in the physical realm while Einstein’s was in the mathematical.
    On the basis of this argument Gardner proposed several different types of intelligence which people could possess: musical, visual, linguistic, logical, physical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and many more. 
    It was a popular idea in schools – I remember being given the multiple intelligence test myself - but it's multiply confused.  The most obvious problem is that it repurposes the word "intelligence".  If we’re going to do define intelligence in such a broad way then everything a human does is intelligent, because everything involves using your brain to exemplify an outcome. 
    If you know how to walk we could say you have “perambulatory intelligence”, if you know how to cook we could say you have “culinary intelligence”.  If you are a fan of the movie Transformers 5, we could say you have “no intelligence” and so on. 
    What Gardner’s model does is redefine intelligence to mean ability.  But when you redefine a word, the thing you originally needed it for still exists.  If we decided to repurpose the word carrot to mean “any kind of vegetable”, those orange things would still be there, so we’d have to invent a new word for them and the whole thing would repeat. 
    We use the word intelligent because it describes something we all seem to agree is real and distinct from other abilities.  You wouldn't describe a good sandwich as intelligent because it's not an appropriate compliment.  Likewise, if someone has significant sporting prowess we can describe them as "athletic", "fit", "sporty" etc. but intelligence is refering to a different thing.  That's not saying intelligence and sport-skills are mutually exclusive, it's just saying they aren't concomitant. 
    David Beckham could be a very intelligent man but his footballing skills aren't a sign of intelligence, they're a sign of atheltic ability.  They are separate features and its unwise to pretend they're the same.  Ultimately, the problem with Gardner's approach is that the word intelligent is describing a very specific quality, not a generic one. 

So what IS Intelligence?
    Words change meaning depending on context and pinning them down to a single definition can sometimes be detrimental.  Often it’s the vague boundaries around a word which give it utility.  As a Scientist I want to subject everything to clear and rigorous definitions but I recognise this isn’t the way we use language.  This makes defining a nuanced word like intelligence tricky. 
    I was once observing a lesson where a teacher said to a student “you’re very artistically intelligent.”  The student looked puzzled and said “yeah, but being artistically intelligent isn’t real intelligence.”
    I spoke to her afterwards and asked what she meant.  It took her a while to articulate but eventually she hit on a profound insight: “intelligence is when you’re good at things which go on inside your head.”   I think she might be onto something.
    The ability to play an instrument is a function of the brain but it is expressed through fingers.  Being a talented singer is a function of the brain but it is expressed as movement of vocal chords.  The same is true with painters, sportsmen, dancers etc.  Their abilities are based on brain activity but the outcome is manifested physically.  When we refer to intelligence we seem to mean abilities which do not translate so obviously into a physical mode. 
    A person can use their vocal chords with skill and intonation to deliver a speech.  We might describe them as a skilled raconteur or actor, but the person who wrote the speech, who actually thought of the words to use, is the person we consider intelligent. 
    Let’s take an even more obvious example: Professor Stephen Hawking. 
    Nobody’s going to object if I call Stephen Hawking an intelligent man.  Some of his media fame may be due to his struggle with physical disability, but let’s be clear: his reputation as one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists is well deserved.  Even without his inspiring life story, Hawking would still be regarded as one of the greatest Scientific minds alive today.  And yet there is no physical manifestation.  That’s probably why Hawking’s story is so moving in the first place.  He cannot express his brilliance physically, it is entirely within his head. 
    I would argue that intelligence is whatever we agree Professor Stephen Hawking has.  He can’t sing, play the tuba or tap-dance, but the inner workings of his brain, which cannot be demonstrated physically, is what we mean by “intelligence”.

Knowledge is Power, but it’s not Intelligence
    What’s so special about Hawking’s brain then?  Well, the guy definitely knows a ton about physics.  But there’s more to it.  I know a lot about physics too, but I’m not going to claim I’m as clever as Hawking. 
    Intelligence isn’t the same as knowing things because anyone can memorise facts.  I could tell a room of people “fermions are defined by their adherence to the Pauli exclusion principle, a function of their half-integer spin”...but does everyone in the room suddenly become smarter if they don’t understand what that fact means?   
    Probably the most workable definition of intelligence I can think of is as follows: answering questions you know the answer to is knowledge, figuring out answers to a question you don’t know the answer to is intelligence. 
    I think this definition, although loose, is probably as good as we can get.  Intelligence is how well we process unfamiliar information; how well we use things we do know to grasp things we don’t.

The IQ Test
    The most famous assessments of intelligence are IQ tests.  And I’m not talking about those 15 minute online things which always give a mysteriously high score as if they’re wanting to flatter you into returning to their website...Hmmmm.  I mean the real things.
    I was made to take a proper IQ test once, and it’s an exhaustive procedure.  It took about five hours and was carried out by an examiner with a stopwatch.  There were bits of paper, little puzzles to complete, picture cards; the whole works.  And I’m afraid I’m not going to tell you what my IQ is.  Sorry. 
    The reason is not because I have an embarrassingly low score, it’s because I don’t put much faith in the tests and don’t want people getting hung up on it.  IQ tests tell us something, but it’s not intelligence.  I know there's an old joke which goes "the only people who object to IQ tests are people who do badly on them".  But that's not true.  For the record I actually scored highly.  I just don't think the number tells you much.

A Brief History of IQ
    IQ tests were invented in 1904 by the French psychologist Alfred Binet.  The ministry of education in France was trying to identify students who were likely to struggle in school and Binet provided a diagnostic.  Every student was given a series of common-sense questions and if they answered poorly, they were given extra support in class.
    The questions included things like identifying the names of certain foods, lifting objects and deciding which was heavier, and even looking at faces of women and deciding which was the prettiest.  Your score was then calculated as a fraction compared to other people (a quotient) and that was the end of it.  Binet was very clear that his test was not calculating a single measure of “general intelligence”.  It was giving a sense of how you performed at basic tasks.
    About ten years after Binet introduced his test, the American military were looking to find a method of assessing which soldiers should be given officer training in preparation for the first world war.  They asked the Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman to design a test and he turned to Binet’s, adapting it for adults.
    Over 1.5 million soldiers took Terman’s test and were given a ranking of A – E, with only the A-grade soldiers getting officer training.  Terman later introduced the familiar numbering we still use, where 100 is considered average and 140 is termed “genius”.  More unsettling still, many US states with the death penalty require an IQ score of 70 to be worthy of execution.  About 20% of Death-Row inmates are only just over that line.  Apparently a score of 70 is enough to make you culpable for your actions but a score of 69 is not.  
    Terman later argued that only smart people should be allowed to breed in order to better the human race and he made one or two teeth-clenching comments about the link between intelligence and race, so that gives you some idea what he wanted his test to be used for.  Here's a quick example of a straightforward IQ test.  How many Indiana Jones movies are shown below?

The Feynman Problem
    The example I always use when illustrating the fallibility of IQ tests is what I call "The Feynman Problem".  Richard Feynman had an IQ of 123-125.  That’s not bad, but it would only indicate him to be “reasonably smart”.  Yet Feynman was inarguably one of the most intelligent people to walk the Earth in the last hundred years. 
    He won a Nobel prize for working out the mathematics of quantum electrodynamics, the two main biographies written about him are called Genius and No Ordinary Genius, he taught at Princeton, MIT, Cornell and CalTech Universities, and was described by Robert Oppehnheimer on the Los Alamos project (the greatest Scientific minds living in one town) as “the most brilliant physicist here”.
    He was a freak of intelligence but based on his IQ score you wouldn't think he was anything special.  Hell, James Franco has a higher IQ than Feynman.  James Franco!!!   Even I have a higher IQ than Richard Feynman and I am NOT smarter than he.  
    While IQ tests might be telling us something, I don’t think we should put too much stock in the numbers.  It would be like measuring a person’s fingers to see whether they would be good at playing piano.  There may be a moderate correlation but it’s far from the whole story. 
    If you’ve got a high IQ then you’re probably bright, but being any more specific is going beyond what we can know.  A person with an IQ of 120 may not be any more intelligent than someone with a score of 110 – they might just better at doing the IQ test. 
     Because intelligence is a loosely defined word, we need a loosely defined way of measuring it.  Trying to measure it with a number is like trying to nail a cloud to a piece of wood.

The Barmaid Test
    There’s a famous Einstein quotation which goes: “if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.  It’s a good phrase but it’s not real.  It’s actually a mixture of his genuine quotation “the truth should be stated as simply as possible, but no simpler” and a quotation from Feynman “if you can’t explain it to a freshman, that means you don’t understand it.”
    Ernest Rutherford, another Nobel prize-winner, once said something with a similar sentiment: “an alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.” 
    I feel this is a little unfair on barmaids but his point is valid i.e. if an idea is worth knowing, you should be able to explain it to someone who isn’t an expert in the field.  The idea of the barmaid test is, at its core, that to understand an idea you should be able to state it simply.  This, claim the great minds, is the best way of seeing if someone really understands something...get them to explain it in straightforward terms.
    So I think Rutherford's Barmaid Test is probably a better measure of intelligence than IQ scores.  If you really want to see how clever someone is, ask them to explain the clever-sounding thing they just said.  If they can't, they're probably not as smart as they think they are.
     Am I therefore saying teachers are the smartest people on the planet?  Yes.  Yes I am. 
    Good luck in the new term everyone!

Image Credits
Natasha David: New York Post
Kanye: Amazon
Einstein: Getty images
Beckham: pinimg
Hawking: independent
Palpatine: the savage lifestyle
Indiana: andrewgats
Feynman: atomic heritage