Category: science

8 “Alternative Medicine” isn’t

January 4, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · medicine · science · skepticism

I am not Orac (though at times I wish I had his flair and his work ethic). My involvement in medicine can be accurately described as “tangential”, at least insofar as it comes to my career. That being said, I’m interested in the decisions we make when the stakes are high, and they don’t get much higher than the life and death circumstances we find ourselves in when talking about our health. As a result, I am acutely interested in the discussion around “alternative” medicines.

Alternative medicine, of course, is a propaganda phrase used to describe “treatments” that lie outside of the accepted norms for medicine. It is applied with equal gusto to completely sensible and useful things like modifying diet and exercise; things that seem like they might work but are a little out there like acupuncture and chiropractic; and to things that don’t make any sense and are completely batshit insane like homeopathy or energy healing (although, to be sure, there are way crazier things out there). The problem with such a… shall we say… flexibile definition of “alternative”, is that when someone points out that acupuncture doesn’t work, or that “energy healing” is the same fakery that faith healers exploit, people jump on them and say that they’re against anything that is “natural”.

That’s a distortion of the skeptical position that is so outrageous that it borders on being a lie. Large mainstream science-based organizations like Health Canada and the World Health Organization whole-heartedly endorse the use of diet and exercise modification to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and any number of other chronic and acute conditions. Herbal remedies are refined and turned into powerful pharmaceuticals (Aspirin is a commonly-invoked example of such a refinement). Things like yoga, massage, and other types of relaxation therapy are often recommended to reduce stress which can underly a number of health problems. Skeptics are happy to accept something so long as it works. We don’t care if it’s “alternative” or not.

These “alternative medicines” are not alternative in any way – if they work, then they aren’t alternative, they’re just medicine. The other side of the problem is the ones that are truly “alternative” aren’t medicine! They don’t work any better than voodoo or augury or invoking ancestor’s spirits. This wouldn’t be so problematic, except that they still do cause side-effects:

Giving alternative treatments such as homeopathic remedies instead of conventional medicines to children may have deadly side-effects in rare instances, a new analysis says. Australian researchers monitored reports from pediatricians in Australia from 2001 to 2003 looking for suspected side-effects from alternative medicines like herbal treatments, vitamin supplements or naturopathic pills. They found 39 reports of side-effects including four deaths.

Real medicine is regulated, monitored for safety, and must pass through a strict certification process to reach market. Nobody would claim that the process is perfect – some real stinkers get through – but they get caught. All some quack has to do is slap the label “alternative” on her product, and she gets off scot free. This poses a real threat – herbs and supplements are biochemically active substances that have real effects in the body. The liver doesn’t care if something is “natural” or not – it still breaks it down. The metabolites of any substance that enters the body can exert real effects, particularly if they are used in conjunction with pharmaceuticals.

But what about things like reiki or homeopathy? Surely these things that exert no actual effect on the body (above the often-misunderstood placebo effect) don’t cause the liver to do anything. What possible side-effects could they cause?

The answer is that people will often forego real treatments in favour of these so-called “alternative” approaches:

In 30 cases, the issues were “probably or definitely” related to complementary medicine, and in 17 the patient was regarded as being harmed by a failure to use conventional medicine. The report says that all four deaths resulted from a failure to use conventional medicine.

One death involved an eight-month-old baby admitted to hospital “with malnutrition and septic shock following naturopathic treatment with a rice milk diet from the age of three months for ‘congestion'”. “Another death involved a 10-month-old infant who presented with septic shock following treatment with homeopathic medicines and dietary restriction for chronic eczema,” the authors say.

One child had multiple seizures after complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) were used instead of anti-seizure drugs due to concerns about potential side effects. The fourth death was of a child who needed blood-clotting drugs but was given complementary medicine instead.

These people proceeded in defiance of medical advice to give useless products to children with real health problems. Adults do this to themselves too. It’s not because they didn’t know or weren’t told, it’s because they believed in the lie that is the phrase “alternative medicine”. I can’t put too strong a point on this: “alternative medicine” isn’t alternative, and it isn’t medicine. The stuff that works is just medicine, and the stuff that doesn’t work is nothing other than voodoo.

I have friends who are voodoo practitioners. A woman I did my undergraduate with is training to be a chiropractor (much to the face-palming chagrin of the rest of our class); two of my close companions here in Vancouver use acupuncture as part of their otherwise science-based rehabilitative toolkit; another friend is into “energy work”, whatever that means. This is not an abstract concept to me, nor should it be to you. If you buy into the idea that there is such a thing as “alternative medicine”, you’re helping contribute to the climate that puts completely decent things like healthy lifestyle factors in the same category as crystals and “psychic surgery”.

There is no “alternative medicine” – there’s just medicine and bullshit.

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3 What would happen if… (evolution vs. creation)

December 27, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · crommunism · religion · science · skepticism

I sometimes forget that not everyone gets into fights on the internet about stuff. While I’ve been observing the debate over climate change and evolution and the existence of God and alt-med pseudoscience and any other number of skeptical hot topics for a while now, I often make the faulty assumption that other people are a) as interested and b) as skeptical as I am about these things. As a result, I tend to regard people who believe in astrology, or ghosts, or biblical creation, as being curious oddities when they are in fact, more often than not simply people who aren’t particularly experienced in skeptical inquiry.

It is for this reason that this blog has, from time to time, become a dumping ground for my handful of skeptical tools, thought experiments, critical arguments, and whatever other devices I use on a day-to-day basis when I’m trying to navigate the morass of contradictory claims that are at the heart of most of these “controversies”. Today will be another one of those.

Whenever I am confronted with a new idea or a theoretical framework, I like to ask myself the question “What would the world look like if this were true?” It’s a useful thought experiment in which you are invited to re-start the world from scratch and, while keeping all the other variables the same, imagine what the outcome would be if a certain rule were true. It’s the inverse of the usual scientific process wherein we look at the evidence in aggregate and then try to figure out what the rules are; in this thought experiment we assume the rule to be true and then imagine what the world would look like as a result.

Rule #1a: Creationism – the Earth was created by a supernatural force in (more or less) its present form about 10,000 years ago. Current geological and geographical features that appear to be due to the effect of much more than 10,000 years of time are in fact caused by a massive flood.

What would the world look like if Creationism was true?

It is entirely possible that different species were created using the same set of rules, so the existence of a single mechanism underpinning living organisms (DNA/RNA transcription) is neither ruled out or necessitated by this rule. Types of animals (called “kinds” in Creationist jargon) would not show anything but trivial similarities in terms of their underlying physiology, microbiology, genetics, since they have all been created separately and are not designed to interbreed. There would be no need for wasted or vestigial organs, since these organs would only waste energy. A consistent fossil record would exist that shows only superficial changes over time, consistent with the observed rate of change in physiology in the current time (within reasonable error bars). Species would show evidence of physical migration from a single point of of origin (in the Middle East), spreading out to their current locations, and the same types of animals would occupy ecological niches everywhere (birds are the only ones that fly, fish are the ones that swim, etc.) since there is no reason to change a working pattern. Species would not acquire new characteristics over time, since they were created perfect the first time. Floods would exhibit similar effects (albeit to a smaller degree) on geology that can be observed and extrapolated.

Rule #1b: Evolution – all existing life has a common origin, having reached its present form via a process of change due to a combination of genetic mutation and changes in environment that favors certain trait changes over others.

What would the world look like if evolution were true?

Different species would have many genetic commonalities – no species would use a completely unique process of gene replication, and similarity between different types of species would be on a gradient rather than randomly distributed. Similarities would also be seen in embryology, comparative physiology, and microbiology since they all came from a single source rather than being created different. There may (or may not) be gene sequences and organ systems that are completely useless or have trivial utility in one species, but have working analogues in other species – these would be caused when two different species diverge from a common ancestor due to environmental differences. Fossil records would show animals that are similar to a number of different species but are no longer in existence, as well as some that are still in existence (since environmental changes happen with different frequency and magnitude). Species would exist only in certain areas, while there would be no evidence of them in others, as their ancestors might have had common habitat but have left that area, went somewhere else, and adapted to the change in environment. By the same token, ecological niches would be filled by many different kinds of animals – there would be mammals that fly and birds that swim, plants that eat flies and insects that fertilize soil. Species would, if given sufficient time and divergent enough environments, gradually change and become different enough as to be considered two different species.

The last step of this process is to look at the world that exists and decide which rule best resembles our observed reality. If the rule is in conflict, there are two possible explanations: 1) the rule is false, or 2) there are other forces at work underlying reality that are not fully caught by observation, and further observation will expose them. Of course creationists are loath to accept #1, and will rush to find exceptions and “explanations” for why the rule is still valid (Ken Ham’s floating log bridges, for example). This, however, is simply back-filling – throwing up hastily-assembled assertions to prop up a preconceived conclusion rather than following the existing evidence.

I was going to do a few more examples, but I’m on vacation and I’m coming dangerously close to my 1000 word limit, so I’ll do another one of these another time.

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20 Pope does something marginally decent

December 7, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Catholic church · crapitalism · ethics · news · religion · science · sex

…and everyone loses their shit.

Of course this news is a bit dated now, and many of you have probably already heard this story:

Using a condom is a lesser evil than transmitting HIV to a sexual partner — male or female —even if that means averting a possible pregnancy, the Vatican said Tuesday, signalling a seismic shift in papal teaching as it further explained Pope Benedict XVI’s comments.

So the Pope has finally hit on the idea that it might be less evil to protect yourself and your sexual partner than it is to have sex without trying to make a baby. A few questions come to mind:

What about papal infallibility? Were you wrong before, or are you wrong now?
How is it that the moral “leadership” provided by the Catholic Church is about 100 years behind everyone else?
How did it take you this long to figure that out?

Life is not a dichotomous state – there is no such thing as ensoulment or some kind of spontaneous creation of “life”. Ever since Friedrich Wöhler first synthesized crystals of urea, a feat that was supposed to be impossible (organic matter from inorganic components), the philosophy of vitalism has been rapidly dismantled. All of the evidence suggests that “life” is a continuum that reaches back millions of years to the first self-replicating molecule, which was itself made up of “non-living” materials.

In this way, wearing a condom is not “preventing life” anymore than masturbation is mass murder. You’re simply inhibiting a specific chemical reaction that will result in a fertilization. To even consider the suffering of a living, feeling human person equivalent to the prevention of a chemical reaction – to even put those things in the same moral ballpark – takes a particularly craven mind.

And so people began bending over backwards to congratulate the Pope on not being entirely boneheadedly evil:

Catholic reformers and groups working to combat HIV have welcomed remarks by Pope Benedict that the use of condoms might not always be wrong.

I’m reminded of a Chris Rock sketch, where he derides some black men for their perceived tendency to brag about things that aren’t accomplishments, like raising their kids and paying their bills. To this completely unwarranted bragging, Rock retorts: “what do you want, a cookie?” Apparently the world is quite willing to hand an abundance of cookies over to the Pope for finally saying something that pretty much everyone else had figured out already.

But hey, at least he figured it out, right?

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said the Pope was speaking about “an exceptional situation” in one of the interviews in the book Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times, which is being published on Tuesday.

“The Pope considered an exceptional situation in which the exercise of sexuality is a real danger to the life of another,” said Fr Lombardi. Benedict used the specific example of a male prostitute using a condom to illustrate his apparent shift in position.

Come the fuck on, Ratzinger! Condoms are only appropriate in exceptional situations? Apparently in the Pope’s world view, it is better for a woman to become pregnant with a child she does not want and cannot afford to raise than it is for her to protect herself during sex. It’s better for a man to become inextricably yoked to another person for the rest of his life than it is for him to use a piece of latex.

And why is it a male prostitute?

Not all sex results in pregnancy (and I thank my lucky stars for that fact), but there’s always a chance. Many people want to have a child, for whatever reason, and are in a position to provide for it. Using condoms, unlike implants or hormone therapies or other intrusive forms of birth control, do not prevent people who want to have children from doing so. It is a simple technology that harms nobody (unless you count sperm, which I don’t).

Whatever claim to some kind of moral insight or authority that the Catholic Church pretends to have is repeatedly undermined by the ethical stupidity that is repeatedly on display from the Vatican.

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4 Why do all the black kids sit together?

December 6, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crommunism · psychology · race

I attended a conference in Ottawa last week that was related to work. I arrived early and picked a spot at the row of tables completely arbitrarily. Other people filtered in a bit later, and when I looked up from my computer, I realized that all of the black people in the room (well, there were only three so maybe ‘all’ is a bit misleading) were sitting in the same area as me.

It’s a phenomenon that you can observe pretty much anywhere, where members of a minority group tend to flock together. It even spawned the title of a book on racism and psychology.

Okay, and?

My job straddles a line between epidemiology, statistics and economics. While I can’t really claim to be an expert in any one of those fields individually, I can at least speak semi-intelligibly about them. A central concept in economics is the idea of an “incentive” – decisions are made by rational agents to gain something they value. By increasing the value gained by making a particular choice, you make that choice more appealing. For example, if you have the choice between two hamburgers, and I slap a piece of delicious bacon on one (but not the other), you’re more likely to choose the one with extra value.

The converse case of incentives are what are termed “disincentives” – additional features that make a rational agent less likely to make a choice. Suppose you are a vegan, and you are forced to choose between those same two hamburgers. All of a sudden, the addition of delicious bacon makes that sandwich less appealing.

This is an incredibly simplistic description of the concept, obviously, but hopefully it is clear.

Wait… what?

There is an illusion that we carry around in our minds that we have a “true self” – that we have a personality that is the “real me” version. The fact is that our personality is more strongly determined by the surrounding social environment and other external stimuli than it is by our intentions. As a result, when our environment changes, different aspects of our “self” become more apparent.

There is a classic example of this called “stereotype threat“, in which a person’s performance is (positively or negatively) affected by making a stereotype about them apparent. This is commonly seen when discussing the differential performance of women in science and mathematics. Women were inundated with a prevailing stereotype that “girls are not good at science”. As a result, when women are reminded of their gender before testing, they do worse than if they are not made aware.

What does this have to do with anything?

Social pressure exists. The presence of others is a real environmental cue, that will cause us to be aware of various aspects of our identity. As a direct result, we will switch over to one of our various “selves”. At this workshop, everyone in the room was similar in most ways – we all have similar careers, similar education, probably similar interests. However, my presence in the room reminded the other two black guys of their “black guy self”, creating an ad hoc group. This happened completely passively – I didn’t walk up to them and say “welcome, fellow black man.” It happened all by itself – all they had to do was notice that there was another black person around.

There’s another level that this operates on though. Imagine the converse – you are a physicist in a room full of actors. You are trying to have a conversation about beauty, but every time you slip into physics-speak, you are met by blank stares. Another physicist joins the conversation – your life immediately becomes easier. Even though you might not ordinarily gravitate toward this particular person, this arbitrary similarity makes her/him highly attractive to you.

It’s the same way for members of any minority group – when they feel different from the rest of the group, they are more likely to gravitate toward those who are similarly different.

So?

This ability to make certain identities more apparent can be used as an incentive to make decisions. If I would like you to donate to my women’s rights charity, I might do well to remind you that you have a sister, or a mother, or that you are a woman yourself. By bringing an aspect of your “self” to the foreground of your mind, I am able to influence you (as a rational agent) into making one decision (donating your money) rather than another (keeping it).

It is for this reason that things like the Atheist Bus Ads and the Out Campaign are useful – not for antagonizing the religious (although that is certainly what the faithful are claiming), but for bringing atheists out into the open. By making nonbelievers aware of their nonbelief, it brings that aspect of their “self” more apparent and helps motivate their behaviour.

Why is that good? Shouldn’t everyone consider themselves equal?

This kind of counterexample is appealing, and commonly used to blame those who talk about racism as “the real racists”. After all, by pointing out that there are treatment inequalities between different racial groups, aren’t you reinforcing the idea that races are different?

Describing reality is not the same as creating that reality. My usual go-to example is blaming someone for yelling “look out!”, and thereby causing a passerby to get hit by a bus. The bus was there to begin with, and would have hit the person regardless of the warning. The purpose of the warning is to make the passerby aware of the problem so she/he can take steps to avoid or fix it.

Atheists who are reminded of their atheism aren’t suddenly turned into atheists – they were already. Making that reality more apparent is not creating a difference, it’s just highlighting it for the explicit purpose of motivating people to consider their “atheist self”.

The bizarre thing about this whole phenomenon is that we often aren’t aware that these social forces play such a role. It was until I commented on our seating arrangement that the other two guys smiled and said “oh yeah”. Once aware of it, we can recognize it intuitively, but sometimes it happens without our even knowing.

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2 MS procedure claims its first(?) victim

November 30, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · health · science · skepticism

I like lots of things. I like dogs, I like children, I like rainstorms, I like canoeing (although I haven’t gotten my act together to go in a long time). Another thing I like is being right. I am unashamed to say that I get a giddy little thrill when I can clarify a position and bring someone around to my way of thinking. It’s not particularly humble or diplomatic of me, but I figure as long as I don’t throw it in anyone’s face I am okay.

There are some times I wish I wasn’t right:

An Ontario man with multiple sclerosis died of complications after a controversial treatment in Costa Rica to open up his neck veins, CBC News has learned. Mahir Mostic, 35, of St. Catharines died on Oct. 19, one day after doctors in the Central American country tried to dissolve a blood-clot complication.

Let’s back up for a second. Back in April, I wrote a post about a new proposed therapy for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. This therapy involves inserting an angioplastic balloon into a neck vein and inflating it. The proposed mechanism violates the current scientific understanding of MS, but patients have reported dramatic symptom improvement after receiving the procedure, so it was worth investigating. However, the rules of skepticism must be particularly adhered to when a new “miracle” procedure appears that completely changes the current understanding of any phenomenon. If someone, for instance, claimed that they had invented a ‘gravity beam’ that could attract objects by firing gravity at them, we’d probably be more skeptical than if someone had said they’d invented a ‘sound beam’ that could fire sound over long distances – the latter requires a slight tweaking of current understanding, whereas the former requires a complete re-imagining of how gravity works.

So, by the same token, I was concerned at the flood of patients demanding access to this procedure without adequate testing beforehand. Even the doctor who invented the procedure cautioned people to wait until it had been evaluated. However, out of their (totally understandable) desperation to alleviate their symptoms, patients demanded that the approval for the surgery be fast-tracked. When the various health authorities said that they needed to have actual testing before they would approve it, the predictable happened: a private company began shipping people to countries that don’t care about health regulations.

The problem with failing to regulate health care is that it allows quackery to go on unmonitored. These patients who circumvent the system do not receive adequate follow-up:

Suddenly, after nine weeks, [patient Brandon] Layh began to deteriorate. His neurologist said he had two blood clots near the stent, and he was prescribed more blood thinners. The couple fears what could happen if the clot moves. “If it lets go, we were informed that he could have the clot move into his brain, which would cause a stroke,” said his wife, Sindy Layh. “I know they can fix it. He shouldn’t have to wait to get into a dire situation where he is on death’s door to be treated.”

The couple is now exploring whether to seek treatment in the U.S. to dissolve the clot at a cost of $20,000.

Stents increase blood turbulence, which promotes the formation of clots. The problem with clots is that there is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario: a clot can become dislodged and cause a stroke, but prescribing clot-busting drugs when the clot itself is that far advanced makes such an event more likely. Blood thinners are prescribed to prevent the clot from growing and reducing turbulence, but at any point the clot could break off. Proper follow-up and monitoring may have been able to prevent this from happening, but so would not having the procedure in the first place.

And now, thanks to patient zeal and the happy willingness of the private sector to exploit that zeal, a man has died. Apparently his isn’t an isolated case either:

[Vascular surgeon Barry] Rubin said Mostic isn’t the first case of a serious complication in an MS patient who has sought treatment outside Canada. Last week, he treated a woman who had the vein procedure in Mexico.

“We found extensive clotting in the left arm reaching into the chest veins, and some of the clots had broken off and travelled to her lungs, which is called a pulmonary embolus, which is life threatening, potentially life-threatening complication.”

This is what happens when you skip steps and jump right into a risky procedure. This is why science works in small, incremental steps. This is why it’s a good thing that such studies take time. None of this means that the procedure doesn’t work, it just means that there are significant risks to the patients, and we don’t know if the benefits are worth it.

I have friends whose careers tip-toe into the realm of woo-woo, who often chastise me for my skeptic approach. “If it gives people hope and makes them feel better, what’s the harm?”

This is the harm.

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2 “How do you know that?” – the ultimate nullifier

November 29, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · crommunism · health · medicine · religion · science · skepticism

In Marvel comics, there is a device known as “The Ultimate Nullifier” – a weapon that is apparently capable of utterly destroying any target the user chooses, as well as the user her/himself if her/his mind is not sufficiently focussed (those of you who don’t read comics will probably find this idea a bit ridiculous; those of you who do read comics will think it’s not ridiculous enough).

Back in July, Vancouver was visited by PZ Myers, author of one of my favourite science and atheism blogs, Pharyngula. During his talk, PZ brought up the role of skepticism in evaluating any claims about the world, particularly religious ones, and invited us to ask an important question when facing a claim that you’re not sure about: “how do you know that?” This question is, within the realm of science, the ultimate nullifier… of sorts.

Let’s pretend I have a friend who is really into reiki – a form of Japanese faith healing. She tells me that she can heal my diseases by passing her hands over me and directing positive energy into my body. I, of course, am skeptical – probably more so than I would be if she had told me that she was going to massage away my stress or something that at least has a biologically plausible mechanism. And so I ask her “how do you know that?”

She tells me about chakras and meridian lines and The Goddess Breath Method (those of you who aren’t familiar with “alternative therapies” will probably find this idea a bit ridiculous; those of you who are familiar with this kind of woo will think it’s not ridiculous enough). She tells me that by directing energy into my chakras that I will rebalance my energy flows and expel the foreign energy that causes my dis-ease (yes, they actually do spell it like this). I’ve studied human anatomy, and there ain’t nothing like a “chakra” or a “meridian line” anywhere to be found. And so I ask her “how do you know that?”

She shows me a bunch of websites and testimonials from the millions of patients who have been treated with reiki. As an epidemiologist, I point out that showing the numerator without the denominator is useless – how many people were treated and didn’t get better? Is it an equivalent number? Is it less? Is it more? Surely there are “dis-eases” that resolve themselves on their own – how does she know that people aren’t just responding to a sham treatment because they believe in it?

As we go father down, I learn that every time someone takes a controlled look at reiki (or acupuncture, homeopathy, intercessory prayer, rolfing, crystals, psychic surgery, or distance healing), they find no reason to support my friend’s claim that it will heal anything. The few studies that do suggest that it works either have a small sample size, lack proper blinding, or have no control group – common ways of finding effects that aren’t actually real. Basically, her claim of magic healing powers is based on nothing but personal belief and junk science – not exactly what I want when I’m in serious medical trouble.

There is a limitation to this question, however. Many people like Deepak Chopra and Ray Comfort abuse the word “know”, taking it to mean “believe very strongly”. They insist that science isn’t the only “way of knowing”, and that human intuition or divine revelation (sometimes through scripture) are just as good as science at determining reality. There’s certainly an appeal to this kind of statement – after all it is pretty arrogant of scientists to claim that theirs is the only version of the truth.

The problem with this kind of reasoning is that, if it were true, we’d see far more overlap between intuition, revelation and science. Revealed wisdom (for example), when tested through observation, would consistently give similar results to those determined according to non-revealed scientific “wisdom”. It would certainly be at least internally consistent – many different groups of people would achieve similar insights, and have overlapping revelations. However what we see instead are diverse groups claiming to have “truth”, but having very different versions of it.

A better question, perhaps, is “why should I believe you?” Ray Comfort is free to assert (without evidence) that he knows that Jesus is the supreme being who watches and judges mankind (but not other animals). Why should I believe that just on his say-so? To avoid everlasting torment? Maybe, but that threat is really only credible if I believe him already – if I reject his imaginary friend then I most certainly reject the punishment that imaginary friend has in store for me. Why should I believe Ray more than my Hindu neighbour down the street – both can point to ancient holy books, miracles, millions of followers; what makes Ray’s “truth” more true than Raj’s?

All claims should be held to an external standard – some kind of way of measuring them against observed reality. It doesn’t matter if they’re claims about magic energy healing or invisible sky genies or political theories – if they aren’t borne out by some kind of controlled, observable evidence, then they’re just statements of belief. It’s fine to have beliefs (I think it’s preferable to have ideas, but whatever), but a statement of a belief is nothing more useful than a personal preference. I think that Radiohead peaked with OK, Computer; my buddy Stu thinks that they’ve gotten steadily better after that – they’re just statements of belief.

Saying that I believe in chakras doesn’t make it any more true than if I say I believe in phrenology or caloric theory or the four elements of matter. Saying that I believe it so much that I know it certainly doesn’t change that. My believing in it doesn’t grant it some kind of legitimacy – it just makes it harder to give me actual medicine.

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2 An atypical side-note

November 25, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · medicine · science · skepticism

I don’t talk about my job on this blog, and today will be no exception. However, I am (as reported on the sidebar) a scientist who works in the medical field (kinda). As such, I feel it appropriate to comment on this story I saw in the news:

Doctors have sharply cut some financial ties to drug companies, thanks to increased scrutiny about relationships that critics allege improperly influence medical treatment, a survey suggests. The biggest change occurred in the number of doctors who accept drug company money for attending medical meetings, including covering travel to sometimes exotic locations. That fell from 35 per cent in 2004 to 18 per cent in last year, the survey found.

There is a near-constant din that comes from advocates of alt-med that medical doctors are “in the pocket of Big Pharma”, and that anyone who advocates science and opposes superstitious nonsense must be getting paid for their position. Anyone who has been to my apartment or seen the way I dress will be able to attest that if I get money from Big Pharma, it’s not enough (full disclosure: my employer does receive research money from pharmaceutical companies, under contracts that strictly bar those companies from interfering with our research in any way. I have not personally received a cent from any corporate interest).

I will give the alt-med crowd one accolade to hang their hat on – they changed the conversation. It used to be the case that doctors were very much in bed with the pharmaceutical companies, and it was repeated and consistent criticism of this practice that led to findings like the one above. It was a legitimate criticism of a shady practice, and it forced regulators to police the kinds of remuneration that physicians were allowed to (or felt entitled to) accept. This didn’t happen spontaneously; many doctors initially denied that the gifts exerted any influence over them whatsoever. Of course the evidence suggested otherwise.

It’s good to see when a small group of people can raise public consciousness about a serious ethical issue and see meaningful results. I applaud the alt-med crowd for a job well done, and look forward to the day when my merry band of skeptics can return the favour and stop the egregious abuses of trust that alt-med practitioners are allowed to get away with every day.

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3 Racial lines drawn elsewhere too

November 24, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · culture · race · racism · science

Oftentimes people (and this tends to happen more often on the liberal side) will simply wave race away as a phenomenon, saying that it is merely a proxy for wealth. I was of this mindset until not too long ago, when I really started digging deep into the issue. While there is no doubt that race and wealth are strongly linked, money is only one tile in the mosaic of effect that fall under the banner of race. Another friend of mine sent me an article that illustrates this phenomenon fairly well:

The professor [UC Berkeley Anthropology Professor John Ogbu] and his research assistant moved to Shaker Heights [an affluent community in Cleveland] for nine months in mid-1997. They reviewed data and test scores. The team observed 110 different classes, from kindergarten all the way through high school. They conducted exhaustive interviews with school personnel, black parents, and students. Their project yielded an unexpected conclusion: It wasn’t socioeconomics, school funding, or racism, that accounted for the students’ poor academic performance; it was their own attitudes, and those of their parents.

The parents of the children in the study are all upper middle-class; doctors, lawyers, well-to-do people. These aren’t kids whose parents are struggling to make ends meet, and whose educated suffers as a result; from an economic standpoint these kids shouldn’t have any barriers to access that would explain the dramatic differences in achievement between white and black students. So, like any scientist would, Dr. Ogbu went looking for other explanations.

I don’t know much about sociology methods, so I’m not going to comment on the way in which these findings were derived. I’d imagine, as a researcher in another field, that the lack of rigorous observation of a control group (white Shaker Heights students) is a major limitation. The conclusions will be fraught with personal biases, and will lack objectivity for that reason. However, nobody else has approached this community to ask these questions, and the vociferous denial of Dr. Ogbu’s conclusions seems a bit hollow:

The National Urban League condemned him and his work in a press release that scoffed, “The League holds that it is useless to waste time and energy with those who blame the victims of racism.”

“Education is a very high value in the African-American community and in the African community. The fundamental problem is Dr. Ogbu is unfamiliar with the fact that there are thousands of African-American students who succeed. It doesn’t matter whether the students are in Shaker Heights or an inner city. The achievement depends on what expectations the teacher has of the students.” Hilliard, who is black, believes Shaker Heights teachers must not expect enough from their black students.

“We know what the major problems in this school system are: racism, lack of funding, and unqualified teachers.” Although Shaker Heights is in fact an integrated, well-funded, and well-staffed school district, Ross is nonetheless convinced that it suffers from other problems that contribute to the achievement disparities between the races.

Far be it from me to suggest that the identified problems of teacher expectations, differential funding, and systemic racism don’t play a role. Indeed, I personally believe that they represent the majority of the problem; however, when those things were controlled for in a natural experiment, they did not explain the differential outcome. As a scientist, I have to go where the evidence points. In Shaker Heights, at least, there is little evidence to support the conclusion that funding, teacher qualifications, or parental income level explains the difference.

The danger in stories like this, however, is when the conclusions are extrapolated beyond the strength of the evidence. As I noted above, without a control group and with only one person interpreting the findings, the evidence found here is not very strong. It would be a mistake, for example, to suggest that it is the attitude of the students and parents that explains the differences we see at a national level. There’s nothing in these findings to suggest that attitude is a bigger predictor of success than the other factors that multiple other studies have found. However, the responses from those on the right tend to be “see? Even the eggheads say that black people are the authors of their own destruction!” Which is not at all what the paper says – it says that there may be some other forces at play that are larger than simple economics can address:

People who voluntarily immigrate to the United States always do better than the involuntary immigrants, he believes. “I call Chicanos and Native Americans and blacks ‘involuntary minorities,'” he says. “They joined American society against their will. They were enslaved or conquered.” Ogbu sees this distinction as critical for long-term success in and out of school.

“Blacks say Standard English is being imposed on them,” he says. “That’s not what the Chinese say, or the Ibo from Nigeria. You come from the outside and you know you have to learn Standard English, or you won’t do well in school. And you don’t say whites are imposing on you. The Indians and blacks say, ‘Whites took away our language and forced us to learn their language. They caused the problem.'”

This seems to me to be an entirely reasonable conclusion, and a worthwhile avenue of study.

He concluded that there was a culture among black students to reject behaviors perceived to be “white,” which included making good grades, speaking Standard English, being overly involved in class, and enrolling in honors or advanced-placement courses. The students told Ogbu that engaging in these behaviors suggested one was renouncing his or her black identity. Ogbu concluded that the African-American peer culture, by and large, put pressure on students not to do well in school, as if it were an affront to blackness.

As someone who’s experienced this first-hand, I have no problem understanding how this might play a role.

Ogbu did, in fact, note that teachers treated black and white students differently in the 110 classes he observed. However, he doesn’t believe it was racism that accounted for the differences. “Yes, there was a problem of low teacher expectations of black students,” he explains. “But you have to ask why. Week after week the kids don’t turn in their homework. What do you expect teachers to do?”

And again, a reasonable finding and potential avenue for investigation.

There is a scintilla of truth to the accusation that liberals will refuse to accept any data that conflicts with their (our) narrative of victimhood when it comes to race. I say scintilla, because it (in true conservative fashion) rewrites the past and can’t see past its own nose. The reason why there is that narrative is because it has replaced the flawed doctrine of “personal responsibility” which is simply code for victim blaming. However, reality is absolutely more complicated than entirely victimhood or personal choice; nobody disputes that. Those of us on the left merely point out that one contributes more than the other.

At any rate, as I have been saying all along, race is a complicated machine with a lot of moving pieces. Race is not entirely economic, nor is it entirely personal. It is the intersection of history, psychology, sociology, economics, neurology, education, social policy, and any number of other factors. The more we can discuss it openly, the more we can observe it rigorously, and the less ready we are to shut down arguments we don’t like (or take mindless credit for things that we think support our narrative but don’t), the faster we can make progress.

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13 The scourge of “scientific” racism

November 18, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · critical thinking · race · racism · science · skepticism

As a scientist and a black man, I cannot describe to you how weary I am of having people throw “scientific racism” in my face. I don’t mean that people try to prove to me that black people are scientifically inferior; we’ve pretty much debunked that already. No, the thing I resent is when people say stupid things like “science used to say that black people were inferior – therefore everything that science says is suspect.” It is a wearying argument, because not only is it inaccurate, it is actually self-refuting.

First off, science never said that black people were inferior, at least not science in any way that I have described it in the past. Science is a process involving explanation based on observed data, controlling for alternative explanations. Scientists are people who purport to use that method. However, like all people, scientists are subject to human failings, and have been known to say some bullshit-stupid things. Luckily, we have a process for evaluating bullshit-stupid claims – it’s called science. The reason that we know that racial differences are largely sociologically-constructed (as opposed to genetic) is because of science. We didn’t use meditation or divine revelation or any of these “different ways of knowing” to figure that out – we used science.

As I said, the claim is both inaccurate and self-refuting. Scientists did, at one point, make claims about the inferiority of The Negro. They did not, however, base those claims on science. They made the claims, then looked for evidence to support their conclusions. That is not the scientific method; that is the religious method. The doctrine of white supremacy was not based on evidence, but on a supernatural belief in the manifest will of the Creator, who endowed white people with superior qualities. The doctrine absolutely did co-opt the scientific establishment into supporting its assertions, but when the shine was off the apple and real investigation was done, no differences were found. It didn’t have to be so – we could have found a great deal of genetic differences between different ethnic groups. The evidence, however, does not support any doctrine of supremacy (and yes, I have met actual black supremacists – they’re just as bereft of science as their white counterparts).

However, we cannot simply ignore the history that the scientific establishment played in the legitimization and mainstreaming of racism, as Ghana is teaching us:

The Council For Afrika, a UK-based think-tank has commemorated the third global campaign to combat scientific racism, reiterating its commitment to counter the marginalisation and dehumanisation of Africans. The council used the anniversary, which coincided with the first decade of the 21st Century, to draw attention to the escalation of afrophobia, attributed to the global recession. A statement issued to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, by Dr Koku Adomdza, President of the council, said: “Afrophobia has escalated based on discrimination against name, ascent, physical appearance, ethnicity and African ancestry in all spheres of life in the Global North.”

“Scientific” racism (I feel obligated to use quotations here, because it’s not scientific) is not a spectre of the past that we’ve thankfully moved beyond. The campaign started in response to bizarre comments made by James Watson (yes, that James Watson):

“[I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa [because] all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.”

Dr. Watson said he hoped everyone was equal, but added: “People who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

Stay classy, Dr. Watson.

Dr. Watson was making those claims based on “scientific” research that had been done into intelligence among different racial groups. Of course, like the phrenology studies of the early 19th century, this research was based on faulty assumptions and poor methodology. It has since been largely discredited. It becomes problematic when preeminent scientists start making recommendations about policy based on bad science, which is what happened here.

It is for reasons like this that I am a skeptic. Whenever someone tells me “well X and Y are true”, my first thought is “how do you know that?” Most of the time I ask out of genuine interest, particularly when it’s a topic I’m unfamiliar with. However, other times it comes out of a deep suspicion that the claim being presented is bolstered by nothing other than confirmation bias and anecdote. “Scientific” racism definitely falls under this category.

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2 Vancouver vultures circling for cash

November 16, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · critical thinking · health · medicine · science

Hello readers, I’m Crommunist. I’m not a witch. I’m not anything you’ve heard. I’m you!

No, actually I’m not you. I’m me. But none of that is important, because I can predict the motherfucking future. You may remember back in April of this year I talked about the so-called “liberation therapy” for Multiple Sclerosis (MS). In that post, I said this:

When you’re sick, you have only one goal: getting better. Millions of years of evolution have hard-wired a strong survival instinct into all living species, and human beings are no exception. People suffering from disease and their families are willing to do just about anything for a chance at recovery, and logic plays nearly no role in the decision-making process. The problem with this is that people suspend their disbelief and are willing to jump at any chance, no matter how remote, unlikely, or unproven.

When the stakes are high, we will abandon logic and chase after whatever seems right – putting rational thought to one side in favour of quick and dirty heuristics. It’s why the Republican party is so adept at getting votes – they stoke the fears of the populace (the Muslims are coming to get us with their socialist Obamacare!) to shut down the critical thinking part of the brain (the part that notices that Republicans are bad on security, bad on the economy, bad on individual freedoms, bad on pretty much any measure you can think of). Once critical thinking has ceased, your lizard brain takes over and you make decisions based not on evidence or critical thinking, but on gut reactions (blame illegal immigrants!)

The sudden popularity of the new treatment has prompted Jeff Donegan of Chilliwack, B.C., to sign up to get the therapy through another company in California. “When [liberation therapy] first came out, I was very skeptical,” said Donegan, 31. But five years of constant nerve pain, blindness in one eye and severe fatigue have been a nightmare, he said. “Every day is different,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to wake up to.”

The stakes could not possibly be higher when you have a debilitating, degenerative disease. And like the Republicans, there will always be those who are willing to put ethics and common decency aside for the sake of profit:

A Vancouver-based medical tourism company is cashing in on the reluctance by many provincial governments to fund a controversial therapy to treat multiple sclerosis. Passport Medical has arranged for foreign treatment using so-called liberation therapy for more than 350 MS sufferers from all over North America, said company owner Mark Semple. The company’s two-week trips include surgery and recovery care in Costa Rica for about $13,000.

Semple said the outcome for many of the patients is encouraging. “Some of the things I’ve seen could only be described as miracles,” he said. “Is it a cure? No. Is there a vascular component of the disease? I can only say yes.”

Safety regulations got you down? Is The Man telling you that you can’t have this experimental surgery that has no proven efficacy and will likely as not do nothing to alleviate your illness? Got 13 grand to spare? Fuck it then, give me your money, I’ll send you to a place that has no safety regulations. You’ll come back $13,000 poorer, and no better off than you were before (for all we know). Also note the complete lack of confidence on the part of the owner, who admits it’s not a cure. He likens it to a miracle – not a good thing when you’re talking about a medical procedure. You don’t want miracles in science, you want regularly-occurring phenomena that can be predicted and replicated. If it’s ‘miraculous’, you’re probably looking at the placebo effect.

But yes, I called it in April, and it’s happening now. People are flocking to Costa Rica to get surgery, paying ridiculous sums for it, and Mark Semple is laughing all the way to the bank.

I’m you!

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