Critical Meanderings

Science:  a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws. Another is systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

Science is not about truth or belief. It’s about evidence and data, and how data correlate to a topic under research. For example: a medical researcher thinks a specific substance will help people recover more successfully from the common cold. To test this hyphothesis a double-blinded study is designed, in which a number of patients (the more the better) who have consented to be part of the study are given either the substance being studied or a harmless placebo. Double blinded means neither the research staff nor the patients know which of the two substances are being given to a specific person. This is done to remove experimenter and patient bias from the equation.

Once the cadre of patients has been established and data have been gathered, a statistical analysis is run on the results. If the results show a significant number of patients apparently benefited from the substance  — based on a fixed set of criteria established prior to the study, such as duration of their cold — then it can be said that the evidence suggests the cervical tinnitus
substance was helpful in the application under study. A result must be recorded and published even if no difference between the substance and the placebo is noted. Real science must be honest regarding its results, both positive and negative.

This is one of the reasons the scientific community often objects to claims made by retailers of herbal and other so-called "alternative" medications, which require no scrutiny and often undergo no testing before or after they're introduced to the marketplace. Supplements, which include herbal remedies, were significantly deregulated by the US Congress in the mid 1990s as the result of pressure from retailers who apparently saw no benefit to submitting their products for review under the FDA drug guidelines. Congressional members apparently were deluded into thinking that herbal remedies were not drugs, which is completely incorrect.

A few alternative therapies have been put through traditional double-blinded studies, and in most cases have failed to show any actual benefit. Several -- ephedra, for example -- have been proven significantly dangerous (far more so than, for example, the pharmaceutical Vioxx which was also pulled from the marketplace due to safety concerns). The response by vitamin and herbal supplement companies has been underwhelming. They continue making claims of the efficacy of their products while hiding behind many "weasel words" in order to shield themselves from litigation or failure of the product to produce a desirable result.

"Weasel words" are ways of hedging a bet while claiming nothing of value. For example, many herbal supplements carry caveats that, used in nearly any other context, would set consumers' teeth on edge. A bottle of Flaxseed oil states that "Consumption of Omega-3 fatty acids may support cardiovascular health." On the front label it states "Omega-3 for Heart Health." But at the bottom rear of the bottle is also a warning that "these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease."

So this product may (a weasel word) be useful, but the manufacturer can't cite any evidence that it actually is useful. And the vitamin/herbal market in the US is (as of 2009) a $25 billion dollar industry with a lot of clout among Congressional members who generally have zero understanding of science, so regulation will probably never again occur.

Just imagine if you were considering buying a car that claimed very high safety ratings and 50MPG fuel efficiency, but spotted a caveat at the bottom of the sticker saying that these claims had ever been tested. Would you buy the car? Probably not. Yet people buy supplements and herbal products that carry the same caveats every day and think nothing of it.

Even worse are so-called homeopathic remedies, which make use of a totally unproven 19th century claim that water "retains vibrations" introduced by various substances added to it, no matter how heavily diluted the water becomes. This is allegedly true even if the dilution is taken to an extreme in which "only one molecule of it per 7 million billion billion billion billion pills." Yet proponents of homeopathic medicines refuse to acknowledge that, if this is true, that water also retains the "vibrations" of every element or substance it's come in contact with over millions of years.

What does that say about water that's passed through the sewage and purification system of multiple cities before being used to create homeopathic medicines? Yes, that's right. If true, water also retains "vibrations" from excrement, urine, heavy metals, and the elements found in bedrock. Even well water is full of other substances since it has passed through soil layers and various other substances. As large a retailer as the Boots pharmaceutical company in the UK has admitted that they know homeopathy doesn't work, but they're willing to sell the products if people want them.

Michael Specter's excellent book Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives
(2009) details the irrational thinking that plagues our society today. He discusses the human inability to determine risk (which I've discussed before), the gullibility we exhibit when confronted with uncomfortable evidence, and a growing tendency to discount data and evidence in favor of faith and instinct.  The latter has been used by everyone from celebrity doctors to religious groups to deceive the population, and this trend shows no signs of abating anytime soon.

The public has turned against science, largely because they don't understand it and fear the image of the unethical, sociopathic madman portrayed in so many bad movies over the years. What they don't seem to understand is that our current society would not exist without science. We would still be living in rude houses, falling prey to minor illnesses, eating what would grow in local soils with minimal fertilizer, and unable to communicate over any but the shortest distances. I'd really like to see a typical science denier live for a year under those conditions. It might make for very entertaining reality TV.

Over the tinnitus retraining therapy
last few decades I’ve been exploring the age-old debate between belief and evidence, and why the two camps never seem to reach common ground. For a rationalist like myself, the choice is a non-starter. In areas where it’s appropriate (i.e. science, history, medicine, and other empirical subjects) evidence has to trump belief. One should never start from a conclusion (i.e. “UFOs are visitors from another planet”) and cherry-pick or invent data to fit that conclusion.

Note the distinction. I’ve no heartache if someone just wants to believe in ghosts, God (pick any), or the Flying Spaghetti Monster (long may his noodly appendage wave). That’s a matter of personal choice, and you’re welcome to it. But I and others who share this attitude tend to get testy when supporters of a given topic start citing invalid or suspect evidence to support their beliefs.

For example, the substance Thimerosal has become permanently embedded in the public consciousness because of its alleged link with autism. Celebrities, who generally shouldn’t be trusted with anything more important than a burned-out match, have jumped on the bandwagon. Concerned parents claim their child became autistic as a direct result of vaccination, and many outlandish claims have been made regarding the “evidence” surrounding Thimerosal, which was largely removed from vaccines years ago as a result of the uproar.

The problem with all this is that the alleged autism link was based on a single study involving only twelve (yes that’s right) individuals. And the researcher who published it used a flawed methodology. Since then, numerous additional studies have been run using much larger patient cohorts, often well over a thousand, and none have shown a link with autism. Yet the hysteria persists, with many vaccines-cause-autism supporters either ignoring the new data or claiming it’s tainted by so-called “big Pharma” tampering (a form of special pleading).

The debate between evolution and creation is another example of the same phenomenon. Scientists cite the mountains of data that support evolution as the mechanism by which modern humans appeared on Earth, while creationists continue to support divine intervention. The problem is not the latter’s belief, as stated earlier. It’s that the case they present requires a preconceived conclusion (”God did it”) and shoe-horns the available evidence into conformance with this conclusion.

Science doesn’t work that way: it starts with a hypothesis, compares it with data derived from experimental or other resources, then arrives at a conclusion based on that evidence. The conclusion is always subject to revision if new evidence becomes available. Scientists don’t believe in evolution, the heliocentric view of the solar system, or quantum theory: they accept (or don’t accept) the evidence supporting it, and understand that it’s all provisional. But that’s generally not how the rest of the world understands or perceives evidence.

Interestingly, the business world is a good place to turn for an understanding of the rationale surrounding belief-based reasoning. Business cases, which are commonly used when determining which strategies and projects will be adopted, follow a methodology very similar to those used by non-scientists.

In a business case, the conclusion generally is presented first. The author then describes and outlines evidence that directly supports the conclusion, as well as any supporting documentation that was used to arrive at it. The document is designed to persuade, not necessarily to educate, the reader. While a business case can (and should) present evidence both pro and con, the document is based on the assumption that this evidence has already been weighed. The intent is to persuade an audience that the conclusion as the appropriate course of action for the business.

An instructor at the Harvard Business School told me this concept is often extremely difficult to teach to scientists and engineers who are used to approaching the problem from the opposite (evidence-based) direction. This also explains why scientists and religious folk, or engineers and business people, are often at loggerheads. They speak totally different languages and, generally, have different goals. One side wants all data to be taken into account before a conclusion is reached and is often completely disinterested in the politics of the situation. The other has already decided on a course of action, and isn’t interested in additional argument unless it represents a threat to that decision.

Understood in this way, it’s no wonder the two sides argue as they do.