This post was prompted by a facebook group.
I am a bunch of genes that happened to be assembled in England. I was lucky enough to be born into a country that had a number of very good things to it that made it a fortunate place to be born. However, I fail to see what pride has to do with it. There are a huge number of things I like about England..mostly things that are being lost as we "progress" like small villages, the countryside, freedom of speech, privacy, small businesses ("a nation of shopkeepers" as we once were called), cheese-rolling (and all the other weird festivals and traditions we have) etc. I like these things but I can't see what there is to be proud of. There are good and bad things- hopefully we can change the bad things over time and save the good things- if we can change the bad and protect the good then maybe we can individually be proud of being part of that movement, but otherwise what point is there in "being proud" of things we didn't contribute to ourselves?
For me personally, even being part of a movement for change to increase fairness to all, reduce division, protect our liberties, look after whats left of our wild spaces and work on all the other good causes isn't something to be proud of, its just something that is important to do for all our childrens' sakes.
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Friday 22 January 2010
Education and parents' dilemmas
A post elsewhere prompted this blog entry.
How do we help our children to make the right exam choices when they are too young to decide what they want to do as a future career? These are my thoughts:
1) Keep GCSE choices as wide open as possible. In fact only narrow down subjects when you really have to.
2) Remember that interests can change. I hated history at school but now because of political awareness and genealogical interests it has become a fascinating subject to my mind.
3) Some schools push children in certain directions and close off other options. This can be because the child shows promise at something and so other avenues aren't introduced to them or it can be because the school has a culture of producing certain types of people- scientists, sportspeople etc. It doesn't have to be a deliberate policy at all. To counteract this your child needs to be made aware of the vast array of choices available form the ordinary to the unusual. there are many way to do this but a good start may be the book "What Colour Is Your Parachute?".
4) Being good at something isn't necessarily the best reason to continue with it. Enjoyment, with a modicum of talent, in a subject may make it a better bet than being very good at something and not caring that much about it. We spend so much of our lives working that having an enjoyable career may make more sense than having a highly paid one- providing the enjoyable one covers our bills, pension and gives us enough money to enjoy our time off. Level of income, above basic needs, has been shown to have a poor correlation with happiness.
5) Losing ourselves in activities is part of the happiness formula. These activities seem to be ones that challenge us very slightly but are well within our capabilities. Through them we enter what has become known as "the zone". Our character strengths, rather then our academic strengths, can be useful to know for encouraging more of this type of happiness. (authentichappiness website can offer more info).
6) There are still no guarantees that your child may get to 21 and change tack entirely. Hopefully the points in this article will help to reduce that possibility but if it does happen maybe they'll help to make that change easier.
How do we help our children to make the right exam choices when they are too young to decide what they want to do as a future career? These are my thoughts:
1) Keep GCSE choices as wide open as possible. In fact only narrow down subjects when you really have to.
2) Remember that interests can change. I hated history at school but now because of political awareness and genealogical interests it has become a fascinating subject to my mind.
3) Some schools push children in certain directions and close off other options. This can be because the child shows promise at something and so other avenues aren't introduced to them or it can be because the school has a culture of producing certain types of people- scientists, sportspeople etc. It doesn't have to be a deliberate policy at all. To counteract this your child needs to be made aware of the vast array of choices available form the ordinary to the unusual. there are many way to do this but a good start may be the book "What Colour Is Your Parachute?".
4) Being good at something isn't necessarily the best reason to continue with it. Enjoyment, with a modicum of talent, in a subject may make it a better bet than being very good at something and not caring that much about it. We spend so much of our lives working that having an enjoyable career may make more sense than having a highly paid one- providing the enjoyable one covers our bills, pension and gives us enough money to enjoy our time off. Level of income, above basic needs, has been shown to have a poor correlation with happiness.
5) Losing ourselves in activities is part of the happiness formula. These activities seem to be ones that challenge us very slightly but are well within our capabilities. Through them we enter what has become known as "the zone". Our character strengths, rather then our academic strengths, can be useful to know for encouraging more of this type of happiness. (authentichappiness website can offer more info).
6) There are still no guarantees that your child may get to 21 and change tack entirely. Hopefully the points in this article will help to reduce that possibility but if it does happen maybe they'll help to make that change easier.
Mind Control
Over the years a fair number of people have expressed concern about mind control so I thought we'd take a look at this today.
The first thing to note is that trying to influence other people is something that is basic to our natures. Whether this be for good or ill we try to convince others of why our views are valid, we try to get our children to obey rules we think are right and everyone, from salespeople to politicians, are trying to sell us on products and ideas.
Even when we think we are influencing others for the best reasons we are coming from our own views of the world. People may see our actions to persuade others as being wrong and/or bad. We also have to contend with the law of unexpected consequences- if we do manage to change someone-else's mind what effects might this have other than those we were aiming at?
Some may think that this level of persuasion is acceptable but what they are concerned about is influence over and above that. If that is your view then ask yourself where the line is and what differentiates one type of persuasion from the other. I think you'll find its not clear cut.
So this second level of persuasion may encompass all the methods which bypass your conscious mind. Well, firstly, this definition is already encountered in the "ordinary" examples above. If a parent or politician uses the "illusion of choice" e.g "would you prefer a safe society with decreased freedoms or a free society where we can't look after your security?" or "would you prefer to go to bed now or in ten minutes after a story?" you have already fallen for it, as the fact there are other potential answers has passed you by.
Also salespeople will alter sizes of writing, colours, levels of products etc. etc. to get you to focus on what they want you to see, and thus buy.
These techniques use ordinary perceptual processes. There is an experiment where you are shown a video clip of two teams, one dressed in black and the other white, in a corridor. They have a ball and over the course of a 30 second segment you have to count how many times the white team passes the ball to each other, both overhead and with a bounce. Easy? Well, its not too hard but after the clip is shown you would be asked did you see the person in the gorilla costume walk in to the centre of the frame! About half of people won't see it and it is thought that this is not just a case of not remembering but that the eyes actually didn't process that information, although I haven't seen the evidence for that conclusion. It is important because if there are different consequences for what can actually be done to us, depending on whether we see, and can be made to ignore that somehow, or whether we don't see at all.
Priming is another example: things outside of our consciousness can affect our behaviour. This has been demonstrated under experimental conditions but those experiments suggest that it may happen in many ordinary circumstances we come across in the course of our lives. Obviously it relates to the video clip experiment's conclusions.
So, along with outright lies and half-truths, we are living in a system of mutual influence that seems to have both conscious and unconscious factors. In fact if we consider our conscious thinking selves as "us" it raises also sorts of questions when we encounter experimental results that show we can make decisions that are viewable to others before we are aware of them. The whole idea of an independent conscious self seems more and more to look like a fiction we have deluded ourselves with. In fact, if you think about independence from our surroundings you have a real problem, unless you can prove the existence of something that lives beyond the physical universe and is unaffected by that universe- like a soul or spirit.
Some people have worried that militaries are trying to develop some sort of mind control weapon that will relay thoughts into our minds outside of our control. Firstly, would they do that? My answer would be that if the technology can be developed then the answer would be yes. There are many cases of governments performing deadly experiments on their own soldiers and civilians- in this country gases were tested on unsuspecting soldiers at Porton Down research station last century. Are these weapons in development though? We already have something that's beamed through the air into your minds and affects your thoughts- television. When the news story says taking a certain tablet has been proven to up your chances of a heart attack by 25% and you stop taking that product because of this information then you have been a victim of someone elses output. The fact that 4 people had heart attacks out of a 1000 (roughly) on the control tablet- and on the tablet in question the number of heart attacks was 5 out of a 1000 then you have a 25% increase. Whether the extra person was having that problem because of the tablet is unproven and, anyway, its 1 person in 1000 which is 0.01%. Of course we care if the motive behind the story was devious or whether it was just bad research, but either way we are influenced daily by these things.
I hope this post has got you thinking and provides you with many opportunities for follow up research on a wide variety of issues relating to these subjects.
The first thing to note is that trying to influence other people is something that is basic to our natures. Whether this be for good or ill we try to convince others of why our views are valid, we try to get our children to obey rules we think are right and everyone, from salespeople to politicians, are trying to sell us on products and ideas.
Even when we think we are influencing others for the best reasons we are coming from our own views of the world. People may see our actions to persuade others as being wrong and/or bad. We also have to contend with the law of unexpected consequences- if we do manage to change someone-else's mind what effects might this have other than those we were aiming at?
Some may think that this level of persuasion is acceptable but what they are concerned about is influence over and above that. If that is your view then ask yourself where the line is and what differentiates one type of persuasion from the other. I think you'll find its not clear cut.
So this second level of persuasion may encompass all the methods which bypass your conscious mind. Well, firstly, this definition is already encountered in the "ordinary" examples above. If a parent or politician uses the "illusion of choice" e.g "would you prefer a safe society with decreased freedoms or a free society where we can't look after your security?" or "would you prefer to go to bed now or in ten minutes after a story?" you have already fallen for it, as the fact there are other potential answers has passed you by.
Also salespeople will alter sizes of writing, colours, levels of products etc. etc. to get you to focus on what they want you to see, and thus buy.
These techniques use ordinary perceptual processes. There is an experiment where you are shown a video clip of two teams, one dressed in black and the other white, in a corridor. They have a ball and over the course of a 30 second segment you have to count how many times the white team passes the ball to each other, both overhead and with a bounce. Easy? Well, its not too hard but after the clip is shown you would be asked did you see the person in the gorilla costume walk in to the centre of the frame! About half of people won't see it and it is thought that this is not just a case of not remembering but that the eyes actually didn't process that information, although I haven't seen the evidence for that conclusion. It is important because if there are different consequences for what can actually be done to us, depending on whether we see, and can be made to ignore that somehow, or whether we don't see at all.
Priming is another example: things outside of our consciousness can affect our behaviour. This has been demonstrated under experimental conditions but those experiments suggest that it may happen in many ordinary circumstances we come across in the course of our lives. Obviously it relates to the video clip experiment's conclusions.
So, along with outright lies and half-truths, we are living in a system of mutual influence that seems to have both conscious and unconscious factors. In fact if we consider our conscious thinking selves as "us" it raises also sorts of questions when we encounter experimental results that show we can make decisions that are viewable to others before we are aware of them. The whole idea of an independent conscious self seems more and more to look like a fiction we have deluded ourselves with. In fact, if you think about independence from our surroundings you have a real problem, unless you can prove the existence of something that lives beyond the physical universe and is unaffected by that universe- like a soul or spirit.
Some people have worried that militaries are trying to develop some sort of mind control weapon that will relay thoughts into our minds outside of our control. Firstly, would they do that? My answer would be that if the technology can be developed then the answer would be yes. There are many cases of governments performing deadly experiments on their own soldiers and civilians- in this country gases were tested on unsuspecting soldiers at Porton Down research station last century. Are these weapons in development though? We already have something that's beamed through the air into your minds and affects your thoughts- television. When the news story says taking a certain tablet has been proven to up your chances of a heart attack by 25% and you stop taking that product because of this information then you have been a victim of someone elses output. The fact that 4 people had heart attacks out of a 1000 (roughly) on the control tablet- and on the tablet in question the number of heart attacks was 5 out of a 1000 then you have a 25% increase. Whether the extra person was having that problem because of the tablet is unproven and, anyway, its 1 person in 1000 which is 0.01%. Of course we care if the motive behind the story was devious or whether it was just bad research, but either way we are influenced daily by these things.
I hope this post has got you thinking and provides you with many opportunities for follow up research on a wide variety of issues relating to these subjects.
Thursday 21 January 2010
A new manifesto
1) All manifestos will be legal documents. Any signatories to those documents that don't vote in favour of the measures laid out will be liable to criminal prosecution and forbidden to re enter politics upon conviction. Lack of pursuance of these manifesto policies will likewise be an offence. The legal documentation to enforce this will be difficult and reviewed frequently to make sure it doesn't affect situations which are beyond the control of MPs.
2) Career politics must end. We need people who have experience with normal everyday jobs and life to enter politics after they have had at least a decade in the workplace. After political appointments of high level they will be required to return to normal life. Politics is a vocation not a career.
3) National Security is to be re-defined as the welfare and safeguarding of ordinary citizens, not a term that can be used against those very people. Whilst some issues may, of necessity, have to remain secret we need stronger rules to make sure that only the secrets that prevent danger to our military and intelligence personnel are kept. False information (not based on unforeseen errors in detailed justifiable research) fed to the public and the military that leads to the loss of life of military personnel will be a criminal offence.
4) An independent elected panel, that can only serve for a designated term, will be set up for reviewing the basis for prosecutions.
5) On the basis that serving in government is a vocation then expenses and pay will be lowered to a level that will help end career politics.
6) It will be necessary to look into the situations whereby politicians have to return to careers they have left for public appointments and how they can be reintegrated without loss to them. The requirement to return to normal life may be only appropriate for those who have had high level ministerial involvement. Other lower level MPs could potentially continue to be both MP and working local citizen with support. Higher level MPs may also be allowed to return to parliament but not hold any future high level posts.
7) Non-political independent scientific research must be encouraged, as this will inform government decisions. Universities and other such groups will be supported to regain that status and then protected by law from political interference, including funding constraints.
8) Only two things can inform government policies. These are strong ethics and robust scientific research. The latter must be pursued and made available to the public to view. An ethical/ideological statement must be attached to the manifesto and all policies to be pursued must be justified by that, and also research documentation (where appropriate).
9) A society is built on its freedoms and they may well prove to be the best defence against extremism. To pit one against the other and reduce civil liberties for "defence purposes" is morally wrong and shows an attitude of "firefighting" problems that we helped to create in the first place.
10) All decisions regarding the welfare of this country's citizens will be made by this country. An alliance of states may be useful and necessary for trade, defence and other issues but each and every group policy must be voted for in parliament before it becomes law. Furthermore the law can be changed by future parliaments without recourse to the international group.
Further additions to this document will be added........
2) Career politics must end. We need people who have experience with normal everyday jobs and life to enter politics after they have had at least a decade in the workplace. After political appointments of high level they will be required to return to normal life. Politics is a vocation not a career.
3) National Security is to be re-defined as the welfare and safeguarding of ordinary citizens, not a term that can be used against those very people. Whilst some issues may, of necessity, have to remain secret we need stronger rules to make sure that only the secrets that prevent danger to our military and intelligence personnel are kept. False information (not based on unforeseen errors in detailed justifiable research) fed to the public and the military that leads to the loss of life of military personnel will be a criminal offence.
4) An independent elected panel, that can only serve for a designated term, will be set up for reviewing the basis for prosecutions.
5) On the basis that serving in government is a vocation then expenses and pay will be lowered to a level that will help end career politics.
6) It will be necessary to look into the situations whereby politicians have to return to careers they have left for public appointments and how they can be reintegrated without loss to them. The requirement to return to normal life may be only appropriate for those who have had high level ministerial involvement. Other lower level MPs could potentially continue to be both MP and working local citizen with support. Higher level MPs may also be allowed to return to parliament but not hold any future high level posts.
7) Non-political independent scientific research must be encouraged, as this will inform government decisions. Universities and other such groups will be supported to regain that status and then protected by law from political interference, including funding constraints.
8) Only two things can inform government policies. These are strong ethics and robust scientific research. The latter must be pursued and made available to the public to view. An ethical/ideological statement must be attached to the manifesto and all policies to be pursued must be justified by that, and also research documentation (where appropriate).
9) A society is built on its freedoms and they may well prove to be the best defence against extremism. To pit one against the other and reduce civil liberties for "defence purposes" is morally wrong and shows an attitude of "firefighting" problems that we helped to create in the first place.
10) All decisions regarding the welfare of this country's citizens will be made by this country. An alliance of states may be useful and necessary for trade, defence and other issues but each and every group policy must be voted for in parliament before it becomes law. Furthermore the law can be changed by future parliaments without recourse to the international group.
Further additions to this document will be added........
Climate Change- well, well, well
The international climate change scientist and head of the IPCC is not a scientist at all! The glacier information peddled by these people came from a New Scientist article that the author said was speculation- parallels with the student essay the government used as WMD evidence for war?
Its all a bit much this. Ordinary people, it seems, are just a group to be controlled into believing what the powers that be want us to believe. Whatever happened to the public interest? How can anyone believe anything they are told when continually lies and shoddy research are used to make cases for action that affects us all?
Are organisations too large and too far away from the people they are meant to serve? Has the erosion of independent scientific research and its inclusion into political groups gone way too far?
Its all a bit much this. Ordinary people, it seems, are just a group to be controlled into believing what the powers that be want us to believe. Whatever happened to the public interest? How can anyone believe anything they are told when continually lies and shoddy research are used to make cases for action that affects us all?
Are organisations too large and too far away from the people they are meant to serve? Has the erosion of independent scientific research and its inclusion into political groups gone way too far?
Wednesday 20 January 2010
Conspiracy again
I have just watched a programme on the group Common Purpose by someone who thinks they are an evil bunch up to no good. He said he is into providing evidence to back up his claims but what he said was nowhere near stringent enough to validate them. The group, which is deemed a charity, has been accused of being secretive- and this may be valid, which leads me to the point of this. They are apparently a group that trains people in leadership and supposedly the government sends people to their courses- funded by us of course. If this is correct then the worry is this: A group that trains leaders but is secretive and engenders mistrust because of it is not, perhaps, very good at its job. If we are to have leadership qualities taught to our future generations then surely we want good communication and openness to be some of the qualities they learn. We have had enough of spin, outright lies and corruption (on whatever level). I suggest that we support only transparent organisations that are under results based (and ethical) scrutiny regarding their usefulness. Whether Common Purpose is good or bad, competent or not I don't know yet. Check out their openness and see whether they are or not.
This leads me onto another point regarding the conspiracists. There are many of them that take information and draw far reaching conclusions from it. Some of their information may be accurate and some not, but they jump way beyond any evidence in their presentations. This is a worry because it can obscure the real problems we face. If you are investigating something that may be wrong and any of the information you have uncovered has been added to the extremist viewpoint you can be dismissed purely and simply as "one of them", so in one way these people might actually be helping the groups they believe are bad. We need to examine each claim on its own merits and using all the available evidence test our theories. That's the only way we can even begin to change the world for the better.
So to recap- we mustn't dismiss anything until it has been fully checked out but we must also be very careful in drawing any conclusions. This doesn't mean some issues aren't fairly simple- like do we want people in government that think it is OK to take public money for perks? Rigorous analysis and values are the best tools we have for improving our society.
This leads me onto another point regarding the conspiracists. There are many of them that take information and draw far reaching conclusions from it. Some of their information may be accurate and some not, but they jump way beyond any evidence in their presentations. This is a worry because it can obscure the real problems we face. If you are investigating something that may be wrong and any of the information you have uncovered has been added to the extremist viewpoint you can be dismissed purely and simply as "one of them", so in one way these people might actually be helping the groups they believe are bad. We need to examine each claim on its own merits and using all the available evidence test our theories. That's the only way we can even begin to change the world for the better.
So to recap- we mustn't dismiss anything until it has been fully checked out but we must also be very careful in drawing any conclusions. This doesn't mean some issues aren't fairly simple- like do we want people in government that think it is OK to take public money for perks? Rigorous analysis and values are the best tools we have for improving our society.
Thursday 14 January 2010
1st book recommendation
Badscience by Ben Goldacre.
Pharmaceutical companies and alternative health folks can both be very bad for your health! This is a book about medical science- but the principles generalise out. It shows why the scientific procedure is necessary and how, through ignorance and darker motives, it is being subverted by different factions.
Read it and leave your comments below. Enjoy!
Pharmaceutical companies and alternative health folks can both be very bad for your health! This is a book about medical science- but the principles generalise out. It shows why the scientific procedure is necessary and how, through ignorance and darker motives, it is being subverted by different factions.
Read it and leave your comments below. Enjoy!
Freshly squeezed conspiracy theory anyone?
The term conspiracy theory has become a very loaded one. Many people automatically dismiss anything that comes after that has been said, and there are others that seem to fall into the uncritical acceptance of whatever comes after too. Both attitudes are lazy. We can only judge anything after carefully looking at the evidence. Even then we must always be aware that we might not have the full details. Practically we may be required to base future decisions on any information we learn and so we have to take a balance of probabilities. Do the counter arguments to the case you are looking at make sense- are they logical, possible and do they hold together in a congruent story? Do they deal with every part of the issue or avoid detailing some parts? We should also remember that we, as human beings, are very selective in our attitudes. We tend to look for things that support our current positions rather then be open to all evidence. Many people are unaware of this- possibly denying it when it is raised? For us, as ordinary citizens, we may have to accept that we don't have the necessary information to draw a definitive conclusion and so must make do with leaving the question open. Its far better to say that we don't know than to follow the trend of having to have something to say on everything. I guess pubs would be much quieter places if that happened! When you have experts and/or people in positions of power on both sides of a discussion things can get very confusing. We have to contend with the following- potential lying, different interpretations of evidence, the experts' propensity to be selective like everyone else and, sometimes, whether these people are actually experts at all...like humanities graduates writing science columns in the media. All in all, getting to the bottom of a conspiracy theory may not be that simple. I am open to the idea that conspiracy theories are story lines that cultures invent to make sense of events, but that doesn't mean that all of them are false. Making a checklist of all the contentious issues and then looking at the available evidence will help to make it clear which ideas there is strong evidence for, which ideas there is evidence against and which ones have to be left open. I'll leave you with a question relating to the assertion that a plane crashed into the headquarters of the US military. Go back and look at the original footage of the aftermath..prior to the collapse of the weakened section. one side of the argument ascertains that, as there wasn't the expected plane debris on the lawn, then the official story is wrong. A group on the other side, with a simulation, shows the whole plane disappearing into the building structure. If the official side argument is correct, and here is the question, where are the long holes in the structure where the wings went in? No holes where they went in, no debris outside. What's left? Did the wings actually fold right back at ninety degrees and enter the hole tucked up nicely against the fuselage- which nobody has claimed yet I'm pleased. So when you've watched the clip, examined the surroundings on it, let me know what you Think!
Tuesday 12 January 2010
Architects of our own troubles?
Most people I speak to are worried about extremist Muslims.. a lot of them confuse ordinary Muslims with the extreme groups. That's as daft as lumping all of us in with the extremist right wing fundamentalist Christians! But how did the extremists in the Arab world get to be how they are today? Now that is interesting.....
In the last century, when the Muslim world was becoming more secular and nationalistic, the West got worried. Why? Well it was the nationalistic part that caused problems. While the US wasn't too worried about its own oil supplies they knew that their "allies" were heavily reliant on the Middle East oil and nationalism worried them because of possible threats to supply. The West went into its, all too common, mode of supporting the enemies of their deemed enemy and, lo and behold, over time giving them enough power that extremist Islam became a force to be reckoned with. A major key player in this is the "client state" of Saudi Arabia. This undemocratic country is an ally...but it is full of extremism. Don't be out on the streets when its prayer time or a whipping awaits you! If you look at the situation in Pakistan with the rise of extremist educational establishments then ask where the money came from to build them...A very good book to give you an insight into the situation in remote Pakistani areas is "Three Cups of Tea".
Unfortunately nothing will get better until short term political goals are placed within a broader long term humanitarian outlook. The system, and arguably the human nature that leads to the systems we design, might not be able to make that change unfortunately....
In the last century, when the Muslim world was becoming more secular and nationalistic, the West got worried. Why? Well it was the nationalistic part that caused problems. While the US wasn't too worried about its own oil supplies they knew that their "allies" were heavily reliant on the Middle East oil and nationalism worried them because of possible threats to supply. The West went into its, all too common, mode of supporting the enemies of their deemed enemy and, lo and behold, over time giving them enough power that extremist Islam became a force to be reckoned with. A major key player in this is the "client state" of Saudi Arabia. This undemocratic country is an ally...but it is full of extremism. Don't be out on the streets when its prayer time or a whipping awaits you! If you look at the situation in Pakistan with the rise of extremist educational establishments then ask where the money came from to build them...A very good book to give you an insight into the situation in remote Pakistani areas is "Three Cups of Tea".
Unfortunately nothing will get better until short term political goals are placed within a broader long term humanitarian outlook. The system, and arguably the human nature that leads to the systems we design, might not be able to make that change unfortunately....
Monday 11 January 2010
Anecdotes
Someone tells you they went to a holistic health practitioner and got better..that's an anecdote. Scientists don't like them because they are isolated instances that haven't been rigourously examined. This is a very good reason because other things might be happening like:
1) the person might have got better anyway- many people take things for minor ailments when they are at their worst and, generally, they will be getting better from then on in regardless.
2) the person is having a placebo effect- a wonderful thing but not what they think is happening!
3) people are very bad at judging things, being aware of multiple causes and hidden effects. If you feel good after a spiritual healing session where's the evidence that having someone pay you a lot of attention for an hour hasn't been the cause of your mood lift?
Where the experts can, and sometimes do, go too far is when everything that is an anecdote is automatically dismissed. Just because something hasn't been through a randomised blind trial doesn't mean it doesn't happen as per the anecdote. Both sides can be very bad thinkers!
1) the person might have got better anyway- many people take things for minor ailments when they are at their worst and, generally, they will be getting better from then on in regardless.
2) the person is having a placebo effect- a wonderful thing but not what they think is happening!
3) people are very bad at judging things, being aware of multiple causes and hidden effects. If you feel good after a spiritual healing session where's the evidence that having someone pay you a lot of attention for an hour hasn't been the cause of your mood lift?
Where the experts can, and sometimes do, go too far is when everything that is an anecdote is automatically dismissed. Just because something hasn't been through a randomised blind trial doesn't mean it doesn't happen as per the anecdote. Both sides can be very bad thinkers!
Even scientists dont always get it right
A classic case is the discovery of the major cause of stomach and duodenal ulcers by two Austrailian scientists in the early 70s. At least one scientist prior to them had seen the bacteria that the Aussies eventually got a Nobel prize for discovering. The fact that the medical community resisted their findings for many years- resulting in plenty of unnecessary operations still being carried out (with the attendant risks)- is down to genuine sceptism and bad logic, as far as I can tell. The bad logic arises when a discovery is written off because of preconceptions of the disbelievers. I had heard that many dismissed the bacterial pictures taken by the two as artefacts- which are contaminants introduced to the slide (this may well be a problem today with zoonotic diseases). Now I dont know everything that happened but it seems to me we make many mistakes like this:
1) because a problem may be caused by multiple factors we may dismiss a factor if that isnt present in our own analysis...missing multiple causes (and even the main cause in the case of the ulcers)
2) we dont try easy cost effective solutions that might prove the case we are presented with...perhaps antibiotic trials way back in the 70s on a small scale would have helped build the case..of course there would be type, combination and dosage issues to work through but antibiotics are cheap and commonly prescribed for more minor problems for longer terms (doxy for acne for example)
Having said this science is still the best method we have for verifying things about the world around us. A randomised double blind controlled study with large numbers of people being the best medical and health test we can perform on any alleged cure. this brings us onto the problem of "anecdotes" in the next post.....
1) because a problem may be caused by multiple factors we may dismiss a factor if that isnt present in our own analysis...missing multiple causes (and even the main cause in the case of the ulcers)
2) we dont try easy cost effective solutions that might prove the case we are presented with...perhaps antibiotic trials way back in the 70s on a small scale would have helped build the case..of course there would be type, combination and dosage issues to work through but antibiotics are cheap and commonly prescribed for more minor problems for longer terms (doxy for acne for example)
Having said this science is still the best method we have for verifying things about the world around us. A randomised double blind controlled study with large numbers of people being the best medical and health test we can perform on any alleged cure. this brings us onto the problem of "anecdotes" in the next post.....
Sunday 10 January 2010
You're not entitled to your opinion!
Unless of course you have a preference for something like a style, colour or item- any other opinion has either evidence backing it up or it doesn't. If it doesn't have evidence then the only logical view to take is one of "I dont know". Why does everyone have to have an opinion on almost everything? I have studied deeply many many things and the only thing that proves certain is how little access to empirical evidence we have as ordinary citizens. Even in science there are lots of cases like this, where the majority dismiss something because of preconceptions that turn out to be wrong. The bacterial cause of stomach ulcers being a case in point. So lets all get on better and stop pretending we know more than we do....
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