This, of course, does not mean that the consensus must be correct, but (along with other data) it makes it unreasonable to claim that there is no consensus, or that there is significant scientific controversy on this topic. In fact, the 97% figure exactly matches prior surveys. Many scientific organizations have also officially endorsed this consensus.

One of the common methods of deniers is to pretend as if there is a raging scientific controversy when in fact there is a solid consensus. Creationists, for example are constantly trying to portray evolution as a “theory in crisis,” when in fact it is doing quite well, thank you.

The study employed an interesting methods. They reviewed 12,000 peer-reviewed published papers on topics relevant to climate change. They then tabulated, for those papers in which the researchers expressed a clear opinion about climate change, whether or not they supported the conclusion of anthropogenic global warming. In over 97% of cases they did.

From the abstract:

We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.

No survey is ever perfect – whenever you evaluate a subset of people in order to draw conclusions about the larger group, there is the possibility of selection bias. In this case one might argue that scientists who reject anthropogenic global warming are less likely to express those views in a peer-reviewed paper, or to have such views published.

This method, however, is reasonable. They also backed this up with another phase of the study in which they invited authors to rate their own research and opinions, and 97.2% endorsed the consensus of global warming. While it’s possible to quibble about this number, given the strong agreements among various methods around the 97% figure, it’s difficult to argue that the true figure is significantly different.

Why do we care about the consensus? Isn’t this just an argument from authority? Well, yes and no.

It seems reasonable, especially for those who consider themselves skeptics, to argue that facts and logic should determine a scientific question, not authority. Or that we should “let the facts speak for themselves.”

Unfortunately, facts cannot speak for themselves. Scientific evidence needs to be examined, rated for quality, interpreted, and put into a broader context. There is often no simple connect from facts to conclusions in science – background knowledge, knowledge of the processes of science, familiarity with critical thinking, logical pitfalls, and the effects of bias on interpretation are all necessary to come to a reliable conclusion about what those facts are telling us.

Different individuals are likely to have different biases and knowledge bases, and therefore may come to different conclusions about the same set of data. No individual, therefore, can be the ultimate authority on any scientific question.

The power of consensus is that individual quirks and biases will tend to average out. The consensus of scientific opinion, therefore, is a way to gauge the agreement and power of the scientific evidence.

The only other alternative is to evaluate all the scientific evidence first hand and come to your own conclusion. The potential pitfall here, however, is that individuals who are not experts in the relevant field believe that they can do this by examining secondary sources, such as popular writings on the topic. This is naive, however.

In order to really understand the evidence base for any scientific question you need to be able to read the technical literature first hand, and have a reasonable working knowledge of this literature. You then need to challenge your understanding of the evidence by discussing it with other experts, who may be familiar with evidence you missed, or have a perspective you do not. In other words – you have to engage intimately and extensively with the evidence and with the community.

In order to do this you pretty much have to be a full-time scientist focusing on the relevant area of study.

It seems absurd, when you really look at it, to substitute your own opinion based upon reading a smattering of simplified popular writings for that of the consensus of scientific experts who live and breathe the science.

What typically happens is that individuals who reject the consensus often come to the conclusion that science itself is broken. They reject science and the institutions of science, in order to justify their rejection of the particular consensus on which they disagree. Scientists, they believe, are therefore closed-minded, corrupt, or mindlessly follow the herd.

This is little more than ad-hoc special pleading, however (they are just making it up). Anyone who works with actual scientists would find such statements to be hopelessly out of sync with reality. Sure, there are individual scientists who are corrupt or closed-minded, but most vigorously defend their own intellectual independence.

Conclusion

For the average person (someone who is not a working expert in a particular field) the consensus of scientific opinion must be taken very seriously, and should not be casually tossed aside. In grappling with any scientific question, you should first try to understand what the scientific consensus is, how confident are scientists, is there any significant and viable minority view, and why scientists have come to that conclusion.

Humility and reason dictate that the consensus view should be given appropriate respect. I am not discouraging anyone from trying to understand the evidence first hand, in fact I recommend it. Learn and understand the primary evidence as much as your interest, time, and ability take you. Just be extremely cautious before you believe your opinions trump those of hundreds or thousands of working scientists.

With respect to anthropogenic global warming, there is a solid and confident consensus. You should be especially cautious of rejecting this consensus because it does not agree with your political world view.

The interview was very enlightening. In my opinion it was an excellent example of the power of motivated reasoning – if we have a conclusion in mind, people are very good at finding a mental path to get there.

We rarely do confrontational interviews on the SGU, but the few we have done I am generally happy with. The risk is that the tone of the interview will go sour. I have only done such interviews when I feel that the person being interviewed will be able to stay calm and professional even as we dismantle their position. Another risk is that the interviewee, who likely is a passionate and eloquent defender of their fringe position, will make it difficult to get a word in edgewise, resulting in a Gish Gallop.

Don McLeroy, I have to say, was an exemplary guest. He stayed polite throughout, and did not bristle even when directly confronted on his position. He also did something I find extremely rare in such interviews – occasionally acknowledging a point on the other side or a weakness in his own position. He also had clearly made a genuine effort to read pro-evolution material and criticisms of his position.

I came away with the impression that he is genuinely trying to understand the creation/evolution debate and to rely on only valid arguments. This makes him a very interesting and valuable skeptical subject. I think he demonstrates a few phenomena about which skeptics should be aware.

First is that when we begin to learn critical thinking skills and principles we tend to apply them to the beliefs of others very easily, but only more reluctantly to our own beliefs. Second, when we do apply critical thinking skills to our own beliefs, the pathway of least cognitive dissonance is to use those skills to make our own rationalizations more subtle and sophisticated, rather than to actually change our core beliefs. The more strongly held those core beliefs are, the greater the mental barriers are to change them, the harder it is to get over the hump to actually changing our flawed beliefs.

Individuals can be in all three of these phases (critical of others, rationalizing our own beliefs, and being truly critical of our own beliefs) at the same time with respect to different beliefs.

With regard to evolution and creationism, Don McLeroy seems to be firmly in phase 2 – he is engaging in a fairly sophisticated form of denialism with respect to evolutionary theory.  In this and in a follow up post I will address what I found to be Don’s main points. I have also invited him to respond and publish his responses.

Free to Believe

One point Don made that was tangential to the evolution-creation discussion, but which I think reveals his perspective, is that he feels as a fundamentalist Christian he is more free to either accept or reject evolutionary theory than I am as an atheist. I have heard this argument before, but still found it stunning because it is exactly opposite to my impression of reality.

His logic superficially makes sense – those with religious beliefs accept both materialist and supernatural explanations of the world, while strict materialist atheists accept only materialist explanations. Therefore an atheist has no choice but to accept evolutionary theory. Meanwhile someone who is religious can either accept or reject it.

The former component of this argument is strictly true in that there are Christians who accept evolutionary theory. One can have faith and accept the findings of science. In fact, I would suggest that those who choose to maintain a personal faith find a way to do so without rejecting science or the findings of science.

However, this ignores the fact that certain denominations of Christianity have as a strong and firmly held part of their core faith the literal accuracy of (there interpretation of) their version of the Bible. They would have to radically change many of their core beliefs – their entire approach to their faith, if they accepted scientific findings that directly contradict their biblical interpretation (specifically in a recently created world).

Don may be free to accept evolution, but doing so would force him to rethink major aspects of his faith, actually changing his denomination to one that is not fundamentalist. I cannot take seriously the claim that this does not provide a powerful motivation to deny evolution.

We should not also ignore the cultural aspects of this. Young Earth creationism is now a subculture of belief, with their own publications, mythology, distorted and cherry picked facts, institutions, and websites. When someone is deeply embedded in this community, young earth creationism is both encouraged and supported with a robust and sophisticated network. This creates a deep psychological and social hole out of which for anyone to dig themselves.

On the flip side, it is also strictly true but misleading to argue that scientists are forced to accept materialism. Yes, science does require methodological naturalism, because the process of science cannot function otherwise. Science is about providing natural explanations for observed phenomena, so it is trivially and pointlessly true that science only offers naturalistic explanations.

Don’s point is therefore the equivalent of saying that mathematicians are forced to provide mathematical answers to mathematical problems, and they do so using mathematical equations and processes.

There is also the assumption in Don’s position that evolution is the only materialist possibility. When you follow the process of science, evolutionary theory is currently the answer to which all the evidence leads. If the evidence pointed in another direction, then that would be the currently accepted theory. If the evidence were ambiguous or scant, then perhaps the current answer would be, we don’t know.

Science is a process of following logic and evidence, so you cannot fault scientists for following logic and evidence to the conclusion of evolutionary theory.

Don’s argument also appears to contain a hidden assumption – that the goal of all this is to arrive at the Truth. This is a bit of a deep philosophical discussion, and there is a range of opinions here, but to give my quick summary – science is about producing testable theories that make predictions about how nature will behave and what we will observe in nature. It is not about metaphysical certitude, but about testable models.

At present evolutionary theory is the best model we have of how life changes over time, and how existing life got to its current form. It has withstood over 150 years of potential falsification. New scientific disciplines have arisen since Darwin (genetics, for example) that could have entirely falsified evolutionary theory, but instead have strengthened it.

Teaching science is about teaching scientific methods and the current best theories that have emerged from applying scientific methods. It is not about Truth or belief.

In my next post I will address more of the arguments that Don put forward in the interview.

Several questions emerge from the notion that the phases of the moon affect human behavior: what is the plausibility of such a claim, is there actually such an effect, and if not why do so many people believe that there is?

Plausibility

One of two justifications are commonly given for how the moon might influence human behavior. The moon basically has two physical effects on our environment – gravity and light. Astrological influences are not worth further discussion in this article, and I rarely hear that as a justification from the general public in any case.

Gravity is the far less plausible explanation of the two physical effects of the moon. The reasoning often goes something like this: the moon causes tides, which are powerful gravitational effects on water. Our bodies are mostly water, and in fact our brain are floating in water, therefore the moon’s tidal effect might affect our brain function.

This reasoning fails on many levels. First, the moon has a tidal effect regardless of phase. The only difference with lunar phase is the relationship between the lunar tide and the solar tide (yes, the sun has a tidal effect on the Earth as well). During a full moon the lunar and solar tides are lined up, and therefore the combined effect is additive (which is called a spring tide).

However, the same is true of the new moon, therefore if the full moon effect were due to tidal forces there should be an equal new moon effect.

The bigger problem with the gravity explanation is that tidal forces are dependent upon the difference in the distance of the near and far side of an object from another large object. So the ocean tides are caused by the different gravitational pull of the moon on the near side vs far side of the Earth. The tidal force of the moon between the near side and far side of your head is negligible. This is simply not a viable source of an effect on human behavior.

The more plausible mechanism for an alleged lunar effect is the light from the moon. It is reasonable to hypothesize that people are more willing to be outside and active during a full moon because there is more light. This effect, however, should therefore not be present when the sky is overcast or in large cities where artificial light trumps moonlight.

Is There a Lunar Effect?

This is one question that is very amenable to standard observational studies – is there a correlation between some kind of event and the lunar cycle? There have been hundreds of such studies over the last few decades, involving emergency room visits, births, accidents, crime, crisis center calls – just about any marker of human behavior you can think of. Systematic reviews of this research consistently demonstrate that there is simply no evidence for any such effect.

Many of these studies cover years or decades of data, and thousands or tens of thousands of data points. A recent German study, for example, found no lunar effect for births between 1920 and 1989. A review of studies looking at crisis center calls found:

12 studies are reviewed that have examined the relationships among crisis calls to police stations, poison centers, and crisis intervention centers and the synodic lunar cycle. On the basis of the studies considered it is concluded that no good foundation exists for the belief that lunar phase is related to the frequency of crisis calls. In addition, there is no evidence whatsoever for the contention that calls of a more emotional or “out-of-control” nature occur more often at the full moon.

An often cited 1985 review by Rotton, Kelly and Culver found no lunar effect for a long list of events, including suicide, homicide, crime, sleep walking, alcoholism, and many others. Several later studies of psychiatric hospital admission also found no effect.

The bottom line is this – this question has been asked and answered, there is no lunar effect. A massive amount of data simply shows no connection between lunar phases and human behavior.

Belief in the Lunar Effect

Why, then, does belief in this effect remain high? Surveys show that belief in this effect remains at about 40-45%, even among those highly educated. In fact, mental health workers have a greater belief in the lunar effect. The short answer as to why this is – confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is a bias in human thinking that causes us to notice, accept, and remember information that confirms beliefs we already have, while ignoring, forgetting, or explaining away contradictory data. This is a powerful effect that can lead to the very compelling illusion that an effect is real when it isn’t.

Belief in a lunar effect, therefore, feeds on itself. When we encounter human behavior that seems out of the ordinary, or we are simply noticing the right side of the Bell curve of variation of crazy events, and we believe in the lunar effect, then we are likely to notice if there is a correlation.

For example, one night when I was working in the ER, and it was a busier than average night, a nurse commented, “Wow, it’s really crazy tonight. Is there a full moon?” The answer was no, the moon was in a completely different phase that night. When I informed her of this fact she simply shrugged and promptly forgot the whole thing. One can imagine that on other busy ER nights that happen to fall on or near the full moon that would resonate with her and confirm her belief in a lunar effect.

Confirmation bias can make it seem like there is strong evidence (anecdotal) for something that does not exist outside of our belief.

When I informed the teachers that the evidence shows there is no lunar effect, they simply did not believe it. Their personal experience spoke much more powerfully to them then abstract data.

Of course, the essence of scientific and critical thinking is setting aside personal anecdotes, experience, and belief, and embracing more rigorous data and analysis.

Conclusion

The data is clear, there is no lunar effect for any measured human behavior or medical events. This question has been sufficiently studied that this conclusion is very firm. We can never prove with finite data that an effect size is zero, but we can say there is no evidence for the effect, and if there is such an effect it must be extremely tiny – too small to have been detected even by hundreds of studies with tens of thousands of data points.

The real phenomenon here is one of human belief that persists in the absence of a real phenomenon. The real lunar effect is confirmation bias and understanding how the human brain is a belief machine.

Got a question for you: do you consider the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence to be science or pseudoscience? I recently got into an online debate and found myself in the minority because I maintained that the central thesis — that if intelligent life exists somewhere out there in the greater universe, we would be able to recognize it based upon patterns in radio waves — is not falsifiable.

It would seem to me that the only way to truly falsify SETI, we’d need to map quite literally every body in the universe and rule them out one by one and say that they don’t have anything there in terms of extraterrestrial intelligence.  Unlike other complex hypotheses that are limited by available technologies, I’m not convinced that the task of mapping the universe is even possible, even with a sufficiently advanced technology.

I have received some version of this question many times over the years, always by people who are trying to be skeptical and apply what they have learned about the differences between science and pseudoscience.  It therefore seems like an excellent opportunity to explore this important issue.

SETI is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and refers to a number of programs over the years that have listened for intelligent radio signals from space. NASA for a time had a SETI program, but this was canceled in 1993. The SETI Institute now carries on this endeavor with private funding.

Whether or not you think SETI is a good idea, is it real science? The issue here is how do we define science. One major criterion for science is that a scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable. This, however, is not strictly true and is an oversimplification.

A hypothesis does not need to be falsifiable in the sense that it is possible to be proven 100% wrong. All that is necessary is that the hypothesis is testable – there is some observation or experiment that you can perform that will make the hypothesis more or less likely to be true.

Sometimes a hypothesis can be stated in such a way that a single counter-example will disprove it. The now classic example is that all swans are white. A single non-white swan will falsify this hypothesis. How thoroughly do you have to search, however, before we can conclude that all swans are white? Would you have to simultaneously survey every swan in the world? If it takes 10 years to conduct a thorough survey can you be sure that a black swan was not born in the last 10 years?

The problem here is in thinking in absolutes. Scientific theories, rather, often deal with probabilities and are not necessarily wrong when exceptions are found. In the case of swans, the more thoroughly we look for non-white swans without finding them the greater our confidence is that all swans are white, and we can certainly conclude that most swans are white and that any exceptions are rare.

Of course this is the classic example because black swans were discovered in Australia.

With regard to SETI the hypothesis is this – life arose spontaneously on Earth, there is nothing special about the Earth and therefore it is possible for life to arise elsewhere in the universe. It is possible that some of that life evolved intelligence, and some of that intelligence developed technology. One method for a technological civilization to communicate across stellar distances is through radio signals. Therefore, perhaps the Earth is being bathed at this moment with intelligent radio signals from other worlds.

Every link in that logical change is perfectly reasonable. The best way to test that hypothesis is to simply look. Looking is part of science. It is a valid way to test many hypotheses. It is not necessary to be able to prove that there are no intelligent radio sources anywhere in the universe in order for this endeavor to be properly scientific.

Like the search for non-white swans, a single example is all that is necessay, in this case to prove that the hypothesis is valid. The more we search without success the more information we will have about the density of radio-transmitting civilizations in the universe. This survey will never be complete, but that is irrelevant.

The broader issue here is the importance of understanding that science is not one method but a collection of various methods. It is important to a proper understanding of science not to have an artificially narrow view of what counts as science. As long as there are hypotheses that are testable with empirical evidence, you are doing science (whether or not you are doing rigorous high quality science is a separate issue).

Frequently the opponents of science try to limit what counts as science in order to deny legitimate science (it is a major tactic of denialism). To be clear, the e-mailer is not doing that here, and he states later in his e-mail that he supports SETI as an endeavor.

It is, however, a common ploy of creationists. They try to deny the legitimacy of all historical sciences because what has happened in the past was either not directly observed or cannot be run as an experiment in the lab. Historical sciences, however, can still make observations and generate hypotheses that can be tested with further observations. There is even a field of experimental archaeology that conducts experiments to test hypotheses about how things were done in the past.

So, yes, SETI is legitimate science. It is searching for evidence that directly tests a very interesting hypothesis. The fact that it can never prove a negative version of that hypothesis (there are no intelligence radio sources in the universe) is irrelevant.

Deepak Chopra apparently thinks that TED’s logo should be, “Let’s throw any crap against the wall and let the audience sort it out.” Of course that is what all self-styled gurus and purveyors of pseudoscience want, no real scientific standards so that they can present their crackpot ideas as legitimate.

This conflict of vision recently came to a head when TEDx directors (Lara Stein, TEDx Director and Emily McManus, TED.com Editor) wrote an open letter to TEDx organizers giving them guidance on how to avoid accidentally promoting bad science. The letter is an excellent primer on pseudoscience and I recommend reading it in its entirety. The letter was a response to several dubious TEDx talks and the backlash that resulted. Early in the letter they make clear its purpose and their philosophy.

“It is not your audience’s job to figure out if a speaker is offering legitimate science or not. It is your job.”

The philosophy here is clear. TED is an outlet that heavily filters its content to provide only the best quality – ideas worth spreading. In this way it is like a peer-reviewed journal, or a University. It has standards. Pseudoscientists are very keen to cover themselves in the trappings of legitimate science, which mean they will energetically pursue anything that can provide this for them. As soon as giving a TED or TEDx talk became a credential worth having, the cranks descended.

Deepak Chopra and others have now written an open letter to the TED organizers criticizing them for “semi-censorship.” They take exception to the partial removal of two TEDx videos by Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock (I will have to explore these videos in a separate post), the ones which prompted the backlash and the subsequent letter advising how to avoid bad science. Chopra et al, after some strained and gratuitous analogy to the Game of Thrones, characterize the entire event this way:

“What the militant atheists and self-described skeptics hate is a certain brand of magical thinking that endangers science. In particular, there is the bugaboo of “non-local consciousness,” which causes the hair on the back of their necks to stand on end. A layman would be forgiven for not grasping why such an innocent-sounding phrase could spell danger to ‘good science.’”

They would have you think that legitimate attempts to maintain scientific quality is just a ploy by atheists and skeptics who are just too closed-minded to accept the cutting edge science of consciousness. The cranks have been increasing their attacks on skeptics over the last few years. Skeptics have developed a finely-tuned bullshit detector, and spend their time keeping up with the tactics and antics of the pseudoscientists, and then publicly exposing and dissecting them. Pushback is to be expected.

They continue:

“The reason becomes clear when you discover that non-local consciousness means the possibility that there is mind outside the human brain or even outside material reality, that a conscious mind is in some way intrinsic to the quantum universe, and that we all are quantum entangled.”

What is deliciously ironic is how, even in this letter, Chopra and his fellow authors trigger many of the red flags of bad science that the TEDx directors warned about in their letter. For example, one of their red flags is:

“Uses over-simplified interpretations of legitimate studies and may combine with imprecise, spiritual or new age vocabulary, to form new, completely untested theories.”

It’s hard not to suspect that they were thinking of Deepak Chopra when they wrote this line.

It gets better:

“Fearing that God is finding a way to sneak back into the kingdom through ideas of quantum consciousness, militant atheists go on the attack against near-death experiences, telepathy, action at a distance, and all manifestations of purpose-driven evolution. Like the guardians in “A Game of Thrones,” these militants haven’t actually looked over the wall, and given their absolute conviction that the human brain is the only source of awareness in the universe, you’d think that speculative thinking on the subject wouldn’t be so threatening. (Most people wouldn’t picket a convention of werewolves in their hometown. It’s not hard to tell what is fantasy.)”

First, if you are going to make a Game of Thrones reference, at least get it right. Previously in the letter they characterized the night’s watch (which they insist on calling “the guardians”) as a “hereditary” order, when in fact it is not. Now they say that the night’s watch never looks beyond the wall – that is, if you don’t count the groups of rangers who constantly explore north of the wall.

Chopra appears to be as unaware of the Game of Thrones and the Night’s Watch as he is of skeptics. But I’ll run with his flawed analogy – skeptics too range “north of the wall” that demarcates the boundary between legitimate science and pseudoscience. We explore it carefully and report back to those living comfortably south of the wall. It is a wild and untamed region, silly with magical thinking. We also defend against attempts by the denizens north of the wall to infiltrate civilization. Our warnings are often taken as seriously as the Night’s Watch’s  - those who have never looked north of the wall have a hard time believing the nonsense that goes on there.

Chopra would like nothing better than to have the wall go unguarded – meaning that there would be no effective quality control in science, or in what gets presented as science to the public. Keep in mind there is no censorship here. He and anyone are free to write as many books as they want, create web pages, organize their own conference – they seem to have no trouble distributing their nonsense without fear of any censorship.

This is about institutions that self-impose a level of quality control, including universities, journals, professional organizations, and TED conferences. There is also (or should be) certain publicly required quality control, such as what health care interventions should be covered by Medicare, or what gets taught as science in the public science classroom. These are all areas where there is purported to be some level of quality control, and the barbarians are rushing all of these walls. They want in, and one of their primary tactics is to argue that there shouldn’t be any walls at all – no quality control. Quality control to them is censorship.

Failing that, their alternate strategy is to argue that, OK, walls are fine, but we deserve to be let in because we are legitimate. To do this they try to present themselves not as cranks but as visionaries (all cranks think they are visionaries), and to do this they write:

“But TED took the threat seriously enough that Anderson’s letter warns against “the fusion of science and spirituality,” and most disappointing of all, it tags as a sign of good science that “it does not fly in the face of the broad existing body of scientific knowledge.” Even a newcomer to science knows about Copernicus, Galileo, and other great scientists whose theories countermanded the prevailing body of accepted knowledge.”

That’s right – the Galileo gambit, one of the most reliable indicators of a crank. Notice also his clever choice of words – “prevailing body of accepted knowledge.” At the time of Galileo there wasn’t much of an “existing body of scientific knowledge,” and those who were pushing back against Galileo were not exactly scientists. The analogy here is as bad as his Game of Thrones failure.

Chris Anderson from TED wrote a nice response to the Chopra letter, in which he points out:

“No one here claims that mainstream science is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It isn’t. But it’s the best starting point we have for judging new information. Yes a modern-day Galileo may be out there with paradigm-shifting ideas that will at some point overturn huge pieces of existing science. But he or she should expect to face a robust standard of proof before their ideas take hold. And for every Galileo, there are thousands of people who just have bad, unscientific ideas.”

Cranks refuse to accept or acknowledge that, unlike at the time of Galileo, we now have a substantial body of scientific knowledge. We are not starting from scratch with every new idea, and not all ideas are equally valid. We know stuff, and we can use that hard-won body of knowledge to make judgments about new ideas. Also, science has developed an elaborate set of methods and standards, and we can judge the activity of researchers based upon those standards.

We can therefore examine and then judge new ideas on these two broad lines – are the ideas plausible based upon currently well-established science, and are the methods of its proponents legitimate and rigorous?

The authors conclude:

“But the main flaw in TED’s position has been made abundantly clear. It isn’t the organizers’ job to exclude questionable science but a job shared between them and the audience. We’re all adults here, right? Any speculative thinking worthy of the name should make somebody in the audience angry, inspire others, and leave the rest to decide if a challenging idea should be thrown out or not. Any other approach casts shame upon tolerance, imagination, and science itself.”

There it is – they do not want any standards. Let the audience decide for themselves. What, then, does the TED brand mean? Chopra and his ilk would cheapen the brand to allow in their preferred pseudoscience. They would cheapen the brand of science itself, muddy the waters, blur the lines, until it’s impossible to tell what is legitimate and what isn’t. That is an environment in which cranks and charlatans can thrive.

But it’s not good science.

Good on TED for holding the line against pseudoscience. Hopefully, in this entire affair, the Chopras of the world have revealed their hand. They do not appear to be interested in legitimate science, only giving their spiritual beliefs the appearance of scientific legitimacy, and they don’t care if they have to bring down the wall of scientific standards to do so.

There are some unintended consequences as well, and as a society we are still learning to adapt to this new factor in our lives. There are issues of privacy, the rules of social behavior, and the ethics of spreading dubious information online.

We discussed two related issues recently on the SGU. The first was about the recent paper, “Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation,” by Lewandowsky. Essentially Lewandowsky wrote a paper about conspiracy theories around the denial of global warming. Part of the backlash against that paper by self-described global warming skeptics included further conspiracy theories about the paper. Lewandowsky could not resist the irony, hence his subsequent paper.

The controversy stems from the fact that Lewandowsky, in the follow up paper, named specific bloggers and speculated about their mental states in a psychology journal. The questions that arise from this are many: what rights to privacy does one surrender when they publish something online? Is it ethical to name specific people in a psychological journal, and if not, how does one give source references without naming their targets?

These are important issues with many ramifications once you start to think it through. Public figures are fair game for criticism and even ridicule. It’s the price you pay for being famous or engaging in public discourse. The law recognizes that private citizens are not fair game and deserve some level of protection.

Has social media, however, made everyone a public figure? At what point does posting online under your real name forfeit the expectation of privacy? Does this justify online posters using a pseudonym? What are the ethics of someone anonymously (under a pseudonym) using social media to attack the reputation of someone else who posts online under their real name?

The issue of privacy is made more important by the fact that social media tends to be a harsh and unforgiving environment. Social media has increased interaction without the usual social cues that tend to moderate our behavior.

In short, people feel free to be complete asses on the internet, especially when they are doing so anonymously.

This is certainly a boon to psychologists – you have millions of people interacting with diminished inhibitions. This is a flood of data about the human psyche, culture, belief systems, social interactions, and the spread of information. Suddenly we are all part of a vast pseudovoluntary psychological experiment.

The second item we discussed on the SGU was a recent study of pro and anti-vaccine messages on Twitter. The study found three things – negative but not positive vaccine messages on twitter were contagious, negative tweets spread faster that positive tweets, and (most disturbingly) high volumes of both negative and positive tweets provoked an increase in negative tweets.

Anti-vaccine information therefore has a profound advantage over pro-vaccine information on Twitter. This effect likely generalizes to other issues and other forms of social media. For whatever reason, we are more motivated to pass on negative information than positive information. This represents a massive and probably harmful bias in the way information spreads through social media.

In short, people are negative assholes on the internet.

Not surprisingly there are negative effects of this online culture. A thorough review of existing research is beyond the scope of this post, but let me summarize the preliminary findings that such research is starting to show: Engaging in social media can potentially harm self esteem, it can increase stress, and it can lead to social isolation with decreased physical contact with other people.  There is a correlation with negative health outcomes among teenagers. Who knows how much lost work productivity has been caused by spending time on social media. And of course, social media allows for the viral spread of rumors, scaremongering, and misinformation.

It’s not all bad, of course. Social media are a powerful tool, and its popularity speaks to this power. It is an effective way to engage in mass communication, and has largely democratized access to publishing. Social media are also a potentially powerful source of information, for example by tracking the spread of infectious diseases.

It is still an immature technology, however. As a culture we need to learn how to maximize its benefits while mitigating the negative aspects of social media. Social media has had, in my opinion, a profoundly positive and negative effect on the skeptical community, for example.

I feel we can definitely benefit from further research into the uses and effects of social media, in addition to experimentation with methods to mitigate its negative effects. Existing studies, for example, are mostly correlational, and it is therefore difficult to make firm cause and effect conclusions. Further research can help sort this out.

The question is – what will advance more quickly, our ability to handle this advancing technology, or the technology itself?

Prior to regulation by the FDA, over-the-counter medicine in this country was largely a creation of small businesses. There was a large variety of so-called “patent medicine,” each a proprietary blend of – what?

The term “patent medicine” has nothing to do with being issued a patent. The term refers to a letters patent, which is  essentially permission to use a royal endorsement. Most patent medicines were not actually patented mainly because the promoters did not want to disclose their ingredients.

Instead, such products were branded and their brand heavily marketed.

As a result the ingredients of these patent medicine products were largely unknown. Compounding pharmacists were familiar with the ingredients, however, and often sold cheap knockoffs, making it all the more important for promoters to protect and promote their brand.

A study presented recently at a meeting of the American Chemical Society reports the analysis of  50 different patent medicine from a collection in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Mich. The results will probably not surprise you:

“Many patent medicines had dangerous ingredients, not just potentially toxic substances like arsenic, mercury and lead, but cocaine, heroin and high concentrations of alcohol.”

The heavy metals were likely largely contaminants, but sometimes they may have been deliberate. Mercury and arsenic, for example, were used at the time as treatments for syphilis. The other common ingredients were often the true active ingredients. Heroin is a narcotic and would have been effective at treating pain. Cocaine is an addictive substance – which makes it good for repeat business. And alcohol is could certainly take the edge off of many complaints, at least in the short term.

Ingredients were largely not advertised, although sometimes a main ingredient like heroin was part of the promotion. Often the implication given was that a special blend of natural herbs were the main ingredients, but that was just for show.

None of these products were the result of careful research. The manufacturers had no need for such expenses. They were motivated to make grandiose claims, promote their brands, to include cheap ingredients, and to include an ingredient that would give a good “kick” to their customers so that they would feel it was working.

While we may look back at such products as quaint and hokey, there is essentially no difference between them and the supplements that are all the rage today. After the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act that essentially removed supplements from FDA regulation, we have had a return of the patent medicine era.

Today you can find countless products, heavily branded and marketed, with grandiose claims, often cut with something like caffeine or another legal stimulant to give a nice kick, and marketed without the need to provide any evidence for safety or efficacy.

There are two main differences, however. The first is that the ingredients need to be disclosed. The second is that promoters cannot claim to cure diseases, but have to restrict their claims to “structure function” claims. This is a massive loophole, however, as they can make claims that their product supports some biological function with the clear implication of what it is treating.

Airborne is a great example. This is heavily brand marketed, with the notion that it was created by a school teacher, as if that is a credible source for a medicine. The claim is that it will support your immune system, so take it before you get on a plane to prevent contracting a cold or other infection from all the close contact. In reality it’s just a mixture of vitamins and minerals, and there is no reason to think that it will support the immune system to prevent colds.

Today anyone can combine a random mixture of cheap ingredients – herbs, vitamins, or minerals – and then imply whatever health claims they wish for their mixture as long as they are slightly careful in how they word the claims.

This is a simple result of market forces in the absence of effective regulation. There is no reason to think that the snake oil herbs and supplements of today would be any different from that patent medicines of previous centuries.

Actually, the technology is – brain to machine to another machine and then to another brain – technology. Imagine having a computer chip implanted in your brain that can read your brain activity. This information is then transferred to a computer chip implanted in someone else’s brain, who can then access that information.

If this exchange were happening in real time through wireless transfer with sufficient resolution, that would essentially be telepathy.

We’re not quite there yet, but researchers at Duke university have perhaps taken the first steps in this direction. Led by Miguel Nicolelis, They implanted computer chips into rat brains. The “encoder” rat was then run through a maze in which it had to use it’s whiskers to measure the size of a hole. If it could fit through the hole it was trained to then poke its nose through another hole to the left, if it could not fit then it would poke its nose through a hole to the right.

After encoding this information, the information was then transferred to a computer chip in another rat’s brain. That “decoder” rat was run through the same maze, although this time there was no test hole, so it only had the information from the encoder rat to tell it which hole to poke its nose through. The decoder rats showed “similar behavior” to the encoder rats.

This is preliminary research, but promising. So far there does not seem to be any theoretical or technological hurdles in the way of developing mature BMI with all that this implies. Rather, it seems all that is necessary is continued incremental advances – higher resolution decoding, better chip technology, and more thorough interfaces.

In the abstract to the current study Nicolelis speculates:

These results demonstrated that a complex system was formed by coupling the animals’ brains, suggesting that BTBIs can enable dyads or networks of animal’s brains to exchange, process, and store information and, hence, serve as the basis for studies of novel types of social interaction and for biological computing devices.

We could have thousands of rats wired together forming a biological super computer. Or we could track social behavior by monitoring the brain activity of millions of people simultaneously (although, isn’t this Twitter?).

Speculating about future application is always the most fun, but the most problematic, areas of such research. For now we need to focus on just developing the technology. It might be useless to speculate about needed applications at a time when the technology will be ready for use – many other things might change between now and then.

What we can say now is that brain-machine-interfaces are coming, in all their permutations. How we will use them remains to be seen.

While the basic facts of homeopathy have not changed in the past six years, the details and some of the specific arguments of the homeopaths have evolved, so it was good to get updated on what they are saying today. In this post I will discuss some overall patterns in the logic used to defend homeopathy and then discuss the debate over plausibility. In tomorrow’s post I will then discuss the clinical evidence, with some final overall analysis.

Believers and Skeptics

As with the last debate, the audience this time was packed with homeopaths and homeopathy proponents. When I was introduced as the president of the New England Skeptical Society, in fact, laughter erupted from the audience. But that’s alright – I like a challenge. It did not surprise me that the audience, and my opponent, were unfamiliar with basic skeptical principles. Andre, in fact, used the word “skeptic” as a pejorative throughout his presentation.

The difference in our two positions, in fact, can be summarized as follows: Andre Saine accepts a very low standard of scientific evidence (at least with homeopathy, but probably generally given that he is a naturopath), whereas I, skeptics, and the scientific community generally require a more rigorous standard.

The basic pattern of Andre’s talk was to quote from one of my articles on homeopathy declaring some negative statement about homeopathy, and then to counter that statement with a reference to scientific evidence. The problem is, his references were to low-grade preliminary evidence, and never to solid reproducible evidence.

That is one functional difference between skeptics and believers – the threshold at which they consider scientific evidence to be credible and compelling (there are many reasons behind that difference, but that is the end result).

I was asked what level of evidence I would find convincing, and that’s an easy question to answer because skeptics spend a great deal of time exploring that very question. In fact, I have discussed this in the context of many things, not just homeopathy.

For any scientific claim (regardless of plausibility) scientific evidence is considered well-established when it simultaneously (that’s critical) fulfills the following four criteria:

1- Methodologically rigorous, properly blinded, and sufficiently powered studies that adequately define and control for the variables of interest (confirmed by surviving peer-review and post-publication analysis).

2- Positive results that are statistically significant.

3- A reasonable signal to noise ratio (clinically significant for medical studies, or generally well within our ability to confidently detect).

4- Independently reproducible. No matter who repeats the experiment, the effect is reliably detected.

This pattern of compelling evidence does not exist for ESP, acupuncture, any form of energy medicine, cold fusion or free energy claims, nor homeopathy. You may get one or two of those things, but never all four together. You do hear many excuses (special pleading) for why such evidence does not exist, but never the evidence itself.

The reason for this is simple – when you set the threshold any lower, you end up prematurely accepting claims that turn out not to be true.

Plausibility

The less plausible, the more outrageous and unconventional a scientific claim, the more nitpicky and uncompromising we should be in applying the standards above. This follows a Bayesian logic – you are not beginning with a blank slate, as if we have no prior knowledge, but rather are starting with existing well-established science and then extending that knowledge further.

To clarify – if a new claim seems implausible it does not mean that it is a-priori not true. It simply means that the threshold of evidence required to conclude that it is probably true is higher.

Scottish philosopher David Hume sort of captured this idea over two centuries ago when he wrote:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.

I like to think of it this way: The evidence for any new claim that contradicts prior established scientific conclusions must be at least as robust as the prior evidence it would overturn. You can also ask the question – what is more likely, that the relevant scientific facts are wrong, or that the new claim is wrong?

What is more likely, that much of what we think we know about physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, and medicine is wrong, or that the claims of homeopathy are wrong? I think this is an easy one.

Ultramolecular Aqueous Dilutions

When researchers are trying to publish papers on topics that are highly controversial they often invent new terminology to evade the stink of pseudoscience. Cold fusion was therefore renamed low energy nuclear reactions by proponents. Similarly extreme homeopathic dilutions, those that are diluted beyond the point that any original ingredients are likely to remain, have been dubbed “ultramolecular aqueous dilutions,” or UMDs.

Such dilutions present a huge problem for homeopathy – how can a treatment have any biological effect if there is no active ingredient, if you simply have solvent with all the ingredients diluted out? The short answer is – you can’t. Hahnemann, who invented homeopathy two centuries ago, thought that his process was transferring the “essence” of the treatment into the water. Homeopathy remains a vitalistic energy-medicine pseudoscience.

In order to give plausible deniability to homeopaths on this point, however, there have been several attempts to demonstrate that homeopathic water is different from regular water. That the water itself can retain the memory of what was diluted in it.

Saine referenced a 2003 study that claims to demonstrate that homeopathic water has different thermoluminescent properties than non-homeopathic water.  The experimenters actually took heavy water (deuterium water) and then froze it at very low temperatures, exposed it to radiation, and then measured the thermoluminescence as it melted. That sounds like a homeopathic remedy, right?

Essentially the researchers were anomaly hunting, with an experimental setup that has many possible variables and unknown effects. Let’s apply my list of criteria above to this study – while it had statistically significant results, it was not blinded, and it is not clear that the researcher isolated the variable of interest (homeopathy). Further, attempts to replicate the study were negative.

No so-called “water memory” experiment has come anywhere near being established science, yet Saine thinks this is enough to settle the question.

Next Saine went to a new strategy (using somewhat of a kettle defense). He cited a recent paper that claims that even ultramolecular dilutions retain measurable amounts of original substance. Harriet Hall at Science-Based Medicine has already done an excellent job of destroying this claim. This small study was not blinded and not even controlled – no control group. And of course, it has never been replicated.

Saine believes that he has rescued plausibility for homeopathy by citing the few preliminary, small, unblinded, often uncontrolled, and unreplicated studies that show some water anomalies. His threshold for finding evidence compelling is not even in the same universe as the mainstream scientific community.

Keep in mind also that even if the above claims for water memory or nanoparticles were true (which they probably aren’t), that is still many steps removed from demonstrating plausibility for homeopathic remedies.

Such water anomalies would have to transfer their properties to sugar pills when the homeopathic solutions are placed on the sucrose tablet, and survive when the water evaporates. They would have to remain intact over time on the shelf, when consumed, digested, absorbed, and then transported in the blood to whatever their target tissue is, and then have a biological effect. Each of these steps represent a massive barrier to the plausibility of homeopathy, and are completely unscathed by these unreliable preliminary studies.

Also, we are just talking about the high dilutions of homeopathy. Unfortunately such debates rarely get to an equally implausible aspect of homeopathy – the remedies themselves. There is no reason to suspect that any particular starting substance for a homeopathic remedy, even if given in a measurable amount, would have the claimed effects. The substances are chosen for fanciful magical reasons that make homeopathy more akin to witchcraft than medicine.

The reasoning is mostly based on sympathetic magic, that like cures like, but often even more bizarre than that. The patient’s personality type is often taken into consideration, and the totality of their symptoms in a fashion that is pure fantasy. Some starting ingredients, like osillococcinum, don’t even exist.

Tomorrow I’ll discuss the clinical evidence for homeopathy and some concluding thoughts.

There are a few standouts – seminal experiments that not only demonstrate something interesting about human nature, but also create an entire paradigm of psychological studies that other researcher replicate with various modifications. One such such is the marshmallow test, first conducted by a team lead by Walter Mischel then at Stanford University.

The first series of such studies Mischel published in 1972 took a group of preschoolers and offered them their choice of three rewards: a cookie, a pretzel, or a marshmallow. The researcher then told the children that they could eat their treat whenever they want, but if they hold off the researcher would return with an additional treat. The study was a test of self-control and the ability to delay gratification.

Mischel was initially interested in the various cognitive styles the children would use to delay gratification, and which were more successful. He found that the children who were able to distract themselves by thinking of something else or engaging in an activity were able to delay gratification longer. Further, when the treat was removed from view children were able to delay gratification longer, but thinking about the reward shortened this delay.

What we can conclude from this study is that some children had better strategies and were better able to control their immediate impulses for a longer term reward. The study did not demonstrate whether these skills were learned or were innate.

If this were the end of the marshmallow test it probably would not have become as famous within the psychological community. What we particularly stunning about this series of studies is that Mischel followed the children in his initial studies to see how their lives turned out. In a 1989 follow up study he found:

Those 4-year-old children who delayed gratification longer in certain laboratory situations developed into more cognitively and socially competent adolescents, achieving higher scholastic performance and coping better with frustration and stress. Experiments in the same research program also identified specific cognitive and attentional processes that allow effective self-regulation early in the course of development. The experimental results, in turn, specified the particular types of preschool delay situations diagnostic for predicting aspects of cognitive and social competence later in life.

Children who were able to delay eating the marshmallow for a few minutes longer than their peers were more successful in school and then later in their careers, in their marriages, and generally in life. It is the fact that the marshmallow test had such profound real world implications, in my opinion, that makes them so powerful and famous.

Other researchers have run with this ball. One study, for example, shows that performance on the marshmallow test predicts body mass index 30 years later.

Another series of studies found that older children are better able to delay gratification than younger children (no surprise), that the larger the reward the greater the ability to delay gratification, and there does not appear to be any upper limit to this effect (so really large rewards will result in great ability to delay gratification). In other words, even young children go through a mental calculation of expense and reward and are able to delay gratification if the reward is big enough.

Psychologists now consider the ability for self control and delayed gratification to be part of what is called executive function, a frontal lobe function that is the behavior master control center, making strategic long term decisions and then imposing control over behavior to maintain and achieve goals. Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is now understood as a deficit in executive function. It is therefore not surprising that children with ADHD perform worse on the marshmallow test.

In fact the outcomes that Mischel found mirror those found in people with ADHD – worse academic, career, marriage, and general life outcome.

A recent study published in January of 2013 was touted by the press as putting the now classic marshmallow test in a different light. I think they oversold the implications, but the study does add a new layer, showing how complex it can be to interpret psychological studies, even those that seem straightforward.

Researchers repeated the marshmallow test but additionally primed subjects to either trust or distrust the researchers. They told them they could do some art work, and gave them crappy art tools to work with but promised they would return soon with better crayons and supplies. In one group the researcher returned, and in the other they did not. When they were later subjected to the marshmallow test those who did not receive the better art supplies had shorter delay of gratification times than those who did.

I do not think this calls for a reinterpretation of the marshmallow test, but it does indicate that trust is a prerequisite to this study paradigm. In other words, the subjects will only make the effort to delay gratification if they trust that the future reward will actually manifest. If they have a good reason to distrust the researcher then it is actually rational not to delay – to take the marshmallow in the hand rather than two from the researcher.

The researchers conclude that performance on the marshmallow test may not only reflect inherent executive function, but also the child’s environment, whether or not they have learned to trust the adults in their life.

The problem with this interpretation, however, is that it is difficult to extrapolate from the laboratory condition to life. Mischel did the follow up to show that the results of his test did play out in the real world. In this new study the children may have been responding to the immediate experience not to trust their current situation. It is reasonable to extrapolate that this may also apply to their environment in general, but this is just a hypothesis at this point.

The researchers will have to do some follow up studies where they relate subjects’ real-world environment to their performance on the test. The trick here is that their environment may be partly genetically determined also (perhaps they have a chaotic environment because their genetic parents also lack self control), and therefore this factor would need to be controlled for also. Twin studies can be helpful, as can studies of adopted children.

There are likely to be other environmental factors that influence performance on the marshmallow test. For example, other studies have shown that exerting self-control in one area decreases self-control in others, as if people are expending a finite reservoir of self-control.

In the end it is likely, as with many behaviors, performance on the marshmallow test is a combination of innate personality and learned behavior from the environment. That there are both environmental and innate factors is almost axiomatic. The real question is – what is the balance between the two in this particular case. Is delayed gratification mostly learned, mostly innate, or roughly equal between the two? That is an interesting area of probable future research.