Chopra and Oprah, stoking the fire?

I'm wasting way too much time on Oprah, but this is too important to pass by. I'll keep it short though.

My last post was on Oprah and her support for Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccination propaganda: Oprah, quacking with fire. It related to an article on Oprah in Newsweek, Live Your Best Life Ever! Deepak Chopra of quantum healing fame has now also weighed in on this issue. As could be expected, he supports her.











Chopra's article is full of errors of fact and logical fallacies, but I'll leave two bloggers more qualified than I am to deal with that. Read Orac from Respectful Insolence in Oprah and Chopra sittin' in a tree..., and Massimo Pigliucci from Rationally Speaking in Deepak Chopra Defends Oprah, Commits Endless Logical Fallacies for more on that.

My concern is more with what Chopra did not say that with what he did say. He advanced a list of red herrings, but said almost nothing about Oprah's support for Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccination drive. The crucial question is whether he (a physician) supports those who would stop or delay childhood vaccinations?

Oprah, quacking with fire?

An article in Newsweek exposed the extent to which Oprah Winfrey has and is promoting (often dangerous) pseudoscience nonsense on her programme. There was also this recent article in the Readers Digest along the same lines: The Trouble with Celebrity Science. These articles pointed out the inordinate influence she has on more than 40 million avid followers. Here is just some of the nonsense she has given airtime to or supported:

The Secret, wishful thinking at its best (or worst)

Suzanne Summers on using hormones (bioidenticals) and other potentially dangerous techniques to try to stay young

Dr. Christiane Northrup on the unproven dangers of vaccines, thyroid dysfunction in women caused by "suppressing utterances", other quack cures for female problems

Actress Jenny McCarthy on the putative role of vaccines in Autism, urging parents to delay or stop vaccinating their children.

The desperate attempts by some people to cheat ageing are saddening. The efforts of Suzanne Summers are gruesome and pathetic - for Oprah to promote them, unworthy. The effects, however, will only be felt by those sad individuals who put their trust in Oprah's judgement.

Now, Oprah is by all accounts a wonderful person who does a lot of good, especially for women. She is also a very influential person. As such she should be held to higher standards of care and responsibility. Surely she should temper her natural trustfulness (someone less charitable may say gullibility) with a little caution?

The real issue here is Oprah's ill-founded support for Jenny McCarthy and others' claims that childhood vaccinations cause Autism and that these vaccinations should therefore be delayed or stopped altogether. This is what Dr. Harriet Hall had to say about these claims recently in an article entitled Vaccines and Autism in eSkeptic (her views reflect the scientific consensus on this issue):

"The evidence is in. The scientific community has reached a clear consensus that vaccines don’t cause autism. There is no controversy.

There is, however, a manufactroversy — a manufactured controversy — created by junk science, dishonest researchers, professional misconduct, outright fraud, lies, misrepresentations, irresponsible reporting, unfortunate media publicity, poor judgment, celebrities who think they are wiser than the whole of medical science, and a few maverick doctors who ought to know better. Thousands of parents have been frightened into rejecting or delaying immunizations for their children. The immunization rate has dropped, resulting in the return of endemic measles in the U.K. and various outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S. children have died. Herd immunity has been lost. The public health consequences are serious and are likely to get worse before they get better — a load of unscientific nonsense has put us all at risk."

Oprah's support of people such as Jenny McCarthy - she's reportedly giving her her own show - is inexcusable. She is quacking with fire.

Left brain right brain once more

Joseph Le Doux is the latest eminent neuroscientist to take on the left brain right brain myth. Writing in the Huffington Post, Le Doux reveals Why the "Right Brain" Idea is Wrong-Headed. He links a resurgence of right brain nonsense to Daniel Pink's book A Whole New Mind and the mindless promotion of it by celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey. I also commented on this on Occam's Donkey at Is Oprah a whole-brain half-wit too?

Some choice quotes from Le Doux on why the right brain idea is wrong-headed:

"Attributing functions to one side or the other just divides the "black box" in two. This kind of over-simplification is unnecessary given all we've learned about how the brain work."

"We have very detailed information about various tiny areas on the left and right side, how cells in these areas are connected to other cells in the same or different areas, and what neurotransmitters, enzymes, and genes are in the many of the cells that allow them to do their job as part of a network or system."

" ... there is no overall function of a side. Areas, whether on a small or large scale, don't have functions. Functions are products of systems. Systems are made up of cells that are interconnected by synapses. Systems span the brain vertically and horizontally -- they are not isolated in one hemisphere."

Le Doux concedes that Pink probably used the term right brain as a metaphor for thinking styles. This tired excuse is wearing thin, however. Right brained should perhaps rather be used as a metaphor for the gullibility of those whose who fall for the idea and the greed of those who propagate it for financial gain.

Also see my post on the left brain right brain mind myth.

It's not right, it's not even wrong

In science there can be no worse insult than being accused that one's activities are not science. Physicist Wolfgang Pauli committed the classical insult when he reportedly said of a younger colleage's paper:

"This isn’t right. It’s not even wrong."

This reflected the Popperian view of science in which a theory which is not falsifiable (cannot be proven wrong) is not considered scientific. The idea of falsifiability is well defined in Stanford University's article on Karl Popper (hat tip to Wikipedia):

"A theory is scientific only if it is refutable by a conceivable event. Every genuine test of a scientific theory, then, is logically an attempt to refute or to falsify it, and one genuine counter-instance falsifies the whole theory."

Most alternative medicine approaches are considered unfalsifiable and are therefore unscientific, or if they claim scientific justification, pseudoescientific. Consider homeopathy where solutions are diluted to the point where the supposed critical ingredient is no longer detectable. The water in which it was diluted is then said to retain a "memory" for that ingredient. This "memory" cannot be detected, the concept cannot be proven wrong and according to Popper's view is not scientific. Homeopathy is not right, it's not even wrong.

An well-known example of a falsifiable statement was that there were only white swans. It could be falsified simply by finding a black swan, which duly happened. Compare this with claims that parapsychology experiments fail because of the skeptical attitude of experimenters through the measurement effect in quantum mechanics affect the outcomes. If this is accepted, falsification becomes impossible and believers in parapsychology will always be able shift the goalposts.

Much of what is commonly called pseudoscience or quackery, can be described as not even wrong. In other words - it's bullshit.

Superstitious people don't understand probability

David DiSalvo, writing in Neuronarrative, has an interesting discussion on the role of the fallacy of conjunction in paranormal beliefs. Hat tip to Vaughan from Mind Hacks for the link and connecting it to Jung's idea of synchronicity.

DiSalvo's blog post is based on an article entitled Paranormal belief and susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy in the journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology. The abstract for the article reads as follows:

"Numerous studies have shown paranormal believers misperceive randomness and are poor at judging probability. Despite the obvious relevance to many types of alleged paranormal phenomena, no one has examined whether believers are more susceptible to the conjunction fallacy; that is to misperceiving co-occurring (conjunct) events as being more likely than singular (constituent) events alone. The present study examines believer vs. non-believer differences in conjunction errors for both paranormal and non-paranormal events presented as either a probability or a frequency estimation task. As expected, believers made more conjunction errors than non-believers. This was true for both event types, with both groups making fewer errors for paranormal than for non-paranormal events. Surprisingly, the response format (probability vs. frequency) had little impact. Results are discussed in relation to paranormal believers' susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy and more generally, to their propensity for probabilistic reasoning biases."

DiSalvo explains the fallacy of conjunction as a tendency to believe that when events co-occur (or conjunct) they were ‘meant’ to co-occur, or at least were more likely to co-occur than a single event occurring alone. According to the article in the the journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology rerferred to above, the conjunction fallacy could be at the core of belief in the paranormal.

As pointed out by Vaughan from Mind Hacks, the fallacy of conjunction also features in Jung's concept of synchronicity (or meaningful coincidence). Wikipedia defines sychronicity as:

"Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which are causally unrelated occurring together in a supposedly meaningful manner. In order to count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance."

I found it surprising to read in Wikipedia that the physicist Wolfgang Pauli co-authored an article on synchronicity with Jung, considering Pauli's views on pseudoscience and his famous quote on that topic:

"It's not right, it's not even wrong."

Those were the early days of quantum physics and I suspect that you would not find too many serious phycisists today who would consider linking physics with nonsense like synchronicity.

In closing, I believe that when looking at the fallacy of conjunction, one should also consider confirmation bias.

A trillion

How much is a trillion? Or should it be how many?

A trillion is a million million, or 1,000,000,000,000.

According to 100777.com,a trillion dollars laid end to end would stretch almost to the sun. The American Handgunner magazine in its July/August 2009 edition, has a particularly interesting way of concretizing it:

"CCI makes about 1,000,000 rounds of .22LR ammo daily. If you figure about 250 workdays a year, it would take four years to make a billion - and 4,000 years to make a trillion."

According to Wikipedia the United States national debt now is $11 trillion, but is set to rise to $20 trillion by 2015.

It is said that when America sneezes the whole world suffers. We seem to be in for a rough ride. Those damn greedy bankers, ... and politicians, ... and ..., probably all of us.

Is Oprah a whole-brain half-wit too?

When will the left brain right brain myth suffer a welcome and timely death? Well, certainly not while celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey keep on mindlessly promoting it on their shows.

The neuroscience concensus is clear - it is nonsensical to refer to people as left brained or right brained. Oprah, however, states unequivocably that right-brainers will rule this century. She gained this penetrating insight into the workings of the human mind in an interview with Daniel Pink, the author of A Whole New Mind.

From the blurb for the show:

Pink, a former chief speechwriter for former Vice President Al Gore, presents a convincing argument that our country is entering a new era -- the so-called conceptual age -- during which right-brained skills such as design and storytelling will become far more crucial than traditionally left-brained skills such as accounting and computer programming.

Pink's views on which skills will be required in this century may well have merit, but what does it have to do with the right brain? Is he just trying to sell his book on the back of the seduction of neuroscience?

Oprah recounts on the show how she addressed graduating students at Stanford University and gave each student a copy of Pink's book. A fine gesture to be sure. I trust that, unlike Oprah, the students will have the sense to see through the nonsense. I'm not so sure about her millions of followers though.

Genius is just hard work?

David Brooks, writes as follows in the New York Times on Genius: The Modern View:

"Some people live in romantic ages. They tend to believe that genius is the product of a divine spark. They believe that there have been, throughout the ages, certain paragons of greatness — Dante, Mozart, Einstein — whose talents far exceeded normal comprehension, who had an other-worldly access to transcendent truth, and who are best approached with reverential awe."

but,

The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.

Interesting, but hardly new. I haven't had time to check out the science, but his commenters mostly disagree.

It is certainly encouraging to the aspiring expert in any field to have this positive message: "Work hard and diligently enough and you will get there". Some commenters to Brooks article distinguish between being successful and being a genius in a particular field. That, I think, sums it up. I have in many fields of achievement seen the difference between "naturals" and "ordinary's" who are just prepared to work hard. There is just no way someone with ordinary talent will reach the same heights as a natural who will work as diligently. That should not discourage those of ordinary talent. They can still end up pretty good, and that is good enough for most of us.

Now to look at the science when I get the time!

Are great companies just lucky?

Are "Great" Companies Just Lucky? was the title of a recent article (not free) in the Harvard Business Review (HBR). It was based on a paper published by Deloitte, A Random Search for Excellence: Why “great company” research delivers fables and not facts. The authors, Raynor, Ahmed and Henderson essentially argue that the reasons for organisations' success are random and linked to the time frame within which it occurs. According to them:

"Many of the “great” companies cited are, in fact, nothing special; consequently, the researchers are simply imposing patterns on random data. That’s not science—it’s astrology."

They are particularly critical about the work of authors such as Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence) and Jim Collins (Built to Last and Good to Great). They point out that two recent and influential books, Hard facts, Dangerous Half-truths and Total Nonsense by Pfeffer & Sutton,and The Halo Effect and the Eight other Delusions that Deceive Managers by Rosenzweig, have each made similar points. Francis Wheen in his excellent How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World was also heavily critical of business gurus such as Peters, Collins and others.

See also a well received article on the same issue in the Boston Globe, Luck, Inc.

Tom Peters commented on the HBR article in his blog in posts entitled Say It Ain't So, Jim! and Questionable Assertions: Let's Take a Second Look.

Fads

Every teacher with a few years of teaching experience has experienced and was subjected to educational fads. These fads invariably lacked evidence for effectiveness, enriched consultants, created more work for teachers, failed in practice, but remained in place years after everyone know they were nonsense. Fads in everyday life are typically harmless (like pet rocks), but educational fads invariably are to the detriment of learners.

Teachers in South African will soon have to earn CPD (Continuing Professional Development) points. The signs are already there that the purveyors of educational bullshit are sharpening their teeth for what will be a lucrative market. It is now the time to identify pseudoscientific approaches that may eventually become fads. Looking at the characteristics of educational fads can help one spot looming fads.

Prof. Martin Kozloff (see in Rate My Professors what his students think of him), wrote an excellent article, Fad, Fraud and Folly in Education. He is a controversial figure, but his views on teaching and evidence are sound.

Kozloff named some of ideas that he regarded as educational fads:

" ... the history of innovations in education (ranging from questionable to destructive), such as additive-free diets, "gentle teaching," "sensory integration," "full inclusion," and "facilitated communication" for persons with autism and other developmental disabilities; whole language, invented spelling, inquiry learning, discovery learning, learning styles, multiple intelligences, "brain-based teaching," constructivist math, portfolio assessment, authentic assessment, "journaling," self-esteem raising, "learning centers," "sustained silent reading," "developmentally appropriate practices," and "student centered" education for more typical students."

His opinion of full inclusion is instructive (although I wonder whether he is exagerating - creating a straw man?):

"For one thing, ordinary fads are cheap and harmless. ... In contrast, pernicious innovations in education waste time, money, energy, hope, learning opportunities, and the chances for beneficent outcomes. Instead of being taught to feed himself, walk, point to things he wants, operate a tape player or computer, look at the faces of his parents, and turn the pages of books, the fully included 16 year old student with severe mental retardation sits strapped into a wheelchair in a high school history class. He learns nothing whatever; his teachers know it's a cruel hoax, but "inclusion specialists" are satisfied with "social progress" (increased tolerance and social justice) and have higher self-esteem for a job well done."

He summarized his views:

"There are two sorts of pernicious innovations in education: passing fads (e.g., "multiple intelligence") and chronic malignancies (whole language). Both waste time, money, energy, teachers' efforts and goodwill, and children's opportunities to master skills. Both forms of pernicious innovation rest on the emotional appeal of an empirically empty Romantic modernist critique of contemporary social institutions and values (primary folly) translated into progressivist education shibboleths and jargon (derivative folly) that are used to generate and then to sustain allegedly-novel (but rarely field tested and almost always worthless) "practices" (fraud) that provide prestige, tenure, privilege, publication, easy money, and power to their promoters. Fads, folly and fraud are to a great extent located in schools of education, and will continue as long as they are allowed."

Other online resources I found useful are by an anonymous writer who calls himself Prof. Plum. His useful articles Logical Fallacies in Edubabble and Logical Fallacies, look at logical fallacies contained in some educational fads and the marketing of these fads.

Enjoy your reading.

Cheating

I've been battling to find time for blogging for a while now. Rather than stopping, I've decided to abbreviate my blog posts and then expand them when I find the time.

This post is a brief commentary on Lewis Hamilton and McLaren's cheating at the Australian F1 Grand Prix. Under amateur codes the ideas of fair play and fair competition are held in high esteem, although it would be naive to believe that gaining an unfair advantage and even cheating do not happen. In professional sport such practices seem much more common, even if officially frowned upon. Hamilton and McLaren's blatent lying while seeing their opponent being punished unfairly, while at the same time facing almost certain exposure, seems particularly cold-blooded and at the same time stupidly irrational.


Image from Top F1 Galleries.

Dan Ariely has some interesting ideas on the psychology and behavioural economics of cheating. See his excellent talk an this issue on video here.

Hat tip to Vaughan from Mind Hacks for pointing me to the Ariely video.

Traumatized

On Sky News today, some obscure celebrity fashion designer gushed about how she is "traumatized" by global warming. "Traumatized" has become a fad word, overused and often meaningless. Parents have also picked up on this fad and I've had a number complain that their children had been traumatized by trivial incidents at school.

The first time parents complained to me that their child had been traumatized at school, I steeled myself to have to deal with molestation or physical assault, necessitating calling the police. It turned out that little Johny, sitting in my office trying to look suitably traumatized, fell over a school bag after he was shoved by little girl whom he was pestering - no medical certificate was produced and no bruises were visible. They were not impressed when I refused their demand for the girl to be suspended.

Since then I've had to deal with traumatized parents and children on a regular basis. Needles to say, more often than not, the events that led to the trauma were nothing more than common everyday niggles. Trying to explain to such parents that they're teaching their children to cry wolf and that the children may end up unable to deal with the vicissitudes of life, is often futile.

Critical thinking, arguments and argument mapping

Dr. Steven Novella's Neurologica blog recently featured a tutorial on conducting arguments (in a critical thinking sense). There are many of such tutorials on the web, but his is especially valuable because it has useful examples related to quackery and pseudoscience. He covers some basic logic and also offers information on logical fallacies, valuable again because they are especially applicable to many of the issues covered in Occam's Donkey.

Dr. Novella's tutorial, read with A practical guide to critical thinking by Greg Haskins, provides a good basic introduction to critical thinking. This can be further supplemented by using argument mapping software. Austhink developed two good argument mapping programmes, Rationale for the educational market and bCisive for the business market. Both can be obtained free for a trial period.

Other good resources can be found at Austhink's Critical Thinking on the Web and The Skeptic's Dictionary. Carl Sagan's The Fine Art of Baloney Detection from his book The Demon Haunted World, is available online at various websites and is also a good read.

"The whole art of government consists in being honest"

Hat tip to Ron Anger, the editor of Magnum (a South African gun magazine), for most of the ideas in this post, which is based on his April 2009 editorial.

Anger tells the story of Thomas Jefferson, the third American president, who after his inauguration returned to his lodgings to find that there was no space left at the dinner table. He retired to his room without dinner, accepting that he received no special treatment. I say no more.

Anger continues with a quote from Thomas Jefferson:

"The whole art of government consists in being honest."

I again say no more.

Anger then suggests that vote-seeking politicians be challenged to answer "True" or "False" to Jefferson's words. If "False", don't vote for them. If "True", ask them how they and their their party would re-introduce honesty to government.

I would add that I would vote for any politician of any party who exemplified the Jeffersonian qualities of honesty, modesty and self-sacrifice. I realise that sadly, if those are my standards, I would probably vote for no-one, not even myself (at least I'm honest, although there seems to be a logical contradiction here).

Mind Myth 8: What about quantum physics!?

Much quacking mischief has been caused in the names of a trio of scientific impostors, pop-neuroscience, postmodernism and quantum quackery. From pop-neuroscience the idea that the brain is as easily manipulable as a yo-yo on a string; from post-modernism the idea that there is no objective reality and that any viewpoint is as valid as any other; from quantum quackery the idea that our thoughts can influence the physical world and change our destiny (without behavioural intervention).

Much of pop-neuroscience has been exposed comprehensively as pseudoscience, as documented on this blog in the previous mind myth posts. Scientists such as Alan Sokal in the famous Sokal affair exposed post-modernism as an emperor with no clothes and it has been on the wane, except in pockets of academia. Quantum quackery has also been exposed as nonsense by scientists such as Robert Park and Victor Stenger, but because of the very complexity of the science of quantum physics it claims to be based upon, and the support of guru quacks such as Deepak Chopra, continues to deceive many. It's often said that even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics. I'm not a physicist, but based on the work of others more knowledgeable than I am, I'll try to demonstrate that the science of quantum physics offers no scientific basis for various nonsensical ideas of mind-matter interaction.

I have often experienced the following scenario, as I'm sure have most skeptics who sometimes find themselves engaged in arguments with people espousing "alternative" views of scientific reality. After all the person's arguments had been exposed as lacking evidence and scientific credibility, he (or she) would get a faraway in his eyes, then pose the clinching question: "But what about quantum physics?" My typical exasperated response would be: "Quantum physics has nothing to do with it!" A useless response, because normally his mind's been made up and arguments about the irrelevance of Heisenberg, the measurement problems, entanglement, and so forth (half of which I did not understand in any case, and most of which I am sure he did not understand), would have made no difference.

What is quantum physics and how is it different from (or rather, how does it complement) classical Newtonian physics (which is a special case of Einsteins general general theory of relativity). These are not simple questions and on a brief Google search I could find no succinct answers, possibly for the simple reason that there are none. Let me, however, for present purposes and at the grave risk of oversimplifying it, try:

Newtonian physics, primarily characterised by Newton's laws of motion, is mathematically precise and deterministic. It is applicable mainly to macroscopic objects, from golf balls to planets.

Quantum physics, primarily characterised by paradoxes inherent in the dual nature of light as particle and wave, is best described mathematically as probabilistic. It is applicable to the very small, the universe of atomic and sub-atomic particles.

So, how does this tie in with quantum quackery? Wikipedia offers a useful definition:

"Quantum mysticism is the claim that the laws of quantum mechanics incorporate mystical ideas similar to those found in certain religious traditions or New Age beliefs. It is descended from the measurement problem – the seemingly special role which observers play in quantum mechanics. The related term quantum quackery has been used pejoratively by skeptics to discount claims that quantum theory might support mystical beliefs, while quantum mysticism has been used as a more neutral description of ideas that blend the ideas of eastern mysticism and quantum physics."

while an astrophysicist writing under the pseudonym Moonflake in the blog Smoke & Mirrors, described its origins:

"Historically, all this quantum flapdoodle began with Niels Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, the famous Copenhagen Interpretation, and Erwin Schrodinger’s response to it, the even more famous Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment. Most people interpret these to mean that all reality is interconnected, including the human mind, and that the conscious observer is able to affect reality by will alone. Some take it even further and take it to mean that we actually create reality with our thoughts."

So, what about quantum physics makes quacks and New Age fluffy bunnies (Dave Snowden's term) so excited? First is the so-called measurement or observation phenomenon.

The measurement problem

Stephen Hawking in his book (with Leonard Mlodinow) A Briefer History of Time (Hawking Light so that even I can understand), explains this well. In order to predict the future state (position and velocity) of a particle, its initial state has to be known. The initial state can be determined by shining light on it. Light being both particle and wave, will limit the accuracy of the measurement to not better than the distance between its wave crests. You cannot use a small arbitrary amount of light, at least one packet of light (one quantum as determined by Planck's quantum hypothesis) has to be used. As predicted by Heisenberg in his famous Uncertainty Principle, the packet of light will disturb the particle being measured. The more accurate the position of the particle is measured, the less accurate can its speed be determined and vice versa. The speed or position becomes a matter of probability.

How do you get from the firing of a quantum of light to determine the position of a subatomic particle to the notion of conscious thought influencing reality? Surely an individual thinking about or observing a subatomic particle, does not emit a quantum of light in the process? The idea that the eyes emit rays when seeing dates back to Augustine and before. If anyone still believed it today, it would surely be on par with belief in a flat earth. Yet, that is exactly the implication of quantum quacks' belief that thoughts influence reality, based upon the measurement issue in quantum physics. There is is to my knowledge no scientific evidence to support such ideas.

This post is work in progress. I'm writing out of my area of expertise and with time limits due to work commitments. I'll welcome any expert comments (even comments for true believers in quantum mysticism).

For now I close with a quote from the physicist Robert Park from his book Voodoo Science:

"Where once the magician in his robes would have called forth the spirits, the pseudoscientist invokes quantum mechanics, relativity, and chaos."

Useful links:

Victor Stenger Quantum Quackery
Wikipedia Quantum mysticism
Smoke & Mirrors Midweek Cuckoo: Quantum Quackery
Smoke & Mirrors Quantum Quackery follow up - the culprits
SA Skeptics Society Body Talk & Quantum Quackery
General Relativity & Newtonian Physics
Quantum Mechanics
Special Relativity