I occasionally take down nonsense from the Evolution News & Views propaganda blog of the Discovery Institute, but I have been neglecting Uncommon Descent, a blog “serving the Intelligent Design community.” - i.e another propaganda blog for ID.

But recently, in two blog posts by Denyse O’Leary, they have taken on methodological naturalism and commented specifically on my blog, so a response is in order.  O’Leary is a Toronto-based journalist, and her style reflects both a lack of a scientific background and the worst aspects of polemic journalism.

In the first post you get a good sense of O’Leary’s tone right from the first paragraph:

Over at Neurologica blog, Steve Novella speculates about non-materialist neuroscience, about which he seems to have learned from New Scientist and the Discovery Institute’s News and Views blog. (I would have read books myself, but hey.)

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I am on a tighter than usual schedule this week because I have to produce two SGU podcasts, as I will be away next week for the Thanksgiving holiday. Further, there were some interesting reader comments I wanted to respond to at length, so I will need to make that into my post for today. (Fear not, I should be able to keep my usual posting schedule through the holiday.)

Back from the Dead

DrDirk wrote this comment on my post about Zak Dunlap, the boy who was pronounced brain dead but ultimately recovered, in my opinion because a serious mistake was made in reading a brain scan. DrDirk relates his personal and recent experience with a brain death issue at the same hospital and with the same doctor.

First, I do want to express my sincere sympathies for DrDirk, who is relating a personal recent tragedy - the death of his son and his son’s friend (both 20) last week after a 4 wheeler accident. Both boys were treated at Witchita General Hospital, where they were treated for severe brain injuries, without other significant injuries.

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Recently there has come to attention a potential cluster of autism cases among Somali immigrant in Minnesota and Sweden. If true, this could potentially be an important clue as to the pathophysiology of some types of autism.

Autism is unknown in Somalia, but the children of Somali immigrants in two communities in Minnesota and Sweden have reported higher numbers of cases than the general population. This suggests that there is an environment trigger - something they are getting or not getting in their new communities that is different than Somalia. This report indicates:

In Minneapolis, Somalis account for 6 percent of the city’s public school population, but make up 17 percent of early childhood special education students who have been labeled autistic, according to data aggregated by the Minneapolis Public Schools.

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A new long term study of vitamin E and C supplementation in a group of physicians showed no protective effect for either prostate cancer specifically or cancer in general. This is a disappointing result - it would be nice if a low risk intervention like vitamin supplementation would significantly reduce cancer risk, but it does not appear to be the case.

The results of the study were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, and the press release states:

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Clinical research tends to follow a certain arc: first smaller and preliminary studies are done to see if there is a potential for a new treatment or approach, then larger and more tightly designed studies are done exploring the relevant research questions, and finally large, double-blind, placebo-controlled consensus trials are completed and the basic question of efficacy is settled.

In scientific jargon we often talk about the null hypothesis, the hypothesis that a new claim is not true, or in the context of medicine that a new treatment does not work. The question for a study is framed as follows: does the data support the rejection of the null hypothesis. This is not a subtle or unimportant distinction, it puts the burden of proof on demonstrating the positive new claim - that a treatment works. Unless the data compels us to reject the null hypothesis, it is retained as the default conclusion. Therefore, in these large and well-controlled trials, if the treatment does not work consistently and both clinically and statistically significantly better than placebo, we do not reject the null hypothesis. In practice we conclude that the treatment does not work and it is appropriately discarded in favor of better treatments or new ideas.

Unless of course you live in the alternate universe of acupuncture research (or more generally that of complementary and alternative medicine - CAM).

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Reflexology is pure, unadulterated, grade-A nonsense. That isn’t stopping some UK schools from spending £90,000 to provide reflexology treatments for aggressive and anti-social behavior in students under 13. As reported by the Guardian, Lambeth council in south London is planning on spending taxpayer money on charlatans to address problem students.

Reflexology

Reflexology is based upon the belief that the body is divided into zones, and these zones are mapped on the hands and feet. The reflexology research website explains:

Reflexology is the physical act of applying pressure to the feet and hand with specific thumb, finger and hand techniques without the use of oil or lotion. it is based on a system of zones and reflex areas that reflect an image of the body on the feet and hands with a premise that such work effects a physical change to the body.

This is an archaic homonculus or mapping-based system - the idea that one part of the body maps to the entire body. Iridology is another example - proponents believe that the flecks in the iris relate directly to specific organs or parts of the body.

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We are a paranoid species. It is simply part of the human program, fixed in our hardwiring, it’s in our nature (choose your metaphor). Of course that depends upon how you define paranoia. Like most human traits, it occurs along a spectrum. Almost everyone is at least a little paranoid, and some people are consumed by overwhelming paranoia.

Paranoia is the belief that others are out to get you, that there are people or forces conspiring against your interests. It is easy to see how having a modicum of such concerns would be adaptive. Sometimes there are people (our competitors or enemies) who are conspiring against us. Keeping an eye out for such threats is healthy, it enables us to foresee  potential problems in the future and work to prevent them.  Someone unable to consider the possibility that others are working against them are considered naive. They are likely to screwed over by peers and colleagues and taken advantage of at every turn.

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These stories are always wrapped in an unimaginable personal tragedy. In this case 12 year old Motl Brody has died of brain cancer. He has been pronounced brain dead by his doctors, who report that there is no brain activity, not even in the brain stem (the most primitive part of the brain).

Brain death meets the legal definition for death - so Motl Brody is dead. However, his body remains in the hospital, on a ventilator, and receiving medication to keep his heart functioning. This is because his family are orthodox Jews and according to their literal interpretation of scripture death is defined as the heart stopping. Therefore, in their eyes Motl still alive and treatment should continue.

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Why am I just now hearing about this group? Perhaps because they are based in the UK and I am in the US? But the internet makes that transparent. I guess the profile of such groups including my own efforts) is not as high as it needs to be. Even for someone like me, who spends a great deal of time searching for and reading material on science and medicine, a significant group dedicated to the same effort escaped my notice.

In any case - I am glad to learn of them now, through a press release about a new publication of theirs. Here is their mission statement:

Sense About Science is an independent charitable trust. We respond to the misrepresentation of science and scientific evidence on issues that matter to society, from scares about plastic bottles, fluoride and the MMR vaccine to controversies about genetic modification, stem cell research and radiation. We work with scientists and civic groups to promote evidence and scientific reasoning in public discussion.

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I only write about politics when it intersects science. The major political theme I have discussed over the last two years on this blog is that science needs to be transparent and free from ideological meddling. Our society is best served when politics and government are informed by objective science, and great harm is done when political ideology dictates science.

We see this in numerous issues - global warming, biofuels, stem-cell research, vaccine policy, prevention of HIV and unwanted pregnancy (basically every environmental issue and public health issue), not to mention the teaching of evolution.

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