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| | (Original Message) | Sent: 2/4/2007 10:29 PM |
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I was watching a TV show about socio-religious phenomena (that seems to be the best way to phrase it), and some thoughts occurred to me that I might be appropriate in this thread. Unlike science, which has the scientific method, when the "experts" decide to use it, that is, the obvious question is, what do you do when you don't have the scientific method? One thing an investigator can do is to ask for the claimant's criteria for assessing the issue at hand. This point came to me when I was watching TV shows discussing a top U.S. political leader's apparent digust at being asked a question concerning his "homosexual" daughter. Since politician's often feature their "family life" in their campaigns, it certainly seems to be "fair game;" however, if a candidate stated that he or she did not want to discuss his or her family life ever, then this would be at least be intellectually consistent, assuming that this person never did talk about his or her family life, of course (though he or she might not get elected, obviously). Yet this was not the case for the politician, and so it should be his responsibility to make clear exactly what criteria he is using for deciding what is "in" or "out of bounds" on this issue. It does not have to be consistent with the views of others, but it should have internal consistency, using basic human reason as a guide. The problem, of course, is that there is no Pope of human reason, and so, unlike Catholics, those who feel that an authority figure is "trying to have it both ways" has limited options. In this example, there are practically no options. This politician will apparently talk about his family when he wishes, and react with scorn when a journalist asks a question that he seeems to feel is "out of bounds," though without explaining why. Another way to judge non-scientific claims is to look at results. If someone claims to have superior economic ideas, but then destroys a nation's economy, one simply should not take that person seriously any longer. I was watching a TV show wherein a psychologist claimed that people who didn't engage in certain acts were deemed to be "abnormal" and in need of "treatment," even though they were able to get along in society without any problems whatsoever, for themselves or for anyone else. There is certainly a "conflict of interest" possibility here, with doctors or pharmaceutical companies seeking more "business" by inventing new "disorders" or "diseases." But aside from that, why would anyone "argue with success?" If something is dysfunctional, it certainly deserves to be investigated, but why look for non-existant "problems?" Aren't there enough real problems in the world? And that brings me back to a scientific issue that is in the mainstream media quite a bit these days: the claim that "trans fats" are "bad." First, of course, "trans fat" is a phrase that needs to be defined with precision. However, that does not appear to be forthcoming any time soon, and so I'll turn to an interesting developing in this area. On page B13 of New York's "Newsday" newspaper was an article entitled "Reformulated fat in the can" (February 6, 2006). The author describes how Crisco is selling a new shortening product that contains no "trans fat," but the same amount of saturated fatty acids and the same characteristics as shortenings that are made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. How is this accomplished? QUOTE: ...the reformulated shortening is made with nore fully hydrogenated cottonseed oil and much less partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oil, yielding the same amount of saturated fat per serving... UNQUOTE. Thus, there is a fear of saturated fatty acids, but the reason to have a high saturated fatty acid content is because it is more stable, and thus the product would not need much in the way of preservatives added. So why do they fear saturated fatty acids (though they call it "saturated fat," which is a phrase that is often used in highly misleading ways, such as describing lard, which is 40% saturated fatty acids, as a "saturated fat")? Because in the experiments usually cited in various textbooks (if any experiments at all are actually cited) diets richer in saturated fatty acids appear to change markers of "heart disease" in a way that is considered bad. Have experiments been done to see if animals live longer on diets rich in this or that fat source? You won't find many recent experiments (if any) that address this question, again because everything is based upon markers, not positive results. As I try to explain to people (and many just don't seem to be able to comprehend the point I am making), the markers that "correlate" with this or that "disease" are irrelevant if the actual molecular-level mechanisms are known. In the case of saturated fatty acids, it is irrelevant if a diet rich in these molecules raise total cholesterol or LDL levels a bit, because only oxidation of cholesterol is a problem, and this is now well-established. The mechanism is known. And saturated fatty acids themselves do not contribute to this mechanism, but can actually have a protective role in this context. However, because many "nutritional scientists" no longer concern themselves with actual results, but markers instead, they see no need to do experiments that are directly on point. How much would it cost to feed one group of a dozen rats a diet rich in the new shortening formulation while feed a different group of a dozen rats the old formulation, and just observing their health and how long they live? How in the world did science get to a point where "scientists" don't even consider doing the most basic and revealing experiment possible, especially when it is inexpensive and easy to do? |
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One thing worth adding to this thread is that most people don't realize how one scientific discipline is built upon another, to some degree. Anyone who has a reasonable amount of familiarity with science in general knows that physics "trumps" chemistry, which in turn "trumps" biology, which in turn "trumps" psychology. Obviously, a biologist may make a false claim while at the same time a psychologist is making a correct claim on the same subject.
The point is that if there is conflict between a basic principle of chemistry and a basic principle of "nutritional science," then the chemistry principle is correct. This is important in the context of this site because I often encounter people who cite nutrition textbook claims. I try to explain to them that the biochemical evidence "trumps" these nutritional claims, and that the new biochemical evidence will probably take a while to find its way into the nutrition textbooks. A biochemist who makes an important discovery, for example about how oxidized cholesterol causes all kinds of "diseases," is not going to contact the authors of the most popular nutrition textbooks and tell them to rewrite their statements about "cholesterol" causing "heart disease." The authors may in fact go to their graves without understanding, or even hearing about this recent development. |
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One thing that makes ideology so powerful is the linguistic structures that exist. For example, I was watching a CNN TV show about "aging." The narrator stated that polyphenols in red wine rasied HDL, which in turn scrubbed the arterties clean (of plaque, presumably). In fact, if one could "scrub" one's arteries, one would prompt an inflammatory response (which would be more dangerous if one's cells containted arachidonic acid rather than Mead acid). It would do no good in terms of long-term arterial health, and might cause death within minutes or hours (depending upon how rigorous the "scrubbing" was).
Instead, the polypheonls neutralize dangerous chemical reactions, which can damage LDL, which then get attacked by macrophages, which then become dysfunctional and lodge in the spaces between cells in arteries, and then damaging molecules are released, damaging arteries. As the healing occurs in this context, the characteristic plaque forms. Obviously, it is easy to tell a general audience that "HDL scrubs arteries clean," especially if you don't really understand the underlying mechanism. However, my point is that using this kind of language is misleading, but it does fit within existing notions of "clogged pipes" in a much more well-known plumbing context, for example. It also allows those who really don't know much to appear to be "experts." |
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I read an essay on a Columbia University web page that discussed what the author called "pathological science." Here is a short passage from that essay: QUOTE: ...Another instance of pathological science, the bandwagon over polywater following Nikolai Fedyakin and B.V. Deryagin's work in the 1960s, illustrates a common type of cognitive shortc oming: a failure to seriously consider alternative hypotheses to explain an unusual result. The dense liquid called polywater that Deryagin and other researchers were able to produce through condensation in tiny capillaries--reproducibly, it should be noted, and with exhaustive attention to controlling physicochemical variables and answering the critiques of colleagues--ultimately turned out to be an artifact caused by impurities in ordinary water... UNQUOTE. On this page, the author of this essay is described as: However, a couple of days ago, I came across the following report: QUOTE: A Georgia Tech research team has discovered that water exhibits very different properties when it is confined to channels less than two nanometers wide -- behaving much like a viscous fluid with a viscosity approaching that of molasses. Determining the properties of water on the nanoscale may prove important for biological and pharmaceutical research as well as nanotechnology... UNQUOTE. This situation highlights the need to "keep an open mind," preventing oneself from becoming an ideologue. Sadly, disciplines involving biomedical and nutritional issues appear to have become alarmingly dogmatic in recent years, relying of just the sort of laboratory artifacts that Professor Turro warns the reader about in the essay I quoted a passage from (above). |
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Linguistic manipulation is obviously very important to those who wish to impose their ideology upon others, especially those who are not perceived as being especially critical. In "modern medicine," it's interesting to consider the word "infection." What does it mean to be "infected?" QUOTE: ...The infecting organism, or pathogen, interferes with the normal functioning of the host... An occult infection is medical terminology for a "hidden" infection, that is, one which presents no symptoms. Dr. Fran Giampietro discovered and coined the term "Occult Infection" in the late 1930's... UNQUOTE. This is an entry on a web site that seeks to explain and clarify, and yet these contradictory statements can only confuse people. If an "infection" must lead to harm or interfere with normal functioning, then how can something that does not do this also get classified in this category? Here is another passage from this same web site: QUOTE: ...Over one-third of the world's population now has the TB bacterium in their bodies and new infections are occurring at a rate of one per second. [2] Not everyone who is infected develops the disease and asymptomatic latent TB infection is most common. However, one in ten latent infections will progress to active TB disease which, if left untreated, kills more than half of its victims... UNQUOTE. |
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This is a continuation of the post above. The obvious question is, if only a minority of those "infected with TB" ever experience symptoms, isn't it likely that there is at least one other factor at play? In fact, one might even ask, isn't it ridiculous to think that only the "germ" is involved, given the statistics? These days, it is common to hear reports of "drug resistant strains" of this or that "germ," but the alternative possibility, which is not contradicted by any of the evidence (unlike the "germ theory" claims), is that the "germs" become "clingy" and prompt an inflammatory response, which then does the actual damage. This inflammatory response can be very powerful and dangerous, or much less so, depending upon things like the kinds of fatty acids you have in your cells. There is also the issue of how much exposure you get initially. All this is now "common knowledge" among a small group of scientists, and my sense is that because the mainstream media "journalists" cannot communicate this in a simplistic way, have conflicts of interest (especially in terms of the advertisers), and probably most importantly, do no understand this "common knowledge" themselves, the public is fed the same old "germ theory" notions that are now clearly inconsistent with the scientific evidence, when viewed in its totality. |
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An update to the two posts above.
Coincidently, I was happened upon a CNN TV show called "Poisoned Food," which was about the E. coli contamination of spinach (amongst other things), and finally there was an explicit statement of how this "disease" relates to the actual bacteria (to some degree). The narrator, a medical doctor, made the following points:
1. The E. coli strain that caused the illness was especially clingy (don't think that exact word was used).
2. It takes about 100 "colonies" to cause the symptoms, and each colony is usually on or two oganisms (though this must vary from one person to another - the question is how much, and more importantly, whether there are simple ways of making oneself much more resistant).
3. A very powerful, dual cleaning of the spinach (to get the clingy bacteria off) still left 2300 bacterial colonies. This cleaning included chorination.
4. Vigorous washing with water reduced the number of colonies to over 3000, and so the difference is not significant, since it needs to be brought down to under 100 or thereabouts.
5. If I remember correctly, if it is unwashed, there were over 6000 colonies.
Again, my point is that the evidence suggests that the most reasonable thing to do is to prevent the clingy strains of E. coli from becoming numerous. Considering how difficult it is to get this strain off the spinach, and also how few "outbreaks" there have been, this appears to be something that could be accomplished with minimal difficulty. The problem is that those in charge have "germ theory" notions dancing in their heads, and don't consider the role of the conditions that lead to the bacteria becoming clingy.
There is a web page devoted to this CNN story. Go to:
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/siu/shows/poisoned.food/index.html |
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Obviously, this is a deplorable example of "science" being dominated by non-scientific concerns:
QUOTE: In head-to-head trials of two drugs, the one deemed better appears to depend largely on who is funding the study, according to an analysis of nearly 200 statin-drug comparisons carried out between 1999 and 2005... UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070604205602.htm |
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A recent study pointed out the following about those who do suicide bombings:
QUOTE: ...the suicide bomber is also driven on another level by a rational thought process. This is the desire to be part of a group that engenders strength and solidarity from strictness, and encourages members to submit totally to the collective aims of the group.
Being part of an exclusive group with very strict beliefs requires intense commitment, and engenders a deep belief in shared experience and self-sacrifice, according to a recent paper by Dr Stevens... UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070620115415.htm
Unfortunately, it seems that many in the fields of biology, medicine, and nutrition can be described in very similar ways. |
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Here is an interesting passage in an essay by scientist Barry Commoner (the full article appeared in Harper's Magazine, February, 2002):
QUOTE: ...Because of their commitment to an obsolete theory, most molecular biologists operate under the assumption that DNA is the secret of life, whereas the careful observation of the hierarchy of living processes strongly suggests that it is the other way around: DNA did not create life; life created DNA.41 When life was first formed on the earth, proteins must have appeared before DNA because, unlike DNA, proteins have the catalytic ability to generate the chemical energy needed to assemble small ambient molecules into larger ones such as DNA. DNA is a mechanism created by the cell to store information produced by the cell. Early life survived because it grew, building up its characteristic array of complex molecules. It must have been a sloppy kind of growth; what was newly made did not exactly replicate what was already there. But once produced by the primitive cell, DNA could become a stable place to store structural information about the cell's chaotic chemistry, something like the minutes taken by a secretary at a noisy committee meeting. There can be no doubt that the emergence of DNA was a crucial stage in the development of life, but we must avoid the mistake of reducing life to a master molecule in order to satisfy our emotional need for unambiguous simplicity. The experimental data, shorn of dogmatic theories, points to the irreducibility of the living cell, the inherent complexity of which suggests that any artificially altered genetic system, given the magnitude of our ignorance, must sooner or later give rise to unintended, potentially disastrous, consequences. We must be willing to recognize how little we truly understand about the secrets of the cell, the fundamental unit of life.
Why, then, has the central dogma continued to stand? To some degree die theory has been protected from criticism by a device more common to religion than science: dissent, or merely the discovery of a discordant fact, is a punishable offense, a heresy that might easily lead to professional ostracism. Much of this bias can be attributed to institutional inertia, a failure of rigor, but there are other, more insidious, reasons why molecular geneticists might be satisfied with the status quo; the central dogma has given them such a satisfying, seductively simplistic explanation of heredity that it seemed sacrilegious to entertain doubts. The central dogma was simply too good not to be true... UNQUOTE.
On the internet: http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE4/DNA-Myth-CommonerFeb02.htm |
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This is a good point, made by an organic chemist:
QUOTE: ...I would like to emphasize that the virologists will say that it ["HIV"] has been isolated. The chemists, on the other hand, would say no, it hasn’t. A chemist wants to see something purified in a bottle, and look at it under a microscope. The virologist just wants to see phenomena that are believed to be consistent with the presence of a virus, so you get to say something was "isolated..." UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/mcinterviewrr.htm
The key question, of course, is why does the "virologist" accept certain assumptions? Is it that he/she read it in a textbook, or that all of his virology professors told him/her that the issue was a "closed book?" |
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Ideology can only be maintained, in spite of evidence that supports alternative claims, if supporters are willing to "bend the rules" for themselves, but not those whom with which they disagree. For example, I have pointed out to many people that markers, such as "high cholesterol," should not be used if there is a better way of understanding what is actually occurring, but we all know how much is "invested" in the "lower your cholesterol" mantra. Yet if there is something that is not yet part of the dogma, "experts" are more than willing to make the same point I have:
QUOTE: ...of the 64 tomato studies, 25 were rejected by the FDA because they reanalyzed old data or measured chemical markers rather than actual cancer incidence... UNQUOTE.
Page B8 of "Newsday" newspaper, August 7, 2007. |
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Here is another curious statement by an scientist:
QUOTE: Heart, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other deadly diseases are associated with oxidative stress, in which "free radical" molecules are produced in reaction to oxygen intake. Free radicals travel the body, triggering chemical reactions that damage proteins and causing them to form aggregates. Many people take antioxidants to prevent heart and other protein-aggregate diseases, but there actually is scant evidence to prove they work, according to Benjamin... UNQUOTE.
For me, if the molecular-level mechanisms are known, then the obvious question is, why not do a direct, on-point experiment and determine exactly why "antioxidants" don't work? Isn't that exactly what a scientist is supposed to be doing with his time? Instead, I see these kinds of statements all the time, as if a scientist is waiting for another scientist to determine what is occurring. Because I have done a lot of research on this subject, I know that antioxidants can be very specific, in terms of what reactions they can quench.
"Vitamin E," for example, is several different molecules, yet if you buy a cheap supplement of it, you will likely only get one kind of molecule, and if you take it in amounts that are too high, you can cause imbalances in the other forms, and possibly in other vitamins and/or minerals as well. Thus, you can cause more damaging free radical activity by taking the "wrong" supplement. In any case, when I read this passage, I thought to myself, why do so many scientists seem to want to think in ideological terms rather than just doing the experiments, especially in this type of case, where there are no constraints involved (assuming lab rats are used).
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070809130022.htm |
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I heard a news report about the bridge collapse in Minnesota possibly being due to the effects of bird "droppings" over a long period of time. If true, this is an example of what happens when not all potentially relevant factors are taken into account, as is required by the scientific method. I can't speak to the bridge and bird droppings issue, but here is something that I find inexcusable:
QUOTE: The reported failure of vitamin E to prevent heart attacks may be due to underdosing, according to a new study by investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. UNQUOTE.
How can such a clearly relevant factor as dosage have been misunderstood at this point by the "scientific establishment?"
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070822132128.htm |
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