Lunch at the Labs

Various web links I found to be of interest recently:

• Scientific method: Defend the integrity of physics

  Attempts to exempt speculative theories of the Universe from experimental verification undermine science, argue George Ellis and Joe Silk.

  This year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done. They began to argue -- explicitly -- that if a theory is sufficiently elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested experimentally, breaking with centuries of philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical. We disagree. As the philosopher of science Karl Popper argued: a theory must be falsifiable to be scientific.
  ... This battle for the heart and soul of physics is opening up at a time when scientific results -- in topics from climate change to the theory of evolution -- are being questioned by some politicians and religious fundamentalists. Potential damage to public confidence in science and to the nature of fundamental physics needs to be contained by deeper dialogue between scientists and philosophers.

  There is also a related New York Times opinion piece A Crisis at the Edge of Physics
• Are We Seeing the End of Homeopathy?

  Several years ago, during a lecture on Science-Based Medicine, I noted that if there were one medical pseudoscience that was vulnerable to extinction it was homeopathy. Homeopathy is perhaps the most obviously absurd medical pseudoscience. It is also widely studied, and has been clearly shown to not work. Further, there is a huge gap in the public understanding of what homeopathy is; it therefore seems plausible that the popularity of homeopathy can take a huge hit just by telling the public what it actually is.

• Glen Greenwald: Don't Trust Anonymous Anti-Snowden Claims

  Western journalists claim that the big lesson they learned from their key role in selling the Iraq War to the public is that it's hideous, corrupt and often dangerous journalism to give anonymity to government officials to let them propagandize the public, then uncritically accept those anonymously voiced claims as Truth. But they've learned no such lesson. That tactic continues to be the staple of how major U.S. and British media outlets "report," especially in the national security area. And journalists who read such reports continue to treat self-serving decrees by unnamed, unseen officials -- laundered through their media -- as gospel, no matter how dubious are the claims or factually false is the reporting.

  And according to security expert Bruce Schneier

  Do countries like China and Russia have copies of the Snowden documents?
  I believe the answer is certainly yes, but that it's almost certainly not Snowden's fault.
  ...
  I believe that both China and Russia had access to all the files that Snowden took well before Snowden took them because they've penetrated the NSA networks where those files reside.

• Here's the CIA's Just-Released Top Secret File on Saudi Ties to 9/11

  Why in the documents related to the September 11 attacks are 29 out of 30 pages about Issues Relating to Saudi Arabia redacted?

• The Education Myth

  A country's income is the sum of the output produced by each worker. To increase income, we need to increase worker productivity. Evidently, "something in the water," other than education, makes people much more productive in some places than in others. A successful growth strategy needs to figure out what this is.

• Doing good isn't being good

  Most of us like to be associated with "idealistic" groups that claim that they are doing good, i.e., making the world better. However, this is usually not our strongest motive in choosing to associate with such groups. Instead, we more strongly want to make ourselves look good, and gain good-looking associations. Most idealistic groups quickly learn to cater to this demand

  There is a related Julia Galef Rationally Speaking podcast with Robin Hanson discussing his signaling theory.

• Mental Illness and Creativity: Two New Swedish Studies

  Psychotherapists, in an understandable desire to help their suffering patients, could quite naturally be led to over-interpret what is rather weak evidence.

  I empathize with these patients, and with their therapists, but I feel obliged to report the consensus that has emerged from decades of scientific studies: There is no link between creativity and mental illness. There may be a link between an undiagnosed tendency toward mental illness and elevated creativity; but we don't really know, because that's almost impossible to study (how do you study an undiagnosed tendency?). The jury is still out on that issue, and the Kyaga studies represent a contribution to that continuing debate. I'm impressed by the massive volume of data used in the Kyaga studies, and the patterns revealed are interesting, and worthy of further exploration. -- Keith Sawyer

• Is Creativity Research Elitist?
  • Stage actors: compared with children's party clowns
  • Musicians: compared to vintage motorcycle mechanics.
  • Writers of novels and short stories: Compared to ministers who write Sunday sermons.

• The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

  While it's true that some guards and prisoners behaved in alarming ways, it's also the case that their environment was designed to encourage--and, in some cases, to require--those behaviors.
  ...
  The lesson of Stanford isn't that any random human being is capable of descending into sadism and tyranny. It's that certain institutions and environments demand those behaviors--and, perhaps, can change them.

• Fat, sugar cause bacterial changes that may relate to loss of cognitive function

  Notice the may.

  A study at Oregon State University indicates that both a high-fat and a high-sugar diet, compared to a normal diet, cause changes in gut bacteria that appear related to a significant loss of "cognitive flexibility," or the power to adapt and adjust to changing situations.
  This effect was most serious on the high-sugar diet, which also showed an impairment of early learning for both long-term and short-term memory.

  I'd bet this is a publicity seeking news release and the results will not hold up (even though I do think gut bacteria are important).

• I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How.

  We ran an actual clinical trial, with subjects randomly assigned to different diet regimes. And the statistically significant benefits of chocolate that we reported are based on the actual data. It was, in fact, a fairly typical study for the field of diet research. Which is to say: It was terrible science. The results are meaningless, and the health claims that the media blasted out to millions of people around the world are utterly unfounded.
  ... Here’s a dirty little science secret: If you measure a large number of things about a small number of people, you are almost guaranteed to get a “statistically significant” result. Our study included 18 different measurements—weight, cholesterol, sodium, blood protein levels, sleep quality, well-being, etc.—from 15 people. (One subject was dropped.) That study design is a recipe for false positives.
  Think of the measurements as lottery tickets. Each one has a small chance of paying off in the form of a “significant” result that we can spin a story around and sell to the media. The more tickets you buy, the more likely you are to win. We didn’t know exactly what would pan out—the headline could have been that chocolate improves sleep or lowers blood pressure—but we knew our chances of getting at least one “statistically significant” result were pretty good.

• Being overweight 'reduces dementia risk'

  Being overweight cuts the risk of dementia, according to the largest and most precise investigation into the relationship.

  Their most conservative analysis showed underweight people had a 39% greater risk of dementia compared with being a healthy weight.
  ... Any explanation for the protective effect is distinctly lacking. There are some ideas that vitamin D and E deficiencies contribute to dementia and they may be less common in those eating more.
  ...
  But the research leaves many questions unanswered. Is fat actually protective or is something else going on that could be harnessed as a treatment? Can other research groups produce the same findings?
  ... "The report by Qizilbash and colleagues is not the final word on this controversial topic." Dr Qizilbash said: "We would agree with that entirely."

• The Big Fat Surprise

  Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet. A Conversation with Nina Teicholz

  Nina: I was a faithful follower of the low-fat, near-vegetarian diet, but when I started writing a restaurant review column, I found myself eating things that had hardly ever before passed my lips: rich meals of pâté, beef, cream sauces and foie gras. To my surprise, I lost the 10 pounds that I hadn't been able to shake for years, and to boot, my cholesterol levels improved. To understand how this could be possible, I embarked upon what became a decade of research, reexamining nearly every single nutrition study and interviewing most of our top nutrition experts. What I was shocked to find were egregious flaws in the science that has served as the foundation of our national nutrition policy, which for more than 50 years has all but forbidden these delicious and healthy foods.

  Also see, NYC Junto Podcast -- Debate: Nina Teicholz & John Mackey 2015

  "An animal foods/low-carb centered diet is unhealthy compared with a 90+% plant-based diet that excludes sugar and refined grain products."

  Teicholz takes the negative and Mackey (founder and CEO of Whole Foods) takes the affirmative.

  And Cholesterol & heart disease -- there is a relationship, but it's not what you think.

• Nutrition: Vitamins on trial

  After decades of study, researchers still can't agree on whether nutritional supplements actually improve health.

  An editorial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine last year offers a striking case in point. In it, researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and other institutions proclaimed with certainty that the US public should "stop wasting money" on vitamin supplements.
  ... Another important factor is genetic variability. "Every person has about 50,000 variations in their genes," says Steven Zeisel, director of the University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute in Chapel Hill. Any number of them could be important in metabolism. Yet "very few geneticists are collecting diet information, and very few diet people collect genetic information". Zeisel's work has uncovered, for example, that 44% of women have gene variants that significantly increase their dietary requirements for the nutrient choline. It is perhaps no wonder that trial results have been inconsistent - and that reviews often report null findings (see `Data deficiencies'). Plus, the effects of nutrition interventions are probably subtle: whereas drug trials compare exposure with no exposure, nutrition trials compare higher and lower exposures, because everyone eats and consumes some nutrients. Subtle differences may be hard to detect and have long latency periods. These limitations and considerations add up "in a way that causes trials to be heavily stacked against showing any benefit", says biochemist Balz Frei, director of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

  Also see, Rebuttal to Vitamins Are Bad Editorial by Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D.

• Brittle Bones and Broken Hips: Drugs Aren't the Answer, Study Finds

  Osteoporosis drug sales have reaped billions. Is it a classic case of disease-mongering?

  Medications for osteoporosis, which makes bones more fragile and susceptible to breaking, do little to prevent hip fractures, the most devastating consequence of the disease, the authors conclude. And they can sidetrack patients who should instead be exercising, eating right, and quitting smoking.
  ... To prevent a single hip fracture, 175 women need to be treated with medication for three years, the paper says. In other words, a woman with osteoporosis would need to take medicine for three years to have a 1-in-175 chance that it would help them avoid a broken hip.

• U.S. government poised to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol

  The nation's top nutrition advisory panel has decided to drop its caution about eating cholesterol-laden food, a move that could undo almost 40 years of government warnings about its consumption.
  The group's finding that cholesterol in the diet need no longer be considered a "nutrient of concern" stands in contrast to the committee's findings five years ago, the last time it convened. During those proceedings, as in previous years, the panel deemed the issue of excess cholesterol in the American diet a public health concern.

• Alcohol's evaporating health benefits

  Industry lobbying and promotion are rife and unchecked by governments

  Given the harms attributed to alcohol use, it is not surprising that reports1 2 showing possible mortality benefits for low level users attracted enthusiasm among consumers, the media, and the alcohol industry, along with those who welcomed this as a positive response to accusations that calls for action were based on moral fervour. These apparent benefits are now evaporating, helped along by an important contribution in this week's issue (doi:10.1136/bmj.h384).3 Through analyses based on the Health Survey for England, particularly designed to identify whether any reductions in mortality risk were greatest in older populations, Knott and colleagues show that if there is any beneficial dose-response relation, it is limited to women aged 65 or more--and even that association is at best modest and likely to be explained by selection bias.

• Redefining chronic fatigue with better diagnosis, new name

  ... And the IOM's choice of a new name -- Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease, or SEID -- reflects a core symptom, that exertion can wipe patients out.
  "This is not a figment of their imagination," said Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton of Vanderbilt University's Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society, who chaired the IOM panel. "These patients have real symptoms. They deserve real care."