Lunch at the Labs

Various web links I found to be of interest recently.

• The Peculiar Blindness of Experts

  Credentialed authorities are comically bad at predicting the future. But reliable forecasting is possible.

  In the 30 years since Ehrlich sent Simon a check, the track record of expert forecasters-in science, in economics, in politics-is as dismal as ever. In business, esteemed (and lavishly compensated) forecasters routinely are wildly wrong in their predictions of everything from the next stock-market correction to the next housing boom. Reliable insight into the future is possible, however. It just requires a style of thinking that's uncommon among experts who are certain that their deep knowledge has granted them a special grasp of what is to come.
  ...
  Hedgehogs are deeply and tightly focused. Some have spent their career studying one problem. Like Ehrlich and Simon, they fashion tidy theories of how the world works based on observations through the single lens of their specialty. Foxes, meanwhile, "draw from an eclectic array of traditions, and accept ambiguity and contradiction," Tetlock wrote. Where hedgehogs represent narrowness, foxes embody breadth.

• Media Bias/Fact Check - Search and Learn the Bias of News Media

  A widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific. More info about it on Wikipedia.

  PolitiFact's take on Media Bias/Fact Check:

  Until Dave Van Zandt adds objective markers to the MB/FC rating scales and justifies every rating with real objective data, take the ratings with a boulder of salt. They're worthless without specific backing data.

  But then again also check out, PolitiFact Bias

  Who is without bias? Who to believe?

• In America, it's better to be born rich than smart

  The "Born to Win, Schooled to Lose" report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce lays out the inequities: Children with low test scores from high-income families have a 71 percent chance of being affluent adults by the age of 25, compared to only a 31 percent chance for poor children with high test scores.

• Universal basic income doesn't work. Let's boost the public realm instead

  A study of UBI trials concludes that making cash payments to all is no solution to poverty and inequality.

  It could find no evidence to suggest that such a scheme could be sustained for all individuals in any country in the short, medium or longer term - or that this approach could achieve lasting improvements in wellbeing or equality. The research confirms the importance of generous, non-stigmatising income support, but everything turns on how much money is paid, under what conditions and with what consequences for the welfare system as a whole.

• Biology and Culture

  In this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Bret Weinstein about the moral panic at Evergreen State College, the concept of race, genetic differences between human populations, intersectionality, sex and gender, "metaphorical truth," religion and "group selection," equality, and other topics.

• Why Go? - Key advantages you may have overlooked

  Go (programming language) makes it easier (than Java or Python) to write correct, clear and efficient code.

  • Minimalism
  • Code transparency
  • Compatibility
  • Performance

Some recent items related to health matters.

• Medical Nihilism: When A Dose Of Scepticism Can Be Healthy

  In his 2018 book, the philosopher of science, Jacob Stegenga defends the view "that we should have little confidence in the effectiveness of medical interventions."

  Here are a few of the reasons for adopting a position of medical nihilism: First, there are a set of problems associated with research methodologies and trial design. The 'gold standards' of evidence based medicine, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses, whilst invaluable for testing the effectiveness of medical interventions, can also be subject to poor design and execution through inept practices and explicit and implicit biases. Practices such as outcome switching, p-hacking and selective publication, have been well-documented and result in more 'positive' results than is warranted. For instance, in clinical trials, many different outcomes are measured. The problem with this is that, just by chance, at least some of these outcomes are likely to show improvement. To avoid capitalising on this chance, researchers publish a protocol of the trial before it's even conducted, identifying which outcome counts as the definitive test. However, researchers sometimes do not stick to these commitments, and engage in outcome switching: they report outcomes which did show an effect, rather than those that were pre-specified. This significantly increases the likelihood of reporting effects which occurred by chance, rather than through some reliable consequence of the intervention. P-hacking similarly involves the selection of a statistical approach to analysing outcome data based on its a posteriori ability to provide statistically significant results rather than on it's a priori appropriateness. Finally, selective publication is a cruder means to a similar end: conduct several trials but only publish those which show strongest support for the treatment.

• The Truth About Dentistry

  It's much less scientific-and more prone to gratuitous procedures-than you may think.

  The Cochrane organization, a highly respected arbiter of evidence-based medicine, has conducted systematic reviews of oral-health studies since 1999. In these reviews, researchers analyze the scientific literature on a particular dental intervention, focusing on the most rigorous and well-designed studies. In some cases, the findings clearly justify a given procedure. For example, dental sealants-liquid plastics painted onto the pits and grooves of teeth like nail polish-reduce tooth decay in children and have no known risks. (Despite this, they are not widely used, possibly because they are too simple and inexpensive to earn dentists much money.) But most of the Cochrane reviews reach one of two disheartening conclusions: Either the available evidence fails to confirm the purported benefits of a given dental intervention, or there is simply not enough research to say anything substantive one way or another.

• Why you shouldn't take Vitamin D and calcium supplements, according to new study
  • Nutritional supplements have no added health benefits for people who are already in good health, according to a new study.
  • Researchers also found that people in the study who took vitamin D but did not have a vitamin D deficiency had a greater risk of cancer and death.
  • Education and lifestyle factors play more of a role in health than supplements, according to study co-author Fang Fang Zhang, MD.