Month: March 2007

For Whom Do Colleges Exist?

Seth Roberts3 Comments

On Book TV last weekend I saw a discussion of the terrific-sounding new book You Can Hear Me Now by Nicholas Sullivan, about how an ex-banker named Iqbal Quadir started GrameenPhone, which helps poor people in Bangladesh get cell phones. From the discussion:

Someone from the UN: I hear that the UN should spend $100 in a million places rather $100 million in one place. But what else?

Iqbal Quadir: The UN should empower the people, not empower their governments. And if they cannot empower the people they can just shut it off. My point is that helping the wrong side is harmful. So if they cannot help the right side they should at least not help the wrong side. I’m not trying to say anything radical here, frankly. The governments belong to their people. You must make sure you don’t disturb that relationship. If you change the incentive for the government, you are disturbing the emergence of democracy.

I had never heard it put so clearly. We can ask if governments exist: 1. To improve the lives of the governed. 2. To employ the governors. 3. To help other governments. Similarly, we can ask if colleges exist: 1. To teach the students. 2. To employ the teachers. 3. To help businesses who will eventually employ the students (the signalling function of college).

Suppose we believe that the main function of colleges is to teach the students. How, then, should we improve colleges? By giving mini-grants to teachers (as is done at UC Berkeley, where I teach)? By giving awards to the best teachers (as is done at UC Berkeley)? Or by doing something quite different?

Addendum: The growing disillusionment of a University of Michigan student.

37signals and SLD

Seth Roberts4 Comments

37signals is a Chicago software company that specializes in quick development and has been very successful. According to Business Week, “the lesson [of their success]: Create a simple product as fast as you can, then get feedback from customers and make it better.”

Hey, that was my philosophy with the Shangri-La Diet! One of the first managing editors of The New Yorker had a slogan: “Don’t get it right, get it written”. My philosophy with regard to SLD was similar: “don’t get it exactly right, get it written, and get feedback.”

Here are some ways the Shangri-La Diet has been improved by feedback (almost all from the SLD forums):

1. It is much clearer what rate of weight loss to expect.

2. The idea of nose-clipping. Which makes any food a weight-loss food.

3. With nose-clipping, you can use flaxseed oil to lose weight. The benefits of omega-3 have become much clearer.

4. Putting the oil in water makes it much easier to drink.

Omega-3 and Dental Health (part 2 of 2)

Seth Roberts4 Comments

I looked at my gums this morning. I had never seen them so pink (that is, non-red). They looked just like the picture of healthy gums at the dentist. As I explained yesterday, my gums are in good shape because I am drinking 4 tablespoons/day of flaxseed oil, which contains a lot of omega-3.

Meta-analyses of the effects of omega-3 have had trouble finding an effect. A meta-analysis about mood found a barely-reliable effect and concluded “the evidence available provides little support for the use of n–3 PUFAs to improve depressed mood.” (They should have said “ a little support.”) A meta-analysis about heart disease concluded “Long chain and shorter chain omega 3 fats do not have a clear effect on total mortality, combined cardiovascular events, or cancer.” The effect on total mortality was close to significant and there was evidence of heterogeneity (i.e., studies varied) so their results were not completely negative, as the authors noted in response to comments. The effect is just weak, apparently.

In other words, after combining many experiments, each experiment with dozens or hundreds of subjects, meta-analyses can barely see an effect of omega-3. Yet I found a perfectly clear effect with one subject? An effect I wasn’t even looking for? That seems discrepant, and worth trying to explain.

My explanation is this: What I had in my favor and all those other studies did not were the benefits of self-experimentation. In particular,

1. The effect on balance was so clear that I used it to find the best dose. I found that 3 tablespoons/day was better than 2 tablespoons/day and even at 3 T/day there was an effect of time of day. So I went to 4 T/day. It seemed no better than 3/T day, so I stopped there. Conventional studies have not been able to do anything like this.

2. The effect on balance was so clear that I could use it for quality control. If I happened to buy a bad bottle of flaxseed oil I would have noticed — the results would not have been consistent, starting from when I started the new bottle. (I have gone through about six bottles.) Previous studies have had little or no quality control. If half their omega-3 went bad, they would have had no way of knowing.

3. I was strongly motivated to take the flaxseed oil. I know it is beneficial. This is not the case in any double-blind experiment when treatment is compared to placebo. In such experiments, every subject has reason to doubt that taking the pill will make a difference.

4. Dosage in nutrition, as in these mood and heart disease studies, has been built around avoiding failure — for example, what dose will avoid heart disease? Whereas I was looking for the optimum. My brain does not fail in any obvious way if I don’t have enough omega-3; it just functions worse. The amounts needed to avoid obvious failure are probably (a) different for different parts of the body and (b) less than optimal. For example, the amount of omega-3 needed to avoid dementia may be 1 T/day whereas the amount needed to avoid heart disease may be 2 T/day. The optimal amount, the amount needed for best performance, is likely to be greater than all of these failure thresholds. It is a better target.

Something else in my favor, not related to self-experimentation is that I studied the effect of omega-3 on my balance — how long before I lost my balance, a measure that can have many values. In contrast, most omega-3 research has involved binary measures like mortality or heart attacks. Someone either dies or does not die, for example. Binary measures tell you less than many-valued measures.

Given these advantages, it makes sense that I could find a much clearer effect.

The Most Valuable Truths

Seth Roberts2 Comments

Paul Graham on start-ups:

For a while it annoyed me to hear myself described as some kind of irresponsible pied piper, leading impressionable young hackers down the road to ruin [via Y-Combinator, which helps young hackers start companies]. But now I realize this kind of controversy is a sign of a good idea.

The most valuable truths are the ones most people don’t believe. They’re like undervalued stocks. If you start with them, you’ll have the whole field to yourself. So when you find an idea you know is good but most people disagree with, you should not merely ignore their objections, but push aggressively in that direction.

This applies to the Shangri-La Diet, of course: It proposes a way to lose weight that strikes most people as crazy. There’s a lesson for me here. I have disliked being called a “ snake-oil salesman” and SLD being called “ absurd” and a “ fad diet“. But now I realize Graham is right: These are good signs.

Omega-3 and Dental Health (part 1 of 2)

Seth Roberts10 Comments

Today I had my teeth cleaned and was told my gums were in excellent shape, better than ever before. They were less inflamed than usual. “What causes inflammation?” I asked. “Tartar,” I was told. I haven’t changed my cleaning habits. The only thing I have deliberately changed since my last cleaning is how much flaxseed oil I drink. At the time of my previous cleaning I was drinking about 1 tablespoon/day; now I drink 4 tablespoons/day. The person who commented about my gums doesn’t know about my omega-3 intake.

Omega-3 is believed to be anti-inflammatory, so it is quite plausible that the change in my omega-3 intake is what improved my gums. There have been a few studies of omega-3 and gum inflammation but none found impressive results. Weston Price emphasized that dental health and overall health go together. Lots of research connects gum disease and heart disease. The importance of omega-3s was first realized because of their effect on heart disease.

This research means better gums is very good news — for which I thank SLD-forum posters, who sparked my interest in omega-3.

Language That Should Exist (punctuation)

Seth Roberts3 Comments

I showed something I’d written to Marian Lizzi, my editor at Penguin. She advised me not to quote someone: “It sounds like you’re sneering at them,” she said. She was right — it did sound that way, although I didn’t want it to. Unfortunately, there was no alternative punctuation that conveyed neutrality or respect. It was sneer or nothing.

So here’s my proposal: Let the number of apostrophes indicate degree of respect for the speaker. Like this:

1. Single quotes = disrespect. Example: ‘Has a good chance of working’? You can’t be serious.

2. Double quotes (normal American usage) = neutral. Example: “We’re running out of working waterfront,” said Jim Barstow.

3. Triple quotes = respect. Example: According to a recent research report, “‘40% of the subjects failed to seek help.’”

4. Quadruple quotes = great respect. Example: According to Jane Brody, cataract surgery “”can be life-changing.””

For the Skeptics

Seth Roberts1 Comment

From the Shangri-La Diet forums:

This is week 5 for me, and I have lost 7 pounds so far.

I am a 37 year old mother of two — 5′6″ and started at 191 — the heaviest I have ever been in my non-pregnant life, with a BMI that fell in the “obese” category. I heard about Shangri-La from another woman, whom I dislike. I thought the whole thing sounded ridiculous, so I set out to prove her wrong. I replaced the two sodas I used to drink each day with two cups of sugar water, each 12 oz and 140 calories, exactly the same as the soda. This meant I was not changing my diet at all (other than removing the caffeine, sodium, colors and flavoring in the soda). I didn’t purposely reduce my calorie intake, and I didn’t change my exercise habits.

I’m amazed at the results. I’m much less hungry. I don’t crave sweets or soda (the way I have my entire life) — in fact, I haven’t had a soda in weeks now and I don’t miss it. I’m eating a reasonable portion size at meals and it’s easy.

It is an experimenter’s dream, by the way, to produce a big effect with tiny change, and a theorist’s dream to have a counter-intuitive prediction confirmed.

Agrees With Me About College

Seth Roberts9 Comments

According to Bryan Caplan, “our [higher] educational system is a big waste of time and money.” He is writing a book about this — yay! He attended college at the place I know the most about — UC Berkeley. Here is why it is a big waste of time. Professors can only teach what they know. All they truly know how to do is how to be a professor. At a research university, that mainly involves doing research. Berkeley professors can teach how to do research, sure, but that has little to do with what most Berkeley students will do after they graduate. So a lot of time is wasted. It is most unfortunate to (a) require all students to imitate professors and (b) to rank them according to how well they do so.

In response to Caplan, Catherine Johnson says her undergraduate education was useful. But she became a nonfiction writer — very close, in the big world of work, to what professors do. That’s one of those exceptions that prove the rule.

I think practically everyone learns well if any of three conditions are met:

  • Apprenticeship. You want to be good at doing X, you will learn by watching someone skillful do X. Effortlessly.
  • Guru. If you think of so-and-so as a guru, you will learn from him or her. Effortlessly.
  • Stories. Stories teach values. Things associated with the hero become considered good and desirable; things associated with the villain become considered bad and to be avoided. Effortlessly.

    • Most university classes, however, fulfill none of these conditions. On the face of it, university classes teach; but crucial details are missing. It’s like butter and margarine. Margarine is supposed to be as good as butter but it’s not. There is a superficial resemblance but margarine lacks crucial vitamins that butter contains. Because university classes lack crucial elements, they are forced to use grades, tests, and fear of failure as motivation. These motivators don’t work very well, as Alfie Kohn among others has pointed out. Sort of for the same reason Humpty-Dumpty couldn’t be put back together again.

    Omega-3 and Mood Disorders

    Seth Roberts4 Comments

    I subscribe to the Arbor Clinical Nutrition Updates. It is a nice way to slowly learn more about recent nutrition research. A partial subscription is free. Last week’s topic was omega-3 and mood disorders. The update summarized three articles:

    1. Appleton KM. et al. Effects of n–3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids on depressed mood: systematic review of published trials. Am J Clin Nutr 2006;84:1308 –16. This meta-analysis of 12 clinical trials found that omega-3 fats significantly reduced depression.

    2. Frangou S. et al. Efficacy of ethyl-eicosapentaenoic acid in bipolar depression: randomised double-blind placebo-controlled study. Br J Psychiatry. 2006 Jan;188:46-50. This experiment found that an omega-3 fat helped persons with bipolar disorder.

    3. Hallahan B. et al. Omega-3 fatty acid supplementation in patients with recurrent self-harm: Single-centre double-blind randomised controlled trial. Br J Psychiatry. 2007 Feb;190:118-122. This experiment found that omega-3 fats reduced a depression score.

    I recently reviewed an article for the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that found that omega-3 fats did not reduce depression scores. Unfortunately the article was not accepted for publication. I hope it gets published somewhere else.