Month: April 2009

Steve Levitt and John List Teach Experimentation to MBA Students

Seth Roberts2 Comments

From the Financial Times:

“The level of experimentation [at big businesses such as United Airlines] is abysmal,” says Prof List. “These firms do not take full advantage of feedback opportunities they’re presented with. After seeing example after example, we sat down and said, ‘We have to try to do something to stop this.’ One change we could make is to teach 75 to 100 of the best MBA students in the world how to think about feedback opportunities and how to think about designing their own field experiments to learn something that can make their company better.”

The two economists decided to team up to develop a course for [University of Chicago] Booth [Business School] students on “Using Experiments in Firms” – the first time either had taught at the business school.

This is an interesting middle ground between conventional science (done by professors) and what I have done a lot of (self-experimentation to solve my own problems — e.g., sleep better). I’m (a) trying to solve my own problems and (b) it’s not a job. Conventional scientists are (a) trying to solve other people’s problems and (b) it is a job. The MBA students will be taught experimentation that involves their own problems — well, their own company’s problems — and it is a job.

One important effect of this course, if the whole idea catches on, could be a cultural shift: A growing belief that experimentation is good and that failure to experiment is bad. Some of my first self-experiments involved acne. I was a grad student. When I told my dermatologist what I’d done — my results showed that a medicine he’d prescribed didn’t work — he looked unhappy. “Why did you do that?” he asked.

The Levitt/List course has a Martin-Luther-esque ring to it. Science: Not just for other people.

Thanks to Nadav Manham.

Ancient Non-Nutritional Wisdom: Morning Dance

Seth Roberts4 Comments

From the latest episode of The Amazing Race:

[PHIL:] In this detour, teams have to choose between two ways that the people of Guilin [China] express themselves artistically. The choice: choreography or calligraphy. In choreography, teams must join in a popular exercise in Guilin: dancing. They’ll make their way to the central island, join a group of locals performing their morning dance routine, and learn the dance.

Emphasis added. The dancing, done in pairs, provides plenty of morning face-to-face contact, just what I think everyone needs for good mood regulation.

On the Tsinghua campus, I saw morning groups practicing aikido, which doesn’t provide as much face-to-face contact. The Guilin dancing is perfect. Also good is that it’s done outside. The sunlight will give the light-sensitive circadian oscillator a big push. Faces push a face-sensitive circadian oscillator.

There is one region of China whose residents are known for being laid back and happy. I wonder: Is it Guilin?

What about Multivitamins?

Seth Roberts5 Comments

A recent large study concluded:

After a median follow-up of 8.0 and 7.9 years in the clinical trial and observational study cohorts, respectively, the Women’s Health Initiative study provided convincing evidence that multivitamin use has little or no influence on the risk of common cancers, CVD, or total mortality in postmenopausal women.

I think this supports what I’ve been saying. In this blog I’ve emphasized two deficiencies in the American diet:

  • Not enough omega-3
  • Not enough fermented food

Neither is reduced by a multivitamin pill. As far as I can tell, when either one is fixed with something resembling an optimal dose, there are easy-to-notice benefits. Before I started making these points, there were plenty of reasons to think these are major deficiencies. For example, the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis suggested that we might need more omega-3 than we usually get. The Umami Hypothesis suggested we need a lot more fermented food than we usually eat. In contrast, I can’t think of a single reason to think that Americans suffer from major vitamin deficiencies. I take a multivitamin pill but I’d stop long before I’d give up flaxseed oil or fermented foods.

My Theory of Human Evolution (bells)

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According to my theory of human evolution, art evolved as a way to advance material science. Because we enjoy art we paid for it, which helped artists develop better control of materials.

According to Dorothy Hosler, author of The Sounds and Colors of Power: The Sacred Metallurgical Technology of Ancient West Mexico,

Metallic sounding instruments, especially bells, were used in rituals that offered protection in war, that celebrated creation, fertility, and regeneration, and that figured in concepts of the sacred—rituals, in short, that created a universe through song, through the sound of bells, and through reflective golden and silvery colors.

In Mexico, she is saying, advanced metallurgy was first used to make bells. So here is an example. Rituals, too, I argue, evolved because they provided a desire for “nice” stuff — the fine printing of Christmas cards, the fine clothes of priests — which helped state-of-the-art artisans improve.

Here was a way to support science/technology that worked. Whereas the current system gives us delusional ideas about genes.

Sitting is Bad, New Research Suggests

Seth Roberts4 Comments

From a new study:

We prospectively examined sitting time and mortality in a representative sample of 17,013 Canadians 18-90 yr of age. [They were divided into five groups based on] daily amount of sitting time (almost none of the time, one fourth of the time, half of the time, three fourths of the time, almost all of the time . . . Participants were followed prospectively for an average of 12.0 yr for the ascertainment of mortality status. RESULTS:: There were 1832 deaths (759 of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and 547 of cancer) during 204,732 person-yr of follow-up. After adjustment for potential confounders, there was a progressively higher risk of mortality across higher levels of sitting time from all causes (hazard ratios (HR): 1.00, 1.00, 1.11, 1.36, 1.54; P for trend <0.0001) and CVD (HR:1.00, 1.01, 1.22, 1.47, 1.54; P for trend <0.0001) but not cancer.

I am pleased to see no problem with sitting one-fourth of the time. The CVD/cancer difference suggests the two diseases have different causes — which is consistent with cancer being due to environmental chemicals (e.g., cigarette smoke) and age (cancer risk goes up as the fourth power of age).

Related research from the same lab. My self-experimentation about standing. My one-legged standing (which I still do and am still studying).

Thanks to Dave Lull.

Brainwashing in High Places: Genes and Disease

Seth Roberts4 Comments

From an article by Nicholas Wade in the NY Times:

Since the human genome was decoded in 2003, researchers have been developing a powerful method for comparing the genomes of patients and healthy people, with the hope of pinpointing the DNA changes responsible for common diseases.

This method, called a genomewide association study, . . . has been disappointing in that the kind of genetic variation it detects has turned out to explain surprisingly little of the genetic links to most diseases.

Wade means the genetic variation is surprisingly poor at distinguishing healthy people and sick people. That is the empirical result.

Unlike the rare diseases caused by a change affecting only one gene, common diseases like cancer and diabetes are caused by a set of several genetic variations in each person.

This is the faith-based statement. Wade knows this how? What about the possibility that cancer and diabetes are caused by environmental differences? That there are consistent environmental differences (e.g., dietary differences) between those who get cancer and those who don’t?

I know of no evidence that common diseases like cancer and diabetes are caused by several genetic variations in each person. I know of a lot of evidence that they are caused by the wrong environment — lung cancer caused by smoking, for example.

Preachers say: If you do X, you will go to heaven. In other words, do something that helps me (the preacher) now and you will benefit later. It has been an effective argument. This is what the geneticists have been doing. They say to granting agencies — who believe what they read in the NY Times — if you give us money now we will find the genetic basis of Disease X. Just as there was no clear reason to believe the preachers’ claims, there was no clear reason to believe the geneticists’ predictions. Which unfortunately for them can be shown to be wrong.

The success of my self-experimentation at solving common problems led me to think the environment is more powerful than NY Times readers, or at least NY Times reporters, had been led to believe. Good news for people with problems but bad news for scientists who want large grants. My research was essentially free.