Author: Seth Roberts

Climate Science Slowly Becomes Less Settled

Seth Roberts12 Comments

Andrew Gelman, in a comment on the previous post, said that he believes the science of climate change is “much more settled” than I do. He’s right — in the sense that I believe the state of the world is different (less certain) than claimed. Andrew sees correct certainty; I see false certainty. Because science slowly becomes more accurate, I think the science will slowly shift toward “less settled” — a prediction I don’t think Andrew would make. Here’s an example of such a shift. According to the Mail on Sunday, Phil Jones

admit[s] that there is little difference between global warming rates in the Nineties and in two previous periods since 1860 and accept[s] that from 1995 to now there has been no statistically significant warming.He also leaves open the possibility, long resisted by climate change activists, that the ’Medieval Warm Period’ from 800 to 1300 AD, and thought by many experts to be warmer than the present period, could have encompassed the entire globe.

Phil Jones slowly shifts.

Confirmation of Stunning MS Claim

Seth Roberts5 Comments

I blogged earlier about an Italian med school professor named Paulo Zamboni who, studying his wife, came up with an entirely new theory about multiple sclerosis (MS): It’s caused by restricted blood outflow from the brain. Almost all MS patients had this condition, Zamboni found. The great value of this theory is that blood outflow can often be improved with surgery. In at least some cases, this surgery has reduced MS symptoms.

Now, a study done in Buffalo has found results that support Zamboni’s idea. MS patients were twice as likely as healthy people to have restricted blood flow. This is a weaker correlation than Zamboni found but I make nothing of it — there are lots of ways to mess things up, so that you get noisier results. (And there are lots of ways to push results in a preferred direction.)

Zamboni wasn’t an MS expert. He made this breakthrough because his wife had MS and he had technical skills (including surgical skills — his specialty is surgery).

Thanks to Anne Weiss.

More A more detailed description.

Elizabeth Kolbert Confronts Climategate

Seth Roberts5 Comments

The New Yorker website has a weekly podcast called The Political Scene. I’ve listened to almost all of them. This week’s was unlike any other.

The brief description is “Elizabeth Kolbert and Peter J. Boyer discuss recent attacks on climate science.” Never before have the discussants been so far apart. They should have replaced discuss with debate. Boyer hasn’t written a word about climate science — or even science. He moved from the New York Times to The New Yorker after he wrote an (excellent) book about television. Recently he’s covered politics. Kolbert has written dozens of articles and a book about climate science. In spite of this, the moderator (Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the magazine), asked Boyer to describe the Climategate emails and their significance. They showed, he said, “an intolerance [by the scientists] of skepticism of their narrative . . this was a real shock to the system and a real shock to the global warming consensus.” I think any unbiased observer would agree.

Then Wickenden asked Kolbert what she thought:

KOLBERTÂ I don’t agree with him [Boyer] . . . One of the things that comes out in these emails is the climate scientists’ frustration with having to deal with people who use the data in all sorts of irresponsible ways. . . I’m not aware of any instances where people have had to go back and had to say “you’re right and the conclusion we drew was wrong.”

BOYER Perhaps we could say that language was used in these communications that would allow for an interpretation that perhaps there was fudging or something going on that needed to be obscured. There was a whole tone of intolerance of questioning of their data or — and this was what was so disturbing to hear from scientists — any questioning of what sounded an awful lot like their mission.

Boyer went on and on — as if he were the expert. (And he clearly knew what he was talking about.) Then Wickenden turned to the United Nations IPCC report and asked Kolbert what she thought of recent criticism (which Wickenden learned about from the NY Times).

KOLBERT . . . [The error was in Part 2.] In [Part 2 of] this report, which was literally 986 pages long, there were a couple of things inserted that weren’t from the peer-reviewed literature. . . .

BOYER Well, Betsy, I’m sorry, these aren’t just 986 pages of Scripture, and then a couple of little awkward errant notations on the side. The IPCC isn’t an inconsequential body. Al Gore and Mr. Pachauri shared the Nobel Prize. They are granted a level of authority when they speak. These reports were certainly granted authority. . .

KOLBERT [interrupting] I guess I should ask you: What is your point? . . .

BOYER . . . The consensus about the consensus has begun to crack. That’s just the political reality . . . There is a crack in the consensus.

Kolbert has published hundreds of thousands of words about global warming in the most prestigious magazine in the world. That she is unable to see or at least say this basic truth but must have someone else say it is another sign of problems with her reporting.

Until now, all speakers on The Political Scene have sounded calm and confident. On rare occasions they disagree, but never like this. And the conversation always has a relaxed tone. Not this time. Boyer sounded calm and confident but I thought Kolbert sounded nervous and upset. With good reason: It struck me as a huge and public rebuke from her employer. She’s been the expert. Now someone with no credentials has been allowed to say she’s wrong — has been brought on the program, apparently, in order to disagree with her. As if it’s no longer clear she’s right. And her dismissal of the Climategate emails, as if they taught her nothing, didn’t help her. The debate with Boyer was preceded and followed by softball questions by Wickenden to Kolbert. They struck me as attempts to soften the blow, as did a comment at the end by Boyer about a Super Bowl commercial.

Written With A Straight Face? Dept.

Seth Roberts18 Comments

Jonathan Cole used to be provost of Colombia University. He has written a book called T he Great American University, in which, according to this review,

He lists their dazzling achievements, which in biology and medicine include findings on gene-splicing, recombinant DNA, retroviruses, cancer therapies, coch­lear implants, the fetal ultrasound scanner, the hepatitis B vaccine, prions, stem cells, organ transplantation and even a treatment for head lice. . . . In a chapter on the social sciences, he cites, among many others, such useful innovations as theories of human capital and social mobility, research in linguistics and even the use of prices to reduce traffic jams.

“Research in linguistics”? Yes, that sounds dazzling. I’m sure those “theories of human capital” have been v v “useful”. And who would have thought that if you raise the price of something (“use of prices to reduce traffic jams”) . . . people use less of it? Which was traffic engineering, not social science. Did the reviewer, an economics professor at Harvard named Claudia Goldin, write this with a straight face?

The “dazzling achievements” in biology and medicine are only slightly less unconvincing.”Gene splicing” and “recombinant DNA” research are different names for the same thing. Fetal ultrasound scanners may cause autism. Vaccines were not invented by an American university professor. The discovery of prions has had no obvious non-laboratory use — besides being questionable. Stem-cell research has yet to produce anything of use outside of labs. To be fair, gene splicing has been used to produce human insulin, which is better than the insulin previously available, but conspicuously absent from the list of accomplishments is prevention of diabetes — not to mention allergies, obesity, depression, arthritis, stroke, or any of the other lifestyle problems that a large fraction of Americans suffer from. Such achievements would be truly useful. Great American universities haven’t given us any of those . . but they have given us a treatment for head lice.

There’s a reason for the term ivory tower. Apparently Cole, conscious of the term, is trying to argue against it — but merely shows why it exists. (I’m assuming the review is accurate.) It reminds me of the time that top Chinese students, visiting top American colleges such as Harvard and Yale, found the American students ignorant and arrogant. The theme of Cole’s book is that American universities are in trouble and need more support. What useful stuff they’ve accomplished is central to his argument. When I was an undergrad, I read Thorstein Veblen’s bitter The Higher Learning in America, which said American universities were dysfunctional. He mentioned “committees for the sifting of sawdust.”

More “Graduate school in the humanities is a trap” (via Marginal Revolution).

A GAPS Testimonial

Seth Roberts4 Comments

Gut And Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) is a book by Natasha Campbell-McBride about how to treat allergies, autism, and similar conditions. In this entry, Cheeseslave talks about her own son and then quotes another mother about the effects of the GAPS diet (plus other changes) on her autistic son.

Kevin lacked oxygen at birth, so in the first year of life, I already saw that he was not developing like my other kids (he is our 5th). His motor skills lagged and he cried a lot, didn’t sleep so well, etc.At two, his behavior was just not right. He never responded right to correction, would throw things in anger or frustration, cried all the time, especially when waking up, basically never happy. He didn’t walk until two and then he would fall down constantly.

He also began to always be starving. When he was really hungry, his face would get distorted and frozen in a strange way. I now think he was having seizures of sorts.

We did not vaccinate at all and we figured out that if we fed him lots of protein type foods like meats, he would relax his body and face and be able to go play for a bit until it happened all over again in a short time.

I do think that because we didn’t vaccinate and figured out to keep feeding him this way, we were able to “coast along” like this for years. He had learning disabilities, lacked social skills and continued to have autistic traits like sensory issues, hiding under blankets, reacting to sounds, not liking people around, rigid in routines, and spinning and going on his head along with head banging.

Long story shorter, we did get a diagnosis of Aspergers at one point. We took him to doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist to no avail. He also strangely was NEVER once sick (we later learned that his immune system was not working a bit).

At 9 years old, he got pneumonia, followed by asthma and allergies. His eating [problems] had escalated to the point of feeding him every 20-30 minutes or he would have gigantic meltdowns. We eventually could not even have people over.

He was given an inhaler for the asthma and suddenly, without us making the connection, he began to not respond when called, became extremely hyperactive and began to run away at all hours of the day and night requiring police to find him and being very dangerous. (we once lost him in the middle of downtown Chicago). He would also try to jump out of moving vehicles, out of windows and required constant restraining.

The seizures got bad, he would fall down the stairs and lose consciousness several times per day. They tried psych drugs and he almost died twice from his reaction to them (I am now grateful that we couldn’t go that route).

We became so desperate that we brought him home from hospital and got deadbolts to keep him from running, did all our own restraining and called alternative docs to help us.

We began kefir and diet from nutritionist (basically a BED [Body Ecology Diet]/GAPS version), took him off inhaler. His allergies were totally out of control, he could barely open his eyes from swelling, and his chin was deformed and swollen, his belly too, his whole body. He would only eat junk food and fast foods and it was incredibly difficult to transition him to the diet.

The DAN (Defeat Autism Now) protocols we followed, made him worse in lots of ways b/c the chelation made him extremely violent, the B12 shots kept him awake for nights on end without any sleep, the antifungals and all those other interventions were nightmarish for him.

Eventually, I resolved to use only foods and do this without any kind of doctors. So for this past year, I researched and researched and was determined to bring him back from this state. We have done a combo of GAPS (and BED) very successfully along with lots of fermented foods and drinks.

The allergies and asthma are 100% gone, the seizures we have had only one in 65 days and very mild (compared to 5-10 per day). He sings every morning and has cried once in the last 2.5 months (he used to cry for 1-3 hours at a time each day) and he can go outside again without running away. He is in martial arts, acting appropriately at church, having eye contact, no autistic traits of late and learning academics after two years of not being able to open a book. He reads before bed at an 8th grade level.

This story has many interesting elements. 1. Huge improvement. Very plausible that it’s due to the dietary change. 2. Autism and allergies go away at the same time, suggesting same cause. 3. Treatment with fermented foods. 4. A different “radical” solution failed, meaning there is no reason to think this is a placebo effect. 5. The mystery of why an inhaler made things worse. 6. Autism not due to vaccination.

Alexandra Carmichael on Random Acts of Kindness

Seth Roberts6 Comments

Alexandra Carmichael is one of the founders of CureTogether.com, whom I met at a Quantified Self meeting last year. A few days ago, she left an interesting comment on one of my posts:

I practice random acts of kindness, with a goal of helping at least 10 people a day (and at least 1 person I don’t know). I find this helps my mood toward the end of the day, when it is most likely to fall – no matter what else has happened that day, at least I’ve helped 10 people.

I asked her about it:

SETH Where did the idea come from?

ALEXANDRA It goes all the way back to my grandparents being Scout leaders – I was never in the Scouts myself but I observed how helpful and supportive they always were. Then during my university years when I was forming my life philosophy, I got to attend an incredible lecture by Jane Goodall. Her organization Roots & Shoots inspires people around the world to give back to the earth, animals, and people around them, with her amazing presence and the quote “Every individual can make a difference.” Service learning is also one of the things we thread into homeschooling our two daughters, along with design, simple living, and non-violent communication.

The specific goal of helping 10 people a day started last summer during a goal-setting weekend. I was curious to see if formalizing and quantifying something I had been doing in a fuzzier way would make a difference in my life, if measuring acts of kindness would result in an increased number of acts, or more friends, or help me with my chronic depression – plus I love quantifying things! :) I don’t find it necessary to actually record how many people I help in a day, but I keep a rough running tally in my head as I go through the day to make sure it’s at least 10 – my kids like to help with this count too.

SETH What are some examples of these acts?

ALEXANDRA I do a lot of different things. If I get extra free tickets to events or conferences, I will pass them along to people who I think would love to go; I will offer to take a picture of a tourist family where one person inevitably gets left out behind the camera; I will connect people who I think would benefit from knowing each other; I will take two hours to listen and hug and support a child who is having a hard time learning a new skill; I will answer a newbie entrepreneur’s questions about how to get started in business or help them spread their message; I will help coordinate gatherings that I believe in (such as Quantified Self); I will hold the door for someone. It can be anything really, no matter how small.

SETH How have people reacted when you tell them about this?

ALEXANDRA The most frequent reaction is “That sounds too challenging to do every day – 10 people? Why not 1 or 2?” The second most frequent reaction is “You are inspiring me to make positive changes in my own life.” My answer to both is “I love helping people!”

SETH What have you learned?

ALEXANDRA if you help people, without wanting anything in return, you get help when you need it – often surprising help, and often more than you gave. I learned that helping people seems to make them like you more, so my number of online friends has skyrocketed (1500 on Twitter, 800 on Facebook, 500 on LinkedIn) – but close “in person” friends I choose to limit to a handful because of my tendency to get overwhelmed by frequent or shallow social situations. I learned that helping people does help with depression, because (a) you have something else to focus on outside of yourself and (b) you go through the day with an expectant air of wonder at who will be the next person you can help. I also learned that helping 10 people a day is really not a lot, and I often wind up helping 20 or more people in a day. Of course, this is only from my perspective – I can’t guarantee that all of these people actually feel helped, I just know that I tried to help.

SETH When you say “if you help people, without wanting anything in return, you get help when you need it – often surprising help, and often more than you gave” I’m not sure I understand. Can you give some examples?

ALEXANDRA It’s not so much that the people I help help me in return, but more that by spreading goodwill and being tuned in to what others need, I also became more aware of my own needs and started to feel a greater sense of self-worth, like I deserved to have my needs met. This is not something I was taught growing up, and I went through two bouts of major postpartum depression without asking for or getting the support I needed. I feel much more open about my needs now, which perhaps makes it easier for others to help me. So the change was more in me than in others.

In terms of specific examples, when I learned that I have a Tourette’s spectrum disorder, and tweeted that, I made an incredible new friend who has been through similar neurological issues, and who in our conversations of support and empathy has helped me more than I can ever thank him for. Also, when I decided to find some consulting work to support my family while we build CureTogether, a very welcoming door opened (soon to be made public), and offered me basically a dream position. I guess I needed to learn to ask for and accept help as well as to give it.

SETH Thanks, Alexandra. It’s especially interesting that helping others raised your feeling of self-worth. I wouldn’t have guessed it would have that effect.

Visible Big vs. Invisible Small

Seth Roberts2 Comments

In the current New Yorker, James Surowiecki writes:

The bailout of the auto industry, after all, was as unpopular as the bailout of the banks, even though it was much tougher on the companies (G.M. and Chrysler went bankrupt; shareholders were wiped out, and C.E.O.s pushed out), and even though the biggest beneficiaries of the deal were ordinary autoworkers. You might have expected a deal that helped workers keep their jobs to play well in a country spooked by ballooning unemployment. Yet most voters hated it.

Yes, rewarding failure doesn’t play well. The voters were right. The same money that was used to give a few giant companies a second (or third) chance could have been used to give many thousands of very small companies a first chance. It could have been used to help many thousands of people start new small businesses (often one-person businesses) or keep their new small business afloat. All those small businesses would have provided plenty of jobs. and they would have had a far more promising future, far more room for growth, than the Big Three, being both far more diverse and having not already failed. The many thousands of people who wanted to start small businesses were unable to get together and make themselves visible, so the failure of government to help them went unnoticed. Their diversity was economic strength but political weakness.

It’ isn’t surprising things happened as they did — the Big Three (not to mention Wall Street) were bailed out, small businesses were ignored — but it is an indication of how poorly our economy is managed in the most basic ways. I’m not even an economist and I understand this simple point. Bernanke and Summers do not.

It’s easy for me to understand because the same thing happens in science. Government support of research is a good idea, but the money is misspent, in the same way. Grant support goes to a few large projects — generally to people who have already failed (to do anything useful) — rather than to a large number of small projects that haven’t yet failed. The way to support innovation is to place many small bets not a few big ones. That’s one thing I learned from self-experimentation, which allowed me to place many small bets.

Is Your ___ Telling You the Truth?

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You may have heard that Madonna’s attempt to adopt a Malawi child was rebuffed by the legal system. A judge ruled against the adoption:

Madonna was devastated by the ruling, said witnesses, and shouted at her attorney, “What went wrong? How could this have happened?” when the judge announced her decision.

Yet the ruling doesn’t appear mysterious. There are clear residency requirements, which Madonna didn’t come close to meeting.

Did her lawyer tell her the truth? The outburst suggests no, but in any case the perverse incentives are obvious: The lawyer benefits from being hired. Painting a rosy scenario — saying “I can definitely get you what you want” — increases the chances of that.

What about doctors? Dermatologists seem to claim, as a group at least, that acne is unrelated to diet. The fact that certain groups of people with unusual diets don’t have acne suggests that this is wrong. Again, the mistake is highly self-interested. If acne is due to diet, you need to try different diets to figure out the problem foods. You don’t need to see a dermatologist to do that.

Experiments in Gift-Giving

Seth Roberts7 Comments

Kathleen Hillers posted this on a website called The Intention Experiment:

I just read a book called 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life by Cami Walker. The author of the book has ms and was seeking natural healing. She was told by a “wise woman” from South Africa that if she gave a gift everyday for the next 29 days that it would have a healing effect in more ways than one. It’s a great book, but if you don’t want to read it, start giving a gift everyday and make a journal of every gift you give and the circumstances involved. If you miss a day, you have to start over because you have to keep the flow of giving constant. The gifts do not have to be materialistic. You can give some one a phone call, a ride, encouragement, whatever. I just started doing this on Feb 1st and my life is already getting better. The day before I started, I was in a panic. I couldn’t sleep, and I was completely broke . The day I started, i actually started feeling much better, and things are already looking up.

Regression to the mean, maybe. But maybe not. The idea has some plausibility: The Chinese character that means “happy” is a combination of a character that means “owe” and a character that means “again”.