The Beauty and Tragedy of Tokyo

Seth Roberts17 Comments

I told a Chinese friend I would stop in Tokyo on my way home. “Tokyo is a beautiful city,” she said. “Sort of,” I said. After a day in Tokyo, I realized she was right. Tokyo is beautiful, not sort of beautiful. Tokyo business signs and outdoor advertising aren’t beautiful but they are swamped by many things that are:

  1. Small irregular streets. On foot, the weird address system works fine.
  2. Plenty of parks and greenery.
  3. Many small neat attractive shops selling a huge variety of goods. A miso store, for example. Many parts of Tokyo are like Greenwich Village, in other words.
  4. Clean convenient free public restrooms. Unlike other cities, as I’ve said.
  5. Excellent service in shops. Unlike Paris and Amsterdam.
  6. Excellent map and direction signage. In subways, for example, way-finding signs tell the distance, not just the direction, of the destination. This is so basic (distance and direction are orthogonal) yet other places, such as New York, don’t do it. Such creative attention to detail, such improvement on something so old (wayfinding signs) isn’t just helpful, it’s inspiring. I came across a construction site sign that appeared to say how loud the work would be. Again, serious improvement on tradition.
  7. Everyone I asked for directions was helpful, although many were surprisingly ignorant (e.g., didn’t know which direction to Roppongi).
  8. So very walkable. Partly because the streets are curvy, partly there are so many little interesting things everywhere I went but also because when I got tired of random wandering, I could simply go to the nearest subway station and get to my ultimate destination.
  9. The proportions of buildings. Slightly thin, slightly tall.
  10. The repeated exterior details of apartment buildings. They are not smooth slabs. They have visible balconies, stairs, etc.
  11. The food shops in the basements of department stores. There are dozens of small booths. One sells miso, another sells pickles, a third sells salads, a fourth sells eel, and so on. Not only is the food itself often beautiful — Japanese food packaging is supremely lovely — but it is beautifully arranged. You could learn a lot about aesthetics (the hidden laws of beauty) by comparing these displays with similar (less attractive) displays in other countries.
  12. Clean air, clean streets. In spite of heavy use.
  13. Well-maintained neat small houses.
  14. Temples scattered throughout the city.
  15. Healthy-looking people, especially old people. I think it’s all the fermented food they eat (e.g., miso, pickles), not the health-care system.

I did not find Tokyo expensive, even with the dollar way down against the yen. I never took a cab (and never wanted to — in Beijing I always want to). Equated for quality, I think Tokyo is cheaper than New York.

The tragedy of Tokyo is the lack of human diversity: few foreigners. Such a great city should draw people from all over the world, but it doesn’t. It has a a lot to teach the rest of us about how to live in cities (for example, where does Japanese perfectionism come from?) but somehow this sharing hasn’t happened. Like a cure for cancer in a journal no one reads.

Google Analytics: “Make This Version Default”

Seth Roberts4 Comments

I use Google Analytics to measure web traffic to my blog, forums, and website. A few months ago a new version was introduced and, as far as I can tell, made the default. The new version is worse than the old version. Every time I use GA, I click on “old version”.

In an excess of confidence, the new version isn’t merely the default, it also has a link called “make this version default”. The old version has no such link. There seems to be no way to make the old version the default. It is a Google version of “this sentence is false.”

More Apparently someone from Google read this or was told about it. The problem has been fixed.

Even More And then someone changed it back — it remains unclear how to make the old version the default.

Vitamin D3 and Sleep: More Good News From Primal Girl

Seth Roberts9 Comments

Late last year, Tara Grant (aka Primal Girl) considered the possibility that taking Vitamin D3 has the same effect as sunlight exposure. For example, taking Vitamin D3 at 7 pm is like getting sunlight at 7 pm. This idea — with my advice about how to sleep well (get an hour of sunlight first thing in the morning) ringing in her ears – led her to try to improve her sleep by taking Vitamin D3 first thing in the morning. It worked:

I usually took my supplements mid-afternoon. I vowed to take them first thing every morning. If I forgot, I would not take the Vitamin D at all that day. I tried it the next day and that night I slept like a rock. And the next night. And the next. Days I forgot and skipped the D3, I still slept great. That was the only change I made to my lifestyle and my sleep issues completely resolved.

I called this “ a stunning discovery” and have blogged about it several times. I recently asked Tara for details and an update. She replied:

I am so happy to hear that 1) other people didn’t make the connection easily so I’m not a little slow and that 2) there seems to be something to my discovery. :) I’ve had a few comments from people who have said it has worked for them too. So let me answer your questions:

[What type of Vitamin D3 do you take?]
I take Trader Joe’s brand of Vitamin D3, which is a 1000 IU gelcap, in olive oil. 180 capsules for $4.99. Best deal I’ve found. I tried the tablets years ago and they had no affect on me (even on 8000 units a day plus tanning twice a week my blood levels were only at 58.)

[Has your sleep remained solid?]
My sleep HAS remained solid. I have not had ONE night of bad sleep since I started paying attention to when I was taking my Vitamin D.

[How much do you take?]
I was initially taking 10,000 units a day. After about 2 months, I cut that back to 5000 units to see if there was a difference. I did not wake up quite as rested, but I still slept soundly through the night. On days that I increase my dosage, I sleep better, deeper and feel more rested the following morning. I’ve tried this several times, even when I’ve been spending the night away from home, and it has made a difference. I have also tried eating sugar shortly before bedtime and caffeine in the afternoon (both things that would always make my sleep restless in the past) and I still sleep well!! I’ve also thrown exercising into the mix to see if it makes a difference but it doesn’t change the quality of my sleep – it just makes me tired earlier in the evening. I continue to change my dosage randomly and monitor the results.

SOPA Strike

Seth Roberts6 Comments

SOPA is an example of what Thorstein Veblen called “the vested interests” trying to prevent change. In an essay called “ The Vested Interests and the Common Man” he pointed out “the existence of powerful vested interests which stand to gain from the persistence of the existing, but outdated system of law and custom.” Jane Jacobs said much the same thing. The most important conflict in any society, she wrote at the end of The Economy of Cities, isn’t between the rich and poor or management and labor; it is between those who benefit from the status quo and those who benefit from change. If those who benefit from the status quo usually win, problems stack up unsolved.

Tara Parker-Pope, “The Fat Trap” and the Shangri-La Diet

Seth Roberts31 Comments

Years ago I had lunch with a woman whose father ran a chain of weight-loss clinics. They were very successful and he was often invited to give talks. He never accepted these invitations, his daughter said, because he was seriously overweight — like 300 pounds.

I was reminded of this by Tara Parker-Pope’s recent New York Times Magazine article “The Fat Trap”. Parker-Pope tells us she is “at least 60 pounds” overweight, a bit of brave honesty for which I give her credit. I give her less credit for unskeptically quoting expert after expert — her article is essentially a review of expert opinion. If these experts are as wonderful and accurate as she says (by repeating their ideas), why is she 60 pounds overweight?

She never answers this question. She doesn’t even seem to ask it. However, someone else asks it. “The Fat Trap” includes this:

In most modern cultures . . . to be fat is to be perceived as weak-willed and lazy. It’s also just embarrassing. Once, at a party, I met a well-respected writer who knew my work as a health writer. “You’re not at all what I expected,” she said, eyes widening. The man I was dating, perhaps trying to help, finished the thought. “You thought she’d be thinner, right?” he said. I wanted to disappear, but the woman was gracious. “No,” she said, casting a glare at the man and reaching to warmly shake my hand. “I thought you’d be older.”

I already knew it was “just embarrassing” to be fat. What’s interesting is that the story that follows this unremarkable idea doesn’t support it. Her date wasn’t saying she’s fat. Sixty pounds overweight is not surprisingly fat. The “well-respected writer” can’t possibly have been surprised simply by that. Her date knows this. He’s bringing up something that puzzles him (“if you know so much about health, why are you fat?”), a reasonable question. By “you thought she’d be thinner, right?” he means “you thought, because of her job, she’d be thinner, right?” Parker-Pope and her editor don’t notice this.

Parker-Pope continued to reshape reality in an interview she gave, which included the following:

Q. What were your hopes in writing “The Fat Trap”?
A. My hope was that people would leave the article feeling informed and empowered. . . . [I got the story idea talking] with Dr. Michael Rosenbaum at Columbia about the science of weight loss. . . . [He told me what dieters already know:] that most people who are fat, are going to stay fat. . . . The truth is: Once you’ve gained weight, it’s really, really hard for most people to lose weight and keep it off.

Is she sure this “truth” is empowering? To me it sounds discouraging.

The speed of the obesity epidemic — 30 years ago, Americans were much thinner — implies that the obesity epidemic has an environmental cause. Genes don’t change that fast. Something about the environment — something that controls weight — has changed. Not exercise. Thirty years ago, Americans probably exercised less than now. It is likely that something they ate kept them thin, without trying. Parker-Pope fails to understand this. Or at least failed to ask the experts she spoke to about it. What about the environment has changed? she should have asked. If I were her, I’d be angry. The obesity epidemic is 30 years old! Thirty f—ing years! Why is it taking so long to figure out the cause?

The length of the obesity epidemic reflects research failure. Against her own self-interest, she doesn’t grasp this. At the end of “The Fat Trap”, like a brainwashing victim, she says:

I do, ultimately, blame myself for allowing my weight to get out of control.

I disagree. She should not blame herself for not knowing how to stay thin — hardly anyone knows. No, her failure is journalistic: (a) not grasping that the obesity epidemic must be due to changes in what we eat (lots of people understand this), (b) not grasping this means there must be a way to be almost effortlessly thin (in the 1970s people were much thinner with little effort), and, above all, (c) not confronting the experts she interviews. Her insensitive date spoke an uncomfortable truth. Now she is failing to ask uncomfortable questions (why is it taking so long?) Much worse.

My theory of weight control says the crucial environmental change that caused the obesity epidemic was increased consumption of foods that produce very strong (= very fattening) smell-calorie associations. To produce a very strong smell-calorie association, a food must (a) have a strong smell (a strong “flavor”), (b) have quickly digested calories (e.g., a high glycemic index), and (c) have exactly the same smell each time. All three features, especially the third, are much more true of factory food, fast food, and junk food than of handmade food. Typical food processing almost always increases flavor (e.g., add spices) and speeds digestion (e.g., cooking). Factory and chain restaurant food processing produces much less variable flavor than ordinary human food processing. Exactly when the obesity epidemic started, there was a big shift toward factory and chain restaurant food. One reason was microwave ovens. Microwave entrees taste exactly the same each time. Another reason was an increase in eating at chain restaurants. The Shangri-La Diet goes into more detail.

At the end of “The Fat Trap” is this:

All the evidence suggests that it’s going to be very, very difficult for me to reduce my weight permanently.

No, not all the evidence. Alex Chernavsky used the Shangri-La Diet to lose 25 pounds and has kept it off easily and apparently permanently.

Vitamin D3: More Reason to Take it First Thing in the Morning

Seth Roberts14 Comments

At the Fancy Food Show, one of the exhibitors asked me what I did. I said I studied how food affected the brain. That’s interesting, she said. She proceeded to tell me that Vitamin D3 has really helped her.

When do you take it? I asked.

First thing in the morning, she said.

Why? I asked. Because she had tried taking it at bedtime and it hadn’t worked. So she switched to first thing in the morning and it worked well. It gave her energy and raised her mood. Her 28-year-old son had the same experience.

I told her I had seen the same pattern several times. The time of day really matters, I said. She said she had never thought of that — that what was true for her was true for other people. She had told lots of people about the benefits of Vitamin D3 but she hadn’t told them what time to take it.

I hope to interview this woman at length and get more details.

As far as I’m concerned, the totality of evidence, including this story, is overwhelmingly persuasive. Taking Vitamin D3 at the right time of day is crucial. Take it at the best time of day (first thing in the morning), it will have a powerful good effect. Take it at the worst time of day (evening), it will have a bad effect.

Why Vitamin D researchers missed this, and how long it will take them to stop dismissing “anecdotes” about it, are interesting questions.

 

More about Tonsillectomy Confidential

Seth Roberts66 Comments

The blog Science-Based Medicine ran a long critical comment about my recent Boing Boing piece (“Tonsillectomy Confidential: doctors ignore polio epidemics and high school biology”) followed by a back-and-forth (my reply, their reply to my reply, on and on) in the comments.

The exchange had three curious features.

1. In Tonsillectomy Confidential, I described how Rachael critically evaluated what a naturopath told her:

Rachael and her son went to see a naturopath that a neighbor had recommended. The naturopath was especially knowledgeable about nutrition and supplements. After an hour interview, she suggested Vitamin D3 (5000 IU/day), a multivitamin, Vitamin C (500 mg/day), and powdered larch bark. Rachael searched for research about these recommendations. She found many studies that suggested Vitamin D might help. Her son is a pale redhead and used sunblock a lot. It was easy to believe he wasn’t getting enough Vitamin D. Because Vitamin D won’t work properly without other vitamins (called co-factors), a multivitamin was a good idea [Rachael discovered during her research]. Rachael found studies that implied that a multivitamin was very unlikely to be very harmful. She found few relevant studies about Vitamin C. Maybe extreme claims about its benefits had scared off researchers — “Linus Pauling burned that bridge,” said Rachael. But she took the Vitamin C recommendation seriously because the naturopath had made other reasonable recommendations, the recommended dose was not large, Vitamin C is easily excreted in urine (in contrast to building up in the body), and Rachael had never heard of anyone having trouble at that dose. The naturopath had said that larch bark had reduced ear infections in children with chronic ear infections. A little bit of theory supported this, Rachael found, but overall the larch-bark research was “dodgy,” she said.

This was described by the Science-Based Medicine critic (Steven Novella) as “blatantly not evidence-based”.

2. In my first reply to the criticism, I wrote:

In other words, there is some evidence supporting the value of larch bark (“early laboratory evidence”) and some evidence (“a more recent study in mice”) not supporting the value of larch bark. Given this, to say “available scientific evidence does not support claims . . .” is false. An accurate statement is that some evidence does and some evidence doesn’t.

This got the following reply from a second critic (David Gorski):

No, Seth. Note two words Steve used, “in humans.” Steve was quite correct. If there is only a preliminary animal study, even if positive, that does not support the efficacy of larch bark in humans.

Apparently Gorski thinks animals (e.g., rats) and humans share no DNA. A few sentences later, contradicting himself, he notes that animal studies are used as screening tests.

3. Finally there was this, from Steven Novella:

It is fine to search for information yourself, and no one here is advocating “blind trust” in anyone. We are all activist skeptics. But it is folly to substitute one’s own opinion for that of experts who have spent years mastering a subject.

What a lovely motto for this blog: “It is folly to substitute one’s own opinion for that of experts who have spent years mastering the subject.” And, after all that study, think animals and humans share no DNA.

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts5 Comments
  • One of my Tsinghua American colleagues writes an op-ed: “China wants you. Job prospects are abundant.”
  • Robert Anton Wilson’s skepticism about skeptics. “Those people claim to be rationalists, but they’re governed by such a heavy body of taboos. They’re so fearful, and so hostile, and so narrow, and frightened, and uptight and dogmatic. . . . None of them ever says anything skeptical about the AMA, or about anything in establishment science or any entrenched dogma.” I agree. They should be called one-way skeptics.
  • Excellent Vanity Fair article about Occupy Wall Street. Better than The New Yorker‘s article covering similar stuff.
  • The many side effects of statins. I am impressed by the new way of learning about drug side effects.

Thanks to Ryan Holiday and Gary Wolf.

Peter Lawrence on the Ills of Modern Science

Seth Roberts13 Comments

Peter A. Lawrence is a British biologist who has written several papers about problems with the way biology and other areas of science are now done. In this interview a year ago he summarizes his complaints:

  • Scientific publication “has become a system of collecting counters for particular purposes – to get grants, to get tenure, etc. – rather than to communicate and illuminate findings to other people. The literature is, by and large, unreadable.” There is far too much counting of papers.
  • “There’s a reward system for building up a large group, if you can, and it doesn’t really matter how many of your group fail, as long as one or two succeed. You can build your career on their success.” If you do something on your own it is viewed with suspicion.
  • There is too much emphasis on counting citations. “If you work in a big crowded field, you’ll get many more citations. . . . This is independent of the quality of the work or whether you’ve contributed anything. [There is] enormous pressure on the journals to accept papers that will be cited a lot. And this is also having a corrupting effect. Journals will tend to take papers in medically-related disciplines, for example, that mention or relate to common genetic diseases. Journals from, say, the Cell group, will favor such papers when they’re submitted.”
  • Grant writing takes too much time — e.g., 30-40% of your time. “There is an enormous increase in bureaucracy – form
    filling, targeting, assessment, evaluations. This has gone right through society, like the Black Death!”
  • “Science is not like some kind of an army, with a large number of people who make the main steps forward together. You need to have individually creative people who are making breakthroughs – who make things different. But how do you find those people? I don’t think you want to have a situation in which only those who are competitive and tough can
    get to the top, and those who are reflective and retiring would be cast aside.” I’ve said something similar: Science is like single ants wandering around looking for food, not like a trail of ants to and from a food source. The trail of ants is engineering.

I agree. I would add that I think modern biology is far too invested in the idea that genes cause disease and that studying genes will help reduce human suffering. I think the historical record (the last 30 years) shows that this is not a promising line of work — but modern biologists cannot switch course.

What explains the depressing facts Lawrence points out? I think it is something deep and impossible to change: Science and job don’t mix well. The demands of any job and the demands of science are not very compatible. Jobs are about repetition. Science is the opposite. Jobs demand regular output. Science is unpredictable. However, jobs and science overlap in terms of training: Both benefit from specialized knowledge. They also overlap in terms of resources: More resources (e.g., better tools) will usually help you do your job better, likewise with science. So we have two groups (insiders — professional scientists — and outsiders — everyone else). Both groups have big advantages and big disadvantages relative to the other. In the last 50 years, the insiders have been “winning” in the sense of doing better work. Their advantages of training and resources far outweighed the problems caused by the need for repetition and predictability. But now — as I try to show on this blog — outsiders are catching up and going ahead because the necessary training and tools have become much more widely available (e.g., tools have become much cheaper). And, as Lawrence emphasizes, professional science has gotten worse.

 

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts2 Comments