Category: General

Criticism of My View of Education: My Answer

Seth Roberts2 Comments

My criticism of college education can be boiled down to this: It is too much one-size-fits-all. It takes too little account of differences between students. Those differences are no accident. They reflect the fact that a good economy needs to produce many different things. Human nature has been shaped to provide exactly that.

Bryan Caplan posted about this, and one reader (Tim of Angle) replied:

Roberts is criticizing colleges for not doing something that they aren’t really trying to do. . . . Our educational model is built around hiring teachers who are (supposedly) good at thing X and paying them to train other people to do thing X. Nobody claims that the way the teacher does thing X is the only way to do thing X, nor even the best way to do thing X; what colleges do claim is that the way the teacher does thing X is a successful way to do thing X, and it hopes that the teacher can train students to do thing X competently at least the way the teacher does thing X.

I was discussing undergraduate education at Berkeley. Berkeley professors are hired mainly based on their ability to do research. Undergraduate classes are not about training researchers (= the next generation of professors at research universities, such as Berkeley); that’s what graduate school is for.

In most Berkeley undergraduate classes, professors aren’t teaching students to “do” anything, at least anything that most of us would recognize as “doing”. (Engineering, art, architecture, foreign language and perhaps statistics classes are exceptions.) In most classes, students are introduced to an important fraction of an academic field. In a social psychology class, for example, they learn about social psychology research. The class is not about how to do social psychology. It is about what has been done and what has been learned. If the class consisted entirely of students who wanted to become psychology professors, that would be fine. In fact, only a small fraction of Berkeley psychology majors (5%?) go to graduate school in psychology. The students in most Berkeley classes (outside of the more vocational areas, such as engineering) will go on to do many different jobs. Few in any class will become professors.

I think one theory of higher education is close to what Tim of Angle says. The practice, at least at elite universities such as Berkeley, is quite different.

A different theory of higher education revolves around signalling. College performance provides a useful signal to future employers, that’s why it exists in present form. At Berkeley, I never heard this motivation (will this provide a good signal to employers?) brought up in discussions about grading or anything else. It’s utterly clear, on the other hand, that where you go to college (Harvard versus College of Marin) is indeed a powerful signal to employers and, yes, if you can go to Prestigious College X, you really should. How many “axes of excellence” there should be — how many separate categories or dimensions we should use to rank colleges — is a different discussion.

Women and Body Fat (Ancestral Health Symposium 2013)

Seth Roberts7 Comments

One of the best talks at the 2013 Ancestral Health Symposium was by Will Lassek, a retired doctor. Here’s the abstract:

One puzzle is why human males have such a strong preference for women with hourglass figures and low weights that can compromise fertility. The second is why slender young women typically have about one third of their weight in body fat, more than bears starting to hibernate, and why human infants are also very fat. Finally, why do women typically gain another twenty pounds or more during their reproductive years? The answer may lie in the roles that fat plays in providing essential fatty acids needed for the growth of a very large brain and in regulating overall fetal growth.

His answer to the first question was that death during childbirth was a serious danger. Women of lower weight give birth to babies with smaller heads — less likely to cause death. Wider hips means a larger birth canal. Women gain weight after their first birth because their birth canal is wider — the optimal baby size has gone up. A variety of data supported these ideas. Lessek’s answer to the first question is quite different than what evolutionary psychologists have said.

The Feet of People Who Never Wear Shoes

Seth Roberts11 Comments

In the 1940s, a podiatrist named Samuel Shulman examined the feet of a few thousand Chinese and Indians who never wore shoes. Their feet were in much better shape than the feet of people who wear shoes regularly.

The resulting complete absence of onychocryptosis [ingrown toenail] should serve to prove that proper nail care plus nonrestrictive footgear are all that is necessary to prevent the condition even in the presence of congenital nail malformations that are considered predisposing factors. . . . One hundred and eighteen of those interviewed were rickshaw coolies. Because these men spend very long hours each day on cobblestone or other hard roads pulling their passengers at a run it was of particular interest to survey them. If anything, their feet were more perfect than the others. All of them, however, gave a history of much pain and swelling of the foot and ankle during the first few days of work as a rickshaw puller. But after a rest of two days or a week’s more work on their feet, the pain and swelling passed away and never returned again.

Chinese parks often have cobblestone-like paths that are extremely painful to walk on barefoot (for me) but that others (usually old Chinese people) walk on barefoot for health. I was surprised how clearly the pain went away day by day of exposure. A 2005 study showed that four months of walking on cobblestone mats reduced blood pressure and improved balance compared to a group that walked the same amount normally:

Participants [average age about 80 years old] were randomized to a cobblestone mat walking condition (n=54) or regular walking comparison condition (n=54) and participated in 60-minute group exercise sessions three times per week for 16 consecutive weeks.

Measurements: Primary endpoint measures were balance (functional reach, static standing), physical performance (chair stands, 50-foot walk, Up and Go), and blood pressure (systolic, diastolic). . . .

Results: At the 16-week posttest, differences between the two exercise groups were found for balance measures (P=.01), chair stands (P<.001), 50-foot walk (P=.01), and blood pressure (P=.01).

Some of the cobblestone walkers walked barefoot, some wore socks. A hypertension expert, apparently not understanding statistics, said he wanted a larger study. I agree with him when he says that the speed of the improvement is what’s most impressive.

Because our ancient ancestors no doubt went barefoot and walked on irregular surfaces, both sets of results — the foot survey and the cobblestone experiment — support conventional paleo theorizing.

I have a cobblestone mat. I tried to walk on it. It was so painful I couldn’t get past the initial difficulty. Maybe I will try again.

Journal of Personal Science: Effect of Meditation on Math Speed

Seth Roberts5 Comments

by Peter Lewis

Background

I’ve been practicing meditation on and off for years. It doesn’t interest me in a spiritual sense; I do it because I think it improves my mental function. However, what I’ve read suggests there isn’t a lot of evidence to support that. For example, John Horgan in Scientific American:

Meditation reportedly reduces stress, anxiety and depression, but it has been linked to increased negative emotions, too. Some studies indicate that meditation makes you hyper-sensitive to external stimuli; others reveal the opposite effect. Brain scans do not yield consistent results, either. For every report of heightened neural activity in the frontal cortex and decreased activity in the left parietal lobe, there exists a contrary result.

From a 2007 meta-analysis of 800+ studies:

Most clinical trials on meditation practices are generally characterized by poor methodological quality with significant threats to validity in every major quality domain assessed.

Most of this research asked questions different than mine. The studies used physical measures like blood pressure, studied complex states like depression and stress, or isolated, low-level “executive functions” like working memory. My question was simpler: Is mediation making me smarter? “Smarter” is a pretty complex thing, so I wanted to start with a broad, intuitive measure. There’s a free app called Math Workout (Android, iPhone) that I’ve been using for years. It has a feature called World Challenge that’s similar to what Seth developed to test his own brain function: it gives you fifty arithmetic problems and measures how fast you solve them. Your time is compared to all other users in the world that day. This competitive element has kept me using it regularly, even though I had no need for better math skills.

Study Design

I only had about a month, so I decided on a 24-day experiment.

Measurement. Every day for the whole experiment, I completed at least four trials with Math Workout: three successive ones in the morning, within an hour of waking up, and at least one later in the day. For each trial, I recorded my time, number of errors and the time of day. Math Workout problems range from 2+2 to squares and roots. The first ten or so are always quite easy and they get more difficult after that, but this seems to be a fixed progression, unrelated to your performance. Examples of difficult problems are 3.7 + 7.3, 93 + 18, 14 * 7, and 12² + √9. If you make a mistake, the screen flashes and you have to try again on the same problem until you get it right. As soon as you answer a problem correctly, the next one appears.

Treatment. I used an ABA design. For the first seven days, I just did the math, with no meditation. (I hadn’t been meditating at all during the 3-4 weeks before the start of the experiment.) For the next ten days, I meditated for at least ten minutes every morning within an hour of waking, and did the three successive math trials immediately afterward. I did a simple breath-counting meditation, similar to what’s described here. The recorded meditations that I gave the other participants were based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program and also focused on awareness of breathing, though without the counting element. The final seven days were a second baseline period, with no meditation.

Before beginning, I posted about this experiment on Facebook, and I was pleasantly surprised to get eleven other volunteers who were willing to follow the same protocol and share their data with me. I set up online spreadsheets for each participant where they could enter their results. I also emailed them a guided ten-minute meditation in mp3 format. It was a fairly simple breathing meditation, secular and non-denominational.

Results

Meditation had a small positive effect. During the meditation period, my average time to correctly answer 50 problems was 75 seconds, compared to 81 during the first baseline — a drop of 7% — and the times also dropped slightly over the ten days (slope of trendline: -0.6 seconds/day). When I stopped meditating, my times trended sharply back up (slope: 1.0 seconds/day) to an average of 78 seconds during the second baseline period. These trends suggest that the effect of meditation increased with time, which is in line with what most meditaters would tell you: the longer you do it consistently, the better it works. My error rates were more flat — from 2.1 errors per 50 correct answers in the first baseline period, to 2.2 during the meditation period and 2.5 during the second baseline — and did not display the same internal trends.

(click on the graph for a larger version)

med_PL_small

Of the other eleven subjects, six of them stuck with the experiment till the end. Their data was messier, because they were new to the app and there’s a big practice effect. Because of this, I was less focused on finding a drop from the first control period to the meditation (which you’d expect anyway from practice) and looking more for an increase in times in the second control period (which you wouldn’t expect to see unless the meditation had been helping).

Taking that into account, three of the six subjects seemed to me to display a similar positive effect to mine. Two I’d call inconclusive, and one showed a clear negative effect. (Here is the data for these other subjects.)

What I Learned

I found these results encouraging. Like Seth, I take this kind of basic math exercise to be a good proxy for general brain function. Anything that makes me better at it is likely to also improve my performance on other mental tasks. As I mentioned above, I’ve been using this particular app for years, and my times plateaued long ago, so finding a new factor that produces a noticeable difference is impressive. An obvious concern is that I was trying harder on the days that I meditated. Since it’s impossible to “blind” subjects as to whether they’ve meditated or not, I can’t think of a perfect way to correct for this. If meditation does make me faster at math, what are the mechanisms? For example, does it improve my speed at processing arithmetic problems, or my speed of recall at the ones that I knew from memory (e.g. times tables), or my decisiveness once I think I have an answer? It felt like the biggest factor was better focus. I wasn’t solving the problems faster so much as cutting down on the fractional seconds of distraction between them.

Improvements

It would have helped to have a longer first control period, as Seth and others advised me before I began. I was scheduled to present my results at this conference and at the time it was only a month away, so I decided to make the best of the time I had. Next time I’ll have a three- or four-week baseline period, especially if I’m including subjects who haven’t meditated before. The single biggest improvement would be to recruit non-meditators to follow the same protocol. Most of the other volunteers, like me, were interested because they were already positively disposed towards meditation as a daily habit. I don’t think they liked the idea of baseline periods when they couldn’t meditate, and this probably contributed to the dropout rate. (If I’d tried to put any of them in a baseline group that never meditated at all and just did math, I doubt any of that group would have finished.) It might be easier to recruit people who already use this app (or other math games) and get them to meditate than vice versa. That would also reduce the practice effect problem, and the effects of meditation might be stronger in people who are doing it for the first time. More difficult math problems might be a more sensitive measure, since I wouldn’t be answering them from memory. Nothing super-complex, just two- or three-digit numbers (253 + 178).

I’m planning to repeat this experiment myself at some point, and I’m also interested in aggregating data from others who do something similar, either in sync with me as above, or on your own timeline and protocol. I’d also appreciate suggestions for how to improve the experimental design.

Comment by Seth

The easiest way to improve this experiment would be to have longer phases. Usually you should run a phase until your measure stops changing and you have collected plenty of data during a steady state. (What “plenty of data” is depends on the strength of the treatment you are studying. Plenty of data might be 5 points or 20 points.) If it isn’t clear how long it will take to reach steady state, deciding in advance the length of a phase is not a good idea.

Another way to improve this experiment would be to do statistical tests that generate p values; this would give a better indication of the strength of the evidence. Because this experiment didn’t reach steady states, the best tests are complicated (e.g., comparison of slopes of fitted lines). With steady-state data, these tests are simple (e.g., comparison of means).

If you are sophisticated at statistics, you could look for a time-of-day effect (are tests later in the day faster?), a day-of-week effect, and so on. If these effects exist, their removal would make the experiment more sensitive. In my brain-function experiments, I use a small number of problems so that I can adjust for problem difficulty. That isn’t possible here.

These comments should not get in the way of noticing that the experiment answered the question Peter wanted to answer. I would follow up these results by studying similar treatments: listening to music for 10 minutes, sitting quietly for 10 minutes, and so on. To learn more about why meditation has an effect. The better you understand that, the better you can use it (make the effect larger, more convenient, and so on).

 

Scrivener for Windows Review

Seth Roberts11 Comments

After hearing several people, including James Fallows (“ the single best bargain ever offered in the software world”), praise Scrivener, a software program for writing, I tried it again. I had tried it a year ago, but there were so many bugs I quickly stopped. There were fewer bugs this time, but my experience was not good.

The free-trial copy says you can use it for “30 non-consecutive days”. I didn’t know what that meant. I was told it means “30 separate days before the trial expires — the trial is measured in “days of use”, rather than elapsed time since installation”. Someone thought that would be clear? I suggest “30 not-necessarily-consecutive days” plus an explanation of what that means.

When I imported material from Microsoft Word — the most common possible import — links were lost. I filed a bug report. I got an answer: “Unfortunately that’s the reality of importing: some information can be lost when you move from one file format to another.” Well, yes, but how about fixing the bug? I asked. In reply, I was told that Scrivener for Windows was the work of one person and that the import software was third-party. “We are constantly striving to find new [import software], and to make improvements on our own, where we can,” said the spokesperson for Scrivener.

I used Scrivener for about two weeks. Then, trying to put a quotation block in my text, I found that particular formatting is not available. It has been a long time since I came across writing software that did not include quotation blocks. The final straw. I went back to Microsoft Word.

In a way, it’s a miracle I lasted two weeks, given the difference in resources invested in Microsoft Word and Scrivener for Windows.

 

 

 

 

Practical Use of Our Liking For Complex Flavors

Seth Roberts4 Comments

People like complex flavors. I suppose this is why I prefer black tea to green tea. My evolutionary explanation is that this preference caused our ancestors to eat more bacteria-laden food. Bacteria make food taste more complex and bacteria-laden food are healthier than bacteria-free food.

Phil Alexander sent me a story from this book that illustrates this preference:

We entered the saloon. Not a customer was there — a very surprising fact, considering that it was New Year’s Eve. The only person in sight was the bartender who paced back and forth in front of the bar like a caged beast.

“Well, whatta you want?” he asked savagely.

“Why, we just want a little New Year’s drink,” I returned. Winterbill was too surprised to say anything.

“Mix ‘em yourself,” the bartender replied. “I’m through with the saloon business.”

“If you feel that way about it,” I said, “why don’t you sell out?”

“Well, the first guy who offers me $300 can have the works.”

Somewhat amused and thinking he must be joking, I retorted, “I’ll give you $300 — provided it includes all your stock, the cash register, and other equipment.”

“Mister, you’ve bought yourself a saloon!” he snapped. “I’ll not only include all the stock and equipment — I’ll throw in a full barrel of whiskey I’ve got in the basement.”

Winterbill now joined in the fun and began to take an inventory.

The owner took off his apron and handed it to me. “Gimme the three hundred bucks.”

I gave him the money, still believing it was a joke. He put the money into his pocket, got his hat and coat and departed. To our complete bewilderment, we found ourselves in the saloon business.

A few minutes later, our first customer came in. He evidently had not made our place his first stop. I hurriedly put the apron over my evening clothes and asked for his order.

“Martini,” he said in a thick voice.

“Martini,” I repeated to Winterbill.

“Stall him!” Winterbill whispered.

“Coming right up,” I told the customer. He didn’t mind waiting. He was at the stage where he wanted to talk and so proceeded to do.

Meanwhile Winterbill racked his brain, for he had only the vaguest idea how to mix a Martini. He finally settled upon a recipe. He put a dash of everything from the numerous bottles behind the bar into one drink. I stirred it up and handed it to the customer. We watched anxiously while he drank it down.

“That was good!” he exclaimed. “Best Martini I ever tasted. Mix me another.”

Again Winterbill started to mix.

“How do you feel?” I inquired, none too sure of the consequences.

“Me?” asked the customer. “Fine. Never felt better in my life.”

He didn’t show any bad results after the second drink, and we both were relieved. As time went on more customers came in. They ordered whiskey sours, Manhattans, and Martinis. Winterbill had just one formula and that’s what he gave them all. Nobody complained.

. . . By the time we closed that night we had taken in more than the whole outfit cost us!

Better Balance and Gums From Flaxseed Oil

Seth Roberts12 Comments

When I took flaxseed oil capsules for reasons connected with the Shangri-La Diet, I noticed, to my surprise, that my balance improved. The next time I saw my dentist, he told me that my gums were much better. A reader of this blog named Chuck Currie has noticed the same things.

I ran across a reference to your book again which led me to your website. And, like I said, from there to Mark Sisson and all the rest.

I had already ran across information about flax oil and cholesterol and heart health. So I started taking two tablespoons a day [of flaxseed oil] – morning and night. I noticed my balance improvement while doing yoga, but thought it was due to practice. After reading several paleo blogs, I switched to fish oil – one table spoon a day in the morning. Then after reading some other studies regarding possible negative effects of over-consumption of fish oil, I stopped that also.

During this time I really became a strict paleo/primal eater and exerciser. No carbs other than leafy greens and non-starchy vegs. No more chronic cardio. Stopped swimming due to shoulder issues. Started using kettlebells and body weight tabata exercise. Went back and forth on supplementation. My weight dropped to below 120. [He’s 5 feet 8 inches tall.]

I was getting totally confused on what was legit and what was BS. Sure I lost weight, but I must have looked sick because people were asking if I was all right. I think they thought I had cancer or AIDS. I felt great though. No more 2 o’clock naps and I slept great. Then I read Kurt Harris’s 2.0 blog and that set me straight – and straight back to your blog.

It made me think, OK what works on the individual level, not the hypothesis level. I had also noticed that my balance had deteriorated (I thought it was because I stopped doing yoga) and my gums were bleeding again – I had forgotten that they had stopped bleeding. [After he switched from flaxseed oil to fish oil, his balance slowly got worse.] Sort of back to basics. Sun, lots of it, or D3 – 10,000 units (I am sitting in the sun as I type this on my iPhone). Omega 3 – your posts about flax oil made sense – [sudden release of short-chain omega-3 causes] slow release [of long-chain omega-3] – and is more sustainable than cold water fish and fish oil. Magnesium at night for better sleep and muscle cramps. (when I first went full paleo, I suffered from terrible leg cramps during the night until I found magnesium). And extra butter – beyond cooking with it.

I tested the flax/balance question by continuing to not practice yoga or any other balancing exercises and [measure my balance] just using my ability to wash my feet in the shower without leaning against the wall – which had been my normal habit before my first improvement and then again when it went away. After about a week – perfect balance – both washing and drying my feet. Also, no gum bleeding. So as some would say, “the shit works”.

[He added later:] I can definitely say, with a high degree of confidence, that my balance is not as good when taking fish oil as it is when taking flax oil. Fish oil does provide a small improvement over not supplementing any omega-3. But the big improvement comes with flax oil.

Earwax Transplant Story

Seth Roberts5 Comments

I think this actually happened:

A man came to the [University of Pittsburgh] clinic with a chronic infection in his left ear. He told doctors that other doctors had tried everything: anti-fungal drops, antibiotics, and many other treatments. The Pittsburgh doctors gave him additional antibiotics. The patient came back to the clinic a week later and said he was cured. The clinic doctors told him they were glad they had helped him. He said: “You didn’t. I suffered so much after your drugs I took some earwax from my right ear and put it in my diseased left. In two days I was fine, infection cured.” . . . The good ear contained good bacteria that killed off the bad in the bad ear.

I predict that people will eventually realize that the 2005 Nobel Prize for “ulcers are caused by bacteria” was a big mistake.

Thanks to Mark Griffith.

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts1 Comment

Thanks to Paul Nash and Adam Clemens.

Omega-6 is Bad For You

Seth Roberts14 Comments

For a long time, nutrition experts have told us to replace saturated fats (solid at room temperature) with polyunsaturated fats (liquid at room temperature). One polyunsaturated fat is omega-6. Omega-6 is found in large amounts in corn oil, soybean oil, and most other vegetable oils (flaxseed oil is the big exception). According to Eat Drink and Be Healthy (2001) by Walter Willett (and “co-developed with the Harvard School of Public Health”), “replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats is a safe, proven, and delicious way to cut the rates of heart disease” (p. 71). “Plenty of proof for the benefits of unsaturated fats” says a paragraph heading (p. 71). Willett failed to distinguish between omega-3 and omega-6.

A recent study in the BMJ shows how wrong Willett (and thousands like him) were. This study began with the assumption that omega-3 and omega-6 might have different effects, so it was a good idea to try to measure the effect of omega-6 separately.

They reanalyzed data from a study done in Sydney Australia from 1966 to 1973.The study had two groups: (a) a group of men not told to change their diet and (b) a group of men told to eat more omega-6 by eating more safflower oil (and reducing saturated fat intake, keeping overall fat intake roughly constant). The hope was that the change would reduce heart disease, as everyone said.

As these studies go, it was relatively small, only about 500 subjects. The main results:

Compared with the control group, the intervention group had an increased risk of all cause mortality (17.6% v 11.8% [emphasis added]; hazard ratio 1.62 (95% confidence interval 1.00 to 2.64); P=0.051), cardiovascular mortality (17.2% v 11.0%; 1.70 (1.03 to 2.80); P=0.037), and mortality from coronary heart disease (16.3% v 10.1%; 1.74 (1.04 to 2.92); P=0.036).

A 50% increase in death rate! The safflower oil was so damaging that even this small study yielded significant differences.

The authors go on to show that this result (omega-6 is bad for you) is supported by other studies. Walter Willett and countless other experts were quite wrong on the biggest health issue of our time (how to reduce heart disease, the #1 cause of death).