The Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists

Nutritionism is (a rather pejorative) term which describes the idea that it's an individual nutrient, not food, that is healthy, and that effectively 'good' and 'bad' nutrients exist. While scientifically recognised experts in diet and nutrition exist in many countries (usually referred to as 'dieticians'), nutritionists are unregulated and may be self-taught.

If it is not a recognised science, and therefore not subject to scientific rigor and peer-review. is it therefore acceptable to refer to nutritionism as pseudoscience? Ben Goldacre (author of Bad Science) argues that is is. In this two-part podcast he investigates the rise of the celebrity lifestyle nutritionist and argues that the advice they give may be dangerous and in some cases fraudulent:

episode 1
episode 2

In Defense of 'Useless Knowledge'

I had a conversation with my head teacher a while ago in which he told me his thoughts about how the education system is likely to evolve in the near future. He feels that education is moving away from the learning of facts and more towards the development of skills. This is perhaps undeniable - for example TOK itself is supposed to develop the skills of critical thinking rather than rote learning. Eventually the role of the teacher (at least in the way we understand it today) may become redundant. Knowledge is so easily accessible today that it is becoming externalised (specifically to the internet). This means that students are becoming freer to concentrate on subjects that interest them or those which will be more useful in their chosen career.

A few interesting things occur to me here. Firstly, the externalisation of knowledge is reminiscent of European society prior to the Renaissance. At that time, the population at large was happy to leave (religious) knowledge in the hands of the Church, and in a previous post I discussed how St. Thomas Aquinas was instrumental in changing this and introducing the basic ideas of scientific thinking. Does acceptance that general knowledge should be left in the hands of others really therefore represent progress? After all, many teachers would say they are currently fighting a losing battle against insidious 'wikipediaism'. Secondly, will the society of the future be made of people with very specific skills but very little general knowledge? At the very least, that would certainly make games of trivial pursuit rather boring.

My feeling is that total dependence on skills-based education could lead to diminishing the enjoyment of learning for its own sake (although perhaps this is a bit extreme). I also have given some consideration to the idea of how we decide what knowledge is 'useful' or 'useless' for our students (or perhaps whether there is such a thing as 'useless knowledge'). This reminded me of an essay by Bertrand Russell, which I've reproduced below. Interestingly, he worries about the pressure that society at that time was putting on students to learn skills rather than gain knowledge. Upon reading, it does appear dated now (he published it in 1935). He consistently refers to the education of 'boys' rather than 'children' and his representations of women come across as a little sexist. He defends the assimilation of knowledge for its own sake, the satisfaction that learning brings and the dangers that a lack of knowledge pose in a society. It is, of course, a product of the time in which Russell was writing - Europe had been through a World War less than a generation before, and Nazism was on the rise. Russell was a pacifist (at that time) and a fervent opponent of Nazism. He felt that the rise of Hitler and increased militarism was brought about by lack of knowledge within the German populace.

I came across a nice anonymous quotation recently which is relevant here:

'[Specialistists are] people who know more and more about less and less, until they know all about nothing.'

from A Short History of Everything, by Ronald Wright, Carroll and Graff (2005).

Bertrand Russell - Useless Knowledge 

Sylvia Browne

Sylvia Browne (1936-) is a self-styled psychic and spiritual medium. She used to appear regularly on the Montel Williams Show where she gave audience members advice on subjects such as love, finances and missing family members. She seems to have been remarkably unsuccessful when it comes to locating missing people - In 2010 the Skeptical Inquirer Magazine analysed the 115 predictions she made on Montel Williams and claimed her success rate to be precisely zero.

Despite this, she has remained one of the US's most high profile psychics (together with James van Praagh) with a huge number of followers and admirers. However, this week she is facing her biggest challenge, and a considerable backlash on social media following the escape of Amanda Berry from her abductors ten years after she was kidnapped (together with two other women - Gina deJesus and Michelle Knight, and Amanda's own daughter). Browne told Louwana Miller, the mother of Amanda Berry, on the TV show 'She's not alive, honey. Your daughter's not the kind who wouldn't call'. Louwana Miller died in 2006 unaware that her daughter was still alive.

James Randi has been a constant critic of Sylvia Browne and consistently states that belief in psychic readings is dangerous. I think psychics are largely immune from criticism since there is a general feeling that their predictions can't do any harm and may in fact be useful. Randi argues that they prey on the vulnerable and naive and may lead people to come to false conclusions which may be damaging to individuals and families. He makes this claim in the podcast below, recorded for CBC Radio:

Philosophy Postcards

As tweeted by Richard van de Lagemaat on his TOK Tweet this week, here is a series of images by graphic designer Genís Carrerasin in which he uses simple images to describe many philosophical concepts covered in TOK. In describing his work, Carrerasin says “I wanted to make philosophy look better, to feel more contemporary and relevant. For me shapes and colors are a way to communicate, a way that can break through language and age barriers. As a graphic designer, this is the only way I knew.”

Best viewed full screen in order to make out the written definitions.

Tok postcards from Michael Smith

Conspiracy Theories

An article in Scientific American this week looks at the reasons why some people are so ready to believe in conspiracy theories, even if they contradict each other. Similarly to articles I've posted previously, the author suggests that a willingness to believe in such ideas correlate with a mistrust of science (and western politics). It also appears that some apparently outlandish ideas are a lot more mainstream than you might think, with 37 percent of Americans believing that global warming is a hoax, 21 percent believing in a US government cover up of alien existence and 28 percent believing in a secret elite conspiring to take over the world.

Moon Landing Faked 

Knowledge and Responsibility

As hideous as the ongoing Lance Armstrong debacle has been, it has provided some interesting talking points in terms of TOK. His recent confession to drug use throughout his career has led to his fans retrospectively reassessing their knowledge of him and his achievements.

He was especially vehement when attacking those who questioned his reputation, and wrote two (fraudulent) autobiographies: It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life (2000) and Every Second Counts (2003). Until he was forced into his confession he and his supporters denied that he was guilty of any wrongdoing, and now he is undergoing an agonising and embarrassing fall from the heights of fame and adulation.

As reported in the article below, Armstrong is now facing a class action lawsuit in the U.S., brought by disenchanted fans who bought his books. This poses questions about the extent to which those who disseminate false information are ethically, legally and financially responsible for it.

There are some parallels with the story of the scientists and government official in Italy who were found guilty of manslaughter in 2012 after failing to accurately predict an earthquake in the village of L'Aquila. However, they disseminated false information unknowingly, while Armstrong was all too aware that he was doing so knowingly.

Lance Armstrong

Scepticism

Scepticism, or skepticism (if you are in the U.S.), derives from the Greek work skeptomai, which means to think or consider. It is generally used to denote doubt or incredulity about particular ideas, or a wider view about the impossibility of having certain knowledge. This uncertainty is a philosophical position, and philosophical scepticism refers to the systematic doubt and testing of ideas.

Recently, sceptics (or skeptics) have become synonymous with two particular groups of people: those who doubt the accepted scientific consensus (for instance "climate change sceptics") and those who question these questioners (James Randi, for example, refers to himself as a skeptic). It's interesting that two completely disparate sets of thinkers could give themselves the same label.

In this (rather long) podcast a group of academics discus the philosophical origins and importance of scepticism in developing knowledge and belief.

Why Do We Mistrust Science?

Asking James Randi

The End of the World is Nigh

One of the most widely held but irrational beliefs around today is that the apocalypse is just around the corner. Hopefully some TOK students will still be around after December 21st of this year, when the Mayan calendar allegedly predicts the end of the world (this appears, incidentally, to be a misconception based on the fact that one counting period is due to end and another to begin), and this post might actually get a few hits. If we do survive, I confidently predict that most doom-mongers will simply explain the miscalculation away, switch to a different date and continue to prepare for the worst.

It appears to me that beliefs like this are ingrained in many people due to an unconscious (or perhaps conscious) feeling that they exist only to be witness to something truly extraordinary at some point in their lives (known as religious 'solipsism'). Perhaps this is a by-product of  our evolutionary past, allowing us to value our own survival (or maybe just an indication of a big ego). However something weird is at work in cases like this where huge numbers of people ignore reason in favour of blind belief. Some kind of backlash against scientific evidence and authority also seems to be at work; so much so, that with approximately a quarter of the American public believing that the world will end during their lifetime, NASA has decided to publish a document to refute their claims.

The tortured logic of some apocalyptic claims is actually quite amusing (especially where 'scientific evidence' appears to be cherry-picked to support them). As always, a quote by my favourite blogger, Ben Goldacre, is appropriate here: "...You can't reason people out of positions they didn't reason themselves into" (Bad Science, Harper Collins, London, 2009). In the clip below, American radio evangelist Harold Camping predicts the end of the world on May 21st, 2011. This came after he had incorrectly prophesied the End on two previous occasions:

I think its a childish character trait of mine, but I really enjoy making predictions that come true and then being able to tell people "I told you so". While correctly predicting the apocalypse would be the ultimate 'I told you so' moment, it's unfortunate that there would be nobody around to actually say this to. And if the world doesn't end on December 21st, 2012... well, I told you so.

Our Obsession With the Apocalypse

Can Eating Chocolate Help You to Win a Nobel Prize?

Here's a nice example that shows that just because something correlates statistically it doesn't necessarily mean that a relationship actually exists. New York cardiologist Dr. Franz Messerli found a correlation between the consumption of chocolate and the number of Nobel Prizes awarded to a country. However, he doesn't claim that one is related to the other.

This shows that even correctly applied statistics can give false conclusions and perhaps that over-reliance on statistical trends can be flawed.

Chocolate Consumption and Nobel Prizes

Complementary and Alternative Medicine

The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) has made it its mission to expose what it considers to be fraudulent or misleading behaviour by people in positions of influence and power. In his most famous cases, Randi turned his own attention to faith healers, and in particular Peter Popoff.

Recently the JREF has focused on practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). This has become a hot topic in the UK, where healthcare is publicly funded through the National Health Service (NHS). Despite vocal opposition by the British Medical Association, many medical practices now offer alternative treatments such as acupuncture or homeopathy and homeopathic hospitals have been founded in London, Liverpool and Bristol.

The British government currently provides financial support for alternative therapies amounting to around £4 million per year (source The British Homeopathic Association), and many argue that this is a good deal in terms of the perceived benefits. There is significant celebrity endorsement of CAM, and Prince Charles has been particularly outspoken on the issue. There exists, however, no credible scientific and statistically significant evidence that CAM works any better than placebo (as reported exhaustively by Dr. Ben Goldacre in his Bad Science blog).

Many people would say that it is an individual's right to believe what they like, and even if these beliefs turn out to be based on untruths they may still be sources of comfort, especially in times of distress (a relativistic point of view). The placebo effect is powerful and little understood and therefore it could also be argued that it is beneficial to allow or even encourage people to maintain their existing beliefs, particularly in relation to their own health. This does sound somewhat patronising, however, and is suggestive of willful support of public ignorance.

In the article below, Dr. Steven Novella (member of the JREF and clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine) proposes that CAM should be considered not just to have no medical merit but to be actively dangerous to public health. He discusses a real life situation in which a woman with a cancerous growth decided to consult a practitioner of alternative rather than conventional medicine.
Is It Dangerous to Believe in CAM?

How the Brain Develops

Glossary of Philosophy

Enlightenment Rationalism Empiricism The Encyclopaedists Analytic synthetic distinction Logic Determinism Kant	Romanticism Rousseau Schelling and Coleridge Hegel Idealism Vs. Materialism Hegel's Dialectics Marx's Dialectical Materialism Schopenhauer & Nietzsche	Analytic Philosophy Bertrand Russell Wittgenstein: Tractatus Wittgenstein: Language Games The Private Language Argument Richard Rorty Timeline	Existentialism Kierkegaard: The solitary wanderer Martin Heidegger Edmund Husserl Sartre: Existence precedes essence Albert Camus
God Proofs of God's Existence: Argument from design Ontological argument Cosmological argument Pascal's Wager Kierkegaard Marx Nietzsche The Death of God	Mind Plato Aristotle Leibniz Epiphenomenalism Dualism Descartes Identity Theory Spinoza Behaviourism Ryle Ghost in the machine	Natural Science Popper Kuhn Feyerabend Science in the post- modern world	Moral philosophy Kant's Categorical Imperative Utilitarianism Nietzsche: The genealogy of morals Sartre and Bad Faith

Dawkins on Darwin

In this podcast for the James Randi Educational Foundation, Richard Dawkins discusses his affinity with Charles Darwin and the importance of the theory of evolution by natural selection in modern science. He comments on his ideas of the development of morality in humans through evolutionary principles, which I have posted about previously. He does, of course, also discuss his atheism and views on religious belief.

In Defense of Sesquipedalians

In this (very short) podcast, author Will Self sets out his point of view that falling standards and expectations in arts and humanities education, together with our increasing desire to gain knowledge without intellectual rigour or effort are leading to the slow death of western culture. He feels we should embrace the intellectual challenge of 'difficult' books and art, and value works which are more taxing than our increasingly low-brow popular culture. On the way, he also has a few choice words to say about the work of Damien Hirst.

Incidentally, I was interested to see that the word 'sesquipedalian', as used by Self, is not recognised by the spell-checker either in Blogger or Microsoft Word.

Misunderstandings of science lead to pseudoscience

In this article for the Wall Street Journal blog, Professor Brian Cox of the University of Manchester explains how people who adhere to pseudoscientific beliefs often do so because of a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific results. It reminds me of a quote from Ben Goldacre (applicable to all the areas of knowledge): "You can't reason people out of positions they didn't reason themselves into". (Bad Science, Harper Collins, London, 2009).

Brian Cox - Why Quantum Theory is Misunderstood

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274) was one of the greatest thinkers in European History. He was a Dominican priest who believed that the ideas of Aristotle should be applied to Catholic teaching. Aristotle sought to develop a universal method of reasoning through which it would be possible to learn everything there is to know about reality. Thomas Aquinas tried to apply these same ideas to the understanding of religion. He felt that it was possible for a person to accept religious teachings by faith alone, but he also asserted that theology is a science in which careful application of reason can yield observable proofs of knowledge. He taught that individuals could come to know God through scientific study of the Universe - a revolutionary idea in a medieval world in which the average person was happy to leave knowledge in the hands of the clergy. He could be credited with forcing the Church to come to terms with allowing common people access to religious knowledge. In doing so, he perhaps also became one of the founding fathers of scientific thinking.

In this BBC podcast, a group of historians, philosophers and educators discuss his legacy:

Peter Popoff

Here is James Randi's take on the question I raised in my previous post - can faith healers like Peter Popoff be potentially dangerous?

James Randi

James Randi is a Canadian-American magician and sceptic. He is best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. He began his magic career as "The Amazing Randi", but after retiring from the stage at age 60, he began investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, and has become best known as a "debunker" (He prefers not to use this term, and instead calls himself an "investigator"). He has written numerous books about pseudoscience, so-called psychics and those he regards as frauds and hoaxers.

Since the 1970s he has offered the "James Randi Educational Foundation Prize" (now standing at 1 million US dollars) to anyone who can prove they possess psychic powers under controlled testing. To date, nobody has been able to claim this reward. He has been the defendant in a number of high profile court cases (particularly involving Uri Geller), where various self-proclaimed psychics have claimed that he has defamed them (similarly to Simon Singh's case). He claims never to have paid any money in damages, although he does admit that defending himself has cost him a considerable sum of money over the years.

In this clip he talks about his writing, his TV appearances, his battles with Uri Geller and (particularly interestingly, I thought) his exposure as a fraud of American faith healer Peter Popoff.



It strikes me watching this that if people truly believe something, then very often, no amount of evidence to the contrary will dissuade them (belief can be stronger than knowledge). This is obvious when you consider that despite having had to admit his fraud and subsequently declaring bankruptcy, Peter Popoff is rebuilding his career, and judging by his new and flashy website, has rebuilt his following. Of course, it could be argued that Popoff is targeting a vulnerable section of society - and he is a powerful speaker in some ways. It has also been suggested to me that perhaps his "act" helped some people, confirmed their faith, and maybe in some ways healed them (sometimes physically). After all, the placebo effect is a powerful phenomena and not well understood. [Admittedly, I wrote this last part before I saw footage of one of Popoff's shows in which he encouraged members of his audience to come up to the stage and throw away their medication!]

It is interesting to watch some of Randi's earlier appearances on TV. In the following clip he meets psychic performer James Hydrick in what appears to be an 1980s version of the X-factor. Hydrick attempted to claim the Randi Foundation Prize, but mysteriously under controlled conditions his powers deserted him (as they often seem to do with psychic performers). Hydrick later admitted that his act was a simple trick that he learned in prison:

Knowledge and belief

... or when does belief become knowledge: