In Defense of Replication Studies

There’s been a recent fluttering of activity on the Internet about a paper written by Harvard social psychologist Jason Mitchell, the full text of which can be read here: http://wjh.harvard.edu/~jmitchel/writing/failed_science.htm.  The crux of the issue seems to be that Dr. Mitchell apparently sees little value in replication studies or in the publication of negative results, a noted and alarming inverse of the current trend among reputable scientists to decry the lack of those very types of publications in most major journals for reasons I will discuss briefly (though by no means completely) in this response.

Dr. Mitchell received his B.A. and M.S. from Yale and his Ph.D. from Harvard, and is now a professor of psychology at Harvard where he is the principal investigator at the University’s Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab (http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~scanlab/people.html).  I say this to point out that Dr. Mitchell’s credentials appear impeccable, at least on paper.  He’s a professor at one of the world’s most prestigious universities (though the merit of such prestige in education is often called into question, that is a discussion for another day), and appears to have a consistent flow of publications in the scientific literature, much of which, though I am completely unfamiliar with his work beyond this single paper in question, appears to be of significant interest.  Having established those credentials, the duty now falls upon my shoulders to convince you that despite an apparently productive career in social science, Dr. Mitchell appears never to have received even the most rudimentary education on the basics of the scientific method, either through oversight on the parts of his instructors or, more likely, inattention on Dr. Mitchell’s part during those key lectures.

It is strongly recommended that you either read Dr. Mitchell’s paper, “On the emptiness of failed replications” in its entirety before returning to this document or that you read it alongside this discussion so that his argument can be made to you in his own words.  I would not wish to be accused of misrepresenting his argument.  Nevertheless, I will proceed through the article point-by-point, providing significant commentary along the way and quoting the source material, though sparingly, so as to provide direct refutations.

Dr. Mitchell’s article begins with a bullet-pointed listing of six postulates, each one of which is dead wrong.  I will attempt my exploration of the faults in Dr. Mitchell’s paper by examining each of these points in turn.  The bulk of the paper is simply Dr. Mitchell’s supporting arguments and evidence (such as they are) for these six points.  As such, the bulk of the paper, though not often directly quoted here, will be addressed under the headings of the six claims.

1) “Recent hand-wringing over failed replications in social psychology is largely pointless, because unsuccessful experiments have no meaningful scientific value.”

Several years ago, I had a chance encounter on the Internet with a gentleman who was pursuing his doctorate in applied physics, specializing in acoustics.  We became acquainted through commentary on my girlfriend’s page on a social media website during a discussion of evolutionary science and creationist dogma, during which debate this gentleman revealed that, despite his scientific training, he was a young earth creationist and that, further, he believed physics supported his position.  Amongst his misunderstandings were claims that because the Sun is burning up, it should be getting smaller, and a belief that Einstein’s theory of special relativity suggests that as an object approaches the speed of light, it loses mass (when in reality, objects approaching light-speed approach infinite mass).  I mention this frustrating conversation because until now, it was the greatest misunderstanding of science I have ever heard from someone claiming any degree of professional training in the sciences.  Dr. Mitchell has the dubious honor of having surpassed that creationist’s achievement.  This creationist, at least, made a show of doing real science and claiming the evidence supported his argments (however misguided those claims were).  Dr. Mitchell’s approach to science, if I dare call it an approach to science, appears to suggest that any study failing to confirm the experimenter’s hypothesis is useless.

For those of you who aren’t already either rolling off your chair in fits of uncontrollable laughter at Dr. Mitchell’s expense or banging your head against your desk in frustration for much the same reason, I will pause for a moment to explain the ludicrousness of Dr. Mitchell’s position (and offer the promise of further hilarity to follow).

To begin with, the “hand-wringing” as Dr. Mitchell dismissively refers to a growing collective concern amongst scientists, is very well-deserved.  If you follow the scientific world, you may have heard of something called “publication bias.”  The idea is that journals tend to like to publish positive results of exciting experiments because those grab headlines and help sell the publication to professional readers.  There’s nothing particularly evil about this on its face, except when you realize that replication is a key part of the scientific process for reasons we’ll discuss in greater depth later on (but it basically comes down to being sure that a published result wasn’t just a phantom due to random chance or experimenter error), and that these replication studies (being the “un-sexy” sort of work that just sets out to question or to establish the credibility of previously published work) find extremely limited venues for their publication.  When they are published, and there is certainly no guarantee they will be, it is often in obscure journals that fail to reach even a sizeable fraction of the readership of the original paper.  The result of this, concern over which is dismissed by Dr. Mitchell as “pointless” and “hand-wringing,” is that erroneous papers which reach publication (yes, despite all the best efforts, erroneous information does get published either due to oversight or, rarer, deliberate misrepresentation of research in order to get published) may wait a considerably long time before they are corrected--if, indeed, they are ever corrected.  This means there is a distinct possibility (nay: probability) that some indeterminate amount of the information accepted into the body of scientific knowledge is wrong.

None of this is intended to cast doubt upon science as a method of knowing. Indeed, the scientific method, when properly applied, is specifically designed to avoid just this sort of situation.  The problem we currently face with the issue of publication bias in the sciences is not a problem with the science, but with the politics that have come to dominate within the halls of academia, and to which science unfortunately often takes a backseat in the minds of the administrators who perpetuate the problem.  This, however, is not intended to be a referendum on politics in academia, but a discussion of the flaws with Dr. Mitchell’s little paper, so I will refrain from heading down the rabbit hole (some might call it a black hole) of academic politics.

Even if replication studies were not of any importance, however--even if Dr. Mitchell’s apparent assumption that original research is always flawless were completely and undeniably true--there would still be much to find fault with in just this first bullet point.  He claims that “unsuccessful experiments have no meaningful scientific value.”  There is a bit of an ambiguity in that statement, and the Principle of Charity would compel me to address the best possible interpretation of his claim.  I will do so, though I will then explore the more troubling interpretation because I actually believe the more troubling interpretation to be the interpretation Dr. Mitchell originally intended.

The ambiguity has to do with the phrase “unsuccessful experiments.”  By that does Dr. Mitchell mean an experiment which has been compromised by error?  Or does he mean an experiment which yields negative results?

Let us examine the former.  If he does indeed mean to discuss experiments which have gone wrong, and yielded inaccurate information due to some experimental error (or even chance fluctuations), then he is arguably correct (though barely so) in suggesting that these experiments have no meaningful scientific value.  The problem, however, is that by conflating this statement with a condemnation of replication studies, he betrays an assumption that original research is always performed with greater accuracy than replication studies.  To be sure, this is sometimes the case.  I am by no means suggesting that a replication study is of greater merit than its predecessor.  What I am saying, and what I believe any competent scientist would say, is that when two studies show up with contradictory results, it indicates that at least one of them contains some kind of error.  It is then for the scientific community to conduct further examination (whether that is a closer reexamination of the data or a completely new experiment) in order to determine which.  Certainly it is of scientific value to determine which of two contradictory studies is invalid, even if that means we then determine that this particular study is completely invalid and without value.  Unless we assume the infallibility of original research, these negative replication studies do provide scientific value because they help us to determine which of the original studies need to be reexamined.  Furthermore, even completely failed experiments often lead scientists to explore new, previously unconsidered hypotheses, so there is indirect scientific value in that way as well.

I do not, however, suspect that this is what Dr. Mitchell intended to say.  Rather, it is my assumption, based on phrasing later in the article equating the term “scientific failure” with “an experiment [that] is expected to yield certain results, and yet… fails to do so,” that Dr. Mitchell means an “unsuccessful experiment” to refer to any experiment which fails to support the researcher’s hypothesis.  This is a much more troubling interpretation of his words, however, for two primary reasons.

The first, and arguably less important (though it is of particular importance to me personally as a student of not only the practice but the philosophy of science) problem with this statement is that it equates the negative result with a failure. Yes, we all become attached to our pet hypotheses, but a negative experiment, if viewed through the proper lens of pure scientific inquiry, is not a failure. It is a monumental success, for it has shown that the experimenter’s assumptions had been incorrect. There is something else at work. There is something new to learn. Issac Asimov famously said that “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka’ but ‘That's funny....’” What he meant by that is that true scientific discovery stems not from experiments that confirm what we already suspect to be true, but from those that show us there is something entirely unexpected, just waiting to be discovered. Science would be a sorry practice indeed if we all just went around trying desperately to prove ourselves right without the slightest consideration that there might be more to the universe that we suspected. And so it is the negative experimental result which often leads us in those unexpected but fruitful paths upon which the most profound discoveries are made. Surely Dr. Mitchell is familiar with this philosophical approach to pure scientific inquiry, but his paper gives no indication of it.

Of greater significance is the fact that, putting philosophy aside, his statement is just plain wrong. Negative results are of great “meaningful scientific value.” Science is as much about figuring out what isn’t so as it is about figuring out what is. Indeed, the very essence of the scientific method, apparently taught more thoroughly to fifth-grade science fair competitors than to Harvard researchers, is the practice of formulating testable hypotheses and then attempting to falsify them in order to determine the likelihood of their accuracy. The hypothesis that is not falsified may be tentatively accepted as true (though subject, much to Dr. Mitchell’s apparent displeasure, to further testing and review), while the hypothesis that is falsified is discarded so the scientist may move on to more fruitful pastures. This is the most basic principle of scientific research, and to have to explain it in a paper in response to a credentialed professor at a prestigious center of learning is troublesome to say the least. Negative experimental results indicate falsified hypotheses. Yes, false negatives can occur, so it is worth replicating even negative results, but that certainly doesn’t mean they’re of no scientific value.

Perhaps Dr. Mitchell or someone of his opinion would counter by saying something along the lines of, “Well, that’s all very good, but it’s not important to publish the negative findings. Falsified results may direct a researcher away from a point of inquiry, but are of no value to the larger community in and of themselves.” Obviously this is not so. Knowing of work that has not been supported is valuable to the scientific community at large for precisely the same reason it is important to the individual researcher: it helps us to direct further research. Even putting aside scientific curiosity and a drive to understand the world as much as we possibly can, there is a very good economic reason to desire greater publication of negative results. Grant money is notoriously hard to come by. Even Dr. Mitchell makes a nod toward this fact when he writes, “Science is a tough place to make a living. Our experiments fail much of the time, and even the best scientists meet with a steady drum of rejections from journals, grant panels, and search committees.” This is all very true, and having it spelled out in Dr. Mitchell’s own essay saves me the trouble of having to make exactly the same point in opposition to his thesis. Science is, as Dr. Mitchell says, a tough business. It is very difficult to get grant money. The more involved the work, the more difficult it is to fund. This is Economics 101. So why, oh why, should we want to endlessly reinvent the wheel? Replication studies are essential to avoid both false positives and false negatives, but they are specifically designed as replications. Imagine if Scientist A falsifies his hypothesis after ten years of hard work and then, either by choice or because publications shy away from such things, his work is not published. Later, Scientist B stumbles upon a similar (or identical) hypothesis. She then applies for and receives a grant to look into it. She spends her six-figures of grand money and ten years of her life, and finds an identical result. Had Scientist A published his findings, she might never have made the investment.

Make no mistake, if Scientist B wishes to conduct the study as a replication study, she is well-advised to do so.  Replication is essential.  It’s very possible that Scientist A made some mistake in his original experiment, and Scientist B might be able to correct that mistake.  However, such replications become meaningless when negative results are never published.  This view that negative results are of no scientific value dooms generations of scientists to endlessly follow the same dead-end trails.  It slows scientific progress, costs millions of dollars of grant money which could be better spent elsewhere, and wastes the productive time of countless scientists.  Let’s not pretend we have an overabundance of qualified scientists, either.  Every man-hour is precious, especially in a world where so much of the general population is far more content to spend their lives watching television than working in a laboratory.

I will close this discussion of Dr. Mitchell’s first bullet-point (oh yes, we still have five more of his inane bullet-points, plus several points from the main body of the article to get through before we draw this discussion to an end) with a personal story.  Some years back, I was asked to participate as a judge for a local private school’s science fair, a duty I was happy to perform.  While wandering from presentation to presentation with my fellow judges, I noticed something of a trend amongst the entries.  Namely, most were very traditional (one might be tempted to say clichéd) science fair projects.  This is not less than one would expect from a school limited to kindergarten through eighth grade, so I did not judge particularly harshly, but I did make a mental note that for many of the students, the science fair was about producing a flashy display.  There was a remote controlled robot or two, several volcanoes, and many presentations along those lines.  The quality of display was occasionally impressive, but there was very little science actually being done.  Then I happened across one of the last entries of the day.  It was from a student whose family had recently immigrated from Mexico.  His English, though far more impressive than my Spanish would be given a similar amount of time to study, was extremely limited, and his family had very little money with which to purchase supplies, but he wanted to enter the science fair nonetheless.  Unable to afford flashy props, he did a simple experiment.  He filled basketballs to various levels of air pressure to determine which was the most bouncy.  He hypothesized that the fullest ball would be the bounciest.  To test this, he filled one ball to regulation pressure, overfilled one, and underfilled another.  He found, contrary to his hypothesis, that the medium-filled ball was actually the bounciest.  Granted, this was not a rigorously controlled scientific experiment that would be worthy of publication in even the most lenient of journals.  However, this student was the only one of the many entries to actually do real science.  He conducted a proper experiment, achieved a result that did not support his hypothesis, and wrote up his display (with his teacher’s help to get his English right) to tell us all about what he had found.  I do not recall the results of the science fair once all the judges’ scores were compiled, but he received my highest marks.  If he had taken Dr. Mitchell’s postulate that “failed” experiments are of no scientific value to heart, that would never have taken place.

2) “Because experiments can be undermined by a vast number of practical mistakes, the likeliest explanation for any failed replication will always be that the replicator bungled something along the way.  Unless direct replications are conducted by flawless experimenters, nothing interesting can be learned from them.”

Upon reading this statement, I withheld some hope that clarification would be forthcoming in the body of the text; clarification that might serve to negate the glaring oversight in Dr. Mitchell’s claim.  Indeed, further clarification was provided, but instead of negating his error, Dr. Mitchell doubled down on his mistake.

Lest I get ahead of myself as I explore this idea (albeit in much briefer terms than the previous point), allow me to bludgeon you, dear reader, with the obvious: Dr. Mitchell fails to account for the fact that the replicator may be a more skilled experimenter than the scientist who produced the original finding.

Dr. Mitchell is correct about one thing in this analysis.  It is clearly possible that the replicator might have “bungled something along the way.”  It happens.  As humans, we err.  This is undeniable and hardly worth pointing out.  Except, it seems that Dr. Mitchell struggles not only with the philosophical side of science, but also with the self-evident traits of humanity.  Certainly, this is a forgivable oversight, however.  He is, after all, only a scientist working in a discipline dedicated to understanding the traits of humanity.  But I digress.

The problem is that the statement can easily be reversed.  Let me give it a try: “Because experiments can be undermined by a vast number of practical mistakes, the likeliest explanation for any positive experimental result will always be that the researcher bungled something along the way.  Unless original research is conducted by flawless experimenters, nothing interesting can ever be learned from it.”  If that sounds to you like absolute garbage, you are absolutely correct.  Dr. Mitchell’s great failure is in assuming inerrancy on the part of original researchers and incompetence on the part of replicators.  In reality, replicators and original researchers are often the very same people.  As a reputable scientist, it should be part of every researcher’s job to do both original research and replication studies as the need arises for either.  There would be nothing wrong with specializing in one or the other, but a well-balanced approach to research by doing some of both is probably the best way to advance not only the collective scientific knowledge but one’s personal knowledge of one’s own discipline.  Putting aside the old bugaboo of academic politics, I would think the best way to advance the goal, not necessarily of career advancement but of scientific advancement, would be to do a bit of both.  Nevermind all that, though.  Let’s assume for the moment that we have entered into a fantasy world where scientists are allowed to do either original research or replications but not both.  Is there some magical force that bestows competence disproportionately upon one rather than the other?  Of course not.  There will be incompetents and geniuses on both sides, and the average will always be average.

Dr. Mitchell is correct that experimental error is a problem that needs to be addressed in any replication study and though he seems to forget that the same is true of original research, he is correct to suggest that examining replications for experimental error is a worth-while pursuit.

What Dr. Mitchell seems not to understand is that replication is not an argument that an experiment is somehow better the second time it is performed or when done in a different laboratory than in the first case.  The point of replication is that, just as he argues that there can be mistakes in replication experiments, there are mistakes or unknown factors in original research, too.  Replication is essential to determine the robustness of a finding.  If ten studies show a finding to be valid and a new study fails to replicate it, we still examine all eleven, though we do so with the assumption that the fault might likely lie in the new study.  However, if only two studies have been done, we must examine both very carefully to determine which is more likely correct.  There is the further possibility that all of the studies, even with their conflicting results, can be valid, and that there is just some small change in experimental conditions that renders the studies different.  This could lead to entirely new discoveries.

I will illustrate with this example (note: these studies are fictitious and not based on any real data of any kind).  Let us imagine that Scientist X from the University of Timbuktu conducts an experiment and finds that when given 12-volt electric shocks, people perform better at chess than a control group.  Then, Scientist Y from the University of Nantucket conducts a replication trial.  The experiment is performed in exactly the same conditions, but Scientist Y finds no such effect.  What could be happening? Scientist Z from the University of Neverland reads both papers.  He writes letters to both scientists to make sure the experiments were identical, and reexamines the raw data from both experiments to determine which of the studies was wrong, but he finds no experimental error on either side, no problems with data entry, certainly no fraud, and nothing at all to indicate which study was correct.  Can you solve this little problem?  Certainly it would seem that Dr. Mitchell would immediately assume that Scientist X is correct and Scientist Y has made some undetectable mistake.  However, perhaps the real solution is that they are both correct.  There is no flaw in the University of Timbuktu study, but it is incomplete.  It fails to account for the fact that, in Nantucket, they rather enjoy electric shocks due to some previously undiscovered environmental factor, so they are immune to the effects of the experimental manipulation in the study by Scientist X.  Of course it’s a stupid example, but I think it vividly illustrates the point that Dr. Mitchell, for all his laudable attempts to avoid experimental error reaching the literature, has ignored the possibility that replication studies can bring new insights in addition to oversight.

If an original study is superior to the replication study that finds different results, it should be very easy for the original researchers to defend their work.  They could point out the flaws in the replication, or they could conduct further research or call for independent research.  Any of these approaches could vindicate the original study and show the replication to be incorrect.  Instead of taking this proper approach, Dr. Mitchell suggests that we should ignore replication entirely because sometimes a replicator might get it wrong.  He forgets that in science, truth is determined not by who published first but by who has the best evidence.  All of his anticipated problems with replication are easily dismissed simply by providing the evidence that shows the original study correct.

3) “Three standard rejoinders to this critique are considered and rejected.  Despite claims to the contrary, failed replications do not provide meaningful information if they closely follow original methodology; they do not necessarily identify effects that may be too small or flimsy to be worth studying; and they cannot contribute to a cumulative understanding of scientific phenomena.”

Moreso than the other five points, this one relies heavily on the body of the essay to understand its meaning.  The basic idea is that Dr. Mitchell is considering three responses to his critique.  While I’m sure that these responses are real ones, I question his selection because they were not the first three that came to my mind.  Could Dr. Mitchell be attempting to subtly erect a straw man?  At the very least, he seems not to be arguing against the best form of his opponents’ arguments.  Nevertheless, these three points are worth examining.

The first point is one which I must, unfortunately, rely upon quoting in its entirety, so that you may fully appreciate the ineptitude of the argument:

There are three standard rejoinders to these points.  The first is to argue that because the replicator is closely copying the method set out in an earlier experiment, the original description must in some way be insufficient or otherwise defective.  After all, the argument goes, if someone cannot reproduce your results when following your recipe, something must be wrong with either the original method or in the findings it generated. 

This is a barren defense.  I have a particular cookbook that I love, and even though I follow the recipes as closely as I can, the food somehow never quite looks as good as it does in the photos. Does this mean that the recipes are deficient, perhaps even that the authors have misrepresented the quality of their food?  Or could it be that there is more to great cooking than simply following a recipe?  I do wish the authors would specify how many millimeters constitutes a “thinly” sliced onion, or the maximum torque allowed when “fluffing” rice, or even just the acceptable range in degrees Fahrenheit for “medium” heat.  They don’t, because they assume that I share tacit knowledge of certain culinary conventions and techniques; they also do not tell me that the onion needs to be peeled and that the chicken should be plucked free of feathers before browning.  If I do not possess this tacit know-how—perhaps because I am globally incompetent, or am relatively new to cooking, or even just new to cooking Middle Eastern food specifically—then naturally, my outcomes will differ from theirs.

Likewise, there is more to being a successful experimenter than merely following what’s printed in a method section.  Experimenters develop a sense, honed over many years, of how to use a method successfully.  Much of this knowledge is implicit.  Collecting meaningful neuroimaging data, for example, requires that participants remain near-motionless during scanning, and thus in my lab, we go through great lengths to encourage participants to keep still.  We whine about how we will have spent a lot of money for nothing if they move, we plead with them not to sneeze or cough or wiggle their foot while in the scanner, and we deliver frequent pep talks and reminders throughout the session.  These experimental events, and countless more like them, go unreported in our method section for the simple fact that they are part of the shared, tacit know-how of competent researchers in my field; we also fail to report that the experimenters wore clothes and refrained from smoking throughout the session.  Someone without full possession of such know-how—perhaps because he is globally incompetent, or new to science, or even just new to neuroimaging specifically—could well be expected to bungle one or more of these important, yet unstated, experimental details.  And because there are many more ways to do an experiment badly than to do one well, recipe-following will commonly result in failure to replicate.

Of course, the myriad problems with Dr. Mitchell’s analogy should not require great lengths to expose.

The first problem is the same problem encountered above.  Dr. Mitchell assumes that all providers of original research are, as if by some divine right, more competent practitioners than providers of replication studies.  This is simply not so.  It should be clearly stated that cooking and science are two entirely different practices and that any analogy is bound to be imperfect (cooking is, after all, much more of an art than a science).  However, in the interest of proceeding along established terms, allow me to offer a better analogy.  Dr. Mitchell compared replication studies to his amateur attempts to reproduce recipes from his favorite cookbook.  I fancy myself a rather good cook, but I can sympathize--my food doesn’t always come out looking as good as the photo in the cookbook.  Do I think that this means the authors misrepresented their recipes?  No.  Dr. Mitchell is right to think not.  As an amateur, he is not expected to cook as well as the professionals who wrote his cookbook.  However, if Chef Gordon Ramsay or Chef Wolfgang Puck (or whoever your favorite chef might be) attempted to recreate the recipes, following them precisely, combining the detailed descriptions with the established knowledge of culinary practices that Dr. Mitchell points out are generally understood but not explicitly stated and the food still came out significantly worse than the photograph would indicate, then I might begin to suspect that the cookbook has some flaw.  Dr. Mitchell assumes in his argument that he is the one trying to recreate the recipe.  The reality of replication is that it could just as easily be Chef Ramsay.

None of this is to say that science should be judged based on the fame or credentials of the scientist.  No, scientific questions must be determined based on the evidence.  But it is the height of both arrogance and short-sightedness to assume that anyone who would bother to replicate a study must be new to science and thus less worthy of attention than the author of the original paper.

Replication is essential precisely because (amongst other reasons), people who are new to a particular discipline conduct original research as well, and their mistakes could lead to erroneous papers.

However, there is another claim within this section worthy of attention.  This is the idea that some of the “real work” (to borrow a phrase from the magicians) is not explicitly published.  There is both truth and falsehood to this.  It is certainly true that the most mundane details of experimental practice are not explicitly stated in every paper.  However, if there is a practice which is not expected to be common knowledge, it should be explicitly stated.  Dr. Mitchell explains that subjects must remain near-motionless during neuroimaging scans, and alludes to techniques used in his lab to make sure this is the case.  It needn’t be stated, because anyone doing such a scan will already know, that the subject needs to remain motionless.  However, specific actions taken to ensure this motionless state should be noted, either in the paper reporting original research, or in a separate paper established experimental methodology which can be cited when that methodology is used in such research.  I do not suspect this to be the case with the methods detailed in Dr. Mitchell’s footnote (in which he lists several such techniques which are never mentioned explicitly in the methods section of his papers), but it is an ever-present possibility an experimental result could be affected by such conditions the experimenter finds unimportant.  If such notes make a paper too long for publication, they should be published elsewhere (perhaps on the same website that would be better used for experimental methodological tips than mindless ramblings about how useless replication is), so that both potential replicators and the merely interested can fully understand the experimental procedure in place during any experiment upon which they will base a scientific belief.  In Dr. Mitchell’s case, it is common knowledge and needn’t be stated that the subject must remain still.  The phrasing used to achieve this, while apparently innocent enough, can vary from laboratory to laboratory and should probably be noted somewhere so that no errors are made.  Similarly, though Dr. Mitchell’s cookbook probably doesn’t say so, I’m sure there is a publication somewhere that would gladly specify that important detail that a bird must be plucked of feathers prior to cooking.

The second argument is that a phenomenon which has a small effect size or is difficult to replicate might nonetheless be real.  True.  But how does one determine that? Through further studies.  The studies should be replicated both using the same and with new techniques to tease out the reality of the situation.  No one has ever suggested that a failed replication necessarily means an unreal phenomenon in every case.  It means an attempt at replication has failed, nothing more and nothing less.  The implications of that failure are a subject both for discussion and for further experimental investigation.  Dr. Mitchell’s examples fall short because in the very same paragraph where he decries replication because it might have “killed” fields of inquiry we now know to be important, he makes reference to further study validating the original findings.  It would seem that Dr. Mitchell only objects to replication when it falsifies original research, and frankly, that’s just bad science.

It’s also worth noting that if there is flimsy evidence, it would be unwise to believe a claim.  That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but the scientific method is based upon skeptical inquiry.  We should have been skeptical about those findings Dr. Mitchell uses as his examples because evidence was flimsy in the early days.  It wasn’t until new methods were found to investigate these phenomena (as Dr. Mitchell points out) that the original studies were vindicated.  So the time to believe them is now that the evidence is in.  The time to believe them was not early on when they were little more than promising hypotheses.  But it is not our side that is trying to shut down inquiry.  It is Dr. Mitchell’s side (if indeed there are more than one lone misguided soul who ascribe to his view) that would seek to stifle inquiry by tacitly accepting original research without even the consideration of its replicability.  Replicability is not the only factor that makes a theory robust, but it is certainly an important factor.

The final counterargument that Dr. Mitchell attempts to address is, I think, one of the stronger points.  As I mentioned earlier when I explained publication bias, there is an asymmetry between positive and negative results, even in studies of the very same phenomenon.  Dr. Mitchell claims that science requires an asymmetry between positive and negative results, harking back to that old chestnut that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  He claims that no matter how many papers might be published claiming that swans are only white, it only took one study to prove that there can be black ones.  This is all very true, but a better analogy would be Sasquatch (or Bigfoot or Yeti, depending upon your region).  Would Dr. Mitchell seriously suggest that if one person publishes a photograph of a Sasquatch that we should immediately ignore any paper which argues to the contrary?  Certainly it is true that there could be such a being, but it, like everything else in science, should be treated with the same skepticism that is necessary for science to work. We believe in claims when there is sufficient robustness of evidence to outweigh the skeptical counterarguments.  No one is saying that we should believe scientific claims based entirely upon the number of papers suggesting one position or the other (although certainly that is an important factor to bear in mind when formulating opinions).  But it is certainly important to read those papers that show a published effect might not really exist.  If the evidence in one paper is stronger than the other, believe that one.  If the evidence in one is not clearly stronger than the other, we need a new experiment.  But we can’t possibly begin to even consider all of this until replication has been attempted and either succeeded or failed.

Dr. Mitchell then offers this nugget of wisdom: “After all, the argument goes, if an effect has been reported twice, but hundreds of other studies have failed to obtain it, isn’t it important to publicize that fact? No, it isn’t.”  Actually, that’s exactly the kind of information the scientific community needs.  We needn’t know the numbers of studies on one side or the other.  We need to know the quality of research on both sides, and we can only do that when all of that research is published.  It’s quite possible there could be two great positive studies and hundreds of other studies all of which were conducted by idiots or baboons.  It’s more likely that either two researchers made a mistake, or that there is some other factor causing the difference.  If the latter is the case, it’s important to have all of the information on the table, so we can attempt to isolate that other factor.

4) “Replication efforts appear to reflect strong prior expectations that published findings are not reliable, and as such, do not constitute scientific output.”

Well, I didn’t realize that a scientist’s intentions were how we judged whether or not paper constituted scientific output.  I thought scientific claims’ validity was judged based on the strength of the evidence.  Silly me.

The basis of this argument is that, if a belief in the hypothesis can result in a bias in favor of positive results, then if the replicator believes the result to be invalid, this can result in a bias toward negative results.  These biases are real.   And it is possible that many replicators are interested only in falsifying results that disagree with their preconceptions, though Dr. Mitchell seems to have an abnormally low view of scientists when he assumes that this is almost universally the case.  Indeed, the main two reasons to replicate a study are either to detect possible errors if one thinks the study was in error or to offer further independent support if one thinks the original work was valid.  But the scientific process is specifically designed to minimize the impacts of these biases.

Once again, I must allow Dr. Mitchell’s own words to condemn him: “But consider how the replication project inverts this procedure—instead of trying to locate the sources of experimental failure, the replicators and other skeptics are busy trying to locate the sources of experimental success.  It is hard to imagine how this makes any sense unless one has a strong prior expectation that the effect does not, in fact, obtain. When an experiment fails, one will work hard to figure out why if she has strong expectations that it should succeed.  When an experiment succeeds, one will work hard to figure out why to the extent that she has strong expectations that it should fail.  In other words, scientists try to explain their failures when they have prior expectations of observing a phenomenon, and try to explain away their successes when they have prior expectations of that phenomenon’s nonoccurrence.”

It is perfectly valid to explore either causes of positive or negative results (I refuse to consider this in terms of experimental success or failure for reasons detailed above).  The point of the experiment is to isolate cause and effect, so if there is another possible cause for an effect (whether that effect is a positive or a negative result), it is within the proper purview of the scientist to try to find it.  This is a good thing.  Dr. Mitchell seems to think that the point of science is to offer proof of one’s predetermined conclusions, but this is not the case at all.  While supporting a pet hypothesis or falsifying a rival hypothesis may be the initial motivation to embark upon a study, any reputable scientist places truth above personal preference and seeks the best explanation for a given phenomenon.

I am reminded of a story once told by Richard Dawkins (who is actually a proper scientist, in the real sense of the word). Dawkins writes: “I have previously told the story of a respected elder statesman of the Zoology Department at Oxford when I was an undergraduate. For years he had passionately believed, and taught, that the Golgi Apparatus (a microscopic feature of the interior of cells) was not real: an artifact, an illusion. Every Monday afternoon it was the custom for the whole department to listen to a research talk by a visiting lecturer. One Monday, the visitor was an American cell biologist who presented completely convincing evidence that the Golgi Apparatus was real. At the end of the lecture, the old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said--with passion--"My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years." We clapped our hands red. No fundamentalist would ever say that. In practice, not all scientists would. But all scientists pay lip service to it as an ideal--unlike, say, politicians who would probably condemn it as flip-flopping. The memory of the incident I have described still brings a lump to my throat.” (This quote is taken from http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Secular-Philosophies/Why-I-Am-Hostile-Toward-Religion.aspx?p=2).

Unfortunately, Dr. Mitchell has shown Professor Dawkins wrong on one small point.  Apparently not all scientists even bother to pay lip-service to the scientific ideal.  Real scientists have no interest in explaining away results they dislike, whether positive or negative.  They may be initially skeptical, and they certainly demand evidence, and they may even embark upon a replication study in order to further examine that evidence.  But once that evidence is in, if it conflicts with their views, they must admit they had been wrong.

5) “The field of social psychology can be improved, but not by the publication of negative findings.  Experimenters should be encouraged to restrict their "degrees of freedom," for example, by specifying designs in advance.”

Actually, putting aside a few phrases, Dr. Mitchell is to be commended for this small section of his essay.  For the reasons already discussed and for the reasons I will discuss in the continuance of this conversation below, he’s dead wrong about his opposition to the publication of negative findings.  However, except for suggesting that this is not the way to improve the field of social psychology, the suggestions he does make are quite reasonable ones.  I won’t rehash everything he said in that section here, but it boils down to increased standards for published research.  On that point, we can all agree.

There is a phrase that bothers me a bit, though, and I want to address it: “All scientists are motivated to find positive results, and social psychologists are no exception.”  This is true, of course, but I think it is problematic and that Dr. Mitchell would have us completely ignore the problem behind it.  Scientists are motivated to find positive results partly because they like to confirm their pet hypotheses.  This is true.  However, this is small motivation indeed when one realizes that most people become scientists because they want to understand the world.  If that means rejecting a pet hypothesis, most scientists (as Richard Dawkins points out) at the very least pay lip-service to the ideal.  For me, rejecting a pet hypothesis may be unpleasant for a day or two, but that emotion soon gives way to the much more profound emotion when I realize that having done so, I have eliminated a false belief and may now substitute a true one.  I think most scientists understand and agree with that desire to follow the evidence wherever it leads and to always seek to discover the truth.

So why, then, are scientists so motivated to find positive results?  Precisely because there is such a bias against publishing negative results.  In academia, if you don’t publish research, your career is doomed to be a short one.  But if you find negative results, you often find yourself with work that can’t find a market in which to publish.  Nevermind that this research might be the result of five years’ work involving dozens of collaborators and research assistants--if it’s negative, it doesn’t get published.  So of course there’s a bias toward finding positive results.  But it’s not necessarily a philosophical bias.  Indeed, there are lots of us (I know--I’ve spoken to them) who actually like negative results because they show us there is more to be learned (“My dear fellow, I wish to thank you…”).  But if we’re trying to meet publication requirements for career advancement, negative results are politically (not scientifically) undesirable.

6) “Whether they mean to or not, authors and editors of failed replications are publicly impugning the scientific integrity of their colleagues.  Targets of failed replications are justifiably upset, particularly given the inadequate basis for replicators’ extraordinary claims.”

Whether he means to or not, I think Dr. Mitchell is revealing his true motivation for writing this article here.  He has conflated replication studies with accusations of deliberate misrepresentation of data!  A replication study, even if it is negative, does not impugn anything.  Nor is a replication study an attempted pissing contest between the replicator and the author of the original research.  Indeed, it is possible to perform a replication study while maintaining the greatest of respect for the original author or while having no opinion of him or her at all.  Failed replication does not, need not, and should not be considered an insult to the integrity of the original author unless there is very good reason to suspect deliberate fraud.

Let us imagine a failed replication has been published. What are some possible reasons for this eventuality?

a) The original research is valid, and the replicator made a mistake.

b) The original research is valid, and the replication study failed due to chance

c) The original research is valid, and the replicator falsified his findings

d) The original research is invalid; the original author made a mistake

e) The original research is invalid; the original author falsified his findings

f) The original research is invalid; the original finding was due to chance

g) The original research is valid but incomplete; there are other factors at work

In only one of those situations is the original author’s integrity challenged.  In only one other is his competence even slightly called into question.  It may be uncomfortable to have your work questioned, but that’s just part of science.  It shouldn’t be taken as an attack unless it is coupled with a direct accusation of impropriety.  Those accusations should not be taken lightly.  They should be taken seriously but false accusations should also be met with strict consequences.  Science is an honorable profession, and fraud is rare but intolerable.  False accusations of fraud are similarly rare but also intolerable.  This is not what replication is about, however.  Replication is simply about determining whether original findings hold up.

By convention, we consider a finding to be statistically significant at a p-level of less than 0.05.  That means we accept a 5% chance of a false positive due simply to statistical chance (not considering experimental error).  That means that, all else being equal, as much as 5% of what gets published could be wrong, just based on accepted standards for publication.  We could restrict our p-levels to less than 0.01 if we wanted to, but that still leaves us with 1% of all published research possibly being wrong.  Replication, if nothing else, is about minimizing those probabilities by re-running the experiments to see if the same results happen again.  Even if we put aside all possibility of experimental error, misrepresentation, or incomplete understanding of contributory factors, we must replicate research in order to weed out statistical anomalies.  Restricting p-levels to prohibitively low probabilities won’t do, either, because the more restrictive our statistical tests, the more likely we are to reject findings that are actually real.  That’s just as bad.  So what do we do?  We replicate.

Dr. Mitchell himself points out, “On the occasions that our work does succeed, we expect others to criticize it mercilessly, in public and often in our presence.”  No doubt, it can be quite uncomfortable.  Science is hard work, and it’s a tough business.  If someone thinks you’re wrong, they have no problem saying so, and they expect the same of you.  That’s the way it should be.  There’s no ill will about it--it’s just a matter of subjecting all claims to the strictest of scrutiny.  Anyone who has ever so much as presented a poster understands the feeling of coming under fire.  Anyone who has defended a thesis knows it better than the rest.  When we think someone is wrong, we say so.  When we aren’t sure, we test it, and then we say what the results were.  There’s very little coddling or hand-holding in this field, and there needn’t be.  Scientists are adults, and as such should be able to take professional criticism for what it is and avoid taking it personally.  Replication studies are one more type of potential criticism (though they can also support the original research, as Dr. Mitchell regularly forgets).

He concludes his essay with the following line: “One senses either a profound naiveté or a chilling mean-spiritedness at work, neither of which will improve social psychology.”

It seems that exactly one senses such things at work here and that one is called Dr. Jason Mitchell.  The rest of the scientific community seems to understand that replication is not a mean-spirited personal attack, but just part of the job.  Dr. Mitchell’s complaints seem, though I admittedly speak only of a general impression and not from any sort of evidence here, to be the whiny complaints of someone whose pet theory has been called into question.  Instead of calling replicators (who, need I remind you, are just other scientists, just like anyone else, and most often also producers of their own original research) “mean-spirited,” the mature scientist realizes that replication is an essential component of the scientific process and that we neglect it at our peril.

This essay prompted science journalist Ben Lillie to take to Twitter with this comment (quoted in: http://io9.com/if-you-love-science-this-will-make-you-lose-your-sh-t-1601429885?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow ): “Do you get points in social psychology for publicly declaring you have no idea how science works?”  I think that sums up the quality of Dr. Mitchell’s essay quite nicely, though I object to the association of Dr. Mitchell with the rest of the field of social psychology.  The social and behavioral sciences have struggled long and hard to achieve strict scientific standards.  Ill-informed tirades like Dr. Mitchell’s contribute to a popular misconception that these fields are not “true” sciences.  They are and they should be.  It is unfortunate that many of their practitioners seem to disagree, but let us not besmirch the image of entire fields based on the “contributions” of a few of their members who prefer not to follow the rules of science.

Throughout this response, harsh though I may have been (though I assure you, my commentary is no more biting than what is generally expected of any controversial statement among scientists), I have striven to avoid making any sort of personal attack or commentary about Dr. Mitchell.  I don’t know him personally, so it would be improper to do so.  I have attempted to restrict my commentary to his arguments themselves and to his apparent lack of understanding of the scientific process.  However, since he chose to close his article by calling scientists who conduct replication studies “naïve” and “mean-spirited,” I feel no guilt at closing my response by pointing out one additional quotation buried in Dr. Mitchell’s essay: “I was mainly educated in Catholic schools….”

Yeah, we can tell.  Which might explain why Dr. Mitchell prefers to treat social psychology as a religion rather than a science.

Denver Comic Con 2013

Con report time!

Friday

On Friday, registration was to begin at 1:00pm, with the Exhibit Hall opening and panels beginning at 3:00pm.  Since we had pre-registered, we figured on getting there only a little early, getting inside at about 3:00 and heading right to the Celebrity Summit to check on autograph schedules.  It didn't quite happen that way.  We arrived at a little before 2:00pm.  When we got there, all lines had converged into one massive line, which when we entered it, had wrapped all the way around the Colorado Convention Center.  Shortly after we got in line, it began to double back on itself and wrap around again in the opposite direction.  As the line actually began to move at about 3:00, the end of the line kept passing us as we were moving forward (meaning it was growing significantly faster than it was moving into the building).  We got inside and got our badges at about 4:30 or so.

When we got in, though, we had a great time.  That afternoon, we attended a discussion on violence in the media, which was an interesting talk (and I largely agreed with what the gentleman had to say).

I got an autograph from Jim Steranko, who was quite entertaining.  He told many stories of his work for Marvel comics and his days as an escape artist when he was younger.

We then went over to meet Colin Baker, the Sixth Doctor, who was wonderful.  As we reached the front of the line, a person with a VIP pass came through the VIP line and so went ahead of us (which I'll discuss more later).  No problem.  The Doctor then called us forward, addressing us as "commoners."  I got him to autograph my DVD of Revelation of the Daleks.

We spent a little bit of time wandering the floor, and then called it a day.

Saturday

The Exhibit Hall was to open at 10:00am, the same time panels would start beginning.  Doors were to open at 9:00.  We arrived at about 8:30 or so, and there were separate lines forming outside for those who had badges already and those who did not.  There was also some type of major race happening across from the Convention Center, so it was a rather noisy morning.  They got the doors open a couple minutes late (but reasonably close to on time).  The line progressed a little slower than it might have because people were receiving wrist bands as they entered.  Only the first x-number of people in would receive the band which guaranteed admission to George Takei's talk later in the day.  We got wristbands.

We then lined up at the bottom of the escalators to wait for entry to the Exhibit Hall, which was to be our first stop.  I am told that this line exceeded the capacity of the lobby (per fire codes) and that they had to block the line outside until 10:00 when everyone could filter in to the Exhibit Hall.

When we got upstairs, our first stop was George Takei's table.  He's a wonderful person, and took a couple minutes to talk to everyone who came through his line.  He signed my copy of his book, Oh, Myyy!

We then got into Wil Wheaton's line.  Unfortunately, herein was one of the problems.  At some point, the organizers had decided that the regular line would not progress at all until ALL VIPs were through the line.  Because VIPs can keep coming (and did keep coming), the line did not progress.  After about an hour or so with barely any movement through the line, we realized that if we stayed in line, we would miss George Takei's talk.  So we left.

On the way out, I stopped at Kevin J. Anderson's table.  He was perfectly happy to sign the book I had brought with me, and I also purchased one more for him to sign.  (A tip: most people are happy to sign your books, but I think it's good form, if you ask someone for a favor, to make a purchase at their table.)

We then stopped by Jon Bogdanove's table.  He was doing some original art for some people, so it took a few minutes to move through his short line, but he happily signed my copy of Death of Superman.  And once again, I made a purchase--in this case, a limited edition book of unfinished art, in which he had drawn and original sketch of Superman.

George Takei's discussion was fantastic.  He spent a little bit of time talking about science fiction and how Star Trek has inspired so many people.  He then took questions.  For the first, someone asked him to say his catch phrase, which he did.  But he also managed to turn that into a thoughtful answer.  He explained both how "oh my" became his catch phrase, and why he is glad that it did.

When we got back upstairs, Wil Wheaton's table had gotten so busy that they'd closed his line so they could clear it out in time for him to go do his panel discussion, so we went over to Peter Mayhew's table instead, and got an autographed 8x10.

After Wil Wheaton's line cleared out and he left, we camped out at the front of the line.  By the time he returned, the line was full again.  And once again, they let the VIPs go first, so even though we were at the front of the line, we still waited about twenty minutes before a volunteer arrived and directed the lines to alternate.

Wil, however, was great.  I asked him to sign my copy of Just A Geek.  It also turns out my girlfriend is very probably related (however distantly) to Wil Wheaton.  That side of her family is from Michigan, and Wil said that all he knows about the Wheaton clan is that they came over from Scotland in the 1600s, and eventually settled in the Great Lakes area.  We have an invitation to e-mail him if we're able to discover any new information.

By the time we got through his line, Felicia Day's line was full, so we spent the last couple of hours just wandering the artist and dealer areas.

On the way out, I stopped by William Shatner's table to ask what his schedule would be on Sunday (the only day he was to appear).  They said he'd sign from 10-12 and 2-4, but that the tickets would need to be purchased in advance.  Good thing I stopped--that part of the process was not well-advertised.  So I bought my ticket and went on my way.

After the con, we went with some friends over to the nearby hotel were some of the guests and staff were staying.  While there, I noticed Phil Plait wandering around the lobby.  We went over and said hi and that we enjoyed his work.  It turns out, he'd come down for Comic Con just for the one day, but had been turned away, as the part of the Convention Center the Con had had exceeded capacity per the fire marshals.  When we were invited to provide notes on what worked and what didn't to be sent back to the organizers, I included "don't turn away Phil Plait."

Sunday

We arrived at 8:00.  The line was long.  Doors were supposed to open at 9:00, but because of the issue they'd had the day before, they decided to hold them until 9:45.  However, we were able to get wristbands to get into William Shatner's talk.

As soon as we were in, we went up to the Exhibit Hall and got in line for Shatner's table.  Because I had my ticket, it went very smoothly.  They were still finishing up the VIPs who had tickets to get in 30 minutes early when we arrived, but our line was quite short.  It took less than an hour to get through his line.  He kindly autographed my book and we went on our way.  The organizers did a very good job of keeping that line moving quickly.

Dee Bradley Baker had been kind enough to offer everyone with a weekend pass a free autographed 8x10, so our next stop was his table.  His line was relatively short and moved pretty fast.  Many of his photos were of characters for whom he's provided the voice acting.  He impressed in that he addressed the fans in the voice of whichever character they'd selected.

It was then getting to be that we didn't have enough time for another line, so we wandered the hall for a bit, and then went downstairs to Shatner's talk.  Shatner is awesome.  He wanted to talk about how puppies see the world anew and are filled with awe and that science fiction can help us do the same thing.  He began this story by explaining that a few years ago, he'd had to have his dog castrated.

We deliberately sat in the back for Shatner's talk so that when he finished, we could immediately dash out of the room and get back upstairs, as Felicia Day was beginning to sign autographs again at the same time.  We did so.  When we got there, the line was already almost full, but we were able to get in. It took a while, but I was able to get my autographed 8x10 from Felicia Day.

When we got to the front, Felicia became rather animated about my girlfriend's costume.  She explained that she loves velvet and remarked that she just wanted to roll in Diana's costume.  I'm quite sure she didn't intend it to sound nearly as dirty as it does.  She also petted Diana's head (or more specifically, the cloth covering said head).

And then we just wandered around a bit, watched the people in costumes, and eventually called it a day.

Overall, despite some organizational hiccups, it was a great con.  I got everything autographed that I'd intended to, and had a blast.

Response to a Facebook Discussion re: GMOs

So, let’s see what we have to cover today--the legal status of biotech, genetically modified organisms, transhumanism, human genetics, and agriculture.  I should be able to tackle that in one blog post, right?

Okay, background first.  I’m writing this in response to a threaded discussion on Facebook, which I will provide for you so that you know the context of my thoughts.  Since I haven’t asked permission to repost any of this, I will replace names with initials (I don’t want to be a dick and put people’s names on my corner of cyperspace without asking first).

Here’s the conversation:

RMB: This is something TRULY disturbing… I hope the Supreme Court -- for once -- weighs in on the side of PEOPLE rather than CORPORATIONS… In short, a corporation has claimed that it can PATENT a HUMAN GENE.  Watch the video and be chilled to your soul imagining what happens if this claim is upheld.

(Links to http://www.upworthy.com/an-awful-corporation-does-something-so-cartoonishly-creepy-that-we-have-to-make-a-dr-evil-reference-4?g=2&c=upw1 )

LS: This is old news, [RMB].  The transhumanist movement is already well underway.  Mansanto [sic] and the other elitist corporations are already changing our DNA through GMO crops, especially corn.  Check out www.2045.com for the global agenda to turn us all into robots.  This is not a joke.  Is anybody awake out there?

RMB: [LS] -- You understand that GMO crops CAN’T change HUMAN DNA, right?  Perhaps Robert Lewis or [MP] might want to weigh in on the GMO thing -- they both have strong feelings on the matter, they are both scientists, and neither is what I would call a corporate apologist -- not by a LONG shot.

Well, indeed I do want to weigh in on this, because there are a lot of things that need to be said here.  The science can get a little complicated, and so can the legalities.  The good news is, in order to be sufficiently informed to make educated decisions, the general public doesn’t need to fully grasp the fiddly details of the science; the issues can be distilled for the non-scientist without dumbing them down, which is what I’m going to try to do here.

First, let me tackle some personal issues.  I AM a transhumanist, at least in philosophy.  I have some questions about practicality, but I think pursuing certain human modifications is definitely worthwhile.  In this post, I will try to explain why I’m a transhumanist and why I think you should be too.  I say this now not to reveal a bias, but so that you know what perspective I’m coming from as you read.  But I will certainly explain myself fully, to demonstrate that my position is solid, and not just the result of some political ideology.  I do support GMOs (and plenty of other areas of biotech research as well).  Again, if you read on, I’ll explain why GMOs are not only much safer than many people think but also a necessary part of agriculture in the coming decades.  And finally, in response to RMB’s comment, it is true, I certainly am not a corporate apologist.  Neither am I anti-corporation.  I am a capitalist, and I think corporations do plenty of good things, but I’m also not afraid to call them out when they get up to shenanigans.  Which is to say, while I support the work of plenty of corporations, I do not have any sort of pro- or anti-corporate bias.  I judge issues on their merits rather than on the size of the corporations involved.

Now, let’s start with patenting genes, since that’s what started this whole thing off (and also because it’s the part of this I have the least to say about).  First of all, I’m not overly  familiar with the particular legal battle referenced here, so you’ll have to forgive me for offering only some generalized thoughts instead of an in depth commentary.  It sounds very much like the sort of thing I’d like to read more about, but as I haven’t yet done so, I don’t want to pretend to offer expertise on something about which I’m not qualified to do so.

My general position on the matter is that intellectual property law has done a poor job of keeping pace with expanding technologies.  Patent law, as with the rest of the body of intellectual property law, is meant to protect and encourage the efforts of creators.  When it comes to biotech, I think it is perfectly reasonable to issue patents to individuals or to corporations who have synthesized new genes, certainly.

The difficulty comes when it’s a matter not of actually synthesizing a new gene, but simply describing one that evolved naturally.  Certainly it seems perfectly reasonable to offer some protections to the individuals who are responsible for particular discoveries, even if they don’t create the genes, but it also seems somewhat unreasonable to grant a patent for something that exists naturally.  I tend to be of the opinion that the best (far from perfect, but the best I can think of) method is to grant patents for the specific applications of the discoveries.  One should get a patent for the method of isolating a gene.  One should get a patent for any biotech that uses the gene as a component.  One should get a patent for any direct medical applications of the isolation of the gene.  But one should not get a patent for the gene itself unless it is the product of a new synthesis in the laboratory.

I don’t know the history of Myriad Genetics or this legal battle beyond the one video that I linked to above, so I don’t know if that’s an accurate portrayal of the reality.  Assuming it is, I think I’m in agreement that this is an abuse of the law.  The BRCA genes are present in every human genome, and mutations of those genes have been implicated in increased risk for breast cancer.  I think Myriad Genetics should be perfectly entitled to patent all of their techniques for testing these genes, but not the genes themselves.  So I agree with the original post (though I don’t find it quite as “chilling”).  What I would like to add to that, however, is that I would hope the Supreme Court wouldn’t err too far on either side.  Yes, we absolutely need them to protect people (in this case, by vacating a patent that probably should not have been granted).  But we also need them to protect corporations.  It is the corporation, after all, that has the resources necessary to actually do much of this research.  It’ll likely be a biotech company of some sort that finally cracks the cancer puzzle.  So we don’t want to loosen the REASONABLE protections that corporations enjoy for work produced in their laboratories.

Here’s the gray area that I don’t quite know how to handle.  Say there is a unique mutation on someone’s genome that has some medical application.  It evolved naturally, as mutations do, but is not present in all humans.  It’s only been isolated in one person.  Scientists are capable of isolating and amplifying this gene, and perhaps then inserting it into another genome in order to develop the treatment of some disease.  This is all stuff we can do.  So, who owns that?  Is the patient who developed the mutation assumed to have ownership of this mutation?  I can see arguments in favor of that, but at the expense of the medical researchers.  What about the doctors who found it and want to use it for medical research?  That might provide the greatest social good, but at the expense of the individual.  Can one claim complete ownership of one’s genetic information?  I don’t know.  When it’s part of one’s body, sure.  But when it’s been extracted (with consent) during a medical procedure and is then sequenced by someone else, who (if anyone) can claim ownership?  There’s an economic incentive to want to assign ownership in such cases, but there’s a practical difficulty about it.

I don’t know the answer to those questions, so I’m open to other people’s thoughts.  It’s something I intend to do more reading on, because I think it’s an important issue.  What’s more, it’s of critical importance that when we finally do get around to updating laws to keep pace with technology, we need to get it right.  In this issue, there are no less rewards at stake than the individual right to oneself and the future of biomedical research.

If anyone reading out there has some insight in regards to how to find an appropriate balance between these competing interests, both of which are worthy of legal protection, please join the conversation.  I’m curious what everyone has to say about the matter.

Now let’s talk about GMOs for a while.  GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, are organisms that have been modified specifically through the modern techniques of biotechnology.  It’s actually a really interesting field, and I encourage all of you to read up on some of the techniques scientists can use in the laboratory to move genetic information around in a specific and targeted manner.  I won’t go into the specifics here, however.  It’s not really necessary to understand exactly HOW genes can be modified.  It’s sufficient to know that they can be.

Before I tell you why I think GMOs are both desirable and necessary, let’s have a look at some of the concerns people have about these organisms, specifically when marketed as food crops.  There are several concerns, some valid and some not, and they generally fall into a few broad categories: safety for human consumption, environmental safety, and political and economic consequences.  As we go along, you’ll see that I freely admit there are some legitimate concerns--however, we simply do a basic risk-benefit analysis and find that it’s easy to compensate for what few valid concerns there are.

First, let’s talk about the safety of these food crops for human consumption.  The simple fact of the matter is, there’s no evidence that there is any more danger from these crops than any others.

I’ll start with the assertion that GMO crops can change human DNA.  As RMB pointed out, this isn’t really possible.  DNA is just a molecule, and the DNA sequence of a human is determined before birth, and doesn’t change based on what one eats.  Now, it is true that mutations do occur throughout life, but because the “blueprint” of the human is laid out at the time of conception, all of these changes are localized.  They don’t really change “your” DNA--they are mutation in specific somatic cells.  Every cell has a sophisticated DNA repair mechanism (or actually a series of mechanisms) that do a good job of correcting these mutations as they occur, but a few always slip through.  Almost all of these are benign.  On occasion, they can lead to cancers.  Those are the only kinds of things that cause changes in an individual’s DNA.  Now, how does this relate to GMOs?  The simple answer is, it doesn’t.  Cancer isn’t fully understood, though we do know of certain substances that are carcinogenic (that doesn’t mean they “cause cancer,” as cancer isn’t a single thing--instead, it means they increase the likelihood of mutation in the somatic cells).  If there were any danger to DNA from eating GMOs, it would be of this variety (not some nebulous “changing” of DNA).  However, there’s no evidence (really: none--not a shred) that GMOs are any more likely to cause such a mutation than any other crop.

You must remember that DNA is a molecule.  It is a sequence of nucleotides, which consist of nitrogenous bases (adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine--A, T, C, and G) attached to a sugar-phosphate backbone.  Any genetic modification does not change the chemical nature of the gene (a gene being nothing more than a specific sequence of DNA).  What that means is that the DNA of GMOs still consists of the very same nucleotides, just in a slightly altered sequence.  Whenever you eat something, you are consuming a large number of DNA molecules.  They’re broken down in your digestive tract, and the products of this process of digestion are used as the raw materials for the construction of your own biomass.  Slightly different ratios of one nucleotide to another does nothing to increase or decrease potential toxicity of the food product.

Now, in order to build a body, you need more that just DNA.  In many ways, DNA is just the recipe.  It codes for specific protein (proteins are sequences of amino acids) products that result in the complex biochemistry that produces bodies.   Perhaps it is these protein products that are dangerous.  Indeed, if there is to be any danger from GMOs, it will not come from the DNA itself, but from the protein products, just as the danger in any crop would come from the protein products.  And that danger would most likely be more of a general toxicity rather than carcinogenesis.  But here’s the thing.  Wild crops (those you would call “natural”) have random mutations, just as all organisms do.  It’s possible that these crops could produce the toxic product.  GMOs are specifically engineered and tested to ensure that they do not produce toxic products.  Is it possible that, once deployed in the field, they could further mutate and eventually come to produce undesired effects?  Sure, but the same can be said of literally any other food crop, too.  Mutations will happen.  The probability of developing a toxin are extremely remote, so it’s nothing to worry about.  More importantly, GMOs have no more risk of this than any other food product.

To further put the issue to rest, consider that GMOs, before they’re approved for the market, are extremely well tested.  They’re tested by the companies and laboratories producing them (if you don’t trust these companies, consider that there isn’t a very good business in producing products that are harmful to the consumers).  They’re also tested by independent scientists and regulatory bodies.  No tests have ever been done that can demonstrate any added risk in GMOs that is absent in other crops.

I know the phrase “genetically modified” is scary to a lot of people (personally, I find these kinds of technological breakthroughs exciting rather than scary), but the simple fact of the matter is, there is no such thing as an organism that is not genetically modified.  The only difference is that in this case, humans are selecting for and engineering desired traits, rather than simply leaving everything to the evolutionary combination of chance and natural selection.  What’s more, humans have been genetically modifying crops since the agricultural revolution.  We selectively breed food crops.  We hybridize plants to produce desired phenotypes.  The simple truth of the matter is, there is no food item that reaches anyone’s table that is not the product of human engineering of the genome.

Safety of the food products is simply not a good reason to oppose GMOs.  They are perfectly safe.

But what about the ecological concerns?  That’s where there may be some more valid concerns, but I think I can briefly show you why it’s really nothing to worry about.  Basically, all of these issues come down to unintended consequences not directly related to the crops themselves.

First, there is a risk that crops that have been engineered to include pesticides could potentially damage non-target species.  In other words, if someone has engineered a crop to keep a particular kind of insect away, it could be harmful to other species of insects like butterflies.  Indeed, there was some thought that particular GM crops were harmful to Monarch Butterflies.  However, properly controlled studies have found that, in this case, there is a negligible risk, and indeed that deployment of the GM crops has coincided with an increase in the butterfly population.  So that particular scare was nonsense.  Does that mean that there’s no cause for concern here?  No.  It just means that scientists must be careful to consider potential ecological consequences when developing crops.  Indeed, GM crops may be better for insect species than non-GM crops.  How?  Well think of it this way: farmers are going to do whatever they can to keep harmful insects away from their crops.  Traditional methods include spraying pesticides.  But if a nontoxic deterrent is engineered directly into a crop, it can be possible to keep the pests away without actually causing harm to the insect populations.

The second type of unintended consequence is the creation of new selective pressures that drive the evolution of other species.  This is probably the one and only problem that needs to be addressed, and it does not apply only to GMOs either, but to any exotic factor introduced into an ecosystem.  There are two basic types of this that can occur.  First is a rise in secondary pests.  It is possible that a crop is resistant to a particular species of pest could suddenly (in the absence of competition) become particularly attractive to a secondary pest which is not targeted by the pesticide.  Secondly, as has actually happened, herbicide resistance may promote the evolution of other herbicide resistant species.  The idea is that farmers plant herbicide resistant crops so that they can spray for weeds without damaging their desired crops.  If they over-spray, they risk creating a new selective pressure that causes the emergence of weed species that are also resistant to herbicides.  Both of these are valid concerns.  However, both can be addressed by carefully monitoring ecological consequences.  Risk can also be minimized simply by not over-spraying fields with herbicides (or by varying the chemical composition of the herbicides to avoid having a single selective pressure on the weed species).

Then there’s the matter of the possibility of gene flow to neighboring crops.  This does happen, as plants interbreed, and can lead to the introduction of novel genetic material into otherwise unaltered crops.  However, I fail to see the problem here.  First of all, genetically modified crops, as with most crops, are fairly well contained, so while this can happen, it’s unlikely to be a common problem.  Furthermore, unless you have an irrational fear of GMOs, I fail to see why anyone cares.  All it’s likely to do is make the neighboring farm more productive.

If anyone else can come up with other objections or concerns, I would be curious to hear them so that I can do some further research and determine their validity.

With that, we turn our attention to political or economic objections, of which I can think really only of two basic categories.  First is the idea that GMOs are economically harmful to “small” farmers.  Second is a matter that has to do with intellectual property.

The matter that modified crops may be harmful to the farmers of non-modified crops is, as far as I’ve been able to tell, largely unverified.  Probably the most famous of these claims is the accusation that once Monsanto entered the Indian seed market, hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide, allegedly due to economic hardship caused by Monsanto.  First of all, while any suicide is tragic, economic hardship is the risk of doing business.  If someone sells a superior product at a better price, there should be no special protections for the competition.

However, there’s good news: it’s a complete myth.  Monsanto entered the Indian market in 2002.  Between 1997 and 2007, there was a rise in suicide rates in India from about 100,000 to 120,000.  However, despite this rise in suicide rates (already hardly the “hundreds of thousands” claimed by GMO opponents), suicide rates among farmers remained constant, at around 20,000 per year.  Indeed, farmers actually benefitted from Monsanto’s entry into the Indian marketplace.  Between 2002 and 2008, farmers’ yields increased by nearly 25%, with corresponding profit increases of about 50%.

So, at least in India, it seems that transgenic crops have been a boon for farmers.  And that’s the way it generally is in other markets as well.  If transgenic crops were to be widely deployed around the world, the only people whose business would suffer would be those silly enough to resist technological advance.  Monsanto, for just one example, does its primary business selling products to farmers.  It’s not just corporate giants, but “Farmer Jim” who benefits from biotechnology, because the farmers are able to buy seeds capable of producing higher yields (and higher profits) at lower cost.

Intellectual property claims are the worst-sounding of the lot.  People claim that companies like Monsanto have filed lawsuits to protect their patents against farmers whose crops were accidentally contaminated by patent-protected crops.  However, this has not happened.  Of Monsanto’s 145 lawsuits against farmers, 11 defendants alleged that Monsanto’s crops had accidentally contaminated their fields, and that they were being wrongfully sued for something over which they had no control.  In fact, Monsanto won all eleven cases, and this defense has never been shown to have any validity at all.  Monsanto’s policy (as with every other biotech company I’m aware of) is not to sue farmers unless the infringement was deliberate.  This is a perfectly reasonable business practice, as biotech companies have a right to protect their patents--otherwise there would be no profit to motivate research.  Incidental growing of patented crops does not land farmers in legal trouble.

Now, here’s why GMOs are essential: we don’t have enough food.  Billions of people around the world are hungry.  Millions die of starvation, many of them children.  Genetically modified food crops are able to grow in locations other crops would not.  Furthermore, genetic modification can allow for higher yields from the same amount of land.

Let me introduce you to Norman Borlaug--The Greatest Human Being Who Ever Lived.  He is one of only seven people to have received a Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal.  He also received the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honor.  What did Dr. Borlaug do to receive such honors, and to be known by many (including myself) as the greatest human being in all of history?  He developed semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat strains, which he then spent his life introducting to Mexico, Pakistan, India, and much of Asia and Africa.  What was the result of this work?  It is generally estimated that his work saved a BILLION lives from starvation.

A BILLION people.  That’s what people who oppose genetic modification of food crops advocate losing.  And with the human population expected to exceed 9 billion people by 2050, without a new agricultural revolution, that number can only continue to increase.  I don’t see several billion people willing to die of starvation because of a few Westerners with more food than brains.

But the importance of biotechnology and GMOs is not limited to prevention of doom and gloom.  Imagine a world in which the entire world has a surplus of food.  Imagine what we could produce.  Imagine the contribution to world peace!  Or if you prefer to think small, think about the novel food items we could introduce to your local supermarket.  Selective breeding produced fruits and vegetables we like to eat (the desert banana does not even remotely resemble its wild ancestor, for instance)--imagine what we could bring to the dinner table without having to spend so many generations of selective breeding that amounts to little more than trial and error!

What about opponents to GMOs?  They’re not harmless.  As I already mentioned, if they are successful, they will cause a holocaust of starvation in the developing world.  But their effects are closer to home, too.  They cost farmers more money and labor to produce the same yield of crops, which is harmful to local and global economies.  Near and dear to my heart, though, is the effect on science.  Anti-GMO activists have regularly destroyed crops, including those used for research and not actually intended to be food crops.

Activists in India recently had a chilling effect.  They persuaded the powers-that-be to ban a particular genetically modified food crop, even though all evidence is that it’s perfectly safe and generally speaking a good thing.  But that’s not the end of it.  While this only extended to particular food crops, it had a chilling effect on Indian science.  Researchers, who are perfectly within their legal rights to conduct genetic experiments under Indian law, have found that their funding has dried up as everyone is afraid of the politics now.  I should not have to point out that this is disastrous!

That all said, let’s go with a more dramatic change of direction and talk about something completely different: transhumanism.  Transhumanism is basically the perspective that humans can and should be improved through technological advance.  Like any technology, the technologies involved in transhumanism can be used for good or for evil.  Hitlerian ideals of a master race, for instance, could be considered transhumanist, but are not representative of the transhumanist movement, of which I am a member.

To me, transhumanism is just the logical next step of a rational humanist philosophy.  I am first a humanist, and a transhumanist second.  I believe that increasing technological capabilities can and should be used to improve the human condition, both mentally and physically.

We all know Moore’s Law which has to do with the progression of computer technology, and most of us are familiar with Ray Kurzweil’s related Law of Accelerating Returns.  The idea is that technology begets new technology at an increasing pace, such that things that are science fiction today may be science fact in the near future.  Philosophically, I agree.  Practically, I think much of the transhumanist movement is overly optimistic.  We probably will not see the singularity Kurzweil has been waiting for within our lives.  We will probably not see radical life extension anytime soon.  But these are admirable goals to aim for.

Imagine a world in which people live much longer than they do today.  Perhaps a world in which humans can achieve a sort of immortality by uploading their consciousness into a computer system.  Imagine a world in which humans are physically improved and can do tasks only machines can do today.  This is transhumanism, and it’s a good thing.

It seems that LS fears that transhumanism will turn us into the Borg.  Admittedly, because technology is amoral and can be used toward good or evil ends, we must be vigilant.  However, there is no reason to assume the worst, especially when considering that the vast majority of the transhumanist movement share my ideals and philosophy.

Now, I’m unfamiliar with the linked Project 2045, so I can’t comment on that, except to say that at a quick glance, I fail to see what’s wrong with it (except perhaps that they’re overly optimistic about their timeline).

If anyone can tell me why they might object to transhumanism, or even just ask me questions about it, I would be happy to have that discussion.  As it stands, I don’t understand the objections, so I feel ill equipped to lay misconceptions to rest.

Now that I’ve laid out some of my thoughts, let us have another look at that original post that I’m primarily responding to, with my (brief) commentary interspersed:

“This is old news, [RMB].  The transhumanist movement is already well underway.”

If by “well underway,” you mean that there are a lot of people thinking about it, then this is true.  But the fundamental goal for much of transhumanism is radical life extension, which is not within our grasp.  As it stands, we have significantly extended average human life expectancy, but if you think that’s the same thing, then you’re confusing an increasing average for an increasing maximum.  Humans just don’t live much beyond 100 years, and that hasn’t changed throughout human history.  We just don’t die prematurely as much anymore.

I also fail to see how this might be construed as a bad thing.

“Mansanto [sic] and the other elitist corporations”

I get it--Monsanto is the “villain du jour” these days, though I don’t quite understand why.  But I’d like to know what “elitist corporations” means.  As RMB pointed out, I’m not a corporate apologist, but neither am I anti-corporate, and I fail to see anything elitist about biotech companies that can “do good by doing well” and significantly improve the lives of millions or billions of people.

If by “elitist” you simply mean that they value education above superstition, then I can’t speak for the corporations, but I would personally wear the “elitist” badge with pride.

“…are already changing our DNA through GMO crops, especially corn.”

Nope.  As I explained above, this is untrue.  And I’m especially uncertain what corn has to do with anything, as most GMOs are rice or wheat strains engineered to grow in different climates or with an increased yield.  Other improvements have been herbicide resistance or natural pesticides.

“Check out www.2045.com for the global agenda to turn us all into robots.”

Robots?  While I personally welcome the merger of humanity with technology (consider the “smart” prosthetics currently hitting the market and tell me that’s a bad thing), I fail to see this as anyone’s goal.  Robots, by most definitions, are not human, and so humans cannot become robots.  No one is trying to make cornbots, so I really don’t know where you’re getting your information.

“This is not a joke.”

If you’re not joking, then I wish you were.

“Is anybody awake out there?”

Clearly, SOME people are, but I obviously cannot speak for everyone.

Because of the magnitude of what I’ve been talking about, I’ll let the late, great Dr. Borlaug have the last word: “Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They’ve never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels.  If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they’d be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that the fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things.”

Examining the Louisiana Psychic Ruling

            I’m not going to waste your time or mine with digging into legal precedent or preparing a proper scholarly paper on this one.  Instead, we’re going to just briefly look at the facts of the matter and then I’ll tell you what I think (and hence what you should think) about all this.

            The back-story in brief: The city of Alexandria, Louisiana passed an ordinance banning fortunetelling, palm reading, astrology, and similar activities within their city.  Good for them--sticking it to the frauds, right?  Well, in 2011, Rachel Adams, a fortune-teller who claims she accepts donations but does not charge for her “services”--and we all know that’s just a ploy--sued after receiving a summons for violating the ordinance which carries daily penalties of up to $500.

            U.S. Magistrate James Kirk (I really couldn’t make this shit up if I tried) wrote a report and recommendation arguing that despite the city’s arguments that the business of fortunetelling is a fraud, it is nonetheless free speech protected under the First Amendment.

            On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Dee D. Drell (really can’t make this shit up), in agreement with Magistrate Kirk’s recommendation, declared the ordinance unconstitutional.

            This is the matter on the table for discussion.  You all know that I’m a very vocal supporter of free speech and the First Amendment, and that I’m an extremely vocal opponent of fortunetelling and the various other frauds committed under the guise of some sort of supernatural power.  That’s what makes this one interesting.  We’ve seen how the judge ruled on the matter, but was he right?

            Let us first consider the First Amendment.  Is it absolute?  No.  But neither is it or should it be lightly limited.  It extends to actions beyond just speech and press, as it rightly should, to protect free expression in general, as is exemplified in the Supreme Court decision Texas v. Johnston, in which the Court ruled that flag burning is an act of free expression protected by the First Amendment.  They were correct.

            But we also know it’s not absolute.  There are, of course, the old clichés that “your rights end where mine begin” and “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre.”  Generally, they’re trotted out by people who are trying to limit free speech beyond the actually reasonable limitations that the clichés would provide.  These reasonable limitations include, in the first case, making false defamatory statements (and even that is sometimes protected, depending upon circumstances--there’s a body of case law that I’m not even going to begin to discuss), or in the second case, endangering life and limb or inciting a riot by fraudulently claiming that there’s a fire when there is not.  It is clear that speech that people simply find annoying is protected, and that speech which actually damages others is not.

            These are common sense restrictions, and they’re generally reinforced by the courts who seem to only occasionally break away from what one might consider a “sane” interpretation of First Amendment law.

            The other matter worthy of consideration is that of fraud.  Clearly fraud is illegal.  It is prosecuted in all fifty states.  If I go downtown and pull off a Pigeon Drop, I’m going to be prosecuted for that.  Theft by any other name is still theft.  And though we may have a certain admiration for the cleverness with which these crimes are committed (as opposed to simply mugging someone), we’re all in agreement that they are still crimes and should be treated as such.

            So where does that leave us with this case?  Does that mean the judge was right or wrong.  It’s a difficult question, but I lean to the side that says he was wrong, but that answer is conditioned on several things.

            First, lying to someone--and don’t delude yourself into thinking psychics and fortunetellers are doing anything different--is perfectly fine and protected as long as it neither harms someone by defaming their character nor costs someone money under false pretenses.  I’m a magician--I lie to people all the time, and yeah, I get paid for it.  But I don’t do so under false pretenses.  They know they’re going to be lied to, and that’s exactly what they’re paying for.  They want a form of entertainment that serves as an escape from the truths of reality, and that’s exactly what they buy from me.

            When it comes to psychics, this is not necessarily the case.  Sure, plenty of people with a fortunetelling booth might just do it for the fun.  Perhaps they even tell their customers that it’s for entertainment purposes only (because we all know they’ll take that disclaimer seriously) as many cities across America require.  But the fact of the matter is, there is a large percentage of the population who, for whatever reason, believe in psychics, and take it very seriously.  These people pay out the wazoo, and all they get in return is a lie packaged up as supernatural wisdom.  This is fraud, plain and simple.

            There’s a fine line to be drawn here.  For instance, I absolutely loathe the newspaper horoscopes I see whenever I pick up a print edition of one of my favorite publications.  But is that really fraud, in the way that the law sees fraud?  No.  No one pays for that directly, and as long as it does not individually defame anyone’s character, it’s perfectly protected by the First Amendment.  We’ll just have to get people to be smarter about it in order to get rid of those.

            Is it fraud if someone holds a Houdini séance on Halloween?  Again, probably not, depending upon circumstances.  Generally, these are theatrical productions that, whether or not they come right out and say so, everyone understands to be nothing more than entertainment.  It’s become something of a tradition, and even skeptics participate.

            What about someone who claims to be the real deal, and sets up a shop somewhere, but doesn’t charge for any services?  Little more of a gray area, but still legal.  If no money changes hands, there’s no fraud.  If they do charge for their services, on the other hand, that IS fraud.  That SHOULD be illegal.  It’s not prosecuted nearly often enough (probably because politically minded prosecutors don’t want to alienate the believing community), but there’s no way around the simple truth that we should be prosecuting it.

            Now, here’s the gray area in which this case so uncomfortably resides.  What if the psychic doesn’t technically charge for her services, but accepts donations or sells books?  We all know what’s really going on here, don’t we?  It’s a clever way around trade laws.  By not actually charging for the service in question, they can argue that there’s no fraud, but by accepting donations, they’re able to keep raking in the money because they know damn well plenty of people will pay.

            So do I agree with the judge?  Maybe.  I think that, in this particular case, he might have been right, but I think he may have been wrong to throw out the law entirely.  If it is true that Adams never charged for her services, she’s probably in the clear--though if there was any sort of coercion such as claiming the spirits will only help if the victims pay, it’s another matter.  However, a law on the books to prosecute those who do charge should easily pass constitutional muster and should be allowed to stand.

            Make no mistake: this is a difficult issue, and the answers aren’t always easy to come by.  Clearly, we need stronger legal protections against the frauds masquerading as psychics.  But on the other hand, with First Amendment considerations to contend with, I must make the recommendation that I seem to always make about almost every issue: the real answer is education.  While legal protections would be a great benefit, we’ll never actually get rid of the psychic menace until we have a scientifically literate populace, well educated in methods of critical thinking.  When that day arrives, we won’t need to split hairs over constitutional issues, as the psychics will all just go out of business without any legal prodding.

On Ignorance and Idiocy

            Issac Asmiov knew a thing or two about a thing or two.  We all know his work in science fiction, but in addition to being one of the “Big Three” science fiction pioneers, he was an extremely well educated man, a professor of biochemistry, textbook writer, essayist and historian.  The man authored or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards.  His works appear in all ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System.  He once made an observation that will serve to introduce our topic of discussion for today: “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

            In that single sentence, unfortunately, Asimov managed to sum up what being American means to far too many people.  We seem to have come to this conclusion that the freedom for which our forefathers fought means the freedom to enjoy being wrong on any given matter without suffering any of the ill effects typically associated with error.

            Now don’t get me wrong.  There’s nothing wrong with ignorance per se.  We are all ignorant of something.  There’s also no shame in making a mistake.  The shame comes when one descends to a state of willful ignorance or refusal to admit error and correct mistakes.  Worse, there are many who actively seem to take pride in their ignorance and mistakes.

            Let’s look at some examples.  First up, I recently watched a news story from an alternative source of news commentary I frequently watch regarding California’s decision to ban the delicacy foie gras, presumably in response to political pressure from animal rights groups.  Without commenting on the reasoning behind the ban itself (parenthetically, I will add that I oppose this insidious legislation, but I’m not offering judgments on the intellectual capabilities of anyone who disagrees with me--that’s a completely different issue), have a look at the news piece I watched.

            The first thing you’ll notice is that I disagree with the hosts, but that’s not the point here.  The point is that both hosts seem to take such pride in their inability to pronounce “foie gras.”  If you slip up and mispronounce it, I would consider it slightly unprofessional (if you’re reading a news story, you should check the pronunciation before filming), but forgivable.  However, there is no call to take such pride in it.  These people have allowed their political views that all rich people are evil (and believe me, that attitude shows clearly in their programming on a regular basis) to influence their work to the point that they are proud of their ignorance.  Indeed, beyond being proud of never having eaten foie gras, which may be defensible if you have animal rights attitudes, they extend this idiocy to a pride in not even being able to pronounce it.

            The role of media is to bring us information.  I’m sorry, but I don’t feel I get good information when the hosts demonstrate an ignorance of their topic.  It’s fine not to know about foie gras--culinary arts are obviously not the hosts’ forte.  But the appropriate action for a journalist to take when presenting a story on a topic he or she knows nothing about is to consult an expert.  The Young Turks, rather than engaging in mental masturbation, might have brought a chef into the studio to comment.  How else are we to trust that the information they provide us regarding the treatment of the ducks is accurate when they can’t even learn how to pronounce the words?

            I’ll treat you to another example, this one even more depressing.  It involves two people I know personally, and I will omit any identifying information to protect the ignorant (not a concession I would generally make as I feel that people should be made to feel ashamed when the demonstrate voluntary ignorance, but in this case, I have personal reasons to avoid identifying who I’m talking about).  During a gathering, Person A remarked on the absolute dangerous lunacy that is the modern anti-vaccination movement.  Person B responded by saying very much like “That’s a very double-sided issue and you sound ignorant when you don’t consider both sides.”

            In addition to just proving ignorance of what the science says on the matter, this person demonstrates a willingness to engage in a particular variety of ignorance that can and will cost human lives, with particularly high risk for children.  Indeed, there is nothing that smacks of greater stupidity than the ignorant calling the educated ignorant.  The simple fact of the matter (which we may discuss in detail in another entry) is that vaccination is a safe way to save lives, and that the anti-vaccination movement is an attempt by the stupid to stroke their own egos at the expense of not only their lives, but their children’s and their communities’ (herd immunity, after all, is a key component of why we’ve managed to beat many of the diseases that are now making a comeback as a direct result of the criminally negligent anti-vaccination movement).  All you really need to know is that the anti-vaccination movement was largely started by a doctor (Andrew Wakefield) whose license has been revoked and whose 1998 paper linking the MMR vaccine to autism is known to be a fraud and whose integrity is further called into question by allegations that his research was motivated by profiteering rather than science and by a woman whose only qualifications are that she took off her clothes for Playboy magazine and managed to have a child who she’s been willing to exploit on the international stage for a little unearned attention.  I’ve complained before and will again that “parent” is not a qualification.  All it takes to become a parent is unprotected sex--that does not make one an expert on anything.  And as much as I have respect for those who take off their clothes for the enjoyment of the rest of us, that also does not qualify one to speak on a matter of scientific importance.

            As Person B said, it may be a “double sided” issue, but on one side is every credible scientific study that’s been written on the topic--ever--and on the other side is a porn star and a disgraced doctor who faked the results of his research.

            Taking sides when one is clearly right is not a problem, and that it is perceived as a problem IS a major concern.  Matters of science are not subject to opinion.  Hell, I’m not even entirely convinced that matters of art and entertainment are completely subjective.  Regardless, when it comes to science, politics, economics--really anything to which there is an objective “right answer,” whether or not we yet know what that right answer is, we needn’t subject ourselves to an “unbiased” discussion of “opinion.”  Because opinions can be wrong, and the goal of the scientist as well as both the journalist and even just the average person considering the information from home is to determine the actual truth, the appropriate course is to argue passionately for what appears to be right, but to maintain sufficient humility to listen if someone presents a contrary argument.  Allow reasoned argument (as opposed to emotionalism) and fact (as opposed to opinion) to settle the matter.  If there is a question on which there is a right answer--and anti-vaccination is one of these as are evolution and global warming, despite what the deniers may say--then presenting an “unbiased” news piece in which “both sides” present their information is, itself, a biased form of distributing information.  It is biased in favor of the WRONG side because it creates the illusion that there is room for debate when there is not.

            People have a tendency to read exactly the wrong sources of information.  Conservatives and liberals both have a habit of ignoring or misusing science.  The conservatives rightly have a reputation for being anti-science, but it’s time for all of us to realize that, though they’re wrong about different issues, the liberals are just as scientifically misguided as their right-wing counterparts.  There are plenty of good sources of information capable of accurately distilling what the studies actually say (myself included, I say with an appropriate level of humility) but ultimately, if you’re reading your information from a political website, or any traditional newspaper, you’re probably getting bad science.  Go to the original study, or find a source capable of distilling the information for you without losing the actual meaning.

            There’s no shame if you don’t know a certain point of science (though there is massive shame in America’s institutionalized ignorance of any science at all).  But when that topic comes up, the honorable and proper course of action is to admit ignorance, and then do some research.  “I don’t know--I’ll read and get back to you,” and “I was wrong, and further evidence has changed my mind” are two of the greatest statements one can make, so don’t think I’m being cruel simply because some people know different things than I do.  Just don’t take pride in ignorance.  Strive to fill those gaps in your knowledge, and you can still be smart no matter how ignorant you are.  Take pride in ignorance--which includes an unwillingness to bow to new information--and no matter how educated you are, you’re nothing but a fucking moron.