A disturbing trend in the media is to draw sweeping conclusions from isolated scientific research without any scrutiny or analysis. A blanket statement will be issued such as: SCIENTISTS DISCOVER THAT TUNA FISH IS HIGH IN MERCURY. Therefore, everyone and their brother is supposed to stop eating tuna fish, because that would be the same as eating pure mercury.
Balderdash. Left unanswered is, how much mercury? How much mercury can the human body tolerate? How much mercury resides in other foods like apples or oranges? At what rate does the human body excrete mercury, if at all? What was the population of the control group and the test group of humans used in the experiment(s)? What were these humans like--thin, fat, average; old, young; male or female; sedentary or active lifestyle? Where were the samples of tuna obtained--from a single geographical region, or all over the world? How were the samples obtained and what is the likelihood those samples were corrupted by other factors?
Last of all comes the most important question which is almost never revealed in the media. Who funded the experiment? In the case of any study finding harm in seafood, I would highly suspect the cattle industry, because fewer people eating seafood translates into more people buying beef. I'm just joking in this instance, because such an obvious connection would likely be discovered with an ensuing scandal. The point is that journalists should ask all of the standard questions and include them in their report. Brief articles touching upon science are utterly useless. The only valid way of reporting upon science is including all of the pertinent information in summary form. First and foremost a journalist must ask, WHERE IS THE MONEY? If this question is not answered, the report is rubbish. Only by tracing the financial backing of research can it can become clear if a particular bias is at play. However, the absence of a clear conflict of interest does not mean there aren't any prejudices--only that the most obvious prejudice is absent.
The activity of a scientist is tightly constrained by the flow of grant money from corporations and the government. Research is not free. We simply do not have that many independently wealthy scientists researching whatever they please. We just don't live in a world like that. What we have are powerful people like CEO's and government bureaucrats who decide what will be studied--and more often than we like to think, what the results will be!
Just for the record, I eat tuna whenever and wherever I please. Mercury be damned. I eat salmon, too, despite reports of PCB contamination. Besides the excellent flavor, I like the beneficial effects of the omega-3 fatty acids found in high quantities in these excellent foods. The stuff seems to counter mild forms of depression. I will go so far as to eat raw sushi, too, because I'm not terribly concerned about media reports that indicate sushi contains little worms. Yeah, right. Maybe at your sushi bar, but not mine.
Science is a good thing, but too many journalists nowadays approach it as if it were some sort of religion. They approach scientists like shaman whose pronouncements must be accepted uncritically, without any difficult questions. This is a slippery slope that has led to every manner of evil, beginning with racist theories asserting the inferiority of non-white people, theories that predated the Holocaust. Pseudoscience has caused enormous harm in the world and continues to do so.
I am not impressed with studies involving rats or mice that purport to reveal universal truths about human psychology. Biology, maybe; psychology, no. Rats are a world away from the complexity of the human brain. I am not impressed with scientists who devote their energies to constructing sadistic experiments harming animals in order to "prove" just one side of a sociological issue such as whether single moms raise kids better or worse than intact families. Any time that animals are harmed, there must be clear and succinct benefits accruing to the human or animal species as a direct result. Minor and insignificant studies should be jettisoned if their only purpose is to satisfy a scientist's private thirst for sadism.
I'm not impressed when scientists encourage journalists to draw sweeping conclusions based largely upon anecdotal or flawed evidence. If you have conducted an experiment involving only twenty mice, you have proved exactly nothing. A sizable proportion of those twenty mice might well be freaks. If you have just five freaks out of twenty, that means 25% of your research is bunk. At any rate, what are you experimenting with mice for, when human subjects are often willing and available? Shoddy research and lax ethics invite refutation and tarnishes the image of science, such that many people even to this very day reject legitimate scientific theories such as evolution and the benefits of modern medical treatment.
Of all the scientific fields, psychology is without a doubt the one most rife with pseudoscience. Anecdotal evidence is commonly exaggerated to draw unjustified conclusions. Stereotypes and prejudice are too often accepted without a murmur. The entire classification of mental illnesses is fuzzy and subjective. Instead of a desire to find out the truth about a subject, psychologists all too often have the desire to impose their truth upon the world, seeing what they want to see. The experiments they conduct have foregone conclusions designed to prove whatever the researcher already feels to be so.
Any scientist that wants to learn the truth needs to ask one question. What are the factors in your own life that might prevent you from seeing the world as it really is? "Know thyself," as Socrates said. Research should be designed in such a way as to encourage the contrary answer, in opposition to what the scientist expects, because the desires of his own heart will tend to tilt the results in subtle ways.
For instance, in the early days of psychology, homosexuality was classified as a mental illness. There were actual scientific studies showing that homosexuality had a negative effect on a person's mental health. These were alluded to by Ayn Rand, who like many thinkers of her time also believed that gays and lesbians needed medical treatment to reverse their sexual orientation. (I just threw that grenade in there to jar any conservative gay Objectivists that might be reading. Yes, it's true.)
Many of these anti-gay studies were based upon clinical populations, i.e. patients already admitted into a mental hospital and receiving treatment who identified themselves as homosexual. The scientists conducting the study had prior experience in counseling mentally ill homosexuals. If all you have experienced in your professional life has been homosexuals with mental problems, and you have been acquainted with very few well-adjusted homosexuals, then you are already prejudiced. Any study you create is going to focus more than likely upon negative aspects concerning homosexuality. The same applies to any research involving drugs, homelessness, anxiety disorder, and sexuality in general. If you have been counseling drug addicts for your entire professional life, you are going to have morbid thoughts concerning drugs and probably will have a difficult time accepting any positive aspects at all.
Scientists sometimes ignore the larger picture involving society and social attitudes and the role that such elements play. Instead, they focus in single-minded fashion upon one narrow topic, ignoring the myriad of other influences that warp results. At least from a psychological perspective, homosexuality cannot be studied out of context of the larger society in which it exists. One must be careful in drawing any conclusions upon the subject, because there have been grave errors with harmful consequences made in the past both in this area and in the area of ethnic background.
Another trouble with science has to do with human nature. People have a tendency to adhere to orthodoxy. Society despises all nonconformists. If you think the same way everyone else in your profession thinks, then you won't ever be condemned; you will be respected and admired. If you buck the fashionable trends like a maverick, you risk being ostracized in the worst case scenario, or criticized at best. Conformism stifles new ideas in science.
What university professors should treasure is independent thinking, creativity, and originality; in practice, what they reward is the ability to memorize sterile facts. I remember Botany class in college, when we were asked to memorize the genus, species, and family, both the Latin and the common names, of a hundred different trees. I sailed through the exam with flying colors. Does that mean I would make a great scientist? Not necessarily. I don't remember a single one of those names today and am at a loss as to what good it did me to learn them. I'm sure things the professor liked having an easy method of grading students--multiple choice tests that could be graded by an assistant. In my opinion, what really is important in the subject of Botany is the mechanism of photosynthesis. In comparison, all else pales in importance. I believe the professor devoted a single lecture to that vital discussion. I am still curious about it.
I'm a big fan of science, subscribe to Discover magazine, and watch documentaries on scientific subjects at least twice a week. Pseudoscience irritates me when I find it in the media. In order to evaluate science, we need a reasonable argument based upon sound, unbiased research. Journalists should ask hard questions, not simply repeat the words of scientists as though they were sacred. Science is not an exclusive club that you can only join by completing a four-year degree. Science is the birthright of everyone upon this planet. Nor is science all that difficult to understand until you get into quantum mechanics. Give us all the facts, not just the words of the holy men in the white lab coats.
No comments:
Post a Comment