Risky business

One thing that I find that many people don't understand is the concept of risk.

Risk has a formal, mathematical definition: it is equal to the probability of exposure times the probability of harm.  For example, an activity which is a commonplace occurrence (probability of exposure) and which, for those who participate in it, is very likely to cause injury or death (probability of harm) is considered to be highly risky.  An example is riding a motorcycle without a helmet.  Likewise, an activity for which both quantities are low -- such as eating a mango -- is a low-risk activity.

So far, easy.  When it becomes less intuitive is when one of the quantities is low, and the other is high -- such as riding in an airplane.  The probability of exposure is high (it's commonplace), but the probability of harm is extremely low (almost no one, of all the millions of people who fly daily, gets hurt doing it).  The overall risk is therefore quite low -- but the times when injury and death occur are spectacular, leading most people to overestimate the risk wildly.

An additional complicating factor occurs when engaging in one behavior stops you from doing another -- in which case you need to consider the net risk.  For example, if you're going to take a thousand-mile trip, and are undecided whether to fly or drive, the risk for flying is almost certainly lower than the risk for driving, so your net risk for the trip goes down by taking an airplane.  (I realize that there are other factors that can influence the decision -- such as cost.)

The whole issue comes up because of an article sent to me by a reader of Skeptophilia.  The article (here) is entitled "Twenty Things That Are More Dangerous To Children Than Lead Paint In Toys."  It is a perfect example of a combination of pseudoscientific bunk, alarmism, and a complete misunderstanding of the concept of risk.

To take just a few of their examples of their "things that are dangerous:"

1)  Mercury in dental amalgam.  Never mind that hundreds of controlled, peer-reviewed studies have concluded that the amount of mercury absorbed by the body from dental fillings is far below the amount that would cause harm; this article repeats the tired old claim that the mercury in your fillings is "poisoning you."  Odd, then, how many of us live long, healthy lives with mouths full of metal, isn't it?  (Here's one nice debunking of this claim -- with references.)

2)  Sunscreen.  Contains many "poisonous chemicals," says the article, and yet we "slather it all over our children."  First, given that the other options are getting sunburned, or avoiding the sun altogether, I think we can apply our concept of "net risk" here.  Ever heard of malignant melanoma, folks?  Second, the repeated use of the word "chemical" as something we should avoid is another ploy of the "holistic health" crowd, which cheerfully neglects the fact that we humans are really just a big bag o' chemicals already.  (Another statement from the article is that children's clothes should not be "washed in chemicals."  What, pray, should we wash them with, then?)  "Natural" does not mean "good;" the naturalistic fallacy is rampant in these sorts of claims.  I always get a laugh from food packages that say, "Made From All-Natural Ingredients."  I wonder what food made from "All Unnatural Ingredients" would look like?

3)  In the same vein, "synthetic vitamins" made the list.  I'm sorry to inform you, Mr. and Ms. Holistic Health,  but there is no difference between ascorbic acid (vitamin C) produced in a laboratory, and ascorbic acid extracted from oranges.  The body can't tell the difference.  There is no sorting station in your cells, looking at vitamin C molecules and saying, "Ooh, goodie!  This is a nice, natural vitamin C molecule from an orange!  Oh, YUK.  This is a horrid, unnatural vitamin C molecule from a laboratory!"

4)  Vaccines.  This one torques the absolute hell out of me, largely because of a personal connection; my mother contracted polio as a child, and as a result limped for her entire adult life; and my grandfather's two sisters, both teenagers, died three days apart from measles.  Died.  All of this occurred in the days before vaccines, and yet these "Natural Health" people somehow claim that vaccines are harmful to your health.  Yes, they often contain methyl mercury as a stabilizer (but like dental amalgam, the quantity is so low as to be insignificant to health), and every once in a while someone, somewhere will have an adverse reaction to a vaccine.  But if you compare the actual risk of vaccination as compared to the actual risk of going unvaccinated, they are orders of magnitude apart.  Vaccines have saved millions of lives -- and, to put not too fine a point on it -- if you are going to let unscientific bullshit like this persuade you not to vaccinate your children, you should be prosecuted for child endangerment.

Oh, and another thing; there is no connection between vaccines and autism.  None.  It has nothing to do with the "dumbed-down press" (direct quote from the article).  Once again, we have peer-reviewed studies that have repeatedly found no correlation, and the wild, unsupported claims of a "natural health practitioner" who sits there shrieking that vaccines cause "severe neurological damage" (another quote).

Well, I know who I believe.

All of this is not meant to say that we shouldn't be careful about what we put into our bodies.  Some of the things on the list (soda, fast food, and preserved meats such as hot dogs and bacon) clearly can have adverse effects if consumed in large quantities.  (In fact, I find it curious that "dryer sheets" made the list, while "high fructose corn syrup" didn't.  Compare the risk of type-2 diabetes from habitual overconsumption of sugar with recorded cases of dryer-sheet toxicity.  Let me know what you find.)

So, that's today's rant.  I'm off to consume my all-natural, chemical-free breakfast, and pray that the cumulative effects of my three dental fillings and years of vaccinations don't make me suddenly drop dead from "severe neurological damage."

Here lies an atheist: All dressed up, and nowhere to go.

I've been thinking a lot about death lately.  But for what it's worth, I'm not getting depressed about it or anything, so no need to start planning your intervention, or take away my Swiss army knife, or whatever.

I think the reason is because in the last two months, I've had three people I know die.  One, as I mentioned in a previous post, was my therapist, who died suddenly two days after Christmas.  The other two were long-term long distance friends, distant cousins of mine whom I'd met because of a mutual interest in genealogy, and with whom I had been corresponding for over twenty years.  Both were selfless and funny and kind, and although I'd never met either face-to-face, they were people that I counted amongst my friends.

The whole thing leaves me thinking about connections, and the holes left behind when people die.  I find myself wondering (and I ask honestly, without any feeling of self-pity) who have I touched?  My students, presumably, at least some of them.  My family, obviously.  I've never found it easy to make friends, but I have lots of what I'd call "good acquaintances" -- people who'd probably come to my memorial service, but whose life would roll on more-or-less unchanged in my absence.  It's really struck me in the last couple of years that I hardly ever socialize with anyone unless they're someone my wife knows, so I really have few close friends.  I'm not sure how much this bothers me -- some days yes, some days no -- but I do sometimes wonder why in my five decades I've consistently found it easy to get along with almost everyone, and to have a deep friendship with almost no one.

So what would my memorial service be like?  And why do I care?  If my worldview is correct, I won't be there in any form whatsoever to pass judgment on what my loved ones do to remember me, or what they do with my remains.  If they decide to have a full-blown Catholic funeral, complete with a nun reciting the rosary, I'll be none the wiser.  Part of me, though, just can't bear to think that this could happen.  Maybe it's the last thing we want to have control over -- "just follow my wishes until after the memorial service is over, and after that, do what you please!"

Me, I want to have music.  And food.  I suppose dancing is too much to ask, but honestly, that would be cool.  Bring some instruments.  Have a jam session.  Don't play anything maudlin.  (I swear, if anyone sings "Danny Boy"...)  I can think of one lightning-fast Finnish tune that would be a great sendoff.  Show some photos of travels, dives, gigs.  Break open a bottle of really good Spanish red wine.  Maybe more than one.  Maybe the Irish had the right idea, with their wakes.  Leave 'em laughing -- or at least, smiling.

And afterwards, everyone will go home, and the world will keep spinning, the stars will still shine at night; the only difference is that I won't be there to see it.  It's boggling, really.  I doubt I really fully comprehend what that means.  I doubt anyone does.  How could anyone conceive of being gone -- really gone, really and truly entirely gone?  Strange thought.  Doesn't scare me, honestly, it's more just inconceivable.

Or, maybe I've been wrong all along, and there's an afterlife.  Could be, I suppose.  There are certainly enough traditions which propose such a thing, and enough tales of people's spirits hanging around after the funeral for various reasons.  (If I die before our local pharmacist, and I become a ghost, I'm coming back just to scare the piss out of him.  I can't stand that sonofabitch.  But I digress.)

Either way, I'm not really scared to die.  I was with my father when he died, and mostly what I thought was... how peaceful.  Not really very scary at all.  It was sad, but it was sad for me and my mom -- not sad for him -- wherever he was, if anywhere, he wasn't there anymore.  He was gone, or far, far away, beyond any more pain or anguish or sorrow.

So that's how I look at my own death.  The biggest question mark I will ever face.  I do fear pain, I fear debility, I fear being dependent; but I don't really fear death.  My attitude is that when I die, it will simply be my turn to leap forward into the unknown.

It's all in the wrist

In what I consider a nice bit of good news, PowerBalance has finally admitted that their bracelets are useless.

For those of you who haven't run into this particular piece of woo-woo nonsense, PowerBalance is an American-based company that came out a few years ago with a selection of brightly-colored plastic bracelets, with a holographic logo imprinted on them, and claimed that wearing them would somehow improve your health.  Users swore by them; for a time I used to see them regularly at the gym I belong to.  Supposedly, these things improved your lifting ability, flexibility, and reduced your likelihood of sore joints and muscles afterwards.  For an explanation of how a plastic bracelet could do all of that, the company had to resort to pseudoscience of the most egregious sort; the claim was that their "holographic technology" made the bracelet "resonate with and respond to the natural energy field of the body."

One of my pet peeves (okay, admittedly I have quite a few) is people who use scientific terms in a non-scientific way.  A favorite term for these folks is "field," which to a physicist means something specific, measurable, and quantifiable, but in the hands of these charlatans it becomes something mysterious -- an aura that surrounds your body and interacts with the world (and the fields of other people, presumably) in magical ways.  And somehow, this little strip of plastic was supposed to "resonate with your field" and improve your ability to bench press.

Well, finally, someone has forced them to admit that it's all a bunch of crap, and high time.  Apparently, PowerBalance has been under attack from consumer organizations all over Europe, but it was in Australia that they were forced to print a public notice that they'd hoodwinked the people who had purchased their products:

In our advertising we stated that Power Balance wristbands improved your strength, balance and flexibility.
We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.
If you feel you have been misled by our promotions, we wish to unreservedly apologise and offer a full refund.
To obtain a refund please visit our website www.powerbalance.com.au or contact us toll-free on 1 800 733 436.
This offer will be available until 30th June 2011. To be eligible for a refund, together with return postage, you will need to return a genuine Power Balance product along with proof of purchase (including credit card records, store barcodes and receipts) from an authorised reseller in Australia.
This Corrective Notice has been paid for by Power Balance Australia Pty Ltd and placed pursuant to an undertaking to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission given under section 87B of the Trade Practices Act, 1974.

My general response was: hallelujah.  It's about time that one of these ripoff artists gets called on their fraudulent claims.  I'm saddened (but not surprised) that it hasn't happened in the US yet; at the risk of overgeneralization, I think Americans tend as a whole to be more superstitious (and therefore more easily suckered) than are citizens of most other industrialized countries.  Worthless quack cures (such as homeopathy) still are multi-million dollar business here, and (to my knowledge) there has been no concerted effort on the part of consumer organizations to try to stop them.  The only consistent push in that direction has come from skeptics, notably James Randi.

But this is a start.  One can only hope that it'll spread.  I'd like to live to see the day that psychics have to put disclaimers saying "Any Predictions I Make Are Probably Going To Be Wrong" underneath their sandwich boards, astrology columns come with a header saying "Warning: The Contents Of This Column Are Fiction" -- and the homeopaths are simply out of a job.

The flying saucers of Iran

I am fortunate, for a variety of reasons, to be a teacher.  I am in the middle of my 25th year in the profession, and still (most days) look forward to going to work.  In large part, this is due to the enthusiasm of my students.

Given that I teach two AP-level science classes and various science electives (including Critical Thinking), most of my students know about my passion for skepticism, and my general disdain for ridiculous, counterfactual (or counterlogical) claims.  I'm happy to report that the majority of them share my views with regards to irrationality, and like me, find such beliefs simultaneously maddening and hilarious.  They have been some of my best advance scouts, bringing in stories on a regular basis that I probably would not otherwise have found.

Just yesterday, one of the students in my AP Biology class came in, obviously excited.  "Wait till you hear this one," he said.  "This needs to be picked up by Worldwide Wacko Watch."  He then reminded me of the capture last month by Iranians of the RQ-170 drone aircraft, one of the high-tech "flying wings" that are used to perform unmanned surveillance missions.  "Do you know how they managed to do that?" he asked me.

To say I'm not knowledgeable about aircraft and military technology is an understatement, so I merely said, "No."

He responded, with barely-contained laughter, "Using a flying saucer."

Upon investigation, I found that Mehran Tavakoli Keshe, an Iranian engineer, has claimed to be the mastermind behind the downing of the drone.  Although the US has yet to confirm that it was the RQ-170 that was captured, Keshe has recently released a photograph showing either the captured drone or else a model (it's not clear which they're claiming it is).  He then went on to crow that the capture had not been done using any kind of conventional technology, but had been accomplished using "field forces generated by a flying saucer... (harnessing) a fusion reactor that manipulates dark matter, regular matter, and antimatter.'

Wow, dude.  You really should have stopped while you were ahead.  You almost had us believing you, there, when you showed us the photograph.  But you really expect us to buy that you Iranians have a flying saucer when you can't even seem to manage to build a conventional nuclear reactor that works?  And the whole thing about "field forces" (we presume he means "force fields") and fusion reactors and so on is clearly the product of someone who has spent too many hours watching Battlestar Galactica.  Given that physicists haven't even been able to demonstrate that dark matter exists -- if it does, it seems not to interact with regular matter much at all -- I am at a loss to explain how you could have a spaceship whose engine runs on it.

What's next?  A spaceship that runs on fairy dust and rainbows?

Even though Keshe obviously has a screw loose, his heart seems to be in the right place with respect to aggression.

"We invite the US government and other nations to enter into negotiation with the Foundation and The Iranian government,” he posted on the Keshe Foundation's online forum, “for disclosure of the full space technology to all nations simultaneously that there shall be no more war race, but a pace [sic] race to join and conquer the space and not each others little peace of lands so called nations, this offer stands and is extended to all nations irrespective of their colour, race and religion."

Which I have to admit is pretty friendly, coming from a spokesperson from a government that routinely calls for the United States to be annihilated.

In any case, I think the more likely explanation for the downing of the drone was proposed by Wired magazine writers Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman (here) -- that the Iranians simply jammed the drone's navigation systems.  That doesn't have the cachet, however, of "we locked onto your drone with our tractor beam, which is powered by dark matter and antimatter.  And dilithium crystals."

Still, nothing I can say can beat the response from George Little, the Pentagon's chief spokesperson, who said, "We have no comment on this individual's claims -- but tell him the Secretary wants his light saber back."

This is your brain during the apocalypse

Given the rather apocalyptic bent of the last two posts, it was kind of a curious coincidence that a student of mine sent me a link to a study that was published last week in the journal Nature - Neuroscience.  The gist seems to be that our brains are just not wired to expect, and therefore prepare for, calamities.

The study, done by a group of German and British scientists, created descriptions of a series of eighty pleasant to unpleasant events, of varying likelihood -- contracting a fatal disease, getting a better job, being mugged, winning the lottery, having one's house burn down, finding a $20 bill on the street, getting in a car accident.  The subjects were asked to estimate the likelihood of each of these events happening to them.  Afterwards, the researchers told the subjects the actual probabilities -- and, not surprisingly, the subjects had overestimated some risks, and underestimated others.

Where it got interesting was that the researchers resurveyed the subjects after some time had passed, and found that they were able to adjust their perceptions of probability -- but only for the favorable outcomes and the unfavorable ones that they'd overestimated.  Their perception of their risk for the unfavorable outcomes they'd underestimated remained too low, as if they couldn't quite bring themselves to believe that a bad outcome was more likely than they'd thought.

Further, they did fMRIs on the subjects while they were taking the surveys, and found that when they considered future calamities, a part of the frontal cortex would activate, a part of the brain that seems to act as a shield to keep us from dwelling on negative emotions.  In the words of the researchers:

We found that optimism was related to diminished coding of undesirable information about the future in a region of the frontal cortex (right IFG) that has been identified as being sensitive to negative estimation errors . . . this human propensity toward optimism is facilitated by the brain's failure to code errors in estimation when those call for pessimistic updates. This failure results in selective updating, which supports unrealistic optimism that is resistant to change.

This is a fascinating result.  I wonder, though, how this explains the uncommon, but uncommonly loud, ones amongst us who are doomsayers.  We have religious apocalyptics like Ronald Weinland, who seem to drool over the prospects of nuclear war, the fall of the American government, and the Rivers Running Red With The Blood Of Unbelievers.  Then, we have our small-scale pessimists, who relish the prognostication of doom from a variety of causes, from ecological catastrophe to economic collapse, from asteroid collisions to massive, Contagion-style plagues.

Do these folks just have a less active right IFG?  Or are they the true realists, and the rest of us Pollyannas?  In my Environmental Science class, I warn fairly consistently against a blithely optimistic, "Oh, We'll Fix Things Somehow, We Always Do" approach to ecological problems.  But my own approach tends to optimism, as well; I always end my Environmental Science course, in the last lecture of the year, by saying, "We've talked about a lot of negative, worrisome stuff in this class, but if I was a pessimist, I wouldn't be a teacher.  Go out and change the world."

I've always liked to think that I approach life rationally, and that my opinions and attitudes are largely based upon reason, evidence, and logic.  But given the results of the study in Nature - Neuroscience, I'm left wondering if my generally bouncy, upbeat attitude is a brain-wiring phenomenon, and therefore not reflective of the way the world actually is.

Ye gods, that's a depressing thought.  Maybe I shouldn't think about this any more.  I mean, it's not like my perceptions could be that far wrong, right?

Of course right.

Tilting plates and the Lost Tribes of Israel

I've always had a fascination for geology, so when I saw the website about a collapse of the tectonic plates underneath Java and Pakistan, I had to take a look.  (Here's the site.)

Now, if you go to the link, and you're like most people, you'll probably notice the header and immediately roll your eyes.  Not always being the most observant person in the world, I focused instead on the headline, which shrieks about a twenty-foot drop in the coastline of Java, "confirmed by Google satellite."  Then followed maps, including one purporting to show that the shore was now submerged under twenty feet of water.  Despite this devastation, there was "total silence on the international news" about the event.

At this point, even I began to get suspicious, but I kept reading -- and found that the article said that Pakistan was sinking, too, and that the devastation it experienced from the floods during the summer of 2010 was due to the "western end of the Indo-Australian plate tilting downwards."  This subsidence meant that when the rains came, there was nowhere for the water to go.

Now, I'm no geologist, but I do know enough to recognize that plates don't just "tilt downwards" suddenly.  Both Pakistan and Indonesia are geologically active, yes; but they aren't even on the same plate boundary (Pakistan is at the margin of the Indian and Arabian plates, Indonesia at the margin of the Australian and Eurasian plates).  What happens at one boundary isn't going to have much of an effect at the other.

So, at this point, the needle on my bullshittometer was pegged.  But it turns out that there was more to come  Here's the conclusion of the article:

It’s time to stay prepared.  The G-d of Israel is now rearranging Planet Earth.  The continent that once was the home of Adam and Eve in the Gans Eden, will soon be restored. That Paradise was created and then lost by disobedience and defiance against the sovereign will of G-d.  Yet, a “Plan” was made for redemption and restoration of Gans Eden again. As the prophets of Israel have collectively revealed, complete redemption and restoration will only come through apocalyptic catastrophes. The “Appointed Time” appears to now have arrived.  The Lost Tribes of the House of Israel will soon be restored.  The rest of the House of Judah will be reunited not only with their own Orthodox brothers in Israel but also with their cousins, the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel.  All will be reunited in the Messiah.

(The writer seems to be unusually fond of "Bold," doesn't he?)

What I find curious here is how long it took for me to recognize that something was amiss.  (And that's excusing my missing the header on the website - if you didn't check out the link, it says, "Destination Yisra'el: A Blog for the Lost Ten Tribers Awakening to Their New Reality.")  And even once I began to realize that the author was making some fairly wild claims, I kept looking for a way to buy the central premise -- that there was some kind of odd tectonic shift happening in Asia.  It was only when I got to the part about reestablishing the Garden of Eden that I went, "Oh.  It's just another woo-woo wingnut.  I see."  (And if you want a more thorough debunking of the above site, including where the satellite images came from, go here for a fine illustration of the fact that even woo-woos sometimes police their own.)

One of my faults, I suppose, is that I want to believe people.  I don't like starting from the assumption that a lot of folks are (1) liars, (2) morons, (3) dupes, or (4) all three.  That's the road to cynicism, and I hope I never cross the line from skeptic to cynic, because that's a pretty dry, dusty world to live in.  But what it does mean is that I always tend to give people a shot at making sense, unless the first shot goes right through their own feet (as was the case with yesterday's Nouveau Apocalyptic, Ronald Weinland). 

Hope springs eternal, I guess, even in the heart of a snarky rationalist like myself.  And if that hope is sometimes doomed to be dashed, I suppose that's just the way of things.  I do believe that almost everyone is capable of thinking logically and critically -- and although this blog is largely devoted to people who don't, it won't stop me looking for, and celebrating, the ones who do.

Just call me the Diogenes of skepticism.

Next up at bat...

Now that Harold Camping has officially retired as Chief Prognosticator of the Apocalypse, we have a new ultrareligious wingnut stepping in to fill his shoes.

Ronald Weinland, minister in the Church of God - PKG (Preparing for the Kingdom of God), has said that Jesus is coming back to Earth on May 27, 2012, thus beating the Mayans by almost seven months.

According to Weinland,

January 7, 2012, is another important occurrence for the timing of God’s work and end-time events. This date is an important crossroad in time as it ends a prophetically historic portion of time in Daniel that consists of a prophetic measure of “time” and “times” that began after Trumpets of 2009. January 8 of this year begins the final “half-a-time” of this full prophetic period known as “time, times, and half-a-time.” That day is the start of the final period of 140 days (half-a-time) that leads up to the very coming of the Messiah spoken of in those same prophecies of Daniel.

The "Trumpets of 2009?"  I remember 2009 very clearly, and I don't recall any trumpets.  But maybe they were playing somewhere else, I dunno.

It's interesting, if you go to his website (here), that his listing of holy days to be observed by his followers continues all the way up into 2014.  You'd think that if Jesus was returning to Earth in May to kick some ass, it would render the whole thing moot, as aren't the true believers supposed to be assumed bodily into heaven after that?  Even if I'm wrong on that point, you'd think that worship service schedules would be suspended given the fact that the United States is supposed to "fall" after experiencing a nuclear war this spring.  Kind of pointless to hold a church service if all the believers are in heaven, and all of the potential converts are dead, don't you think?  His website is unclear on that point, but one thing that is mighty clear is that if you want to follow him and as a result "be impregnated by the spirit of God," you need to give him 10% of your after-tax income.

Seriously.

Of course, he's fully expecting that people like me will ignore his words.  "The truth is ridiculed, ignored, slandered, and mocked," he said, conveniently ignoring the fact that many of us also ridicule, ignore, slander, and mock people who obviously have a screw loose.  But then, he pulls out his trump card; anyone who mocks him, he says, "will be smitten by God with cancer."

Wow.  I... I don't know what to say.  Should I start setting aside money for my chemotherapy now?  It probably wouldn't do any good, I guess, given my suspicion that what gets smitten by god stays smitten.

In all seriousness, people like him anger me -- not because I don't think that everyone has a right to believe whatever they want to, but because his loony apocalyptic worldview is bound to be appealing to the weak, the easily deluded, those looking for something solid to grab on to.  And these folks will likely bankrupt themselves to pay the tithes that Weinland demands; this happened to many of the followers of Weinland's previous church, the Worldwide Church of God, when it was led by the charismatic Herbert W. Armstrong -- leading many to characterize it as a cult.

I know that there's no way to stop people like Weinland; the American laws governing freedom of religion are there for a reason.  But when does religion cross the line into victimization?  At what point does a church become a cult?  These aren't easy questions.  But I do know one thing:

I'm not cancelling my summer plans, because I'll bet you a thousand dollars we're all still here come May 28.