Fake acupuncture works!

The inimitable Fox News reports today:

Fake Acupuncture Works Nearly as Well as the Real Thing for Low Back Pain, Study Finds.

Which is to say, it doesn't work at all.

Almost half the patients treated with acupuncture needles felt relief that lasted months. In contrast, only about a quarter of the patients receiving medications and other Western medical treatments felt better.

...

Although the study was not designed to determine how acupuncture works, Endres said, its findings are in line with a theory that pain messages to the brain can be blocked by competing stimuli.

They briefly point out the flamingly obvious:

Positive expectations the patients held about acupuncture -- or negative expectations about conventional medicine -- also could have led to a placebo effect and explain the findings, he said.

Yes. When your negative control group (sham acupuncture) and your test group (acupuncture) are indistinguishable - it means it doesn't work. Acupuncture is solely a placebo effect.

And then go flying off into woo-land again:

Dr. Brian Berman, the University of Maryland's director of complementary medicine, said the real and the sham acupuncture may have worked for reasons that can be explained in Western terms: by changing the way the brain processes pain signals or by releasing natural painkillers in the body.

I wish that Fox News were distorting this story and sensationalizing it. But they're not. The abstract from the paper that they are discussing states:

Low back pain improved after acupuncture treatment for at least 6 months. Effectiveness of acupuncture, either verum or sham, was almost twice that of conventional therapy.

This is not true. When compared to the proper control, acupuncture shows no increase in its ability to make people feel better. That means it doesn't work.

*sigh*

They also state:

The superiority of both forms [meaning sham and real] of acupuncture suggests a common underlying mechanism that may act on pain generation, transmission of pain signals, or processing of pain signals by the central nervous system and that is stronger than the action mechanism of conventional therapy. The underlying mechanism may be a kind of superplacebo effect produced by placebo and all nonspecific factors working together. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of acupuncture cannot be attributed merely to a placebo effect because there is no reason to believe that the action mechanism of conventional therapy is the result solely of the placebo effect.

No. What it suggests is that the authors of this study don't understand what a negative control group is. Your negative control group is the sham group.

If you want to test if there's actually an effect of magically inserting needles, you need to control for patients knowing that they're receiving acupuncture. I.e. You need to perform your sham acupuncture on an unconscious patient. Or you need to tell your patient in advance that it is a sham. Then see if you have an effect compared to the group who doesn't get stuck with a needle. As it is, you have merely shown that people like to have needles stuck in them by a magical healing man.

It's a beautiful study. It's a pity the authors don't know how to interpret it.

Oy journalists.

Newsflash! Man invents perpetual motion machine. Again. And fools journalists into thinking it is revolutionary (or even real):

For obvious reasons, scientists long have thought that salt water couldn't be burned.

Yep. Obvious reasons like "it doesn't burn".

John Kanzius, a Washington County native, tried to desalinate seawater with a generator he developed to treat cancer...

And this didn't make said journalist go "hmmmm????"

Dr. Roy said the salt water isn't burning per se, despite appearances. The radio frequency actually weakens bonds holding together the constituents of salt water -- sodium chloride, hydrogen and oxygen -- and releases the hydrogen, which, once ignited, burns continuously when exposed to the RF energy field. Mr. Kanzius said an independent source measured the flame's temperature, which exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, reflecting an enormous energy output.

Okay. Assuming these people are just stupid and not dishonest, they're doing electrolysis. Releasing hydrogen gas, and burning it again. That means that they're completing a cycle that, only if they were doing it perfectly without any energy loss would produce zero net energy. Given that it is impossible to do this perfectly, it will require more energy in than it will produce. But what do our intrepid "scientists" think?

"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Dr. Roy said. "The potential is huge."

Potential to fool naive audiences perhaps. Oh, and just for fun, Dr. Roy is also a homeopathy practitioner. Will wonders never cease.

Dear Mr. Templeton (journalist),

Oy. Avoid making an ass of yourself. Actually call someone not involved in the experiment to explain the hoax to you. Before you print it in a newspaper.

Shame on you, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Update: Shame on you, Associated Press, for picking this up without checking it. This is the single worst piece of science journalism I've seen this year.

John Tierney, pseudo-intellectual

This is in the New York Times science section:

Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.

But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.

How is this novel? Is it different from being a brain in a vat? Or Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy (circa 1641)? Or Zhuangzi's Butterfly (circa 4th century BCE)? And since when is philosophy a science? But we continue...

Dr. Bostrom doesn’t pretend to know which of these hypotheses is more likely, but he thinks none of them can be ruled out. “My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that,” he says, “is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”

My gut feeling is that the odds are better than 20 percent, maybe better than even. I think it’s highly likely that civilization could endure to produce those supercomputers. And if owners of the computers were anything like the millions of people immersed in virtual worlds like Second Life, SimCity and World of Warcraft, they’d be running simulations just to get a chance to control history — or maybe give themselves virtual roles as Cleopatra or Napoleon.

Ahh... gut feelings. The basis of no science. Can we move this garbage to the fashion section?

If simulations stop once the simulated inhabitants understand what’s going on, then I really shouldn’t be spreading Dr. Bostrom’s ideas. But if you’re still around to read this, I guess the Prime Designer is reasonably tolerant, or maybe curious to see how we react once we start figuring out the situation.

Ahhh, the experimental test. God let me say it, therefore he's caring and understanding.

Then again, maybe the Prime Designer wouldn’t allow any of his or her creations to start simulating their own worlds. Once they got smart enough to do so, they’d presumably realize, by Dr. Bostrom’s logic, that they themselves were probably simulations. Would that ruin the fun for the Prime Designer?

Please, please, please. Just because something *can* happen, doesn't mean it *is* happening.

Make the stupid stop! It's hurting my brain!

Enemies of Reason

The first episode of Enemies of Reason is up at Google Video. You can watch it below:



Hat tip to Bad Science.

Mark this day in 2007, the day that gene networks were discovered

There are at least two major ways that science articles in newspapers can fail.

The first is the "No, duh." coverage. That is, the article is presenting things that scientists have known for years if not decades, but presenting it like it's a major new discovery that will require major rethinking of how that area is studied. The second is the "the goblins will get you!" coverage, that is that if it weren't for the genius working at PETA, we wouldn't know that we're all going to die, when in fact the data say nothing of the sort.

Denise Caruso managed to hit a double this weekend in the New York Times entitled (stupidly): A Challenge to Gene Theory, a Tougher Look at Biotech. Let's start with her grandiose opening statement:

The $73.5 billion global biotech business may soon have to grapple with a discovery that calls into question the scientific principles on which it was founded.

Gee whiz! That sounds exciting! If only it were true...

Last month, a consortium of scientists published findings that challenge the traditional view of how genes function... (snip) ...To their surprise, researchers found that the human genome might not be a “tidy collection of independent genes” after all... (snip) ...Instead, genes appear to operate in a complex network, and interact and overlap with one another and with other components in ways not yet fully understood.

*gasp!* Really? They operate in networks? Sort of like this paper by Jacob and Monod suggested in 1961? The statement that "genes appear to operate in a complex network" is like saying that "the liver operates in a complex environment". Of course the liver works with other organ systems. This is not news. We've known about networks for a really long time, and with each year we're understanding more and more of these networks, and finding more and more spokes to them. In the last ten years, the study of networks has even become a discipline of its own, called systems biology. This is not new.

Biologists have recorded these network effects for many years in other organisms. But in the world of science, discoveries often do not become part of mainstream thought until they are linked to humans.

Or at least, in the world of newspapers. This has been mainstream for years.

Unfortunately, Francis Collins (director of the National Human Genome Research Institute) gave a misleading quote on their website, which is quoted in the New York Times article:

Because of the hard work and keen insights of the ENCODE consortium, the scientific community will need to rethink some long-held views about what genes are and what they do, as well as how the genome's functional elements have evolved.

While Ms. Caruso seems to think this means that he's discovered that gene networks exist, it seems more likely that he means that they have discovered particular networks that will make it easier to understand particular diseases. I admit, he's not being clear, and she bases the first half of her article off of this quote. (And I find it hard to believe that Francis Collins is stupid enough to think this study marks the discovery of gene networks).

So where does she take this credulous party off to next? Why not fearmongering?! (I've covered her scaremongering here in the past). Enter fearmonger Jack Heinemann, (director of the Center for Integrated Research in Biosafety):

“Because gene patents and the genetic engineering process itself are both defined in terms of genes acting independently,” he said, “regulators may be unaware of the potential impacts arising from these network effects.”

They're also unaware of the possible interactions between cheese and tomato sauce, and yet we don't test these in combination (and cheese is a living food product, after all!). This is yet another case of someone demanding that testing be done of every possible interaction between different genes and the food that they are placed in. Why? Knowing that your food has a complex network of genes that may be changed by the introduction of a foreign gene doesn't change the fact that the constituents of that food don't change.

Here's an analogy. If you remove someone's kidneys, you will find that they now require dialysis because they can no longer process out the urea from their blood. Without dialysis, they will eventually poison themselves and have multiple organ failure. However, you can say for sure that they will not grow wings and breathe fire, just because you messed up their organ homeostasis.

In the same way, adding foreign genes to plants, you can only get what you put in. You may increase the amount of protein, or decrease the amount of carbohydrate, or make the plant grow slower, but you won't get a corn plant with wings that is poisonous to humans merely by inserting the BT-gene. You can only get what you put in.

From Denise Caruso:

Now that the consortium’s findings (that there are gene networks) have cast the validity of (the gene) theory into question, it may be time for the biotech industry to re-examine the more subtle effects of its products, and to share what it knows about them with regulators and other scientists.

Oy. This just makes me cringe. Please, Ms. Caruso. Please. The stupid. It burns...

If I only had a brain.

It came to my attention today that whether or not the brain is important to the human organism is still an open question. No, really.

Denyse O'Leary, a frequent intelligent design advocate at Uncommon Descent writes in her post entitled Brain: Do you really need a brain?:

Recent research has cast doubt on just how neurons transmit information in the brain, and some wonder just what role the brain as a whole plays in thinking.

Beg pardon? What role the brain plays in thinking? I thought this problem had been solved quite some time ago... But no, she presents this anecdote from Richard Milton:

In 1970, a New Yorker died at the age of 35. He had left school with no academic achievements, but had worked at manual jobs such as building janitor, and was a popular figure in his neighbourhood. Tenants of the building where he worked described him as passing the days performing his routine chores, such as tending the boiler, and reading the tabloid newspapers. When an autopsy was performed to determine the cause of his premature death he, too, was found to have practically no brain at all.

What, no data? Watch, I can do that too. I knew a guy in college. He doesn't have a liver. Or a heart. Nice guy. I wonder what role the heart plays in pumping blood... Apparently not an important one. (hint: I'm lying).

But wait, Mr. Milton has more to contribute to this important topic:

what on earth is the brain for? And where is the seat of human intelligence? Where is the mind?

Watch for it. Next you'll be hearing demands for medical schools to teach the controversy.

Update: Thanks to Paul for pointing me towards the original proprietor of this anecdote: John Lorber. An brief news report was published about him in Science over 20 years ago. Nonetheless, in the intervening period, apparently he has never published proof of his brainless wonder.

Creation "Science" Museum blog carnival

This week, Answers in Genesis opened their creation "science" museum. Many news organizations treated this uncritically on their pages, but the LA Times published the laudable editorial, Yabba Dabba Science:

THE CREATION MUSEUM, a $27-million tourist attraction promoting earth science theories that were popular when Columbus set sail, opens near Cincinnati on Memorial Day. So before the first visitor risks succumbing to the museum's animatronic balderdash — dinosaurs and humans actually coexisted! the Grand Canyon was carved by the great flood described in Genesis! — we'd like to clear up a few things: "The Flintstones" is a cartoon, not a documentary. Fred and Wilma? Those woolly mammoth vacuum cleaners? All make-believe.

Science is under assault, and that calls for bold truths. Here's another: The Earth is round.

The museum, a 60,000-square-foot menace to 21st century scientific advancement, is the handiwork of Answers in Genesis, a leader in the "young Earth" movement. Young Earthers believe the world is about 6,000 years old, as opposed to the 4.5 billion years estimated by the world's credible scientific community.

PZ Myers has organized a concerted effort to publicize the laughable ignorance on display at the museum, and writes this critique:

I wish the country's newspapers had responded that unambiguously and clearly, but the image above was modified. Journalists, you have a problem. Most of the articles written on this "museum" bend over backwards to treat questions like "Did Man walk among Dinosaurs?" as serious, requiring some kind of measured response from multiple points of view, and rarely even recognized the scientific position that the question should not only be answered with a strong negative, but that it is absurd. Let me ask any reporters out there: when you cover a story about a disaster, say the destruction of a town by a tornado, do you also feel obligated to get a few pithy quotes from a few people who want to argue that the disaster was a good thing, or that the residents deserved it?

One of the worst examples of this inane and unwarranted "fair and balanced" reporting comes from the Newspaper of Record, the hallowed New York Times. The Times published an appallingly credulous article, Adam and Eve in the Land of the Dinosaurs, that strained to give equal time to idiocy.

There are a load of blog posts there that are worth reading. Head on over and educate yourself.

UPDATE: And check out ERV's discussion of creationism, errr, I mean, intelligent design. Very entertaining.

Fearmongering at Fox News

Wow, just wow. An article on Fox News suggests that pesticides are affecting our I.Q. Yet again, a popular news article can be debunked using information only found in that article. How do they decide that pesticides are affecting our I.Q.?

Dr. Paul Winchester, a neonatologist at the Indiana University School of Medicine and director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St. Francis Hospital in Indianapolis, studied the test scores of 1,667,391 Indiana students in grades 3 through 10.

Looking at the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress (ISTEP) exam, Winchester and his researchers found scores for math and language were clearly seasonal, with the lowest scores going to children conceived in June through August.

And how much of an effect did he see?

For the females in the study the difference was a 1 to 1.5 percent drop, and the results were similar for all groups and sexes conceived in May through August.

Ok, 1-1.5%. That's a pretty small effect. But in this case, I won't even try to argue that his effect is too small to be measured. For the sake of argument, I'll agree to it and ask, "But what does this have to do with pesticides?"

"The pesticides we use to control pests in fields and our homes and the nitrates we use to fertilize crops and even our lawns are at their highest level in the summer," Winchester said in a news release.

Ahhh... Well, then. Here we are with the correlation and causation business again. His only reason for asserting this is that we use pesticides at higher rates in June, when all these stupid babies are being conceived. Why not just hypothesize that these children are dumber because of hot dogs? I'll bet there's a lot of hot dogs that get eaten in June. Or perhaps it isn't the conception date that is important, but rather the birth date? Perhaps it has more to do with being born in the depths of winter that makes these children stupid? Frost-bitten brain, perhaps? The point is that there are plenty of models one could come up with that would suggest why children conceived in June are 1-1.5% dumber.

The truth of the matter is that one can't tell why such an observation is being made, and it is rather irresponsible of Dr. Winchester to bandy such a scare-mongering hypothesis about at a news conference.

That said, I wouldn't want a pregnant mother exposed to pesticides (hell, I wouldn't let my wife operate power tools while she was pregnant - I'm all about being careful). There are already plenty of reasons to keep pesticides away from pregnant women:

According to the American Pregnancy Association, even household gardening pesticides are well-known to put pregnant women at high risk for many birth defects, including oral clefts, neural tube defects, heart defects, and limb defects.

But there's no evidence coming from Dr. Winchester that he's discovered another reason to keep pesticides away from pregnant women.