There was strong consensus on this being a mustelid – which is good, because that’s what it is. There was also good agreement on it being one of the Martens, which is where things become a bit more difficult.
After looking at a lot of different Marten skulls online without much success in finding a way of telling them apart, this diagram proved quite helpful.
Skulls in the sequence: M. zibellina, M. martes, M. foina
If you look at the skull in the middle of the top and centre rows, the auditory bullae (the rounded bones under the skull that house the anatomy used in hearing) have quite distinctive shapes in the three species pictured.
In addition, the the little nub of bone (called the mastoid process) that sticks out behind the ear hole (or external auditory meatus as it’s also known) is very differently developed in the three species. Looking at this character and checking back against other Marten skulls online the clues suggested that the mystery object is the skull of a Pine Marten Martes martes (Linnaeus, 1758).
So well done to everyone who commented – particularly Jake who got the ball rolling with a Martes identification from the start!
If you’re not familiar with the AAH it basically suggests that human ancestors passed through a semiaquatic stage which provided the selective pressure that has led to the differences seen between humans and other primates. Some people call it the Aquatic Ape Theory, but it lacks the necessary scientific support to be considered a theory so it remains a hypothesis [see comments for discussion of the terminology].
The idea was first suggested by pathologist Max Westenhöfer in 1942 and the first line of evidence in support of the hypothesis was proposed by marine biologist Alister Hardy in 1960. Hardy noted that subcutaneous fat is unusual in terrestrial mammals and is normally associated with marine mammals – raising the very good question ‘why do humans have subcutaneous fat?’ (the answer being because we eat too much and exercise too little – just like some lab monkeys).
The baton was then picked up by writer Elaine Morgan who has championed the AAH since 1972. Here’s Elaine in action on a TED video from 2009:
Elaine Morgan is a great communicator and she’s done a remarkable job of delivering the AAH to a wide audience, but I have concerns that the packaging is more impressive than the contents, from a scientific perspective.
In the video Elaine does a cracking job of setting up the AAH in opposition to the more established Savanna Hypothesis (SavH), which suggests that humans diverged from other primates as a result of exploiting more arid environments. She then suggests that the SavH has been discounted on the basis of palaeoenvironmental data, leaving a paradigm gap that should (she suggests) be filled by the AAH.
But of course, a paradigm gap should only be filled by a robust theory and when it comes to plotting evolutionary trajectories there is not solid theoretical foundation on how to do it, beyond relying on the physical evidence provided by the fossil record.
In this case that would require fossils of human ancestors to be found in primarily aquatic deposits, something which we do not see, which is surprising, since aquatic environments are usually far better for fossil preservation than terrestrial environments. In fact, taphonomy suggests that early hominid fossils would be more common if the individuals were living and dying in water with any frequency.
Without having physical data in the form of fossils linking hominids to water, it becomes difficult to make a connection without falling back on evolutionary ‘just-so stories‘, that try to explain an observation by relying on a plausible narrative.
The trouble with this is that the public and media love a good narrative, but it simply isn’t scientific unless it can be falsified. I think this is the part of the process that Elaine Morgan doesn’t quite grasp – she is convinced by her own narrative and believes in the hypothesis, but for a scientist it is more appropriate to subscribe to none of the available hypotheses if they cannot provide factual evidence in support. This is where I currently stand.
I am certainly not convinced by statements like:
“Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is an omega-3 fatty acid that is found in large amounts in seafood,… It boosts brain growth in mammals. That is why a dolphin has a much bigger brain than a zebra, though they have roughly the same body sizes. The dolphin has a diet rich in DHA. The crucial point is that without a high DHA diet from seafood we could not have developed our big brains. We got smart from eating fish and living in water.” [Quote attributed to Dr Michael Crawford]
This statement starts by comparing two utterly different species, with a very different evolutionary history and current mode of life, then offers a single dietary explanation for the difference in brain size. This is patently nonsense.
If a seafood diet is the main driver of large brain size then the relatively very large brains of Chimpanzees and other Apes become a remarkable oddity and the relatively small brains of Blue Whales become bizarre variants. Moreover, what about people that don’t have access to seafood? Are they unable to grow large brains? No. Clearly there is more going on.
Brain size is not directly linked to a single dietary chemical, it is linked to managing interactions in and with a complex environment – keeping track of seasonal and spatial variation in fruiting or schooling of fish, coordinating group efforts and understanding prey behaviour to hunt more effectively, or problem solving to access food sources that are hard to acquire. Where a big brain provides a selective advantage, it will evolve.
I don’t want this post to turn into a refutation of the AAH, since there’s a lot to say and much has been done elsewhere. What I do want this post to do is highlight that a scientific theory needs to be testable, it needs to consider contradictory information and it needs to be aware of confirmation bias.
The AAH relies strongly on observed similarities in condition between humans and aquatic mammals, but it dismisses other similarities out of hand. For instance, Naked Mole-rats are simply dismissed by Morgan as an example of a non-aquatic mammal that has lost body hair, but they provide evidence that hair loss can occur for reasons beyond aquatic adaptations – which is worthy of note.
It is also worth considering the supporting examples in the context of phylogeny and physiology, which doesn’t seem to happen often. For instance, the Cetacea, walruses and Sirenia are examples of naked aquatic mammals cited in the AAH, but both the Sirenia and walruses retain a short coat of hairs, quite different in structure to the fine body hair of humans. Whales and Sirenia have also been adapting to an aquatic habitat for 50 million years and the ‘nakedness’ of modern examples may be more related to the evolution of large body size and the benefits to thermoregulation provided by mass – which is supported by the fact that the largest species in the Pinnipedia (like the Elephant Seal and Walrus) are much less reliant on fur than the smaller species of seal.
Unless our ancestors were massive, it seems unlikely that they would have been losing their hair in order to survive better in the water.
Of course, that’s not to say that our ancestors avoided water – far from it. Marginal environments are rich sources of food and most terrestrial animals that live near water will exploit it in some way or another. I’m sure our ancestors would have done the same, I’m just unsure about how immersive and influential that exploitation was on our evolutionary trajectory.
So far I am unconvinced by the AAH and the more bad science and overstated arguments I see in support of it, the less convinced I become. Let’s see if any good supporting science with hard facts emerge from the conference in May.
On Friday I gave you this unidentified specimen from the Horniman’s collections to take a look at. I had already had a go at working out what it is, but it never hurts to get a second opinion.
It’s actually a bit of a generic looking overall shape, perhaps reminiscent of a owl or a maybe a pheasant of some sort. However, the nares (nostrils) are very small and round and set in a bill that is sharp, shortish and very solidly constructed, which is something you only really see in a few passerines, some parrots and the falcons. The skull is too big for a passerine and the bill is totally the wrong overall shape for a parrot, which leaves us with a falcon – a fairly small one at that.
From there the shape of the palate and the proportions of the cranium led me to a species identification that I’m pleased to say agreed with that proposed by Tony Irwin and Wouter van Gestel (who eloquently explained the indicative characters that I mentioned above). We all think that this is the cranium of a Continue reading →
On Friday I gave you this really tricky mystery object to identify:
Despite it being one of the hardest so far, Barbara Powell managed to not only work out what piece of morphology this specimen represents, but the species it came from. Remarkable skills Barbara!
These plates of bone fit together to make a ring like this:
You probably have a better chance of identifying the structure when it’s assembled like this and the tubular shape is characteristic of a particular order of birds. This is the sclerotic ring of an Continue reading →
On Friday I gave you this odd-looking piece of bone to identify:
It’s something I tentatively identified a couple of weeks ago and thought you might be able to add your ideas, to make sure I wasn’t missing something. Jake was quick off the mark in suggesting it was the ear bone of a Whale, which is what I thought when I first saw it. This fitted with the large size and high density of the bone, but on closer inspection it doesn’t quite match any of the Whales.
There were a few other ideas, but none that really matched the specimen, except for a suggestion from henstridgesj that it may come from a member of the Trichechidae, which agreed with my identification of Continue reading →
A big list of you (Mieke Roth, Jake, mcarnall, Anthony wilkes, 23thorns, Cam Weir, henstridgesj, Rhea, leigh and Robin) managed to work out what this specimen was from and there were some really interesting explanations about how you came to your conclusions in response to Steven D. Garber’s comment:
Now, I’d like it even more if people explained why this skull looks the way it does.
This is a really interesting thing to consider, as it underlies the process of recognition and identification. As a biologist I might start by saying that the lacrimal foramina is on the edge of the orbit (as henstridgesj pointed out) which is indicative of a marsupial and that the dentition is indicative of a carnivorous mammal that isn’t a member of the placental Carnivora as it lacks carnassials, plus the dental formula appears to be ‘primitive’ from the photo ?.1.3.4/?.1.2.4 which narrows down the possibilities to just a few marsupial carnivores, and given the scale of the skull there is just one that fits the bill.
However, if I’m honest I’d say that the overall shape and robust structure of this specimen is very similar to specimens I’ve seen before belonging to the Continue reading →
Well, it seems that my earlier post on Darwin has ruffled some feathers in the Intelligent Design (ID) camp, so they’ve been trolling the comments section on my personal blog. This post started out as a response, but I decided to expand it to include some of the context surrounding Darwin’s work.
…One wonders why no one noticed “natural selection” before. And there were ingenous minds in the history! One answer might be this – it was never observed because it doesn’t exist. Darwin implanted this speculation there. And “On the origin of species” reads sometimes like comedy. One should try to count how many times Darwin used words like “which seems to me extremely perplexing” etc….
One reason why some scientific theories may have been slow to come to light
It’s interesting how ‘simple’ natural mechanisms and systems can take longer to be acknowledged than one might have thought. Heliocentrism is another example of something that now seems very obvious, but was historically slow to be recognised (and is still not recognised or not known about by some). It’s easy to blame organised religion for the suppression of such observational truths about the universe, since challenges to traditional belief were seen as heresy and dealt with accordingly, but there’s far more to it than that.
Let’s set the scene – Darwin’s formative years were tumultuous with regard to sociopolitical events. The Napoleonic wars drew to an end with the Battle of Waterloo when Darwin was six years old, the Peterloo Massacre occurred and the Six Acts were drawn up by the Tories to suppress radical reformers when he was ten – reflecting the ongoing social division between the establishment and the public. When Darwin was in his twenties the power of the strongly traditional British establishment finally began to wane, when the Whigs came to government allowing the 1832 Reform Act and the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act to be passed. There was also the devastating Great Famine in Ireland when Darwin was in his thirties and all of this was set against a background of the Industrial Revolution, which was providing the impetus for science to play an increasingly important role in society.
Peterloo Massacre
This meant that Darwin’s work was by no means formulated in intellectual isolation. Theories of evolution had been proposed 2,400 years previously, but they were poorly developed. Natural philosophers like Darwin’s own grandfather Erasmus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck raised the issue of evolution at around the time of Darwin’s birth, but the mechanisms for evolution were either ignored or flawed. Evolution was an established topic of discussion and publication by the time Charles Darwin came onto the scene, with people like Robert Grant being more radical on the subject than Darwin found palatable in his early manhood. Despite this interest, the mechanism of evolution remained elusive – perhaps unsurprisingly, since the academic community addressing natural sciences was largely composed of members of the clergy and the natural theology of the time was seen as being mechanism enough.
But a literature base that was to inspire non-traditional hypotheses was also developing at the time – Vestiges of the Natural History of Creationin particular offered an alternative view that was seen as too radical by many – clearing a path for subsequent works that challenged orthodox views. Given this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace converged on the same premise at the same time. In short, the ideas evolved to fit the intellectual and social environment. The same has been true of other discoveries and inventions where there was a requirement for the right intellectual groundwork to be laid in advance. This groundwork is required before a robust theory can take root – and Natural Selection is a component of the robust theory of Descent with modification.
The Intelligent Design agenda
The critiques I have seen of evolutionary theory have come from people who quite clearly don’t understand it – and such critiques tend to rely on statements of incredulity rather than a strong factual base. No well-supported alternative hypotheses have been constructed or presented and a lack of understanding hardly counts as a robust refutation of a well supported theory.
An accusation by IDers is that ‘Darwinists’ (N.B. I don’t know anyone who would call themselves a Darwinists following the New Synthesis) stick with Natural Selection because they are atheist. I think I see the real agenda emerging here, particularly when you see evolution as a theory being conflated with just one of the mechanisms involved. After all, Natural Selection is not the only mechanism involved in evolutionary adaptation and speciation – there are also other factors like hybridisation, horizontal gene transfer, genetic drift, perhaps some epigenetic influences and artefacts of EvoDevo processes. But these factors are still constrained by the simple fact that if they are selected against, they will not be perpetuated.
Natural selection is a powerful force in nature. It has but one function which is to prevent change. That is why every chickadee looks like every other chickadee and sounds like every other chickadee – chickadee-dee- dee, chickadee-dee-dee. Sooner or later natural selection has always failed leading to the extinction of nearly all early forms of life. They were replaced by other more prefected forms over the millions of years that creative evolution ws in progress…
Salamander ring species
First and foremost, the suggestion that Natural Selection prevents change is erroneous – change will occur if there is a change in the environment and/or if beneficial mutations arise in a population (tell me that mutations don’t happen – I dare you…). The obvious response to the next statement is that I can think of six different ‘chickadee’ species, with an additional three subspecies (and this is ignoring numerous other very similar members of the Paridae), all are similar, but all are different – so the statement makes no sense as it stands. Getting to the meat of what is being implied about the Creationist interpretation of species, another bird provides a good example to the contrary. The Greenish Warbler shows a distinct pattern of hybridising subspecies across their vast range, until they form reproductively isolated species at the extreme ends of their range, where they happen to overlap yet not hybridise (a classic ring species [pdf of Greenish Warbler paper]). This is a well-known example of how genetic variation can accrue and give rise to new species without any supernatural intercession.
…But no wonder that Darwin considered “natural selection” for such a complicated force. Even nowadays Dawkins speculates that NS operates on genes, whereas E.O.Wilson has brushed up “group selection”recently (citing of course Darwin as debeatur est .
So may we “uncredulous” ask on which level “natural selection” operates?
As to this question about the level on which Natural Selection operates, I thought the answer was pretty obvious – it operates at every level. Change the focus of Natural Selection from passing on genes to the only alternative outcome – the inability to pass on genes. It doesn’t really matter which level this occurs at or why – be it a reduction in reproductive success when not in a group, or a deleterious single point mutation – if it happens then Natural Selection can be said to have occurred. Being ‘fit’ simply means that an organism has not been selected against.
There’s a lot more to modern evolutionary thought than Darwin’s key early contribution, but Darwin is still respected because he was the first to provide a viable mechanism by which evolution is driven. This mechanism has helped make sense of an awful lot of observations that were previously unaccounted for and, moreover, evolution has been observed and documented on numerous occasions [here’s a pdf summary of some good examples].
I fail to see why Intelligent Design has been taken seriously by some people – it relies on huge assumptions about supernatural interference (so it fails to be a science) and I have as yet never seen a single piece of evidence that actually supports ID claims. The only research I have seen mentioned by proponents of ID are old, cherry-picked studies that report a null result from an evolutionary study – this is not the same thing as support for ID, as anyone who can spot the logical fallacies of false dichotomy and Non sequitur (in particular the fallacy of denying a conjunct) will tell you.
Intelligent design as a scientific idea
I like to keep an open mind, but as soon as I see logical fallacies being wheeled out I lose interest in getting involved in the discussion. This may be a failing on my part, because I should probably challenge misinformation, but quite frankly I don’t have the time or the patience – much as I hate to stoop to an ad hominem, my feelings on this are best summed up by the paraphrase:
when you argue with the ID lot, the best outcome you can hope for is to win an argument with the ID lot
and my time is far too precious to waste arguing with people who ignore the arguments of others and construct Straw man arguments based on cherry-picked and deliberately misrepresented information. I have no problem with other people believing in a god, but please don’t try to bring any god into science (and heaven-forbid the classroom) – since it is neither necessary nor appropriate.
On Friday I gave you this bit of geology to identify:
I used this because I had it to hand on Thursday afternoon after doing a behind the scenes tour of the Horniman’s store for some of the attendees of TAM London. I also used it so I would have the chance to tell the story behind this innocuous looking, if pretty, bit of stone.
Before I get started on the story I must congratulate Steven D. Garber, PhD on spotting that one of the main components of this is serpentine (the other being calcite) and I have to hand a big dose of kudos to Dave Godfrey who got the answer spot-on when he suggested that this was a sample of Continue reading →
June 14th – 21st 2010 [and 2012] is the UK homeopathy awareness week, so I thought it might be a good idea to try and raise awareness of homeopathy.
Cinchona
Homeopathy is based on the principle of similia similibus curantur (likes are cured by likes). The hypothesis is that symptoms of illness are caused by a derangement of the ‘vital force‘ assumed to be present in a living organism and substances which elicit the same derangement (i.e. symptoms) will rid the body of the illness. This was originally identified in the context of homeopathy by Hahnemann with reference to cinchona bark (source of quinine) and malaria. The previous proposed mechanism of effectiveness of quinine against malaria was its bitterness, but Hahnemann sensibly identified that other bitter substances did not offer the same protection. Instead, after taking cinchona and experiencing a reaction similar to the reaction he associated with malaria, he hypothesised that it was this similarity in symptoms that made cinchona bark effective.
Modern homeopaths still use a similar method to identify their treatments. When in a healthy state they try a preparation and keep a detailed diary of any effects that they feel the treatment has on them. This is called ‘proving’ although what it is supposed to prove is hard to determine since there are no rigorous controls in place and the results are not statistically tested to see if they are anything other than random. Consider the perceived effects of taking peregrine falcon blood for example:
Short statement on peregrine falcons:
The Peregrine Falcon is widely renowned for its incredible speed. Estimates vary, but commonly cited top velocities are in the range of 290-320 km/h (180-200 mph), achieved only during the characteristic swoop (hunting dive)…the Peregrine Falcon is the fastest creature on earth.
Observation during proving:
‘Drove back from the party (had some wine but not so much) quite fast but well, changing speed as necessary. It seemed faster to the others in the car than to me.’
I heartily recommend reading the entire page about the proving of peregrine falcon blood – it is an education into how homeopaths derive their information about the treatments they prescribe (and it is ludicrous to the point of hilarity). Is this really a rigorous approach to testing healthcare products or is this more about symbolism, appeal to the mystical and delusion?
Evidence based medicine occasionally does use elements of similia similbus curantur such as with inoculation and vaccination – where a small or denatured dose of a disease causing agent is introduced with the intent of stimulating an autoimmune response that will prevent the full blown disease from becoming established should the person come into contact with a large active dose of the pathogen.
Foxglove
Also, many physiologically active compounds have medicinal uses because they act on particular organs and metabolic pathways via a biochemical route that can have apparent similarities to the illness being treated. For example, digoxin is a cardiac glycoside found in foxgloves that decreases heart rate and increases force of heart contraction – fatal in large doses, but useful for treating atrial fibrillation in small doses – so at a very gross level this could be considered ‘like treating (rather than curing) like’. It is also vaguely plausible that a substance which elicits a physiological response which mimics symptoms of an illness that arise as part of the body’s immune response (such as raising temperature) may have the effect of fighting an infection (although I have not seen any evidence for this).
Hahnemann’s experience with cinchona happened in 1790 when the medical community of the time was still dominated by the miasma theory and humourism of the Middle Ages. Vitalism was a standard of the medical profession at the time, with good health being dependent on balancing the four vital humours. The idea of a biochemical autoimmune system did not take shape until a century later, but when it did it revolutionised the medical field, bringing about treatments with previously unprecedented success (eradication of smallpox anyone?). Hahnemann had no idea about the mechanism by which the body actually heals itself, he also had no idea that malaria was not caused by a miasma, but by a microscopic parasitic protist of the genus Plasmodium.
Plasmodium falciparum – the protozoan that causes malaria
In short Hahnemann was trying to fit his limited observations into a theoretical framework consistent with the body of assumed knowledge available at the time. The same way that scientists have always worked. However, over time the body of knowledge has changed – vitalism has been rejected as evidence has been amassed which demonstrates that all of the functions historically proposed for vital energy are demonstrably biochemical in nature. Disease is now well recognised as being caused by bacteria, viruses, proteins and biochemical abnormalities rather than by derangement of ‘vital energy’. The idea of a vitalistic treatment for a biochemical problem seems rather at odds with the facts, particularly since there is no evidence to suggest that vital energy even exists. Sticking with malaria, we now know that the antimalarial component of cinchona is quinine, which is no longer effective as an antimalarial due to the resistance evolved by Plasmodium – how such immunity might have evolved in response to vital energy is hard to fathom.
Homeopathy also subscribes to the principle that the smaller the dose, the more effective it is at influencing the vital energy – to the point where homeopathic remedies are diluted until they no longer contain even one molecule of their active ingredient. Indeed it would take a ball of water the size of the solar system to contain one molecule of active ingredient in the more ‘potent’ homeopathic remedies – making them even less tangible than the Emperor’s new clothes. Of course this idea of smaller doses having a bigger effect flies in the face of everything that is demonstrated in evidence based medicine, where dose dependent effects increase with increasing dose size, through a therapeutic window until a plateau is reached or there is an overdose. The Ten23 campaign was all about this misplaced faith in super-dilution.
If homeopaths were able to demonstrate that vital energy exists then homeopathy might have a theoretical leg to stand on, as would chiropractic and a suite of Ayruvedic medicines, but without any evidence for vital energy they remain theoretically unfounded. Interestingly, mainstream medicine was once based on the concept of vital energy, which has only been discarded due to improvements in experimental methods. Vital energy is one of those strange forces in nature that becomes harder to see the harder you look for it – probably because it only exists as a cultural concept that has no relevance in the physical world. This erosion of evidence for vital energy not only leaves homeopathic theory unfounded, but necessarily rejected.
Headstone for 9 month-old girl who died because her parents chose homeopathy over conventional treatments
Theory aside, if there was strong evidence for efficacy of homeopathic remedies then there would be very good reason to question the laws of physics and our current understanding of biology and medicine. However, there is no persuasive evidence for homeopathy’s efficacy. As such it seems bizarre that people still hold on to this outdated and superseded faith-based system of medicine; but then again there are still Flat Earthers, Faith healers and people who drink their own pee, so I suppose it’s no great surprise. There are dangers however – if people choose to use homeopathy in place of medicines that have evidence of efficacy, they run the risk of harm or even death – and I think that’s something everyone should be aware of.
Imagine if you could bring a species back from extinction – what would you choose and why would you choose it? There are so many factors to take into consideration it all becomes a bit bewildering – do you choose something on the basis of how well it would reintegrate with existing ecosystems, how useful it might be, how much novel information we could learn from it, how plausible it would be to actually carry out the resurrection process, or simply how awesome it would be to see something that hasn’t walked the Earth for millions of years?
I recently asked four palaeontologists what species they would choose to resurrect and their responses were presented at a Café Scientifique balloon debate at the Horniman Museum, as part of the International Year of Biodiversity activities in conjunction with the Royal Society (who are celebrating their 350th anniversary!). The result was a very enjoyable evening for all involved and an insight into some of the considerations that should be taken into account when contemplating resurrecting extinct species.
One lump or two? 'High potency' homeopathic pillules are nothing but sugar
The 10:23 campaign seems to be stirring up a wasps nest amongst homeopaths – fortunately these wasps have a venom so dilute that they are incapable of doing much more than make an angry buzz. I would feel sorry for them if they weren’t so adamant that their flimsy belief system is capable of treating serious illnesses like type I diabetes, gangrene, appendicitis, AIDS, malaria, etc. (you don’t believe that they make such claims? check out Nancy Malik’s twitter account: http://twitter.com/DrNancyMalik).
Of course, some homeopaths have taken up the #ten23 hashtag and are fighting a spirited (and sometimes spiritual) battle against the arrayed forces of science, scepticism and general doubt (as is their right). Needless to say their response does tend to rely heavily on bombast, unfounded statements from anecdote and links to videodotes or webpages promoting homeopathy, although seldom to anything resembling rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific studies (the odd basket of carefully picked cherries does turn up). But of course, science is clearly lagging behind – in the words of one homeopath twitterer (@HomHeals):
Homeopathy – Waiting for Science to Catch Up!
This made me chuckle, because it put me in mind of other unfounded beliefs that science has caught up with and subsequently shredded with Ockham’s Razor – like Jack the Ripper in a lab coat.
Scary science is gonna get you! DISCLAIMER This is in no way meant to represent a threat of physical violence
But of course, it’s not like that. There is no dichotomy between science and homeopathy. Science is a process whereby evidence is assessed in a systematic, repeatable way and ideas are accepted or rejected on the basis of the outcome, whilst homeopathy is a set of beliefs based on a defining principles established by Samuel Hahnemann 200 year ago. These principles as a set have simply failed to stand up to scientific testing, so homeopathy finds no support from science. This means that for homeopaths to continue doing their thing, they need to reject the principles of the scientific method (i.e. reliance on evidence), rather than change their ideas about homeopathy. In response to the rhetorical question posed by John Maynard Keynes:
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
A homeopath would probably respond by saying:
“I ignore the facts – they’re not my facts anyway, they’re facts made up by people who are colluding to besmirch the name of homeopathy and I have anecdotal evidence that is far more convincing than your double-blind, randomised, placebo controlled trial anyway. And your facts are just made up by big pharma, which doesn’t work and it kills people. You’re just a bunch of allopaths who don’t recognise the true faith of homeopathy. So there.”
What is particularly vexing about debate with homeopaths is their inevitable retreat into logical fallacies and long outdated arguments. They make statements about homeopathy being better than allopathy, when allopathy was a phrase coined by Hahnemann 200 years ago for the Hippocratic, Galenic etc. schools of medicine, long since made defunct by Germ Theory in the 1880s and the rise of modern evidence-based medicine, which has been around for less than 40 years.
In effect, modern medicine has successfully overhauled the established medical opinion of Hahnemann’s time by virtue of being more effective. If homeopathy was as effective as homeopaths make out, it’s surprising that it isn’t the method that has been adopted as the best form of treatment available – after all it has been around longer and it’s cheaper to produce because it doesn’t require all that pesky testing. Moreover, it sells in huge amounts – but popularity is not a robust indicator of efficacy by any means, as I’m sure any homeopath could tell you… if they weren’t so obsessed with popularity.
Before this post turns into a huge rant or a serial refutation of the nonsensical arguments used by homeopaths, I will try to make my point. 10:23 is about what is in a ‘high potency’ homeopathic preparation (of 30C or more). These products are marked as having active ingredients, but the dilution of whatever ingredients might have been in the solution at the outset is so great as to go far beyond the Avogadro constant – in short there is less than a single molecule weight of the ingredient in the solution. This solution is then dropped on sugar and allowed to evaporate. So should it be marked as being an active ingredient? It’s rather like a bag of sugar listing Tyrannosaurus rex as one of its ingredients, because there is a possibility that one molecule of water that dried on one grain of sugar was once in contact with a T. rex (see here for a clear summary of the homeopathic process).
Despite the lack of any robust support for efficacy of super-high concentration homeopathic products, the UK’s leading high street pharmacist, Boots, sells these products with the full knowledge that they are not shown to work:
I have no evidence before me to suggest that they are efficacious, and we look very much for the evidence to support that…
(Paul Bennett, Professional Standards Director of Boots speaking at the Science & Technology Committee Homeopathy inquiry 25th Nov 2009 – full transcript here)
This seems wrong. It seems as though a trusted company is betraying people’s trust – falling back on caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) rather than maintaining the standards of what they sell. Imagine if Boots started selling travel sickness pills that contained no active ingredient, just sugar. This would be a placebo and it would be unethical (and probably illegal) for Boots to sell the product. Which may explain why Boots don’t indicate what the homeopathic pillules they sell are for. In effect, they do sell travel sickness pills that contain no active ingredient, just sugar (it’s called Aconite 30C) but they get around the ethical and legal problems using the disclaimer:
Boots Aconite 30c is a homeopathic medicinal product without approved therapeautic indications.
It would be interesting to see if the listed ingredients would actually stand up in a court of law, given the lack of any molecules of Aconitum napellus in the product – it’s rather like an apple pie with no apple.
The 10:23 campaign is intended to make this point in the public eye, to raise awareness of what super high dilution homeopathic pillules actually consist of – nothing but sugar. That’s why I will be taking part in the London leg of the homeopathic overdose at 10:23 this Saturday. Perhaps it will make the point publicly enough to persuade Boots that they shouldn’t be misleading the public by stocking homepathic remedies that are not shown to work and are listed as having active ingredients, yet they contain nothing but sugar.
“One lump or two?” Not for me thanks – I’m cutting down on woo.
Inspiration is important; after all, every human cultural advance or achievement is the result of someone being inspired to do something new. I want to explore some of the ways in which people are inspired to undertake scientific investigation, but I also want to consider how the outcomes of science feed back and inspire broader culture.
Charles Darwin provides us with a topical place to start – it’s exactly 150 years since the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life‘ (later changed to the more snappy ‘On the Origin of Species‘); a book containing an idea inspired by a complex web of circumstances and experiences and which has subsequently inspired a new understanding of our place on this planet.
Darwin himself was inspired by a wide variety of factors: people (family, friends, mentors, colleagues); books (e.g. White’s “The Natural History of Selborne“, Paley’s “Natural Theology“, Herschel‘s “Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy“, Malthus’ “Essay on the Principle of Population“); cultural institutions (Museums, the Royal Institution, the Linnean Society, Zoological Gardens); places (Santiago, the Falkland Islands, Quiriquina, the Galapagos, Downe); hobbies (shooting, fishing, insect collecting, gardening, chemistry), and of course his experiences with nature (from earthquakes to earthworms, tropical forests to his Bromley garden). Interestingly he was not inspired by his schooling (neither at Mr Case’s grammar school nor Shrewsbury Grammar School) or University education (both in Edinburgh and Cambridge); for example, Darwin initially dismissed geology as dull based on his experiences at Edinburgh University under the tutelege of Professor Robert Jameson, yet 5 years later under the guidance of Professor Adam Sedgwick he became an avid geologist. Facts alone seldom inspire; it is how they are presented and how they can help us understand and formulate new ideas that can make them inspirational.
I’ve discussed fact-based science before (more than once), with the take-home message that it provides the best method that currently exists for checking what we think is true. Science is all about asking questions and finding ways to answer them by observation of the world around us (preferably in the controlled conditions of an experiment); the initial questions that scientists ask need to be inspired by something and answering that question takes motivation. Of course, absolutely anything might motivate a person to pursue a question, but some things will be more motivational than others.
Necessity is the mother of invention, which is why need will often provide the inspiration and motivation required for science to address a problem. Life and death situations are a prime example of how science has often found its inspiration and motivation – just look at the funding in science and it immediately becomes obvious that health, the military and agriculture are way up there. These things are directly relevant to people’s everyday survival – they are necessities.
However, there is more to science than catering to basic needs – science is about understanding our universe and thereby allowing us to better address the bigger questions that our over complicated human brains enjoy cooking up. Where once we had to make do with simple explanations that didn’t really work (like echoes are spirits shouting back at you, schizophrenics are possessed by demons, rainbows are Gods way of reminding himself not to flood the world again) now we can delve into the causes and reasons for the odd things we witness and we can turn that to our advantage. Understanding the deeper mysteries of the universe requires a lot of imagination, so it’s little wonder that the fringe of science tends to be populated by people who extrapolate beyond the fringe (this is where science fiction is born) or are being pushed back as the fringe expands (which is where homeopaths, psychics and those with a deep-rooted fear of change still linger).
Of course, those extrapolating beyond the fringe of science can help inspire new science and technology, from communicators in Star Trek inspiring mobile phones to lasers taking cues from The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin (1927). The moon landing shown on TV sets in 1969 was pre-empted in 1902 by Le Voyage dans la lune; Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea provided a visionary new concept of what submarines might achieve and spurred advances in the field, and we all know that good old Leonardo Da Vinci was great at letting his imagination wander way beyond the fringes of the science of his time (yet still be informed by his own observations) – who knows the full extent of what Da Vinci has inspired (I’d wager it goes beyond a ropey Dan Brown book).
Of course, each new development in science does more than push back a theoretical fringe; it inspires new ideas that lead to further developments. Science and technology move quickly and are seldom permitted to stagnate – which is good, because stagnation of ideas is what gives rise to dogma and suppression of alternative viewpoints.
For something to be inspirational it needs to open someone’s mind to a previously unknown world of possibilities, a conceptual space ripe for exploration. It needs to spark the imagination – with the possibility that the spark will ignite the interest and enthusiasm needed to fuel the exploration and investigation of the wider universe, of which we are a tiny part.
N.B. If you’re after a quick answer then see here, if you want an in-depth outline see here or if you want to know how science works see here– this blog is more concerned with the broader conceptual framework within which science fits.
Knowledge is an interesting concept – how can we really “know” anything? How do we determine truth from untruth? Does knowledge even require what is “known” to be true? I don’t think so – I think it merely needs to appear true.
The human brain looks for explanations – being able to identify cause and effect is a powerful capability, after all, it underpins all human achievement. For example, if our ancestors were unable to identify that seeds grow into plants, we could never have established agriculture (and subsequently civilisation).
There are a variety of ways in which we make links between cause and effect, from straightforward reflexive Pavlovian classical conditioning, through more complex methods of identifying concept-based causation, to the rigourous statistical analysis of double-blind randomised controlled trials of modern biomedical research (which marks our current best attempt at linking cause to effect, whilst minimising the influence of coincidental factors). However, one of the most common ways in which we find explanations is by relating an observed occurance with an observed outcome – we look for a correlation.
Of course, the trouble with correlations is that you will often be spotting a relationship that doesn’t really exist. Factor A might occur at the same time or increase at the same rate as factor B, but it could be due to factors 1,2 and 3. For example, seasonal sales of ice-cream in the UK can be directly correlated with seasonal umbrella sales in Australia – obviously they are not directly related to each other, but they share the factor of seasonality in their respective hemispheres. So a summer in the Northern Hemisphere sees more ice-cream being bought, whilst in the Southern Hemisphere it is winter and people are buying umbrellas to keep off the rain. This is a simple illustration that is intended to be clear, but unfortunately most of the time we find it very difficult to identify what the factors involved in a correlation actually are – but that doesn’t stop us drawing conclusions from what we see, or think we see.
Identifying cause and effect?
So what else do we use as a way of acquiring knowledge Continue reading →
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