I tried wheatgrass juice at the Oh Happy Days natural food store in Altadena, Calif., as part of an investigation for the pilot episode of Skeptologists, a series we hope to sell to a television network (where another biblical phrase is apropos: “Many are called, but few are chosen”). My co-stars—Kirsten Sanford, who has a Ph.D. in physiology and is now a science journalist, and Steven Novella, director of general neurology at the Yale School of Medicine—also imbibed. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I will double this essay’s length by sharing the above snapshot.
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Wheatgrass Juice and Folk Medicine".
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32 Comments
Add CommentAnd why do things like alternative medicine and the vaccine/autism thing seem to attract such high profile celebrities (or at least semi-high profile celebrities)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://truthisawoman.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/vaccinations-autism-celebrities-and-wrestling-yes/
So what made the parents think that the drug was the cause? This article merely discusses the drug's known mechanism and dismisses the concerns out of hand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot good enough
Everybody wants there to be a cause of something like autism. If there is a cause, there is a cure and those with that curse can be brought back to normalcy or some semblance of a normal life. I wish that for them as well. However, wishing that is the case does not make it so. Another simple explanation is that on or about the time these shots are given to children is about the same time this affliction begins to show up so it is a coincidence and nothing more. People want a miracle pill for everything. The fact is, when they get one they don't think of it as a miracle for very long. Take prylosec, it aleviates acid reflux and has spared millions of people the discomfort of acid reflux as well as preventing surgeries associated with acid reflux. It is a miracle pill that has relieved the suffering of millions of people. How many people still consider it a god send? Not many, most think of it like penicillian. What's the big deal you can buy it at the super market.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, the truth is finally coming out in the Autism-Vaccine link , and Kennedy's "Deadly immunity" was right. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding just came out and admitted that the CDC Vaccine Study Design was "Uninformative and Potentially Misleading" tinyurl.com/62hflf
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is an article about it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/cdc-vaccine-study-design_b_108398.html
On top of that, the government's witnesses in the defense of mercury in vaccines are bailing
http://mercury-freedrugs.org/docs/080713_PR_GovDefnseOfHgShakenfnl-b.pdf
and when you don't remove 25% of the population in the CDC database, surprise-surprise, one finds a correlation between mercury exposure and autism.
http://nhillman.newsvine.com/_news/2008/06/12/1566555-hidden-cdc-data-confirms-vaccine-autism-link
It is the same old story, money talks. Remember when freon didn't destroy ozone, and smoking didn't cause cancer, and there is no such thing as global warming?
I don't think we should ever assume these kinds of correlations to be "coincidence and nothing more". Not before demonstrating this through statistical analysis of incidence etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApparently the CDC study, by their own admission, failed to do this.
Since the government has admitted in some rare cases that vaccination can cause autism we should not make foolish statements in absolute terms about causes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAutism is not one disease it is a description of symptoms that probably cover many diseases and natural variations in populations. That's one of the reasons that snake oil salesmen have done so well marketing to affected people.
If you want to know why so many people believe in vaccination links it's pretty easy to understand. It removes all the blame from the parents and puts it on the government. It also provides for the kind of deep pockets liability greedy trail lawyers dream about.
This article is a misrepresentation of history! The link between autism and the MMR vaccination was not an anecdote or an old wives' tale, it was due to a scientific study published in a respectable journal. This was understandably and unsurprisingly damaging to vaccination uptake rates because there was good reason to believe it to be true. Even though the increased risk of autism was trivial compared to the much greater risk of serious complications from the diseases prevented by the vaccine, it was not a mistake to think that there was a credible statistical link (causal links are practically impossible to show) between the vaccine and autism. Yes, the study was eventually refuted and shown to be a shoddy piece of scientific work, but you can hardly call it "anecdotal".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's funny that the whole point of this article is completely lost on the respondents. Proof in point that the visceral biological reaction to challenges to deep seeded prejudices formed in the survival regions of the brain are hard to overcome, and will breed responses that ignore the logical response.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy are people refuting the points of the example situations instead of admitting that, yes, it does appear that deep seeded belief will trump scientific fact in the decision making process. This is absolutely true, in every single situation, bar none. If a person believes that something is true, it will affect their responses and behavior much more strongly than a scientific fact that says it is ok to participate in the behavior that was previously perceived as risky.
Religious norms and traditions are a perfect example of this type of behavior. They are not necessarily helpful in all situations, but were shaped in response to survival requirements some time in the past.
It is not surprising that over time, idividuals and societies form cognitive disconnects between what can be measured as an outcome and what can be anticipated as the worst case result of a behavior. Erring on the side of avoiding worst case results may have no net benefit, but it is an unavoidable consequence of biologically based survival mechanisms which developed in an environment where very simple errors in judgement could result in the loss of life.
Actually, stevie T, the general populous who have heard about the link between autism and vaccines have heard of it, not through a study linking the two, but through second hand, limited representations of the information. They then assimilate the information into their survival response mechanisms based on that second hand information. I would call this anecdotal in nature because, despite the original concept coming from an actual scientific study, the person picks up that information through uninformed channels. Such channels of information transfer lead just as easily to self destructive behavior as they do to those that actually lead to self preservation when the actual effect of the behavior has a minor effect on the long term survival. Examples of this are "good luck charms", which could be proven to be completely ineffective by pitting two individuals using the same basic charm against eachother in some task of luck. One wins, one looses, yet the idea of the charm having some net benefit is far outweighed by the boasting of the individual who won by the luck of the charm vs the failure of the loser to admit that his charm was ineffective.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Superstition and belief in magic are millions of years old"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally? Considering Homo Sapiens started developing around 250,000 years ago, is the author trying to suggest that prehistoric animals were superstitious? Sounds more anecdotal than scientific.
The point here is not really as to people paying more attention to Anecdotal than to Scientific evidence but people believing on false negatives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe thing is, false negatives occur more often on Anecdotal evidence than on Scientific. But if for example, it was discovered by scientists that wheat grass was linked to cancer, people would forget all the holistic stuff and stop eating wheat grass immediately. That would not prove a repowering of Science over anecdotal, but just that people are fear driven.
Everyone, the point of the article is to express that Anecdotal evidence can be confused as Scientific evidence. However the author cites controversial subject matter to draw attention, unfortunatly this muddied the article's intent and drew the audience's attention away from the original intent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWikipedia has an excellent article on "Anecdotal evidence"--well worth reading.
As software support technician, I often get calls from people drawing conclusions from two events that eneded in a result. My job has always been the difficult task of extrapolating the real issue from the situation.
For example. "Your software made my computer crash after I installed it."
If you take this at face value, you would assume the software caused the computer to crash especially if ten people report that same thing. However if you break this down, you get two events:
1. Software was installed.
2. The computer crashed.
Now if you look at it, you can see we have two different things happening. One has to understand both objects before one can draw a conclusion. What is NOT in readily apparent in the sentence is:
What other applications on the computer during the software installation
What kind of computer is it
The state or health of the computer
The operating system running on the computer.
Was something installed prior to this software application?
Was there a problem during the installation of the software application?
What was the time span between the crash of the computer and the installation of the software.
Did Something between the events?
In this case, after deduction it was determined in all cases, the users had trouble installing the software, ran a "anti-spyware" program from the web, which in truth actually was spyware. The crash didn't happen right away either, it usually took an hour or two for the crash event to happen.
So, the point is, be careful of claims or drawing conclusions from things like "One hundred people lived twenty years longer eating oranges and cheese" break down the statement and analyze each part seperatly, look for missing information. Who are these people? what evidence is supplied for the conclusion about the people, the oranges and the cheese? You never know maybe it's true or maybe those people have families who happen to all live to the age of 110 no matter what they ate, but these people just happen to like oranges and cheese a lot.
"Man-made global warming" is another excellent example of this phenomena.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEveryone forgets that anecdotal evidence and individual case studies were sufficient evidence - until the anecdoatl reports and cae studies became too frequent for the makers of the original DPT. The revelation that the DPT was injuring 35,000 kids a year became public. The doctor who did the research was basically drummed out of existence and the "Vaccine Court" was established to take the liability away from the vaccine makers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEveryone for gets this, or never learned about it in school, but 35,000 kids a year is a lot of kids. The age cohort having kids today, eligible for vaccines, are the siblings and cousins of kids damaged in the 80s and early 90's. The grandparents of the kids being lined up for vaccine slaughter today had kids that were damaged and died from the DPT. It took 40 years to get the vaccine makers to stop using the live pertussis virus. What makes any of you think we're going to stand by and watch history repeat itself over and over again? So for those of you who think we're being frivilous, or paranoid, or just plain nutty - thank your stars you didn't get hit in the 80's and get the heck out of the way, because we're trying to protect your kids as well...as if you care.
This is really an article unworthy of SciAm.com: remarks like, "...ethylmercury is expelled from the body quickly" - who knows if it is quick enough? and "...therefore cannot accumulate in the brain long enough to cause damage" - who knows how long is long enough? and "... And in any case, autism continues to be diagnosed in children born after thimerosal was removed from most vaccines in 1999" - most? So some vaccines still contain thimerosal and the risk remains; and "...today trace amounts exist in only a few" - who knows how much it takes?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with you, qualister.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne would expect a greater degree of fact and less rote recitation from SciAm...Is it possible they don't know where to find the FDA's tables listing thimerosal? Is it possible they have joined the elite ranks of reviewing only data that comes through select channels? Is it possible they only read abstracts instead of full studies?
Apparently. Well, SciAm, if you'd like something original to post, hop on over to University of Pittsburgh, have a chat with Laura Hewitson. Maybe someone would like to give them a hand finding out what caused the multiple hundreds of epigenetic changes that occurrred in the Rhesus monkeys they subjected to the US vaccine schedule.
Then tell us how Pichichero accounted for ALL the thimerosal that was injected in his last study...that should be interesting since he didn't and he can't.
And when finished with those little jaunts, take another jaunt down to the archives. Pull out the September 1993 issue and rewrite those articles from a "what we know now" perspective.
At the time, the assumption was still made that Mendelain inheritance was correct, the immune system behaved in mostly predictable ways, and that diseases would be eliminated by 2000 that we see occuring as active, but with vaccine-strain infections, today.
Perhaps you could update what happens when a vaccine combination invokes both the Th1 and Th2 response simultaneously and actually publish some research on what happens to the body and brain when it doesn't return from that shift.
The information published in that issue, today, is mere anecdote. It is anecdote because the observations we have today, on the cellular level, disprove so much of what was published there.
So too, will the story of vaccines be rewritten again. This time it will tell of the arrogance it took to manipulate the human genome into chronic illness for profit while proclaiming the greater good. It probably won't be told in this magazine, though. Your writers have forgotten how to investigate facts. The sad part is,you've paid this author for using someone else' words.
BREAKING NEWS: EVOLUTIONISTS START CONFESSING THEIR VIEWPOINT IS MOST DANGEROUS ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////The author of the article states: “The reason for this cognitive disconnect is that we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool.” ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////It follows false negatives are most dangerous. BUT evolutionists boldly claim there is no causal link between the existence of our marvellous universe and the active role of a loving Creator. On the other hand, IDers safely claim such causal link is evident. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Consequently, ID safe approach needs only to be reasonable to win approval from logical minds. Conversely, evolutionary highly risky reasoning needs to provide comprehensive evidence to be taken seriously. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////The desperate condition of evolutionism therefore heralds its fast approaching funerals, should mankind stand ready for Judgement Day. We guarantee fair treatment for all our brilliant scientists as they will soon undergo the great earthquake in the scientific establishment. All casualty programs will be renamed and refunded by IDers. I invite all ID inclined scientists to contact Fabrice LOTY (danieloty alt yahoo dot com) to share in developing ID-based technology that will soon take over. V as VICTORY!!!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author implies that all scientists are completely honest and infallible. Just sit in a courtroom one day to hear two (or more) "experts" disagree over some civil matter and you can prove this wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo if Science is not perfect, dismissing anecdotal evidence because the studies to date do not prove it true is short-sighted.
If it wasn't for anecdotal evidence, it is doubtful that Wakefield would have pursued his MMR study. The fact that Wakefield, disgraced by his peers, still has lay supporters, is further evidence of the durability of anecdotes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is exactly the same as everyone blaming global warming, climate change or whatever they are calling it these days on anything that happens to the environment or an ecosystem. Floods? Must be global warming. Drought? Must be global warming. Hurricanes? Global warming again. The climate change band wagon has curtailed real science. It's more like a religion now with Reverend Gore as the spiritual leader. If you dare to question any of these assumptions and suggest that these things should be proven via scientific method you are branded a heretic and "whack job".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe do know that the earth has undergone periods of warming and cooling. We do know that the earth on average is warming. We don't know however whether man has any real impact on that warming. And we don't know whether the gradual warming that is happening is even a bad thing.
Science > Emotion every time.
GO Skeptologists!!! Brian Dunning Rules!!! In fact, Everyone on that cast RULES!!!! Props to Shermer as well for giving it some more well deserved limelight. If nothing else we'd have something interesting to watch on TV again, besides Mythbusters and the Daily Show.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfunny to utilize several anecdotes to demonstrate how faulty anecdotal thinking can be
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi all
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry if a bit off topic but I would like to discuss mathematical probabilities of dated bible scriptures with both old and new testament pointing accurayely to same point in history.Being new here I have no idea which thread to post on for such a topic.
Can you point me in the right direction please?
Thanks
Chuck.
This interesting piece. I enjoyed his personal anecdote about wheatgrass and concur with impression given by photo about wheatgrass palatability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did find a couple of things to question:
Scientific Method a few hundred years old? Ok, I guess technically. But, critical thinking and application the principles of science have been around much longer. Perhaps, and, maybe I'm grasping, we'll find them in Scripture("Test all things and hold fast to that which is good" 1 Thessalonians 5:21).
On what evidence does he conclude brain "cognitive disconnect" is biologic? What that this has been around "millions of years"? And, more to the point, to what effect in his piece? To dismiss superstition & magic, and, perhaps, by inference religious belief as "something in our genes"? To infer it no longer has relevance?
I question lumping "belief" behaviors together. I'd definitely not attribute spiritual faith to biology. One might say, "But, it's anecdotal!" Well, are all anecdotes equal? Assuming they bear up to rules and tests for internal evidence, external evidence, and biographical textual agreement -- some anecdotes eventually are referred to as history.
http://michael-t-bee-esi.blogspot.com/search/label/scepticism
This was interesting. I enjoyed his personal anecdote about wheatgrass and concur with impression given by photo about palatability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did find a couple of things to question:
Scientific Method a few hundred years old? Ok, I guess technically. But, critical thinking and the application of the principles of science have been around much longer. Perhaps, and, maybe I'm grasping, we'll find them in sacred Scripture("Test all things and hold fast to that which is good" 1 Thessalonians 5:21).
On what evidence does he conclude brain "cognitive disconnect" is biologic? What evidence this has been around "millions of years"? And, more to the point, to what effect in his piece? Is this to dismiss superstition & magic, and, perhaps, by inference religious belief as "something in our genes"? To infer it no longer has relevance?
I question lumping "belief" behaviors together. I'd definitely not attribute spiritual faith to biology. One might say, "But, it's anecdotal!" Well, are all anecdotes equal? Assuming they bear up to rules and tests for internal evidence, external evidence, and biographical textual agreement -- some anecdotes eventually are referred to as history.
http://michael-t-bee-esi.blogspot.com/search/label/scepticism
I suggest that the modern trend of disinformation spread through the internet is a good example to support the author's proposition.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, advertizers regularly take advantage of the human tendency to generalize from annectodal information, particularly those promoting diet programs with "testimonials" from a few individuals.
The requirements of rigorous statistical study is high, and I find that even scientifically trained people often would rather draw conclusions from insufficient data than run properly designed experiments.
Well obviously I am coming to this article late. Those who posted a link to autism and vaccines would soon be revealed, were wrong. I find it astonishing that no one seemed to notice that individuals with autism often have uneven development. Meaning they are not merely retarded or brain damaged as would be the result of mercury or lead poisoning. Nobody seemed to have the critical thinking skills to recognize that mercury poisoning does not make you gifted and talented. It does not give you the ability to read at 18 months like my son did. It does not give you exceptional skills in memory, in decoding, in patterns and often in music! It just damages you plain and simple. People with autism are not a sum total of deficit. Their brains are wired differently which makes them in some areas excel above their peers. Not all people with autism have high skills but if you eliminated all that do--you would no longer have a case for vaccine epidemic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this18 months is when children got the vaccine it is also when language begins to emerge. With children with autism they often do not make that milestone leading parent's to conclude their child was fine until they got the vaccine. Also we are subjective species so if a small group of people say their child "changed" after the vaccine this is very influential on other people's memories for events and milestones of their own children. For decades every time the hemlines went up in ladies dresses the stock market crashed. One had nothing to do with the other but it happened for decades any way. People who don't understand statistics think they are discovering some kind of indisputable correlation. Correlation does not prove causation.
Ok since this has become a vaccine issue, @Michael Shermer, what is the scientific claim behind vaccines and how do they function allegedly? what is the precise causal mechanism that makes them efficient in immunizing people, and what stats do not coincide with say, sanitation, malnutrition, spatial-temporal conditions of war say, when has there been some kind of a study to show a) mobilizing of the immune system after the vaccine shot and b) when a real virus of the said disease enters the body, how does the former event connects to the mobilizing of the immune system to fight the virus more efficiently. Im asking politely if there has been anything that definitively proves efficient causation of immunization by Vaccination.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHeyyyy We have a winner here. This is the problem with educated people. They think they're so right. And then they demonstrate like they know what they're talking about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you think everybody can figure out everything. First doctor's say it's good, and then they say it's bad. Haven't you heard that enough times to know that things are too complex to ever figure everything out. Be grateful the CDC had the balls to admits this. When you understand this, you can become an adult too. I really can't believe all of the people like you. Very knowledgeable, but very ignorant. Sorry I had to edumucate you. Hope you're not offended. Pass it on
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYea, dinosaurs wouldn't walk under a ladder.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCorrelation does not imply causation. Just because two events covary does not mean that one caused the other. Particularly in reporting medical findings, the media always makes a big deal when there is a positive or a negative correlation between variables. Laypeople see causation whenever two variables covary. It's a big error to assume cause where none exists.
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