Author Archives: Victor Dominocielo

About Victor Dominocielo

I graduated from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Experimental Psychology. After college, I worked as a social work assistant for the Visiting Nurse Service for two years in Harlem and the South Bronx. I came to California and got a BA in Physical Education, a teaching credential and a specialist credential in Adapted Physical Education. I worked in Special Education at Alpha Training Center for 10 years during which time I got credentials in Biology, History, Health Education and Severely Handicapped Education. I moved on to Devereux School for 12 years during which time I earned my MA in Education. Sixteen years ago, after my son graduated from Santa Barbara Middle School, I became the 8th grade Science teacher there and the Medical Coordinator for the school and their extensive Outdoor Education Program. While I was in NYC, I was part of the first class of EMT’s, working for 5 years at Lenox Hill Hospital on their 911 ambulance and in their emergency room. When I came to SB, I worked in the Cottage ER for a year and I volunteered on the Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team as an EMT and Rescue Technician for 12 years. I have been an EMT, in and out of certification, for over 40 years. Along with teaching Human Biology and Health, this is another reason why I write about medical and health issues.

Pseudo-Skepticism and Anti-Science: “There’s just so much we don’t know…”

Pseudo-Skepticism and Anti-Science:

 “There’s just so much we don’t know…”

 

Skepticism is a questioning attitude and doubt in the face of unsupported evidence.  There may be a large amount of unsupported evidence gathered over many years, such as the fuzzy flying saucer pictures or Bigfoot footprints, but no tangible, corroborated, repeatable, scientific evidence.  In scientific circles, the general rule is, “The plural of anecdotal stories is not evidence”.

Pseudo-Skepticism is a questioning attitude and doubt in the face of overwhelming, supported and converging scientific evidence.  For example, in discussing telepathy, a pseudo-skeptic might say, “There’s just so much we don’t know…about the human brain/mind/psyche, etc.”  Nonsense.  Telepathy/clairvoyance has been continually disproven during routine experimentation in university psychology programs since the introduction of Zener cards in the 1930’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zener_cards).

Pseudo-Skepticism is a way of pretending to have reasonable and logical doubt about a scientific subject.  “There’s just so much we don’t know…about the stars and the universe and their influence on our lives here on earth…so I will continue to think that astrology produces a real effect on my life”.  While astronomers are only just beginning, in the words of Carl Sagan, to touch, “…the shores of the cosmic ocean” and there is a “universe” of information to be learned about astronomy, we do know that astrology has a lot more to do with wishful thinking and personal psychology than it has to do with the stars.

In our society, today, there are three major pseudo-skeptical and anti-science movements: creation “science”, climate change pseudo-skeptics and the anti-vaccination movement.

Young Earth Creationists (YEC) say that the earth is around 6000 years old and that the Bible should be taken as literally true with no metaphor, symbolism or mythology involved.  Absolutely nothing wrong with these beliefs except that, for some reason, the YEC people also want their religion accepted as accurate science and taught in public school science classrooms.      Creationism should have a respected place in our society just as all other religions are respected.  Creation “Science” and Intelligent Design, however, are political movements, disguised as science and designed to circumvent our American ideal of the separation of church and state. This obvious deception is not working: the Supreme Court has twice struck down attempts to have the Creationist/ID religion taught in public school science classes.

Twenty years ago, having questions about global climate change being influenced by humans and their technology might have been reasonable.  However, climate science has been around for over 40 years now and the last 20 years has seen an incredible amount of scientific focus, money and excellent research in this relatively new field of study.  The result is that there is a preponderance of evidence and multiple lines of converging evidence that the earth is in a warming period and a certain percentage of it is human caused.  “The scientists examined 4,014 abstracts on climate change and found 97.2 percent of the papers assumed humans play a role in global warming (ClimateWire, May 16, 2013).”  Yet there is a significant portion of the population (approx 32%) who are skeptical about human caused climate change and are distrusting the massive amounts of scientific evidence on this issue.  Why?

The science is good, in fact, it’s damn good.  The problem is not the science: it’s the politics.  The American public can easily tell that climate science is being misused to further a political agenda.  The politics of climate change has a very real potential to control and over control every person and organization in our society.  The real start of our current focus on climate change began with the inception of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988.  This “marriage” of science and political advocacy has been a disaster for science: politicians seduced scientists with an amount of money and media attention for their work never before seen in the halls of academia.  Scientists were now partners in a political cause célèbre and gradually became advocates.  During this process over the last twenty years, many scientists lost their impartiality.   Scientists made a deal with the devil to their detriment: if science is not impartial, it’s not science.

Where does this leave us?  The planet is warming and repeatable evidence can identify that the source of a certain percentage of the warming is human caused.  There’s no denying it with pseudo-skepticism.  However, what we do with that information and how much we should spend for how much temperature change are political questions.  Scientists should stay far away from politicians (and the IPCC) and sever all connections with advocacy lest they trade the respect and impartiality of science for political expediency.

Vaccination began as a documented, modern medical procedure in 1796 with Edward Jenner’s use of smallpox vaccine.  There are reports of earlier use of inoculation technique in India and China dating back to the 12th century.  Vaccination, since 1796, is arguably the best medical technique ever devised and its use has come close to wiping out or greatly reducing several horrible diseases (polio, smallpox, typhoid, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles, mumps, hepatitis A/B, chickenpox, meningitis, pneumonia, HPV/cervical cancer and influenza ) and prevented the suffering and death of millions upon millions of people worldwide (the lives of six million people saved every year).  The article below by WHO, details the benefits of vaccinations: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/2/07-040089/en/

The anti-vaccination movement is a tribute to how much damage one MD’s fraudulent study (ex MD Andrew Wakefield), media frenzy and one celebrity mom’s misconceptions (Jenny McCarthy) can do to hundreds of years of beneficial medical science.

In 1998, ex Dr. Wakefield published a fraudulent study of only twelve test subjects.  He concluded, based on this too small sample size, that the MMR vaccine demonstrated a connection to autism.  Not only was the sample size to small to draw this conclusion but he manipulated the data.  There was zero connection between the vaccine and autism but his fraudulent “research” in The Lancet medical journal played into the fears that mothers naturally have for the health of their children.  The media whipped up frenzy and Jenny McCarthy jumped on board.  Her 11-year-old son, Evan, was diagnosed with autism in 2005.  After that, McCarthy publicly suggested that vaccinations may have triggered his disorder.  Wakefield published a book in 2010, “Callous Disregard”, attempting to justify his fraud and McCarthy wrote the forward praising him repeatedly.

During this time, vaccination rates began to drop due to the efforts of the anti-vax movement and some illnesses like whooping cough and measles, held in check by our “herd immunity”, began to make a resurgence.  The LA Times front page story on 9/3/14 describes how parents are seeking vaccine exemptions for school attendance requirements at twice the rate (8%) then they did seven years ago.

The Anti-Vax movement continues to play on the fears that vaccines cause autism and the conspiracy theory that pharmaceutical companies and the government can’t be trusted to produce or administer a beneficial medical product.

Pseudo-Skepticism in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence is willful ignorance.  In addition to this personal willful ignorance, these larger Anti-Science movements have the potential to harm many people in our society.  Question everything, learn the science and find out where the preponderance of evidence points.

 

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., 9/4/14

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., a California-credentialed teacher for 37 years, is the human biology and health teacher at a local middle school.  He earned his Master of Arts degree in Education from UCSB.  Leave a comment here or a question at, “Scienceeducator.org”.  The opinions expressed are his own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While God Is Watching: Teaching Scientific and Critical Thinking to Young Teens

While God Is Watching:

Teaching Scientific and Critical Thinking to Young Teens

Every classroom is an incredible mix of students from many different personal, cultural and religious traditions.  Teachers have to teach to all of these traditions and disrespect none of them.  Carefully sticking to subject matter avoids many conflicts in these areas but inquisitive students have a way of bringing the ideas that matter most to them (their traditions) to the classroom, whatever the official subject matter.

Consider for a moment all the individual creation stories, particular to each religion.  How does one teach the scientific “creation” story and other aspects of science to these many different students?

It is common in skeptical and scientific circles to argue with and disparage belief in God (e.g. Richard Dawkins’ book, “The God Delusion” and Michael Shermer’s article, “Is God Dying?” scientificamerican.com/article/is-god-dying/).  There are hundreds of books and thousands of articles in which scientists question the belief in God.  For scientists and especially for science educators, this is a fool’s errand, but this kind of confrontation is very popular right now.

The rationale is that if one is going to question ideas and beliefs for which there is no measurable scientific evidence, like flying saucers, ghosts and psychics, then why not go to the heart of the matter and question a basic belief of most people, the belief in God.

This is all well and good when adults get together to question, explore, educate, argue different points of view and learn.  Dr. Harriet Hall does a good analysis of how to talk to someone who is mixing their personal beliefs and science in this post:  https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/answering-cancer-quackery-the-sophisticated-approach-to-true-believers/

However, questioning and arguing basic belief systems is absolutely not appropriate when teaching children. Teaching young children is sacred ground, a careful intrusion into the relationship between parent and child.  Parents and society have let teachers enter this sacred ground only after a careful vetting process.

A young teen has usually developed their sense of self into a belief system of some sort.  It may be religious or it may not but it explains their world and their relationship to their world.  What these children don’t have at this age is an adult system of knowledge, a large amount of experience and a variety of different technical skills, so their belief systems are more important and essential to them because that’s how they make meaning at this point in their lives.

In this context, arguing with a child over personal beliefs is not appropriate for two reasons:

–  Childrens’ beliefs are tied to their sense of self which no teacher has any business questioning and which is properly the realm of parental influence.

–  Teachers should be teaching subject matter, technical skills and how to use that subject matter in practical application and should not be teaching their personal opinions and beliefs about religion or politics.

In past years, there have been Young Earth Creationist students in my classes.  These religious beliefs are antithetical to the study of biology, since the scientific theory of Evolution is the cornerstone of biology.  So what happens in these situations?  The teacher must draw clear lines between personal belief and the scientific discussion of evidence.  Also, the teacher must defend the student’s right to their personal beliefs even while curtailing their discussion in science class.

As a society, we are very careful to separate church and state (that is, religion and politics) because of the obvious pitfalls that this has caused historically and even presently (Crusades and Jihads).  In addition, we also separate out the relatively new “third rail” of American life: Science.  We have a wonderfully tolerant society in which scientists can be deeply religious, religious people can be expertly scientific and anyone can be of any political party.  Most people in our society, who are not radicalized by their belief system, will usually take evidence based, scientific explanations as far as they will go and then assign any further explanations to the Deity.  This relationship, between science and religion, seems to work pretty well for many people.

This paragraph from Steve Novella’s article, “Trying to Impose Religion on Medicine”, (https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/), correctly outlines the separation between science and religion:

“One of the major themes of science-based medicine (unsurprisingly) is that medicine should be based on science. We consider ourselves specialists in a larger movement defending science in general from mysticism, superstition, and spiritualism. We are not against anyone’s personal belief, and are officially agnostic toward any faith (as is science itself), but will vigorously defend science from any intrusion into its proper realm.”

Some teachers can divert from course material to teach their personal religious beliefs and political opinions.  Their personal beliefs might be great ideas like the political environmental movement or the religious Great Peace of Gandhi but the specifics don’t really matter.  The course, whatever the subject, can quickly become an opinion and belief class, to the detriment of the students’ learning the course methodology and material.

In college, my son was repeatedly told in History and Political Science classes that he should vote the Democratic Party line and that if he didn’t, he was beyond ignorant and consigning the country to a fate worse than death, etc.  The fact that most college professors identify as Democrats should not affect the teaching of historical or political science material and methodology.

Good teachers teach methodology and skills and then leave it up to the students to find their way, questioning and balancing opposing points of view.

At a recent science conference, a young college professor asked a panel, “How does one keep from arguing beliefs when trying to teach a science class?” My answer to that question would be to create a safe, non-threatening environment for class discussion and never to argue with students about their beliefs. This is how I do it:

“Your beliefs are your own.  No one can tell you what to believe, least of all me”.

“This is a class about evidence, how to examine it and how to question it.  The entire process of science is directed at attempting to remove belief, opinion and personal experience from the examination of evidence.”

“Learn the Science and believe what you want.  You’re going to do that anyway.”

This works well with children but the larger point here is that science oriented people shouldn’t be arguing against people’s deeply held beliefs, whether those people are children or adults.  Arguing against a person’s life long belief in their God or their religion is a lose/lose, zero sum argument and pointless conversation.  As Neil deGrasse Tyson said, when chiding Richard Dawkins about his acerbic style in his role as a science educator, “You can attract more bees with honey than with vinegar”.

Even when Jehovah’s Witnesses come to my door (two or more adults, ready, willing and able to talk about religion), I don’t argue with them about their religion or their bible.  I try to engage them about how they know what they know and how they are examining evidence.  Topics like circular reasoning, self-validation and removing personal bias from an investigation form the core of my discussion.  My wife says that we are the only home from which the frustrated Witnesses eventually flee, “He’s more committed than a Mormon: he’s a scientist!”

Most people are very willing to separate Science and how the world works from their personal religious beliefs.  Talking about scientific methodology, how it works and how it doesn’t work, how to examine evidence and how we can often deceive ourselves by confirming our own biases, leaves an adult or a child with the proper tools to make their own meaning out of their relationship to the world.

 

Victor Dominocielo, M.A. 7/1/2015

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., a California-credentialed teacher for 38 years, is the human biology and health teacher at a local school.  He earned his Master of Arts degree in Education from UCSB.  The opinions expressed are his own.

 

 

 

 

Scientific Literacy

Scientific Literacy

 

Two scientists from Lawrence Livermore Labs (LLL) excitedly called James Randi (James Randi Educational Foundation) and said that he would have to forfeit the one million dollar prize money that he offers for proof of any psychic phenomenon.  In this case the scientists had “verified” an instance of telekinesis using only the power of the mind.  Randi listened to their description and was immediately able to duplicate the trick that had fooled the PhD physicists.  That video is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbwWL5ezA4g.

 

LLL is chock full of the best scientists on earth.  It is the poster child for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education which is currently emphasized in our school system.  The scientists who were fooled by the magicians trick are outstanding engineers, chemists and physicists in their particular fields of study.

 

But isn’t there something very wrong with this situation: PhD level scientists who can’t tell the difference between an astounding brain function discovery and a simple magic trick?  My 13 year old students would have known immediately that they were observing a trick.  They might not have known how to explain the trick but they would have known that it was a trick by simply asking the, “What’s more likely?” question.  What am I more likely observing, a new superpower of the mind or a magicians trick?

 

I can only conclude that being awarded a PhD in a scientific field of study is no guarantee of scientific literacy.  I can only fault myself and other science educators for producing PhD level scientists who are not able to distinguish between scientific and non-scientific processes.  This is a blatant lapse of basic science education.

“It is possible for a student to accumulate a fairly sizable science knowledge base without learning how to properly distinguish between reputable science and pseudoscience”. (“Science Education Is No Guarantee of Skepticism”, Walker, Hoekstra, Vogel), http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-03-07/#feature

Instead of being taught a broad understanding of the use of scientific thinking in everyday life, these scientists are the product of an educational system that focuses on the narrow application of laboratory skills.  Experimental laboratory skills are certainly very important but not at the expense of ignoring the application of scientific thinking in all areas of life.  What is needed is an appreciation and an in depth understanding of Scientific Literacy.

 

Scientific literacy is a functional competency in the methodology of science.  In a practical sense, it is comprised of:

 

  • Awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of the basic tool used to gather scientific information: your brain. Includes common cognitive mistakes and fallacies which influence the gathering of scientific evidence.
  • Ability to recognize the difference between scientific and non-scientific processes.
  • Ability to apply the scientific process in the observation and examination of evidence.
  • Ability to evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and methods.

Ask any science teacher about the most important and critical skill in science and each and every one of us would definitively say, “experimentation”.  As this rationale became incorporated into our educational system over the last forty years, experimentation became the be all, end all, must do all, hands-on splinter skill.  Sacrificed on the altar of “laboratory experimentation” was the rich history, development and the how and why of scientific thinking in everyday life that is, scientific literacy.  “Science education, in its current form, seems to do little to offset pseudoscientific beliefs, and may in fact give students reason to accept science fiction as science fact”, (Walker, et. al, 2012).

Every science course at every educational level should be teaching scientific literacy.  Even   coursework in non-science courses like English, history and social studies should include a generalized scientific methodology that can be applied to any question, investigation and the gathering of evidence in any field of study.  Questions like: “How do historians gather evidence?”; “What are the hypotheses surrounding the writings of Shakespeare?”; “How do psychologists gather evidence given that people feel, believe and misperceive?”.

In sciences courses, after being exposed to the specific experimental methodology in that field, students should learn the developmental history of that science, how mistakes were made and how scientific methodology kept pointing scientists to a more accurate understanding of our world.

The next stage of a deep and robust science education should include how the brain processes information and the strengths and weaknesses of this incredible tool.  Understanding the limits of perception, memory and common cognitive fallacies produces a student less likely to fool themselves and confuse their beliefs and emotions with evidence.

Throughout every science class, students should learn how to examine the quality of evidence that they see every day on TV, computer and social media in the form of advertising that makes unsupportable claims.

Let’s give everyone a good “Baloney Detection Kit”, originally penned by Carl Sagan in his book, “The Demon-Haunted World” and refined here by Michael Shermer:

http://www.michaelshermer.com/2009/06/baloney-detection-kit/

  1. How reliable is the source of the claim?
  2. Does the source make similar claims?
  3. Have the claims been verified by someone else?
  4. Does this fit with the way the world works?
  5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?
  6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?
  7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?
  8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?
  9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?
  10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim?

 

There is so much lack of scientific literacy in our world today.  Sheer nonsense is given such credibility on the Discovery Channel, the History Channel and even National Geographic TV.  Everything from ghosts, witchcraft, Bigfoot, space aliens, drinkable sunscreen, magical alternative medicine, crop circles, astrology, psychic readings, pyramid powers, crystals and energy auras are given pseudoscientific plausibility.

Let’s start changing this situation by teaching our children sense from nonsense.  Let’s teach our children Scientific Literacy at every age and at every opportunity.

 

Victor Dominocielo, M.A.  7/18/14

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., a California-credentialed teacher for 37 years, is the Human Biology and Health teacher at a local middle school. He earned his Master of Arts degree in Education from UCSB. The opinions expressed are his own.

 

Scientific Literacy Definition from Wikipedia

“According to the United States National Center for Education Statistics, “scientific literacy is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity”.[1] A scientifically literate person is defined as one who has the capacity to:

  • understandexperiment and reasoning as well as basic scientific facts and their meaning
  • ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences
  • describe, explain, and predictnatural phenomena
  • read with understanding articles about science in thepopular press and to engage in social conversation about the validity of the conclusions
  • identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed
  • evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it
  • pose and evaluatearguments based on evidence and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately[2]

The OECD PISA Framework (2015) defines scientific literacy as “the ability to engage with science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a reflective citizen.”[3] A scientifically literate person, therefore, is willing to engage in reasoned discourse about science and technology which requires the competencies to:

  • Explain phenomena scientifically – recognize, offer and evaluate explanations for a range of natural and technological phenomena
  • Evaluate and design scientific inquiry – describe and appraise scientific investigations and propose ways of addressing questions scientifically.
  • Interpret data and evidence scientifically – analyze and evaluate data, claims and arguments in a variety of representations and draw appropriate scientific conclusions.

Scientific literacy may also be defined in language similar to the definitions of ocean literacy,[4]Earth science literacy[5] and Climate Literacy.[6] Thus a scientifically literate person can:

  • understand the science relevant to environmental and social issues
  • communicate clearly about the science
  • make informed decisions about these issues

Finally, scientific literacy may involve particular attitudes toward learning and using science. A scientifically-literate citizen feels concerned about environmental and social issues, responsible to act on these issues, and empowered to use science as a tool in addressing these issues.”

 

The Scientific Manufactroversy

The Scientific Manufactroversy

 

Take an issue on which almost all scientists agree, find the few and rare proponents of an alternate position and have an attention getting disagreement between science and belief.  Often the scientific experts will be pitted against a “man on the street” opinion or well known personalities in other scientific fields of study or even completely different fields such as politics or religion.

The media is mostly responsible for creating this type of “news structuring” or manufacturing a controversy.  News stories on which almost all experts agree are considered kind of boring information and only of interest to a narrow segment of the population.  So the media will go out of its way to find odd, rare and exotic views.  People tend to pay much more attention when an emotional argument is taking place and reporters convince themselves that they are only trying to fairly portray both sides of the story.

Also, the construction of doubt (where there is none) helps to generate larger audiences.  This is why National Geographic has “Chasing UFO’s” in their program line-up and the History Channel has “Cryptid: the Swamp Beast” and “Bigfoot Legends”.  Most unfortunately, the Science Channel has programs on “The Russian Yeti”, Voodoo Zombies”, “Life After Death” and “Shadow People” (i.e. ghosts) all designed to entice the viewer of the “possibilities” of this nonsense.  The History Channel even has this ridiculous byline in their Cryptid Faq Section, “That’s part of the fun!…You don’t know where the truth ends and superstition begins.”  This is History?  Really?

Another problem in the age of Google is the “My Expert verses Your Expert” dilemma.  You can always find an expert to support your point of view no matter how improbable.  There‘s always a seemingly rational argument on the other side.  Kurt Weis has a PhD in geology from Harvard University…and thinks that the earth is less than 10,000 years old!  Talk about mixing Science with belief and opinion and creating…well, creating a Young Earth Creationist.

Most of these Manufactroversies can be dismissed by looking at the preponderance of scientific evidence for both sides of the issue.  How many Harvard educated geologists are there who believe that the earth is about 10,000 years old?  One?  OK, maybe two?  Most all other geologists agree on the evidence, definitive since 1926, that the earth is about 4.55 billion years old.  So, there is no scientific controversy about the age of the earth.

Likewise, there is also no scientific controversy about Evolution.  Since Darwin published in 1859, all biologists have come to agree with Russian geneticist, T. Dobzhansky, “Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution”.  There are a lot of theological arguments against evolution, various beliefs about the origin of life and an unending number of contrary opinions…but no scientific evidence.  In fact, the process of evolution is so essentially intertwined with the existence of life, that evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins observed in his book, “The Blind Watchmaker” that, “I want to persuade the reader not just that Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence….A good case can be made that Darwinism is true, not just on this planet, but all over the universe wherever life may be found.” (ix – x).

So, where does the preponderance of scientific evidence lie?  One hundred fifty six years of evidence demonstrating that small changes from generation to generation (microevolution) accumulate over millions of years to produce new species or… the beliefs and opinions of certain religious groups.  Everyone is entitled to their beliefs and opinions, but just don’t make the mistake of calling those ideas scientific.

Anti-Vaccination proponents have a particularly difficult scientific case to make: vaccinations have been used since the time of Dr. Edward Jenner in 1796.  In the last 219 years, vaccinations have proved to be the best and most effective medical technique ever devised, saving more lives than any other medical procedure by significantly reducing and eliminating many diseases that have been the scourge of the human race (smallpox, polio, malaria, measles, rubella, to name but a few).  WHO estimates that 6 million lives are saved each year, worldwide, due to vaccinations.  Where does the preponderance of evidence lie?   Against over 200 years of scientific evidence, there is one fraudulent study by disgraced, ex-physician, Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy’s musings about autism and a group of vocal conspiracy theorists who are very upset that Big Pharma is making money and poisoning us all.  Go figure.

Another recently manufactured scientific controversy within the medical establishment is due to the attitude, among some physicians, of “clinical supremacy”.  That is, some doctors can get so good at their clinical practice that they might eschew the scientific research on a treatment and pursue their own methods of treatment.  There is currently no better example of this than some doctors designating themselves as Lyme Literate MD’s (LLMD).  Instead of following the research in infectious disease and instead of adhering to the standards set by the Infectious Disease Society of America and the CDC, these few doctors treat patients according to their personal clinical results.  In doing so, they are subject to the bias and placebo results that scientific research is designed to eliminate.

Our human tendency towards confirmation bias almost guarantees that we will find whatever proposition or idea that we go looking for because, even if there isn’t any evidence, we will reliably manufacture it.  Scientific methodology is the only way out of this slavery to our personal biases and beliefs and a guide to how the natural world works.

It sometimes happens in Science that an Isaac Newton, an Einstein or a Hawking comes along with game changing discoveries that rock the scientific establishment.  However, Science usually just plods along, incrementally building on what has gone before and making small discoveries and changes that slowly improve our world.  It is a fair certainty that Creationists, Anti-vaxers and Lyme Literate MD’s are no Einsteins.  In these cases of manufactured scientific controversy, looking at where the preponderance of evidence lies resolves any questions about the proper direction of Science.

 

Victor Dominocielo, M.A. 3/6/15

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., a California-credentialed teacher for 37 years, is the human biology and health teacher at a local middle school.  He earned his Master of Arts degree in Education from UCSB.  The opinions expressed are his own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tooth Fairy Science

Tooth Fairy Science

(term coined by Dr. Harriet Hall, M.D.)

http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/tooth_fairy_science_part_1

 

“Tooth Fairy Science” is postulating an improbable, outlandish explanation ( or hypothesis) for routine data when much more reasonable hypotheses are available.

This technique, while harmless for the Tooth Fairy, Santa and the Easter Bunny, is very wasteful of investigatory time and research money when applied to scientific subjects.  “Tooth Fairy Science” short circuits five basic principles of scientific investigation:

  1. In Science, the simplest explanations of events with the fewest assumptions are usually     correct (Occam’s razor).
  2. The “What’s more likely?” question has to be asked when considering a hypothesis.
  3. The “Where does the preponderance of evidence point?” question should be answered to keep the investigation on track.
  4. The principle of “Prior Plausibility” must be met: hypotheses must be in line with the basic understandings of physics, chemistry and biology.
  5. The Null Hypothesis: Science must take the orientation that the hypothesis is not accurate and try to disprove the evidence presented. Tooth Fairy “Scientists”, on the other hand, are always trying to prove that their improbable hypotheses are correct.

Hypothesizing farfetched explanations of events that are unreasonable and then collecting real world data, does not confirm the unreasonable explanation.  In the case of Tooth Fairy Science, the data only confirms the data.  A tooth fairy researcher might ask: How much money was left?  Coins or dollars?  More for the first tooth?  Was the money left on top of the pillow or underneath?  This type of data can also be collected for Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.  The more probable cause of the data (parental gift giving) is intentionally not considered.

A researcher could spend years examining the vast amount of anecdotal data collected on Bigfoot and ghosts.  For Bigfoot, there are noises in the woods, fuzzy pictures and thousands of anecdotal stories which confirm that there are, without a doubt, noises in the woods, long distance, fuzzy pictures of mammals and that people will say anything.  Reports of ghosts are either dead relatives who refuse to leave or… the result of the powerful “sensed presence” effect and “sleep paralysis” that is fairly common among human beings.  What explanation is more likely?  (http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/01/20/ever-wake-up-and-think-see-ghost-here-what-happening/?intcmp=features).

There is data since the 1940’s on UFO sightings and, more recently, Crop Circles. Unexplained lights in the sky are either alien visitors or high altitude test flights (http://www.newsweek.com/cia-behind-ufo-sightings-1950s-and-1960s-295939).  Crop circles are, most certainly, proof that an advanced civilization spent years of its time and most of its wealth to fly to our planet and… cut the grass…or farmer John got drunk one night and took the tractor for a spin.  What explanation makes the fewest assumptions?

Most of these Tooth Fairy beliefs involve thousands of anecdotal stories which are mistaken by their believers to be significant evidence.  However, “The plural of anecdotal stories is not scientific evidence”, says Michael Shermer, columnist for Scientific American.  Unfortunately, these personal stories, testimonies, reports, etc, are influenced by emotion, bias and faulty perception.  We all tend to focus on and see what we want to see and hear what our biases want us to hear.  This human pre-disposition to self-delusion is the rationale for the existence of Science.  Without Science, self-delusion rules.

Perhaps the worst example of the self-delusion inherent in Tooth Fairy Science comes from the C.I.A., that is, the Complementary, Integrative and Alternative folk medicine people.  The situation is so unscientific that, “Tooth Fairy Folk Medicine”, might be a more accurate term.   Why do we continue to propose fantastic, immeasurable and supernatural mechanisms for such a well studied area of human biology as is our disease process?  It’s understandable that thousands of years ago we explained the natural and normal disease process as mystical.  It’s understandable that we looked to the supernatural five hundred years ago or even two hundred years ago…but for how long are we going to continue to explain the natural process of getting sick and getting well by immaterial energies and invisible body parts?

 

Alternative folk medicine practitioners have constructed a magical world in which, “Anything Cures Everything”.  Pick any brand of folk medicine, its practitioners will perform some type of theatrical display and then claim to cure everything from headaches to cancer.  The therapeutic environment is ripe for this type of self-delusion: most illnesses get better on their own, the placebo effect is reliably generated by every conscious patient in any therapeutic environment, the patient desires to get well and the practitioner wants to heal.  Self-delusion is rampant in these circumstances.

If a sugar pill, the white lab coat and the stethoscope around the doctor’s neck can induce a patient to produce a placebo effect, then anything can.  Every society and culture on earth has been proving this, continuously, since the beginning of recorded history.  At different times and in different places, human civilization has marveled in the amazingly “curative” powers of witchcraft, bloodletting, auras, energy attunement, vibrations, iridology, nano particles, reflexology, snake oil, homeopathy, voodoo, balancing the four humors, invisible meridians, releasing evil spirits from the blood, moxibustion, ear candling and, lest we not forget that contemporary paragon of human gullibility and confirmation bias, Tong Ren doll tapping.  Either all these manifestations of magical energies and invisible body parts are true and “work” or…it’s the placebo effect combined with doctor and patient biases.  What explanation is more likely and where does the preponderance of evidence lie?

Tooth Fairy Folk Medicine also violates the scientific concept of prior plausibility: their belief based mechanisms do not operate according the basic laws of physics, chemistry and biology.  There is only one way to counter the self-delusion that is inherent in the therapeutic environment: medical practice and protocols have to follow researched based, scientific experimentation.

All these manifestations of human belief and cultural expression, from the Tooth Fairy to Bigfoot and on to alternative folk medicines, provide a rich and varied history of our civilization…but please, just don’t call them Science.

Victor Dominocielo, M.A. 1/26/15

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., a California-credentialed teacher for 37 years, is the human biology and health teacher at a local middle school.  He earned his Master of Arts degree in Education from UCSB.  The opinions expressed are his own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Modern Practice of Medieval Medicine

The Modern Practice of Medieval Medicine

 

“Medieval Medicine” is what doctors and other healers practiced for most of our recorded history (even before the Medieval Period, 476 AD through 1517 AD).  Medical practice was based on the defunct Theory of the Four Humors (balancing body fluids), ridiculous notions of anatomy and physiology, very occasional, haphazard and isolated scientific discoveries and results falsely associated with confirmation bias and the placebo effect.  The great hallmark of Medieval Medicine was that doctors did not follow scientific research and experimentation (because there was none) and allowed the healer’s individual, biased observations and the patient’s placebo effect to dictate practice.

Modern Medicine had to wait for the Germ Theory of Disease (germs carry disease not evil spirits or magical forces), precise knowledge of anatomy and physiology, treatment based on scientific experimentation and techniques coordinated with statistically successful outcomes (from about 1870 onward).  The great hallmark of Modern Medicine is that it follows years of scientific research and experimentation to remove doctor and patient biases and requires improvement above and beyond the patient generated placebo effect.

“Medieval Medicine” is placebo based folk medicine from our not too distant past.  Divorced from even basic biological knowledge and absent any research methodology, healers practiced according to their personal observations.  Unfortunately, almost any procedure was perceived to have “worked” because of the placebo effect and our natural survivability for most diseases.  In this setting of false associations and confirmation bias, bloodletting, prayer, poisonous purgatives and emetics, “…eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog…”(Shakespeare), moxibustion, water, sugar, oil, alcohol based “snake oil” concoctions, etc, all appeared to work.  Everything “worked” because the placebo effect and doctor/patient bias was always present.

As these folk medicines trickled down through history, trial and error usually did away with those that were overtly harmful.  But even therapies that weren’t overtly harmful didn’t do any good either, since all they ever were was the patient generating their own placebo improvement.  In other words, the theatrics engaged in by these “healers” had no healing effect but since the patient usually improved on their own, the healer and the patient thought that their system “worked”.  For example, aromatherapy has a certain theatrical procedure, just as does iridology, reflexology and the pretty, fluid movements of reiki energy attunement.  The various theatrics of the different alternative systems do nothing.  “A placebo is a zero”, as Dr. Steve Novella, from Sciencebasedmedicine.org often states, but since the patient almost always improves, patient and “healer” fool themselves and confirm their own biases that their particular brand of theatrical “medicine” is working.

There are three situations where “Medieval Medicine” is still practiced in our world.  As we might expect, underdeveloped countries with few educational opportunities still practice superstition based law and medicine.  Every year there are still a few stories of “witches” being burned at the stake in some small village.  And then there’s this:

“As BBC explains, the tradition of cooking (human) albinos into potions is not a new one in Tanzania, and the parents of albino children are forced to fear that, at any minute, a band of men may kidnap their children to sell to wealthy sectors of society for use in witchcraft.” http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/12/10/Tanzania-s-Albinos-Killed-Like-Animals-For-Body-Parts-Used-in-Money-Attracting-Potions.

These backward, pre-scientific, superstitions in isolated places around the globe do not undermine Modern Medicine. However, the second, more troubling situation in which “Medieval Medicine” is practiced is the growing infusion of placebo based folk medicines into Science Based Medicine (SBM).  More and more (previously) reputable medical centers, MDs in private practice and medical insurance companies are becoming associated with these pre-scientific systems of medicine which are labeled complementary, integrative or alternative (CIA).

It’s hard to imagine that intelligent, well educated people can use ineffective, pre-scientific medical systems like homeopathy which are proven not to work or fool themselves into believing that invisible forces like reiki are real and will magically heal.  But just how outlandish and goofy can alternative medicine get?  Would you believe…doll tapping?   That’s right: if you have a headache, you tap your surrogate doll in the head.  Shoulder pain?  Tap the doll in the shoulder.  It’s very hard to believe that anyone thinks this nonsense could possibly have any effect but here it is: “Voodoo acupuncture doll tapping” (also known as Tong Ren Acupuncture): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqp0PTigz7E.   The MDs at Science Based Medicine do not recommend watching this video while eating or drinking since the resultant hysterical laughter presents a very real choking hazard.

The patients in this video look like well-educated, affluent and caring individuals.  But they’re also poster children for the Dark Ages.  If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to believe in witchcraft, magical forces and hobgoblins, these people are good modern day examples. This video even has Craig Benson, the former governor of New Hampshire, as an advocate of Tong Ren.  By all that’s rational, what’s next in the, “Annals of Alternative Medicine”: hand puppets?

The reason for this improper mixing of science and superstition in modern medical practice is the desire on the part of MDs to please the patient (placebo) when they have no statistically significant SBM therapy to actually heal the patient.  For example, back pain, knee pain, end of life situations, etc, all push scientifically minded MDs toward an attitude of, “Since I can’t do anything real for the patient, I’ll refer them to the “snake oil”, Voodoo, doll tapping people.  What’s the harm?”

Even though CIA medicine is a poor second to Science Based Medicine in this context, it is not the worst practice that MDs do to undermine their own profession.  The Board Certified MD who does not just endorse or refer patients to snake oil salesmen but actually practices it themselves is the worst use of Medieval Medicine in our modern world.  Some doctors still ignore years of scientific research and confuse their own biases, personal experience and the patient’s placebo effect with good medical practice. MD’s who set themselves up as Lyme disease specialists (LLMD’s) and anti-vaccine MDs fall into this Medieval Medicine category.  There is information about Lyme treatment here, http://www.noozhawk.com/article/victor_dominocielo_two_treatments_for_lyme_disease                                           and vaccines here, http://www.noozhawk.com/article/victor_dominocielo_vaccination_rates_dropping_in_santa_barbara_county        .

But the practice of Medieval medicine in our modern society can get even worse. Dr. Ben Johnson, MD, sells Harmonized H2O (Osmosisskincare.com) which he claims “vibrates” and sends “frequency messages” to harmonize internal imbalances in our bodies and enhance our tanning hormone. It’s magic water that will protect you from UV rays, in other words, drinkable sunscreen.  There is no known mechanism in physics, chemistry or biology that could explain these ridiculous claims but that doesn’t stop Dr. Ben.  Magic water at $30 bucks a bottle.  Sounds legit!

Then there is Dr Oz, an outstanding cardiothoracic surgeon, who gets a bit carried away with his beliefs in pre-scientific “energy medicine”, herbalism and the very profitable supplement industry.  Besides being hauled before a Senate Sub-Committee because of his use of misleading and deceptive advertising, Dr Oz lets his wife and her girlfriends “play” in his operating room.  “Occasionally, Oz even invites Reiki masters into his operating room, allowing them to tend to patients undergoing precarious surgeries like heart transplants. Drawing on viable unseen energies, Reiki masters like Pamela Miles and Julie Motz have melded their expertise with Oz’s mastery as a heart surgeon.”   http://iarp.org/dr-oz-and-the-healing-power-of-reiki/.  Talk about corrupting the practice of Science Based Medicine!  What kind of medicine are we practicing when we need a sign over the hospital entrance which says, “Please keep the Reikian Energy Healers out of the Operating Room”?

In the entire history of science, we have never gone deliberately backwards in our explanation of the natural world.  We don’t expect geologists to come up with pre-scientific, alternative explanations for volcanoes such as, “The gods must be angry; we’d better sacrifice a virgin”.  Unfortunately modern medicine can now claim that dubious distinction.  Dr. Mark Crislip, M.D., sums up the problem very succinctly: “It is an oddity of medicine.  I would wager that astronomy journals do not publish editorials touting astrology as a solution for difficult problems.  Similarly, psychology journals do not look to psi and chemistry journals do not advocate the methods of alchemy.  In medicine, the editors (of medical journals) have no problem with suggesting nonsense…” (sciencebasedmedicine.org/urinary-tract-infections-cause-depression-directors-cut/#more-30052).

When MDs refer patients to placebo based folk medicine, they are fostering the practice of “Medieval Medicine”, ignoring decades of scientific research and are providing recommendations and interventions based on their own biased clinical observations, biased patient reports and the patient generated placebo effect.  Modern Medicine has to grow up, keep moving forward scientifically and leave the pre-scientific superstitions and practices of medieval medicine behind.  Let’s keep the “medieval” out of Modern Medicine.

 

Victor Dominocielo, M.A. 1/2/15

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., a California-credentialed teacher for 37 years, is the Human Biology and Health teacher at a local middle school. He earned his Master of Arts degree in Education from UCSB. The opinions expressed are his own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Two Treatments For Lyme Disease?

As many know by now, there are two distinct and different treatments for Lyme disease.  One treatment plan voiced by the CDC, the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) and every Emergency Room around the country is that there is no Chronic Lyme Disease (CDL) and that one or two, 10 to 30 day courses of antibiotics will definitively kill the Lyme disease.  However, if not caught early, systemic damage can take years to fade away.

The second method of treatment voiced by MD’s that call themselves Lyme Specialists or Lyme Literate MD’s (LLMD’s) advocates that there is Chronic Lyme Disease (CLD) and that it is best treated with long term antibiotics.

How does this happen?  How can there be two distinct methods of treatment in a scientific profession with the most educated, literate medical specialists on the planet?  How did this situation come about and how can scientific and historical analysis help to understand this troubling situation?

The first scientific precept to understand in this situation is that anyone can be fooled and that the easiest person to fool you, is you.  MD’s, Judges, PhD’s in physics and even Neils DeGrasse Tyson are susceptible to the prejudices and biases of the human species.  This is the fundamental basis for the existence of science: a methodology for understanding the natural world that is not anecdotal, that is not your personal story or your individual perception.

The second historical connection to be made is that throughout the entire history of medicine, this kind of dissention around the proper treatment for the same physical ailment is the norm, not the exception.  Over the last 3000 years, healers have been on their own or in small groups, using only their clinical practice, personal experience and desire to alleviate pain and suffering to help them decide the best course of treatment.  For thousands of years, medical treatment was hampered by completely inadequate theory (Four Humors and Spontaneous Generation), Stone Age tools (basically a knife) and personal experience/ guesswork.  Modern medicine began around the 1870’s with the introduction of the Germ Theory of Disease, the consolidation of scientific methodology (experimentation) in universities throughout the world, statistical analysis of treatment results and significantly faster communication technology (telegraph, 1838; telephone, 1878; radio, 1901) enabling the sharing and comparing of scientific results.

The definition of modern medicine is that clinical treatment protocols must follow research, rigorous experimentation and statistical outcome analysis of a clinical trial period.  If this scientific process is ignored and only clinical experience is used to evaluate and treat patients, then that physician is practicing “medieval” medicine.  How do you tell a renowned physician with 30 years of clinical healing experience, that the results he sees with his own eyes can be tainted and corrupted by his very desire to make patients well?  How do you tell a leader in the field of medicine that her 30 years of personal experience amounts to anecdotal medical stories…unless she is following experimentally based protocols?   It’s a hard sell.

When Lyme disease first started showing up in the early 1970’s, MD’s were on their own as far as treatment protocols.  Give antibiotics for a short time or for a long time were the two main avenues of treatment.  Over the next 40 years, treatment results began to accumulate and well-controlled experiments were carried out producing scientific protocols.  The main result of the scientific experimentation was that one or two courses of antibiotics kills Lyme disease and that symptoms and systemic damage caused by the disease can take years to fade away – whether or not long term antibiotics are given.  In other words, there is no such thing as Chronic Lyme Disease and long term antibiotic therapy does not improve the lingering symptoms.

The best history of this unfortunate situation is published in the Lancet here:  http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2811%2970034-2/abstract.

New England Journal of Medicine further describes the lack of protocols and controls on LLMD’s: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra072023:

“The diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease and its treatment differ substantively from the diagnosis and treatment of recognized infectious diseases. The diagnosis is often based solely on clinical judgment rather than on well-defined clinical criteria and validated laboratory studies, and it is often made regardless of whether patients have been in areas where Lyme disease is endemic…”

“How should clinicians handle the referral of symptomatic patients who are purported to have chronic Lyme disease? The scientific evidence against the concept of chronic Lyme disease should be discussed and the patient should be advised about the risks of unnecessary antibiotic therapy. The patient should be thoroughly evaluated for medical conditions that could explain the symptoms. If a diagnosis for which there is a specific treatment cannot be made, the goal should be to provide emotional support and management of pain, fatigue, or other symptoms as required.  Explaining that there is no medication, such as an antibiotic, to cure the condition is one of the most difficult aspects of caring for such patients. Nevertheless, failure to do so in clear and empathetic language leaves the patient susceptible to those who would offer unproven and potentially dangerous therapies.”

The LLMDs who chose long term antibiotic therapy were encouraged by their patients’ desire to please, vocal patient advocacy/support groups, laboratory companies that promoted expensive testing and even movie producers (“Under Our Skin”) who had an investment in producing certain results.  All of this corrupted, unblinded, emotional and anecdotal experience is filtered out by the scientific process to produce correct medical protocols.  When this tainted evidence is not filtered out by laboratory experimentation, then even the best doctors in the world can fool themselves into practicing “medieval” medicine.

Time will eventually filter out medicine practiced on the exclusive basis of clinical treatment.  More scientific studies will accumulate and it will become harder and harder for LLMD’s to justify the harmful effects of long term antibiotic therapy.

By Victor Dominocielo, M.A., 6/26/14

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., a California-credentialed teacher for 36 years, is the Human Biology and Health teacher at a local middle school. He earned his Master of Arts degree in Education from UCSB. The opinions expressed are his own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vaccination Rates Dropping in SB County

Vaccination Rates Dropping in SB County

 

Kelsy Brugger in “The Independent”, 9/11/14, writes that SB County Health Department figures show a rise in vaccine exemptions from 2.9% in 2011 to 4.7 % in 2013.  Herd immunity begins to rapidly deteriorate after 5% of the population does not vaccinate.  National trends show that vaccination rates often drop within pockets of affluent and highly educated groups and that national high exemption rates hover around 25%.  Following that trend, 27.4% of students at Montecito Union School filed exemptions as did a whopping 41.7% of students at El Montecito School, according to SB County records.

Using data from the CDC, “The Hollywood Reporter” did an excellent article showing that vaccination rates in wealthy school districts in Los Angeles are as low as those in Southern Sudan!  There is even a new term going around calling this phenomenon, “affluenza”, suggesting that the affluent/wealthy think that they don’t get sick like the rest of us (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-vaccination-fail-why-la-731815).

PBS/Nova has just released an excellent, science based video called, “Vaccines: Calling the Shots, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATcs0qhzfek  that every parent should see.   This anti-vax trend in Santa Barbara is significant, very disturbing, and potentially harmful to many of our children.

Parents are asked by their physicians to have 28 vaccinations for 14 different diseases within their child’s first two years.  That s a lot of shots and many parents might naturally question if so many are necessary.  However, all the shots are necessary, simply because that is the number of serious and life threatening diseases that children are susceptible to and which vaccinations can eradicate if everyone maintains herd immunity.  Research since the 1950’s has shown that after millions upon millions of vaccinations, worldwide, that fears of autism, multiple sclerosis, SIDS, heart failure, etc.  are completely unfounded .  Vaccinations have extremely rare side effects (about one serious side effect for every one million vaccinations) and enormous benefits (over six million people saved, per year, from painful suffering and death).  Finally, research over many years has demonstrated that the number of vaccinations and the CDC recommended vaccination schedule is safe and effective.

Many parents avoid vaccinations because they follow a naturalistic ideology and consider vaccinations an unnatural substance in their body.  Well, there is nothing more natural than measles, whooping cough and smallpox.  In fact, we live in a “soup” of natural air born particles of disease and our body’s immune system stays strong and keeps us healthy by continually fighting off these diseases.  Vaccination exactly mimics this natural process by selectively exposing our immune systems to a very weak form of a debilitating and deadly disease. Our immune systems are then triggered and prepared to fight off that particular disease.  The only difference between the normal, natural and continuous operation of our immune system and a vaccination is that medical science picks one of the many diseases that our immune system is continually fighting.
In the PBS video, a group of Moms are watching their children play and they talk on camera about their confusion over vaccinations.  “There’s just so much information, I don’t know who to ask”.  “There’s no such thing as an unbiased source”.   “Who am I supposed to trust?”  One Mom relates a story that sometime after her child had a vaccination that she had a seizure and the Mom blames the vaccination.

You don’t know who to ask?  How about asking your M.D. pediatrician?  Ask ten different pediatricians and see if their recommendations agree.  They will agree because they follow the CDC guidelines and also because it is their difficult task in life to sometimes watch children die of these preventable diseases.  For that reason, every pediatrician is going to recommend the absolute best and safest procedure and schedule available.   Who to trust?  How about trusting the M.D.’s four years of medical school, two to five years of residency training and State Medical Board certification?

These Moms are practicing the worst and most dangerous form of anti-science, pseudo-skepticism with their child’s health.  It goes something like this: “Let’s see.  I have to make this life-and-death medical decision for my child.  Should I go with the over two hundred years of science based medical research, experimentation and practice, with millions of people saved, horrible diseases wiped off the face of the earth or…should I go with Betty Sue’s opinion who’s sitting next to me on the park bench?  I don’t know.  I’m not sure.  Betty Sue goes to the health food store…She eats all organic…She’s so natural…I want my kids to be like hers…”

I want to know who these Moms had for Science teachers in high school and college.  How did they pass any of their Science classes without knowing the difference between scientific research and Betty Sue’s opinion?   How could they possibly equate 200 years and millions of positive outcomes with Betty Sue’s emotional story?  Why didn’t that other mom not understand that just because her child had a seizure sometime after her vaccination, that she did not necessarily have the seizure because of the vaccination (post hoc thinking).  Why wasn’t she taught these simple cognitive fallacies when she learned how to examine scientific evidence in high school?

Because vaccinations work so well, each generation of educated parents may try to second guess their physicians.  “Why should I vaccinate against smallpox?  No one in the U.S. gets smallpox anymore.”  The same could be said for measles in 2000 but now measles is coming back.  Cases of whooping cough/pertussis have tripled in California and SB County considers our 81 cases part of the statewide epidemic (8000 cases).  These horrible diseases return when we think Betty Sue’s opinion is equal to or better than medical research.

There is also a significant parent resistance to HPV vaccine which is recommended for the prevention of cervical/anal cancer and genital warts.  Many religious parents feel that their message of abstinence is somehow subverted by the vaccination.  This does not logically follow: a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer has nothing to do with religious instruction.  This situation is particularly frustrating since HPV vaccine actually prevents cancer.  Wait.  Wait.  Let me say that again: we have a cure for this cancer.  The medical community doesn’t get to say that very often.  It’s not a treatment.  HPV vaccine prevents cervical cancer!  Still, some parents have developed pseudo-skeptical and anti-science views on the subject.  Unbelievable.

The Complementary, Integrative and Alternative (C.I.A.) crowd appears to be divided on the issue of vaccinations with some realizing that the scientific evidence for vaccination is so overwhelming that they refer their patients out to M.D.’s and some who still actively preach anti-science and anti-germ theory of disease nonsense.  D.D. Palmer, the founder of Chiropractic, said this, “It is the very height of absurdity to strive to ‘protect’ any person from smallpox and other malady by inoculating them with a filthy animal poison… No one will ever pollute the blood of any member of my family unless he cares to walk over my dead body…” (Palmer, DD. “The Chiropractor’s Adjustor”, 1910).  Even in 1910, Edward Jenner’s documented, modern medical vaccination procedure for smallpox (1796) had been successful for 114 years.  Alternative medicine may be tolerable when they treat conditions that are going to get better anyway, like colds and flu, but actively preaching against vaccinations is shameful and will only result in the increased suffering of children.  Again, I find it amazing that people follow these placebo/belief-based practitioners when their child’s health is at risk.

A few minutes into the “Vaccines: Calling the Shots”, video, you will see a seven week old baby suffering from whooping cough.  I mean on the verge of death suffering.  It’s heart wrenching.  I spent five years as an EMT on a 911 ambulance in Manhattan, N.Y.  I’ve seen some pretty raw damage.  Yet this little baby’s distress really got to me.  Prepare yourself.

This mother’s tears and the tiny infants struggle to breath is something that children no longer have to suffer.   If you can watch that little seven week old baby struggle for his life’s breath and then go play Russian roulette with your child’s health, you have been misled with false information from the naturalistic, anti-science, medieval medicine crowd.  Don’t do that.  Your child deserves better.  Don’t listen to Betty Sue and the other pseudo-skeptical, mumbo jumbo apologists.  Listen to your M.D. and follow their vaccination schedule.

Victor Dominocielo, M.A. 9/16/14

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., a California-credentialed teacher for 37 years, is the human biology and health teacher at a local middle school.  He earned his Master of Arts degree in Education from UCSB.  The opinions expressed are his own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why do we get well?

Why do we get well?

 

After we get sick, why do we get well?

Modern, evidenced based medicine has only been around for about the last 140 years, so how and why did we get well in our early history and pre-history?  Thousands of years ago, how did we get well?

When we are sick, we get well for the same reason that all plants and animals get well after getting a disease: we are the result of 3.4 million years of our ancestors successfully surviving diseases.  In addition to that main process, nursing care (shelter, warmth, food, water and cleanliness when we are incapacitated) delivered by family members, clans and tribes, is a secondary, “social animal” factor for getting us through significant illnesses over the millennia.  In addition to these two main and significant evolutionary benefits, our very recent and modern evidence based medicine (since the 1870’s), clean water and reliable nutrition are responsible for nearly doubling our life span.

So, we get well because we are the survivors of millions of years of evolution, the actual “survival of the fittest” process in action.  However, this cyclical nature of disease, that is, our natural ability to heal ourselves and survive, opens the door to all manner of non-scientific, folk medicine “cures” and “snake oil” salesmen masquerading as evidenced based medicine.  The usual process is that as our bodies naturally heal, some “cure” or magic pill is presented to us and we convince ourselves through false associations and confirmation bias that the magic pill or procedure made us better…even though our bodies were getting better on their own.  Due to this typical false association, which continues to recur in every generation, the only way to know that one event causes another is to do repeated, double-blinded, placebo controlled experiments.

Instead, people tend to associate notable events before an illness as the cause and notable events toward the end of an illness as the cure.  “I got a flu shot and it gave me the flu” is an often heard refrain.  We remember the flu shot (a notable event) but we cannot sense when the flu virus actually entered our body and subverted our immune system, so we blame the notable event.  Flu shots contain dead cells so it is impossible for the shot to cause the flu.  As our body naturally fights off the flu virus over several days, we might try high doses of vitamin C, aroma therapy or homeopathic dilutions and falsely associate that those procedures were responsible for healing us.  But we were getting better anyway.

So with all these biases, false associations and placebos cluttering our decision making landscape, what is the best method for making decisions about our health?  The process of getting sick naturally causes us to focus on getting well and the sicker we get the more focused we become on getting better.  This process of being sick and getting well, repeated many times during our lives, puts us in a very vulnerable position and susceptible to believe in just about any placebo that promises to cure us and make us healthy.  The history of medicine through the ages is about believing that just about any strange practice will cure us and make us better.  Even today the equivalent of modern day shamans and “healers” scramble to benefit from our disease cycle of getting sick and then naturally getting well.  Bloodletting is still practiced as a folk medicine, invisible body parts are claimed to channel life energy, the body reacts to special vibrations of substances that cause harmony, magical water and sugar cures us, psychic surgery removes toxic substances, cranial massage and therapy realigns our biofields, aromas, auras, ear candling, moxibustion, chelation therapy and even magnets heal our body.  These practices, which take advantage of our suggestibility when we are sick, are individually described in the Skeptics Dictionary (Skepdic.com).

Most unfortunately, last year Steve Jobs fell prey to this typical false association pattern:

“In 2003 Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which further tests revealed to be an islet cell or pancreatic neuroendrocrine tumor that is treatable with surgical removal, which Jobs refused.  ‘I really didn’t want them to open up my body, so I tried to see if a few other things would work,’ he later admitted with regret.   Those other things included consuming large quantities of carrot and fruit juices, fasting, bowel cleansings, hydrotherapy, acupuncture, herbal remedies, a vegan diet and a few other treatments he found on the Internet or by consulting people around the country, including a psychic. These other things didn’t work, and in the process we find the alternative medicine question, “What’s the harm?” answered in the form of an irreplaceable loss to humanity.”  (Michael Shermer, Skeptic Magazine, 7/10/13).

So, if the recurring “disease” of humanity is an overactive suggestibility to placebos when we are sick, then the cure, most certainly, is Science Based Medicine.  It can’t cure everything but it’s not a placebo, not a patient generated effect and it has the distinct advantage of not being invisible or using magical and undetectable forces.

Victor Dominocielo, M.A.

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., a California-credentialed teacher for 36 years, is the human biology and health teacher at a local middle school. He earned his Master of Arts degree in education from UCSB. The opinions expressed are his own.

 

The Science Creation Story

The Science Creation Story

 

I asked my 13 year old science students, “Where is everything?”  They looked back, knowing that I hadn’t given them enough information.  I said, “Not just the pencil sharpener, the stapler and the scissors in the room, but in the whole school.  Wait…  How about showing me everything in Santa Barbara…and California…and the planet…and in the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy and even the entire universe?  Where is everything?  You can point to something in this room and show me everything in the universe.”

After looking around a bit and calling out the first thing that came to mind, someone pointed to an inconspicuous chart on the wall and said, “The Periodic Table of Elements”!

It is a startling revelation for many of them.  There is invariably some disbelief and questioning. “But that’s not everything.”  I don’t have to say a word.  I just nod my head that, “Yes, actually it is”.  I can see the wheels clicking and turning.  “But the other planets…The stars millions of light years away?  Are you sure?”

I wait.  The discovery is mind-boggling and beautiful.  Some of the other students confirm that the elements and combinations of elements is, sure enough, everything:  “Plants, animals, burgers and curly fries, the nose on your face and the color of your eyes”.

“But how do we know that the elements of the stars millions of light years away are the same elements here on earth?”  Then I teach the students, very briefly and simply, about the science of spectrographic analysis and “Fraunhofer lines” and how this can tell us the composition of far away stars.  But we must move on.  We are on a tremendous journey of 13.7 billion years, the Scientific Creation Story.

Every culture has their very own Creation story.  They are beautiful, poetic, awe inspiring and emotionally uplifting.  The ancient Greeks and Christians had God’s Son come down to earth in the form of Hercules and Jesus. The Jewish Creation story in the Old Testament tells of God’s work day by day and was also adopted by the Christians.  The Islamic Creation Story incorporates many biblical accounts including Adam and Eve as the first parents who live in paradise until they eat the fruit from a forbidden tree.  The Chumash have their “Rainbow Bridge” from their Earth Goddess, Hutash, which took them from Santa Cruz Island to the mainland.  The stories go on and on and are as rich as the cultures that birthed them.

Science has its own Creation Story and it is every bit as fantastic as all the other Creation Stories.  At the beginning, about 13.7 billion years ago, there was an initial singularity in which all the matter and energy of the universe was collapsed in on itself.  Then the Big Bang occurred, which was not an explosion at all, but a great inflation/expansion of all the matter and energy to create the universe as we know it today.  Stephan Hawking describes these first few seconds of the universe in his now famous book, “A Brief History of Time”.  At first there was no light or gravity but these basic forces soon “kicked in” and there was a great deal of heat, about 10 billion degrees Fahrenheit, which began the thermonuclear fusion to create the lighter elements in the Periodic Table.  Bill Bryson in, “A Short History of Nearly Everything”(p.10), describes it like this:  “In less than a minute the universe is a million billion miles across and growing fast…In three minutes 98% of all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced.  We have a universe.  It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful too.  And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich.”

The universe was about 75% hydrogen and 25% helium at the beginning and it is still close to that percentage today.  Soon the four forces of nature began.  There are only four: gravity, electromagnetism (the EM spectrum including radio, light, micro, infrared, ultraviolet, gamma and X ray waves), the weak nuclear force (radiation) and the strong nuclear force (which holds atomic nuclei together and which, if you split it, you get an atomic explosion).  The universe is very simple: four forces of nature and twelve elementary sub-atomic particles (including electrons, quarks, leptons, muons, tau and the elusive but now observed, Higgs Boson, etc).

There is a star life cycle, from birth to death, observable at its different stages out there in the wide universe.  Over the last 13.7 billion years there have been births and deaths of stars and when a star goes supernova the lighter elements combine to form the heavier elements in the periodic table.

Brian Cox, a “rock star” physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN describes the Science Creation Story with wonderful enthusiasm during a TED conference here: http://www.ted.com/talks/brian_cox_on_cern_s_supercollider?language=en

The scientific creation story is different from the other creation stories in that it was not created by any cultural expression of the hopes and fears, dreams and emotions of a great people.  No one need believe it.  This story stands on its own.  It is as observable as the night sky and yet completely fantastic and magical.  Carl Sagan explained the Scientific Creation Story in the most elegant and simple terms: “This is what hydrogen atoms do, given 13.7 billion years”.  Indeed.

Victor Dominocielo, M.A. 10/4/14

Victor Dominocielo, M.A., a California-credentialed teacher for 37 years, is the Human Biology and Health teacher at a local middle school. He earned his Master of Arts degree in Education from UCSB. The opinions expressed are his own.