Oct 18 2009
Quick Hits: The Strength of Science
What makes science so great? Well, the ends of science are certainly fantastic: a reliable knowledge of how things work. Or don’t. But in terms of the means of science, it is not evidence nor logic that give science its stellar spine. Sure, evidence (data applied to a question) and logic (well reasoned arguments) are important. But without this one crucial element, science just wouldn’t be science.
Tests. The roughly three hundred year-old breakthrough and most fundamental element of the scientific enterprise is putting ideas to the test. Want to know if your idea has merit? Writing, arguing and debating why it should be true can only go so far. Test it. It is really that simple. Perform a formal experiment; make a formal prediction and unearth data that could confirm or falsify it. Put your ideas to a test.
Yesterday I read of the results of three tests on fairly popular ideas. Each of these three ideas had scads of reasoning behind them as to why they should be true. And that reasoning only went so far. As it turns out, the reasoning may have been a mere spinning of verbal wheels.
1) You will be healthier if you are not fat in any way. Flab is sign of poor health.
Probably NOT. A new study has found that only a significant degree of excess weight is a factor in overall health.
[O]verall mortality is unchanged by overweight, but increased by 20% by obesity, while extreme obesity raises it by up to 200%. [source]
2) Magnetic bracelets/straps ease arthritis pain &
3) Copper bracelets ease arthritis pain.
Nope. Though …
Magnet therapy is a rapidly growing industry, with annual worldwide sales of therapeutic devices incorporating permanent magnets worth up to $4 billion US.
A randomized, placebo-controlled study (tests don’t get any better than this) led to this conclusion:
“It appears that any perceived benefit obtained from wearing a magnetic or copper bracelet can be attributed to psychological placebo effects. People tend to buy them when they are in a lot of pain, then when the pain eases off over time they attribute this to the device. However, our findings suggest that such devices have no real advantage over placebo wrist straps that are not magnetic and do not contain copper.
All the arguing in the world pales in importance when placed beside a test and its results.
As a concluding tangent: A very lame argument used against scientists (and atheists) is that those with opposing conclusions have their faith, while we have ours.
Nice try. But a miss. Scientists have confidence in tested ideas and in the methods that allow us to generate a reliable, working knowledge of our world. Without being tested, any supposed knowledge rests upon ideas that are little more than hot air.
