the evolving mind

As recently reported in the journal Psychological Science, new research has found correlations between both the amount of talk a person engages in, the type of talk, and their reported happiness.

What was the source of their data? Good question.

Volunteers [doesn't say how many] wore an unobtrusive recording device called the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) over four days. This device periodically records snippets of sounds as participants go about their lives. For this experiment, the EAR sampled 30 seconds of sounds every 12.5 minutes yielding a total of more than 20,000 recordings. Researchers then listened to the recordings and identified the conversations as trivial small talk or substantive discussions. In addition, the volunteers completed personality and well-being assessments. [bold mine; source]

The research findings include two noteworthy results.

1) Greater well-being was related to spending less time alone and more time talking to others: The happiest participants spent 25% less time alone and 70% more time talking than the unhappiest participants. [bold mine]

“Related to” = there was a correlation. Causal?

2) The happiest participants had twice as many substantive conversations and one third as much small talk as the unhappiest participants.

I must give the article writer kudos for including numbers. With numbers a vague statement like “more time talking” becomes more precise.

So, what does the above mean? Are happier people happier becomes they more readily express their feelings, their thoughts about matters important to them? Maybe. Before engaging in my own analysis, I’ll share the researchers’:

These findings suggest that the happy life is social and conversationally deep rather than solitary and superficial. The researchers surmise that — though the current findings cannot identify the causal direction — deep conversations may have the potential to make people happier. They note, “Just as self-disclosure can instill a sense of intimacy in a relationship, deep conversations may instill a sense of meaning in the interaction partners.” [bold mine]

Again, kudos for acknowledging the inability to jump from a correlation to causation. Which brings us to this: “Deep conversations may have the potential to make people happier.” May have — good. But there are a number of things that I suspect are involved, including these:

A. Happier people are likely more inclined to engage in conversation and perhaps even have the emotional fortitude to venture into deeper conversations. In this case, the arrow of causation between the correlated variables would be the opposite of the implied.

B. Extroverted individuals, on average, score higher on measures well-being. And extroverts are more driven to engage in conversation. If not controlled for, it is possible that this other variable caused increases in both talk, depth of talk, and happiness.

To me, a most likely scenario includes a bi-directional influence between talk and happiness, with other factors, including personality, exerting influence as well. The bi-directional element would consist of this: People who feel more comfortable with themselves and accepted by others are more likely to engage in more intimate conversations. Likewise, people who are capable of engaging in appropriate self-disclosure with others will likely develop intimate relationships with others — and talk is by-and-large how we form and maintain relationships — and subsequently feel better about their condition.

As social creatures we feel better when we have people in our lives who understand and accept us. We feel secure when we have relationships we can trust and rely upon. Security in relationships equals a healthy and satisfied social self. And perhaps we can throw into the mix an element of self-efficacy. People who have developed and maintained “deeper” relationships subsequently have the confidence that they can form new relationships if and when needed.

Can more substantive talk make us happier? Sure, if it helps build and maintain quality relationships. And that’s what all this talk about talk boils down to — in my opinion. The ability to forge and sustain relationships.

Technorati Links: correlation, psychology, relationships

Many people believe that a theory is all about explanation. And we can judge a theory by how much the explanation makes sense. To us. They may even use terms like rational and logical to describe the theory they prefer. And they could be spot-on, even if the theory is wrong. For if the gauge of correctness is a fit with all the other thoughts we hold, what is illogic in one mind is fully logical in another.

Evolutionary theory and Creationism are a perfect case in point.

It is for this reason that I have reservations about skeptics and atheists speaking of themselves as being more rational and reason-driven. These groups will point out the absurdities in the other position, in effect, saying, see, according to our other thoughts, these here thoughts under the spotlight just don’t fit.

What is missing from simple theorizing is the crucial component beyond mere explanation. Explanation goes only so far. A strong theory, a good theory, allows for testable predictions. And is supported by the results of those tests.

And with this additional, essential element to theories,  Bam!–suddenly evolution and Creationism are not potentially equally reasonable. One allows for testable predictions galore, and has passed thousands of such tests, the other . . . nope.

What seems rational to one mind can seem irrational to another. But put the ideas to a test, and you then have a way to objectively determine the worth of each. In a sense, by doing so you will place both minds on the same playing field.

Of course, some people will shun tests, saying that science operates under its own biased presumptions, so will yield biased results. These people are beyond hope, frankly. All you can really do is explain that a scientific test merely confirms a hypothesized pattern in nature. If you don’t believe in science you are basically refuting that there are measurable regularities in our universe. If that were the case, we could understand nothing about it. Nothing. So tell these people to go ahead and cherish their void of understanding.

Per usual, a recent news release got me started on the topic. The article: Atom Interferometer Provides Most Precise Test Yet of Einstein’s Gravitational Redshift.

The news: Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (the General form vs. the Special) has passed another test.

While airplane and rocket experiments have proved that gravity makes clocks tick more slowly — a central prediction of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity — a new experiment in an atom interferometer measures this slowdown 10,000 times more accurately than before, and finds it to be exactly what Einstein predicted.

The result shows once again how well Einstein’s theory describes the real world. [bold mine]

The real world.

So no, the value of Einstein’s theories is not in how far-out and mind-bending the thoughts they generate are, nor in how much they support what we want to believe. Certainly, that is some of the appeal, and yes, the on-the-frontier-element makes some theories more exciting than others. But the true gauge of theories such as Einstein’s, that which gives them real weight, are the predictions they allow us to make and test. In the case of relativity, these tests have been passed with greater and greater precision.

Technorati Links: creationism, relativity, theories

I’m not fond of the term “debunk.” It implies that something was fully bunk to begin with and then was thoroughly “de”-ed.

A news release at ScienceDaily last week got me thinking about it. The title read, Study Debunks Millennia-Old Claims of Systematic Infant Sacrifice in Ancient Carthage

With a title like that I expected to encounter a slam-dunk argument. But check out the lead paragraph [bold mine].:

A study led by University of Pittsburgh researchers could finally lay to rest the millennia-old conjecture that the ancient empire of Carthage regularly sacrificed its youngest citizens. An examination of the remains of Carthaginian children revealed that most infants perished prenatally or very shortly after birth and were unlikely to have lived long enough to be sacrificed, according to a Feb. 17 report in PLoS One.

And that debunks? Okay, the title was likely written from the U of Pitt publicity department, or something, and not the researchers themselves. But a quote by the lead researcher and argumentation further into the body of the piece raises similar questions. [Again, bold mine.]

“Our study emphasizes that historical scientists must consider all evidence when deciphering ancient societal behavior,” Schwartz said. “The idea of regular infant sacrifice in Carthage is not based on a study of the cremated remains, but on instances of human sacrifice reported by a few ancient chroniclers, inferred from ambiguous Carthaginian inscriptions, and referenced in the Old Testament. Our results show that some children were sacrificed, but they contradict the conclusion that Carthaginians were a brutal bunch who regularly sacrificed their own children.”

Okay, we’ve got to consider all evidence. I assume some of that evidence is the weak stuff of the reports and inscriptions mentioned. Still. And, get this, the researchers’ results show that some infants were indeed sacrificed. But not as many as assumed. Um, does this qualify as a debunking? Moving a line of degree of something doesn’t seem to rise to that level, if you ask me.

And if you do ask me, debunking is a description of an activity better suited to Scoobie-Doo and his gang when they pull back a curtain to reveal the guy running the projector of the ghost image haunting some poor dupes. Now that’s a debunk.

Technorati Links: semantics, skepticism

The above cartoon from atheistcartoons.com nicely illustrates the point I made in my brief post Unscientific Science from two days ago. I ended with this:

Although it is a popular word, spirituality is a lousy variable. Strong science and strong science writing gets specific, and the term spirituality is not.

On a related note, when attending college a friend of mine joked about belonging to the “church of the blessed void.” A blessed void indeed. What’s a void but a gap in our understanding . . . by another name?

Hmm. Can we say ignorance is bliss and bliss is spiritual, ergo, ignorance is spiritual?

Technorati Links: critical thinking, spirituality

Imagine this headline to a new science finding:

Selective Brain Damage Modulates Human Groovyness, Research Reveals

And a lead sentence that reads:

New research provides fascinating insight into brain changes that might underlie alterations in feeling groovy and and hip attitudes.

My guess is that most people would (or should) react this way: “What?!”

How different, I ask, is the following title and lead sentence to an actual bit of news reporting:

Selective Brain Damage Modulates Human Spirituality, Research Reveals

New research provides fascinating insight into brain changes that might underlie alterations in spiritual and religious attitudes.

Here’s the problem: most people only assume they know what is meant by the term spirituality. Yet ask people to define it, and the responses will be as diverse and vague as they would be to a request for a definition of “groovyness.”

Although it is a popular word, spirituality is a lousy variable. Strong science and strong science writing gets specific, and the term spirituality is not.

Technorati Links: research, spirituality

Critical thinkers are wary of the naturalistic fallacy, of arguments that make appeals to Nature (capital n, of course) as representative of absolute good. More natural is better than the less natural, simply by the fact it is more natural. And nature is good.

While I certainly could be considered a nature-lover–my favorite hobbies are nature photography, bird watching, and snorkeling–I realize that nature is . . . nature. Sure there is plenty of good in nature, and without some aspects of nature, I couldn’t exist. My life depends upon a big slice of it. But consider mushrooms. Are they good? Some are, particularly when sautéed in butter. Others will kill you.

Many people consider so-called alternative medicine more desirable because, in part, it is more natural. And natural is an absolute good. But is it? A new science finding highlights the folly of this thinking. In Herbal Medicines Can Be Lethal, Pathologist Warns I learned,

An analysis of 251 Asian herbal products found in United States stores identified arsenic in 36 of them, mercury in 35 and lead in 24 of the products.

I would recommend not serving those herbs in a salad. Or using them to treat disease. Not unless the benefits far outweighed the costs.

The article also contained this statement -

Other side effects of herbal medicines can include liver, renal and cardiac failure, strokes, movement disorders, muscle weakness and seizures.

While that claim strikes me as a tad hyperbolic, it is simply the inverse of what many alt-med practitioners of the herbal variety spout. Oh yes, clover blossoms can support immune function and have been known to reverse signs of Alzheimer’s . . .

But back to my main point. Are herbs good? Well, which herb? Good for what? And it seems to me that science is the best way to determine the “good for what” question. And so I turn to it for guidance as to the real value of treatments.

Technorati Links: herbal medicine, skepticism

Not all research is created equal. Consider the following bit of research as an illustration.

The headline: Attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings may reduce depression symptoms.

Gotta give recognition and kudos for the use of the word “may.”

The methodology -

The researchers analyzed data from Project MATCH, a federally funded trial comparing three treatment approaches for alcohol use disorder in more than 1,700 participants. While participants in that study were randomly assigned to a specific treatment plan, all were able to attend AA meetings as well. Among the data gathered at several points during Project MATCH’s 15-month study period were participants’ alcohol consumption, the number of AA meetings attended, and recent symptoms of depression.

Good number of subjects. Three treatment plans with random assignment in each — good. But wait. All were able to attend AA meetings? This means AA attendance was voluntary, and, uh-oh, a giant, confounding variable has entered the building. Say hello to possible volunteer bias and the action of other, hidden variables. Because the study conclusion is about the effectiveness of AA, that is a huge problem.

The results -

Those participants who attended more AA meetings had significantly greater reductions in their depression symptoms, along with less frequent and less intensive drinking.

Positive results. But what do they mean? Can we state outright or even suggest that it was the attending of AA meetings, variable one, that caused a change to variable two, depressive symptoms? Actually, we can’t. Not with a reasonable degree of certainty.

Here’s why. This was no controlled experiment, with the attendance of AA meetings the independent variable. Attendance was voluntary, rather than manipulated. Which is a huge difference. When you manipulate a variable (group 1 attends x times a week, group 2 attends y times a week, group 3 doesn’t attend at all . . . ) you can test that variable’s effect open another variable or variables.

Furthermore, even if the research wasn’t of the experimental variety, it still could have been controlled better. Right up front we’ve got one massive control that is missing. Huge. Recall that the claim is that attending AA meetings may reduce (is at least associated with — that much we can state with confidence) depressive symptoms. But is the qualifier of AA before the meetings warranted? Do those specific type of meetings work? We don’t know. For there was no control group of subjects given the option to voluntarily attend some other sort of regularly occurring social event/meeting. It may well be that regularly participating in any social event reduces depressive symptoms, and the AA part has absolutely nothing to do it. Which is my suspicion.

My greatest critique of this research, and the vast majority of research into the alleged benefits of religious involvement, is the complete lack a secular control. Until a secular control is employed, we don’t know whether the particular ideology of a group is the actual vehicle that brings change, or if it is merely a superficial label placed over the more mundane truth.

Technorati Links: AA, psychology, research design

When reading yesterday’s science news, I encountered a sentence that almost made me not LOL, but COL (cheer out loud). Here it is:

The authors caution that because they studied only a small number of people, further research is necessary….

Booyah! Now that’s science and good science writing.

The research in question was on the use of deep brain stimulation as a treatment for depression. What made the research unique is the brain area stimulated:

Physicians publishing a new report in Biological Psychiatry now describe findings related to the stimulation of the nucleus accumbens, a brain region the size of a hazelnut associated with reward and motivation that is implicated in processing pleasurable stimuli, sometimes referred to as the “pleasure center” of the brain….

Bewernick and colleagues administered DBS treatment in ten patients with severe long-term depression who had not responded to multiple other antidepressant treatments, including psychotherapy, drug treatments and electroconvulsive treatment. After one year of DBS, all patients showed some improvement, and half of them experienced significant improvement in their symptoms of depression, astonishing considering they had not responded to any prior antidepressant treatment. [source]

Notice the specific terminology and the use of quotes around pleasure center.

As for the nonsense, that hit my desk earlier in the week, in an article titled, Psychodynamic psychotherapy brings lasting benefits, new study finds.

The article led with this:

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is effective for a wide range of mental health symptoms, including depression, anxiety, panic and stress-related physical ailments, and the benefits of the therapy grow after treatment has ended, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

Okay. Psychodynamic therapy is another effective treatment, at least according to this analysis. But BOOM, then I hit this piece of BS -

Psychodynamic therapy focuses on the psychological roots of emotional suffering.

Why is it BS? Two reasons. First, it suggests that 1) there is one set of roots to emotional suffering, and 2) psychodynamic therapy works by focusing on it.

Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: mental health, psychotherapy

Black-and-white thinking is juvenile, immature, uninformed, unsophisticated, naive. Sure, it would be nice and simple if everything in our world could be fitted with a black or white hat, like in a old-fashioned Hollywood Western: black for all bad, white for all good. But the world is more complicated than that. The adult who insists it isn’t behaves like a simpleton.

In terms of large (successful/efficient) pharmaceutical companies, yes, some of what they do could be classified as bad. But do they no good?

Yesterday I came across this science article: Little Pill Means Big News in the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis.

MS is a fairly nasty degenerative disease, and over a quarter of a million people in the US suffer from it.

Multiple sclerosis is a disabling neurological condition which usually starts in young adulthood. It results from the body’s own immune system damaging the central nervous system. This interferes with the transmission of messages between the brain and other parts of the body and leads to problems with vision, muscle control, hearing and memory.

The news of a promising treatment for MS is a good thing. Medical researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, have discovered that the drug Cladribine holds such promise (generic form of LEUSTATIN, originally developed by Janssen-Ortho Inc.).

Compared to patients who were taking a placebo, those taking Cladribine tablets were over 55 per cent less likely to suffer relapse, and 30 per cent less likely to suffer worsening in their disability due to MS.

That’s a robust result. Will it hold up in subsequent trials? For the sake of those with MS — NOT the sake of Big Pharma’s bottom line — I hope it does.

I have no blind allegiance to pharmaceutical corporations. I recognize there are better drugs, there are worse drugs; there are better industry practices, there are worse. I also recognize that in our current healthcare system, it is important for drug companies to prosper. No, not to generate extravagant profits. But to make the money it takes to continue to research and develop drugs. Drugs that hold great promise for whomever may need them.  If Big Pharma doesn’t develop and test medicines, who will?

Technorati Links: healthcare, skepticism

Some people believe that adjusting your diet is the only health care you need. I doubt this. As I mentioned in a post a year and some months ago (You Aren’t What You Eat) I have a relative who once believed, and still believes to a degree, that all physical and mental health problems are caused by diet. This person went so far to state that even homosexuality is the result of diet. (Maybe not enough red meat?) Sure, it would be fantastic if we could take a trip to the health food store whenever we were feeling poorly. But evidence for the effectiveness of this approach is meager at best. And that’s for run-of-mill, preventative measures. Once you have an illness, the effectiveness drops further. And I’m probably being generous here.

The belief that “it’s all about diet,” seems to stem from a faulty premise. That premise is that the human body is somehow perfect and only goes bad when we do bad things to it. Um, birth defects anyone? Diseases that run in families? Twin studies that show when one twin has a disease, the other twin is much more likely to succumb to it as well, regardless of differences in diet? And the list could go on.

The truth is, our bodies aren’t born perfect, nor do they develop and age perfectly, even when the person is diligent about changing his/her oil every 3000 miles and never fills up with cheapo fuel.

If the body is a temple, most of those temples have various cracks in the foundations from the get-go. (Sorry about switching metaphors in mid-stream.)

That said, there are number of studies revealing that there are indeed chemicals in some foods that can help treat or prevent health problems. Yesterday I encountered this one: Blueberry Juice Improves Memory in Older Adults. This finding was not the result of a diet shaman pulling an insight out of the blue. Rather, scientists conducted an experiment with actual blueberries. Well, the juice.

In the study, one group of volunteers in their 70s with early memory decline drank the equivalent of 2-2 l/2 cups of a commercially available blueberry juice every day for two months. A control group drank a beverage without blueberry juice. The blueberry juice group showed significant improvement on learning and memory tests, the scientists say.

While this finding is encouraging, I wouldn’t bet the health of my memory on it. Not yet. For one, the write-up doesn’t mention the number of “volunteers.” Nor does it provide the outcome numbers. How much better does the experimental group do than the control group?

Nevertheless, alternative-medicine types will likely use this finding to start prescribing a liberal inclusion of blueberries in the diet. The funny thing is, if the finding holds up upon further research, you can bet that the active chemical(s) in blueberries will be isolated and offered in pill form. In the future doctors might prescribe it. As part of conventional medicine.

In that example we can see how alternative medicine, in the form of specific diet supplementations, is immature medicine. Puppy medicine, you might say. And who doesn’t love puppies?

Technorati Links: alternative medicine, diet, skepticism