Fringe Science on TV

Tomorrow (Wednesday 1/07/09) is the NZ premiere of Fringe on TV2 8.30pm. As a keen science fiction fan I have already seen the entire first season and highly recommend it, with one caveat, and I can not stress this enough, Do Not Think about the SCIENCE on this show. Seriously, it took me quite a few episodes to take this advice myself, there are concepts and statements in the show that just make you want to stick your head in the microwave a la “The Happening” if you don’t just let it flow over you, like a refreshing breeze of nonsense. One particularly egregious pronouncement from Walter, the main “Scientist” on the show was something like “Applying Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation is that the boy is telepathic”, these simple words had me trying to claw my way out of my own brain to escape the stupid

Those familiar with arguments in pseudoscience, including but not limited to: UFOs, Cryptozoology, faith healing and evolution denial, recognize that one of the most misapplied principles of critical thinking is “Occam’s Razor”. The trouble is that it seems so reasonable to those putting the argument forward that they carry along with them the otherwise reasonable people that hear it. If someone claims to be hearing voices and subsequently seems to know things that under normal circumstances they couldn’t know, the simplest explanation is not telepathy. Unfortunately inserting a fantastic and unsupported claim into a problem does not “simplify” things.

The simplest explanation of lights in the sky is not alien spacecraft, it is much more likely that the observer has failed to identify a mundane phenomena than it is that aliens have crossed the unimaginable distances between the stars using exotic physics that allow them faster than light speeds and are wandering around the countryside in our lower atmosphere cruising for a good time. It certainly takes less thought to arrive at aliens than it does to exhaust every other possible source for the lights but this in and of itself does not make it simpler

All that being said, if you can withstand the intellect destroying abuse of science as portrayed in Fringe then do by all means watch it. The interaction between Walter Bishop, brilliant scientist and one time psychiatric patient, and his son Peter is alone a large part of the enjoyment to be had from the show and well worth the many gaffs made by the writers in an attempt to string together a plot. I won’t attempt to dissect the show and point out the many inconsistencies with reality and how the world really works, this exercise has been done in much more depth than I would be able to muster for the project. I’ll simply point you there instead.

Episode:1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20

Scientific Debate

No matter what the issue you can find scientists to support any view. Is this a failing of science? or is something else at work here?

First off I would like to point out that the sometimes combative nature of science is a good thing. When new data is published the the authenticity and reliability should be closely examined and criticized if found wanting. Despite public perception scientific quality assurance does not stop with peer reviewed publishing, that is just the beginning. In addition the willingness of researchers to question established knowledge is also good, this is how progress is made.

Concerning my original assertion, that a scientist can be found to uphold any view, one thing to remember is that science is performed by scientists. That may seem an obvious statement but my point is that science is not a simple monolithic block of knowledge, it is contributed to by human beings and human beings have failings. We are all susceptible to biases, some of them are cultural and some of them are a by-product of how our mind works, we are more likely to accept information that confirms our preconceptions for instance. But part of science is the effort to overcome these biases, we perform controlled experiments, we use reliable sources, we replicate others’ experiments, in short we try to remove the human component as much as possible.

All of this means that individual scientists can fall on a spectrum of how well they divorce the outcomes of their work from their personal biases. In certain cases there are those that embrace their personal ideologies in their work, they let it inform and guide the course of research. Sometimes this can be a boon, leading research to new places with novel conclusions but all too often it leads to confounding factors and unreliable data.

A contributing factor is the concept of “balance” in the media, to the point that dissenting opinions will be put forward whether or not they constitute a legitimate scientific controversy. All are presented as equally valid even though some are simply wrong. Not all opinions are equal, not all conclusions valid and not all sources reliable. Consider the Evolution vs Creationism debate, this is an extreme case and so it is easy to see that it is a political debate not one based on actual scientific conclusions. Evolution is a corner stone of biological science, in light of which everything else makes sense. Creationism arises from literal adherence to certain religious traditions. Add to this that is an almost uniquely American phenomenon and the claim that it is science based practically refutes itself.

For the public presented with these opposing view points it can be difficult to separate the real controversy from the manufactroversy, or the tendency to create a debate where none exists. The general public does not usually have the tools to uncover the true state of affairs and so is left with the impression that science is unreliable or can be bent however you wish and is therefore useless. This is unfortunate as science is the most powerful way yet devised to discover the nature of the world around us, from Neutron stars to hydrothermal vents, Dark matter and DNA, all of these things can be studied by science and slowly but surely they are yielding their secrets.

Fuelstar

I first found out about Fuelstar about a year ago, I had received a flyer in the mailbox that proclaimed 12% savings on fuel consumption for my car. At the time petrol prices had really started going through the roof so this was a deal that seemed too good to be true, I thought I could already see where this was going but decided to investigate further to determine if there was any validity to the claims. After and hour or so online I had satisfied myself that the only fuel savings I would get would be those that came with my wallet becoming lighter I forgot about the whole thing. Fast forward to earlier this week when a colleague pointed out a half page ad in the paper and says “You should look in to that”, well after I had finished giving him the low down and climbed back off my high horse I figured I should cover it here too.

So what is Fuelstar? Essentially it is a metal canister containing tin pellets that is fitted to your fuel line before it enters your engine. Ostensibly the idea is that the pellets release micro particles of tin that flow with the petrol into the engine and helps the fuel burn more efficiently. The following claims are made on the back of this: That your fuel consumption will go down, your power output will go up and the device will clean your engine. Now, do these claims hold up? Fuelstar would say the 180,000 happy customers says “Yes”, OK lets consider these customers. First, if someone decides to install a fuel saving device in their car it stands to reason that they have fuel economy on their mind, in which case their driving habits may change, they are more likely to pay more attention to how the car is running, whether the tyres have the correct pressure etc. If so, and they started to be more observant about their fuel consumption around the time of installing the Fuelstar device they are likely to attribute any gains they see to it.

 In addition, would these customers have gotten the device fitted by an experienced mechanic?, who would likely have also given the car a tune up at the same time, which has an effect on fuel consumption. Also how many of the customers would have carefully tracked the amount of fuel used and under what conditions for significant periods of time both before and after installing the device? These are just some considerations and don’t include simple psychological effects such as expectation bias, confirmation bias or any of a host of similar congnitive biases. My point here is that no matter how many happy customers there are they are not equivalent to a rigorous test of the technology, also they are a self selected sample; only those who believe the technology will work are going to get it installed in the first place.

OK enough of this psych stuff, what about the cold hard evidence? Well, looking at the Fuelstar website there are a  number of listings in the “Formal Tests” category of the Test Results page. Of these three are case study type that purportedly show a reduction in X from vehicle Y and are quite light on testing procedures and supporting documentation, interesting but hardly good evidence I don’t feel bad dismissing these out of hand. Of the three that are left one is a kind of meta-analysis that consists of a chemist associated with Fuelstar saying “It works, ok and those tests that say it doesn’t are wrong” again, no guilt about flushing that one. Another study, the most promising by the look of the description, is entirely in Taiwanese, sigh. All of this leaves us with a single test performed by a seemingly reputable facility on the USA, however although the test did compare engine performance both before and after installation of the Fuelstar device the report is ambiguous on the exact timeline of events. In particular the Pre-conditioning step included performing ”restorative” maintenance on the engine at the same time the device was installed, does this mean the system that was tested with the device was different to that without the device? It is unclear from the report and I have to file this under “Inconclusive”.

Finally the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency for those not in the know) tested a substantially similar device in 1999 and concluded that “When the fuel economy data are analyzed (using the
Student’s t test) as a whole, there is no statistical difference in the fuel economy results as a function of use of the [Device]“. This along with the generally poor quality of the supporting evidence leads me to think that the claims made for the system are mostly hype and there is no reason to suppose that installing it will have any significant effect. Darn, I could have used the extra cash to pimp my ride.

Resources

http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticleAsOnePage.aspx?id=104217

http://www.immortality.co.nz/fuelstar.html

http://www.aa.co.nz/motoring/news/Pages/Be-sceptical-of-fuel-saving-devices.aspx

http://www.fuelstar.co.nz/TestResults.asp

http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/myths/gasoline_saving.html

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/devices/r99015.pdf

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Pseudoscience

Science and pseudoscience, what’s the difference? It’s not a trick question, as you approach the cutting edge of science, where the known becomes the unknown and theories become wild and speculative the line between the two can be quite fuzzy. String Theory anyone? But in general the difference lies in that where science starts with facts and observations and arrives at conclusions pseudoscience starts with a conclusion and twists fact and observation to fit. The two most common avenues to pseudoscience appear to me to be: First, when a hypothesis is retained long after dis-confirming evidence should have rendered it obsolete. Adherents of the “Vaccines cause Autism” movement would fall into this category. Second would be those who attempt to prove their own pet ideology by either conducting flawed research or by willfully misinterpreting the work of others. Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents might fall into this category.

Correctly discerning pseudoscience can be difficult, especially if it appeals to our own biases. Some things to consider are: Arguments from authority, real science shouldn’t be decided by a chosen few, rather it is the sum total of a multitude of efforts and advancements are evaluated by the scientific community as a whole and finally a consensus is reached. Insufficiently detailed references to supporting data, it is important to be able to find the primary sources that are being used to support a position so that you can read it yourself and determine if it has been correctly interpreted. Reliance on testimony, look at the quality of the references used, if they come mainly from personal experience they may not be reliable.

Finally, you may want to look at a larger sampling of the scientific community and see what they have to say about the topic or person you are interested in. There are bound to be many sides to the issue but you may pick up on the general flavour of scientific opinion. Good luck and happy investigations.

Resources

http://www.theness.com/articles.asp?id=30

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pscindx.htm

Radionics

Radionics appears to be a sort of umbrella term that refers to the healing of tissues from a distance using some sort of electronic device. Researching this concept can give you the feeling that everyone is just making it up as the go along, curiously. It appears to have all started with Albert Abrams, M.D. (1864-1924). Abrams made all sorts of claims from diagnosis by proxy to diagnosis via autographs, finally coming up with an electronic device he claimed could diagnose from a distance.

Various imitators have cropped up since Abrams with their own versions of his “BlackBox” with different variations of diagnosis methods and outputs of the device, ranging from wires connected to the patient and vials of blood to Polaroids on the diagnosis side and the feeling of stickiness or friction on a plastic or rubber pad for the output reading. If the practice was limited to merely diagnosis of medical maladies then that would be bad enough, however the promoters of these devices also claim to be able to heal the disorders uncovered and this is where the real tragedy is.

Pseudo-scientific methods such as this appeal to those who are disillusioned with current medical progress in treatment of the more pernicious forms of disease that still plague our world, especially cancer. If these alternative medicines are the last hope of the terminally ill then who are we to take that away? But the proliferation of acceptance means that some people will turn to the alternative first, leading to unnecessary pain, suffering and death. That is the answer to the question “What’s the harm?”.

Resources:

http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/News/rife.html

http://www.skepdic.com/radionics.html

http://home.pacbell.net/lotus999/radionics1.htm -Would be funny if they weren’t serious, ok it’s still funny.

http://www.dowsingnewzealand.org/ -Look, our very own.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::