Red flags of bullshit: the ad hominem

The best way to attack a scientific position is the same way to promote it: evidence. Evidence, in the scientific world is data that is collected objectively. 

If you're reading an article or a post and there's no data then you're almost wasting your time - but maybe it's entertaining. 

Below is a post by a friend I found on Facebook. This is by a person with an engineering degree from Lehigh and a math wiz. Apparently this does note make you immune from bad arguments. Ad hominen arguments attack the person (the messenger) and not the theory (the message). I often see this used in the climate change and vaccination debates and often from both sides. 

There are lots of opportunities to point weakness in climate change theory using data. You could show that models use parameters that are not reasonable or that certain feedbacks are not justified. I actually know of no weaknesses in climate models. And try to follow the debate as much as possible. The funny (or sad) thing about this post is the hypocrisy within. When you say "supposed experts" - you're using an ad hominem attack. One of the main proponents of human-induced climate change is Michael Mann and that guy is an actual expert. He gets a ton of hate mail and even has a book on it. However, the grand prize for getting attacked is Al Gore. Just go to the Weather Channel's Facebook page and look for any post on climate change. Thing is, Gore had nothing to do with climate change except for being a mouthpiece. He had nothing to do with the science so bringing him up is non sequitur for talking about the validity of climate models. Certainly, the politics of the people holding a particular scientific position has nothing to do with the validity of the position. 

More broadly, when arguing about a scientific issue remember "Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur."  Christopher Hitchens has put this as "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." 

Red flags of bullshit: testimonials as evidence

Red flags of bullshit: ancient remedy = effective 

Red flags of bullshit: ancient remedy = effective

A Facebook friend is selling a product related to nutrient cleansing. I have no idea what that is so googled nutrient cleansing. 

The first website I found described it a program of fasting and dieting that gives the body a rest so toxins can be removed. Fasting ends by consuming one of their shakes (shocker). 

The analogy provided is one of changing oil - you need clean oil. But your body already cleanses itself so what are these toxins that require special treatment? 

I found a Wikihow site that describes nutrient cleansing. The key quote here is

"When the body is overloaded with environmental toxins, say smoke, fumes, cleaning chemicals, pesticides from food etc, it may be unable to eliminate them. In this case the body naturally protects its organs by surrounding toxins with fat tissue. Metabolism may be slowed by excess toxins."

Twice the first company I found in the search refers to nutrient cleansing being a practice that has a long history. So what? Here is my red flag that this might be bullshit.  Because something is done for a long time is not evidence of efficacy. At best it is evidence that the practice is not overtly harmful. Another example - being a conservation biologist - is the use of animal body parts in "traditional" medicine, like rhino horns for erectile dysfunction. I'm sure this goes back far in human history but if keratin gives you boners just chew your fingernails. 

I can see fasting being useful. You lose weight (always good) and you might lose fat (always good). But do you need a special product? Negative. 

As for me, I'm ending my spring break with this - and this for you Hitch. 

Homeopathy is a joke... and funny too

Not a shocker: Homeopathy doesn't work

Here's the report from a large Australian meta-analysis 

http://consultations.nhmrc.gov.au/files/consultations/drafts/nhmrcdrafthomeopathyinformationpaper140408.pdf

Here's the upshot:

NHMRC concludes that the assessment of the evidence from research in humans does not 
show that homeopathy is effective for treating the range of health conditions considered. 
There were no health conditions for which there was reliable evidence that homeopathy was 
effective. No good-quality, well-designed studies with enough participants for a meaningful 
result reported either that homeopathy caused greater health improvements than a substance 
with no effect on the health condition (placebo), or that homeopathy caused health 
improvements equal to those of another treatment. 
 For some health conditions, homeopathy was found to be not more effective than placebo. 
 For other health conditions, some studies reported that homeopathy was more effective 
than placebo, or as effective as another treatment, but those studies were not reliable. 
 For the remaining health conditions it was not possible to make any conclusion about 
whether homeopathy was effective or not, because there was not enough evidence. 
To be confident that the health benefits of homeopathy that were reported in some studies 
were not just due to chance or the placebo effect, they would need to be confirmed by other 
large, well-designed studies. 
Evidence included in the overview 
The overview considered 57 systematic reviews that assessed the effectiveness of 

homeopathy for treating health conditions.

MY YEAR OF DARWIN (#YEAROFDARWIN)

10 Jan 2014: "I had the bump of reverence developed enough for ten priests" Darwin autobiography

Darwin was leaving medical school at Edinburgh for a BA of divinity at Cambridge. The move was not immediate. He took a year off to catch up on his Greek and to convince himself that becoming a parson was acceptable. Which he did with the help of a private tutor. During this time his father died and there's no discussion of this in the autobiography. 

Later in life, Darwin sent a photograph to German phrenologists. Phrenology is the study of the shape of head and the once-believed link to abilities. Phrenology is classic pseudoscience; science jargon is used and plausible statements are made but there is either no support for these statements or there is contradictory evidence. Other popular practices I consider pseudoscience include homeopathy, subluxation-based chiropractic, chemtrails, bigfoot, intelligent design, and so on.