Evolution: Common Misconceptions, or "What Evolution Is Not"

I've recently been reading a book by Agustín Fuentes, Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature with my girlfriend. We're only through part 1 (and the prelude of part 2), but it's an incredible read thus far, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about their research in anthropology, evolution or human variation. Dr. Fuentes lays out a "toolkit," in his own words, on how to bust myths about human nature by applying the principles of genetics and culture to three common pervasive myths found in our society: (1) human race; (2) inherent human aggression; and, (3) sex.

Chapters 2 and 3 struck me well, but chapter 3 "Evolution Is Important -- but May Not Be What We Think," was especially informative and helpful. Dr. Fuentes starts off with a quote by popular science writer Nicholas Wade, who has recently come under fire for his book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. The quote is from an article in the New York Times, and it says the following:

"Many have assumed that humans ceased to evolve in the distant past, perhaps when people first learned to protect themselves against cold, famine and other harsh agents of natural selection. But in the last few years, biologists peering into the human genome sequences now available from around the world have found increasing evidence of natural selection at work in the last few thousand years, leading many to assume that human evolution is still in progress."

The quote reflects on two popular misconceptions held by the public about evolution, which we will get to in a moment. It's important to note first, though, that this illustrates more than just misconceptions about evolution, but a lack of understanding in even the educated public, and the necessity of a false dichotomy. As Dr. Fuentes points out, "To sell the story, the false representation of a 'debate' as to whether evolution happens in humans has to be a central theme."

Of course, many people in the public hold the beliefs that Wade is referring to; however it simply isn't true that the primary debate amongst informed scholars is over whether or not evolution is happening in humans or, as some people often misinterpret, that evolution "stopped at the neck" in humans.

This objection refers to the debate over the Black/White IQ differential, specifically the position that most, if not all of the variation in IQ results between these two groups is a result of the environment. The problem with the characterization "evolution stopped at the neck," however, is that just because someone doesn't believe the differential is a result of evolutionary or genetic differences, that doesn't mean they don't believe human cognition has evolved. Evolution is complex, and even someone who suggests that the differential is a result of evolution doesn't necessarily mean it was a product of adaptation or natural selection. This is a gross oversimplification of how evolution works, and what the real debate entails, and thus we should now move into the five common misconceptions about evolution that are popularly held by the public.

1: Evolution is "survival of the fittest."

I can't tell you how many times I've heard this implication. To begin, Charles Darwin never used the phrase "survival of the fittest" -- this concept otherwise known as "social Darwinism" is attributable to Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith. The concept is an interpretation of one aspect of evolution: natural selection. Natural selection is Darwin's process of "descent with modification," and states that some gene variants will help an organism reproduce more successfully, and that if these variants are heritable, they will become more common within a population over time. These variants are then seen as adaptations to a specific environmental context.

What this means is that "the fittest" doesn't necessarily mean the biggest, baddest or strongest. It's specific to an environment, where "the fittest" may be the exact opposite. Consider an easy example: the field mouse. It is not the fastest creature in the world, it is not the strongest, it does not have a serious bite, and it poses pretty much no risk to any creature of any size bigger than itself. So why does it continue to succeed and reproduce? Because "bigger" does not mean "better." Speaking of better, this brings us to the second misconception about evolution.

2: Evolution results in perfection.

As Fuentes notes, evolution is not oriented towards progress, nor does it result in organisms fitting perfectly with their environment. To quote, "The corollary to this is that if something works well we perceive it as having 'evolved' for this particular purpose."

Evolution is not perfect -- it's sloppy, and isn't geared towards making something ultimately "better." When an organism has traits which allow it to successfully reproduce in its environment, and these traits are a result of evolution, it does not mean that it evolved that way for a purpose.

3: Evolution happens by chance.

There is only one aspect of evolution that represents "chance," and that would be genetic drift. Genetic drift suggests that random events can sometimes alter the allelic frequencies of a population. Fuentes offers an example of this: take hair color. There is a small population living on an island with hair color gene A, and there are three alleles of the gene: A1, A2 and A3. Say the population is made up of 80% A1, 10% A2 and 10% A3. Now, imagine that most of the population lives on the north coast of the island, and that part of the island is hit by a major tsunami. Now, the only people remaining are the smaller numbers of people on the south end of the island, changing the allelic frequency to maybe 33% for all alleles of the hair color gene A. This results in evolutionary change, but not because of anything having to do with the genes or the alleles themselves, but with a random event which drastically changed the makeup of the organisms in the population. Genetic drift, then, is most potent in smaller populations, because random events are less likely to have significant effects on larger populations.

But as said, this is the only aspect of evolution that relies on randomness or chance. There are three other major components of evolution: gene flow, natural selection and mutation. We've already explained natural selection. Mutation is the means by which organisms gain new genetic material, where it creates a new sequence in a gene that produces a protein or regulation that functions better than previously. Gene flow is the movement of alleles within and between populations as a result of migration. The allelic frequencies within and between two populations can change if the populations are close enough together that allows for migrations between them. The allelic frequencies between the two populations can either become more similar if there's enough gene flow or, if gene flow is restricted, they can remain the same. Gene flow, natural selection, and mutation, then, do not occur by chance, but have multiple reasons for occurring.

4: If something has evolved in a certain way, that is how it should be.

This one is a bit complicated, but it's similar to misconception #2. Basically the idea is that if an organism exhibits a certain trait, and that trait is a result of evolutionary change, then the exhibition of that trait is the way things are supposed to be. This is not necessarily true, because there are many things that have occurred via evolutionary means, but were intended for a different purpose than what they're used for today. This is called exaptation.

One beautiful example of this is bird feathers. Originally, bird feathers evolved as a structure of temperature regulation. The feathers on a bird's wings allowed it to trap air underneath, allowing it to either cool off by lifting its wings up, or warm up by bringing its wings in. At some point, the wings on some birds became substantial enough that they were able to glide, and this unintended function resulted in reproductive success. Now, wings are used for flying. This is a perfect example of something that occurred through evolutionary processes, but did not serve the function it does now, thus showing that even if something has evolved does not mean it was intended to be what it is today.

5: Evolution can stop, has an end, or has a goal.

This is our last misconception. Evolution does not stop; it is always ongoing. Evolution is also not goal-oriented -- it doesn't have a goal, and it doesn't seek perfection. Something that has occurred by evolutionary means is not the finish line, and it is not more "natural" than other things. Traits that have evolved are the result of any number of processes that can and will continue to act on us and every other organism over the course of time.

These misconceptions overlap in many ways, but are very applicable to modern times. It's commonly held that if something has evolved, or if something is engrained in our biology, then that is "correct" or "natural." This is the basic premise of human nature which Dr. Fuentes argues against. Just because something is biological or evolutionary does not mean it is any more natural than any other aspect of our lives. The premise of this idea is that, for example, between our biology and our society, biology takes precedence as we cannot avoid its grasp, and our society or social situation can change. This simply isn't the case, though: our biology is constantly changing, and the strength of our genes is not more powerful than the strength of our environment.

Creationists, determinists, indeterminists, racialists, and many other groups of people will commonly fall into the belief in one of these misconceptions as part of their arguments. Be equipped and well-informed of what evolution is and is not so that these misconceptions can be further dispensed, and the core of the arguments can be reached instead of the nuances of what evolution does or does not imply.

And above all, thank you very much for reading.



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Chiggers: Why They Suck & How to Get Rid of Them... Kinda

Where I go to college, I'm pretty much surrounded by wilderness. I'm right out in the Pine Barrens where there's, besides the campus, nothing but trees, foliage and dirt. Hell, even some of the campus is pretty much just trees, foliage and dirt. In addition to that, we've got a giant lake which lends a marshland to the otherwise already wild woods. That makes it mosquito country, and that makes it bad for me.

Back at home, all I got were mosquito bites. If I so much as lifted my arm and my sleeve fell too far past the cuff, my wrist turned into a biscuit tray (i.e. really bumpy and perfect for baking). I'm the only one in my family who really has this problem, and none of us are entirely sure why. I've read that mosquitoes like warmer things, and the color black, both of which I tend to fit perfectly with (I wear a lot of black and my body is always warm). I dunno about blood types, but maybe that has something to do with it too. Anyway, that's pretty much the extent of what I'd have to deal with though. Nothing too bad elsewhere, besides occasionally finding a tick searching my body.

Last year, however, I couldn't help but see the vast wildlife around me and think "well shit, this would be great for an adventure!" I'd stock my pockets with my tool knives and head out into the woods just to see what cool crap I could find. These efforts didn't go unrewarded: I've found my fair share of cool fruits from trees I never knew about (mostly ornamentals), and I came across some moss-covered bridges, marshes, and even some weird picnic-like area where someone had carved out turtle shells. Sorry, but I think that's pretty cool, and totally worth contending with mosquitoes and ticks.

Well, little did I know that was the worst of my problems.

I was plagued with the most rotten devils in the world: chiggers. They're these tiny little parasites that you can barely see, and will only find if you actually check for them, usually around your ankles. They like to go into tight spots, so your ankles are definitely at risk, as are your privates. No I'm not kidding.

Usually you get them by walking through brush, and a clump of them smacks onto you, and they start searching your body for a good place to start biting you. They can wander for as long as 3 hours without biting, but when they bite, it's horrible. My record number of bites at any given time is 27. Yes, 27 bites, exclusively on my ankles (and 5 or less on my legs). The first time I got bitten, though, it was only 21 (yeah, only). These bites never typically got to anything bad like an infection, but they itch. They itch bad. You've never really experienced an itch until you've had multiple chigger bites, and are as vulnerable to their little secreted fluids as I am.

But when I first got them, I thought it shouldn't be a problem. Whenever I got a bad mosquito bite, I just got some After Bite and soaked it up. I tried the same thing on my chigger bites, but it didn't work. I'll tell you, the first time I dealt with these fuckers, I tried everything. Ice, heat, Cortizone, After Bite, nail polish, and a few other things including but not limited to scraping the blistered heads off my bites and burning them with alcohol. Yeah, it got that serious for me. I was desperate, and for a while I had convinced myself that worked, but the itching never ceased. The first time this happened, it lasted for two weeks, and I had no idea whether anything I was doing had caused the itching, burning and pain to go away. I was just glad they were gone and I was done with sleepless nights of torturous itching on my feet.

Then I got them again this year.

I was more prepared this year, though. I knew that once I noticed chiggers on my skin, I should take my clothes off and wash them in soap and hot water. That's fine and dandy, but what about the ones on my skin? My girlfriend and I have gotten used to just plucking them off our skin, and whenever I go into the woods I spray myself with bug repellent for good measure, but this time it didn't work. My preventative measures didn't work, and I got my record number of bites only a week and a half ago, or so. The semester just started and I've already been eaten alive. So, what did I do? I refined some of my choices and tried something new, since none of my medications were working (I tried After Bite again, along with Chiggerid). I went into the shower, broke all of the bites open thoroughly, and then scrubbed them down with hot water and soap.

Now, I'm not going to lie to you, this hurts like a bitch, but after 5 minutes of intense burning, it can actually provide you with a few hours of relief if you leave the afflicted areas alone. This is where I started to discover bad things you can do to your bites that make them itch/burn worse:

1: Walking. Sorry, but if you can, you should stay off your feet for a few days.
2: Wearing socks. The fabric of your socks will irritate the bites.
3: Scratching. Do not scratch. The autonomous itching has stopped right now, but if I ever get tempted to scratch the area around the scabs of my ex-bites, the itching sensation comes back instantly, and as bad as before.

After a few days, I was at a loss. I have to walk to classes, and one of my classes this semester warrants me to continuously go to locations where chiggers are likely to screw me over. I continued to ask around for advice on how to handle this horror. I had no luck, but I did find out a few things about chiggers that you should know.

First, the nail polish trick, while it can relieve itching, is stupid. The premise is that chiggers dig into your skin and then leave a hole to breathe, but that they stay there until they decide to leave; so if you cover the bite with nail polish, they suffocate and die. It's not true. They don't burrow, they just bite. If they did burrow, however, why the hell would you want to keep them in your skin? Do you want your skin to look like the inside of a dragon fruit, laden with black dots? Do you want the source of the irritation, something you could be highly allergic to, to just stay in your skin? The whole idea is just ridiculous.

Second, chiggers (and similar mites) have this unique characteristic that they like to bite the same person even if another person is available. In this case, I sleep in the same bed as my girlfriend; yet despite being infested by chiggers myself, my girlfriend never got any from me. The chiggers, after biting someone, just like to stick to them. Why? Because they love you, that's why! Ain't it great?

Anyway, speaking of my girlfriend, that's how I eventually ended up overcoming my bites. My girlfriend brought me Benadryl anti-itch cream, and it worked miracles for me. Really, this is the only thing that's actually confidently worked. After Bite doesn't do anything. Chiggerid just leaves a flaky, sometimes painful (because it sticks to your hair) coating on your skin. The other methods are just generally ineffective. For anyone else who has had chiggers, you're welcome to disagree and explain why, but here's what I recommend for people who suffer from these bites:

1: Immediately take off all your clothes and wash them in hot water and soap.
2: Try to find as many of the chiggers on your body as you can and pluck them off, putting them in a pot of boiling water to make sure they die (or just scrape them to death).
3: Try to endure the pain of breaking your bites open in the shower, then scrub them maybe two or three times with soap and hot water, thoroughly.
4: Dry the areas, then apply Benadryl anti-itch cream.
5: Avoid irritating the afflicted areas further.

If you can medicate the bites before they get bad, you can usually prevent this disaster; however if you're not fast enough like me, this seems to work. Again, it takes a while for you to fully recover, but hopefully this'll speed up the process. If it doesn't, or even makes things worse, I'm sorry. (But I'm not accountable).

As far as preventative measures go, I'd advise the following:

1: Find a good bug repellent and spray yourself before you go around any areas with tall grass/bushes, or is humid, damp or swampy. I use Off!.
2: Wear long pants and sleeves, with preferably tall socks to further protect your ankles.
3: Try to only spend around an hour (maybe two) in the areas where chiggers are more likely to get you, just to make sure they don't bite you before you can check yourself safely.
4: When you get home, make sure you change clothes and check yourself, and wash whatever clothes you were wearing.

But most importantly:

Don't let this deter you from exploring out in the wilderness. Wildlife is incredible, and a few mites shouldn't hinder your ability to enjoy that. Just be aware of some of the risks you're taking, take the proper precautions, and be sure that if you encounter a situation such as this, you're prepared to deal with it.

Thank you all for reading, and I'll see you all next time!

Religion And Morality: Belief Isn't Better

"Godless Atheists," huh?

It's no secret that when it comes to what the public thinks, atheists are usually at the bottom of the "nice" list. Back in 2006, associate professor Penny Edgell of the University of Minnesota conducted a poll that found that of all the listed minority groups (including immigrants, gays and lesbians, conservative Christians, Jews, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, whites, and atheists), people were least likely to think they could share their visions of society with an atheist -- about 54% of respondents stating they thought they could. Professor Edgell was shocked by the results, stating: "We thought that in the wake of 9/11, people would target Muslims. Frankly, we expected atheists to be a throwaway group."

Keeping in mind this study was conducted only 2 years after 9/11, so her surprise is most likely well founded; however, this wasn't the first, nor the last of a long series of studies which show that the average American is not too fond of the atheist. In 2011, Gervais, et al. published a study, Do You Believe in Atheists? Distrust Is Central to Anti-Atheist Prejudice, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. There were actually several studies within this one published article, but in one study specifically, the researchers asked 105 undergraduates at the University of British Columbia to read the following excerpt:

"Richard is 31 years old. On his way to work one day, he accidentally backed his car into a parked van. Because pedestrians were watching, he got out of his car. He pretended to write down his insurance information. He then tucked the blank note into the van’s window before getting back into his car and driving away.

Later the same day, Richard found a wallet on the sidewalk. Nobody was looking, so he took all of the money out of the wallet. He then threw the wallet in a trash can."

The subjects were then asked which would be more likely: (A) that Richard is a teacher; or (B) that Richard is a teacher and something else. That something else was randomly selected as the filler from four possible categories: Christian, Muslim, rapist, or atheist. The test was to see how often the respondents committed something called the "conjunction fallacy." Simply put, the conjunction fallacy occurs when someone assumes that the probability of two events occurring together (or in conjunction) is higher than that of one of the events occurring alone, even though statistically speaking, it is always less likely for the conjunct to be true. In this study, for example, it is always more likely that Richard is a teacher than it is that he is a teacher and an atheist.

The results, however, showed that while only 4% and 15% committed the conjunction fallacy for Christians and Muslims respectively, 46% and 48% committed the fallacy for rapists and atheists respectively. That's right, people thought it was more likely that Richard was an atheist than he was a rapist. Well, actually, the two frequencies were not statistically significant from one another, so it was about the same for rapists and atheists. That makes it better, right?

So there's an obvious problem here. The public has a general distrust for atheists that can match, or possibly exceed, even that of rapists; and even in post 9/11 America (only 2 years after), atheists were still distrusted more than Muslims. It's obvious that the average person believes that the atheist is not as socially compatible as other minority groups, and is probably a lot more immoral.

Wait, what was that?

All the time I hear people claiming that atheists tend to be more immoral than "believers." This is, of course, completely outrageous on two accounts. Good old Hermant Mehta from Patheos emailed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to ask what the religious make up of the prison population was, and you can find the response here. To summarize, though, atheists make up 0.07% of the federal prison population that self-reported their religious affiliation in America. Of course, this data isn't perfect, but of what we have it's pretty impressive.

So that's one account: the statistics (of course, if you assume that breaking federal law is sinful). The other account I mentioned is on definition: What the heck does the statement even mean that atheists tend to be more immoral? By most Christian definitions, atheism itself is immoral, so no duh they're going to be "more immoral" than "believers." How are we defining morality here? This is such a problematic statement, and the framing is so biased, that it can't even be looked at in good health. Of course, by whatever group's morality you're making the judgment from, that group is going to almost always turn out more moral.

But... what if we based it on both groups' morality?

On September 12, 2014, Hofmann et al. published a study in Science entitled Morality in Everyday Life. The study repeatedly assessed moral/immoral actions in a sample of 1,252 people via self-reporting using ecological momentary analysis and found that religious and nonreligious people, as they see it, do not differ in terms of likelihood or quality of immoral/moral acts. Many have criticized these findings due to the use of self-reporting (even though they had a panel of independent judges draw conclusions as well), but that's the point. These experiences were based on the respondents' own definition of morality, and therefore isn't confounded by biased definitions. It means that in accordance with one's own principles, it seems to not be the case that the religious are more moral than the nonreligious.

As I said already, the framing of the question "are atheists more immoral than theists?" is already flawed and biased, but it helps to know that when you go by multiple lines of inquiry, you find this to not be the case, empirically or just pragmatically. Hopefully people can abandon their biases and begin to look at atheists in a more open way, because when it comes down to it (as Ricky Gervais said), if you kicked all the atheists and agnostics in America out, you'd lose 93% of The National Academy of Sciences, and less than 1% of the prison population.

How helpful would that be?

Thank you all very much for reading.



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References:

Gervais WM, Shariff AF, & Norenzayan A (2011). Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice. Journal of personality and social psychology, 101 (6), 1189-206 PMID: 22059841  

Hofmann W, Wisneski DC, Brandt MJ, & Skitka LJ (2014). Morality in everyday life. Science (New York, N.Y.), 345 (6202), 1340-3 PMID: 25214626

Brian Hooker's Hooked Hoax: Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) Vaccination and Autism Spectrum Disorder

I always get the best stuff from Google+ to look at, don't I? This post is stemming from my last post on autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which was a response to a prompt by C0nc0rdance on YouTube. If you're interested in this topic, I would recommend reading it just to be familiarized with some of the literature, and then read the post-publish discussion in the comments section and on Google+. It's not necessary for this post, however.

Uh-oh.

In February of 2004, DeStefano et al. published a study entitled Age at first measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in children with autism and school-matched control subjects: a population-based study in metropolitan atlanta. This was a case-control study collected in Atlanta, comparing age of first MMR vaccination between children with autism (N=624) and the control children (N=1824), collecting data on maternal and birth factors from immunization forms and birth certificates, in order to determine risk of ASD at different age cutoffs of MMR immunization. The findings were that with the exception of vaccination before 36 months being more common in case children than control children (which was attributed to immunization requirements in early intervention programs, and was a modest 2.8% difference), there was no significant association between the age cutoffs and the risk of autism. This is one of many pieces of evidence which show that the MMR vaccine does not confer an increased risk in ASD.

However, 10 years after the initial study was conducted, famous anti-vaccine alarmist Brian Hooker, along with Andrew Wakefield, are talking about a "whistleblower" in the CDC claiming that the original data was fraudulent, and was masking a 336% increased risk in ASD in African American boys receiving the MMR vaccine "on time." Hooker published his own findings in the Journal of Translational Neurodegeneration, titling it Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data. He claims that according to the "whistleblower," Dr. William Thompson, the CDC intentionally manipulated the data to bury this increased risk.

Here we go again.

To people who are familiar with the anti-vaccine movement, Hooker and Wakefield are household names. Wakefield has become famous for his scientific fraudulence, and Hooker has recently become the new big name, most likely taking pointers from Wakefield himself; thus making Dr. Hooker's name very apt.

But what exactly is going on here? Was the CDC fraudulent? Did they intentionally manipulate the data to hide this increased risk? Before we get to that, there are a few things we need to make note of.

It's always good to remain skeptical when someone proposes that they have reanalyzed already published data. In my experiences, although limited, this never amounts to anything good, and the arguments are usually pretty weak. On that same note, when someone reanalyzes data, they most likely have a chip on their shoulder. Keep in mind this isn't true for all reanalyses -- in fact, such reanalysis is what called Wakefield out for his fraudulence in the first place -- but I'm speaking from personal experience.

These a priori contentions not withstanding, Hooker's reanalysis just didn't seem right at all when I first looked at it. Let's just quote the conclusions from the abstract for a moment:

"The present study provides new epidemiologic evidence showing that African American males receiving the MMR vaccine prior to 24 months of age or 36 months of age are more likely to receive an autism diagnosis."

And from the results:

"Relative risks for males in general and African American males were 1.69 (p=0.0138) and 3.36 (p=0.0019), respectively."

Hooker went through all this trouble just to show that only African American males are at a higher risk for ASD from the MMR jab? That's certainly not going to do anything for Jenny McCarthy. Color me unimpressed by the so called coverup by the CDC, because it leaves the overwhelming majority of evidence that shows there is no link between the MMR vaccine and ASD untouched. In fact, even if he'd shown the whole study was fraudulent from its conception, he still would've left the overwhelming majority of research to the contrary untouched. Even better, a 3.36 increase in ASD isn't 336%. It's 236%.

Booker accuses DeStefano et al. (2004) of intentionally leaving out African American males in their sample in order to manipulate the results, but that's just not what happened. Subjects that were inappropriate, given age requirements and necessity of medical information, were excluded from the study because they wouldn't be able to control for the important things mentioned earlier: maternal and birth factors, as well as actually comparing something useful in this particular study. DeStefano et al. weren't manipulating the data, they were legitimizing it.

But the burning question here is: did Hooker even manage to show what he claimed he did? Are African American males at a higher risk for ASD from the MMR jab at ages younger than 24 or 36 months? Let's take a look inside the paper to find out.

"The relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism was first hypothesized by Wakefield et al. [7] in 1999 after the observation of a regressive phenotype of autism that appeared in general after the administration of the first MMR vaccine. Although several studies have affirmed such a relationship between the MMR vaccine and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism [8,9], many other studies purport no statistical relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism incidence."

This is only the third paragraph in, mind you, and Hooker cites Wakefield, and then two studies by the Geier duo. Don't make me laugh. Hooker is partaking in a classic "teach the controversy" grasp at straws to make it seem like there's even some doubt that the MMR vaccine isn't linked to ASD. No matter. Let's just skip to the methodology:

"Cohort data were obtained directly as a “restricted access data set” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via a Data Use Agreement. Data were deidentified by the CDC in accordance with Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) prior to receipt by the study authors."

Wait what? Cohort data? But the original study by DeStefano et al. was case-control. Oh, there we see it.

I know I have some readers who aren't too fond of statistical babble, so I'll sum up what the issue is here. The original study by DeStefano et al. used something called a case-control model. In a case-control model, you compare a group of case subjects (subjects with the disease) and control subjects (without the disease) and determine how frequently another variable occurs for either group of subjects while controlling for confounders and effect modifiers. Hooker, on the other hand, used a cohort model, which doesn't quite do the same thing. Regardless, using data that was arranged to be analyzed in a case-control model and then analyzing it in a cohort model is just screaming problems; especially when you chop up the data into multiple subcohorts so that any small effect will be magnified.

The funny thing is, even with the skewed methodology, the results aren't even impressive. Table 2 below from Hooker's paper shows the age group cutoffs and their risk for ASD:

So what's wrong here? Not much, except for the fact that the relative risk only sees a modest increase at the 24 month cutoff. The true increase is seen at 36 months. So why is this important? Because symptoms of autism are most noticeable starting at age 3. This isn't anything new Hooker. That's why DeStefano et al. controlled for age in their original study. Because they're not stupid.

But why was there an increase in exclusively African American male children? The answer is simple again. Table 4 from the study shows us this:

Hooker reveals that he had to use a 31 month cutoff because he was limited in terms of sample size. This, also, isn't anything new in the realm of statistics, Hooker. Smaller sample sizes are going to potentially yield misleading results because the smaller the sample, the greater its susceptibility to statistical noise. Funny enough, Hooker didn't even provide his sample size. The very lack of transparency in Hooker's paper, after being prompted by accusations of a lack of transparency in the CDC, is absolutely egregious.

This didn't take very long to research and debunk; in fact, I was surprised at how little exposure this study got. Perhaps we're all learning something from these types of studies: they provide nothing informative, and are only reflections of someone's ideologically grinding teeth and hand waving. In doing so, Hooker hooked a hoax: his own.

Thank you all very much for reading.

UPDATE: Translational Neurodegeneration has taken Hooker's article off public domain for concerns about the validity of its findings. You can find it in full here.

(8/28/2014) Yesterday, Dr. Thompson released a statement via his lawyers clearing the air of any doubts: Wakefield is just as disingenuous and manipulative as he's always been.

(10/3/2014) Brian Hooker's paper was retracted from the journal of Translational Neurodegeneration after concerns were expressed of its validity. The PubMed link still works.

*I would also highly recommend looking at this infographic from Healthcare Management Degree.
Sources are at the bottom of the page.*



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References:

DeStefano, F., Bhasin, T., Thompson, W., Yeargin-Allsopp, M., & Boyle, C. (2004). Age at First Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination in Children With Autism and School-Matched Control Subjects: A Population-Based Study in Metropolitan Atlanta. PEDIATRICS, 113 (2), 259-266 DOI: 10.1542/peds.113.2.259

Hooker, B. (2014). Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data. Translational Neurodegeneration, 3 (1) DOI: 10.1186/2047-9158-3-16

Pseudoscience And Ad Hominems: Is Religion a Mental Illness?

Could something so normative be a mental disorder?

I had a polite exchange on Google+ for once, but it quickly turned into something appalling for me, personally. The person who made the comment I was disgusted by has not replied to my rebuttal yet, thus I won't directly link to the thread; however, I can copy/paste their comment here for context:

"Religion is a mental illness (only differences between believers, are the stage on which this mental illness manifests).+(Anon) you should seek professional help, for believing in a non-existent zombie that there is absolutely no proof of it's existence, ever."

I've heard people claim that religion is a mental illness before. I still hate hearing it each time, because it's just ridiculous and unproductive. At the same time, I've never heard any rationale for this belief either, and thus I was just led to believe that it's nothing more than an insult. Apparently though, there are some people who truly believe they have evidence for religion being a mental disorder. Specifically, it seems that the link is between religion and schizophrenia, or is simply consisting of attributing several different symptoms to religious belief and claiming that that qualifies it as a mental disorder. The latter is a grotesque simplification of what diagnosing a mental disorder actually involves, but we'll get to that later. For now, let's address the link between religion and schizophrenia. Just to quantify some claims, let's refer to the Wikipedia page on religion and schizophrenia:

"The relationship between religion and schizophrenia is of particular interest to psychologists because of the similarities between religious experiences and psychotic episodes; religious experiences often involve auditory and/or visual hallucinations, and those with schizophrenia commonly report similar hallucinations, along with a variety of delusions and faulty beliefs. A common report from those with schizophrenia is some type of a religious delusion - that is, they believe they are divine beings, God is talking to them, they are possessed by demons, etc. In a study of patients with schizophrenia that had been previously admitted to a hospital, 24% had religious delusions. This has led some researchers to question whether schizophrenia leads an individual to become more religious, or if intense religiosity leads to schizophrenia."

The prevalence of religious delusions and hallucinations among patients diagnosed with schizophrenia is unequivocal, clearly, but why does this necessitate that religion may be linked causally to schizophrenia, or vice versa? One should expect that in a society where religion has a heavy influence, that hallucinations should involve religion at least some of the time. This doesn't mean that religion is a mental illness; instead, it just means that religion is a common outlet for delusional thoughts and behaviours. The source cited for the 24% figure, Religious delusions in patients admitted to hospital with schizophrenia by Siddle et al. (2002) also states this to be the case, emphasis my own:

"Having a religious belief or having religious delusional belief provides a framework by which people can make sense of negative life experiences. This is said to be helpful to people as it allows them something of a buffer against the depressing effects of uncontrollable life stresses (Park et al. 1990). To summarise, religious beliefs are fairly common and are not pathological. Religious people demonstrate an external attributional bias. A proportion of people will experience psychotic experiences, some of which will involve auditory hallucinations. [...] These religious experiences and delusions may help the person to deal with the negative life events they are faced with."

While Siddle et al. maintains that religious beliefs are not pathological (i.e. not being a result of mental illness or disorder), it's hard to interpret the results of studies suggesting the link between schizophrenia and religious belief because it begs the question: what exactly is a religious delusion? This is a problem because, even as the authors point out, in most studies, the definition of a "religious delusion" is not actually outlined or defined. They do offer an outline of their own, as produced by Sims (1995), which identifies a religious delusion as meeting the following characteristics:

1: Both the observed behaviour and the subjective experience conformed with psychiatric symptoms in that the patient's self-description of the experience was recognisable as having the form of a delusion;

2: There were other recognisable symptoms of mental illness in other areas of the individual's life; other delusions, hallucinations, mood or thought disorder and so on;

3: The lifestyle, behaviour and direction of the personal goals of the individual after the event or after the religious experience were consistent with the natural history of mental disorder rather than with a personally enriching life experience.

Charitably, a religious experience, don't you agree?

This seems to make sense, and I'll refer to it later, but again it begs the question: what is a religious
experience? We could charitably assume that a religious experience is defined as having any reference to God or religious symbolism, but it would only help to suppose what was suggested earlier -- that religious experiences can be said to be a product of one's culture or society, where religion is prevalent. To avoid such a dead end and unconvincing argument, we'll approach the arguments made by the third link I provided at the beginning of this post.

Before we even examine such claims, we have to ask ourselves "what is a mental illness?" Generally, the clinically appropriate term is a "disorder," but illness is still sometimes used. In a broad sense, a mental disorder can be defined as "a mental or behavioral pattern or anomaly that causes either suffering or an impaired ability to function in ordinary life (disability), and which is not developmentally or socially normative." This is according to Wikipedia; however, the DSM-V gives us a different definition of a mental disorder:

"A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress in social, occupational, or other important activities. An expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved one, is not a mental disorder. Socially deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) and conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are not mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above."

It's very clear that by the first definition, religion does not qualify as a mental disorder, as it is a subscription of social norms; however, does religion fit under the DSM-V definition? Let's examine the seven reasons given for why religion is a mental disorder by that group linked to earlier:

1: Hallucinations - the person has invisible friends who (s)he insists are real, and to whom (s)he speaks daily, even though nobody can actually see or hear these friends.

2: Delusions - the patient believes that the invisible friends have magical powers to make them rich, cure cancer, bring about world peace, and will do so eventually if asked.

3: Denial/Inability to learn - though the requests for world peace remain unanswered, even after hundreds of years, the patients persist with the praying behaviour, each time expecting different results.

4: Inability to distinguish fantasy from reality - the beliefs are contingent upon ancient mythology being accepted as historical fact.

5: Paranoia - the belief that anyone who does not share their supernatural concept of reality is "evil," "the devil," "an agent of Satan".

6: Emotional abuse - ­ religious concepts such as sin, hell, cause feelings of guilt, shame, fear, and other types of emotional "baggage" which can scar the psyche for life.

7: Violence - many patients insist that others should share in their delusions, even to the extent of using violence.

As much as I hate him, he's not (very) dysfunctional

It cannot be argued that some, if not all of these symptoms (although crudely characterized) cannot be applied to certain people, both religious and nonreligious; however, the diagnosis of a mental disorder is often reliant on symptomatic clusters. That is, symptoms are grouped together, and the mental disorder is diagnosed if the patient exhibits several or all of the symptoms in the cluster. That being said, it can hardly be suggested that all, or even most religious people experience all or most of the above symptoms. What of the ones that do, however? If someone were just devoutly religious and experienced all or most of the above symptoms, could we classify them as having a mental disorder? Well, it depends on what we're looking at. Let's take the example of "delusions" -- could we take a person's religious delusions and use them as evidence that they show symptoms of a mental disorder? It's informative, now, to look at the previous characteristics of a religious delusion, specifically the last one:

3: The lifestyle, behaviour and direction of the personal goals of the individual after the event or after the religious experience were consistent with the natural history of mental disorder rather than with a personally enriching life experience.

This is consistent with the segment of the DSM-V definition of a mental disorder:

"A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning."

Just because someone exhibits certain symptoms does not warrant their condition being labelled as a mental disorder; it is only warranted if their symptoms cause disturbance in their lives and prevents them from being autonomously functioning members of society. It cannot be said that the majority, or even a substantial portion of religious people are incapable of functioning in society. If this were the case, we would not have a society to live in; because it is reasonable that if one cannot function in society, they cannot also create a functioning society. Whether we admit to it or not, many cultures and civilizations around the world were created by people who had strong religious convictions. The vast majority of the world is made up of people with religious beliefs. If they were all suffering from a mental disorder, what functionality would the world hold? The answer would be virtually none.

A mental disorder is defined and classified based on whether or not it prevents a person from functioning properly in society, and their behaviour does not exhibit something typical of the society's norms. We cannot work backwards and say that religion is a mental disorder simply for the symptoms that some of its members hold. First, there has to be an overwhelming majority of them that exhibit these symptoms. Then, we have to show that these people cannot function properly in society, or are damaging to themselves and others. Then, we have to show that this lack of functionality is a result of psychological, biological, or developmental dysfunction.

None of the above has been shown for people of religious conviction; therefore, it is simply unfounded to assert that religious people have a mental disorder.

It's important to keep this in mind as we progress towards the future. Surely, some people don't honestly believe that religion can be clinically diagnosable as a mental disorder; some people just use it as an insult. That being said, having a mental disorder is not grounds as an insult. That's just not how it works. At the same time, skeptics, rationalists and atheists need to understand that ad hominem attacks like this are absolutely toxic and detrimental to legitimate discussion over theology and philosophy -- they only obfuscate the issue, and have no productive value. What reason do we have to be so hostile or adamant about something like this? Not only is the claim insulting to people who have mental disorders, but also to professionals who are familiar with how to diagnose such disorders, and last but not least, insulting to the people you're blatantly insulting (obviously).

To people who use this argument from a "clinical" perspective: you're subscribing to pseudoscience, which is much, much worse than simply having religious views, because your views are actually detrimental to honest discourse, and to knowledge.

To people who use this argument from a casual perspective: it's a baseless ad hominem attack and does nothing for anybody.

To both, just stop. It's disgusting.

And to everyone else, thank you very much for reading.



Follow me on social media!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexisDelanoir
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References:

Siddle, R., Haddock, G., Tarrier, N., & Faragher, E. (2014). Religious delusions in patients admitted to hospital with schizophrenia. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 37 (3), 130-138 DOI: 10.1007/s001270200005

Sims ACP (1995). Symptoms in the mind: an introduction to descriptive psychopathology (3rd ed.). W.B. Saunders, London

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.

Global Warming Denial: Common Arguments and Misconceptions

A while back, I had a very long discussion with several people over anthropogenic climate change. It took place on a video of Marc Morano and Bill Nye debating over the topic, thus I was bound to encounter quite a few people who are simply ill informed on the subject. Fate took hold and the bastions of idiocy and pseudoscience were brought before me, and I was placed in a position where I felt it was my obligation to clear the air of misconceptions and bad arguments that were being made by the global warming denialists. There was a lot of information passed around, so I wanted to take the time to place some of the arguments here and address them. Many of you will encounter these arguments at some point, so I want to be sure that my readers are well equipped with the knowledge to counter the folly.

If you want to read the full discussion, the thread can be found here. Quick note: denialist questions will be in bold, while my responses will not be. Beyond that, let's get started.

There is no consensus on global warming.

Of course, I've already addressed this before. Feel free to read into that as well as this post. I've heard some people counter by claiming that appealing to a scientific consensus is an appeal to popularity. Fortunately, no it isn't. Appeal to popularity refers to an uninformed public, or "just because a lot of people agree means that it's true." Appeal to scientific consensus is where we appeal to qualified experts in the relevant fields of research and ask for their views. If the overwhelming majority decide that global warming is real, and it's caused by humans, then it's our responsibility as laypeople to take their decision as fact. We have scientists for a reason, and that is so that the uninformed public has a panel or community of experts to go to on issues that they are unqualified in. If we start ignoring that community, we abandon rationality.

Temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period were hotter than today.

Locally, temperatures in some regions of Europe were hotter than they are today; however, this is not representative of the entire population. In Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly by Mann et al. (2009), researchers used a global climate proxy network of more than 1,000 tree ring, ice core, coral, sediment and other assorted proxy records spanning both hemispheres over the past 1500 years. They concluded that while in some regions, temperatures matched today's temperatures or may have been hotter, they do not meet global averages today. The trend is clear: global average temperatures have been rising at intimidating levels, and are hotter than ever before. For this point, the NOAA and the IPCC are great resources as well.

Global temperatures haven't risen in 16 years and counting.

This is just a fabrication. IPCC data clearly displays that global mean temperatures have been rising all the way up to the point of 2006. The year 1998 only ranks as the third hottest year on record, being bested by 2005 and then 2010. Even if it weren't a fabrication, it doesn't matter. We can take any period of time and say "there was no global warming from here to here" and pretend it disproves the overall trend; however, it just doesn't.

Weather reports are unreliable, so how do you expect to predict global climates?

I don't think I really need to hammer in the difference between climate and weather, but that's what it comes down to. Regardless of what variance there is in a particular region from day to day, we can still calculate global means based on the data available to us. If these averages show us that temperatures are rising at extraordinary rates, then we have reason to be cautious.

Aside from that, for what they're worth, weather reports aren't even that unreliable. They're just a lot more sporadic than climate models.

Global CO2 levels are not increasing.

Global CO2 levels are increasing. Some global warming denialists don't actually argue this point, but instead argue that rising CO2 levels don't matter. I'll look at a few of those arguments now.

CO2 is basically plant food.

I hear this one a lot, and it's not so much an issue of data as it is an issue of misconceptions. CO2 can be plant food, but not always. It depends on the plant, first of all, and even at that it only confidently works in a controlled environment (which, just for the record, the earth's atmosphere is not). Still, even if CO2 were basically plant food, that isn't a good thing. Growing plants means growing consumption of water and nutrients as well. Such a rise in consumption would result in the expansion of deserts, causing eco-zones to move towards the poles in search of a more suitable environment, and would eventually lead to the decline of those eco-zones. Ever hear of the phrase, "too much of a good thing is a bad thing?"

Global temperatures have only increased by one degree.

Yes, and one degree of global temperature changes can have a massive impact on ice sheets, sea levels, and many other things. All it took in the past to plunge us into the Little Ice Age was a 1-2 degree drop in temperature. People who use this argument are evidently superficial and unfamiliar with the scientific data.

And that's all she wrote.

I'd highly encourage global warming denialists to come here and make their arguments so that I can either expand the list or just refute the claims in the comment section. Come on, don't be shy!

And of course, thank you all very much for reading.



Follow me on social media!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexisDelanoir
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+AlexisDelanoir0/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/AlexisDelanoir



References:

Mann, M., Zhang, Z., Rutherford, S., Bradley, R., Hughes, M., Shindell, D., Ammann, C., Faluvegi, G., & Ni, F. (2009). Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly. Science, 326 (5957), 1256-1260 DOI: 10.1126/science.1177303

How to Remove a Hornets' Nest: The Tale of a Patriot

On August 7th, 2014, something happened that would change the lives of every citizen in my neighborhood forever.

...

Alright so a few days ago, I wake up and I go outside to get in my car because I was hungry and I like chicken. As I'm getting in my car, I hear an irritable buzzing above my head, so I instinctively duck out of the way and dive over the roof of my car, taking cover behind it. This isn't unusual: I'm parked within a 2 foot vicinity of a tree that my neighbor's planted back when the house next door was still occupied. It grows a lot of flowers and berries, so it's commonplace for bees to hover around the tree to harvest. This time was different, though. I peered over the hood of my car like a neurotic prairie dog, and I get a glimpse of this mother fucker:

I know right? This thing was about the size of a basketball and highly active. It's about 7 feet above the ground, and lord knows I ain't cutting the branch on that thing. One of my biggest fears is of wasps, and this was just a giant bald faced hornet nest, so my "shit myself" levels were off the scale. Lately in New Jersey, at least as far as I've seen, our bees/wasps/hornets have been getting bigger and bigger each year. It's probably something in the water, since (as Lex put it) the Jersey shore  is particularly disgusting (as is the show), and it probably causes autism too (as does the show).

Anyway, so this isn't my first time dealing with wasp/hornet nests before. About a month ago my shed was plagued with three of them, although none were this big. Two were the size of golf balls and one was the size of a water bottle. I did the common sense thing to do: I went to Lowe's and bought a value pack of hornet killer. I sprayed both cans in the pack at the nests, and then inside the shed, and voila: the next day, everything was dead. Actually, at the time, I didn't even know the water-bottle sized nest was in the shed. It was blocked by one of my bikes and so I didn't see it, but I ended up killing them out anyway just from my spraying of the other two nests. Talk about luck, right? I was totally satisfied when I learned that I had another colony of confirmed kills.

This one is different, though. It's so big, and so batshit crazy, there was no way I was going to run the risk of spraying at it and pissing off its inhabitants. We called the township and asked them to take care of it, since it's not on our property and hangs over a public sidewalk, and they said they wouldn't because they only covered stray cats and dogs. My thoughts were this: fork over the money and hire an exterminator. The hive isn't on our property, it's on the property of an abandoned house that's seldom taken care of. Another person on the block called in and complained, sending them a picture of the nest, and they said they'd call the mortgage company of the house next door and have them take care of it, which would take up to ten days.

Here's the thing: last time I heard something like that is when we called the mortgage company and asked them to take care of the siding that was breaking off the house and at risk of flying into our windows. It's been months now, and we've had no response. So this "ten days" thing not only sounds like bullshit, but probably is. So, we decided we'd take matters into our own hands, although we probably shouldn't, since it's not our problem.

My dad suggested cutting the branch and leaving a trash can underneath it, but I was thinking of all the possible ways the trajectory of the slice in the branch could cause it to fall outside of the trash can and make our lives miserable. I wasn't about to let that happen. After a bit of musing over potential ideas, I got one:

Just to be clear, what I did was this: I cracked my window open a bit, covered the outside in plastic wrap, cut a hole in it, parked next to the hive, and then launched two cans of hornet killer at it from the hole. It was the best way to ensure that I didn't get stung, and that I could get the most accurate shot possible. I soaked it pretty well, as you can tell if you can hear the soaked pummeling of hornet killer flowing down from the hive. The instructions said wait 24 hours, and thus I did. I went back the next day.

The hive was still active.

Literally, it was maybe even more active than before. Aside from a few dead ones that were lying on the ground, it seemed like the spray had no effect. That scared me, but not to worry. I decided to buy another few cans of the spray, and over the course of the next few days, I kept soaking it up in hornet killer. By yesterday, it seemed that it was finally starting to work, but still, the hive was active.

I was at a loss. I didn't have any other ideas on how to kill a hornets' nest without getting stung, and I figured if a chemical that was specifically engineered to kill wasps/hornets/bees and their nests couldn't do the job, what was left besides to bash it with a baseball bat and knock it into the street, then run over it with a car repeatedly and wait for the swarm to calm down before coming anywhere near our block? Again, the idea of cutting the nest down occurred, but something just told me that these hornets were waiting for something. They were waiting in their hive for something genuinely dangerous to happen, and at that moment, they would strike. Having their nest cut down would very easily give them all access points to leave the hive and come attack us. I know that's what they were planning, but I wasn't about to give them that satisfaction. I texted my girlfriend with the following message:

"This damn nest has cost me $20 in spray and 4 hours of time. Only a dozen have died and the fortress still stands. Do you know what I call that?"

When she asked what, I responded again, but with a very telling picture of the supplies I would be using for my next attack:

"Personal."

That night (so they'd all be a little bit more sleepy), I sprayed the hive with two more cans of the spray, and then came back today to check up on my progress. There were maybe four or five of the little bastards still actively flying around the hive, and so I readied my weapons. That's right guys, I did what any patriot would do. This is America, dammit, there are thousands of men and women willing to die for this country, so hell if I'm gonna let a few buzzing bugs get the best of me. This is how we take care of a fucking hornets' nest in America.

Oh, and because it isn't visible in the video, the tips of the arrows had American flags hanging from them. No joke. Here is what the hive looks like now (flags slightly visible):

So what did that do? Hell if I know! There's a gaping hole in the side of the nest now, and that's good enough for me. I'm gonna end up buying more spray and making use of that gaping hole to get them more directly, but other than that, I think they got the message. Don't fuck with America. We know how to handle 'em.

Thank you to everyone for reading, and I'll see you all next time!