Overselling the microbiome

Here’s the cover of a magazine I saw yesterday in the grocery store checkout lane:

 

I thought about submitting it to Jonathan Eisen's list of Overselling the Microbiome, but sadly, I don’t think it would make the cut. These types of articles are becoming too common to deserve an award.

There is surprisingly little that is known about the microbiome, and for every study that shows some connection between this or that microbe and this or that condition, there are counter-examples galore. Some of it is a measurement issue: even if you do sample a person’s microbiome, are you sure it’s a representative sample? Studies of gut microbes are nearly always made on the organisms that exit the body, so by definition any measurement is of something that is no longer bioactive.

I’m interested in the microbiome because I think the whole subject is incredibly fascinating, and I believe that eventually science will find some deep insights that will radically alter the way we think about what it means to be human. I hold out hope that we may find a few tricks to manipulate the microbiome in some specific cases, and certainly in general it is good to learn more about how our bodies work. 

But c’mon people, tone it down a little.

Fact-checking should be a business

From Vulture.com:

By tradition and by default, books aren’t verified to anything near the standard of a magazine piece.

I am continually amazed at how often mainstream, otherwise trust-worthy news sources get things wrong.  As the quip goes, “I find that the New York Times is always right, except in areas where I have first-hand knowledge.”  Even peer-reviewed scientific journals are not immune: only about 40% of results published in top-tier psychology science journals can be fully replicated.

There are plenty of everyday examples:

• Medical and health information is notoriously inaccurate, even from sources you’d hope you can trust. For decades, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, as well as the National Academy of Sciences, encouraged the American public to eat trans-fats.
• A quote regularly repeated by New York Times op-ed author David Brooks, about a rising sense of self-importance among American adolescents appears to be entirely wrong. 
• Many, many books have been retracted, or published with disclaimers

What if there were an organization, like UL (that approves electrical equipment) or Consumer Reports (that recommends a variety of household products), only instead of dealing in physical goods, they put their stamp on books or magazines?  Of course we already have book reviews, often by people who are themselves experts in the subject, but how many of them go systematically through all the facts and references to be sure that every claim in the book is accurate?

Cochrane is one independent organization that tries to be systematic in its reviews of the trustworthiness of medical findings.  Verificationist is a service that offers to do fact-checking for books on behalf of publishers or authors. Morningstar and many other investment advisory firms do this for stocks and bonds. Can’t we get something similar for books?

Unfortunately I think this would be a lousy business. Too few publishers or authors would be willing to pay to have their own work fact-checked, and most customers, if given a choice, would prefer a cheaper book with facts presented in “good faith” over a more expensive one that was independently vetted.

The bare minimum

Minimalism is wonderful. Why clutter your life with stuff you don’t need? Here, from the golden sayings of Epictetus are words from the original Stoic himself: 

Take what relates to the body as far as the bare use warrants—as meat, drink, raiment, house and servants. But all that makes for show and luxury reject.

Wait a second…servants ? The ancient Greeks, in the philosophical school that invented minimalism, says you need servants as much as food and shelter?!

Keep this in mind when viewing the news

An excellent piece by a former AP reporter, discussing how news organizations report about Israel, but I find this point to be true about nearly all news reporting:

The world is not responding to events in this country, but rather to the description of these events by news organizations. The key to understanding the strange nature of the response is thus to be found in the practice of journalism

I don’t know President Obama or Sarah Palin, or for that matter people like Steve Ballmer or Steve Jobs (public figures I’ve met in person).  I only know the description provided to me by other people. Same thing goes for big organizations, even countries, the only (partial) exception being the ones where I have personally worked or lived. When I do have some first-hand experience, I almost always find that outside reporting, even when factually correct, puts emphasis differently than I would.

Robin Hanson’s Overcoming Bias blog is another source of wisdom on the overall subject of how to avoid being fooled by what you read or think you know.

On Covetousness

The Ten Commandments are supposed to be a summary, directly from God, of the most basic moral code. Most of them are obvious “biggies”:  Kill, Steal, Adultery, disobey parents, swear.  A few of them deal with God (honor the Sabbath, don’t pray to anyone else, don’t make fun of his name).  All of these are basically understandable -- do it and you harm somebody.  Not good. But one of the Ten Commandments -- two, if you follow the Catholic numbering scheme ( different religious traditions number the Commandments differently) -- has nothing to do with actual harm to anyone else. In fact, the people around you could be violating this commandment right now and you’d never know it.

Two of the Ten Commandments, devoted to nothing more than thought. Which commandment is that?

Thou Shalt Not Covet.

Okay, contrast this with, say, adultery, where you have a clear, obvious reason why it's a sin:  a spouse is harmed, there is potential for paternity lawsuits, etc. I mean, I get that one.  But an equally numbered commandment deals simply with coveting your neighbor’s spouse.  Coveting?  You mean, I’m not even supposed to imagine, in the privacy of my own mind, what it would be like to have my neighbor’s wife?  And that’s right up there, commandment-wise, as adultery? Come on!

This seems especially anomalous because you see covetousness all around us.  Some people think a certain amount of greed is good, depending on the circumstances. What is an interest in income inequality, for example, if a concern that the have-nots will become envious of the haves? Is Thomas Picketty endorsing covetousness? Or take the umbrage that people feel over racism or sexism or the other “hate-isms” — isn’t that also another form of covetousness?  I covet your station in life. I covet your status.

With the right circumstances that seems like a good thing: when I make others aware that they have more than I do, I help society treat everyone more fairly.   If nobody ever coveted, there'd be no reason to change the situation, right?

Help me, I'm confused.

Do you believe in evolution?

Keith Blanchard makes an excellent point. Writing in The Week under the title "Why you should stop believing in evolution”, he says:

So if someone asks, "Do you believe in evolution," they are framing it wrong. That's like asking, "Do you believe in blue?"
Evolution is nothing more than a fairly simple way of understanding what is unquestionably happening. You don't believe in it — you either understand it or you don't. But pretending evolution is a matter of faith can be a clever way to hijack the conversation, and pit it in a false duality against religion.

 I have found that most non-science majors I know — even those who are otherwise well-educated — can’t describe evolution in a concise enough way to convince me that they really understand it. When pressed, it becomes clear that what they really believe in is “science”, or “what my teachers taught me” or “what other college-educated people believe”.

The same is true of many other topics where it’s tempting to ridicule those who don’t believe like you do:

• Do you believe in the danger of GMO (or nuclear energy or the Keystone Pipeline)?
• Do you believe in global warming?
• Do you believe vaccines cause autism?
• Do you believe in God?

When you don’t understand something, you can be easily fooled by somebody who does, which is why it’s dangerous to dismiss unbelievers as ignorant—often you’ll find they are more informed than you are, precisely because they’ve had to dig deeper into the issue in order to withstand criticism of an unpopular position.

To me that explains facts like why those who identify with the Tea Party are more likely to visit science museums, or why climate science literacy has no correlation with political identity.

What about you? Do you understand climate change?