Prolog:

Last week we covered what the ultimate belief system would look like using Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit. Thank you all for the stimulating discussion. As i said in my previous post, i want to keep God and belief in a religion outside the scope of this discussion. Ganesh’s comment captures the essential difference between Faith and Belief extremely well. We all liked the quote from Buddha that Arun gave us. NK Sreedhar captures the approach of a sceptic (i am one as well) beautifully in his comment. Scpeticism is a great quality to cultivate for a better belief system. I will talk about another idea in that regard that may be helpful to all. The main purpose of this post is to look at the neuroscientific view to understand what challenges our brain poses.

Left Brain Vs. Right Brain

Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, one of the world’s foremost neuroscience experts discovers, through a series of experiments on patients suffering from a brain disorder called Anosognosia , that the left brain essentially forces us into keeping our current beliefs intact, whereas the right brain plays the role of the devil’s advocate. If you are passionate about Neuroscience, and want to understand how he reached the conclusions that he reached, you may want to read Chapter 7 in Dr. Ramachandran’s brilliant book - Phantoms in the Brain.

To illustrate this, Dr. Ramachandran gives a beautiful example:

Imagine, for example, a military general about to wage war on the enemy. It is late at night and he is in the war room planning strategies for the next day. Scouts keep coming into the room to give him information about the lay of the land, terrain, light level and so forth. They also tell him that the enemy has five hundred tanks and that he has six hundred tanks, a fact that prompts the general to decide to wage war. He positions all his troops in strategic locations and decides to launch battle exactly at sunrise at 600AM.

Imagine further at 5.55AM, one little scout comes running into the war room and says, “General, I have bad news.” With minutes to go until battle, the general asks, “What is that?” and the scout replies, “I just looked through binoculars and saw that the enemy has seven hundred tanks, not five hundred”.

At this point a typical General would like to ignore/rationalize/deny this new bit of information and proceed with his battle plans. Dr. Ramachandran says this is typically what the left brain does - protects us from lots of divergent information creating chaos in our mind by allowing us to delude ourselves. Now, Dr. Ramachandran, asks - what if a scout comes in and says that the enemy has nuclear weapons. That would call for a complete reevaluation of the battle plan obviously. At this point the right brain kicks in and calls for a paradigm shift to handle this new information. Dr. Ramachandran says (it is only a hypothesis now but it makes a lot of sense), the right brain keeps looking at anomalies that come our way and when a threshold level is breached, it kicks in to call for a complete revision of the belief.

Taking time for forming beliefs

Let us say, we formed a belief in our mind, without first considering many points of view (the first step in Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit), we risk forming an incorrect belief. But then even more troublingly for us, the left brain will keep making us believe in the incorrect belief by ignoring/denying counter examples. This is called Confirmation Bias - we only look at data that confirms our beliefs because of the left brain’s need to preserve our beliefs.

For example, instead of trying to find data with a starting position - All XYZ = ABC, you should collect all points of view about XYZ and then form a belief. Even after you do that, when you come across completely contradictory information, you need to revisit the belief again to reevaluate. This is a better strategy and one that sceptics practice. The reason your starting point is important because, given the amount of information we have on the Internet, it will be fairly easy to find supporting data for any belief you may have. Therefore it is important to start with collecting data and then form the belief instead of the other way around.

Strong Opinions Weakly Held

Having strong opinions is a leadership trait and is essential to make decisions about moving foreward. But these strong opinions should be weakly held - that is whenever contradictory information is presented, we order a revamp. I came across this from Bob Sutton’s blog - I am a big fan of his writings. This powerful idea of strong opinions weakly held and a strategy to avoid confirmation bias are 2 big cornerstones of a sound belief system. As we have seen, thanks to the brain, this type of belief system is hard to practice.

Epilog:

It must be pretty clear from the above, that our brain forces us to have confirmation bias, what do you all do to avoid it?

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Dharampal’s Beautiful Tree is a 457 page book. I have read it once before i did my last post. But for me to summarize the book accurately i need to read it at least 2 more times and i am in the middle of my 2nd pass. Meanwhile, i thought i will cover something that has been bothering me lately - my belief system. This is something i have been thinking about for atleast 20 years now. The kind of comments i have received on the history series have brought this thinking about belief systems to the fore. In other words, why should you believe what i write or more troublingly why should i believe what i believe? As i interact with so many people, i realize this is a problem that most thinking individuals grapple with. Therefore i decided to present you some of my thoughts. Given the complexity of this subject, i can only make an attempt in the hope that the highly intelligent community that congregates on this blog, will contribute and make it better. Please support me.

Barack Obama does not believe in the US National Anthem

Some of you may have seen this circulating in emails about Obama.

As an Obama supporter, this shocked me. I recalled Obama’s Rev.Wright Defense speech and this picture below in the Time magazine where Obama is seen without the hand on his heart as is the protocol.

Thankfully i have developed a habit these days - Whenever I see such emails, i make it a point to check Snopes which has been playing the exemplary role of digging up the truth. Okay, this Obama email above is false. Here is Snopes uncovering the truth for you.

Made to Stick

I chose to present an Urban Legend above because these are great examples of how easy it is to believe in the untruth. If you analyzed why I believe in it, it adhered to all the 6 principles the Heath brothers lay out in their brilliant book - Made to Stick. The email is simple covering one item, it is unexpected from a presidential candidate, it is concrete, it is credible because it ostensibly ties with Obama’s previously disclosed stances i point out above, it is emotional because the national anthem/flag are emotional issues, and it is a powerful short story.

As we have seen, there are sources like Snopes which you can use to puncture urban legends. But then not all belief issues are as simple. Before we get much further, what does the ultimate belief system look like and what does it entail?

Ability to detect Baloney

Given my general experience with myself and people that i have interacted with, there are very few people who i have come across, who have an extremely sound belief system. And rarer still seem to be people that embody the belief system in everything they do. In my view, that ultimate belief system is something Carl Sagan famously outlined in a popular book and it goes by the name -
Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit. It is a small set of principles that are easy to understand but hard to follow. In my experience, i can say that anything other than belief in God can be subjected to this kit and help test your beliefs.

Chain of Evidence

One of the key principles that Sagan outlines in the kit is - “If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work”. For instance, in the Obama example, while at the surface the email seems to be true, one can easily see that the source is not disclosed and it turns out to be a political satire someone wrote which is being passed off as authentic. Snopes also goes further and shows videos, photos of Obama respecting the flag, singing the anthem, pledge of allegiance thereby confirming the point that the photo i showed above is not the whole truth. Unfortunately, most people succumb to the seeming surface level truths because it has been presented in a made-to-stick fashion.

Sweeping Generalizations

This is another weak area for people. It seldom occurs to people that Sweeping Generalizations are the easiest to disprove. For instance, if i said <Substitute your hated ethnicity/followers of a religion> are terrorists. I only need to show one person of that ethnicity/religion that is not a terrorist as a counter example and that statement i made earlier becomes false. But it will be surprising how many people fall for these generalizations because the generalizations adhere to the Made-to-Stick code - they prey on your insecurities deep in your mind, maybe some negative experiences of yourself or near/dear, or popularly covered terrorist incidents etc.

What are your experiences with your belief system, what is hard to do for you?

I will cover next week, how our brain conspires against having the ultimate belief system. That is a critically important consideration because without understanding how belief systems work neuroscientifically, our ability to get closer to the ultimate belief system will be very hard.

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Chain of Evidence
First, I have to debunk some ill-conceived notions about science & formal medicine. Science does not dismiss unproven healing methods, ideas or experiences right away. It systematically looks for evidence in an unbiased manner - and then, based on the outcome, chooses to support (or oppose) the proposed idea. Most importantly, it also tries to reproduce the reported success of the healing method - after understanding the conditions under which it manifests itself.

Science is not just based on experiments & personal observation. Several scientists have predicted outcomes thru Math, theories & repeating patterns - well before any evidence could be found. Mendeleev predicted the characteristics of several elements before they were discovered. Einstein dreamed up his Theories of Relativity first, proved it next. It was possible for him to do that because - he knew all the facts & principles leading to it.

Which brings us to “Chain of Evidence”, one of the corner-stones of science. Every new earth-shaking theory is like a chain of concepts, proven data points or experiments. For the final link in the chain (i.e., the new theory) to be correct, every link in the chain should be correct. How can we ensure that every chain in our reasoning is correct? By relying on scientific methods.

Quacks shouldn’t be taken seriously because - They are unable prove any/most of the links in their thinking. Their basic premises veer far from scientifically accepted principles. It is no surprise then that their theories are heckled by established scientific institutions the world over. They only seem to succeed in the public domain because - the general populace has very little knowledge on science. This means the charlatans have a field day & continue their vaudeville act.

Science is “Too Narrow”
I have a problem with squawking popinjays that claim their pet theories are 100% scientific, but when pressed for proof - throw a hissy fit, accuse everyone of being narrow minded & start ranting about how science is useless to understand the nuances in life. They may also say that science hasn’t “caught up” with them. Possibly & I hope it never does.

This double-speak gives me conniption fits. I just wish they’ll answer some simple questions, so that I can stop the woozy feeling in my head.

1. Folks - Your claims are either scientific or not. Make up your mind. Which is it?

2. If you think science is inadequate to explain your technique, why do you use scientific terms to explain it?

3. If you truly believe in what you say - Why do you resist all attempts by the scientific community to independently theorize, conceptualize, measure or analyze your claims & report findings?

4. If you think science is ill equipped to prove the veracity of you claims - How in the blazes did you conclude that your claims are scientific in the 1st place?

And finally - Narrating one anecdote after another is called “hearsay” - its not the same as providing verifiable supporting evidence.

Appeal to Authority
Since most people are not savvy about science, quacks get their attention easily by invoking the names of authority figures. Check if they make references to Tesla, Bohr, Farraday or other dead scientists - who can’t even whimper their protests from their grave. Such “Dead Scientists Societies” are very useful, since even lay-people know their names.

Like most crooks, quacks are getting smarter & smarter. Sadly, the same can’t be said about their victims. Tricksters usually play “Star Trek” by “cloaking” their shlock in scientific jargon like “Energy Fields”, “Molecular Clusters” & “Quantum Vibrations”. They’ll explain all these concepts admirably, but fail to explain scientifically how any of them have a bearing on the pseudo-scientific geegaw that they are selling. By juxtaposing their ideas with valid science, these nutters hope that a smidgen of the respect you have for physics will rub off on the sleaze that they are selling. They also hope fervently that this new-found respect will make you swallow all your questions & start believing them.

Excusez moi, but me thinks that it stinks

Let me illustrate with some scintillating giberish that I’ve encountered. “During healing, the brain wave patterns of practitioner and receiver pulse in unison with the earth’s magnetic field, known as the Schumann Resonance. During these moments, the biomagnetic field of the practitioners’ hands is at least 1000 times greater than normal, and not as a result of internal body current”. Well, that’s illuminating

Let me clutch my sides for a sec - I’m laughing so hard they are about to fall off. First of all, Schumann Resonance is “Electromagnetic” - not just “Magentic”: the berks can’t spell “Electromagnetic” yet?? Second, its a standing-wave that will manifest itself only when a lightning strike excites the cavity between the atmosphere & the earth’s crust. Third, its not some magical energy field that can be “channelized” by people - unless you want to get hit by a lightning & join the party. And lastly, maybe I’ve missed it - did you catch them providing any evidence on their healing method’s mystical connection with Schumann resonance? Other than hearsay?

See what I mean? They’ve successfully distracted people, but they still haven’t proved a thing. They invoked Winfried Schumann, just like our ancestors invoked Mitra, Indra, Dagon or Zeus - to dissuade others from bothering them. They keep lives interesting for skeptics though

We are Too Stupid
When all else fails, they attack the arguer. This is a logical fallacy called Ad Hominem - Attacking the arguer instead of the argument. As in, they may blame us for being too stupid or too rigid to understand them & the possibilities they weave out of their imaginations.

An acquaintance once told me - “You know, I can heal people over the phone! The scientific (!) principle of Remote Healing relies on both me & the patient having access to the universal energy waves around us”. I sighed - life is indeed trying for a skeptic. I asked him - “No kidding? You can send healing signals pulsating over ether?”. He didn’t see what was coming, so he proudly puffed himself up & said “Yes!”.

I asked him calmly “If that’s true, why don’t you beam your magic pulses to Africa & cure all AIDS victims?”. He went pale & made some inconsequential noises about how Africans should want to get healed first. Nonsense - As if AIDS victims love the company of the HIV virus & can’t bear to be parted from it! I snorted & nearly said “Bollocks!” - but feigned a polite silence. He was already “Checkmated with Candles & Balloons” - as my brother used to say. Well, he also blew raspberries whenever he said that - He was a rare one for capturing the gravity of a situation

Forewarned is Forearmed! My love for debunking runs deep. I may post a follow-up to this post.

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A week ago, I saw an ad on the television about a new microwave. Whirlpool India has introduced MagiCook 22C Grey 22Ltr Convection Microwave with a Micro Tawa option, which can make a Dosa, Pizza, Parathas etc. This convection microwave uses Combination cooking method which combines traditional cooking(bottom up heating) with the microwave technology for shallow frying. For the CRISP mode, it is a combination of Microwave and Grill together, when the Tawa is set to a certain power level the active layer of the dish is uniformly crisped and browned to perfection thus creating the Maillard Reaction.

I started my research to understand the basic Oven and its types.

An Oven is an enclosed compartment used for heating,baking or drying. The earliest known ovens existing in the Indus
Valley Civilization and the proper front loading ovens were used in the Ancient Greek for making breads.

Now let’s see what is the difference between Microwave Oven, Conventional Oven and Convection Oven.

A microwave oven works by passing microwave radiation through the food.A conventional oven has heat radiating from a single or multiple sources and heating the internal area of an oven and cooking your food.

A Convectional Oven uses a fan and a heating element to create air flow patterns inside the oven, thus ensures optimum browning of the food in the fastest possible time, sealing the juices and prevents drying out of meats.

Look at the picture below, let me now tell you about a Convection Microwave.

Convection microwave ovens combine a convection cooking with microwave oven to cook food with the speed of a microwave oven and browning of the convection oven. Convection microwave ovens are more costly than the regular microwave ovens.

A convection oven will have about a 25 to 30% reduction in cooking temperature, and a 21% reduction in cooking time, compared to a conventional oven. This comparison will vary, depending on factors including, for example, how much food is being cooked at once or if airflow is being restricted by using an oversized baking tray.

Convection Microwaves were initially considered to be high-end kitchen appliances. They were more expensive than a conventional oven. Over time the price of convectional microwaves has dropped and can be bought for around the same price as a conventional microwave.

Please share your experience if you have tried it already. Does it really make good dosas and Parathas? 

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{Flashback Fades In Here} Many years back, I developed a stomach ailment - Acid Reflux, to be precise. “Developed” - What a word, as if I’m a photographer working on a roll of film It was particularly severe & my doctor hyper-ventilated whenever she heard my symptoms. I had to pat her back sympathetically. She set out heart-breaking wails every time she upped my dosage. My family became woozy with worry when the doctor started bringing in interns to study my “interesting case”. So in the Winter of 2001, a relative offered to cure me thru Reiki.

“Just believe fully in my powers to cure you!” his voice fluted pleasantly. I had to lie down on the sofa & close my eyes. “Er, what happens then?” I asked, cheering up. Alternative medicine is glamorous if nothing else - so I was hoping for fancy-shmancy pyrotechnics. “I move my hands above your stomach for 10 minutes!”. “What, that’s all?” I asked, outraged. Any reader of my post knows I’m a skeptic: I was deeply suspicious of Reiki by now. I’ve swallowed enough Zantac to fell a giant, 1 of the interns opined that I had no oesophagus left & hence had no business to be alive - and this bloke thought randomly flailing his arms would cure me.

I chewed my nails for a few minutes pensively. There are many things that we don’t know. So I agreed in-principle that Reiki might work. I suspended all judgement & put myself in his hands - literally. After the session, he asked me “Did you feel your body bounce off the sofa? That usually happens during healing!” I mulled over this honestly & told him - “No”. “But, you must feel some heat on the stomach now!” he piped in, crest-fallen. “Er, my acidity keeps my stomach rather hot & lively all the time. I didn’t feel anything unusual. And I don’t feel better either” I said helpfully. “I…I can’t continue this treatment” he said nervously. “Why not? I persisted. {Flashback Fades Out Here}

The Stitch On My Side
Seriously now. I’ve been watching with increasing discomfort at how the mind-share of science is shrinking in the 21st century. Its premature to order a coffin - but educated people are ready to jump head-long into any “New Age Cure” flapdoodle. Pseudo-scientific healing methods spring up more quickly these days than mushrooms after a rain. For the record, science doesn’t brush aside anything that can’t be proven. If some form of alternative medicine is unable to show how it works, but is able to cure patients - I won’t attempt to deconstruct it. The means or the end - if neither can be shown - stop sniveling. Skeptics will jump in for the kill, with pleasure.

If you came to this site wanting to hear plaudits sung on Alternative Medicine, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I’ll explain as lucidly as possible why I don’t have a scintilla of belief in unproven methods. Now, how should we go about methodically figuring out whether an Alternative Healing technique is any good? Here are some indications that some mischief is afoot & all’s not well in Eden:

Power of Placebos
If the miracle cure says, “You’ve gotta believe in it for it to work” - That’s a clear signal that they absolve themselves of all responsibility. If the treatment didn’t work, they can always blame it on your “attitude”. If it does work, they get free word-of-mouth publicity. Either way, they win. If it works, its the “Placebo Effect” - also called “Faith Healing” - masquerading as new age jiggery-pokery.

The “Placebo Effect” is a well documented phenomenon, where the patient feels better - not because of the munificence of the treatment, but because the patient believes fully in it. Most of the benign alternative therapies work this way, by harnessing your own belief. Approximately, 35% of the people are susceptible & they feel marginally to considerably better after ingesting placebos. Pharmaceutical companies have to conduct Double-blind Experiments - Where the experimenter doesn’t know who the “Test” & “Control” subjects are. They are expected to prove that their drugs work better than “Sugar Pills” - which is what is used as placebos in their control experiments. Ergo, they have to prove that their remedies work as advertised.

Practitioners of quackery have no such obligations. What isn’t rigorously tested may not work.

Nature <> Benign
I was jawing with my hair-dresser Amy on her mom’s impending menopause. Amy said “Oh, I’ve put my mom on natural estrogen!” - She was positively beaming & looked at me like a Labrador Retriever in dire need of petting. “Ah - Excellent. But, Amy, have you checked with her doctor before starting her on this?” I asked. “B-But - Plant Estrogens are natural!!” said Amy indignantly. “Well, I wouldn’t try it without a doctor’s say-so” I persisted. “Really? Not even something Natural?” wondered Amy, banishing further thought. As far as she was concerned, that settled it.

“Well, Rattlesnake Venom & Latin American Toad Poison are natural. Hot Lava cremating us ahead of schedule is natural. A tiger chomping someone’s butt off is natural. Heck, aging & death are natural. I don’t see you queueing up for any of that!” - I said. Actually, I didn’t. My good sense prevailed. Arguing with someone wielding scissors is a no-no in my book.

Just because natural drugs don’t have “chemicals” doesn’t make them good for you. There are definitely some very beneficial natural therapies - but it would be a fallacy to think they are good because they are natural. Before you lose fistful of $$ for that natural remedy, research it for contra-indications. For all you know, it may be a poison. Or, it may interact with other drugs that you take.

Weasel Words
Look for “Weasel Words”, the Lingua Franca of quacks. The advertiser may manipulate you by hiding behind ambiguity, by being dodgy, shifty & crafty. Stated simply, you can’t accuse them of being straight arrows Examples are:

1. “Studies done by leading doctors prove this!!!” - Which doctors did this study? Who determined they are “leading”? Who commissioned the study?
2. “It has been well accepted that our capsule gives excellent results!!!” - Accepted by whom? Define “Excellence” in terms of relief - 10%, 20% - What?
3. “90% of the people saw improvement after our electro-static massage!!!” - How many people were studied? How many times was this study repeated? “Improvement” is an ambiguous word - How did the subjects feel 1, 3 or 6 months after the treatment?

Such claimants hope that you won’t poke your nose & demand specifics. If their treatment is so good, why don’t they get an FDA certification? Or, publish their findings before an August committee of doctors, who can independently verify their claims? You’d think they’ll be making a beeline to present their therapy & win the Nobel! If their claims are true, they will. On the other hand, if they are liars & cheats, they have every reason to avoid peer reviews.

“Ancient Therapy” Ploys
Some of you may now say, “There are age old cures that work, you git!”. Granted, there are some ancient therapies that work. Neem extracts, Tea Tree Oil (good for nail fungus ; for the nail, I mean - not the fungus), Vajradanti Tooth Powder, Candied ginger for nausea - its a long list. Most - not all - of these cures were arrived upon by the ancient people after repeated experimentation & observation. That’s the basis of science.

But, before using any “ancient” therapy, check how old it really is. Reiki for e.g., is touted as an ancient therapy - if you consider “150 years old” ancient So, to get public benediction, a shyster simply needs to state that their therapy is based “On the Ancient Wisdom of Japan/China/Tibet/India”. Poor Iraq, Iran & Egypt. They have older cultures, but they haven’t managed to capture sufficient woo-woo mind-share.

Please note that modern practitioners of ancient therapies make marked departures from the proscribed medical texts! Some acupuncturists for e.g. - pass a mild current thru the needles. I may be wrong, but something tells me that electricity wasn’t freely available 1000 years back Still think its based on “age old” wisdom?

Some of the ancient therapies - we know now - are extremely harmful. Certain Ayurvedic medicines use Antimony compounds - and they are as toxic as Arsenic. Semi-literate people scoop, pound & package these chemicals cheerfully. What, they are gonna exercise special precaution because you are buying? Improper synthesis of such drugs can kill you. Per Ayurvedic texts, these compounds should be fired at a certain temperature to lose their toxicity. And no qualified person is regulating all this. If someone is dead set (pun intended) in popping these pills, I’ll get some for them

Summing Up
Consider this - There’s no money in skepticism & cart-loads in mumbo-jumbo. Who is more likely to gip you? Me or them? I have to catch my breath - None of us is getting younger & I’m totally winded out after all this pontificating.

Whenever I exhibit my inner skeptic, I get hate mail from people, threatening a punch in my solar plexus - and I didn’t know I had this “solar” gimcrack If I’m not killed or maimed - and otherwise feel reasonably alive & limping, I’ll pen a follow-up post on how quacks abuse science to confound people & sell more of their tripe.

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