The War On Bullshit

The recent swell of support for US Presidential candidate Ron Paul is astounding. And I can see why: he’s anti-war, anti-torture, anti-taxes and anti-government-screwing-with-individuals. In other words, he’s not a sadistic, subhuman, nut-job radical like Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney. But when you probe a little deeper, and I just mean read the Wikipedia entry on his positions, you might be vexed. Here are 10 disturbing political positions of Ron Paul.

For: Constitutionalism

While I think most would agree that ignoring your county’s constitution like the Bush Administration is a bad idea, being a staunch constitutionalist is equally dangerous because the constitution is an historical document that gets out of date. Sensible countries rewrite their constitutions once in a while, but we all know the USA is not a sensible country. Doesn’t it seem reasonable that some things that made sense centuries ago might not make sense anymore?

For: Gun Ownership

The arguments for gun ownership are bogus. In the U.S., the second amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” For you gun-happy rednecks out there, I’ll try to put this simply: Since a well regulated Militia is no longer necessary for U.S. security, the right to bear arms must be re-evaluated. As for the “I have the right to defend my family argument,” has it occurred to anyone that if the bad guys think you have a gun, they’re a lot more likely to shoot you then if you they think you’re unarmed? Increasing the number of armed civilians does not act as a deterrent, it just escalates the cycle of violence. I dare you to show me just one scientific study that shows that having a gun will deter a crackhead from robbing you. There is just no evidence that people are safer in a gun-toting society, and it’s no good to point at safe gun-happy societies because that does not show causality.

Against: Federal Department of Education

I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but the US education system SUCKS. I don’t give a damn whether the constitution says education is a state matter, the system is broken and needs to be fixed. Education is a global concern so I don’t see why it can’t be addressed at the national level. While I agree that this No Child Left Behind thing is a joke, that’s no reason to scrap federal education programs.

Against: Separation of Church and State

Now this is just stupid. Tolerant Christian society is an oxymoron. Religions are intolerant by nature: they set out a bunch of rules, supposedly derived from God, and then do not tolerate violations. Besides, if the church is going to have some say in government, which church will it be? Catholic? Anglican? Methodist? Mormon? Quaker? How about all of the above? How the hell is that supposed to work? What about the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs? They have just as much right to vote and participate in the pseudodemocracy as the Christians? Why not throw in a few reps from the Church of Scientology? If Tom Cruise could speak in the senate at least the viewership might improve; we’ll just need to bring in a couch.

Religion has no place in politics. Religion plus politics equals the crusades, witch trials, persecution of minorities, subjugation of women and laws against blow jobs. Oh it all sounds good with all the talk of God loving you and a few days off for Christmas, but wait until you get a few laws against birth control, premarital sex and oral. Then see how you like.

For: Voluntary School Prayer

Ron Paul says if people want to pray in school, let them. That sounds good right? Wrong. Allowing prayer in school will quickly stigmatize anyone who does not pray when their classes do. This facilitates the brainwashing of children into a particular religion. If you inculturate a child into a religion before the child has fully developed critical thinking skills, freedom of religion (or freedom of thought for that matter) is impossible. This is precisely how Islamic terrorists are developed. I suppose you rednecks out there somehow figure that brainwashing children into Islam is bad, but brainwashing them into your religion is OK. Would it surprise you to learn that many Muslims think the same thing?

Libertarianism

A libertarian (like Ron Paul) is someone who believes that everyone should be free to do as they please, as long as they don’t interfere with the rights of others. This has some cool consequences, like how corporations would not be permitted to pollute the air or neighboring properties. Unfortunately, Libertarians generally promote free market capitalism. A simple thought experiment shows why this is folly: the free market treats everyone fairly in the sense that everyone can bid their money, goods and services for the money goods and services of others, e.g., if you want police protection or medical care, you can pay for it. The problem is that not everyone can bid, particularly children and people who have not yet been born. Thus, under a free market structure, future generations are subjected to the myopic despotism of the current generation. Because the impacts of environmental destruction are long term, the people who will be most affected can’t bid (they’re children or not yet born), and environmental impacts are undervalued by the free market. The underlying assumptions of free market capitalism are quite obviously invalid.

For: Privatized (Free Market) Health Care

Privatizing healthcare is evil. Here’s just one reason: children born to rich parents get good care, and children born to poor parents get no care. Would anyone like to stand up and argue that the medical care provided to a sick child should be determined by the income of its parents? I didn’t think so.

Against: abortion

Opposition to late term abortion I understand. Opposition to early abortion I do not. If life begins at the moment of conception, then practically every woman who is trying to conceive is a mass murderer because not all eggs attach. This doesn’t make sense. Why don’t people understand that when a woman doesn’t want a baby, there’s usually a damn good reason?

Pragmatically speaking, abortion is beneficial to society. Economist Stephen Levitt (author of Freakonomics) became famous for showing that the legalization of abortion caused the rapid decrease in crime in the US in the late 90s. Moreover, one of the greatest threats to the continuation of the human species is overpopulation, so a few less babies is probably a good thing.

For: Withdrawal from the United Nations

I cannot fathom why Ron Paul wants out of the UN. Someone please enlighten me so I can annihilate the argument.

For: Federal Regulation of Marriage

Why is it that Ron Paul wants to get rid of federal regulation of education, taxes and Homeland Security and just about everything else, but not marriage? Why is it that Ron Paul thinks people should be able to do what they like, unless they’re Gay? Same sex marriage does not interfere with anyone’s rights, so how in the hell can a self-confessed libertarian be against it? This doesn’t make any sense, unless Ron Paul is just anti-gay.

Conclusion

Come to think of it, I don’t think there’s anything in the U.S. constitution that denounces hate speech, Nazism, burning a cross on a black person’s lawn, bribing a judge or child pornography. Do you endorse these things Ron Paul? If not, why should we have laws about child porn but not prayer in schools? Child porn is a bad thing, but religious brainwashing of children leads to ethnocentrism, terrorism, global conflict, persecution of women and gays and countless murders. Not even child porn can compete with that for evil.

How do you make up your mind, Dr. Paul, when the constitution doesn’t comment? Can’t you see the terrible consequences of massive deregulation in a country full of radicals, rednecks, racists, right wing whackos, warmongers and Bill O’Reilly?

To all you Ron Paul supporters, are you sure this is where your country ought to go?

On to Part Two –>

Do you know someone who has cancer and her treatment isn’t working? Do you know someone on psychiatric meds who is experiencing weird side effects? Do you know a business owner who’s struggling with decisions like whether to invest in high-tech equipment? Doctors are overworked and MBAs are poorly trained. If you want answers you’ve got to read the research yourself. The problem is, half of it is bullshit, and it’s really hard to tell which half.

When a paper is submitted to a good journal, a lot of smart people have at it with the academic equivalent of a howitzer. If it survives to be published, you’d think all the bugs would be worked out. Unfortunately, not all research is peer-reviewed, and reviewers tend to miss or tolerate certain weaknesses. While this is often understood by the scientific community, it can confuse the bejesus out of Joe Average.

If you’re an average person, and you need to make sense out of scientific papers, this guide is for you. If you are a science journalist and you have fewer than six graduate level research methods courses, maybe you ought to read this as well. Hell, if you got a PhD and didn’t take methods for some reason, here’s hoping this helps.

1. Is the paper in a high-quality, peer-reviewed journal?

If the “research” you have is not in a journal, be very, very wary. Sometimes good research is published in books, but be careful. The kind of research I’m talking about is done by scientists. Journalists and government officials are not scientists. Reports commissioned by government departments are (usually) not scientific.

Coming back to research published in journals, go to the journal’s webpage. Don’t worry if it’s a crappy webpage. Look for the word’s “peer-reviewed” and “acceptance rate.” If the journal is not peer reviewed or has an acceptance rate over 20%, that’s bad. You can also google the Journal’s “impact factor.” Higher is better. If you think it’s a bad journal, don’t even read the paper. If the journal is good, it means most of your work has been done for you; however, a journal’s reviewers tend to miss or tolerant certain kinds of errors that you still have to watch out for.

The same line of reasoning applies to conference proceedings. Since some fields, such as human-computer interaction, publish much of their best work in conferences, these can be excellent sources of research. However, you should only look at good, peer-reviewed conferences with low acceptance rates.

2. Who financed the study?

If whoever financed the study had something to gain from the results, don’t trust it! This is especially important in drug trials because these are often done by the drug companies who are explicitly trying to show that the drug is safe and effective. A single independent study to the contrary should be given just as much weight as all the Big Pharma studies promoting the drug combined.

Sometimes this is more subtle. A lot of research on security and drugs, for instance, is politically motivated. If a government funds a study to show that marijuana is dangerous, and the results show the opposite, things can get hairy.

3. What kind of study is it?

You have to evaluate different kinds of studies differently. Some of the kinds of studies you’re likely to encounter are: experiments, surveys, mathematical models, meta-analysis and qualitative studies. You should evaluate each of these differently.

Experiments

If the article talks about treatment groups and control groups, it’s probably an experiment. Reviewers are very good at checking that the experiment is correctly designed and the results well-interpreted, so you don’t have to worry about that. What you have to really watch out for is who participated in the study. If a drug trial was done on 100 white women, and you are a black man, the results might not apply to you. If you are a professional programmer with 20 years’ experience, the results of a study on 2nd year undergrad computer science students might not apply to you.

Surveys

If the article talks about a large number of people filling out a questionnaire online, on paper, by telephone or in person, it’s probably a survey. Reviewers are very good at making sure that the questionnaire is correctly designed and the analysis is done right, but look out for causality! Usually questionnaires argue that X causes Y, but only show that X is correlated with Y.

For instance, suppose a study claims that, for corporations, acting ethically (X) causes increased profits (Y). The study than gives evidence that a random sample of very profitable companies act more ethically than a random sample of unprofitable companies. That’s nice and all, but how do you know that it’s not the other way around? That being profitable (Y) causes the firm to act more ethically (X) because more people are watching? How about having really smart managers (Z) causes both X and Y?

When evaluating a survey that claims X causes Y, ask yourself if there are alternative explanations that the authors did not rule out.

Mathematical Models

If a paper starts with a set of assumptions and logically (usually with symbols rather than words) or mathematically derives a conclusion, I call it a mathematical model study. The good news is, you don’t have to worry much about the math or logic because the reviewers will be studying that quite closely. What you really have to watch out for are the assumptions, especially hidden assumptions.

Just read over the assumptions and think about them. Do they make sense? My favorite example is rationality. We have enormous evidence that while people may be capable of rationality, they don’t use that capability most of the time. If the paper includes assumptions that don’t hold in your case, there’s no reason to believe the paper’s results will apply to you either.

Meta-Analysis

A meta-analysis summarizes the results of many studies. Usually these are a great place to start when you’re new to a field. Unfortunately, they have one serious danger: they’re only as good as the studies they summarize. In a field with a diversity of good and bad studies, the author of a meta-analysis will usually sort out the mess for you. However, some fields, like economics and computer science, suffer from systematic methodological problems. In other words, if the whole field is screwed up, the meta-analysis probably will be as well. My only advice is, don’t just read a meta analysis.

Qualitative Studies

Qualitative research comes in many shapes and sizes. Some is presented in a highly structured way; some is written like a story. A qualitative paper describes a study within a particular context, coming to conclusions about that context, not your context. As you read the study, ask yourself how your context differs from the study’s context. After you’ve read the conclusions, ask yourself if any of the differences matter. For example, if the study is about the decision making process of a clothing retailer, and you’re in the office supplies business, the change of product may not matter.

4. Is it theory building or theory testing

Last thing you have to ask of a paper is, did the paper test a theory or merely propose one? This is usually obvious, but sometimes theory building papers masquerade as theory testing papers. As a general heuristic, put the more faith in theory testing, less faith in “exploratory studies” and very little faith in papers that propose a theory but do not give empirical evidence. While this last type is an important step in the scientific process, it’s like an experimental drug: not yet certified for human consumption.

Concluding Comments

One last thing that confuses many readers (not to mention science journalists) is the difference between “finding no evidence of a relationship” and “finding evidence of no relationship.” Journalists often write things like ‘so-and-so concludes that drug X is not effective.’ This is almost never correct. Very few scientific papers ever conclude that two things are unrelated (e.g., a drug doesn’t work). Experiments and surveys just aren’t set up that way.

I hope this guide helps you make sense of scientific papers.

Until every citizen of a nation,
is educated in the methods,
their leaders can use,
to manipulate their beliefs, feelings and desires,
morality is impossible.
Rationality Is Impossible
DEMOCRACY Is IMPOSSIBLE.

FREEDOM. IS. IMPOSSIBLE.

Inspired by The Shock Doctrine: