Beware of the unicorns

This blog mainly covers technology issues and various science. Being trained as a scientist, the world is an immensely complex place with interconnections between various forces in ways within and even beyond human understanding. Our understanding of science and the world is ever evolving. I often see an over simplified line of thinking that appears in religion, philosophy and politics that runs against the concept of complexity and that events are a culmination of many small factors. Even more disturbing, it sometimes appears in various lines of academic thought.



The construct of this over simplification depends on having one entity to blame a multitude of events upon. This powerful entity, whether is be a political or religious group, is often the rival to the organization a member who expresses this line of thought belongs. The mock example below demonstrates how this line of thinking works. I am going to use will use the most dangerous of all creatures, the flatulent unicorn or unicorns for short. The following part of this post will give a problem facing society and how this line of thought works in response.



Cause 1:

Everywhere you look there are too many rainbow colored items and it drives me crazy!

Solution 1:

The unicorns encourage such colorful mythological images from antiquity.



Problem 2:

Many people have their heads in the clouds thinking about fictitious ideas and stories.

Cause 2:

Unicorns are a source of escapism into an ideal world.



Problem 3:

Americans spent too much money accumulating massive amounts of debt they can never pay off.

Cause 3:

Unicorns encourage this through construction of an idealistic world which is accessible to everyone. Spend the money you don't have so you can live in this fantasy world! It is okay.



Problem 4:

People don't spend enough time being productive.

Cause 4:

The unicorns demonstrate the world is a great place without need for hard work. Go ahead and slack off.



Cause 5:

People don't believe in the one true religion any more.

Cause 5:

The mythological world of the unicorn is corrupting people's minds through false religious imagery.



Problem 6:

People are not active in the correct political party any more.

Cause 6:

Unicorn stories demonstrate that things always work out for the best and no action is required. Wish for good things and they will occur!

The solution for problems 1-6, kill the unicorns and eliminate all references!

The list goes on and on and on. Don't get fooled for this line of thinking. It demonstrates a lack of critical thinking about issues. Extremist groups dwell on this kind of thinking blaming one group for all of the world's ills.

Religion and science

We as scientists often like to believe that we are truly neutral in evaluating experimental data and theories. Reams of legitimate literature exists that remains relatively neutral in results discussion, always giving several explanations to experimental outcomes. Unfortunately, literature appears that is driven by philosophical or religious (the two concepts are the same) motivations and are not true scientific inquiry. This kind of literature embarrasses the entire scientific community, invalidates the studies within this biased literature and creates mass public confusion.

This post is about one poorly written book from the vegan philosophy camp, The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M Campbell II. I started reading the book and made it through the 4th chapter before giving up. Obviously biased information within the first 81 pages is enough to repudiate anything else within the book.

First, the book is written by a father/son team. This immediately casts a shadow on the results. Why do you need your son to coauthor a book? I will tell you why. No other respectable scientist who needs a careers would put his/her name on such a piece of work.

Second, and more importantly, is science depends upon addressing other findings from within the scientific community and giving appropriate responses to their theories. The author talks about other scientists not giving "open-minded" intercourse to his ideas. This "open-minded" discussion runs two ways and there lies the problem. Everyone is supposed to just accept his simplified animal based protein is the cause of Western disease theory as a fact. Other scientific views backed by years of research are not relevant. Campbell even arrogantly makes the comment in Chapter 1,

....we scientists focus on details while ignoring the larger context. For example we pin our efforts on and our hopes on one isolated nutrient at a time, whether it is vitamin A to prevent cancer or vitamin E to prevent heart attacks. We oversimplify and disregard the infinite complexity of nature.

This entire book is a simplification of three studies stating that animal based protein is the cause of all degenerative diseases like heart disease and cancer (referred to as Western disease). What makes your simplistic idea any better than other scientist's? Did God have a direct communication with you? This is double-speak my friends and shows tremendous bias towards a philosophical idea.

Third, the book's premise are based upon experiments that lack any serious analysis. I could personally rip each of the poorly executed experiments to shreds, but for brevity sake they all have one conclusion without any thorough discussion. Thousands of factors could lead to the found results like nutrition, genetics and other biological mechanisms instead of one simple answer, his anti-meat explanation. This saddens me the most, because anything useful to be gained from the various studies was wasted among the dishonest conclusions. Other deep flaws litter the experiprocedures. It raises a further question, are the results repeatable?

Finally, the author contradicts himself in Chapter 4. The basic premise I outlined in an early blog posting, Supplementing what?, is long term veganism is not found in any large human populations worldwide. It results in malnourishment from lack of certain vitamins and minerals. Poor health is the result. Of course he could not find one of these vegans for his study (they would not live long enough), but he goes on to attack the closest thing. He describes one of his studies' subjects in China as consuming about 1/10 the amount of animal protein than in American diets and his results were on page 80,

We expected that when animal protein consumption an d blood cholesterol were as low as they are in rural China, there would be no further association with Western diseases. But we were wrong.

Maybe the exclusive cause of "Western disease" is not animal protein consumption?

I will stop here because I could fill several posts on this horrendous book. What I am pointing out is sometimes science is distorted with the purpose to sway a select audience. Often, it is for religious or philosophical reasons. In worst case scenarios, it is for outright fraud. In both cases, it is unethical.

Luck or skill?

This post is going to discuss a little of my philosophy on life. The debate about someone being truly lucky or creating their own luck through certain behaviors, i.e. skill or talent associated with hard work. This an open ended question and forgive me for this post's length. Personally, I believe it is a combination of both.

One point I want to initially make is about a certain trait that will make any and all forms of luck or skill meaningless, self-destructive individuals. Many individuals end up unnecessarily losing opportunity or squandering gains through their own actions. Often these actions are found in antisocial behavior, laziness, substance abuse, self-absorption, disregard for all rules and my favorite, chronic denial. All people have weaknesses, but most people keep their weakness in check. Win the lottery and spend every penny the following day on illicit items is not going to help any one's situation. No amount of luck or skill would end with a net gain if squandering through anti-productive behavior. What causes individuals to be self-destructive is a topic beyond this post.

Let us start with an argument for those who use skill and talent to make their own luck. In most professions, there is a minimal skill set requirement to practice. In professional sports, an individual needs to be an outstanding athlete. Musicians are musically gifted. Writers are good with language. Politicians are good at debate. In my profession, engineers need a knack for mathematics before even beginning core curriculum. It can then be argued that the best in any given field rises to the top through possession of greater skills in comparison to the pack. In our egalitarian society the best of best will find a way to achieve. From the poorest of neighborhoods up to leader of the pack. Capitalism at its best! I would like to believe this, as many of us were taught as children, "You can do any thing when you grow up." Rags to riches stories occur, but it is not that common. Hard work brought a better life, but many of their poor cohort with undeveloped talent never improved their lot in life. Here is where the skill exclusively brings success argument fails. If skill was the only reason why individuals succeed, the top tiers in all professions would have an equal representation of our society. Most of us know, this is not true.

It is an obvious statement to say that the wealthier classes have a greater representation in the higher paying professions: medical doctors, lawyers, stock brokers and corporate executive positions. Entrance into the bottom rung positions require at minimum an undergraduate college degree. Medical doctors and lawyers require advanced degrees. These all take money. If a high school student has mediocre grades, enough money and some private college would enroll them. The same deal applies if the student faces dismissal. Donate to the alumni groups. When the lackluster student eventually graduates, contact an old friend of the family who owes a favor. I could go on and on. One book of interest on this topic is The Millionaire Next Door. The vast majority of people are not wealthy. They vast majority does not possess the money or contacts. It is easy to say that skill or luck do not apply to the wealthy. I disagree. Those who are born into the privileged classes are lucky in the material sense. For any one who has the opportunity to enter a desired career, the luck was obtained from birth status or situation.

Let's be more arbitrary. Take two white, male, middle class, US citizens finishing their equivalent undergraduate degrees from a university with similar grades. Why does one end of as CEO of a company and the other at bottom of the corporate ladder? Let us say both graduates have their greatest strength as being sociable, well liked fellas. For our example, one graduate ends up being a computer programmer (grad A) and the other as a salesman (grad B). Both positions have similar potential for advancement. Grad A may do well at his programming position, but his greatest strength is not utilized. He may be capable in his work requiring skill, but his greatest attribute remains untapped. Now grad B as a salesman takes his position and excels as his greatest attribute is a vital part in his job. He becomes the best among his peers and moves on up the corporate ladder. Grad B was lucky to land the right position in comparison to grad A. Even if both grads take sales positions, many lucky characteristics take play such as a good company with upward mobility. Avoiding any devastating unlucky event (layoffs, illness) is itself a form of luck. The luck factor kicks in as an opportunity to use an individual's talents or skills.

Personally, I believe a combination of hard work and luck creates success in any endeavor. Hard work allows one to develop talents and skills leading to success. Hard work is vital, not optional. Luck on the other hand opens the doors to opportunity. Without opportunity to utilize talent, success will not follow.