Fringe and Pseudoscience

One of the things we emphasized in the last section is the way that science tends to undermine our desire to make clear cut distinctions that correspond to our normative aims.  Recall, for example, Dennett’s point that gradual development of a human fetus provides no reason for thinking that there is a distinct moment when the soul enters the body, i.e., when the fetus becomes an actual person.  Science has no respect for the fact that we wish to judge actions as right or wrong, people as good or evil, events as caused either by A or by B.  The world it investigates is just too complicated and subtle to be modeled by such simple-minded ideas.

Interestingly, this manifests in thinking about science itself, specifically in the desire to characterize forms of inquiry as either scientific or unscientific.  The fact is that there are many practices that lie on the border between science and pseudoscience, and sometimes these borderline disciplines bear fruit.

Distinguishing Science from Pseudoscience
by Barry L. Beyerstein

This is a long article, but much of it reviews aspects of scientific method and objectivity we covered in earlier articles.  What’s new here is the attempt to codify pseudoscience.  Basically, we are inclined to characterize a field as pseudoscientific when it mimics science in a way that falls way short of accepted methods of verification, specifically in subjecting itself to the experimental conditions of double-blind randomized trials, falsifiability, and repeatability by other researchers in the field.

Beyerstein notes that while there are some examples of fringe thinkers whose work the scientific establishment was slow to acknowledge, this isn’t the result of a problem in science but a virtue, namely institutional skepticism.  

In a footnote on page 6 Beyerstein notes the example of Wegner’s theory of continental drift, which was regarded as ridiculous at the time it was proposed in 1911.  This is often represented as an example of the irrational and close-minded nature of the scientific establishment.  However, in 1911 the theory was particularly implausible.  This is because neither Wegner not anyone else could propose a plausible mechanism by which something as big as a continent could be moved.  The idea that the continents themselves rest on plates which are moved when the earth’s magma rises and cools at their borders was not well-understood until 60 years later, which is when the theory of plate tectonics won provisional acceptance.

Some examples of pseudoscience

Pseudoscience in Biology

Lysenkoism in the USSR.

•	Lysenko endorsed a Lamarckian theory of inheritance (the idea that acquired characteristics can  be passed on genetically) long after Darwin’s theory of evolution had been established, and it was officially endorsed by Stalin’s government both because of its political correct stand that against genetic determinism and because Lysenko himself was a popular head of the department of agriculture.  The term “Lysenkoism” now means political interference with scientific inquiry, and it is often used in reference to the current administrations alleged attempts to change the wording of scientific reports on the status of stem cell and climate change research.

Scientific Creationism

•	Scientific Creationism (SC) and the less extreme Intelligent Design Theory (ID) offer themselves as alternative empirical counts of cosmological and biological evolution.  They are both pseudoscientific in the simple sense that neither view is capable of generating any sort of testable consequence.  By contrast, Darwin’s theory of evolution made an enormous number of predictions ranging from the approximate age of the earth to a molecular basis for inheritance and random mutation, none of which were known at the time it was proposed.

Pseudoscience in Physics

Beyerstein notes several different pseudoscientific enterprises in physics, like cereology, perpetual motion, etc. 

He also discusses the 1989 cold fusion debacle in which two respected chemists (Pons and Fleishman) claimed to have achieved a controlled nuclear fusion reaction under very low temperature conditions in a chemistry lab.  However, you’ll notice that this is not represented as pseudoscientific activity.  Scientists attempted to reproduce the results, failed, and explained the original results as misinterpretation of certain ambiguous data.  Pons and Fleishman did not continue to claim that they had produced cold fusion or that they been ignored or abused by the scientific establishment.

Pseudoscience in Medicine

There is, of course a lot of scientific bogosity in medicine, as people suffering from pain and disease are particularly susceptible to believing in it.  Some of the standard examples are:

Homeopathy

•	The theory of Homeopathy is fairly straightforward and theoretically falisifiable.  The basic idea is that maladies can be cured by the introduction of weakened forms of the agent that causes the condition.  Homeopaths talk about the “principle of similars” according to which “like cures like”.  This is not an entirely bogus idea, since it’s basically how immunization works.  But the immune response to a weakened form of a pathogen isn’t because it is following a general homeopathic principle.

Chiropractic

•	Chiropractic medicine is another interesting case.  The theory of chiropractic medicine is pretty much entirely discredited.  It is based on the idea that disease is caused by blocked neural pathways and that manipulating and realigning the skeleton also restores the neural pathways to proper functioning.  Although none of this has any physiological credibility ( Beyerstein points out that the theory was developed by a grocer, but this isn’t really relevant) chiropractors do help patients who are suffering from back pain, etc., because the joint manipulation they do helps to restore a greater range of motion.  (Physical therapists do the same thing.)

The Placebo response

There are many other bogus and borderline medical practices discussed in this article, like acupuncture, herbology etc.  The important thing to understand is that some of these treatments probably do work some of the time (which is often all that can be said for many FDA approved treatments), but when subject to controlled double-blind studies most of them do not work any better than a placebo, which means that they probably functioning as placebos for the most part.

It’s important to understand that placebo response is real.  People actually do recover from pain and even disease, usually at a relatively low rate, when given an inert substance, as long as they do not know it is inert.  Placebo surgeries have even been demonstrated to be just as effective at relieving pain as quite complicated arthroscopic surgeries to remove cartilage, bone chips, etc. as long as the patients believe they have been operated on. (This is obviously raises some interesting moral questions.)

The placebo response is often dismissed as merely psychological, but that doesn’t capture the reality of what is going on.  The fact is that nobody really knows how the placebo response works.

The fact that virtually every agent brings with it a placebo response is why its essential to conduct studies in which a particular therapy is being tested for its effectiveness, by comparing it to the effectiveness of a placebo.  The fact that 15% of patients actually benefit from a particular therapy T is not good news, if 25% get better with a placebo, for example.  It would suggest that T actually has an inhibitory effect on the placebo response.

Pseudoscience in Psychology

Memory enhancement

•	Memory enhancement, often aided by hypnosis, has been used to help people recall childhood sexual abuse, alien abduction, etc.  This is a highly problematic area insofar as the ease of implanting vivid and utterly false memories with simple suggestion techniques has been clinically established for decades.

Parapsychology

•	Parapsychology is actually a really fascinating grey area.  There is a huge amount of nonsense research conducted in the area of paranormal psychological abilities, but there is nothing inherently nonsensical about the idea that people have special sensory abilities, and these hypotheses are easily subject to rigorously controlled experimentation.  There actually have been some interesting experiments done in which some statistically significant evidence has been collected.  Of particular interest is a fringe telepathy research named Rupert Sheldrake.

Characteristics of pseudoscience

Most of the characteristics of pseudoscience are just the opposites of what we have already characterized as good science: neutrality, falsifiability, repeatability, etc.  Most of it comes along with some sort of conspiracy or hegemony allegations with respect to the scientific establishment.  

Beyerstein notes that pseudoscience tends to be involved in purveying comforting beliefs (hence violating neutrality constraints.)  For example:

•	Healing can be effected painlessly and without effort.
•	Talent can be acquired instantaneously.
•	The simple beliefs you’re instinctively attracted to are really true.
•	The future is easily known by certain special people or methods.
•	You have unlimited power to achieve.
•	You can live forever.

Of course, it’s problematic to dismiss claims like this out of hand just because they are comforting.  Some of these goals are worthy; the point is just that they are unlikely to be achieved by inscrutable methods. 

The Appeal of Alternative Medicine
by James Alcock

Alcock begins by observing what we have just been discussing:
Despite the astonishing advances made by medical science — gene therapy, MRI and PET scans, organ transplants, vaccines, laser therapy and many others — the popularity of ‘alternative,’ non-scientific and pseudoscientific therapies is mushrooming. Amongst them are: chiropractic with its root belief in a vital energy field that runs through the spine; homeopathy, which presumes that a substance that produces symptoms resembling those of a particular disease will cure that same disease when taken in vanishingly small quantities; naturopathy, with its conviction that the body is self-healing and only requires the requisite amounts of sunlight, air, water, nutrition and massage in order to overcome illness; aromatherapy, based on the presumed healing power of certain oils; craniosacral therapy, in which the balance and flow of a supposed craniosacral ‘rhythm’ are put into good order by the manipulations of the therapist; acupuncture, through which obstructions to the flow of a ‘vital energy field’ in the body are supposedly removed; therapeutic touch, in which the ‘life energy field’ of the patient is manipulated by massaging the air some centimetres above the body — a technique now taught in many nursing schools! 

He then attempts to answer the question why these sorts of things remain appealing, despite the paucity of their effectiveness.  Treating the question historically, he notes that it is only fairly recently that scientifically based methods have produced satisfactory results.  It wasn’t until 1910 that the United States accepted a standardized approach to medical training based mostly on scientific research.

Probably the most important, if simple, point Alcock makes in this article is that “when modern medicine offers safe, reliable treatments, people overwhelmingly opt for them.”  

Very few would seek cataract treatment from alternative therapists when science-based medicine does such a good job. No one goes to a chiropractor to fix a broken leg. As it has been throughout history, people turn to therapies based in supernatural or magical or pseudoscientific beliefs only when conventional medicine does not respond to their needs. However, and this is important, those needs often go beyond narrow medical needs. 
This suggests that wherever people are experimenting with so-called alternative methods, it is because science-based medicine simply isn’t offering them anything much better.  Alcock identifies a variety of factors that influence people to try alternative therapies:

1. Disaffection with dehumanized, technology-dominated medicine. 
2. Disaffection with power-based medicine. 
3. Fear that the cure may be worse than the disease. 
4. Information overload and confusion.  The problem of the “worried well”.
5. They seem to work. 
Regarding this point, Alcock tells a very illuminating story about being treated in China for severe laryngitis
In 1988 while visiting China as part of a group on a speaking tour, I developed severe laryngitis, to the extent that I could barely speak. We had spent a week in Beijing, which was beset by smog at the time, and were about to leave that city and visit other centres in China. I was anxious to obtain some treatment for my throat before leaving, and as a result ended up in the outpatient clinic at the main Beijing Hospital. After a brief medical examination, the physician wrote out a prescription, which was filled in the hospital pharmacy. I received two medications, each labelled in Chinese and English. The first was for Erythromycin, an antibiotic. The second was for Shedan Chuanbeiye, described on the label as ‘Snake Bile and Tendril-leaved Fritillary Bulb Solution.’ The primary ingredient was snake bile, and the label went on to inform that this is an efficacious drug for various throat and bronchial conditions. Despite our translator’s advice to take the snake bile, something she always used when needed, I opted for the antibiotic, and sure enough, a few days later, I was right as rain. The antibiotic had done the job.
The interesting part of this story is actually that a physician later pointed out that from the description of his symptoms, it sounded as if the infection was probably viral.  So, in fact, it was unlikely that the antibiotics had done anything either.  The point here, of course, is that science-based medicine often gets undue credit as well. 
6. Alternative therapies offer hope for the hopeless.
7. The lines have been blurred between evidence-based medicine and alternative therapies, and many members of the public are unaware of the pseudoscientific bases for most alternative therapies. 
Here’s a nice example of that:
http://www.bayernutritionalscience.com/
In this context it’s important to know that everything that is sold as a “supplement” in this country is almost completely unregulated.