Book Review: Voodoo Science 505
| Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud | |
| author | Robert Park |
| pages | 230 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press |
| rating | 4/5 |
| reviewer | chrisd |
| ISBN | 0195147103 |
| summary | Robert Park exposes how bad science propogates. |
The short review of Voodoo Science is that this is not a book that would make a good birthday gift for Alex Chiu or for that matter Deepak Chopra.
Voodoo Science is a happy little bon-bon of a book for the scientifically inclined. Robert Park is the head of the Washington office of the American Physical Society, and has worked inside the beltway helping the U.S. government and others understand the basics of science so they can make appropriate policy decisions. It is depressingly clear how badly they need it.
While there is a certain level of joy to be found in reading about Mr. Park's exploits debunking cranks and frauds, there is a sad realization that prominent legislators have no clue as to the physical laws that are the underpinnings of science. No, I wasn't surprised, but it was depressing nonetheless to see Trent Lott's name on a resolution designed to push through a patent on a "free energy" device, or Tom Harkin using his power to force the NIH to embrace alternative medicine as anything other than a placebo.
While fun, this isn't a perfect book. It is organized a little strangely, with subheadings throwing off the flow of reading, and at a little over 200 pages it seems too short.Park's mission with this book was not to dissect the great scientific frauds of all time, but I thought he could have spent more time on the issues he did bring up and less on trying to understand the Alex Chius of the world. Mr. Park is probably just trying to be polite, but in my reading of Voodoo Science he comes off as being too soft on the very targets of the book.
The case of cold fusion is a perfect example. His recounting of the famous events was right on, but it just fell flat when it came to to point the finger at Pons, Fleischman and the University of Utah for their complicity in fraud before the Utah state legislature. It is akin to writing a book about Enron and saying about Ken Lay: "It is likely he knew what he was doing was possibly improper."
I'd recommend Voodoo Science as a good gift to a younger reader, as it describes foundations of science in an accessible way. As you've probably gathered, an appropriate name for this book might be "The Laws of Thermodynamics and those that thought it didn't apply to them." As such, the book serves as a decent introduction to critical thinking about the physical world around us.
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Thats a review??? (Score:4, Insightful)
'Laws' (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not all alternative medicine is a fraud (Score:3, Insightful)
Placebo? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's wrong with the placebo effect? It's probably responsible for a good chunk of conventional medicine's positive results as well
So how does bad science propagate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Robert Park exposes how bad science propogates (sic).
So says the summary, but the review is mostly about the fact that so many people who make decisions about science are utterly uninformed. Does the book actually tell us how the system got to be this way, though? Like, how so many people get through our educational system with so little knowledge of science, and how such people are permitted to have control over scientific organizations? I wanna learn more.
Re:I've read this book as well (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not all alternative medicine is a fraud (Score:2, Insightful)
Those selling it actually believe that it works, making it much more dangerous.
granted, there is the possibility that some of these methods work, but after removing the placebo effect, many (if not most) do not stand up to rigorous empirical tests. The problem lies in the fact that most people do not even come close to understanding scientific method... people often fear and mistrust what they don't understand. (albeit selectively; it doesn't stop that many from climbing into a plane or getting behind the wheel of car... maybe it should).
Re:'Laws' (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Scientific Literacy (Score:1, Insightful)
And what's with the "Americans" swipe? Where's the research to prove that there is a significant discrepancy between Joe American and Joe European? Does geography really affect IQ curves?
Re:I've read this book as well (Score:4, Insightful)
Because hundreds of kooks claiming shit in unscientific ways isn't the same as Scientific studies using rigorous methods to discover the nature of reality?
You can claim studies with proof as all you want, but until you really and truly embrace the Scientific method, and show results that a reproducible in double-blind studies that aren't equivalent to placebo control groups, you're going to continue to be laughed at. You remind me of the Christian Scientists who continue to claim to have scientific proof showing the flood and the Genesis creation story.
I encourage everyone to bookmark James Randi's [randi.org] web site as a great source of information for the scientifically mind skeptic.
Re:I've read this book as well (Score:2, Insightful)
Homeopathy is bollocks of the highest order.
Re:I've read this book as well (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've read this book as well (Score:4, Insightful)
For the rest you you out there who think hemeopathic medicine is for real(let's not get into whether or not its safe)..please check this article
out [quackwatch.com]
Why don't the homeopathic remedy manufacturers go thuugh a series of FDA clinical studies to be come FDA certified drugs? If this stuff actually works...why are the remedy manufactures using a loop hole in FDA statues and marketing this stuff as herbal suppliments and not as effictive drugs. I'll tell you why...these remedies would not be found to be proven effective for most of the things word of mouth advertising claims. Oh yeah I'm sure hidden in many of the remedies being pushed at the super crunky health food store down the road from me will contain something that helps prevent or cure one or two specific illnesses. But we can't be sure until they actually conduct FDA trials and get FDA certification. And quite frankly taking this stuff can be DANGEROUS...especially if you are on ANY type of real drugs. homeopathic remedies don't have to do any sort of drug interaction testing. Is this stuff safe for a healthy person to take...probably...there is a long track record of other ignorant people taking this stuff without dying. But is it safe if you are also taking ANY modern scientificly researched medications? No way. Don't mix medications with out talking to the docters who gave you the idea to take the medications..even herbals can interfere with how modern FDA approved prescription or over the counter drugs work
This is WHY we have the FDA...if something is an effective drug for a certain illness...the FDA is there to test and certify that. If you are taking any medicine (no matter how ancient it is) sold by a company and placed on retail shelves...you should DEMAND that that they get FDA approval certifying that what they are selling you really works for what you think it does. There is a reason the homeopathic remedies in the store don't actually make specific claims to help any specific illness.
I can understand desperate people taking experimental drugs for live threatening illnesses. But to sell this stuff over the counter without making any specific claims on the label...and letting word of mouth spin a tale of fanasticly wonderful benifits is a slap in the face to the benifits this past century as seen thanks to the explosion of the understanding of how medicines work and the great strides modern medical science have taken to improve the quality of life for those who hae access to it.
Please go back to living in your flat world, with the sun circling overhead, and take your ancient medicines with you.
-jef
Re:I've read this book as well (Score:1, Insightful)
If homeopathic medicine doesnt work, and its just the placebo effect, then how come vets use it successfully to treat animals? Dont tell me - they`re susceptible to the placebo effect too, right? Some scary guy in a white jacket approaches them with a needle, sticks it into them, and they think `ah, this guy is obviously trying to help me! Must be a vet!`
Homeopathy & "alternative" medicine (Score:5, Insightful)
I absolutely cannot believe the level of level 2+ comments from supposedly intelligent people here who think there's something to homeopathic and alternative therapies. Most of them obviously haven't read Park's book, nor would they probably care to.
As for homeopathy, this is a practice that relies on diluting chemicals or extracts in water until there's no possibility of that chemical being in the liquid administered, relying on the "water memory" of the chemical for efficacy. Despite never having been shown to be efficacious in double-blinded clinical trials, it's ridiculous from the view of chemistry, physics, and what we know of the universe, due to a little problem called Avogadro's number (about 6.3x10^23, the number of molecules in one mole of a substance). Each of these serial dilutions of extracts causes the concentration to descend so far below avogadro's number that there is no chemical in what is administered. Park demonstrates in the book, using simple high school chemistry (which obviously many here are having difficulty remembering) that homeopathy, as practiced by the homeopathic industry, is simply the drinking of water.
It all has to do with a little something known as proof of efficacy, the most important part of any clinical trial. As one doctor said regarding the recent governmental report on "alternative" medicines (to paraphrase), "There are only two kinds of medicine -- that which works and that which doesn't. If something that's considered to be alternative is shown to work then it's adopted. If not, it is not."
People, there is medicine and there is quackery. The double-blind clinical trial is the only way of distinguishing between the two, and even then conditions have to be constructed carefully to insure accurate results. Thank God the FDA doesn't rely on the anecdotal evidence of family members, the testimonials of paid spokespeople, or the promises of the herbal supplement industry.
The FDA was created to help people see through all this snake oil & empty promises, but now, through exemptions for "herbal supplements" pushed through congress, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, we have a renaissance of this sort of lies and deception of the populace. Unlike homeopathic remedies, herbal supplements many times do have powerful agents in them. Only because of their designation as a food and not a drug, they get around FDA requirements for purity, consistency, and efficacy. Because of widely varying concentrations of agents including ephedrine and hormones, and a level of quality that runs the gamut due to a complete lack of quality control, we have a multibillion-dollar industry whose products have been reported to cause strokes, heart disease and liver damage. In one report in the LA Times last month it was reported that the makers of an herbal supplement in Utah were adding crystal meth to their weight loss product, causing a spate of strokes & heart conditions in middle-aged people before being caught & shut down.
It's a tragedy, and it's a needless danger created because the average person has little more than an elementary school level of understanding of science. And I can't believe that so many of you are gullible enough to be taken in by these hucksters. Please, read and study before putting drugs in your body that aren't approved by the FDA.
Re:I've read this book as well (Score:3, Insightful)
Because many diseases go away on their own? If you want sceptics to find it interesting, then put it through a scienetific, double-blind test. There are too many cases where something looked good and bombed the double-blind test. If we should throughly test a new medical technology that makes sense, then we should demand at least as much testing on a new medical technology that breaks the laws of physics.
Re:Good book (Score:4, Insightful)
The author states that he didn't want his book to be riddled with footnotes so as not to confuse the reader, but that is obviously a stupid attitude for a book that is written to encourage people to embrace science.
Oh, well, "obviously". On the other hand, is it possible to just present science in an entertaining way that encourages people to do more research on their own without weighing it down to the point that it's unapproachable? Or to put it another way, should a book about dinosaurs for five year olds be fully annotated with long treatises on alternative dinosaur theories?
See also this story [earthisland.org] about PR efforts to discredit global warming,
The question about global warming is not weather the globe is, in fact, warming, but whether 1) mankind is the cause, 2) how much warming really matters, and 3) whether the earth has self-equilibrium processes that we don't understand.
By far, most of the "junk science" is on the global warming side. Only the most arrogant idiots or the biggest fools think we have even a remote understanding of climates. The biggest junk science factory today are computer climate models. They are worse than useless, because they mislead people into thinking that the models are "statements of fact" when they are just incredibly crude tools that may or may not help us find the truth.
Never has a title been more apropos as Trust Us, We're Experts! as it does with Global Warming.
Re:Not all alternative medicine is a fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone in medical research is out on a vendetta to disprove Alternative Medicine.
Re:Alternative, but not homeopathic (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the problem - everything from homeopathy and "crystal healing", to herbs, low-fat diets and massage therapy, is classified as "alternative" when compared to industry-standard cut 'n' drug practices[0].
Some "alternative" therapies (herbs, massage, acupuncture[1]) have plausable physiological mechanisms. Of course, not all therapies in these categories have the effects that are sometimes claimed for them; but the idea that eating a plant, getting rubbed, or being pricked with needles can have definite effects on the flesh should not be surprising to anyone.
Others (such as many ch'i/ki/energy therapies that involve interaction between the pracitioner and the patient) have a more psychosomatic[2] action - disease and healing have a larger psychological and sociological component than we often think. Unfortunately sometimes practioners of these therapies focus their explanations on mystical energies or somesuch, and skeptical investigators often focus on these deficient explanations rather than on the question of whether the patient obtains relief.
I practice reiki. I've found it effective, on myself and others, for minor physical and emotional disturbances. But I believe it works though mild bodywork, the physiological reaction to touch, and the powerful healing effect of ritual, and not by mystical energy flowing into my crown chakra - but still, the best way to obtain the necessary state of mind is to think about mystical energy flowing into my crown chakra. It's sort of like what ESR talks about in "Dancing with the Gods" [tuxedo.org]. As he puts it,
Another category of "alternative" therapies would be those that are completely self-activated placebos. Homoepathy would seem to fit here. (However, be aware that many remedies marketed as homoepathic do contain enough active material to have an effect, and should really be classified as herbal.) Some may be presented by believers, some ("psychic surgery") may be presented by con men.
Finally there are some that not only don't work, but are actively unhealthy.
It's a pretty broad range of practices to be lumped under one label.
([0]Which certainly have their place. If my body gets majorly damaged, please take me to the local trauma center and drug and cut me as appropriate. However, when all you have is a scalpel, everyone looks like a surgical candidate...)
([1] Speaking strictly of endorphin release and nerve stimulation, not meridians of ch'i, which would fall into the next category.)
([2] Which means "mind-body", not "it's all in the mind".)
Physics "status quo" may lack humility (Score:1, Insightful)
This has been happening throughout history, and is is a aim of Science. This is progress.
Sometimes it is the development a new form of mathematics itself which helps us toward a greater understanding of the physical world. Chaos theory would be an example of this.
Other times, it is through the direct study of baffling phenomena which contradict our known theories, which leads us in the direction of discovery and breakthrough.
By one means or another, we manage to improve upon, transcend or obsolete existing theories. Again, this is progress.
When this happens, sometimes we find ourselves able to construct machinery whose function and existence would have been deemed impossible under previous theory. Our world is filled with examples, and again this is progress.
It is therefore logically tenable that a lone inventor might deliberately or accidentally construct a device whose function is not fully explained by prevailing Physics.
Whenever this appears to have happened, of course peer scrutiny is essential. Yet it is important that those with a critical eye must also retain an open mind.
Otherwise, there is a danger of authoritarian figures promoting the name of science while actually standing in the way of progress.
Science is about learning. One who imagines he already has the answers faces an obstacle toward learning and making further progress.
Those who casually refer to "the Laws of Physics" as if they were immutable may be unwittingly indulging a vanity. If physical laws do exist, as appears to be the case, we must admit that we don't completely know them yet. What do we know are not really laws in the strictest sense. They are simply observations and theories.
They may be very compelling and useful theories. But as theories, they are bound to be expanded upon or obsoleted sooner or later. They are not laws, in the strictest sense.
Our achievments give us cause to be very proud. Yet humility remains an essential virtue. Let's try to nurture what little we still have.
Remember, "Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads."
Re:Not all alternative medicine is a fraud (Score:1, Insightful)
Digitallis (as an example) was discovered by investigating herbal treatments for heart conditions. In fact, a lot of drugs were discovered that way.
Doctors and scientists are human. They don't always give a fair, impartial examination of new and poorly investigated ideas, techniques, and theories. Even though they should.
The first problem with cold fusion is that Pons and Fleischman felt compelled to publish before they could reliably duplicate the phenomemon. Another is that the plasma physicists were offended by mere chemists intruding on their turf. And the phenomemon seems to violate current theory, which means it has a big burden of proof.
The subject has not been totally abandoned. Despite lack of funding, pariah status by the mainstream with the attendent lack of honest critical review and having to live amoung crackpots, serious science is still being done on the subject. And the results indicate that there is a real phenomemon worth investigating.
Re:Good book (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with the first poster. There is no good excuse for failing to provide references where such exist. It is not necessary to clutter the page with "confusing" footnotes. I just finished reading a book (Angel in the Whirlwind [barnesandnoble.com], by Benson Bobrick) that provides tons of references without a single extra mark in the actual text. At the end of the book there is a list of references. They are listed by chapter, page number, and the first few words of each quote. A system like this satisfies those who want to know where the information is coming from, and does so without getting in the way of those that might be confused by footnotes.