Firearm Misconception

This picture illustrates well the classic human difficulty properly framing dramatic, but rare, events. For example, public perception is that airplane crashes kill more than car accidents, when the reverse is true by a vast margin. Similarly, crowd shootings are very uncommon relative to criminally motivated ones, and both are dwarfed individual unwarranted shootings or accidental ones. Please don't misunderstand me: I am not in favor of outlawing firearms; I own several myself and consider an outright ban to be essentially unenforceable in any event. I am, however, very much a proponent of reasonable requirements both on who is allowed to legally obtain them and also the training and equipment they must have in order to be able to do so safely. This is especially true if your intent is defense, for reacting appropriately in a stressful situation, especially in a crowded area, is far harder than sporting firearm use. Well intentioned incompetents are not a boon when firearms are involved.

Laypeople Cannot Decide for Themselves

The belief that a layperson can examine the scientific evidence and decide for himself is very common and completely wrongheaded. A layperson simply does not have the body of experience to correctly interpret evidence in technical fields consistently. I heard an interview with Stephen Barrett, a retired doctor who now runs the medical fallacy tracking website Quackwatch, who has many examples of people coming to the wrong conclusion using this approach. The right method is to find

credible experts to evaluate evidence for you. This is why a consensus of trained professionals should carry weight. The lone decrier can be right, but almost always isn't. With complex issues, the trend is that over time, the evidence grows stronger if there is a real phenomenon. Take ghosts as a counter example: more than a hundred years of people looking and the state of the evidence is essentially unchanged. Finding one crank scientist who believes in them doesn't count for a whole lot.

I wonder if it is arrogance or simply ignorance that lies behind this notion. Well, first off the layperson is not examining the evidence. Take medical research as an example. To look at the raw studies (just getting the data would be a lot of work) he would need a very good working knowledge of statistics to evaluate the results as well as an understanding of the relevant medicine to judge the assumptions of the experimental structure. A layperson cannot possess all this knowledge by definition. If he did, he'd be an expert. That means that a layperson claiming to be judging the evidence is actually using other people's interpretations of that evidence. If he's not aware of that it's ignorance: check. Once you're at that stage, who you choose to interpret facts for you becomes critically important. Depending on your level of knowledge, you may not have the skill set to even make that decision with any certainty. It is of course true that minority opinions among a body of experts can prove ultimately correct, but the overwhelming majority of the time they won't. For a layperson to think that he can spot those few times more accurately than the trained professionals who specialize in that field is absurd. It makes an assumption that the layperson's largely uninformed opinion is more valuable, allowing him to dismiss the judgements of others. Since arrogance is all about thinking that your abilities trump those of others you have never met (therefore being a form of bigotry), I would argue it fits in this case as well. Arrogance: check.

What about the implications of all this? Does it mean that a layperson is never really entitled to an opinion of their own about technical matters? I guess it depends how you define "technical". If you define it as a complex field that requires a lot of cumulative knowledge, the I guess I'd have to say "yes", a layperson can never have a valid independent opinion. The key phrases I've used in this posting are "for himself", "of their own", and "independent". One option is to simply defer to the opinion of the trained community that studies that subject. You can have a very valid opinion as to the state of consensus within that community, but that is something that's comparatively easy to evaluate. Alternately, the layperson could undertake the study required to become an expert. That would give him an equal voice, however, not a definitive one. The next best thing would be for a layperson to run his interpretations past actual experts in the field. When a layperson rejects the judgments of those significantly more knowledgeable in his area of interest is when there's a problem.

The Power of Negative Thought

Originally posted on my private blog May 20th, 2008.

This photo reeks of objectivity. Not.

People often talk about the beneficial power of having a positive attitude on ones immune system. The idea is that being upbeat supposedly makes your body more able than normal to fight off disease. I think this is exactly backwards and that it's really that negative thought impedes the immune system, causing it to work worse than normal. Just as cold is the absence of heat, it's that the lack of thinking negatively that helps. Behold, the power of negative thought!

UPDATE:

Since writing this, I've learned that the evidence for the direct effect of a positive attitude on one's physiological health is all basically negative. Indirect effects owing to stricter adherence to treatment regimens and the like would fit in well with my negative thought hypothesis, however, despite its main purpose being satire.

Addiction Versus Choice Analogy

Today I listened to a podcast discussion about the view that addictive behaviour is a free choice versus the consequence of a disorder. I have known a few people who simplistically assert that one always has a free choice in such matters. Without going into that argument and its ramifications as it's been covered extensively elsewhere, I came up with the following analogy to illustrate the associated fallacy: imagine you are being tortured for information; it is your own choice as to whether or not to divulge any. I feel this hypothetical scenario clearly illustrates the basic point that pressure (in the case of addiction it is changes in brain chemistry) can significantly influence the character of the decision making process.

Consumer Level Competition Fixation

Economists and policy makers often seem to be unaware that competition can occur at a level other than with the end consumer. The economic idealization that market decisions are made by perfectly informed and rational actors cannot be translated to the real world in many cases. I just heard a ludicrous example today when an economist called for all patients to directly control the money spent on their health care, so they could make their own decisions and put price and quality pressure on the industry. Having a populace that's largely ignorant make the majority of their medical spending decisions is a recipe for conditions to go untreated and worsen (and frequently balloon in cost). Competition between medical institutions themselves is a much more appropriate arena for competition to occur. Just to choose one simple way this could work is that a medical company could be given a premium to keep patients healthy (adjusted perhaps by pre-existing condition). Anything they spend less than that premium, they get to keep, and over time the premiums could be reduced, using data on the actual costs as a reference. The way we handle financial products currently is another example of unrealistic ideas of end user competition being the deciding factor and is something I've blogged about previously.

It May Not Be Perfect, But Canada's Health Care System is Better Than Ours

One fallacious argument I hear time and again with regards to the inferiority of Canada's health system is that they have long waiting periods for many services. While true, this ignores the fact that overall Canada has a better quality of health, which puts such waiting times into proper context. It's the logical equivalent of an advertisement that touts a single aspect of their product as superior, but ignores all the others. Even worse such a stilted view completely glosses over that they spend so much less per capita on health care than we do (10% vs 17% of GDP and their GDP per person is about 17% less than ours, making our per capita expenditure roughly twice as much). If we adopted their system, funded to our levels, it would blow the doors off our current health care standards. This means their methods are superior to ours, but does not mean we can't explore alternatives. Since almost all modern nations beat the tar out of us on health care there are a lot of sources for inspiration.