Sunday, December 15, 2013
Pseudoscience and psychopathy
hunting pseudoscience in the internet jungle
Guest post on Skeptical Raptor by Matthew Facciani
There has been a news story creating some buzz lately regarding recent claims made by neuroscientist James Fallon, a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California-Irvine School of Medicine. Dr. Fallon studied the brains of psychopaths for a few years and later saw that his brain was just like those of the psychopaths he studied. Many news outlets are picking up on this story as Dr. Fallon has just released a new book about it as well.
To summarize, Dr. Fallon had received a PET scan of his brain in conjunction with an Alzheimer’s disease study, and subsequently noticed that his PET scan image was eerily similar to PET scan images from those of the psychopaths he researched. These articles then reported how both the psychopaths and Dr. Fallon had less activity in the frontal and temporal lobes which he claimed are linked to empathy, self-control, and morality. Beyond the PET scan results, Dr. Fallon mentions how he his family has the “Warrior Gene” which is associated with aggressive behavior.
Additionally, he admitted to some history of violence in his family. Despite all of these observations, Dr. Fallon claimed that he has led a normal life without violence. He argued that despite having genes which can promote aggression, a psychopathic brain, and a history of family violence, he did not turn into a psychopath because he did not have a traumatic childhood which could trigger psychopathic tendencies. Of course, his book will probably be a best seller as it brings up interesting questions and discussions about free will and criminal behavior.
As a neuroscientist myself, I was curious about the particular details about the specifics of Dr. Fallon’s brain imaging research. I searched through several news articles, listened to his NPR interview, and watched a talk he gave on the subject and was always left puzzled over the lack of details. I searched for ANY details regarding the PET scans Dr. Fallon mentioned, but every article simply had a pretty brain picture with little information. I was curious as to how a single brain scan from an unrelated study could predict psychopathic behavior.
Why didn’t anyone mention the details or link to an article that did? Specifically, I was confused on why Dr. Fallon was comparing his brain scan from an Alzheimer’s study to an unrelated study about psychopaths. Did they do the same task in each study? PET scans measure real time brain activity, so these brain activations seen in the pretty pictures reflect activity from some task. Despite this empirical data being crucial to make any sort of scientific inference, no article mentioned what the individuals being scanned were actually doing during the PET scan. Dr. Fallon argues that his own brain activity in the regions of the frontal and temporal cortex is lacking, similar to psychopaths, but fails to mention anything more specific in these interviews.
Morality, like any other high level cognition, is terribly difficult to study in the brain and there are a significant number of scientific articles trying to tease apart morality’s functional neuroanatomy. Higher-level cognitive processes are often derived from a complicated network of neural activation which requires careful experimental design to tease apart. A crucial issue with Dr. Fallon’s story is that we can’t even critique such an experimental design because he wasn’t even doing any sort of morality study! So to say that less frontal and temporal activity equals less morality is a gross oversimplification to begin with and there isn’t even any details to support such a claim.
Furthermore, even if Dr. Fallon’s was identical to a group of psychopathic brains, it would only prove association, not causation. There could be many factors which create differences in neural activity and a third variable (exposure to violence for example) could be the cause. Finally, neuroimaging studies are often based on the results of group analysis. Rarely is a single brain scan discussed in the results. Thus, comparing a single brain scan from one study to an aggregate of brain scans from an entirely different study isn’t just wrong, it’s unethical.
This is a classic example of poor scientific journalism and I believe it became so popular due to widespread deficits in scientific literacy. You don’t have to be a neuroscientist to see that there are huge problems with his story. You simply have view this story objectively have a healthy dose of skepticism without quickly deferring to the authority figure. There are simple questions which are never addressed here. What experiment was being done during each PET scan? If the psychopaths and Dr. Fallon were both completing a morality task and they both had low activity in certain regions, THEN that would be something more tangible. This is simply showing a brain picture and not asking questions. We know that people are much more likely to believe something if there is a brain picture associated with it and this is further proof.
My intention is not to claim that Dr. Fallon is lying and purposefully simplifying science to make a profit. I would need much more evidence for that. However, I am arguing that the news articles covering his story do not provide enough details to support his claims. I find it rather troubling that no one is even addressing this so I wanted to blog about it. It is also troubling that Dr. Fallon has not been more explicit about the limitations of his findings as he should surely be aware of them as an accomplished neuroscientist. America often ranks pretty poorly in scientific literacy and this is an example of the result. People should at least have a working understanding of the scientific method and not blindly believe an authority figure with an interesting story.
Matthew Facciani is a 3rd year Ph.D. candidate focused on cognitive neuroscience at a major Southern US research university. If you have questions for Mr. Facciani and his critiques, please drop a comment.
Key citations:
- Bzdok D, Schilbach L, Vogeley K, Schneider K, Laird AR, Langner R, Eickhoff SB. Parsing the neural correlates of moral cognition: ALE meta-analysis on morality, theory of mind, and empathy. Brain Struct Funct. 2012 Oct;217(4):783-96. Epub 2012 Jan 24. PubMed PMID: 22270812; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3445793.
- Crampton P, Parkin C. Warrior genes and risk-taking science. N Z Med J. 2007 Mar 2;120(1250):U2439. PubMed PMID: 17339895.
- Lea R, Chambers G. Monoamine oxidase, addiction, and the “warrior” gene hypothesis. N Z Med J. 2007 Mar 2;120(1250):U2441. PubMed PMID: 17339897.
- Illes J, Kirschen MP, Gabrieli JD. From neuroimaging to neuroethics. Nat Neurosci. 2003 Mar;6(3):205. PubMed PMID: 12601375.
- McCabe DP, Castel AD. Seeing is believing: the effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning. Cognition. 2008 Apr;107(1):343-52. Epub 2007 Sep 4. PubMed PMID: 17803985.
Higgs Boson Gets Nobel Prize, But Physicists Still Don’t Know What It Means
Data from the CMS experiment, one of the main Higgs-searching experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. Image: CERN
More than a year ago, scientists found the Higgs boson. This morning, two physicists who 50 years ago theorized the existence of this particle, which is responsible for conferring mass to all other known particles in the universe, got the Nobel, the highest prize in science.
For all the excitement the award has already generated, finding the Higgs — arguably the most important discovery in more than a generation — has left physicists without a clear roadmap of where to go next. While popular articles often describe how the Higgs might help theorists investigating the weird worlds of string theory, multiple universes, or supersymmetry, the truth is that evidence for these ideas is scant to nonexistent.
No one is sure which of these models, if any, will eventually describe reality. The current picture of the universe, the Standard Model, is supposed to account for all known particles and their interactions. But scientists know that it’s incomplete. Its problems need fixing, and researchers could use some help figuring out how. Some of them look at the data and say that we need to throw out speculative ideas such as supersymmetry and the multiverse, models that look elegant mathematically but are unprovable from an experimental perspective. Others look at the exact same data and come to the opposite conclusion.
“Physics is at a crossroads,” said cosmologist Neil Turok, speaking to a class of young scientists in September at the Perimeter Institute, which he directs. “In a sense we’ve entered a very deep crisis.”
The word “crisis” is a charged one within the physics community, invoking eras such as the early 20th century, when new observations were overturning long-held beliefs about how the universe works. Eventually, a group of young researchers showed that quantum mechanics was the best way to describe reality. Now, as then, many troubling observations leave physicists scratching their heads. Chief among them is the “Hierarchy Problem,” which in its simplest form asks why gravity is approximately 10 quadrillion times weaker than the three other fundamental forces in the universe. Another issue is the existence of dark matter, the unseen, mysterious mass thought to be responsible for strange observations in the rotation of galaxies.
The solution to both these problems might come from the discovery of new particles beyond the Higgs. One theory, supersymmetry, goes beyond the Standard Model to say that every subatomic particle — quarks, electrons, neutrinos, and so on — also has a heavier twin. Some of these new particles might have the right characteristics to account for the influence of dark matter. Engineers built the Large Hadron Collider to see if such new particles exist (and may yet see them once it reaches higher energy in 2014), but so far it hasn’t turned up anything other than the Higgs.
In fact, the Higgs itself has turned out to be part of the issue. The particle was the final piece in the Standard Model puzzle. When scientists discovered it at the LHC, it had a mass of 125 GeV, about 125 times heavier than a proton — exactly what standard physics expected. That was kind of a buzzkill. Though happy to know the Higgs was there, many scientists had hoped it would turn out to be strange, to defy their predictions in some way and give a hint as to which models beyond the Standard Model were correct. Instead, it’s ordinary, perhaps even boring.
All this means that confidence in supersymmetry is dropping like a stone, according to Tommaso Dorigo, a particle physicist at the LHC. In one blog post, he shared a rather pornographic plot showing how the findings of the LHC eliminated part of the evidence for supersymmetry. Later, he wrote that many physicists would have previously bet their reproductive organs on the idea that supersymmetric particles would appear at the LHC. That the accelerator’s experiments have failed to find anything yet “has significantly cooled everybody down,” he wrote.
In fact, when the organizers of a Higgs workshop in Madrid last month asked physicists there if they thought the LHC would eventually find new physics other than the Higgs boson, 41 percent said no. As to how to solve the known problems of the Standard Model, respondents were all over the map. String theory fared the worst, with three-quarters of those polled saying they did not think it is the ultimate answer to a unified physics.
One possibility has been brought up that even physicists don’t like to think about. Maybe the universe is even stranger than they think. Like, so strange that even post-Standard Model models can’t account for it. Some physicists are starting to question whether or not our universe is natural. This cuts to the heart of why our reality has the features that it does: that is, full of quarks and electricity and a particular speed of light.
This problem, the naturalness or unnaturalness of our universe, can be likened to a weird thought experiment. Suppose you walk into a room and find a pencil balanced perfectly vertical on its sharp tip. That would be a fairly unnatural state for the pencil to be in because any small deviation would have caused it to fall down. This is how physicists have found the universe: a bunch of rather well-tuned fundamental constants have been discovered that produce the reality that we see.
A natural explanation would show why the pencil is standing on its end. Perhaps there is a very thin string holding the pencil to the ceiling that you never noticed until you got up close. Supersymmetry is a natural explanation in this regard – it explains the structure of universe through as-yet-unseen particles.
But suppose that infinite rooms exist with infinite numbers of pencils. While most of the rooms would have pencils that have fallen over, it is almost certain that in at least one room, the pencil would be perfectly balanced. This is the idea behind the multiverse. Our universe is but one of many and it happens to be the one where the laws of physics happen to be in the right state to make stars burn hydrogen, planets form round spheres, and creatures like us evolve on their surface.
The multiverse idea has two strikes against it, though. First, physicists would refer to it as an unnatural explanation because it simply happened by chance. And second, no real evidence for it exists and we have no experiment that could currently test for it.
As of yet, physicists are still in the dark. We can see vague outlines ahead of us but no one knows what form they will take when we reach them. Finding the Higgs has provided the tiniest bit of light. But until more data appears, it won’t be enough.
I Had to Repost Jerry Coyne's Blog (with apologies if I'm not supposed to)
The good and bad of humanity
It is a truism of both religion and biology that humans are simultaneously selfish and altruistic. The faithful say the selfishness comes from original sin and the goodness from God, while the biologist imputes our selfishness to evolution (for how better can you ensure propagation of your genes than by taking care of yourself and your kin first?); and, as for altruism, cooperation and kindness, they’re probably partly derived from adaptive reciprocal altruism evolved when we lived in small social groups, and partly from a cultural overlay of expanded cooperation derived from reason (we now see that we don’t occupy any privileged position relative to others in society).
Regardless, I saw both traits demonstrated this week. Last Saturday afternoon I parked my car in front of my building at work; I usually use it on the weekends and then leave it at work in case I need to use it during the week. On Wednesday I looked out the window of my lab (I can overlook the car, which is nice) to see a huge dent in the front fender on the driver’s side. Going down to investigate, I saw that it was indeed a large, fresh dent, but I also found a note stuck in my door handle.
The note said this (I’ve redacted names and phone numbers):
I called the number, which turned out to belong to a medical student here at the University. He reported that he say the guy hit my car while backing out in the snow, and then get out of his car and inspect the damage to both his SUV and mine. At that time the student told him, “You know, you should leave a note for the owner.” The dinger said, “Yeah, I guess I should,” but the student suspected he wouldn’t. So he took out a pen and wrote all the information down on a piece of paper, which he later on my car when he returned and found no note from the malefactor.
I reported it to my insurance company and the University police, which ran the plates of the car that hit me and identified the owner. They also filed a formal report with the state of Illinois (I guess hit and run, even if it doesn’t hurt someone, violates some law or other). My insurance company will fix the damage for nearly free, (I have to pay a small deductable). I don’t know what will happen to the miscreant who hit me and ran: probably nothing except that my insurance company will force his to pony up for the damage to my car.
This is about the fourth time this has happened to me in my life, and only once has someone left a note—a woman visiting from California, and the damage was so minor that I didn’t do anything about it. But it’s a truly vile act to damage someone’s property and then abscond without taking responsibility. They do it because, of course, they think they can get away with it. But this guy didn’t, thanks to a kind and observant student.
It’s a slow news day, so I’m reporting this, but it does show what we all know: some people are jerks and others go out of their way to be helpful. The next time you’re on the bus and an old person gets on, don’t be one of those who keeps your sit or pretends not to notice. Stand up and let the older person sit down.
If you’ve had experiences with really nice strangers, report them below (car-bashing jerks or others can also be reported).
Regardless, I saw both traits demonstrated this week. Last Saturday afternoon I parked my car in front of my building at work; I usually use it on the weekends and then leave it at work in case I need to use it during the week. On Wednesday I looked out the window of my lab (I can overlook the car, which is nice) to see a huge dent in the front fender on the driver’s side. Going down to investigate, I saw that it was indeed a large, fresh dent, but I also found a note stuck in my door handle.
The note said this (I’ve redacted names and phone numbers):
“Hi,So while I was enormously peeved that someone had dinged me and run off, I was touched that a passerby took the time to take down the license number and description of the car and leave it for me, along with his phone number.
I saw the guy hit your left front fender in the snow. It was a [model and make of car redacted], with the Illinois plate [license plate number redacted]. Best of luck.
—name redacted
[phone number of person who wrote note redacted]. That’s all I saw, but feel free to call if you want.”
I called the number, which turned out to belong to a medical student here at the University. He reported that he say the guy hit my car while backing out in the snow, and then get out of his car and inspect the damage to both his SUV and mine. At that time the student told him, “You know, you should leave a note for the owner.” The dinger said, “Yeah, I guess I should,” but the student suspected he wouldn’t. So he took out a pen and wrote all the information down on a piece of paper, which he later on my car when he returned and found no note from the malefactor.
I reported it to my insurance company and the University police, which ran the plates of the car that hit me and identified the owner. They also filed a formal report with the state of Illinois (I guess hit and run, even if it doesn’t hurt someone, violates some law or other). My insurance company will fix the damage for nearly free, (I have to pay a small deductable). I don’t know what will happen to the miscreant who hit me and ran: probably nothing except that my insurance company will force his to pony up for the damage to my car.
This is about the fourth time this has happened to me in my life, and only once has someone left a note—a woman visiting from California, and the damage was so minor that I didn’t do anything about it. But it’s a truly vile act to damage someone’s property and then abscond without taking responsibility. They do it because, of course, they think they can get away with it. But this guy didn’t, thanks to a kind and observant student.
It’s a slow news day, so I’m reporting this, but it does show what we all know: some people are jerks and others go out of their way to be helpful. The next time you’re on the bus and an old person gets on, don’t be one of those who keeps your sit or pretends not to notice. Stand up and let the older person sit down.
If you’ve had experiences with really nice strangers, report them below (car-bashing jerks or others can also be reported).
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Scientists discover secret code hidden within human DNA
What follows is from the RT web site (https://www.facebook.com/RTnews). Word of warning: I could find no scientific or other references on the RT site about this, and so can't vouch for its scientific accuracy.
Scientists have discovered a secret second code hiding within DNA which instructs cells on how genes are controlled. The amazing discovery is expected to open new doors to the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, according to a new study.
Ever since the genetic code was deciphered over 40 years ago, scientists have believed that it only described how proteins are made. However, the revelation made by the research team led by John Stamatoyannopoulos of the University of Washington indicates that genomes use the genetic code to write two separate languages.
“For over 40 years we have assumed that DNA changes affecting the genetic code solely impact how proteins are made,” said Stamatoyannopoulos, according to the press release. “Now we know that this basic assumption about reading the human genome missed half of the picture.”
Scientists discovered that the second language instructs the cells on how genes are controlled, according to findings published in Science magazine on Friday. The study is part of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Project, also known as ENCODE.
The second language remained hidden for so long because one language is written on top of the other, scientists said.
Scientists already knew that the genetic code uses a 64-letter alphabet called codons. The research team discovered that some of the codons can have two meanings – one related to proteins, the other to gene control. Those codons were given the name ‘duons.’
And it’s those duons that are expected to change the way physicians interpret human genomes, and give clues for the treatments of diseases.
“The fact that the genetic code can simultaneously write two kinds of information means that many DNA changes that appear to alter protein sequences may actually cause disease by disrupting gene control programs or even both mechanisms simultaneously,” said Stamatoyannopoulos.
Speaking about the discovery, Stamatoyannopoulos said that the “new findings highlight that DNA is an incredibly powerful information storage device, which nature has fully exploited in unexpected ways.”
Ever since the genetic code was deciphered over 40 years ago, scientists have believed that it only described how proteins are made. However, the revelation made by the research team led by John Stamatoyannopoulos of the University of Washington indicates that genomes use the genetic code to write two separate languages.
“For over 40 years we have assumed that DNA changes affecting the genetic code solely impact how proteins are made,” said Stamatoyannopoulos, according to the press release. “Now we know that this basic assumption about reading the human genome missed half of the picture.”
Scientists discovered that the second language instructs the cells on how genes are controlled, according to findings published in Science magazine on Friday. The study is part of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Project, also known as ENCODE.
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) is a nucleic acid that is the main constituent of the chromosomes of all organisms, except some viruses. DNA is self-replicating, plays a central role in protein synthesis, and is responsible for the transmission of hereditary characteristics from parents to offspring.
The second language remained hidden for so long because one language is written on top of the other, scientists said.
Scientists already knew that the genetic code uses a 64-letter alphabet called codons. The research team discovered that some of the codons can have two meanings – one related to proteins, the other to gene control. Those codons were given the name ‘duons.’
And it’s those duons that are expected to change the way physicians interpret human genomes, and give clues for the treatments of diseases.
“The fact that the genetic code can simultaneously write two kinds of information means that many DNA changes that appear to alter protein sequences may actually cause disease by disrupting gene control programs or even both mechanisms simultaneously,” said Stamatoyannopoulos.
Speaking about the discovery, Stamatoyannopoulos said that the “new findings highlight that DNA is an incredibly powerful information storage device, which nature has fully exploited in unexpected ways.”
Could the universe collapse TODAY? Physicists claim that risk is ‘more likely than ever and may have already started’
- Collapse could be down to a subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson
- Higgs boson is evidence for an energy field that pervades the universe
- Shift in field will cause particles in it to become billions of times heavier
- The new weight will squeeze all material into a small, super-hot and heavy ball, and the universe as we know it will cease to exist
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The universe could be about to collapse and everything in it - including us - will be compressed into a small, hard ball.
The process may already have started somewhere in our cosmos and is eating away at the rest of the universe, according to theoretical physicists.
The mind-bending concept has been around for a while, but now researchers in Denmark claim they have proven it is possible with mathematical equations.
Scientists believe sooner or later a radical shift in the forces of the universe will cause every particle in it to become extremely heavy. The new weight will squeeze all material into a small, super-hot and heavy ball, and the universe as we know it will cease to exist
The basis of the theory is that sooner or later a radical shift in the forces of the universe will cause every particle in it to become extremely heavy.
Everything - every grain of sand, every planet and every galaxy – will become billions of times heavier than it is now. The theory suggests that the new weight will squeeze all material into a small, super-hot and heavy ball, and the universe as we know it will cease to exist.
This violent process is called a ‘phase transition’ and is similar to what happens when, for example, water turns to steam or a magnet heats up and loses its power.
The violent process is called a 'phase transition' and is similar to what happens when, for example, water turns to steam or a magnet heats up and loses its power
WHAT WOULD CAUSE OUR UNIVERSE TO COLLAPSE?
The collapse of the universe could all be down to a subatomic particle discovered last year known as the Higgs boson.
The Higgs boson particle is a manifestation of an energy field can be found throughout the universe called the Higgs field.
The Higgs field is thought to explain why particles have mass.
This Higgs field could exist in two states - one that we feel now - and another that is billions of times denser than what scientists have already observed.
If this ultra-dense Higgs field existed, then a bubble of this state could suddenly appear in a certain place of the universe at a certain time, similar to when you boil water.
The bubble would then expand at the speed of light, entering all space, and turning the Higgs field from the state it’s in now into a new one.
All elementary particles inside the bubble will reach a mass, that is much heavier than if they were outside the bubble.
The new weight will squeeze all material into a small, super-hot and heavy ball, and the universe as we know it will cease to exist.
The Higgs boson particle is a manifestation of an energy field can be found throughout the universe called the Higgs field.
The Higgs field is thought to explain why particles have mass.
This Higgs field could exist in two states - one that we feel now - and another that is billions of times denser than what scientists have already observed.
If this ultra-dense Higgs field existed, then a bubble of this state could suddenly appear in a certain place of the universe at a certain time, similar to when you boil water.
The bubble would then expand at the speed of light, entering all space, and turning the Higgs field from the state it’s in now into a new one.
All elementary particles inside the bubble will reach a mass, that is much heavier than if they were outside the bubble.
The new weight will squeeze all material into a small, super-hot and heavy ball, and the universe as we know it will cease to exist.
During this transition, empty space became filled with an invisible substance that we now call the Higgs field.
Some elementary particles interact with this field, gaining energy in the process, and this intrinsic energy is known as the mass of a particle.
By using mathematical equations, researchers at the University of Southern Denmark have discovered that the Higgs field could exist in two states, just like matter can exist as a liquid or a solid.
In the second state, the Higgs field is billions of times denser than what scientists have already observed.
If this ultra-dense Higgs field exists, then a 'bubble' of this state could suddenly appear in a certain place of the universe at anytime, similar to when you boil water.
The bubble would then expand at the speed of light, entering all space, and turning the Higgs field from the state it is in now into a new one.
All elementary particles inside the bubble will reach a mass much heavier than if they were outside the bubble, and they would be pulled together to form supermassive centres.
‘Many theories and calculations predict such a phase transition– but there have been some uncertainties in the previous calculations,’ said Jens Krog, PhD student at University of Southern Denmark.
‘Now we have performed more precise calculations, and we see two things: Yes, the universe will probably collapse, and: A collapse is even more likely than the old calculations predicted.’
The collapse of the universe could all be down to a subatomic particle discovered last year known as the Higgs boson. British physicist Peter Higgs (right) and Belgian physicist Francois Englert (left) received the Nobel prize this year for work on the theory of this particle
‘The phase transition will start somewhere in the universe and spread from there. Maybe the collapse has already started somewhere in the universe and right now it is eating its way into the rest of the universe.
Maybe a collapsed is starting right now right here. Or maybe it will start far away from here in a billion years. We do not know.’
The researchers looked at three main equations that underlie the prediction of a phase transition and showed how these equations can be worked out together and interact with each other.
Although the new calculations predict that a collapse is now more likely than ever before, it is also possible, that it will not happen at all.
It is a prerequisite for the phase change that the universe consists of the elementary particles that we know today, including the Higgs particle.
If the universe contains undiscovered particles, the whole basis for the prediction of phase change would prove false.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2523177/Could-universe-collapse-TODAY-Physicists-claim-risk-likely-started.html#ixzz2nSa5tfV3
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