The scientific method was, and remains, one of the great triumphs of human intellect. It has allowed us to understand the workings of our world to a level of detail that is remarkable, even as the fruits of the scientific method are taken for granted by most people. At the same time, fewer and fewer people understand even the rudiments of the scientific method. Those who have only the most minimal understanding of science, how scientific data is evaluated, and how scientific facts are arrived at include the vast bulk of MSM reporters, often including the science reporters, and our learned legislators, who know how to be elected and disperse the public's money but share a level of (mis)understanding of science that can only horrify those who have a modicum of scientific knowledge.
What is crucial to understand about science is that the scientific method is poorly designed to elucidate complexity. For a scientific experiment to yield reliable data, it must be designed to control for as many variables as possible while varying a few clearly identifiable variables. For example, if one wants to determine the efficacy of a given Psychiatric treatment one designs a double blind experiment in which a drug, such as an new anti-depressant, is tested opposite an active placebo. In such experiments, there is always a significant placebo effect (much higher when an active placebo is used as opposed to a sugar pill) and the difference between a positive effect and no effect is often modest. Results are reported at a 95% confidence level, meaning that one out of twenty times, the results could be arrived at simply by luck.
It makes some intuitive sense that such experiments, even though they attempt to isolate the efficacy of a single drug (ie, minimize the number of variables that can differ across the subject populations) yield only slightly useful results. The experimenters try to control for unknown and unknowable confounding effects by matching controls with experimental subjects, blinding the subjects and the experimenters to the conditions and a host of other methodological maneuvers. Yet since we know so little about the workings of the 30,000 proteins that comprisethe human proteome, and little about the workings of the genetic equipment that creates these proteins, which also interact in all sorts of multi-layered feedback loops, and we have no way to understand exactly how a particular drug affects the expression of the genetics and their protein creations, understanding why some drugs are effective for some people remains a very imprecise endeavor. (And this doe not even begin to address the question of the roles of sugars and other cell membrane constituents that [partially] control where proteins exert their effects.)
Last week, in a related field, a report appeared about the latest findings in the field of supplements and cancer.
Vitamins E and C don't prevent cancer, landmark study finds
Nearly 10 years of testing on thousands of doctors show two hugely popular vitamins don't prevent cancer.
In the latest antioxidant letdown, researchers who followed nearly 15,000 male physicians found no evidence vitamin E or vitamin C supplements protect against cancer.
"We're kind of rocking the foundation of what we were always brought to believe," Ottawa Hospital urologist Dr. John Mahoney said after learning the results.
"We all think that we should be taking vitamins because it makes us more healthy, and yet we can't prove that."
The new research involves preliminary findings from the U.S. Physicians' Health Study II. Researchers tracked 14,641 doctors, aged 50 and older. Each was given either 400 IU (international units) of vitamin E every other day, 500 milligrams of vitamin C daily, or their placebos.
After an average eight years of treatment and followup, about 2,000 men had been diagnosed with cancer, including about half with prostate cancer.
Neither vitamin E nor vitamin C supplements reduced the risk of prostate cancer, "total cancer" or other cancers such as colorectal or lung.
There were 490 cases of prostate cancer in men who took vitamin E, versus 523 in the placebo group. For total cancer, there were 978 cases in men randomized to vitamin E, compared to 951 who got placebo.
It was a similar story for vitamin C: 964 cancers in the vitamin C group, versus 965 in placebo.
Considering how many people in the world take supplements, this study should give pause to those who believe they are fundamentally altering their risks by taking vitamins or other supplements. However since most people take supplements for magical reasons rather than scientifically sound reasons, this study will probably make no difference, though perhaps some people will stop taking Vitamin E and switch to the latest fad supplement at their health food store.
It actually makes a great deal of sense that this study found such results, which after all, could still be wrong, since chance cannot be discounted. Our biology is so exceptionally complex that it could just as easily be that some percentage are helped by vitamins and an equal number, with different biochemistry, are harmed.
For the record, there is very good reason to believe that as our computers become more powerful and our data become more accurate we will gain an increasing understanding of individual biology. In 20-30 years it may well be possible to develop a program that "understands" an individual's particular mix of proteinsand can then predict how particular interventions will effect the expression and interaction of such proteins. Evenwell before that particular constellations of proteins and their interactions will become identifiable as definitive for particular diseases, including cancer, and our ability to manipulate those proteins and their interactionswill lead to new treatments and cures.
I have gone through this brief exegesis as a warning when confronting complex issues. When there are innumerable, and often unknown, variables, there is no way theycan all be accounted for. Any results that fail to include controls for myriad variables are suspect. Among the complex issues for which various authoritative voices have expressed certainty would be climate and the economy. Those who express the greatest certainty in such areas should be considered the least reliable sources of information. Anyone who understands complexity will admit that the weather and the economy are two of the most complex structures we know. To assume we understand how they work because we have elegant computer models that sometimes predict parts of the past with a fair degree of accuracy is foolhardy and to make major changes in how we live because such computer models suggest dire outcomes is the height of irresponsibility.
Update: When science is politicized, all bets are off: How Science Can Work vs. How Science Should Work...
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