Discernment
3 Reason x Reasonable
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Science’s greatest value (and the acid test of whether or not Don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive fan of science. I just want
something is within the domain of science or not) is whether or people to think about these things before they accept any new
not the theory gives rise to predictions. research-finding as gospel truth. For it can never be true, it can
only ever be, so far it seems to work like this.
The test of science is its ability to predict. If a scientific theory
does not make any predictions, then it can still be a theory, but it If someone decides, on the balance of probabilities, to adopt a
does not exist within the realm of science. certain belief, a mindset, a way of life, after having given it a
reasonable amount of thought, then that’s fantastic. That’s
So, it’s important that we not only have a reason for doing the
exactly what we want. People making conscious decisions,
thing we decide to do, whatever it is, but it has to be reasonable,
having done a reasonable amount of background reading,
given the context.
research, thinking and even, experimentation themselves.
These are some of the questions you might want to ask yourself
when you next encounter a claim as scientifically-proved:
Let me explain using the following absurd scenario. However, this propensity to confuse a
correlation with a cause is a problem
I head to the beach to do some scientific research.
with much 'scientific' research, especially
I observe people putting on sun tan lotion. in the areas of medicine and the social
sciences.
I observe people eating ice-cream.
In this case, the real reason why people
I find that there is a strong relationship between the two behaviours.
both put on sun tan lotion and eat ice
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sunshine. There is a third, unobserved variable, the sunshine, At this time approximately 80% of british adults smoked as it
which is the cause of both directly observed behaviours. was very much the done thing. Lung cancer rates had been
rising for decades but with more pressing issues such as World
Now it gets interesting.
Wars etc. there hadn't been that much interest in what might
Correlations are proved all the time. Causes are not. In fact, have been causing cancer's rapid rise in incidence.
causes are exceptionally difficult to prove. However, after we
Unbelievably, it took a further 10 years before the US public
have gathered huge amounts of evidence, we are often
were told that smoking was not such a great idea by the
presented with a summary that says something like this:
Surgeon General of the United States, in 1964.
The evidence strongly suggests a causative link between x and y.
However, despite people now generally believing that smoking
OK, so what? Well, the added complication is this: Just because causes lung cancer, there was still no proof. It wasn't until 1998,
you can't prove that there is a cause between variables, it when research showed that components of cigarette smoke
doesn't mean that there isn't one… caused mutations at three specific cellular locations that they
could be pretty confident of a causal link.
For a long time there was no evidence that smoking caused
lung cancer. Quite how, we can only surmise, but nonetheless These cellular locations were known 'hotspots' for the
there were no studies until 1951 when a british medical development of lung cancer.
researcher Sir Richard Doll published a paper suggesting the
It is actually a mighty step to go from correlative to causative
link based on interviews with 700 lung cancer sufferers. It was
and a step which science takes with great trepidation. Most of
roundly ignored.
the time, with something as complex as a human body, we just
Also in 1951, Doll began a study into the smoking habits of don't know…
40,000 doctors and by 1954 had produced very compelling
However, for our purposes, correlative is a great starting point.
evidence of a positive correlation between smoking and lung
cancer.
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participants. A sample of such high numbers is what makes
2. Sample Size people stand up and take notice.
When investigating a hugely complex situation, with thousands
of variables, our greatest salvation as a scientist is the size of our This is why we have to be very careful when drawing
sample. conclusions from medical and health research. It's often very
expensive to conduct studies with a large sample size, other
Let's say we asked 10 people with lung cancer a few questions
than purely subjective, questionnaire-type studies. Also, there
and found that they all smoked. Great, we conclude that
are often not enough suitable subjects upon which research can
smoking causes cancer.
be performed. There just aren't enough people affected in
However, they also all lived within 10 miles of the hospital. order to have a good sample size.
They also all got their electricity from the same provider.
That's why sample size is so important. The 1951 study into the Where would you start?
health habits and incidence of lung cancer involved 40,000
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Well, a sensible place might be 'Find a bunch of people who are
already 100+ and ask them what they did.' ‘This method can only ever
Exactly. give you the best way out of
So, you interview all these people, you shadow these people,
all the ways that have
you track them over an extended period of time and you come
up with some results. You try and identify all the variables that
already been tried’
It could easily be that doing something new, something
may be important.
different from all of the things that these people have done, will
What they believe in new technology that would make things even better?
Where they live etc. That sounds completely ridiculous, but I can't see why not.
I'm not suggesting that the average human lifespan will increase
to 150 anytime soon, but I expect to live that long and I've been
You find that there are some similarities between them and if
saying so for years.
your sample size is big enough, you begin to tease out
suggestions as to the best way to live to be over 100. Why?
However, and here's the rub… With the pace of human improvement, and developments in
technology and health I expect to be fully functioning, mentally
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and physically until the very end, when all of my organs will
simultaneously fail. Just like an animal living in the wild. Hunting The Story So Far:
for food one week, dead the next.
So, while I plan to look at what current centenarians have done The first dogma postulates that mastery of anything can be
to achieve such a long life, I'm also mindful of the fact that they achieved by breaking the goal into components and getting
started their journeys over 100 years ago. Times have changed a better at each component.
lot since then. I believe for the better.
The second dogma states that the most effective way to get
better at each component is to focus on just one component at
a time using the 13x4 system.
The third dogma states that you need to have a reason for
doing something and that reason in itself needs to be
reasonable, to you, having applied your powers of discernment.
There has to be a reason
How are we doing so far?
Jan 2014
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