Dr. John Ioannidis is a meta-researcher, and in this piece at The Atlantic, he explains how bias and a lack of true understanding of randomness renders many of our medical studies equivocal. Researchers go in to a study looking for a correlation, and viola! they find it. Sometimes, another team goes in looking for the opposite correlation, and viola! they find it. Frequently, however, the hallmark of science: That another team will attempt to duplicate your study and either add to the evidence or highlight an error - never occurs.
Naturally, drug studies are the worst. Naturally, because most of us intuitively grasp that where big money is involved, where a great deal is at stake, the research can easily be corrupted. It's corrupted in this sense because the researchers want to see the correlations between their new drug and the benefits - and that inherent bias leads them to set up a study that will naturally prove, rather than disprove the efficacy of their new product.
I've seen the type of bias Dr. Ionnidis is capturing first hand, amongst myself and my peers. It's much easier to set up a test or study that duplicates our beliefs about how something works; it is much, much harder to devise a test that could actually disprove (and hence validate if passed) our belief in how a system works.
Correlation and causation continue to be difficult to tease out of the world around us - we don't know much, and Dr. Ionnidis research has cast doubt on much of what we thought we knew. Read the article: It is fascinating!
I think my next project will be to download the study mentioned and read about the 45 pivotal studies Dr. Ionnidis concentrated on - what medical and nutrition advice that we take for granted is uncertain?
(If you can't follow the links, here is the complete url:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
)
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Jail Time
I heard this story on the news yesterday: Hungary has jailed the executive of MAL Co., the company that appears to have disregarded safety and maintenance provisions that led to the collapse of a holding tank wall, releasing a million gallons of post aluminum processing sludge (which contains the toxic chemicals cyanide, cadmium, and chromium.) Eight people have died as a result of the spill, and hundreds evacuated.
It's an interesting action. We often give corporate cover to the individuals who manage and work at a company, allowing their malfeasance to go unpunished (we punish the shareholders instead, by fining the company and reducing it's profits.) I understand well the thinking behind this strategy: Sometimes, in the course of business, unforeseen events occur, property receives damage, people get hurt: We don't want to go on a hunt every time, else few (if any) people would be willing to run a business, and we all would suffer. Besides, if the actions and fines are large enough, presumably the shareholders would sack the management of the company, and install new leaders who will work to ensure that profits aren't endangered by carelessness or neglect.
But we must also be mindful of the fact that businesses and corporations have no intrinsic morals: Only people are moral agents capable of determining their course of action. As a society, we should certainly demand moral behavior -- and we can communicate our definition of moral behavior by the rules and regulations we levy upon the conduct of a business. When those rules or regulations are disregarded, willfully ignored or knowingly violated by employees, it is those same employees that should pay restitution to society, not others.
We don't yet know if there was criminal misconduct at MAL Co., and will have to wait for the outcome of the Hungarian Courts. However, since they justify their high salaries upon the idea that a CEO imbues his company with his philosophy, drive, and vision, if the individuals of a corporation have been found to be acting immorally, we should certainly start at the top in filing criminal charges, as Hungary has done.
I've often wondered how much corporate wrongdoing would be cured by the simple expedient of jailing the CEO. Neglect to follow established procedures for cleanliness, and your eggs become tainted with Salmonella, sickening consumers? Go to jail. Rush the process in violation of regulations and procedures, having your oil rig explode and spill millions of gallons of oil? Go to jail. Violate OSHA standards, causing workers to be injured or killed on the job? Go to jail.
It'd be interesting to try. I'll be very curious to see the outcome in Hungary.
It's an interesting action. We often give corporate cover to the individuals who manage and work at a company, allowing their malfeasance to go unpunished (we punish the shareholders instead, by fining the company and reducing it's profits.) I understand well the thinking behind this strategy: Sometimes, in the course of business, unforeseen events occur, property receives damage, people get hurt: We don't want to go on a hunt every time, else few (if any) people would be willing to run a business, and we all would suffer. Besides, if the actions and fines are large enough, presumably the shareholders would sack the management of the company, and install new leaders who will work to ensure that profits aren't endangered by carelessness or neglect.
But we must also be mindful of the fact that businesses and corporations have no intrinsic morals: Only people are moral agents capable of determining their course of action. As a society, we should certainly demand moral behavior -- and we can communicate our definition of moral behavior by the rules and regulations we levy upon the conduct of a business. When those rules or regulations are disregarded, willfully ignored or knowingly violated by employees, it is those same employees that should pay restitution to society, not others.
We don't yet know if there was criminal misconduct at MAL Co., and will have to wait for the outcome of the Hungarian Courts. However, since they justify their high salaries upon the idea that a CEO imbues his company with his philosophy, drive, and vision, if the individuals of a corporation have been found to be acting immorally, we should certainly start at the top in filing criminal charges, as Hungary has done.
I've often wondered how much corporate wrongdoing would be cured by the simple expedient of jailing the CEO. Neglect to follow established procedures for cleanliness, and your eggs become tainted with Salmonella, sickening consumers? Go to jail. Rush the process in violation of regulations and procedures, having your oil rig explode and spill millions of gallons of oil? Go to jail. Violate OSHA standards, causing workers to be injured or killed on the job? Go to jail.
It'd be interesting to try. I'll be very curious to see the outcome in Hungary.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Surf's Up!
A storm whips the seas of the Pacific. For days, the winds feed energy into the ocean, whipping the waves higher. One collection of energy, for unknown reasons, usurps the power of its neighbors, growing substantially larger. Perhaps its alignment and the wind's alignment correlated longer. Perhaps the input energy achieved something akin to resonant frequency with the wave energy, and each little push caused it to grow. Whatever the cause, this wave and its energy grew to more than twice the average of the storm frenzied sea.
First on its path eastward is a low slung bulk container ship. Built in the 70's to manage 40 foot oceans, the ship has been taking on small amounts of water as the waves of the storm crash over its bow. The metal and ore below deck has started shifting from the constant rolling and pitching. The captain's best course would be to slow to a crawl and wait the storm out, but he's on a timetable: Payday doesn't occur until he docks, and his next paycheck depends upon unloading this load and getting another. So, he presses on.
A sister wave to the one we're tracking, not quite as big, but substantially larger than the 30 foot seas rears up and crashes over the ship's bow, straining hatches. The cargo moves some more. The ship plunges into the trough, and then the captain sees it: The biggest wave of his experience. A 90 foot monster rears ahead, crashes into his ship. Hatches are burst under the weight and the twisting, water floods the fore compartments. The 70000 ton vessel is suddenly much heavier, up front, and driven by its motors and momentum, literally drives itself into the ocean. A little over a minute later the ocean closes over its stern; the ship and its crew gone. No mayday was sounded, no transmission released to aid in finding the vessel.
The wave continues on, undeterred, heading for the California coast. Alerted to the presence of the storm, the big wave surfers are gathering, waiting. What size waves will arrive? Will they get a chance at the XXL prize for surfing a 100 foot wave? Jet skis are readied, surf boards are waxed, the ocean is scanned. As the storm surge starts rolling in, the surfers head out for a day testing themselves against the enormous energies of the ocean. The swells increase, first 40, and then 50 foot waves. Finally, the big ones arrive: 60, 65 feet, and then the one they'll talk about for years: Perhaps 70, maybe 75 feet tall. A ride is made, pictures are taken. The energy dissipates.
The wave scientists gather in Maui. They've gotten solid evidence from instrumented oil rigs in the North Sea, from scientific ships that didn't meet the fate of the freighter, from data relayed back from weather satellites: 100 foot waves, once only sailor's legends, routinely rise out of 30 and 40 foot seas. The problem: Their models don't predict them. The models used are accurate in predicting when a storm will whip up 30 foot waves, when it will whip up 40 foot waves – but they tend to predict uniform wave heights, not the regular monster that they now know occurs.
The information sheds light on another mystery: Lloyd's of London, a major insurer of shipping companies and ships, reveals that 2 major cargo ships disappear every month carrying their cargo. If the bulk of the ships built over the last 30 years were designed for a maximum wave of 60 feet, what happens when the crew meets a monster? Simulations back up the scenario with which I opened this essay: They drive themselves into the ocean after water breaches the hatches, after it floods the fore storage areas.
Susan Casey weaves these elements together, and more, in her book “The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean.” The majority of the book follows the big wave surfers as they hunt out the biggest waves to ride, and then underscores what they're doing with a search to understand how the waves gain their energy and what science is discovering. After reading the book I am in awe of guys like Laird Hamilton, Brett Lickle, and Dave Kamada, fascinated by the energies of the ocean, and have a reinforced understanding that the key to predicting the future climate of the earth rests on a deeper knowledge of the oceans – knowledge that scientists are just now beginning to gain.
I also won't be sailing or surfing anytime soon!
(Casey, Susan. “The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean.” Doubleday, New York. 2010)
First on its path eastward is a low slung bulk container ship. Built in the 70's to manage 40 foot oceans, the ship has been taking on small amounts of water as the waves of the storm crash over its bow. The metal and ore below deck has started shifting from the constant rolling and pitching. The captain's best course would be to slow to a crawl and wait the storm out, but he's on a timetable: Payday doesn't occur until he docks, and his next paycheck depends upon unloading this load and getting another. So, he presses on.
A sister wave to the one we're tracking, not quite as big, but substantially larger than the 30 foot seas rears up and crashes over the ship's bow, straining hatches. The cargo moves some more. The ship plunges into the trough, and then the captain sees it: The biggest wave of his experience. A 90 foot monster rears ahead, crashes into his ship. Hatches are burst under the weight and the twisting, water floods the fore compartments. The 70000 ton vessel is suddenly much heavier, up front, and driven by its motors and momentum, literally drives itself into the ocean. A little over a minute later the ocean closes over its stern; the ship and its crew gone. No mayday was sounded, no transmission released to aid in finding the vessel.
The wave continues on, undeterred, heading for the California coast. Alerted to the presence of the storm, the big wave surfers are gathering, waiting. What size waves will arrive? Will they get a chance at the XXL prize for surfing a 100 foot wave? Jet skis are readied, surf boards are waxed, the ocean is scanned. As the storm surge starts rolling in, the surfers head out for a day testing themselves against the enormous energies of the ocean. The swells increase, first 40, and then 50 foot waves. Finally, the big ones arrive: 60, 65 feet, and then the one they'll talk about for years: Perhaps 70, maybe 75 feet tall. A ride is made, pictures are taken. The energy dissipates.
The wave scientists gather in Maui. They've gotten solid evidence from instrumented oil rigs in the North Sea, from scientific ships that didn't meet the fate of the freighter, from data relayed back from weather satellites: 100 foot waves, once only sailor's legends, routinely rise out of 30 and 40 foot seas. The problem: Their models don't predict them. The models used are accurate in predicting when a storm will whip up 30 foot waves, when it will whip up 40 foot waves – but they tend to predict uniform wave heights, not the regular monster that they now know occurs.
The information sheds light on another mystery: Lloyd's of London, a major insurer of shipping companies and ships, reveals that 2 major cargo ships disappear every month carrying their cargo. If the bulk of the ships built over the last 30 years were designed for a maximum wave of 60 feet, what happens when the crew meets a monster? Simulations back up the scenario with which I opened this essay: They drive themselves into the ocean after water breaches the hatches, after it floods the fore storage areas.
Susan Casey weaves these elements together, and more, in her book “The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean.” The majority of the book follows the big wave surfers as they hunt out the biggest waves to ride, and then underscores what they're doing with a search to understand how the waves gain their energy and what science is discovering. After reading the book I am in awe of guys like Laird Hamilton, Brett Lickle, and Dave Kamada, fascinated by the energies of the ocean, and have a reinforced understanding that the key to predicting the future climate of the earth rests on a deeper knowledge of the oceans – knowledge that scientists are just now beginning to gain.
I also won't be sailing or surfing anytime soon!
(Casey, Susan. “The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean.” Doubleday, New York. 2010)
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