…the Spanish Inquisition Science Police.
My friends fall into several groups, with only minimal overlap. A couple of groups are almost exclusively scientists, but in another I am the only person with any science background at all. I tend not to talk about science much when I get together with the latter group; I have been known to go off on long alcohol-fuelled rants about Why Creationists Are Wrong, which is apparently quite amusing on an occasional basis but should not be allowed to happen too often.
I was compelled to stick my neck out twice in one pub dinner last week though. Apparently I just can’t help myself. My husband already calls me the Word Police, and now I’m the Science Police as well.
First up: a discussion of the local floating foot mystery. One friend was incredulous that the police couldn’t even give the victims’ race. “Surely they can just sequence their genes and at least work out if they’re white or Asian or whatever”. Erm, no. Beyond the unrealistic expectations of rapid personal genome sequencing (one day, maybe), as far as I know there is not one single genetic marker that can tell you a person’s race. I suppose you could get really lucky and find something strongly associated with a particular ethnicity, such as the sickle cell anemia allele that is most common in sub-Saharan African populations. But even then you would at best know the probability that your victim is black. You might come up with an extremely high probability in some cases, but there’s no such thing as a distinctively African or Asian or Caucasian gene. (Or at least there wasn’t during my undergrad days).
Our discussion moved on to a friend of a friend, a lovely girl who has some, erm, unusual beliefs. The first time I met her, she asked me if it was possible to change the sequence of mutated DNA, to cure people with cystic fibrosis for example. I launched into an enthusiastic explanation of gene therapy and why it shows promise but can also cause cancer. She listened politely, then said “yeah, I’d heard about that, but what I meant is, isn’t it possible to change the sequence of your DNA using the power of your mind?” Torn between good manners and extreme sarcasm, I chose the path of light and politely explained that no, actually, it isn’t. She repeated that she’d heard it was possible, and then the conversation mercifully moved on to other topics that were much less likely to make my brain explode.
Perhaps unwisely, I brought the episode up at the pub once the whole race thing had died down, and told everyone how hard it had been to answer that question politely. A surprising number of my friends told me off for being too negative: they all thought the phenomenon she’d mentioned sounded really plausible.
Now, this is a group of friends who are not afraid of sarcasm and the good old-fashioned piss-take. “Show me the evidence!”, I said. “Find me one published report of spontaneous reversion of an inherited disease! Explain why people still have cystic fibrosis! Propose a mechanism!”
I was countered with “positive thinking”.
I have no problem whatsoever with correlations between positive thinking and general well-being. The reason is that I can think of plausible mechanisms – the negative effect of stress hormones on the immune system, for example. But when faced with a table full of people demanding to know “Why Not?”, all I could come up with was negatives. There’s no evidence for conscious control of DNA sequences. No plausible mechanism. No published studies. It was the same as with the race issue – there are no race-specific genes. No way for the police to sequence the victims’ entire genome.
I think I have most of my friends at least partially convinced, but it was a struggle.
It’s no wonder that science can be such a hard sell; we don’t half sound like miserable buggers sometimes.
Cath – the traditional way to explode silly beliefs is not to doggedly demand the evidence, but to posit a fantasy world in which the belief was actually true, and follow the scenario to its logical conclusion. If we really could change our DNA by the power of our mind, then it would be the case that we could have cured ourselves spontaneously of all ills, even death itself, long before we’d heard of DNA, simply by thinking about it. Ridiculous!
Cath – love it, thanks.
I have a developing, er, issue, in that someone close to me is getting seriously into homeopathy. Fair enough, live and let live and all that, and I don’t know enough about it to denounce it as total nonsense. But sometimes it’s hard to stop the brow furrowing angrily.
Yours,
A miserable bugger.
It’s no wonder that science can be such a hard sell; we don’t half sound like miserable buggers sometimes.
I’ve encountered the same sort of thing, Cath. It’s dismaying to find out that people you respect in other ways (or could, in the case of strangers) live in a fantasy world of their own making. But as I have an allergic reaction to proselytizing (or selling things in general), if I encounter too much resistance, I usually just agree to disagree and move on. And that is highly unsatisfactory. So, good for you for trying.
I thought the traditional way to deal with silly beliefs was to ridicule the people who believe them. Just build up a bit of emnity, have a fight. It’s a great way to sell books.
People believe what they want to believe, and they want to believe whatever makes them feel better. You’ll have to give them a reason why science is the better way to look at the world to get them to rethink. But then, not even I am always sure this is indeed the case…
Henry, I will definitely try that next time! I suppose that could have followed on from my “why do people still have cystic fibrosis?” question, but I didn’t pursue the point. And maybe if I do a good enough job of describing this marvellous fantasy land that would exist if we could control our own DNA sequence, I might find the seeds of a plot for a science fiction bonkbuster, right?
Lee, that’s a tricky one alright. I’ve managed to get myself into an argument about the ethics of using homeopathy on animals – I conceded that humans can do whatever the hell they want, but it’s not fair to use non-evidence based medicine on animals in your care who don’t have any say in the matter. I would have a hard time keeping my composure around someone who tried to press the point that diluting something so much that it’s no longer there, makes it stronger, though.
Heather, for me it depends on what company I’m in. With strangers (like this friend of a friend) my good manners usually win out. But in a group of good friends with some beer in them, I’m more prone to tell them what I really think! And yes, I was quite dismayed at their reaction to the whole DNA control thing. Have I taught them nothing??!! In contrast, my husband seems to have absorbed enough science in the 5 years he’s known me to be able to take my side and argue against them. (He also confessed to buying a book called “101 things everyone should know about science” when he first met me, and hiding it from me!).
Bob, I’m sure it is! It’s maybe not the best way to get invited back to the pub though. These
argumentsdebates are all well and good occasionally, but there’s a reason we don’t talk about science very often!Sabine, that’s the crux of the matter. It’s hard to win people over when you’re shattering a comforting belief with “nope, sorry, not possible”. Ridicule doesn’t help much either, although it is fun. I have to work on my technique…
Here is a great way to deflate the lunacy that is homeopathy. Sometimes the only way to counter arrant nonsense is to laugh at it.
That’s awesome!
Deja vu it seems like. It’s worse when one ends up watching TV with non-scientists, one’s sniggering is rarely appreciated.
Am off to positive think my DNA into…something.
Very true. I used to watch ER with my 3 medical student flatmates, so I know how irritating that can be from the non-expert’s perspective.
I still do it though.
If I could have manipulated my plasmids through the power of my mind, my PhD and postdoc would both have been much easier. Actually my friend said that if she could have one superpower it would be telekinesis, so she could ligate her plasmid ends together using mindpower.
As you mentioned previously, in fact.
I’m not going mad, we have had this conversation.
Well you’re doing better than me, I’d forgotten I’d already told that story. Oh well, at least I didn’t repeat it on the same site.
Actually my friend said that if she could have one superpower it would be telekinesis, so she could ligate her plasmid ends together using mindpower.
Coming home from the cinema after watching The Incredibles, I announced to my kids that my middle initial (‘E’) stands for ‘Extraordinary’, and that I could reveal that the person known to the world as Henry E Gee, that mild-mannered, quiet and reserved Nature editor, has an alter ego — Captain Extraordinary. This was greeted with snorts of derision. I’d expected that, but not that I’d be floored by my offsprings’ next question – on the precise nature of my superpower? All I could come up with was the ability to turn up in the kitchen just as someone else has finished the washing up. And I’d have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those pesky meddling kids.