Irrationality and the stolen pencil

I've just read for review an interesting book called Predictably Irrational (you can read my review here). It points out the flaw in the fundamental basis of economics, which assumes that human beings act rationally, and in such a way to maximize their benefit. The reality is very different. The book is full of experiments done to confirm this - showing, for instance, how we can't resist the pull of a discount even when we know it's rigged. But there is one thought experiment that I thought was a very powerful demonstration of the lack of logical consistency in our approach to honesty.

Picture this situation, says the author. Your child asks you to bring a pencil home. Would you have significant pangs of conscience about bringing one home from work? Most people say 'No.' Now imagine you don't have any pencils in the office, but there's a pencil stall selling them in the foyer of the office block. Would you have significant pangs of conscience about taking the money from petty cash and using it to buy a pencil to take home to your child? Most people say 'Yes.'

I'm with most people on this. I wouldn't take the money, but I would take the pencil. Of course, you can easily start to justify this. To buy the pencil you would steal the retail cost, but when you just take a pencil the company only loses the wholesale cost. But that's splitting hairs. The fact is that there's something very different about taking money and taking a low value item in the same circumstances, even though rationally they are the same thing.

Aren't people interesting?

The two commandments of letting children decorate

Although we probably all know the rules, I think it's time I came up with the tablets of stone on letting children decorate their rooms, and the excuses as to why we've ignored them.

#1 Thou shalt not let thy children decorate their rooms

I mean, it sounds a good idea, doesn't it, letting them express themselves, and make their environment the way they want it. Forget it. You want to be able to resell the place some time. And anyway, are you prepared to spend the next six months removing streaks of paint from walls all around the house where they've touched without washing their hands? Because their hands will be covered in paint. This is a rule, even if they only use wallpaper.

#2 Thou shalt not let them choose black paint

I mean, come on. How much of a teenage cliché is it to have black paint in the bedroom? It's so dated. And apart from that, the streaks of paint effect will be even more dramatic. What's more, when they decide to clean their hands afterwards in the same sink as the washing up, you will never, ever get the black paint off the plates.

So what did we do when they suggested painting one wall of the spare room, which they use to hang out in, black? We said 'Yes.' But we do have an excuse. Because they had a genuinely good idea. Not just to paint a wall black, but to paint it with blackboard paint. So there's a wonderful way to let loose artistic urges/aggression etc. Here's the result as it stands at the moment:

Yes, okay, Maxwell's equations in operator form was my contribution. But why not? That's the joy of it. About once a week we do have to complain about some content and have it removed (usually when there have been boys round), but on the whole it works very well.

I'm going to end it all - pass the homeopathic pills

Just over a week ago there was a mass overdose of medication sold by responsible companies like Boots. Across the world people took vastly more than the recommended dose. And nothing happened. The reason? They were overdosing on homeopathic medicine.

The campaign was known as 10:23. The rather strange numbering refers to Avogadro's number. This is a number that delights chemists - it's the number of atoms in a mole of a substance. The actual number is around 6x10^23, where 10^23 is 1 with 23 zeroes after it. The reason this is of relevence to homeopathic medicine becomes clear when you realize how these medications are made.

The idea of homeopathy, which has no scientific basis whatsoever, is that you treat an ailment with a poison that produces a similiar effect. But to avoid finishing off your patients, you dilute that poison with water. In fact you dilute it over and over again, so much so, that you have reduced it by more than Avagadro's number. The chances are there is not a single molecule of the poison left - it's all water. You then drip the water onto a sugar pill, and that's your homeopathic remedy.

When homeopathy was first devised this wasn't a problem, as no one knew about atoms or Avogadro's number, but now we do, homeopaths have had to devise a reason for the medicine to work. They say it's because during the dilution process they bash the container against a leather strap, and this, in some mysterious way, enables the water to have a memory of the poison even after it has entirely gone. (You couldn't make this stuff up.)

So homeopathic remedies are sugar pills with no active ingredient, and all the evidence is that the positive results some people ascribe to homeopathy are down to the placebo effect. I was very careful not to say 'only the placebo effect', because placebos can really deliver results, particularly on the supression of pain. A good example is the internal mammary artery ligation operation. This used to be regularly performed to reduce chest pain as a result of angina.

It was an invasive procedure involving opening the chest and tying off the artery. Pain was reduced for a number of months. But in the 1950s, a surgeon tried a series of placebo operations. As far as the patients were concerned, they were undergoing the procedure, but in fact the surgeon just made an incision and closed up again. The result was exactly the same. The pain relief was not due to the operation, but to the natural painkillers released by the body when the brain assumed there would be pain relief - it was a placebo.

This same thing can happen with homeopathic remedies, to the real benefit of patients. But there is no active ingredient causing the outcome. While it's clearly totally unacceptable for homeopathy to be used for anything life threatening in place of real medicine, there's a difficult moral decision when it comes to, for instance, pain relief. Is it acceptable to lie to someone in order to make them feel better? We certainly do this all the time, but most would argue it's unprofessional to do this for medical reasons. And hence the 10:23 protest.

You will almost certainly have heard people say 'Yes, but there is scientific validation of homeopathy. It has been tested.' I'm afraid there is some misleading information floating about. See this article on the misrepresentation of scientific evidence on homeopathy to a House of Commons committee.

The sad thing is that most homeopaths won't accept reality and continue to insist that their medications do have a non-placebo effect. I want to leave you with a quote from a homeopathist in response to the 10:23 protest. You can read the whole response here, but this is arguably the best bit. Try not to fall off your chair.

Of course homeopaths know that one dose of however many pills taken together in one go, is the equivalent of only one dose, because it is the time frame that counts.  So if they had repeatedly taken a dose every hour for the rest of the day, the skeptics would most certainly have felt the effects.  Therefore this little stunt ‘proves’ little, although I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them sheepishly confess that they did experience some symptoms later, because after taking a homeopathic remedy, especially 30c or above, the effects can be felt for days afterwards.


'It's the time frame that counts.' Oh, that'll be okay, then. Sigh.

In which I venture into a jewellery store

As a science writer, I believe I am qualified to write about life, the universe and everything. In this case it's going to be about online jewellery shopping, as online store JewelryArtDesigns (aka LuShae Jewelry) kindly agreed to let me loose in their virtual aisles provided I wrote up the experience.

They sell rings, earrings and pendants, priced around £40 ($60-70) including worldwide shipping. Many of the pieces (note the easy use of the jargon there) feature cubic zirconium stones and a lot are gold or rhodium plated in finish.

I toyed with a suitably bling ring, wondering if I could go for the gangsta rapper science writer look (there aren't many science writers who can pull this off), but decided on the whole I'd be better settling for something for my wife. If I'm honest, a lot of the jewellery was a bit too flashy for me, but I dithered between a simple pair of stud earrings and a rather nice looking pendant, and went for the latter.

The shopping process was painless, and despite this being an Australian company shipping from the US, it was easy enough to flip the currency in the shopping cart and get a price I understood. Then the wait. It took a little longer than I expected, taking 20 days to arrive. Irritatingly, I had to go to the post office and pay tax on it - particularly galling because the tax was £3.83, but the Post Office added an £8 handling charge. I'm assured by the people at JewelryArtDesigns that this doesn't usually happen, but see comments below. It seems very likely to happen unless the Post Office only checks random samples.

The item itself was in a mid-range box - not a cheap and nasty plastic one, not something that exuded 'expensive jewellers'. The pendant seemed well-finished - not flimsy and with a good, solid chain, not the sort that snaps if you breathe on it that you often get with a cheap necklace. I assume the chain is gold plated too (it doesn't say on the website).

All in all, apart from slight issues with delivery and tax, a good experience. The pricing (provided you don't get hit with tax) seems about what you'd expect for an item of this quality, though I wouldn't say it was any cheaper than buying something in a local jewellers.

Here ends my excursion into the retail world. Normal service will be resumed in the next post.

Did they have the wheel when you were young, Daddy

WARNING - nostalgia ain't what it used to be alert

I had one of those conversations with one of the daughters yesterday. 'Did you have a car, when you were my age?' she asked. For a moment I thought this was an 'I'm 16 tomorrow, so it's time to be saving up for the following year,' type hint, but in fact she meant did we have one in the family. It must, she mused (as I drove her back home from an after-school event) be difficult to manage without a car.

As it happens, we did have car, even when I was young, but it got me thinking about what we didn't have in the first few years of my life, including:

• A fridge or freezer (until 10)
• Central heating (until 11)
• Duvets (until 15)
• A colour TV (until 15)
• A TV remote (until 12, and that had a wire)
• Computers (ever)
• Internet (ever)
• Mobile phones (ever)
• Microwave (ever)
• Dishwasher (ever)
• Garden furniture (ever)

... and no doubt much more. But we wuz 'appy. It's remarkable how central to existence many of these things seem now. The daughter was particularly shocked by the lack of fridge (not that this is more important than the internet and mobile phones, but she knew we didn't have those in the stone age). What did we do with frozen food? We didn't buy it. How about milk? We kept it in a coolish pantry, and got a new bottle most days. Brought, of course, by the milkman.

The wonder of nostalgia means I can even think of aspects of not having central heating that were appealing. The excitement of waking up to find frost on the inside of the windows. Even now, when I'm ill, I pine for a fire in the bedroom, which we only used to have when someone was ill. (Of course, I conveniently forget how COLD it was anywhere except a few feet from the fire.) But realism says that even if all those things don't make me happy, I would miss them now. (Except, possibly, the garden furniture.) A blog, for instance, wouldn't be the same, hand written and stuck up in the window of the house. So, on the whole, I approve of progress.

Despite appearances in the photo, we didn't live in a field, that was taken up on t't moors. Sadly, yes, that is me with my Dad.

WiFi woes and the wonders of woo

I was hauled over to BBC Wiltshire yesterday to speak up against rumours of the malignant influence of WiFi. Swindon is outfitting the entire town with free WiFi, and it seems there was a discussion of this on a local TV show the night before. Ranged against a single voice of sanity were apparently two people from organizations campaigning against WiFi and phone masts (who are very happy to sell you meters to detect 'electromagnetic radiation', or tinfoil hats to protect your brain), and two concerned mothers. Very measured response, BBC.

I have every sympathy for the concerned mothers because the sort of information they get if they search the web and hit these campaigning organizations is really scary. To start with the websites always refer to radiation, making sure that WiFi is tarred with the same brush as nuclear reactors. They don't bother to point out that electromagnetic radiation is just stuff like light and radio. Then they cite multiple studies showing how electrosensitive people can feel the damage being caused by WiFi or mobile phones. What they don't point out is all these studies are anecdotal and uncontrolled. Whenever a proper, controlled, double blind test is done, these 'electrosensitives' aren't influenced by the WiFi. I'm not saying they're lying, but rather it's an example of the nocebo effect, the negative version of the placebo effect, where if you think something will give you a headache etc. it probably will.

What isn't pointed out is that WiFi is just another contribution to all the radio, TV, phones, and other electromagnetic traffic zapping around us all the time. And they're relatively low power, typically thousands of times weaker, for example, than the sort of transmitter used by radio hams.

The other concern explicitly mentioned to the radio show host was whether WiFi could influence pacemakers. Someone had been warned that the Swindon WiFi might mean he couldn't leave the house. But pacemakers have been thoroughly tested with stronger WiFi than is allowed in Europe without damage. When you think about it, a computer is much more likely to be upset by WiFi than a pacemaker, and they aren't - so it's not entirely surprising. A local surgeon who fits pacemakers pointed out that they have WiFi in the operating theatre where they fit them. Not a worry, he says.

I've saved the most horrendous allegation until last. Apparently, on the TV show, one of the campaigners claimed that the rise in lung cancer in the last century was not due to smoking but to the introduction of FM radio. Leaving aside just how bizarre a claim this is, flying in the face of some of the most detailed and persuasive research ever, I can't decide if this is silly or sick. It certainly should alert anyone who is worried by the material put out by these campaigners to the fact that their concerns aren't exactly rational. Now where did I put my tinfoil hat?

Postscript - If you want to see just how bad things can get in terms of the rubbish cited on electrosensitivity, see this article in the Independent, kindly pointed out to me by Austin Elliott. I really can't believe a respectable newspaper published that.

Why a French restaurant chain makes me burst out in song

 There are certain rituals of life that seem to be unavoidable. Often these are family traditions. The family of a friend of ours, for instance, had a habit of making a silly noise every time they drove into a different county.

I find that there are certain encounters that generate a near-automatic response. Whenever I see a particular thing it make me utter a (not very funny) phrase, or burst into song.

Probably the strongest example of this is when we're on holiday in France. There's a restaurant chain there called Buffalo Grill (presumably pronounced 'boofalloh greel') with very distinctive buildings. I guess they're a kind of rib shack, though I've never been in one. But I can't see those big horns without bursting into Buffalo grill won't you come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight? Buffalo grill won't you come out tonight and dance by the light of the moon. Sad, I know, but it simply can't be avoided.

Do you have similar automatic responses? What triggers your funny bone? And for your delectation here's one version of the original of this masterpiece with non other than Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney. What more could you ask?

Does physics make sense? Feel the force!

Sometimes people can be tripped up in understanding the world by a basic bit of science. Yet if we can overcome that misunderstanding, suddenly an awful lot becomes clearer. One good example of this is the basic operation of forces acting on a simple ball you throw in the air. Take a moment to get answers to these three questions before reading on (ignore air resistance, as pointed out below):

 

 Don't read on until you've mentally answered each question.

No cheating - get those answers straight in your mind.

When this little test was given to secondary school science teachers in the UK, the majority got it wrong (so don't worry if you did). If that sounds bad, bear in mind most UK science teachers aren't physicists.

The answers? In each case, exactly the same. Just one force, downwards. The force due to gravity. Once the ball has left the thower's hand it has nothing acting on it but gravity. The acceleration is always downwards.

Apart from being a useful little exercise in understanding of physics, I think there's a wider implication on taking a scientific viewpoint here. It's always useful, whether you are assessing the value of a homeopathic remedy, the dangers of WiFi radiation or the flight of a ball to ask 'Just what is acting? How is it having an effect? What will the result be?' There's a lot of knowledge about the world that can quite simply be gained if we take this approach more often, rather than leaping in with assumptions and 'what everybody knows.'

The wry catch

Author J. D. Salinger has died - and like any death, it's a sadness. But I couldn't help getting mildly irritated by the eulogy on Salinger's work I heard on the radio this morning.

If we are to believe what I heard, teenagers were rushing out, buying The Catcher in the Rye with the sort of enthusiasm they would now buy a new Harry Potter, because here was literature they could identify with. Tosh. What really happened is that English teachers found a book which they thought would go down well with the kids but was still real literature, and it was down to them that it achieved its current untouchable status.

Don't get me wrong - English teachers do a brilliant and difficult job. Much 'great literature' is hard work to read. You have to get your students past the barrier of the arty or dated writing to see there is actually some good stuff in there. But there's no doubt Catcher in the Rye was their idea of an engaging teenage read, rather than a real teenager's idea.

When I was forced to read it at school, I can't say I hated it, but I certainly didn't get a lot out of it. I found the 50s US culture alien (we weren't so well versed in American culture back then), and as self-centred teenager, I found the angst of another self-centred teenager boring and forced. I don't think it was rebellion against being forced to read it. At a similar time we had to read Lord of the Flies and I thought that was totally wonderful, buying my own copy and re-reading it over and over. But please, this picture of teenagers rushing to spend their allowance on a copy of Catcher in the Rye leaves me with a wry smile.

The startling significance of Mr Talbot's spectacles

I had the pleasure yesterday of accompanying Radio Wiltshire's Mark O'Donnell to the Fox Talbot museum at Lacock Abbey in beautiful rural Wiltshire. It was a great day for it - crisp, light sun, hardly anyone around. We were recording the first of a series of little pieces on Wiltshire science and technology.

At the museum, we met up with curator Roger Watson to do a three way chat on the significance of Fox Talbot's work. (Or Talbot as Mr Watson called him - it seems Fox wasn't part of his surname. But having said that, William Henry did sign himself 'Fox Talbot' sometimes, so there's some justification for using both.)

It was fascinating - apart from anything else, it's not every visit to a museum that you get the best bits pointed out personally by the curator. He was particularly proud of a new acquisition, Fox Talbot's spectacles. From them, they have been able to deduce that he had good sight in one eye, but very poor sight in the other. This potentially made him quite poor at drawing without aids - and that's important.

Fox Talbot came to photography, and his production of the first photographic negative 165 years ago (the picture to the left is a print from it, courtesy of Wikipedia), after using a device called a camera lucida, which superimposed a virtual image of a scene with the drawing paper in an artist's eye, enabling them to sketch the scene with help. This led to using a camera obscura, producing a real image on the paper - and then to playing around with photosensitive paper to capture that image.

So quite possibly these newly recovered spectacles give a clue as to why Fox Talbot started down that route. I love it when some little thing pops up like this and throws scientific history into a new light.

If you want to see the Fox Talbot Museum (and the remarkable Lacock Abbey), it's currently open at weekends, and goes to seven day a week opening towards the end of February. Check the website for details.

England on $10 a day

When I was at university I had a tendency to buy random books just because they looked interesting (this was before the web, remember - it was a sort of physical version of StumbleUpon).

One of my favourite purchases was a guidebook to the UK called England on $10 a Day. Leaving aside the cheapness, which even then was impressive, I just loved the idea of seeing my country through slightly alien eyes - and I was not disappointed. What's not to love about a guidebook that treats Scotland as part of England?

Ninety percent of the book is on the south of England, but as a Lancastrian I couldn't help but be delighted with its different approaches to the East and the West. The North West it eulogises about. The North East? 'Unless you enjoy untamed scenery and perhaps a visit to an ancient city or two, such as York or Lincoln, then this huge hunk of north-eastern England may hold little interest for you.' Quite.

It's difficult to find a specific quote that evokes the feeling it gives. But here's an example when talking about travelling by train in the UK: 'There is something magical about travelling on a train in England. You sit in comfortable compartments, on upholstered seats, next to reserved and inevitably well-dressed Englishmen and served your meal in the dining car like a titled aristocrat.' Hmm.

Just to get a real impression of how prices have changed (the book was published in 1973), one of the recommended London hotels is the Heritage House Hotel in Bayswater where Mr. and Mrs. Bailey R. Irani charge £2 per person for bed and breakfast. Want a meal? You can get "bangers and mash" (their quotes) at The Cockney Pride in Picadilly Circus for 25p. Or (it gets quite excited here) "faggots and pease pudding" for 28p. Yum.

I ought to stress that though I may be teasing it, this was a good book for its day. Here's its philosophy, which I applaud: 'This book has not been written for the North American tourist who likes only the expensive and the gaudy - who goes through Europe rudely demanding "a room, a private bath and a good cuppa coffee." It is, rather, for those who want to experience a country's true charm, it's precious traditions, its authentic food - and who hope to make new friends.' And though those 'traditions' may occasionally be a little caricatured, it still does a very entertaining job.

Academics meet HTML - it's not difficult

I pretty regularly get emails from academics. They're easy to spot - they are the ones that look terrible. Here's a simple email from a normal person:

Hi Fred,

Could you let me have the latest figures on Losing Your Head, please. Also:

• Do this
• Do that
• And do the other
  

Best regards,
Brian Clegg

Follow Brian at http://www.twitter.com/brianclegg

  

And here's the same email from an academic:

Hi Fred,

Could you let me have the latest figures on Losing Your Head, please. Also:
* Do this

* Do that
* And do the other
Best regards,

Brian Clegg

Follow Brian at http://www.twitter.com/brianclegg

Can you spot the difference? The academic version looks terrible because it's plain text. There's no formatting, no fonts, no layout - it's rubbish.

Once upon a time there was an excuse for this. Academics were using very early email systems that didn't have the bells and whistles. It's a bit like the way that many years ago I used to produce printed reports in upper case, because the line printer I was using didn't have lower case. But I've moved on. And it's time those academics did too. Now it seems to be almost a badge, rather similar to the way some people with an arts background seem proud of knowing nothing about science. 'Look!' it seems to say, 'I'm much too intellectual to have formatted emails.' Grow up, please.