Science: Belief in the Experts?

Feynman famously said that “science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” In the real world, though, it seems the words “ignorance of” have been dropped from the definition. At least, that's the conclusion I often reach when reading about various scientific developments. Many times, I find one expert with influence has determined what scientists believed for decades.

A case in point is a recent Wired article about how the World Health Organization (WHO) went from declaring “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne” in April 2020 (see above) to “placing the inhalation of aerosols at the top of its list of how the disease spreads” in May 2021. The problem appears to be a 60-year misunderstanding of something the first chief epidemiologist of the CDC, Alexander Langmuir, said about tuberculosis. His words seem to have led health scientists to believe particles must be 5 microns or smaller in order for any virus to be classified as “airborne.” (It turns out that even particles as large as 100 microns can spread through the air.)

The irony is that Langmuir's speech was an apology for his own blind belief in the experts that preceded him. In it, he confessed he had been wrong to dismiss the work of Harvard engineer William Firth Wells:

“Like his peers, Langmuir had been brought up in the Gospel of Personal Cleanliness, an obsession that made handwashing the bedrock of US public health policy. He seemed to view Wells’ ideas about airborne transmission as retrograde, seeing in them a slide back toward an ancient, irrational terror of bad air—the ‘miasma theory’ that had prevailed for centuries. Langmuir dismissed them as little more than ‘interesting theoretical points.’”

Langmuir's attitude toward Wells' ideas arguably set tuberculosis health policy back seven years. That was the amount of time that transpired between Wells' book about his findings (1955) and Langmuir's 'apology' speech (1962). Of course, that pales in comparison to the nearly 60 years that have transpired since that speech, which inadvertantly gave rise to the 5-micron myth.

We like to think science is a rigorous process of constant belief interrogation, but that isn’t even close to reality. It turns out scientists are just as lazy as the rest of humanity. They accept without question, assume without challenge and generally fall prey to all the same cognitive biases as the rest of us.

Poor Risk Analogies

In making their arguments for/against COVID-19 mitigation strategies, people often use risk analogies. However, these analogies are often premised on a flawed conception of COVID risk. Here's a typical example from a wise health expert I really like:

In Zero Covid, the goal is to reduce the number of COVID-19 cases to the lowest level possible—seemingly regardless of the consequences of that approach.

In Harm Reduction, the goal is to reduce the harm caused by COVID-19 across all domains: physical, mental and emotional, economic, social, etc.

Let me use an analogy to explain the difference. We have about 40,000 traffic fatalities in the United States each year. These are tragic, and technically preventable, deaths. If we lowered the speed limit to 5 mph—even on the highway—we could likely reduce the number of traffic deaths to a small handful, if not zero. This would be analogous to a Zero Covid strategy.

But if we did that, our society (as we know it) would come to a grinding halt. It would take you three hours to get to work, or the grocery store, or to pick up your kids from school. Food would rot in trucks on the highway. Obviously, this is not the path we took. Instead, we’ve chosen to set higher speed limits, knowing that they will, unfortunately, contribute to a not insignificant number of deaths each year. We’ve decided that the benefits of having a functional society outweigh the costs of these fatalities. This is a Harm Reduction strategy ...

Most of us don’t think about this each time we get into a vehicle. We don’t consider the trade-off that we’ve made as a society, nor do we consciously consider the risk-reward calculation that each of us is making (i.e., the small chance that we could be seriously harmed or killed in a traffic accident on the way to the grocery store). We are so familiar with this risk that we don’t even think about it anymore.

(Source: "Should we isolate kids who were exposed to COVID-19?" email by Chris Kresser)

I agree with Kresser that Harm Reduction is the correct strategy for Covid and that Zero Covid ignores too many other variables — what Libertarians call "the seen vs. the unseen."

However, for the car-accident analogy to be correct, such an accident would have to cause 1.4 to 3.9 other people (source: Medscape) to go and have a car accident, who each would cause 1.4 to 3.9 other people to have a car accident, and so on.

To torture the analogy, maybe most of those accidents would be minor fender-benders or even just light taps resulting in no damage. But elderly drivers (because of poor vision and delayed reflexes) would tend to have fatal accidents more often. Etc.

(N.B. It was Nassim Taleb who first helped me understand this.)

Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF)

Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF) is the ideal heart rate for all aerobic training. Below are excerpts from the Website of Dr. Phil Maffetone, creator of the MAF fitness metric.

The MAF 180 Formula

Subtract your age from 180, then modify from one of the categories below:

• If you have or are recovering from a major illness (heart disease, any operation or hospital stay, etc.), are in rehabilitation, are on any regular medication, or are in Stage 3 (chronic) overtraining (burnout), subtract an additional 10.
  
  
• If you are injured, have regressed or not improved in training (such as poor MAF Tests) or competition, get more than two colds, flu or other infections per year, have seasonal allergies or asthma, are overfat, are in Stage 1 or 2 of overtraining, or if you have been inconsistent, just starting, or just getting back into training, subtract an additional 5.
  
  
• If you have been training consistently (at least four times weekly) for up to two years without any of the problems mentioned in a) or b), no modification is necessary (use 180 minus age as your MAF HR).
  
  
• If you have been training for more than two years without any of the problems listed above, have made progress in your MAF Tests, improved competitively and are without injury, add 5.

Exemptions:

• The MAF 180 Formula may need to be further individualized for athletes over the age of 65. For some, up to 10 beats may have to be added for those only in category (d) of the Formula. This does not mean 10 should automatically be added, but that an honest self-assessment be made.
• For athletes 16 years of age and under, the formula is not applicable; rather, an MAF HR of 165 has been used.

(Source: "MAF 180 Formula: Heart-rate monitoring for real aerobic training")

The MAF Test

The MAF Test can be done with any exercise except weight-lifting. The test can also be performed on stationary equipment such as a treadmill or other apparatus that measures power output.

To perform the test, you must first obtain your maximum aerobic heart rate with the help of the MAF 180 Formula. While working out at that heart rate, determine your walking, jogging or running pace—the time that it takes you to cover a certain distance—in minutes per mile, cycling speed in miles per hour, or repetitions (such as laps in a pool over time), and make a note of it. This is the parameter you will test for improvement later on.

During any MAF Test, your times should always get slower with successive repetitions: the first mile should always be the fastest, and the last should be the slowest. If that’s not the case, it usually means you haven’t warmed up enough.

The MAF Test should indicate faster times as the months go by. This means the aerobic system is developing and you’re burning more fat, enabling you to do more work with the same effort. Even if you walk or run longer distances, your MAF Test should show the same progression of results, providing you heed your maximum aerobic heart rate.

(Source: "What is the MAF Test?")

Quality of Experience

“As one of my mentors is fond of saying, ‘The quality of our experience is determined by the focus of our attention.’” 

“If our attention is fragmented and constantly being pulled in different directions (and often directions not of our choosing), then the quality of our experience will reflect that. We’ll feel stressed, frazzled, unable to focus, and disconnected from ourselves and the world around us.”

- Chris Kresser

Kresser was writing about email and social media in particular, but the broader point is true regardless of the demon doing the pulling. 

As I write this, I am sitting in Antigua sipping coffee on a breezy patio overlooking an expanse of blue-green sea stretching all the way to the neighboring island of Monserrat. It is something quite the opposite of what Kresser describes: a high quality experience because it is unstressed, relaxed, focused and connected to the natural world around me.

Nutritional Epidemiology Should Just Go to the Waste Bin

"In recent updated meta-analyses of prospective cohort studies, almost all foods revealed statistically significant associations with mortality risk. Substantial deficiencies of key nutrients (e.g. vitamins), extreme over-consumption of food, and obesity from excessive calories may indeed increase mortality risk. However, can small intake differences of specific nutrients, foods, or diet patterns with similar calories causally, markedly, and almost ubiquitously affect survival?"

"Nutritional epidemiology is a scandal. It should just go to the waste bin."

- Dr. John Ioannidis, JAMA

Non-Financial Conflicts of Interest

"While this [financial conflict of interest] is certainly a problem, what often isn’t discussed are the nonfinancial conflicts of interest these [study] authors have in terms of their ideological, intellectual, and allegiance biases. Most of us are biased when it comes to nutrition. We all are supposed experts who have countless hours of putting food into our own bodies."

- Dr. Peter Attia

Taubes on Obesity

“Thinking of obesity as an energy-balance disorder is as meaningless as calling poverty a money-balance problem.”

- Gary Taubes

Rules for Healthy Living

I came up with a simple plan for healthy living to help my oldest daughter, but I think it works really well for anyone of any age. Since I'm from a military background, I even made it an acronym: F.A.M.E.S.

1. Fast for at least half the day.

2. Avoid snacks, sugar and other junk.

3. Move for at least one hour.

4. Eat light at night.

5. Sleep enough hours for your age.

Seems basic, I know, but it incorporates all of the latest research and science. Take No. 5, sleep. Every week, it seems, I read another article about the benefits of sleep. Besides being crucial for weight loss and muscle growth, scientists now believe it may be a key to preventing Alzheimer's disease.

No. 1 and No. 4 are also cutting edge. Recent research has shown that simply changing the time we eat -- delaying breakfast and having a light dinner earlier -- results in more weight loss even when calories remain the same. And so on.