Scientific myths that cannot be debunked

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    We are constantly confronted with a substitution of reality for false beliefs that not only bring a lot of inconvenience to ordinary people, but also impede the development of science.

    In 1997, doctors from southwestern Korea established an ultrasound examination to detect thyroid cancer in the early stages. The news of the new methodology quickly spread, and soon all the doctors in the region began to offer similar services. As a result, the campaign acquired a nationwide character, and the government initiated an ultrasound diagnostic program for various types of cancer. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers agreed to take tests for only $ 30-50.

    The number of patients diagnosed with thyroid cancer in the country has increased markedly: from 5 cases per 100,000 in 1999 to 70 per 100,000 in 2011. Two-thirds of the patients had their thyroid removed, which necessitated the use of lifelong medication. But both scenarios involved serious risks.

    It would seem that such a large-scale and expensive public health program should have saved many lives. But alas. Currently, thyroid cancer is the most common form of this disease diagnosed in South Korea, and the number of people dying from it has not changed at all - about 1,100,000. But even when some local doctors noticed this and in 2014 voiced the opinion that that it would be worth stopping the examination, the Korean Thyroid Association, a professional organization of endocrinologists and surgeons, objected, saying that the availability of specialized ultrasound and treatment are inalienable human rights.

    In Korea, as in other countries, the belief that early detection of any type of cancer saves lives has become an unshakable postulate.

    Blind faith in cancer screening is a great example of how individual beliefs about biology and human behavior can be rooted in the minds - including the minds of scientists - even when their failure has been scientifically proven. According to Nicholas Spitzer, director of the Cavley Institute at the University of California, San Diego, specializing in the study of the brain and mind, "scientists are sure that with their objectivity they certainly will not fall into the bait of myths that most people believe in." However, this is exactly what is happening.

    Myths are often born out of petty facts - early detection can save the lives of patients suffering from certain types of cancer - and then thrive on the fertile soil of the desires and fears of people, in particular, the fear of death. The danger is that they can cause harm, for example, forcing a person to undergo an unnecessary course of treatment or spend money on dubious products. Or even thwart promising research, diverting the attention of scientists or monopolizing solid investments. And how difficult it is to destroy rooted delusions!

    Paul Howard-Jones, who studies neurology and educational mechanisms at the University of Bristol, UK, is convinced that scientists should make every effort to debunk existing myths, but, importantly, strive to prevent the emergence of new ones. “We need to look deeper and try to understand how popular misconceptions come to the fore, why they spread quickly and become generally accepted.”

    We have repeatedly heard about certain dangerous myths: vaccines cause autism, HIV does not cause AIDS. But there are others who still bring trouble, cost someone a lot of money, confuse scientists from the true path - or simply spoil the nerves of researchers. Let’s talk about the origin and consequences of the five myths that cannot be overcome.

    Myth 1: Screening saves the lives of patients with all types of cancer


    Regular examinations are useful for some risk groups, in particular when it comes to patients with cancer of the lung, cervix, and colon, but should not be generalized. However, both patients and doctors are desperately defending even completely ineffective tests.

    The belief that early detection saves lives was formed at the beginning of the twentieth century, when doctors realized that treatment was much more effective after identifying tumors that showed themselves with certain symptoms. The next logical step is the assumption that the earlier a tumor is discovered, the higher the chances of survival. Otis Browley, head physician at the American Cancer Society, confirms: “We were taught from childhood that a tumor needs to be found and cut to fight cancer.”

    The results of a sample examination of patients with cancer of the thyroid gland, prostate and breast showed that screening in the early stages does not at all guarantee salvation, as is often claimed. For example, an analysis by Cochrane Collaboration experts of five randomly controlled clinical trials in which 341 342 patients took part revealed that screening had virtually no effect on prostate cancer mortality.

    “It seems that people believe that if you discover cancer at an early stage, you get some advantages. But this is not at all, ”said Anthony Miller of the University of Toronto, Canada. Miller led the Canadian National Breast Screening Study, a 25-year-old project involving 89,835 women aged 40 to 59. Thanks to the experiment, it became known that annual mammographies do not guarantee a reduction in mortality from breast cancer. This is because some tumors lead to death, regardless of the stage of detection and treatment. At the same time, the obsession with the need for screening seriously harms health. Many types of cancer develop slowly and are not dangerous if people did not interfere in the current process. Due to external influences, you have to resort to thyroidectomy, mastectomy and prostatectomy. Accordingly, at the level of a simple layman, the risks (death toll as a result of unnecessary treatment) outweigh the benefits (saved lives).

    However, people who have had cancer and who have discovered and then removed the tumor seem to feel like they have been saved, and therefore contribute to the spread of misconceptions. And even oncologists often say that regular examinations are useful for some age-related, and not only at-risk groups.

    According to Browley, while focusing on screening, we are losing sight of cancer research. “In the situation with breast cancer, we spent so much time arguing about who is more susceptible to it — women aged 40 or 50 — instead of preparing a new test,” a test that would detect rapidly developing, rather than slow growing tumors. Moreover, existing diagnostic methods must be carefully checked to find out if they really save lives, ”says John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford California's Prevention and Research Center for Prevention in California. It was he who prepared this year's report that only some of the screening tests of 19 major diseases to some extent contributed to a decrease in mortality.

    Influencing the attitude to the problem is always difficult. Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice in Lebanon, New Hampshire, is confident that in order to prevent cancer, people would rather agree to be screened every few years than to eat and train well. "Screening - allows both the doctor and the patient to think that they are doing something good for health, but this does not affect the likelihood of getting cancer."

    Myth 2: Antioxidants - Good, Free Radicals - Evil


    In December 1945, the wife of chemist Denham Harman invited her husband to read the article “You Can Become Younger Tomorrow” in the Ladies' Home Journal. So the scientist became interested in the topic of aging, and a few years later, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, Harman visited “for no reason” a curious thought. He suggested that aging is caused by free radicals, active molecules that are by-products of the body's metabolism and, when accumulated, lead to cell damage.

    Scientists instantly picked up the theory of the effect of free radicals on the aging process, including the conclusion about the benefits of antioxidants that neutralize such "harmful" molecules. By the 1990s, many people started taking antioxidant supplements such as vitamin C and beta-carotene. Siegfried Hekimi, a biologist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, explained that “this is one of the few scientific theories that have been made public: gravity, the theory of relativity, and the assertion that free radicals cause aging, and therefore it’s important to stock up on antioxidants.”

    Nevertheless, in the early 2000s, scientists who built their research on this theory encountered strange patterns: mice bred by genetic engineering, whose body produced free radicals in abundance, lived exactly as much as ordinary individuals. Moreover, rodents whose genes were programmed to produce excess antioxidants also did not differ in longer lifespan. These were the first results to refute the acclaimed theory. And publishing them was not so easy. David James of University College London, who first published similar results of his own research in 2003, admits that the theory of free radicals “resembled some kind of monster that we were trying to kill. We continued to shoot him, and it fought desperately for life. " According to a human experiment, antioxidant supplements reduced the effectiveness of exercise aimed at improving health, and another study indicated that such elements could increase mortality.

    None of these findings have done much harm to the global antioxidant industry, which includes products ranging from food and beverages to animal nutritional supplements. Judging by forecasts, from $ 2.1 billion in 2013, the market will grow to $ 3.1 billion by 2020. “This is a serious business,” says James. “Allegations of the relationship between oxidation and aging are still relevant, because people who make money from it are happy to spread such misconceptions.”

    At the moment, most specialists who study the aging process, according to the fact that free radicals can cause damage to cells, but this is a completely normal reaction of the body to stress. And, therefore, scientists have wasted time and resources. Moreover, as Michael Ristow, a metabolic researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, explains, because of Hartmann's theory, publications about the possible benefits of free radicals are still not in print. He adds: “There are many facts that testify to the benefits of free radicals that have remained on tables and hard drives. And the question is still open. ”

    Some researchers also question the validity of a more complex theory, according to which any damage at the molecular level accelerates aging. James is perplexed: “Is it worth rejecting the whole approach? The problem is that people don’t know what to focus on. ”

    Myth 3: People have a very large brain.


    The human brain - with its amazing cognitive abilities - is often considered the pinnacle of brain evolution. Such superiority is usually associated with extremely large brain sizes compared to the body, as well as the density of neurons and supporting cells, glia.

    Only, it seems, the errors again did their job. “We just chose the very best to put the person on the podium,” says Lori Marino, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The human brain is approximately seven times larger than that of animals of a similar size. But mice and dolphins have almost the same proportions if we compare the brain and body, and a number of birds have even more.

    “The brain of people follows the principle of scaling. We just have an enlarged primate brain, ”insists Chet Sherwood, a biological anthropologist at George Washington University in Washington, DC. Even the number of cells is exaggerated: in articles, reviews and textbooks it is often written that there are 100 billion neurons in the human brain. According to more accurate estimates - about 86 billion. This may seem like a rounding error, but 14 billion neurons are equivalent, roughly, to the brain of two macaques.

    The human brain differs from the brain of other primates by specific characteristics: during evolution, Homo Sapiens has an expansion of the cerebral cortex - the part of the brain that is responsible for the mental and speech processing processes - and unique changes in the nervous system and functions of other parts of the brain.

    The myth that our brain is unique because of the incredible number of neurons has done a neurological disservice because alternative theories are simply ignored, Sherwood concludes, pointing out the need to analyze energy metabolism, the rate of development of brain cells and particularly long bonds between neurons. “This is where the reasons for the differences lie, and they are, to put it mildly, not particularly related to the total number of neurons,” he notes.

    Scientists are gradually exploring new aspects. Projects such as the Connectome experiment, launched by the US National Institutes of Health, and the Blue Brain program of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, are currently working on brain functions based on their structure, not size.

    Myth 4: The degree of assimilation of information depends on the learning model.


    People tend to attribute incredible qualities to their brain, in addition to being extremely large. One of these myths says: the degree of assimilation of information depends on the learning model. That is, a lover of oral practice supposedly assimilates new data better by ear, while a supporter of visual presentation most effectively perceives graphic or material in the form of diagrams.

    This myth is based on two pillars: many people prefer certain types of presentation of information, and experience shows that teachers achieve better results in the learning process when they use various forms of data presentation. We add a desire to learn and a claim to uniqueness - and now the ground for the next myth is ready.

    “The various teaching methods have everything they need to satisfy their needs: bare facts, emotional prejudices, and attempts to wishful thinking,” states Howard-Jones. And, almost like in the case of sugar, pornography and television, “what you choose does not always work for you and does not necessarily suit you,” adds Paul Kirchner, educational psychologist at the Open University of the Netherlands.

    In 2008, four cognitive neurologists analyzed scientific evidence in support of and against different learning styles. Only a few studies were aimed at finding out the truth, and most of these serious experiments confirmed that the training model did not affect the degree of information assimilation. As the authors of one of the case studies note, “there is a clear discord between the incredible popularity of using all kinds of training models and the lack of convincing evidence of the usefulness of such an approach, which definitely raises a number of questions.”

    The results of recent experiments have not been able to influence the profitable industry, supplying books and tests dedicated to 71 learning styles. Moreover, scientists also extend the life of the myth, referring to all sorts of techniques - and this is more than 360 works over the past 5 years. “There are researchers who still believe in the truth of the theory of various learning styles, in particular, these are people who created questionnaires and surveys to classify groups of people according to one or another of the attributes. They are very interested in keeping the idea relevant, ”admits Richard Mayer, an educational psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

    Over the past few decades, the study of educational technologies has revealed that certain techniques actually increase the degree of learning, in particular when students are asked to generalize or explain the relevant concepts. And, roughly speaking, almost any person, not counting people with disabilities, is much more efficient at remembering information if spoken language alternates with graphic objects than when using only one form of presentation.

    However, the myth of learning models does not allow such concepts into educational audiences. When Howard-Jones tells teachers about the failure of the myth about different learning styles, they generally don’t like what they hear. “Their faces are disappointed. Teachers pinned their hopes, spent their time and energy supporting these ideas, ”he says. “After my speeches, they cease to believe that science can serve the benefit of learning and teaching.”

    Myth 5: The population of the earth is growing exponentially (and we are doomed)


    Concerns about overpopulation arose in 1798 after a statement from the Rev. Thomas Malthus, who said that an uncontrolled population increase exponentially would lead to hunger and poverty.

    But the world's population has not increased and does not increase exponentially, and is unlikely to ever come to this, ”insists Joel Cohen, a researcher at Rockefeller University in New York, who studies population growth trends. At present, the growth rate of our planet's population is two times lower than the indicators typical before 1965. According to static data, today it is 7.3 billion people, and by 2050 we will come to 9.7 billion. Nevertheless, it is impossible to get rid of the allegations that the population growth rate will lead to the end of the world. For example, since 1969, the famous physicist Albert Bartlett gave more than 1,742 lectures on the exponential growth of the population and its terrible consequences.

    The population of the land also lacks food. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, global food production outpaces population growth. Moreover, grains alone are enough to feed 10 to 12 billion people. However, the problem of hunger and malnutrition is relevant. This is because about 55% of the grown food goes to livestock, fuel and other materials or is completely thrown away, Cohen emphasizes. The remaining 45% is unevenly distributed - the rich get more than the poor. Similarly, with water scarcity, although paradoxically, 1.2 billion people live in areas with access to this resource.

    “Actually, overpopulation is not overpopulation. The issue here is poverty, ”explains Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Institute of Entrepreneurship, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC. And again, instead of finding out the cause of poverty and finding ways to ensure the decent development of a growing population, sociologists and biologists constantly refer to each other, argue about the definitions and causes of overpopulation.

    Citing economic systems that favor rich populations, Cohen also notes that "even people who have the necessary data use them as an excuse to ignore pressing problems."

    Like other scholars who have expressed their opinions on various myths, Cohen doubts the possibility of destroying the theory of overpopulation, which is also applicable to other common misconceptions, but he believes that it is worth trying, because it is possible to prevent the emergence of new products of "folk art". Many myths arose after researchers extrapolated conclusions on narrow topics, as was the case with free radicals. Such a “broadening of interpretation," as Spitzer called it, can lead to misconceptions that are very difficult to eliminate. To avoid this, Spitzer suggests “checking whether extrapolation is justified in order to prevent reasoning from going beyond the facts.” In addition, as Howard-Jones notes, it all comes down to communication.

    After the birth of another myth, it is highly unlikely that in the near future it will be possible to debunk it. According to the results of psychological research, the very attempt to destroy the established error leads to the strengthening of his position. After one experiment in the United States, during which parents were constantly reminded of the need for vaccination, participants almost stopped vaccinating their children. During another study, the aim of which was to bring into the open water politicians who made empty promises, suspicions crept in even about those public figures who had already carried out everything that had been announced earlier. According to Kirchner, “it is practically impossible to get rid of myths. The more you try to refute something, the stronger the idea is rooted in the minds of people. "

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