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Cognitive dissonance a myth? April 11, 2008

Posted by Niels in : Life, the universe, and everything , 1 comment so far

After all I’ve written about cognitive dissonance, M. Keith Chen, an economist from Yale, has come along to say that it doesn’t exist. John Tierney summarizes his argument in the New York Times. And I’ll summarize the summary here: a number of past experiments into cognitive dissonance have been plagued by hithertofore unnoticed sample bias and simple ass-backwards statistical mistakes.

I’m not quite ready to write off cognitive dissonance yet. Most psychologists and behavioral economists are saying, “Sure, the experiments were flawed, but that doesn’t mean cognitive dissonance doesn’t exist,” and as silly as it seems, I’m in their camp. For now. I’m interested to see the results of the statistically unflawed cognitive dissonance research that I’m sure will be coming in the near future.

Your thoughts?

Short-term cognitive dissonance and smoothies April 8, 2008

Posted by Niels in : Life, the universe, and everything, Personal , 3 comments

Since going on a smoothie kick and discovering that I can drink an entire bag of spinach in one fruity cup, I’ve been eating much healthier. The interesting thing is that the healthier living is mainly confined to those times when I’m actually drinking a smoothie. My other meals aren’t more nutritious, I don’t eat more salads, and I don’t eat less junk food.

But I still brainstorm how to get more nutrition into a single smoothie, whether it’s increasing the vegetable-to-fruit ratio, or adding protein or wheat germ, or blending a variety of different vegetables. I also remember to take my vitamins most often when I’m drinking a smoothie. I hear the same thing from my friends, who are actually blending their vitamins and fish oil capsules into theirs.

So I wonder, what is it about the smoothie that makes us so intent on maximizing nutrition during that 15-minute blending and drinking timeframe? There’s some cognitive dissonance at play here. You may be familiar with the study in which having signed a petition three weeks beforehand made people three times more likely to agree to have a huge and poorly lettered “safe driving” sign installed in their yard. Apparently signing the petition caused people to think of themselves as more civic-minded and they changed their actions to agree with this self-image.

Perhaps the action of making a vegetable smoothie causes people to think of themselves as healthier, and hence they look for more vegetables and vitamins to consume. Or maybe we’re all maximizers in a never-ending quest for the “optimal smoothie”. Or maybe it’s just easier to be healthy once I’ve already “context-switched” out of my normal routine. I do find smoothies particularly satisfying right after I exercise.

Your thoughts?

The movie Expelled is creationist propaganda, and Ben Stein makes me cry March 18, 2008

Posted by Niels in : Life, the universe, and everything, Personal , 6 comments

Ben Stein is dead to me. It’s a shame, considering my own high school has long touted him as one of our most prominent alumni. Unfortunately, he must have skipped biology class more than a few times because his new anti-evolution movie Expelled (in theaters April 18) infuriates me. It paints intelligent design as the underdog, stifled by “Big Science”.

In a country where more than half of the population believes that man was created as literally described in the Bible and only 12% believe we evolved without divine intervention (Gallup poll), I find it laughable that religion is described as the underdog in the battle for public opinion.

There are countless examples in science of a single individual’s ideas changing the world. Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Watson and Crick, Claude Shannon… We name entire branches of science after the single person who was brave enough to buck the status quo and discover something new.

When I was in school I learned about Newtonian physics, Einsteinian physics, Maxwell’s equations, Shannon information theory, and much more. I could fill an encyclopedia with the free-thinking individuals who came up with revolutionary ideas that transformed the world of science.

Wait, actually, those brilliant people are exactly what encyclopedias are filled with.

Is Ben Stein seriously making the argument that religion is more accepting than science of new ideas? Someone should pass that memo on to Copernicus and Galileo, they might have missed it. Interestingly, when discussing the “smear campaign” against Richard Sternberg, who unethically circumvented the peer review process to sneak an intelligent design paper into a scientific journal he edited, Ben Stein says, “publishing [the Discovery Institute's intelligent design] paper would not have been a problem if we lived in the time of Galileo.”

Ah, the time of Galileo, when there was no higher ideal than scientific freedom. I’m sorry, what was that? The church sentenced Galileo to house arrest, banned all his works including future publications, and forced him to recant under threat of the Inquisition? And the church did not concede that the Earth actually moved around the sun until until Pope John Paul II in 1992? Oh.

Yeah, Ben Stein’s probably right. If you want to pass off your backwards religious ideas as science, you’d have a better chance in the 16th century.

The trailer begins with Ben Stein discussing evolutionists’ wacky ideas, saying: “they believe we’re nothing more than mud animated by lightning”. Nice unbiased strawman argument there. But Ben Stein is nothing if not reasonable, adding, “I have no problem if people want to believe that sort of thing.”

Though of course, no creationist diatribe would be complete without pointing out that “Darwinism’s not only improbable, it might even be dangerous” as footage of concentration camps scrolls across the screen. Hitler believed in evolution, therefore evolution caused the Holocaust. It’s a straightforward argument. Hitler also had a mustache; perhaps we should ban mustaches to prevent any future horrors.

But what upsets me the most are the simple, to the point counterarguments included as sound bites from prominent evolution supporters: “They [intelligent design proponents] are not scientists.” “Intelligent design is not a research program.” “It’s all propaganda.” Apparently, the intelligent design movement expects the average American to interpret these valid criticisms as more evidence of the narrowmindedness of “Big Science”. Unfortunately, the intelligent design movement is probably right about that, and that makes me sad.

Ben Stein claims that this is a free speech issue. Great, then as well as giving equal time to creationists, let’s give equal time to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and my own personal theory that new species of life are brought into existence on the back of invisible pink unicorns from Jupiter. No one is claiming that creationists should be muzzled, they’re simply saying their ideas do not belong in scientific journals or science classes. Because intelligent design is not science. Science is not relativistic. Ideas are born and buried on their own merits.

I have little respect for creationism, but just like Ben Stein, I have no problem if people “want to believe that sort of thing.” I just think that anyone who turns their back on science is being hypocritical to do it halfway. You don’t like science, that’s your own prerogative. But you’d better be willing to give up all the nice stuff that it’s brought you, like cars and electricity and vaccines and modern medicine. If you can do that, you’ll have my full support.

I’ve included the trailer for Expelled below for any other science-minded individuals who want to get really angry. Move your mouse over it and click the “Expelled Super Trailer” button.

Your thoughts?

How to make a delicious five-a-day fruit and vegetable smoothie March 11, 2008

Posted by Niels in : How to , 2 comments

Struggling to get your daily vegetables? Get 8 servings in a tasty berry smoothie!

Most people are familiar with the “5-a-day” campaign, encouraging people to eat 5 servings of fruit and vegetables every day. Most people fall far short of that, and even those who try don’t realize that:

That’s a lot of veggies! Trying to eat healthier, my roommate and I were intimidated until we realized we could blend an entire bag of spinach into one of our berry smoothies without even changing the taste. After that, the sky was the limit. There have been some near disasters, but nothing undrinkable. We’re still experimenting, but for now I present to you our baseline smoothie. It’s got eight - that’s right, eight - servings of fruits and vegetables and tastes better than anything you can get at Jamba Juice.

We get our frozen berries from Trader Joe’s and the frozen cooked squash from Safeway.

Niels and Craig’s Five-a-Day Smoothie

Blend spinach and orange juice. Liquefy. If your bananas are unfrozen, add them. Blend. Microwave the squash for 15 seconds so you can break the frozen block up into ice-cube sized pieces by hand. (You can skip this if you’ve got a better blender, but our $150 blender is pretty good and we still have to break up the squash.) Add all remaining ingredients. Blend.

Fills two glasses with a little left over. Whether this serves one or two is up to you.

Your thoughts?

Specific anosmia, or why I can’t smell farts February 27, 2008

Posted by Niels in : Life, the universe, and everything, Personal , 24 comments

What if you couldn’t smell your own farts? Would you consider it a disability, or a blessing in disguise?

I was about ten years old when I noticed I couldn’t smell certain things. I remember walking through the woods at summer camp when other people began making faces. “Eww,” they said, “it smells like skunk!” But I could barely smell anything.

It’s not that my sense of smell is completely absent. Rather, there are certain odors that I’m not sensitive to. Mostly bad scents, fortunately.

For example, I often can’t smell farts. Again, it’s debatable whether or not this is a blessing in disguise, but I will say it’s a little unnerving to flatulate (is that a word?) and have no idea whether or not the people around me can smell it.

I used to just write this off as an interesting quirk, but over Christmas break I had the following conversation with my sister and her fiance:

Fiance: Watch out, I’m a little gassy today.
Me: Don’t worry about it, I can’t smell it anyway.
Sister: Wait, you don’t smell things either?
Me: What, you too?
Fiance: Yeah, it’s great, she can use the bathroom right after me and it’s no problem.

Apparently fart-insensitivity is genetic. And so, having recently discovered one wacky congenital disability in myself (see my post I’m learning to live with faceblindness) I embarked on further research.

According to Wikipedia, anosmia is “the lack of olfaction, or an absence of the ability to smell”. I don’t have that - I can smell most things - but there is also specific anosmia, an insensitivity to a certain odor. And specific anosmia (aka selective anosmia, I think) may be genetically based. Winner!

Interestingly, it is just about impossible to describe the concept of an odor to someone who has never had a sense of smell. But there are support and advice forums available, where sad but hilarious stories are traded of anosmic life in a world of smellers. One unfortunate guy recalls trying to cover up the smell of an “accident” with a heavy application of cologne, not realizing that deodorant doesn’t actually cancel out odors. More information on anosmia can be found at the Anosmia Foundation, including links to purchase smell tests.

My handicap is far less serious, though apparently still an active area of research. I found one Nature article particularly interesting. The abstract for Odour-Blindness to Musk: Simple Recessive Inheritance states:

The rare anosmia to the n-butyl mercaptan of skunk, and more commonly the scent of freesia flowers, may be inherited as autosomal recessive traits.

So that’s it! Mystery solved! I’ve got a rare, genetic, specific anosmia to n-butyl mercaptan, or possibly some other mercaptan. Mercaptans, also known as thiols, are the volatile sulfurous compounds that give skunk its stink. And guess where else mercaptans can be found?

Dr. Ed Poliness has this to say on the subject: “Mercaptans are found in your smelliest farts”. Thank you for your frankness, Dr. Poliness. For further information on farts, readers may also contact Dr. Michael Levitt, the world’s leading authority on flatulence, according to this article. The article doesn’t mention mercaptans, but it’s an entertaining read anyway.

There are less obvious effects, as well. Anyone who has traveled in Asia is familiar with the durian, a gourmet fruit widely regarded as delicious, but with a scent so foul it is banned from the premises of many airports and luxury hotels. The mercaptans in durian likely explain why I am the only person my mom has ever heard of who likes the smell of durian but not the taste.

Your thoughts?