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Welcome to The Process, the newsletter for FlowingData members that looks closer at how the charts get made. I’m Nathan Yau. People like to judge charts by pointing out all the things that are wrong. It’s an easy thing to do, because no visualization can do everything well. But this approach can be limiting in practice.
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Posted by in criticism, The Process
Hi. Nathan Yau here. I make charts and put them on the internet, which means sometimes I get comments about how a visualization method is better than another or, if I’m lucky, how terrible something is. This week I’m thinking about the process of taking in this visualization feedback to improve towards where you want to go.
Become a member for access to this — plus tutorials, courses, and guides.
Posted by in criticism, feedback, The Process
Welcome to issue #159 of The Process, the newsletter for FlowingData members that looks closer at how the charts get made. This week I’m remembering what day it is and thinking about a backwards visualization critique that gives us something to look forward to.
Become a member for access to this — plus tutorials, courses, and guides.
Posted by in criticism, The Process
Something I made was on the front page of Reddit. Cool. The problem: thousands of people downvoted it. Here's what I learned. Read More
Posted by in criticism, Reddit, The Process
Health Canada is finally making (baby) steps toward better informing the public when it comes to homeopathy.
As readers of the blog should know by now, homeopathy is based on really silly, counterfactual beliefs that, if true, would lead to a complete rewrite of biology and chemistry textbooks.
Despite this, Health Canada routinely approves homeopathic remedies for sale in Canada.
On July 31, 2015, it introduced “label changes” for certain homeopathic preparations.
Labels on nosodes, which are homeopathic preparations of heavily diluted infectious pus and spit sold as natural alternatives to vaccines, will have to mention this: “This product is neither a vaccine nor an alternative to vaccination. This product has not been proven to prevent infection. Health Canada does not recommend its use in children and advises that your child receive all routine vaccinations.” The change is effective January 1, 2016.
Secondly, “Health Canada is no longer allowing companies to make specific health claims on homeopathic products for cough, cold, and flu for children 12 and under, unless those claims are supported by scientific evidence.” This simply means that these products, like most natural health products, will have to resort to vague claims such as “helps with” and “can be used as part of”.
While this is a step in the right direction, I feel the need to point out that these useless preparations will still carry a Health Canada product number and will continue to be sold in Canada.
Health Canada does not recommend the use of nosodes in children but continues to allow for their sale. Just like cigarettes.
Posted by in alternative medicine, criticism, flu, Health, homeopathy, medicine, Pseudoscience, vaccines
A few months ago, a fellow skeptic told me he was considering personalized genetic testing and wondered what my opinion was on the service. The idea is that any consumer who desires can send a DNA sample to a company, like 23andMe, and get a report back on various genetic risk factors. Sounds like a good idea, but it is based on the fallacy that “more information is better for you” and, more specifically, that knowing about risks will alter your behaviour.
In a way, this direct-to-consumer service is trotting out that old American obsession with freedom: these are my genes, so I get to know. You can’t come between me and my biology.
The problems with personalized genetic testing are many: the communication of risk factors to a population that is statistically illiterate; the lack of subscription to quality control and assurance standards; and the revelation of risks that may not be clinically actionable and will only cause anxiety. Oh and, as mentioned before, the fact that knowing what you have to do rarely translates to action.
If you don’t believe me, go read Dr. Christopher Labos’ piece in the Gazette: it’s short, sweet, and well argued.
And then listen to us bicker as we tackle common medical misconceptions on The Body of Evidence.
Posted by in criticism, dna, genetics, Health, medicine, Podcast, required reading, Science Criticism, Science Journalism
Antibodies are used a lot in research labs around the world and scientists tend to trust what’s on the label. But antibodies aren’t as reliable as researchers may think, with some scientists now arguing that “due diligence” in their use should include considerable time and money.
I remember comparing my own experimental results to published blots. We were in theory using the same antibody, and yet the pattern on the blot was completely different. Leave it to an eager principal investigator to squint really hard to see the band he or she wants to see.
“Scientists often know, anecdotally, that some antibodies in their field are problematic, but it has been difficult to gauge the size of the problem across biology as a whole. Perhaps the largest assessment comes from work published by the Human Protein Atlas, a Swedish consortium that aims to generate antibodies for every protein in the human genome. It has looked at some 20,000 commercial antibodies so far and found that less than 50% can be used effectively to look at protein distribution in preserved slices of tissue. This has led some scientists to claim that up to half of all commercially available antibodies are unreliable.”
You can read the whole article here. It’s not exactly meant for the general public, but it is quite interesting if you are interested in reproducibility issues in science.
The infiltration of pseudoscience in academia, either universities proper or academic health centres, is very real. Dr. David Gorski is doing a great job reporting on the American side of this disturbing inroad, but I thought it was time to tackle the Canadian (and more specifically the Quebec) perspective.
The Prince Arthur Herald recently published an article of mine entitled “I’m Majoring in Science, With a Minor in Wishful Thinking”. You may be surprised to learn that chiropractic, reflexology, and acupuncture have all made forays into academia in Montreal.
From the article,
“What used to be a shibboleth—a phrase such as “evidence-based”—is now commonly used by quackademics as a smokescreen to deceive funding agencies, the general public, and perhaps the quackademics themselves. Everyone is engaging in “evidence-based practice”. The phrase has stopped to carry the meaning it once had and now serves as a fashion rule. If you don’t put “evidence-based” in front of what you practice or research, you will not be taken seriously. The critical assessment of the evidence that used to follow is no longer a requirement.”
You can read the full article here.
I would also encourage you to post it on social media and to comment on it. My last article for the Herald elicited a number of irrational comments from the hardcore believers in the power of sugar pills. Let’s hear it for rationality.
Posted by in acupuncture, alternative medicine, chiropractic, criticism, Health, homeopathy, Joe Schwarcz, medicine, Pseudoscience
Short people are at a higher risk for adverse cardiac events. Tall people are at a higher risk for heart attacks. Short people live longer. Tall people live longer.
Which is it?
A new study came out (in the much revered New England Journal of Medicine) apparently showing that short people are at an increased risk for heart disease.
Is there any weight behind this claim?
An article in the Montreal Gazette blows away the fog on the association between height and health:
“I wish I were taller. Tall people are more likely to get hired, get promoted and are paid better than their shorter counterparts. They can reach things from the top shelf without difficulty, have unobstructed views at theatres, and are consistently rated as more attractive by others. Overall, seems like a sweet deal.
“Then this study comes along in the New England Journal of Medicineshowing that shorter people are at higher risk for heart disease; just to add insult to injury.
“So while I read this study and wistfully wondered what it would be like to be 6 feet tall, I dug back in my archives and pulled out another study from the journal PLOS one that made me fell better.”
You can read the whole thing here.
If the author’s reedy and whiny voice sounds familiar to you, it’s because it’s that of none other than, yes, Dr. Christopher Labos, with whom I do The Body of Evidence podcast.
You may have noticed that I have been mentioning his work quite a bit as of late. A very interesting announcement will be made on this blog in the next two months in that vein (no pun intended, I swear).
In the meantime, do you want to know if being short (or tall) puts you at risk of developing heart disease? And if not, what may? Go read the article now. It’s really short (and humorous).
Posted by in Biology, criticism, medicine, Science Criticism