Monthly Archives: June 2016

Strong marketing can’t make up for weak ideas

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Well Dr Leaf, 10 out of 10 for persistence.

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and a self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. In the last month or so, Dr Leaf has been hammering home her foundational belief that the mind is in control of the brain, and indeed, that your thoughts are the key to everything in life, a bit like 42 in “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. According to Dr Leaf, your thoughts are the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Dr Leaf has attempted to prove her point through quotes from neuroscientists, from her own teaching, and from some published research. All she’s ended up proving is that she’s so desperate to prop up the concept that she’ll stoop to cherry-picking articles and massaging quotes. Poor form for a woman who promotes herself as a scientist.

Today’s meme is the spiritual justification of her position, expressed as a lovely little graphic with a verse from Proverbs 4:23. It’s a real Pinterest special. Most people would look at the pretty picture and accept the quote without question. It’s good marketing for sure.

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But if you strip back all of the eye-candy, is the meme still worth posting? Is Dr Leaf’s meme an accurate depiction of what Proverbs 4:23 truly means.

First things first, is the meme an accurate quote? In this case, it is. The Good News Bible really does say, “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.” (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+4%3A23&version=GNT)

So the next question is, is the Good News version an accurate translation of the scripture? It’s interesting that nearly every other translation doesn’t mention thoughts and thinking at all:

New International Version = Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
New Living Translation = Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
English Standard Version = Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
New American Standard Bible = Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.
King James Bible = Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Holman Christian Standard Bible = Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.
International Standard Version = Above everything else guard your heart, because from it flow the springs of life.
NET Bible = Guard your heart with all vigilance, for from it are the sources of life.
Aramaic Bible in Plain English = Keep your heart with all caution because from it is the outgoing of life.
GOD’S WORD® Translation = Guard your heart more than anything else, because the source of your life flows from it.
JPS Tanakh 1917 = Above all that thou guardest keep thy heart; For out of it are the issues of life.
New American Standard 1977 = Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.
Jubilee Bible 2000 = Above all else, guard thy heart; for out of it flows the issues of life.
King James 2000 Bible = Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
American King James Version = Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
American Standard Version = Keep thy heart with all diligence; For out of it are the issues of life.
Douay-Rheims Bible = With all watchfulness keep thy heart, because life issueth out from it.
Darby Bible Translation = Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded; for out of it are the issues of life.
English Revised Version = Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Webster’s Bible Translation = Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
World English Bible = Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.
Young’s Literal Translation = Above every charge keep thy heart, For out of it are the outgoings of life.

Nearly every other English translation refers to “the heart”. Obviously not the literal “heart”, that muscular blood pump in the middle of our chests, but the metaphoric heart, the human soul. So even on majority rules, the Good News Bible translation is looking shaky. Is there any further corroborating evidence to help us understand which version is the most correct?

The answer would be in the original Hebrew. The word for ‘heart’ in Proverbs 4:23 is לֵב (leb), and more broadly is a word relating to the soul, ‘inner man, mind, will, heart, understanding’ (https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H3820&t=KJV). In some verses, the word in used in reference to what would be considered thoughts, but in many others, the word is used to describe a person’s feelings or motivations, or attitudes, or even specific intelligence and manual skills. For example:

Genesis 17:17: “Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?”
Genesis 42:28: “And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us?”
Exodus 8:32: “And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.”
Exodus 35:35: “Them hath he filled with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work.”

So it appears the Good News Bible is actually a poor translation. Again, this is an example of Dr Leaf cherry picking something that suits her theory out of a bulk of divergent views. No matter how she tries to sell the concept, the idea that the mind controls your brain and that your thoughts control your destiny is scientifically and scripturally weak. Persistence and good marketing isn’t going to change that.

MIND CHANGES BRAIN? READ THIS …

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They say that if you want something badly enough, you can make it happen … you just have to believe in it to make it work.  Wish upon a star, believe in yourself, speak positively, think things into being … it’s the sort of magical thinking that forms the backbone of Hollywood scripts and self-help books everywhere.

But that’s not how science works.  In the real world, believing in something doesn’t make it magically happen.  Holding onto a belief and trying to make it work leads to bias and error.  Instead of finding the truth, you end up fooling yourself into believing a lie.

This is the trap that Dr Leaf has fallen into as she continually tries to perpetuate the unscientific notion that the mind changes the brain.

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and a self-titled cognitive neuroscientist.  Her philosophical assumptions start with the concept that the mind is separate from and controls the physical brain, and continue to unravel from there.

The problem is that Dr Leaf can’t (or won’t) take a hint.  I’ve discussed the mind-brain link in other blogs in recent times (here and here), but yet Dr Leaf continues to insist that the mind can change the brain.  It’s as if she believes that if she says it for long enough it might actually come true.

Today, Dr Leaf claimed that “newly published” research from Yale claimed that, “Individuals who hold negative beliefs about aging are more likely to have brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease.”  Except that this research is not really new since it was published last year, and Dr Leaf tried to draw the same tenuous conclusions then as she’s doing now.

She quoted from the interview that one of the authors did for the PR puff piece that promoted the scientific article:

“We believe it is the stress generated by the negative beliefs about aging that individuals sometimes internalize from society that can result in pathological brain changes,” said Levy. “Although the findings are concerning, it is encouraging to realize that these negative beliefs about aging can be mitigated and positive beliefs about aging can be reinforced, so that the adverse impact is not inevitable”.

Well, the issue is clearly settled then, all over bar the shouting.  Except that the promotional article doesn’t go through all of the flaws in the methodology of the study or the alternative explanations to their findings.  Like that the study by Levy, “A Culture-Brain Link: Negative Age Stereotypes Predict Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarkers” [1], only showed a weak correlation between a single historical sample of attitude towards aging and some changes in the brain that are known to be markers for Alzheimer Dementia some three decades later.

They certainly didn’t show that stress, or a person’s attitude to aging, in anyway causes Alzheimer Dementia.  And they didn’t correct for genetics in this study which is the major contributor to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s [2].  So no matter what Dr Leaf or the Yale PR department thinks, the results of the study mean very little.

But why let the lack of ACTUAL EVIDENCE get in the way of a good story.

It’s sad to see someone of the standing of Dr Leaf’s shamelessly demoralise themselves, scrambling to defend the indefensible, hoping beyond hope that what they believe will become the truth if they try hard enough.  It doesn’t matter how much Dr Leaf wants to believe that the mind changes the brain, that’s not what science says, and clutching at straws citing weak single studies and tangential press releases isn’t going to alter that.

References
[1]        Levy BR, Slade MD, Ferrucci L, Zonderman AB, Troncoso J, Resnick SM. A Culture-Brain Link: Negative Age Stereotypes Predict Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarkers. Psychology and Aging 2015;30(4).
[2]        Reitz C, Brayne C, Mayeux R. Epidemiology of Alzheimer disease. Nat Rev Neurol 2011 Mar;7(3):137-52.

Prescribing dangerous drugs for a made up disease

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Honestly, I don’t know if I can go on much longer.

I feel like every time I approach the wild waters of social media, I find myself drowning in a sea of shameless ignorance.  It’s like a post-modern intellectual zombie apocalypse where brainless morons roam cyberspace, relishing the opportunity to infect the minds of the innocent and gullible with their delusions of expertise.

As I’m sitting here writing, the little angel on my right shoulder is trying to get my attention.  “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion,” she whispers softly.

Except it’s hard to hear when the little devil on my other shoulder is digging his pitch-fork in my brain and twisting it to make a point.  “But their opinion is crap,” he angrily retorts.

Tonight, the subject of my inner voice’s great debate was the Facebook headline, “ADHD: Drugs to treat disorder could create heart problems for children, researchers say.  Children under 18 who had ADHD and were prescribed methylphenidate were more likely to get an irregular heartbeat in the first two months, researchers said.”

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The little paragraph on Facebook didn’t mention any important facts, like what the article was that they quoted, or that the actual number of events linked with drug were miniscule.

That didn’t stop some clearly stupid people from publically venting their rancid opinions all over social media.

There were the usual paranoid delusions claiming that ADHD is over-diagnosed so that the American Psychiatric Association could get more funding from pharmaceutical companies.  Or that Ritalin has never been properly tested, and that children on Ritalin have been human experiments for the last 30 years.

Then there were all of the old chestnuts too, like ADHD is because of poor parenting or poor diet, or teachers with sub-par intelligence who aren’t challenging their pupils enough.  And who needs Ritalin anyway when all you have to do is stop feeding them artificial flavours and colours, high fructose corn syrup, GMO’s and fast foods.  Better yet, treat them with cannabis.

There were also some brazen displays of intellectual impotence within the heady mix of stupidity, like the people who suggested that children shouldn’t be given ANY drugs unless they’ve got diseases like cancer.  ‘Cause, clearly, paracetamol and penicillin are just as toxic as Ritalin.

Then there was the cherry on top:

“The doctor who came up with ‘ADHD’ and ‘ADD’ confessed on his deathbed that they were made-up diseases.”

Really??  Oh, come on, that’s both pathetic and grossly insulting.  ADHD is a real disease.  It’s been proven by real scientists and real doctors working in real labs and real hospitals.  Yet in the post-modern mind-bubble, an unverified viral meme on social media carries more weight than decades of scientific enquiry by some of the worlds smartest people.

For those of us who aren’t intellectual zombies, there was no death-bed confession about ADHD’s concoction.  According to a fact-check by Snopes.com, the doctor who ‘made up’ ADHD never said ADHD wasn’t real, but only that he thought the biological cause of ADHD was over-estimated.

Those who clearly knew nothing about ADHD or its treatment decided to further perpetuate their ignorance by embellishing and catastrophizing the “heart problems” that the Facebook headline alluded to.  Except that if they had bothered to review the article Facebook was referring to, they would have seen that there really wasn’t anything going on.

According to the article “Cardiovascular safety of methylphenidate among children and young people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): nationwide self controlled case series study” [1], the only significant heart issue with Ritalin is a condition broadly classified as ‘arrhythmia’, which is medical speak for an irregular heart beat.  However, the peak risk for arrhythmia in the study was in children with congenital heart defects in the first few days of treatment.  For this, the relative risk was 3.49.  That means that a child with an already dodgy heart will have a three and a half times greater risk of an irregular heart rhythm than a child with a normal heart who’s not on Ritalin.  This sounds terrible, but “lies, damn lies and statistics” – in reality, the overall number of children who will actually get an arrhythmia because of Ritalin is still incredibly low because the total number of children who get arrhythmias is incredibly low.  Mathematically speaking, 3.49 x diddly-squat is still diddly-squat.

Besides, all of this is old news.  The current study was simply trying to use a larger source of data to get better statistics on case-reports of the possible effects of Ritalin.  But in the product information of methylphenidate, heart problems are clearly listed as a possible complication.  Because of this, and to ensure that Ritalin isn’t thrown around like candy, only medical specialists like paediatricians and child psychiatrists can start a child on medications like Ritalin.

So the reaction to the new study is nothing more than a storm in a tea-cup, but it clearly demonstrates the stigma and ignorance towards ADHD that, I’m ashamed to say, still exists in our modern, progressive society.

Is it any wonder then that parents actively avoid getting an assessment for their struggling children, or do everything they can to avoid Ritalin even when they have a clear-cut diagnosis of ADHD?  ADHD causes enough suffering by itself, but the baseless and incoherent ranting of the uninformed masses adds stifling layers of unnecessary stigma and misery to those who deserve our support, not misleading advice or irrational judgement.

References

[1]        Shin JY, Roughead EE, Park BJ, Pratt NL. Cardiovascular safety of methylphenidate among children and young people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): nationwide self controlled case series study. BMJ 2016;353:i2550.

Dr Caroline Leaf and the mind-brain revisited again

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Dr Leaf’s theme for the week is the mind-brain link. In the last few days, Dr Leaf has posted memes claiming that the brain is seperate from, and subservient to, the mind. Despite evidence to the contrary, she continued the same theme today.

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and a self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. Her teaching is strongly influenced by one of her foundational philosophical positions; that the mind (the intellect, will and emotions) controls the body, which includes the brain. While this idea may be popular with philosophers, it’s not with neuroscientists.

Not that this bothers Dr Leaf, of course, since she’s not really a neuroscientist.

Today’s meme is more or less exactly the same as what she claimed over the previous couple of days, except today’s version is more verbose.

She said,

“Mind directs what the brain does, with the mind being our intellect, will and emotions (our soul realm). This is an interesting concept posing huge challenges and implications for our lives because what we do with our mind impacts our spirit and our body. We use our mind to pretty much do everything.”

At this point, I’m having a strong and nauseating sense of deja vu.

I know I’m going to be repeating myself, but to reinforce the message, lets go through Dr Leaf’s meme to show that it hasn’t gotten any righter with repetition.

“(The) Mind directs what the brain does” … The relationship of the mind to the brain is like the relationship of music and a musical instrument. Without a musical instrument, there is no music. In the same way, the mind is a product of the brain. It’s not independent from the brain. Without the brain, there is no mind. Indeed, changes to the structure or function of the brain often results in changes to the mind. Yesterday I used the example of medications. Caffeine makes us more alert, alcohol makes us sleepy or disinhibited. Marijuana makes it’s users relaxed and hungry, and sometimes paranoid. Pathological gambling, hypersexuality, and compulsive shopping together sound like a party weekend in Las Vegas, but they’re all side effects linked with Dopamine Agonist Drugs, which are used to treat Parkinson’s disease. If a pill affecting the brain can change the function of the mind, then it’s clear that the mind does not direct what the brain does.

“This is an interesting concept posing huge challenges and implications for our lives because what we do with our mind impacts our spirit and our body” … The relationship between our body, mind and spirit is interesting. I’ve written about this before in an essay on the triune being and dualism. But there are no great challenges here or implications here. If anything, knowing that our thoughts don’t have any real power over us is incredibly freeing. Rather than increasing our psychological distress in trying to suppress or control our thoughts, we can step back and focus on committed actions based on our values.

“We use our mind to pretty much do everything” … Actually, we don’t. Much of what we do, say, and even perceive, is related to functions of our brain that are entirely subconscious. This idea is summed up very nicely by Dr David Eagleman, best-selling author and a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas;

” … take the vast, unconscious, automated processes that run under the hood of conscious awareness. We have discovered that the large majority of the brain’s activity takes place at this low level: the conscious part – the “me” that flickers to life when you wake up in the morning – is only a tiny bit of the operations. This understanding has given us a better understanding of the complex multiplicity that makes a person. A person is not a single entity of a single mind: a human is built of several parts, all of which compete to steer the ship of state. As a consequence, people are nuanced, complicated, contradictory. We act in ways that are sometimes difficult to detect by simple introspection. To know ourselves increasingly requires careful studies of the neural substrate of which we are composed.” https://goo.gl/uFKF47

So no matter which way Dr Leaf says it, it simply isn’t true that the mind controls the brain. As I said in my previous post, this is a fatal flaw for Dr Leaf’s teaching. That she keeps using this trope is entirely her choice and her right, but it certainly doesn’t aid her reputation as a credible neuroscientist.