My students, coworkers, and close friends know that I am wisely skeptical of scientific claims. Today, I read in Science Magazine, one of the premier journals, that you can fight hunger or cravings simply by thought. The implications of this are enormous, and the conclusions are likely poorly founded.
One of the biggest problems with any study published in Science is that this journal suffers from the same malady as Facebook status updates. It allows notification with such brevity that it precludes the chance for clarity. When you submit to Science, you have a page limit, and so it is very rare for any figures, data, etc., to make it into such articles, let alone any real science. Most articles in Science are nothing more than "what we think/want this to mean".
According to the article "Thought for Food", if you imagine that you have eaten a food it has the same effect on the body as if you actually consumed it. The implications of this are great for the obese, because you can imagine you ate an entire bag of M&Ms without eating any and feel satiated. I think that's too simple. For how long does this psychosematic effect endure? What about the destitute? Can they be satiated as if they actually ate basic sustenance without eating any? What of physiological markers and after effects? The mind is powerful, but the mind cannot supply the energy or nutrients or chemiosmotic effects provided by those foods or other consumables. Many food fetishes are actually addictions.
While this particular study does include statistics and sample size, I do not think it is groundbreaking. I can hardly imagine that the 51 participants in five experiments can be extrapolated to the 300 Millions of Americans or 6 billions on the earth entire. Fifty one people is, quite frankly, statistically insignificant. It is however better than the 'oats lowers cholesterol' study, which involved only five people. Who is to say that there are not other psychosematic effects involved since the participants must have known they were not actually eating the foods involved, rather than in blind taste tests where something IS actually consumed?
My problem with the article is in the conclusion. The conclusion is in the title. The title is what politicians will take and use to bludgeon us. If, God forbid, our economy continues to crumble, instead of Marie Antoinette's famous death knoll to 'let them eat cake' when they ran out of bread, our politicians will tell us that we can just imagine we have some as if that will suffice. "Imagined Consumption Reduces Actual Consumption". Hmm... Even if that is true, for how long, under what conditions, and with what foods? I refuse to accept that premise. The people were not starving or hard up for money. They were given cheese and chocolate for crying out loud.
I have told my students for years that science never proves anything; it merely removes all other alternatives until only the truth remains. The conclusion represents a common misconception of actual scientific method. At best they could claim that 'imagined consumption exerts a psychosematic effect that seems to reduce actual consumption of certain foods in otherwise healthy adults'. Real experiments do not prove anything. They either disprove the null hypothesis (that imagination has no effect on actual consumption) or fail to disprove it (there was insufficient evidence to show that imagination of consumption affected actual consumption), but that does not mean they have proved anything. It only means they have disproven the opposite of that which they suppose to be true.
What next? Imagined peace increases actual peace? Imagined copulation reduces actual frequency of intercourse? Imagined wealth reduces poverty? Where will this end?
Bad science, Science. Shame on you.
One of the biggest problems with any study published in Science is that this journal suffers from the same malady as Facebook status updates. It allows notification with such brevity that it precludes the chance for clarity. When you submit to Science, you have a page limit, and so it is very rare for any figures, data, etc., to make it into such articles, let alone any real science. Most articles in Science are nothing more than "what we think/want this to mean".
According to the article "Thought for Food", if you imagine that you have eaten a food it has the same effect on the body as if you actually consumed it. The implications of this are great for the obese, because you can imagine you ate an entire bag of M&Ms without eating any and feel satiated. I think that's too simple. For how long does this psychosematic effect endure? What about the destitute? Can they be satiated as if they actually ate basic sustenance without eating any? What of physiological markers and after effects? The mind is powerful, but the mind cannot supply the energy or nutrients or chemiosmotic effects provided by those foods or other consumables. Many food fetishes are actually addictions.
While this particular study does include statistics and sample size, I do not think it is groundbreaking. I can hardly imagine that the 51 participants in five experiments can be extrapolated to the 300 Millions of Americans or 6 billions on the earth entire. Fifty one people is, quite frankly, statistically insignificant. It is however better than the 'oats lowers cholesterol' study, which involved only five people. Who is to say that there are not other psychosematic effects involved since the participants must have known they were not actually eating the foods involved, rather than in blind taste tests where something IS actually consumed?
My problem with the article is in the conclusion. The conclusion is in the title. The title is what politicians will take and use to bludgeon us. If, God forbid, our economy continues to crumble, instead of Marie Antoinette's famous death knoll to 'let them eat cake' when they ran out of bread, our politicians will tell us that we can just imagine we have some as if that will suffice. "Imagined Consumption Reduces Actual Consumption". Hmm... Even if that is true, for how long, under what conditions, and with what foods? I refuse to accept that premise. The people were not starving or hard up for money. They were given cheese and chocolate for crying out loud.
I have told my students for years that science never proves anything; it merely removes all other alternatives until only the truth remains. The conclusion represents a common misconception of actual scientific method. At best they could claim that 'imagined consumption exerts a psychosematic effect that seems to reduce actual consumption of certain foods in otherwise healthy adults'. Real experiments do not prove anything. They either disprove the null hypothesis (that imagination has no effect on actual consumption) or fail to disprove it (there was insufficient evidence to show that imagination of consumption affected actual consumption), but that does not mean they have proved anything. It only means they have disproven the opposite of that which they suppose to be true.
What next? Imagined peace increases actual peace? Imagined copulation reduces actual frequency of intercourse? Imagined wealth reduces poverty? Where will this end?
Bad science, Science. Shame on you.
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