A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age (36 page)

Cancer Research UK (CRUK) reports that
:
Boseley, S. (2015, Feb. 3). Half of people in Britain born after 1960 will get cancer, study shows.
Guardian.

Heart disease is better controlled
:
Griffiths, C., & Brock, A. (2003). Twentieth century mortality trends in England and Wales.
Health Statistics Quarterly
,
18
(2), 5–17.

This is based on reports by a variety
:
http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qbw.asp; http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/tap-vs-bottled-water/faq-20058017; http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2009/07/is-tap-water-safer-than-bottled/index.htm; http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100310/why-tap-water-is-better/; http://abcnews.go.com/Business/study-bottled-water-safer-tap-water/story?id=87558; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9775158/Bottled-water-not-as-safe-as-tap-variety.html.

In New York City; Montreal; Flint, Michigan; and many other older cities
:
Stockton, N. (2016, Jan. 29). Here’s how hard it will be to unpoison Flint’s water.
Wired
. http://www.wired.com/2016/01/heres-how-hard-it-will-be-to-unpoison-flints-water/.

PART THREE: EVALUATING THE WORLD

Nature permits us to calculate only probabilities
:
Feynman, R. P. (1985).
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

A case of fraud occurred in 2015
:
Reardon, S. (2015, July 1). US vaccine researcher sentenced to prison for fraud.
Nature, 523
, p. 138.

controversy about whether the measles, mumps, and rubella MMR vaccine causes autism
:
Wakefield, A. J., et al. (1998, Feb. 28). RETRACTED: Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children.
Lancet
,
351
(9103), 637–641
.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(97)11096-0/abstract.

Burns, J. F. (2010, May 25). British medical council bars doctor who linked vaccine with autism.
New York Times
, p. A4. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/health/policy/25autism.html.

Associated Press (2011, Jan. 6). Study linking vaccine to autism is called fraud.
New York Times
. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E7DC1E3BF935A35752C0A9679D8B63.

Rao, T. S., & Andrade, C. (2011). The MMR vaccine and autism: sensation, refutation, retraction, and fraud.
Indian Journal of Psychiatry
,
53
(2), 95–96.

For example, Holmes concludes that
:
From Thompson, S. (2010). The blind banker.
Sherlock
(TV series, first aired October 31, 2010).

The germ theory of disease
:
I first learned about this story from Hempel, C. (1966).
Philosophy of Natural Science.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

To fill out the rest of the table
:
I’m using the 168-hour week (7 days × 24 hours a day) to account for thoughts you might have while dreaming, and people who might call and wake you from a sound sleep. Of course, one could subtract out eight hours of sleep per night (or whatever) and then use only the 112 hours of wakefulness to come up with a different probability, but it doesn’t change the conclusion.

less safe mode of travel
:
In retrospect this switch was foolish, at the time, but it may have been the rational thing to do. Four hijacked, suicide planes at once was unprecedented in aviation history. When confronted with a big change in the world, often the best thing to do is to think Bayesian: update your understanding, stop relying on the old statistics, and seek alternatives.

conclude that air travel
:
Based on Huff, op. cit., p. 79.

There were not nearly as many flights in 1960
:
See, for example, Iolan, C., Patterson, T., & Johnson, A. (2014, July 28). Is 2014 the deadliest year for flights? Not even close. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/07/travel/aviation-data/; and Evershed, N. (2015, March 24). Aircraft accident rates at historic low despite high-profile plane crashes.
Guardian
. http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2014/dec/29/aircraft-accident-rates-at-historic-low-despite-high-profile-plane-crashes.

An FBI page reports that
:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/clearances.

All home robberies in a neighborhood
:
Image from http://contactglenda.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/robbers-decamp.png.

In a famous psychology experiment
:
Nisbett, R. E., & Valins, S. (1972). Perceiving the causes of one’s own behavior. In Kanouse, D. E., et al., eds.
Attribution: perceiving the causes of behavior
. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press, pp. 63–78.

And, Valins, S. (2007). Persistent effects of information about internal reactions: ineffectiveness of debriefing. In London, H., & Nisbett, R. E., eds.
Thought and Feeling: the cognitive alteration of feeling states.
Chicago, IL: Aldine Transaction.

Between 1990 and 2010, the number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) rose sixfold
:
What is causing the increase in autism prevalence.
Autism Speaks Official Blog
, Oct. 22, 2010. http://blog.autismspeaks.org/2010/10/22/got-questions-answers-to-your-questions-from-the-autism-speaks%E2%80%99-science-staff-2/.

The majority of the rise
:
Ibid.

the Internet to guide your thinking on why autism
:
Suresh, A. (2015, Oct. 13). Autism increase mystery solved: no, it’s not vaccines, GMOs, glyphosate—or organic foods. Genetic Literacy Project. http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/10/13/autism-increase-mystery-solved-no-its-not-vaccines-gmos-glyphosate-or-organic-foods/.

She also couches her argument
:
Kase, A. (2015, May 11). MIT scientist uncovers link between glyphosate, GMOs and the autism epidemic.
Reset.me
. http://reset.me/story/mit-scientist-uncovers-link-between-glyphosate-gmos-and-the-autism-epidemic/.

no evidence that thimerosal was linked to autism
:
Honda, H., Shimizu, Y., & Rutter, M. (2005). No effect of MMR withdrawal on the incidence of autism: a total population study.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
,
46
(6), 572–579. http://1796kotok.com/pdfs/MMR_withdrawal.pdf, and many other sources.

Reardon, S. (2015). US vaccine researcher sentenced to prison for fraud.
Nature, 523
(7559), p. 138.

as we know, there are known knowns
:
Defense.gov News Transcript: DoD News Briefing—Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers, United States Department of Defense (defense.gov).

We can clarify Secretary Rumsfeld’s four possibilities with a fourfold table
:
I thank Morris Olitsky for this.

One of the cornerstone principles of forensic science
:
Inman, K., & Rudin, N. (2002). The origin of evidence.
Forensic Science International
,
126
(1), 11–16.

Inman, K., & Rudin, N. (2000).
Principles and Practice of Criminalistics: the profession of forensic science
. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Suppose a criminal breaks into the stables
:
I’m basing this section on the discussion found in Aitken, C. G. G., & Taroni, F. (2004).
Statistics and the Evaluation of Evidence for Forensic Scientists,
2nd ed. Chicester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 1–2, and using their setup and terminology.

take literally the assumption in the American legal system
:
Aitken, C. G. G., & Taroni, F. (2004), op. cit.

the prosecutor’s fallacy
:
Thompson, W. C.; Shumann, E. L. (1987). Interpretation of statistical evidence in criminal trials: the prosecutor’s fallacy and the defense attorney’s fallacy.
Law and Human Behavior 2
(3), 167–187
.

The quality of the photographs is high
:
Hasselblad.com. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11-hass.html; http://www.wired.com/2013/07/apollo-hasselblad/.

It’s been claimed that the chances of life forming on Earth
:
Estimates include 1 x 10
³⁹⁰
. http://evolutionfaq.com/articles/probability-life. See also Dreamer, D. (2009, April 30). Calculating the odds that life could begin by chance.
Science 2.0.
http://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance.

In a TED talk with more than 10 million views
:
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_blaine_how_i_held_my_breath_for_17_min?language=en.

there are more than 5,000 TED-branded events
:
Bruno Guissani, Curator of TEDGlobal Conference, personal communication, September 28, 2015.

Fox television reported his ice-block demonstration
:
https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=U6Em2OhvEJY.

Out of a sense of ethics
:
Glenn Falkenstein, personal communication, October 25, 2007.

There was even a peer-reviewed paper
:
Korbonits, M., Blaine, D., Elia, M., & Powell-Tuck, J. (2005). Refeeding David Blaine—studies after a 44-day fast.
New England Journal of Medicine
,
353
(21), 2306–2307.

The current editor of the journal searched
:
J. Drazen, MD, email communication, December 20, 2015.

The lead author on the article told me in an email
:
M. Korbonits, MD, email communication, December 25, 2015.

a physician
did
monitor Blaine throughout the fast
:
Jackson, J. M., et al. (2006). Macro- and micronutrient losses and nutritional status resulting from 44 days of total fasting in a non-obese man.
Nutrition
,
22
(9), 889–897.

Blaine’s record was broken in 2012
:
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/24135-longest-time-breath-held-voluntarily-male; Grenoble, R. (2012, Nov. 16). Breath-holding world record: Stig Severinsen stays under water for 22 minutes (Video),
Huffington Post
. http://www.huffing tonpost.com/2012/11/16/breath-world-record-stig-severinsen_n_2144734.html.

An article in the
Dallas Observer
:
Liner, E. (2012, Jan. 13). Want to know how David Blaine does that stuff? (Don’t hold your breath). http://www.dallasobserver.com/arts/want-to-know-how-david-blaine-does-that-stuff-dont-hold-your-breath-7083351.