Intersecting Processes | complexity & change in environment, biomedicine & society

January 14, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Interpreting the Tucson massacre and the relevance of epidemiological thinking

In advising on the most effective measures to be taken to improve the health of a population, epidemiologists may focus on different determinants of the disease than a doctor would when faced with sick or high-risk individuals. This contrast is evident in interpretations of Jared Loughner’s shooting rampage in Tucson—do we focus on Loughner as a deranged individual and consider how we can catch such people before they hurt others or, thinking like a social epidemiologist, do we push for changes in the social conditions that exacerbate damage when deranged individuals arise (e.g., by restricting availability of automatic weapons)?

Geoffrey Rose is well known in social epidemiology for promoting the population health focus (Rose 1985), but this is not universally accepted by healthcare practitioners and policy makers. Road accidents and alcohol consumption may be a good illustration of Rose’s argument. Most of us know of times when we’ve been able to get home safely after we’ve drunk too much “risk factor,” but we also know that a substantial fraction of people in accidents have high alcohol levels. We also sense that some people are more susceptible to having their judgement and reaction times impaired by alcohol so we could imagine doing further epidemiological and biological research to develop multivariable risk factor formulas. Would a more refined knowledge of riskiness help us prioritize our risk-prevention efforts, or would that pale into insignificance relative to drink-don’t-drive efforts? Rose would push for the latter. In the same spirit, he observed that investigating genes that might confer some resistance to lung cancer among smokers—we all know of someone who smoked heavily but lived into their 80s—wouldn’t be a high priority in a society that has eliminated smoking.

In the Loughner case, one Rosean approach would be to restrict availability of automatic weapons. Another would be to promote reduction in rhetoric of individuals having to arm themselves against the tyrannies of the government. Another would be to improve mental health funding so that help would be given to more distressed individuals (even if we had no way to determine if their distress was leading them towards violence). Of course, any given Rosean measure might not be straightforward to institute (e.g., vaccination of girls for HPV is resisted by some on the grounds that it is a promiscuity-promoting measure). Moreover, it may turn out that the Rosean measure does not have the expected effect (e.g., abstinence-only sex education has been shown in some studies not to reduce rates of STDs) and has to be rethought.

Interestingly, right-wing commentators, wishing to resist any points being scored for gun control and anti-vitriol have not simply focussed on Loughner as a deranged individual who, as an individual, is responsible for his own actions. Some have joined in discussion of the idea that mental health services needed to be better. Are they Rosean? There has been ambiguity about whether the improvement is to improve the mental health care for society as a whole or just to detect and “treat” the high-risk individuals.

Reference

Rose, G. (1985). “Sick individuals and sick populations.” International Journal of Epidemiology 14: 32-38 [Reprinted in IJE 30: 427-432 (2001)]

January 13, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Genetic purification

I have heard some argue that prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion would reduce society’s burden in having to give special care for very disabled people and that this would free up funds for general health care, education, etc. for the mildly disabled.

I have also heard the strong counter-proposition that such “genetic purification” in practice works against tolerance for the usual range of variation and against measures to care for the abnormal.

To understand the logic of this second proposition consider an analogy: The health and fitness boom of the 1980s seems to have reduced tolerance for plump, “overweight” people. Those who have kept themselves trim tend to think that overweight people ought also to be able to do something about their figures.

I first used these contrasting propositions as a topic for a writing assignment in a course on Biology and Society where the assigned reading was Rapp, R. “Moral Pioneers: Women, Men & Fetuses.” Women & Health 13 (1/2, 1988): 101-116. I then adapted into a problem-based learning unit that asked students: “In the light of this analogy, Rapp’s articles [i.e., “Moral Pioneers” and her subsequent publications], your own experience, and research into the published literature, discuss the contention about ‘genetic purification.'” Readers of this post may also reflect on how they think about these contrasting propositions.

January 12, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Tens of thousands of deaths from pellagra occurred because eugenic science prevented the real cause from being acted on?

In 1977 independent scholar Allan Chase (1914-93) published The Legacy of Malthus: The Social Costs of the New Scientific Racism, a lengthy, critical historical account of scientific–Chase would say “pseudoscientific”–rationales to support the division of humanity into two “races”–a small, healthy, wealthy, educable elite and the rest who are vulnerable, poor, and herediarily inferior (Chase, xv). One chapter, entitled, “A few false correlations = a few million real deaths,” focused on pellgara, a disease that became rare in the United States after World War II. During the first four decades of the twentieth century, however, pellgara was the recorded cause of one hundred thousand deaths, even though its cause was discovered in 1915. This post presents a problem-based learning activity that builds off Chase’s account.

Start by digesting a succinct summary of Chase’s account, written by Jan Coe. Then let us explore where we get to by asking three linked questions. [On the wiki for this case, students insert contributions below each question.]

Actions: What can we do on the basis of Chase’s account–What actions or changes could we pursue if we accept the Chase’s claim that tens of thousands of deaths from pellagra occurred because eugenic science prevented the real cause from being acted on?

Invoke this historical case to promote the importance of evaluating scientific and more specifically medical reports properly before policy is based on them.
Invoke this historical case to advocate skepticism or, at least, careful scrutiny of research that claims a hereditary basis for social inequalities.
Invoke this historical case to promote paying more attention to preventive medicine and public health than to genetic explanations of disease.
Tease out the different conceptions of causality in epidemiology and public health in this case and use this in teaching.

Questions for further Inquiry: What more do we want to know in order to:

clarify what we could do?
clarify who “we” are, i.e., which people are interested in the actions?
understand more and perhaps revise Chase’s knowledge claims?

How and how much did eugenic science influence social responses to pellagra?
- K: Eugenic science had a limited influence on social responses to pellagra.
In what ways did black/white racism influence social responses to pellagra?
What other aspects of the social context prevented Goldberger’s discovery being turned into disease-preventing measures?
Is it necessary to identify the proximate cause for disease-preventing measures to be taken?
In what ways was Goldberger’s research influenced by his social context?
Who was Chase and who was he trying to influence through his writing?

Knowledge claims: what particular factual statements and interpretations that Chase makes can be teased out from the summary (and then explored using the two questions above)?

[The Knowledge claims-Action-Questions framework is described further at http://sicw.wikispaces.umb.edu/FrameworkForExchanges.]

January 9, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Race, genes, and IQ test scores: A new conceptual starter kit

My previous conceptual starter kit for thinking about genes, race, and IQ test scores jumped in too quickly. It might be better as a sequel to the new starter kit here (designed for a high school audience at a museum of science presentation on what science says about racial differences).

The title “Race, Genes, and IQ test scores suggests a simple relationship:

Race -> Genes -> IQ test scores

or:

Differences in Races -> Differences in Genes -> Differences in IQ test scores

Take home lesson: The world is not that simple.

ACTIVITY (distributed on a Note card on each person’s seat).

Imagine you are XX (where depending on the notecard XX = Individual in group 1 // Individual in group 2 // Government politician/ policymaker // Teacher // Genetics researcher // IQ researcher)

What would you do on the basis of these IQ test score patterns?
What more would you want to know about the IQ test score patterns before deciding what to do?

Compare your answers with your neighbor.

Now let me tell you that group 1 are your grandparents’ generation and group 2 are your parents’ generation.

(How could this be?–IQ test scores are supposed to have an average of 100. Answer: Each generation IQ testers shift what counts as 100.

Now—

What would you do on the basis of these IQ test score patterns?
What more would you want to know about the IQ test score patterns before deciding what to do?

Discuss with your neighbor how your original answers change or not with this new information.

Now let me tell you that group 1 are people who were adopted by poor families and group 2 are people who were adopted by well-off families. (Actually the 115 should be only 112 in this case.)

Ditto

Now let me tell you that group 1 are African-Americans in the USA and group 2 are Euro-Americans (“whites”) in the USA.

Ditto

Take home lesson: The world is not as simple as Differences in Races -> Differences in Genes -> Differences in IQ test scores. (If it were, then Differences in Generations -> Differences in Genes -> Differences in IQ test scores, but we know that Differences in Generations do not -> Differences in Genes.)

(+ Be skeptical of anyone who wants you to think it could be: They are not being true to the science or to the complexity of understanding differences among groups.)

January 4, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Patterns among relatives: A classroom activity III

The simple classroom activity presented in the previous two posts allows us to unpack the simple picture of science as empirical observation and rational interpretation (i.e., identifying patterns and trying to explain them).

These are only two of the many steps in scientific inquiry (figure 5). At each step decisions are made that depend on knowledge—perhaps assumed knowledge—in addition to what can be drawn from any data collected. Scientific inquiry cannot proceed without decisions that take into account diverse additional considerations, such as, in this classroom activity: technical constraints of plotting in three dimensions; theories about the mechanisms of heredity, temporal ordering (parents grow before their offspring are born and grow), whether to collect data about the diet of parents and offspring when they were growing up, and conventions about designation of outlier status to extreme points. Each step becomes a site where decisions made can be shaped by convention, ongoing negotiation, and wider influences. These “sites of sociality” invite critical scrutiny (Taylor 2005). We can, for example, consider the ways that preconceptions or preferences about the outcomes at the later steps feed forward to earlier ones (as depicted by the dashed lines in figure 5) so that the inquiry tends to reinforce that outcome. As will be shown in the discussion of Galton’s work, such feed forward loops can involve the social actions or organization supported or desired by scientists—what they think we as a society can or should do.

Figure 5. A chain of steps in scientific inquiry in which each step (indicated by an arrow ->) involves assumptions and is open for negotiation and wider influences. The dashed lines depict the possibility that desired outcomes for the later stages influence decisions made at earlier steps. See text for discussion.

———–

Through this classroom activity two themes have emerged:

There are many sites in scientific inquiry at which decisions are made based on knowledge drawn from outside the observations to be explained.
The negotiation, assumptions about social possibilities and constraints, and wider influences that shape decisions made at these open sites invite critical scrutiny.

These themes extend some more basic themes about interpreting science in its social context:

It can be illuminating to ask what the authors (including ourselves) state or imply about what we can do. (This deliberately broad formulation encompasses views about the social actions and organization they support as well as their views about the capabilities of different people growing up in our society and how difficult these are to change.)
Close examination of concepts and methods within any given natural or social science can stimulate our inquiries into the diverse social influences shaping that science, and reciprocally.

For more discussion of these themes, see Taylor, P. “Why was Galton so concerned about ‘regression to the mean’? -A contribution to interpreting and changing science and society” DataCritica, 2(2): 3-22, 2008, http://www.datacritica.info/ojs/index.php/datacritica/article/view/23/29, from which this post has been adapted, and Taylor (2005, chapter 2).

Reference

Taylor, P.J. (2005) Unruly Complexity: Ecology, Interpretation, Engagement (Chiacgo: U. Chicago Press)

January 3, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Patterns among relatives: A classroom activity II

OK readers. Keep in mind your answers to the questions raised in the previous post about patterns in data that link parents and offspring. In this post I describe what usually emerges when I ask these questions in my classes on biology and society.

Students identify patterns in many ways. They draw boxes, ellipses, or convoluted shapes around the data points, mark highs and low values for each of the variables, note how many offspring are taller than their parents, separate the main cloud of points from outliers, draw trend lines through the cloud, and so on. Many students note that in the first three plots an increase in one variable tends to be associated with an increase in the other (albeit with considerable spread around any trend line). No trend, however, is seen in figure 4, which depicts the heights of each pair of parents. Indeed, often students will say there is no pattern in that plot. Some students notice the outlier half way up on the right in which the mother, at 72”, is 3” taller than the father. They do not notice the pattern that the father is taller than the mother in almost every pair, but see it once I point it out.

When it comes to explanation, the first three plots are typically seen as indications of the hereditary relation between parents and offspring. Because there is no hereditary relation between any mother and father, students conclude at first that no causality can be drawn from figure 4. However, once I have drawn attention to the strong father-taller-than-mother pattern, lively discussion about the causes ensues for this plot too: Does this pattern correspond to men choosing female partners shorter than them or to women choosing male partners taller than them? Or both?

A range of questions or reservations are expressed about the process of this scientific inquiry, including the reliability of the data (how accurate are the data, which presumably came from students’ recall or phone calls to their parents); criteria for inclusion (could adoptive or step-parents have been included); whether the students have stopped growing (perhaps heights should have been collected for parents when at the same age as their child is now); and whether outliers warrant special explanation (or can they be viewed as points at the end of a spectrum).

As the teacher I inject further issues of critical thinking into the discussion: What additional knowledge leads the students to invoke heredity? (Couldn’t height trends result from parents feeding their children the way they were fed?) Why plot same sex pairs and exclude the opposite sex parent? (Is this a choice dictated only by the difficulties of plotting in three dimensions?) Why plot offspring height against the average of the parents? (Does this presume that height is a blending of contributions—hereditary or otherwise—from parents?) Most importantly, what could anyone do (or be constrained from doing) on the basis of the patterns or explanations?

On this last issue of “what can we do?”, I note that the mother-father height pattern, originally overlooked by students, is of great significance to taller heterosexual women because it corresponds to a smaller selection of men available to them as potential partners. If the height norm were contested, these women would have new options opened up. It would also reduce the frequency of couples in which the man is very much taller and stronger than the woman. In contrast, the hereditary explanation of the trend in the first three plots does not suggest any action other than inaction—parents cannot do anything to change the outcomes for their offspring once these offspring have been conceived. This inaction conclusion about height might not trouble us, at least not enough to make us delve into possible relationships between growth trajectories and, say, maternal nutrition before and during pregnancy, childhood diet, exercise, and so on. However, I ask my students, if the data were of IQ test scores, not heights, would inaction be an acceptable conclusion? Or would they pursue the process of identifying patterns, proposing explanations, exploring reservations (including raising alternatives) differently?

In the concluding post I show that this simple classroom activity allows us to unpack the simple picture of science as empirical observation and rational interpretation.

—-

Extracted from Taylor, P. “Why was Galton so concerned about ‘regression to the mean’? -A contribution to interpreting and changing science and society” DataCritica, 2(2): 3-22, 2008, http://www.datacritica.info/ojs/index.php/datacritica/article/view/23/29.

January 2, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Patterns among relatives: A classroom activity to unpack the simple picture of science as empirical observation and rational interpretation

I want to ask you, the reader, to be a scientist and try to make sense of data that link parents and offspring. Consider one plot (of your own choosing) from figures 1-4 depicting heights of 63 undergraduate college students and their parents. (I collected these data in the USA in the mid to late 1990s.) What patterns can you discern? What ideas or questions do you have about the causes producing those patterns? What questions or reservations do you have about the process you go through in answering these questions?

Figure 1. Son’s vs. father’s height (inches)

Figure 2. Daughter’s vs. mother’s height (inches)

Figure 3. Student’s vs. average of parents’ height (inches)

Figure 4. Father’s vs. mother’s height (inches)

Discussion continues in the next post.

—

January 1, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Probe, create change, reflect: A spin-off blog

The name “probe, create change, reflect” comes from the logo below (with “probe” replacing “inquire” to suggest that we need to look beyond first answers):

The logo is that of the Critical & Creative Thinking graduate program where I work, helping mid-career or career-changing students to “develop reflective practice as we change our schools, workplaces, and lives.” Posts on this new blog are in the same spirit. Posts specific to complexity in environment and biomedicine continue to be made on this Intersecting Processes blog (from which the first four months of the new blog have been extracted). I am imagining that most readers with science and complexity interests will prefer to peruse blogs in that area when they visit this blog and ditto for readers with reflective practice interests when they visit the new blog. Cross-posting will lead readers from one area of interest to the other, if they are inclined.

Related to the new blog: tweets, wiki on critical thinking and reflective practice

Why a blog? As before:
1. To make sure I write every morning (even if the post is drawn from past work) before the busy-ness of teaching and administration takes over my day.
2. To see if these daily bits of writing and thinking (and recalling past writing and thinking) combine in ways that lead to new insights.
3. To expose my work more widely, including unpublished work, in the hope that kindred thinkers might come across it and make contact.

Q: What constitutes a kindred thinker for the new blog? A: Someone who wants to promote critical thinking and reflective practice through teaching, groups processes, institutional change in the academy, and more broadly.

(Taking the new blog and this Intersecting Processes blog together, a kindred thinker would be someone who is interested in addressing complex situations “that cut across scales, involve heterogeneous components, and develop over time” and in extending this interest to the interpretation of the researcher-in-social-context and to engagements that modify the directions that researchers take—including their own.)

December 31, 2010
by peter.taylor
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Desirable Qualities of our Service in an Academic Institution

In an academic institutions service is acknowledged, but principles that govern service are rarely articulated or used to take stock of how we could improve. Our efforts can be thought of as Building Supportive Communities that are characterized by:

planning that takes into account the often-limited and uncertain state of resources, guides where we put our not-unlimited energies, and seeks to make the result sustainable or cumulative.

community-building, not only for the sake of a sustainable product, but so participants/ collaborators value their involvement in the process.

probing what has been taken for granted or left unarticulated until coherent principles emerge to guide our efforts.

transparency and inclusiveness of consultation in formulating procedures and principles and in making evaluations available.

documenting process, product, and evaluations to make institutional learning more likely.

organization, including efficient use of computer technology, to support all of the above.

taking care for colleagues’ reputations when disputes arise, especially colleagues coming up for or currently under review.

equity in relation to explicit guidelines (thus eliminating suspicions of favoritism).

Extracted from http://ptaylor.wikispaces.umb.edu/AcademicLife

December 30, 2010
by peter.taylor
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Truth and reconciliation in academic units? (A response to shortcomings in evidence-based development of practice and commitment to social justice)

The core values of my college begin with 1. evidence-based development of practice and 2. commitment to social justice. In many academic units, not only my college, equivalent values are spoken about, if not stated explicitly. What follows logically, if not in actual practice, from these values or principles?

#1 & 2 => no decisions are based on expediency, for example, “It’s too hard to assemble the evidence or get it paid attention to by those with decision-making power.” Expediency not only contradicts #1, but, by allowing those with power (or special access to those with power) to circumvent established procedures and transparency of process, undermines social justice in the present and confidence in social justice in the future. Everything is politicized in the sense of jockeying and special access.

If decisions have been made on the basis of expediency—without evaluation and attention to evidence—and if people in the unit now lack confidence in established procedures providing checks and balances as well as access to all, the question arises: How to recover? A: Truth and reconciliation. Together the terms connote a commitment to future social justice even though past hurts cannot be undone. Reconciliation requires truth, in other words, attention to evidence and transparency about that. Reconciliation assumes there are hurts and antagonisms resulting from that, and requires that these not be brushed aside in the name of expediency. (Another way of saying this is that people often make an issue a matter of personalities when the root problem is that established procedures have been forgotten or otherwise circumvented. Noting this does not neutralize the personal hurts and feelings, but points to a path ahead, away from emotionally charged blocks.)

Expediency is practiced not only by people with decision-making power. Others judge that the effort to uphold the principles of evidence-based practice and social justice is too great. It is said: “Let’s look forward, not revisit the past” and “You won’t get people’s [especially, decision-makers] co-operation by attacking them.” This second line personalizes the issues, suggesting that those who would uphold the principles are the problem—they lack tact, civility, personableness, or political savvy. Both lines can be responded to with a question: Where is the evidence that practices not evaluated get left behind by people accustomed to those practices? If they don’t get left behind, the practices will continue to shape the future. Truth and reconciliation is then a means of looking forward. I suspect that it’s a prerequisite for the core values to be really expressed in the practices of an academic unit.