SCI-ART LAB

Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication

                                                 

Q: Dr. Krishna, I am an eighteen year old student. I used to be a regular visitor of  your network.

But now I am frightened to visit it in the future. I am afraid you might hijack my mind! This is true. I cannot go further. I am worried.

I read some of your articles on Sci-Art Lab. They are so powerful, strong and captivating that they disturbed me a lot. 

I cannot contest your arguments. I cannot provide counter evidence. I cannot say even a single word against them. There is nothing to say because they are what you call 'facts based on evidence'. 

But I was born in an orthodox family that give importance to several beliefs. They are our life. How can I go against them? How can I dispute with my own family's ways of doing things? How can I consider your arguments and accept them even if they are facts?

I want to close my mind. Go far away from you. But you keep coming back. Hitting me on my conscience. 

What shall I do? Run away from my family or run away from you?

Krishna: :) Ms ancient mind wrapped in a modern dress envelope, glad to meet you!

While I sympathize with your situation, I also feel satisfied that I disturbed your conscience and several of those of others.  Unless you do that there won't be a change in our society that is still lodged in ancient times in its thinking.

Going the scientific way is like taking a dive in an ice cold pool of water. It shakes you to your core and you may not enjoy it. It is both fascinating and terrifying.  So people cower under their ancient and comfortable beliefs rather than face this new uncomfortable reality.

Afraid to read my articles?!  Leave them half read? Afraid to consider scientific point of view? Do you want to get a tag of a  a coward by running away from me? 

I understand how you're brought up. It is difficult to change your mind overnight. 

Before deciding  to run away from anything, consider these things: 

Which thoughts are correct?

The ones based on misconceptions, baseless beliefs, fear, ignorance and those that make you suffer?

or

Science based facts, evidence provided concepts, knowledge supported ideas that make your life comfortable and good?

Imaginative stories that have no basis?

or

Or the ones based on reality?

Want to live in a pseudo-world?

or

A genuine one?

Want to live like a coward?

or

A courageous person?

Want to live in a stupid world forever 

or

Enter an enlightened zone?

It is upto you to decide. You need not fight with your folks. You can bring them along with you into the world of science by educating them and convincing them about its importance. 

It is not easy to bring this change in a single day. But keep trying. Keep considering. And I am pretty sure, one day you will decide to come into this wonderful world of science along with your family and friends.

Whenever you decide to do that,  I will be there to welcome you and support you. 

Q: When experts' articles mislead or confuse laymen what is the way we should follow to make sense of what they say?

Krishna: Yes, a burning Q too! Several people ask me similar questions. 

Sometime back we had an online discussion on cancer. We had expert oncologists working in prestigious institutes in India participating. 

One of the questions asked was "What causes cancer?" To everybody's confusion ( or shock), one specialist said, 

"BAD LUCK

Yesmajority of cancers are due to bad luck. Research has shown that 65 % of cancers arise because of random genetic mutations in the DNA without any identifiable cause or triggering agent.

Only 30% of cancers occur due to identifiable causes like tobacco, alcohol, sedentary lifestyle, red meat, obesity and environmental carcinogens like radiation, chemicals and viruses.

About 5% of cancers are inherited from the parents.

Therefore when we talk about reducing the chance of getting a cancer we are actually talking about the 30% of cancers that occur due to identifiable causes like tobacco and alcohol.

Most Cancer Cases Arise from "Bad Luck""

Everybody 's confused. People started asking me the Q,  "Is cancer bad luck?". I was shocked too. 'Bad luck' was in bold letters making people notice it instantly. Then people asked, "Why should we take care of ourselves when most of the cancer is bad luck? Why should we stop enjoying smoking, drinking etc. when we get cancer anyway because of bad luck?"

To be frank I was annoyed. That is not the way an expert should answer. The reference the doctor gave was a bad research paper misleading people according to experts. And I tried to control the damage the 'expert' caused by his irresponsible talking.

I asked people around these questions: 

You smoke two packets of cigarettes per day and when you get lung cancer, do you call it bad luck?
You chew tobacco ( or gutka) and when you get mouth cancer, do you call it ill luck?
You live in a highly polluted area or use wood for cooking and when you get cancer again, do you call it bad luck?
You stand in the sun without protection to get a tan for years together and when you get skin cancer, do you call that bad luck?
You consume food like mad, get fat and when your obesity causes cancer, do you call it bad luck?
You don’t take vaccines, get viral infection, and when this leads to cancer, do you call it bad luck?
Most of the cancers are caused by your recklessness. Don’t blame your ‘luck’ for it.

The reference the doctor gave was a badly written paper and it was very badly interpreted by the media too.

Cancer: Bad luck, bad writing, and maybe a bad paper | On Science B...

Why most cancer isn't due to 'bad luck'

is-cancer-due-mostly-to-bad-luck

 Although there are no guarantees, we can stack the odds of avoiding cancer in our favour if we embrace a healthy lifestyle. And that is the fact you should remember.

The known error rate for copying DNA is not high enough to be the sole determinant for the risk of developing the cancers.  While chance has a role in determining who gets cancer and who does not, it’s very clear that lifestyle, environment and our genes can change the odds considerably.

 By definition, “luck” has no cause and is therefore unscientific. Everything has a cause, and therefore in principle the cause ought to be discoverable eventually.

Forget confusing papers, confusing media reports, and badly interpreting and written articles. And a bad explanation by an expert.

Use your critical thinking to arrive at a conclusion. Don't just blindly believe what people say - even if they are experts.

(After my reply, the expert fell totally silent)

Q: What if experts go wrong? I think their mistakes make things more dangerous to common people. Don't you agree?

Q: How can cultural conditions effect a person's thought?

Krishna: I will give a real life example here before saying anything. One cardiologist is very popular on social media. He tells interesting stories about his patients. Recently he told one such stories. It went like this...

It seems a person went to the doctor's hospital along with his mother, who was suffering from a disease called ‘dilated cardiomyopathy’ (poor heart function) but was stable on treatment, with very little symptoms and asked the doctor to admit his mother. Then the doctor  told the man as his mother was alright, he couldn't oblige . Then the conversation between the two and the story went like this:

"Please don’t misunderstand me, doctor, I practice astrology, and as per my calculations, my mom has a very bad time in the next 3 days. Please help me.’

The doctor obliged, writing on the case-file as ‘admitted as per by-stander’s request’ in bold letters.

A day later, during morning rounds, when the cardiologist saw her; she was fine; he told her that there 's nothing to worry. As he got out of her room, her son was waiting outside with a very worried face.

‘Sir today between 11 AM and 12 noon is the most critical time for her’.

Confident and trained in evidence based cardiology, the doctor had far more capability of understanding a patient’s pathobiology than the astrology-expert son, but as per protocol, the doc just smiled.

‘She looks fine, her ECG is stable, ECHO is good, biochemistry is good. Don’t worry at all’.

What the doc didn’t tell him was that, astrology or such other paranormal stuff never impressed him. The doc believed, they are built upon exploiting the fear of an unknown, unpredictable future.

At 11-15 AM code blue is called. The lady had suffered a cardiac arrest.

She was resuscitated, and revived but had suffered a CVA (stroke). She was shifted to ICCU; she remained on a ventilator for 2 days, weaned off but died after 2 weeks due to aspiration pneumonia and sepsis.

The son thanked the doctor and his assisstants for all the care and concern.

A month later he came home for a courtesy visit.

‘Sir I am a govt. employee and have very little to offer you. I do write horoscopes for a living. Can I write the horoscope for your son and daughter sir? This is all that I can do to thank you for looking after my mother; she was so fond of you’.

The doctor froze for a moment.

A perfect fortune teller trying to tell him the future of his kids? No, never.

The doc thanked him profusely and told him that he shall phone him if he needed his help; his way of telling him NO. He  thought he understood.

The doc tor added...

A prediction that I would die next Sunday would make me stop do everything because it would become pointless to work. Similarly, a prediction that I would become a billionaire next Monday would also result in similar end result.

It is the dream of a better future tomorrow, that drives all of us, to try and do our best today. No fortune-teller has the right to take that dream away from me.

One lakh people read this story and the doctor got ten thousand upvotes for this story! Not even one say anything about it!

But, do you know what I said after reading his story? I told him this...

"I think this could be Nocebo Effect

The very strain of her astrologer son’s prediction of his mother getting a hear t attack can trigger it. The constant pressure from her son might too have added to the stress. Like opposite of placebo effect.

This is not the greatness of an Astrologer. Common doc, you should have considered this possibility. You should have admonished the astrologer. Assured the lady and told her not to bleive in her son's prediction to calm her mind. Instead you went along with him and are equally responsible for the consequences. Shall I report this to MCI?"

The doctor was completely silent! He even refused to talk to me!

The doctor is biased towards astrology. He couldn't think properly and made a mistake. The cultural conditioning of mind that astrologers can predict future correctly influenced his mind, screwing up his thought process. His medical knowledge went for a toss!

Now you can come to your own conclusion!

Q: After reading the above story several people asked me how I could think differently from one lakh people, the popular doctor and how they too can cultivate this lateral thinking.

Krishna: Glad you people wanted to know the secrets of a different perception. This is how I go about it...

First you should have lots of knowledge. My knowledge about Nocebo Effect made a difference here. You should learn as many things in science as possible and from reliable sources only. 

Then you should come out of your cultural, religious, emotional and ideological conditioning of mind. Because I came out of these things, I could analyse the situation in a neutral way unlike the doctor.

You should be able to connect things creatively like I connected the Nocebo effect to the  condition developed by the mother of Astrologer.

That is how my world becomes different. My thinking becomes extra-ordinary. My perception takes a different route.

And my courage obtained through my knowledge, perception and creativity makes  me take on one lakh people and a popular person followed my millions. Before facts and data, nobody and no force can stand. That is the power of science!

Q: Dr. Krishna, even though you people support scientists, I feel scientists are biased too. Most of them don't follow what they preach. For example, some scientists believe in God when there is no evidence. Some of them don't believe in God when they cannot prove otherwise. What do you think?

Krishna: :) Opinions have no place in science even if it is mine. But let me analyse it. 

Last Sunday, when invited, I attended a Brahmo Samaj meeting where a vedic pundit explained what is 'God' and what is not according to Brahma Dharma which has its roots in vedas. (Don't get purplexed - my paternal grandfather adopted Brahma Samaj principles - started by the social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Although I don't follow any of these religious things I do listen to what they have to say sometimes).  

A real scientist-atheist cannot be 100% atheist! He has to be 99% atheist and he has to keep his or her mind open to consider the evidence in case somebody provides it. I keep my mind open too.

According to vedas, it seems, the creator of this universe is an entity that cannot be present and visible in this universe. This entity stays outside of universe creating and controlling it and is beyond our senses. So, the vedic pundit said, we cannot find him in the physical parameters of this universe! 

So, according to this pundit, you cannot have evidence of the creator of this universe.

Therefore, you have to simply believe in this entity if you want to! What a situation? But then, it just becomes your imagination that somebody or something created this universe.  And in a very scientific way! So that entity, if it really exists, has to be scientifically minded - and why - it could as well be a scientist too!

Some scientists even light- heartedly say that this universe we live in is just a simulation of  higher intelligent beings and that we are all part of a 'robot game'! In that case we were created by some intelligent aliens from another universe for experiment, and stationed on the earth to see how we evolve, just like we do with robots!

Now some people need some sort of external emotional support. The scientists who are believers of this entity told me they feel comfortable when they think somebody is taking care of them. So they believe in God or some higher entity to get emotional support and feel comfortable. We can understand and  tolerate this. Not all human beings will be strong to stand on their own mental strength. As long as their beliefs don't effect or interfere with their scientific endeavours, they can be allowed to believe in whatever they want to. 

But let me also say this: True scientists cannot tolerate cognitive dissonance (science doesn't allow for the holding of two contradictory positions). They must choose the facts and stick to them.  They must follow the scientific methodology strictly. And atheist-scientists follow this. Without evidence, they refuse to accept the concept of higher entity. Some of the scientists  told me they tried to search and find 'God' like religious leaders told them to do. But couldn't find what they 're seeking or get convinced by the methods. They say they definitely cannot follow and accept silly theories, stories, imaginations, anecdotal evidence, and feelings. They want solid evidence to believe  in a higher entity. They say they 're prepared to consider it when such evidence 's provided.  Until then they prefer to remain skeptic.

They also say  we have whole evolution theory to explain  and prove how life originated and evolved on this planet. That means all religious stories and imaginations are not true. "God created human beings as they are" is not a fact to consider unquestionably. 

When we consider all the human fragilities, we can understand and tolerate the arguments of both sides.  Scientists or not scientists, all of them are human beings first. Human mind is a strange thing. It does what it does, deriving its own logic, perceptions and  conclusions. These need not always be based on evidence based facts.

Until science grows more (through widening of scientific knowledge) to answer most of these questions, we will have to live in an uncertain situation and try to accommodate all views provided they don't harm the societies they originate from or hinder their progress.

Until ‘evidence’ is provided, science cannot become theistic.
Atheists are of two types - those who are completely atheistic and totally shut off their minds and those that keep the doors of their mind still open to consider any evidence provided even if they are atheistic.
Theists are those who blindly believe in a creator whether there is evidence or not.

Q: Why do you say 'Being a scientist is a state of mind, not a profession'?

Krishna: I recently attended a science seminar. Several scientists and professors attended it. One scientist, while delivering his speech, was highly critical of his own colleagues. 

He said, "Scientists are forgetting what real science is.  What scientific methodology is. What morals they should stand for. Some of the scientists working in prestigious scientific institutions here were rapped by courts for giving "No pollution" or  Pollution+control+certificates+for+industries+in+India

recently even when they are highly polluting the air and water here. The scientists are under tremendous pressure from powerful people and they are yielding to pressure. Some are doing that for money. 

Just because you go to a lab and do some science for money you won't become a scientist".

How true?!

I have seen some professional scientists prostrating before the so called "godmen" who propagate pseudo-science. I have seen some 'scientists' believing in superstitions. I have seen some scientists doing all sorts of un-scientific things. 

Now what do you think? These scientists have forgotten what science really stands for. What critical thinking is. How you should live a scientific way of life. How your every thought and action should be guided by science and only science and nothing else.

Can you call them 'real scientists' when their state of mind is not scientific?

On the other hand I have seen some people, although not trained in science, don't practice science in labs, subject everything they come across to critical thinking. They use rationality to arrive at any conclusion. They use scientific facts as their guide. They really have a scientific bent of mind. I respect these people.  I treat these people as real scientists.

So for me 'a scientific state of mind' is a true marker to determine whether a person is a real scientist or not. Neither his qualifications, nor his profession.

 Q: To all the people who say science is everything and even above god, why can't science explain the occurrence of cancer? Science itself says that 70% cancers are merely due to bad luck.

Krishna: It has become a fashion now to criticise science for all the problems in the world. This is like a bad worker blaming his tools to cover his inefficiency.

And blurt out to show your lack of knowledge.

Cancers are a group of diseases in which abnormal cells uncontrollably develop and spread in the body. Science has a clear answer on this disease.

Human cells grow and divide to form new cells as the body needs them. When cells grow old or become damaged, they die, and new cells take their place.

When cancer develops, however, this orderly process breaks down. As cells become more and more abnormal, old or damaged cells survive when they should die, and new cells form when they are not needed. These extra cells can divide without stopping and may form growths called tumours.

Cancer is a disease of our genes – the bits of DNA code that hold the instructions for all of the microscopic machinery inside our cells. Over time, mistakes accumulate in this code. The longer we live, the more time we have for errors to build up. And so, as time passes, our risk of developing cancer goes up, as we accumulate more of these faults in our genes. Genetic changes like mutations occur more frequently too in genes when people get older and some of them can cause malignancy in cells.

Other reasons:

Diet and food quality people choose, more smoking and using pollution-causing products are reasons good enough to cause concerns. Obesity: we now have more obese population than earlier times which raises the risk of developing a number of cancers. More virulent microbial strains like HPV, or human papillomavirus that cause cancer. Indiscriminate use of carcinogenic chemicals and products in our daily lives. Exposure to carcinogens has been scientifically demonstrated to cause cancer .

Answer to the question 'why' on big "C"

You still say, science doesn’t know what cancer is?

When the studies are going on in a complex subject like science, you can’t lose your patience and blurt out like this. Science takes a long, long time to establish facts and the process can’t be rushed through as easily as you can scream at it like this.

If somebody says ‘cancer happens because of bad luck’, it is this person’s inability to comprehend science behind it properly and bringing beliefs into the realm of science. Several scientists countered it.

It is mostly media misinterpreting the results.

All of these deceptive headlines arose from a widely misinterpreted study that looked at the role of random chance in initiating cancers. That paper was itself criticized for a slew of methodological flaws, and spawned more than a hundred rebuttals. ( well several, I don’t want to put a number to it).

No, We Can’t Say Whether Cancer Is Mostly Bad Luck

Bad luck, bad journalism and cancer rates | @BobOHara @GrrlScientist

Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer develo...

Why most cancer isn't due to 'bad luck'

Is cancer due mostly to “bad luck”?

This lopsided paper triggered a hailstorm of criticism. Some scientists chastised the methods. They called it bad luck because they thought they ‘re unavoidable which is complete nonsense because some are avoidable.

Is cancer just a question of ‘bad luck’?

And you conveniently ignore the hundreds of rebuttals but ‘remember’ just one bad paper to support your view! That shows a total bias.

It is not science that says cancer is due to bad luck. It is a bad paper and a bad interpretation that came to this conclusion.

Now stop criticising science and start finding enlightening knowledge to control this anger or emotions.

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