Translated material
Alexander Panchin - about pseudo -jacket and struggle with her
How do manufacturers of homeopathic remedies mislead buyers and scientists, why does the publication in a scientific journal do not guarantee the reliability of the research results, which makes people believe in flat land and how will genetic engineering change humanity? Paper spoke with the biologist and member of the commission to combat pseudoscience and falsification of scientific data by Alexander Panchin on how pseudo -scientific theories evolve and why they become more popular.
Alexander Panchin is one of the speakers of the Geek Picnic science and technology festival in Moscow. In St. Petersburg, the festival was held on July 6 and 7 in the Primorsky Victory Park. "Paper" is the official partner of Geek Picnic.
- What is meant by pseudo -assum?
-The pseudo-assum usually understands the imitation of science-something that claims objectivity, reliability and reliability, but in fact there is no reason to believe that the right statements are based on this. Typically, for pseudo -scientific theories there is no scientific search process, and the data obtained either with errors or contradict the theses already established by scientists.
A classic example of pseudo -Astrology. There is no normal explanation from the point of view of physics, as the location of the luminaries can affect the fate of a person. Astrologers themselves also do not reinforce their theses with scientific evidence. All experimental checks - and there were many of them - astrology failed.
If we talk about modernity, then we are observing the evolution of pseudo -nause. From the same astrology, the “human design” leaked. This is such a strange thing in which eastern philosophy, chakras, astrology are mixed. And this comes down, in fact, to the fact that a person enters his date on the site and receives a picture with a description of his personality and an indication of which professions should he choose. The popularity of this is due to the fact that people tend to accept on faith some common judgments that are suitable for a fairly large number of people.
Or used to charge the water before. And this was a kind of mystical pseudo -scientific direction. From here follows homeopathy, which is still alive and very popular. And other forms of manipulation of water are preserved - there is a certain “hydrogen water”, “hydroplasma”, “dead” and “living” water, which supposedly have unusual properties, although there is no reason to believe this.
-In 2019, you can check almost any information on the Internet. What instruments do pseudo -asses use in these conditions to attract supporters?
-The most advanced example is release-active drugs. All possible methods are invented there so that people do not understand that this is nonsense. Take Anaferon-it is written on the package: contains 0.003 antibodies to gamma-interneron. A person thinks: well, there is a active substance and scientifically sounds so. There are even links to articles in scientific journals.
And then we look at a small font and see that in Aniferon the concentration of antibodies 10-15 nanograms per gram. If all this is shifted, it turns out that there is no active substance there. If you look at scientific articles, then it is already necessary to be a specialist there to figure it out. Some of the articles on release-active drugs have already been withdrawn from scientific publications. But initially they somehow went through the reviewers. It turns out that even experts do not always notice that something is wrong and that in fact it is about homeopathy.
The main distinguishing feature of homeopathy is the principle of breeding [active substance]. According to homeopaths, the more we make the medicine, the better it treats-which, of course, contradicts the laws of physics and chemistry, in particular the law of the current masses (any substance should interact with something-cells or pathogen-to be effective; the more the substance, the greater the effect).
- But homeopathic remedies are often quite expensive. Why do people continue to buy them, despite the price and the common knowledge that homeopathy is ineffective?
- Some people do not know that homeopathy does not work. A man fell ill with a flu, drank a homeopathic drug, after some time the flu passed. He would have passed, but a person had the impression that this drug helped. There are a lot of reasons for recovery, including the work of the body’s immune system, which takes time to combat the disease - it is so arranged.
It is not only remarkable here that people continue to buy homeopathic drugs, but that the Ministry of Health does not react to this. The commission for the fight against pseudoscience recommended that the information about this on the packaging of drugs with unproven effectiveness. Like, if people want to accept it, let them continue, but they will at least honestly warn them that science does not recognize such methods that there is informed consent. The Ministry of Health promised to consider this issue, but the discussion did not receive any development.
The RAS Commission published a report on the dangers of homeopathy
Paperpaper.ru
What did we learn from him
- Is it normal that pseudo -scientific articles are published in authoritative scientific publications?
- Over the past 15 years, about 2 thousand articles from Biomedical magazines have been withdrawn for various reasons: from falsification of data to plagiarism. The figure seems to be large, but as a percentage with the total number of publications is small. There is reason to believe that not all referred or poorly made responds.
There is an article by the scientist John Ioannidis, in which he drew attention to the fact that the authors of articles often get false positive results, incorrectly using statistics, exposingly talking about how the experiment was undergoing, silent about experiments with negative results.
In general, today we can make a disappointing conclusion that if something is published in a scientific journal, this is not a guarantee of quality. Moreover, if you are offered a medicine and cannot prove its effectiveness with a scientific publication, this is a guarantee that you are deceivers.
- You often have to discuss with supporters of pseudo -scientific theories. What topics do you have to argue most often?
- The notorious homeopathy is one of the very popular topics for disputes. Next is creationism, that is, the denial of evolution. Then the reasoning that GMO will kill everyone. That vaccines do not work and cause autism. That HIV does not exist or does not cause AIDS. Various conspiracy theories. Until the theory of flat earth-I once thought that people simply endure, and then talked with those who seriously believed in it and with great enthusiasm defends their point of view. All this is gaining popularity, which, of course, scares.
Well, often you have to talk about various paranormal abilities, including people who claim the title of psychics. However, they are rather not a dispute with them, but a dialogue about how to check the existence of such abilities - for example, within the framework of the Hudini Prize (a bonus for demonstrating paranormal abilities in the conditions of a correctly set experiment - approx. “Paper” ). But already at the stage of checks it is difficult to agree, they often refuse them. Nevertheless, we checked many psychics. The result is always negative.
-Suppose I am entering a dispute with HIV-dissident or anti-infectrum. How can I behave and is there a chance to convince a person?
- The first step towards victory in the debate is preparation for them. The opponent’s question should not take you by surprise. The manner of discussion should be calm, without shouting, you should be polite and smiling. It is necessary to prepare so that scientific arguments prevail in the discussion-most likely, the same HIV discident does not understand them.
But, unfortunately, the arguments of supporters of pseudo -scientific theories are often more attractive for an unprepared listener. Scientific argumentation is usually quite dry and does not imply great freedom of reasoning, and the opponent can bribe the listener with some beautiful figure of speech.
The defender of the theory of flat earth will tell you: I jump and do not fly into space - which means that the earth does not rotate. From the point of view of physics, this is ridiculous - I can jump on the bus and will not fly back. I move with the bus and I move with the ground. But a person who did not think about this was walking physics at school, this may come across a thought: yes, indeed, if the earth rotates, then how did I jump and did not fly away?
-But if homeopathy, for example, is a commercial product that is profitable to promote, then how do the theory of flat earth or HIV dissidentity gain popularity?
- Many delusions are in the complex - including in combination with the theory of conspiracy. Suppose you learned a tragic story about a person who had autism after vaccination. A person with scientific thinking understands that this is not a proof of a causal relationship. Everyone is vaccinated, including people with autism, in whom it can be diagnosed after vaccination.
But a person who saw a connection will have the feeling that the medical community, which calls such information fake, is in collusion. And since the medical community is in conspiracy, then other scientists may contain. And if so, then maybe the stories in textbooks that the earth is round is also a conspiracy.
The conspiracy the idea everywhere finds new confirmations. A person begins to google and finds sites where arguments are given in favor of the flat land that seemed plausible. Then this person approaches another and says: And you prove that the earth is not flat. And his interlocutor has never studied this issue, although Aristotle proved this, and cannot bring arguments against it. So the supporter of the theory of flat earth is further strengthened in his idea.
Then, a supporter of the theory of flat earth appears a certain circle of communication. He begins to get acquainted with like -minded people, they all begin to hang out, hold their conferences. A layer arises in which everyone supports each other in their conspiracy ideas. And it is already very difficult to get out of there.
All this is very interestingly shown in the film “ Behind the bend ” - just about the “Flat Melders” and about the structure of their social life. There you can see that they really have very close social ties with each other.
Conspirological errors can be compared with HIV. It destroys the immune system, after which a person dies from other infections. The same here: people pick up the theory of conspiracy, and with it - a whole set of myths and delusions, including life -threatening. And, like HIV, this “virus” is transmitted from person to person.
- Why in Russia a strong prejudice for GMOs and does it become, according to your observations, weaker?
- I would not call it the specifics of Russia, such an attitude towards GMO is present in many countries. Simply, in Russia, at the state level, specific bills were adopted [against GMO], while in some other countries - China, the United States - took the way to introduce genetic engineering. And part of the countries does not particularly contribute to technical progress in this area - and this, it seems to me, is very sad.
Genous engineering can lead to both the improvement of the quality of nutrition and to a decrease in the negative impact of people on the environment. We will be able to get more crop with smaller areas and avoid the destruction of ecosystems to create any agricultural land. Much of what we are doing now for food is harmful to nature.
Around genetic engineering, despite its usefulness, there are a lot of myths. Some of them are associated with some magical thinking. Until the statements "Removing GMO and genetically modify." It is as funny as "if I eat a boiled egg, I will cook." So it doesn't work.
Genetic changes occur in each generation in all living organisms. And the difference between natural changes and selection is only that in nature these are random mutations with unpredictable consequences. Engineering allows you to make mutations exactly where necessary. And before starting into production, products with GMOs pass all possible safety trials. So we can say that a proven GMO has more security guarantees than an in -modified plant of the same variety. But each GMO, of course, should be considered separately.
- And what are the prospects of genetic modifications of a person in the coming years?
“If we look at what we tried to do in the case of the first genetically modified children, who were supposedly born in China,” it was said about the emergence of resistance to HIV. There are people with a mutation that gives resistance to HIV, but the task was to reproduce this mutation in children who did not initially had it.
That is, scientists mainly use what is already found in nature. Transfer a sign of one organism to another, where this feature was not. Both inside the species and between species.
Therefore, something supernatural from genetic engineering is not worth expecting from genetic engineering. Flying people with wings are an extremely implausible scenario. I would say that genetic modifications [in the near future] will be aimed at combating congenital genetic diseases.
There are less obvious applications. For example, CRISPR/CAS9 technology - “molecular scissors” that can be programmed to cut DNA in a certain place. Initially, it was used by bacteria to “cut” viruses DNA, but now with their help we can also make human cells resistant to various kinds of pathogens. However, so far only in test tubes.
- On Geek Picnic in the topic of your speeches are the theses "Will science pass the border?" And "Will we continue to play in God or is it time to beat him?" What do they mean?
-I just do not think that science has crossed some border. The teaser of the performances is provocative, because new technologies will allow a person to do what he had never done before. We can cure genetic diseases, the treatment of which used to seem impossible, we can change the genetic code.
If we are talking about ordinary genetic engineering, then there we just transfer some kind of mutations back and forth. This is not surprising and this is just called the “game in God”, because someone believes that a certain higher being is responsible for mutations. And to “replay a god” in this case is to do something that “God” (if we assume that he is) is not able to do it. He did not have enough imagination, for example, for a cure for hemophilia or eight -letter DNA - and we took and did.