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3 The Third Dogma:

Discernment
3 Reason x Reasonable

The Third Dogma:


Discernment
In order to take a course of
action, we need a good reason.
This dogma invokes the skill of
discernment: What is the
reason, and is it reasonable?

What evidence exists?


How valuable is this evidence?
What are possible explanations
for these results?
What are the implications of
these results?
Can we go with this?
The Third Dogma: Discernment

There is no such thing as proof. There is only evidence.


This is possibly going to be quite a tough one, because humans tend to want science to "Science is a way to teach how
make things easy for us. Come on science, show us the truth, show us the right way to something gets to be known; what is
do things, so that we don’t have to apply the skill of discernment. There’s a good reason not known; to what extent things ARE
for that: It’s hard. known (for nothing is known
absolutely); how to handle doubt and
There are probably few harder skills to
uncertainty; what the rules of evidence
The Value of Science master than the ability to use
are; how to think about things so that
discernment.
Science is never ‘true’, but judgments can be made; how to
To look at all the evidence in support distinguish truth from fraud and from
seldom unhelpful.
of a claim, to weigh the different show."
pieces of evidence against each other
The key line for me is the phrase in
in terms of quality, reliability, value
parentheses: for nothing is known
and relevance, and to make a decision
absolutely. Science can never say what is
as to whether or not we are going to adopt a new belief, or follow a course of action.
right, it can only say: so far it seems to
My favourite scientist, the 20th Century polymath Richard Feynman has this to say on work like this. Maybe things will change
the value of science: in the future, but we’ve done this a few
times and we generally get the same
results.

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Science’s greatest value (and the acid test of whether or not Don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive fan of science. I just want
something is within the domain of science or not) is whether or people to think about these things before they accept any new
not the theory gives rise to predictions. research-finding as gospel truth. For it can never be true, it can
only ever be, so far it seems to work like this.
The test of science is its ability to predict. If a scientific theory
does not make any predictions, then it can still be a theory, but it If someone decides, on the balance of probabilities, to adopt a
does not exist within the realm of science. certain belief, a mindset, a way of life, after having given it a
reasonable amount of thought, then that’s fantastic. That’s
So, it’s important that we not only have a reason for doing the
exactly what we want. People making conscious decisions,
thing we decide to do, whatever it is, but it has to be reasonable,
having done a reasonable amount of background reading,
given the context.
research, thinking and even, experimentation themselves.
These are some of the questions you might want to ask yourself
when you next encounter a claim as scientifically-proved:

What evidence is there to support it?


I believe we can move to a
Where is the data set?
world of discernment, where
How many times have these results been
people adopt beliefs after a
reproduced? reasonable amount of
Do we know whether studies that showed no effect research, contemplation and
have been done but not reported?
personal experimentation. I’m
Who paid for the research?
excited about that world.
Who stands to benefit from the research findings?

Is there a sale-able product to ameliorate this


‘finding’?
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The Limitations of Research Involving Humans
There are actually many limitations to research involving something as complex as
'People who put on sun tan lotion
human behaviour, the body, the mind or anything involving humans.
are much more likely to consume
However, I'm only going to throw up three of the most relevant. These are things that ice-cream than the normal
you should be aware of whenever you read any research paper. Indeed, whenever
population.'
anyone tells you anything has been proven, it's worth looking at these three aspects and
seeing if you can still be confident in the research findings.
However, I then WRONGLY conclude:

1. Most of the time, we only ascertain whether or not


‘Putting sun tan lotion on your
there is a relationship between variables. We cannot easily body CAUSES you to eat ice cream.’
tell if this relationship is causative or correlative.
Which is clearly absurd.

Let me explain using the following absurd scenario. However, this propensity to confuse a
correlation with a cause is a problem
I head to the beach to do some scientific research.
with much 'scientific' research, especially
I observe people putting on sun tan lotion. in the areas of medicine and the social
sciences.
I observe people eating ice-cream.
In this case, the real reason why people
I find that there is a strong relationship between the two behaviours.
both put on sun tan lotion and eat ice

I therefore RIGHTLY conclude... cream is because they are sitting in

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sunshine. There is a third, unobserved variable, the sunshine, At this time approximately 80% of british adults smoked as it
which is the cause of both directly observed behaviours. was very much the done thing. Lung cancer rates had been
rising for decades but with more pressing issues such as World
Now it gets interesting.
Wars etc. there hadn't been that much interest in what might
Correlations are proved all the time. Causes are not. In fact, have been causing cancer's rapid rise in incidence.
causes are exceptionally difficult to prove. However, after we
Unbelievably, it took a further 10 years before the US public
have gathered huge amounts of evidence, we are often
were told that smoking was not such a great idea by the
presented with a summary that says something like this:
Surgeon General of the United States, in 1964.
The evidence strongly suggests a causative link between x and y.
However, despite people now generally believing that smoking
OK, so what? Well, the added complication is this: Just because causes lung cancer, there was still no proof. It wasn't until 1998,
you can't prove that there is a cause between variables, it when research showed that components of cigarette smoke
doesn't mean that there isn't one… caused mutations at three specific cellular locations that they
could be pretty confident of a causal link.
For a long time there was no evidence that smoking caused
lung cancer. Quite how, we can only surmise, but nonetheless These cellular locations were known 'hotspots' for the
there were no studies until 1951 when a british medical development of lung cancer.
researcher Sir Richard Doll published a paper suggesting the
It is actually a mighty step to go from correlative to causative
link based on interviews with 700 lung cancer sufferers. It was
and a step which science takes with great trepidation. Most of
roundly ignored.
the time, with something as complex as a human body, we just
Also in 1951, Doll began a study into the smoking habits of don't know…
40,000 doctors and by 1954 had produced very compelling
However, for our purposes, correlative is a great starting point.
evidence of a positive correlation between smoking and lung
cancer.

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participants. A sample of such high numbers is what makes
2. Sample Size people stand up and take notice.
When investigating a hugely complex situation, with thousands
of variables, our greatest salvation as a scientist is the size of our This is why we have to be very careful when drawing
sample. conclusions from medical and health research. It's often very
expensive to conduct studies with a large sample size, other
Let's say we asked 10 people with lung cancer a few questions
than purely subjective, questionnaire-type studies. Also, there
and found that they all smoked. Great, we conclude that
are often not enough suitable subjects upon which research can
smoking causes cancer.
be performed. There just aren't enough people affected in

However, they also all lived within 10 miles of the hospital. order to have a good sample size.

They also all got their electricity from the same provider.

They all drank water from the same source.


3. Research is in the past
They all agreed to take part in the study. Research can only suggest what is best, out of all the things that
have already been tried.
Now, you can see that I'm being facetious, but the point is a
good one. With only 10 people, it's possible that they share This is perhaps philosophical rather than directly practical, but I
many characteristics. shall mention it nonetheless because in the arena in which I
work, it's the most relevant.
If we increased our sample size to 100, any similarities will be
less coincidental and therefore (hopefully) more meaningful. Let's say you wanted to live to be a centenarian.

That's why sample size is so important. The 1951 study into the Where would you start?
health habits and incidence of lung cancer involved 40,000

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Well, a sensible place might be 'Find a bunch of people who are
already 100+ and ask them what they did.' ‘This method can only ever
Exactly. give you the best way out of
So, you interview all these people, you shadow these people,
all the ways that have
you track them over an extended period of time and you come
up with some results. You try and identify all the variables that
already been tried’
It could easily be that doing something new, something
may be important.
different from all of the things that these people have done, will

How they think make you live even longer.

So, research is always historical. Of course, that in itself is not a


How they live bad thing. But, what if people could take advantage of some

What they believe in new technology that would make things even better?

What they eat I fully expect to live to 150.

Where they live etc. That sounds completely ridiculous, but I can't see why not.

I'm not suggesting that the average human lifespan will increase
to 150 anytime soon, but I expect to live that long and I've been
You find that there are some similarities between them and if
saying so for years.
your sample size is big enough, you begin to tease out
suggestions as to the best way to live to be over 100. Why?

However, and here's the rub… With the pace of human improvement, and developments in
technology and health I expect to be fully functioning, mentally

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and physically until the very end, when all of my organs will
simultaneously fail. Just like an animal living in the wild. Hunting The Story So Far:
for food one week, dead the next.

So, while I plan to look at what current centenarians have done The first dogma postulates that mastery of anything can be
to achieve such a long life, I'm also mindful of the fact that they achieved by breaking the goal into components and getting
started their journeys over 100 years ago. Times have changed a better at each component.
lot since then. I believe for the better.
The second dogma states that the most effective way to get
better at each component is to focus on just one component at
a time using the 13x4 system.

The third dogma states that you need to have a reason for
doing something and that reason in itself needs to be
reasonable, to you, having applied your powers of discernment.
There has to be a reason
How are we doing so far?

and it has to be reasonable Tom Cassidy

Jan 2014

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