Category: Misinformation

The nature and mechanisms of the formation and propagation of misinformation.

Can we buy clean air?

Air Pollution in Mumbai, photo taken by Kartik Chandramouli

Author: Arjun Kamdar

Over the last few weeks the air pollution levels in India have reached extremely hazardous levels. On several days, seventy-four of the hundred most air polluted cities were in India. This is a serious crisis that is impacting everything that breathes, and is rightly being considered a public health emergency. Among the many marketed solutions, one caught my attention and is deeply alarming: wearable air purifiers.

Searching for solutions

Understandably, this crisis has people scrounging for solutions. The idea of a small, high-tech device that one can carry around and promises to purify the air has intuitive appeal. This little device costs about £30, it comes via a glossy website, uses the word ‘scientific’ in copious amounts, and has pastel colour options. All that seems to be missing is a man in a lab coat smilingly recommending this as the ultimate solution. Fundamentally, this sells the idea that air can be privatised – this little rock around one’s neck can create a portable halo and emits negatively-charged anions that ‘attack’ the bad particles to ‘purify’ the air. There is one major problem; it does not work. 

Air as a public bad

For decades, India’s urban elite have shielded themselves from the failures of public systems. Healthcare, education, security, transport – most of these have been informally privatised. Those who can afford it buy their way out of poor public infrastructure.  

Air, however, is different. It is defined as a public good, or in this case, a public bad. This means that it is (1) non-excludable (no one can be prevented from breathing it) and non-rivalrous (one person’s use does not reduce availability for another). The textbook example of a public good is, ironically, a fireworks show: no one can be excluded from enjoying it, and one person’s enjoyment does not diminish the experience for anyone else. The same logic applies to air: we all share the same air, and it is impossible to contain it in one place or prevent someone from breathing it. There are no neat delineations between indoor and outdoor air.

Smog blankets buildings in Gurugram. Photo by Niranjan B.

The pseudoscience of wearable air purifiers

This is why air pollution demands collective action. No technological innovation can bypass this. While using masks or creating ‘clean air bubbles’ by installing indoor filtration systems or based on robust technology like HEPA filters can help to some extent, eventually, one must step outside or open a window. Wearable devices are marketed as the silver-bullet solution, despite there being no real evidence for their efficacy – neither in practice nor for what they market as “Advanced Variable Anion Technology”.

The scientific claims behind many of these products crumble when looked at closely. Companies cite ‘certifications’ and ‘lab tests’ from prestigious institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), one of India’s top engineering and science universities, a well-chosen appeal for the target audience of India’s urban elite and upper-middle class. However, the referenced tests have a fundamentally flawed study design, with too few repetitions to carry any scientific weight/value. In some of these tests they burn an incense stick in a sealed chamber suggested to be representative of air pollution outdoors in India, and then measure the reductions in ultrafine particulate matter over time, without any control condition. Such designs fail at both internal validity, i.e., the mechanism of action as well as external validity, since they ignore the complexity of outdoor pollution, which depends on wind, humidity, temperature inversions, particle composition, emission sources, and dozens of other factors. And most importantly, a seemingly endless supply of pollution. These wearable devices may as well be a bunch of flashing lights.

Some of these devices verge on the dystopian. One widely advertised model resembles a potted plant with plastic leaves, claiming that this technology will purify the surrounding air. The irony is stark. Some also offer these devices for corporate gifting. 

Implications of misinformation

If these devices genuinely worked, or even showed promise, they would already be the focus of research and public health practice. Air pollution is not a novel challenge for humanity, and neither is the knowledge of ions. We understand these technologies well, and the reason they have not advanced further is simple:  because science has already shown that this is a dead end.

There are two critical implications of this misinformation. One, it is unethical and exploitative, and two, it can crowd out motivations for the systemic change that is needed to tackle this large challenge.

These devices exploit people’s vulnerabilities – the legitimate fears that people have for themselves and their loved ones is used to turn a quick buck. Selling untested gadgets during a public health crisis is a dangerous manipulation of public fear for personal gain. The burden of proof of the efficacy of these devices lies with manufacturers, it is not the job of citizens or scientists to test and gather evidence that they don’t work. This is understood in section 2(47) and 18-22 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 on ‘unfair trade practices’ and the penalties for misleading advertisements.

Customers of these products I spoke with mentioned that while they are sceptical, “it might at least do something, if not as much as these companies promise”. While the sentiment is understandable, this is a very dangerous narrative. A proliferation of this flawed idea that clean air can be acquired through a quick, personal fix, could weaken the pressure on the government to take action and enact the systemic reforms that are needed. This crowding out of motivations is a real threat to movements that require long-term action. Air pollution is a public and collective challenge, impacting everyone from all classes and therefore, could be a catalysing factor for demanding structural changes. The misconception that private, individual-specific solution is a possibility hinders this, leading to a continuation of the status quo.

A member of parliament wore such a device by a company called Atovio a few months ago – this explicit validation by a public figure, even unknowingly, only amplifies misinformation and gives these dishonest claims a misleading legitimacy.

Air pollution shrouds the streets of Mumbai. Photo by Shaunak Modi.

Can air pollution be solved?

It is not an intractable problem; Beijing faced similar challenges in 2013 as did Bogota in 2018. Both cities ramped up their efforts and managed to tackle the seemingly insurmountable challenge of air pollution through the evidence-backed combination of strict emission controls and regulatory enforcement, and transformative shifts in urban mobility and energy use. India can too. 

This potential is evident to India’s citizens; people from all walks of life and classes have mobilised,  organising protests and legal arguments across the country to confront this serious threat.

There is no technology yet that can privatise air. Structural changes in how cities and societies function are the only real solution, and until then air will remain a public bad. Some problems cannot be bought away.

Science and extreme agendas

Author: Raf Kliber (Social Media Officer)

Original feature image art specially drawn by: TallCreepyGuy

While I work myself to boredom at a local retail store, I listen to some podcasts in the background. Something to cheer me up. Among my favourites are the Nature Podcast and Climate Denier’s Playbook. But, on that specific Wednesday, the episode was anything but cheering. I landed on the Nature Podcast’s “Trump team removes senior NIH chiefs in shock move” episode, which provided me with a bleak look into the current US administration’s proceedings. The bit that shocked me the most was how much the move clung to Project 2025‘s agenda. One of the moves discussed was a defunding of ‘gender ideology’ driven research (read anything that includes the word trans, even though such research is useful for everyone). Furthermore, instead of such ‘unimportant’ research, the administration wanted to conduct studies into ‘child mutilation’ (read trans conversation therapy) at hospitals. Eight hours later, while soaking in a mandatory afterwork bath, I began pondering “what is the interplay between extreme agendas and the ‘fall’ of science?” and “what I, a STEM person, could do about it?”. As a Polish person, my first bubbles of ideas started with fascism and the Third Reich.

Jews, fascism, and ‘directed’ science

I moved to the UK when I was twelve years old. This event spared me the traditional trip to Auschwitz one takes when in high school. It spared me from the walls scratched by the nails of the people trapped in gas chambers. It spared me from the place so horrible yet so pristinely preserved that visiting it is as close to time travel as one can get. About a fifth of the population of Poland was wiped out in World War II. On average, every family lost someone. Not on average, many families were completely gone. Due to the gravity of the topic at hand I reached out to Dr. Martin A. Ruehl, lecturer in German Intellectual History at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at University of Cambridge for some guidance. He also gave a talk on “What is fascism?” during the Cambridge festival, which I recommend. Another reason is that I am by education, a physicist, and just as physicists have their own set or rigorous habits that make their field solid, historians and philosophers have theirs.

Fascism as an idea is fuzzy, or at least with fuzzy borders. One knows definitely that after Hitler took over the power in Germany, it took on Fascist ideology. It is also abundantly clear that the current UK is not a fascist regime. Trying to nail the border delineating the least fascistic and just about not fascistic regime is futile, complicated further by each regime having their own unique element. The process of how it festers and develops in a country is left for others to explain, and I encourage the reader to watch this video essay by Tom Nicholas on how to spot a (potential) fascist. I will go with the conclusion of Dr Ruehl’s talk. Fascism is a racist, nationalistic, extreme and violent idea that often puts the core group in a self-imposed theoretical attack from the outgroup. (e.g. Jews were an imagined threat to the German state, even though they weren’t). I procrastinate talking about subject matter to highlight two important points: Fascism is a complex topic that could be studied for lifetimes and consequently, I am not an expert. I have made my best attempt at giving it the due diligence it deserves.

Disclaimers aside, what was the state of science during Hitler’s reign? Let us set the scene. The role I’d like us to play is that of a scientist at the time. Let us imagine ourselves in 1933 Germany, right at the beginning of the Nazi reign. Nazi party made it rather clear: Either you, as the scientist, are ready to conduct research that aligns with the party’s agenda, or you’re out of academia. Unless you’re Jewish and known to be on the left of the political spectrum (historical pre-nazi left, although it would still include things like early transgender care, for example, as advocated by Magnus Hirschfeld), then you don’t get a choice. Physics Today has a nice article that contains the migration of selected physicists out of Nazi Germany, which I recommend having a look at. Similar goes for other branches of science. The crux of the situation is that if you are studying races or ballistics, you are more than welcome to stay. Hitler did recognise that only the most modern military equipment would allow for the Third Reich to wage war on everyone. Similarly, he did want to put his ideals onto the firm foundation of “cold and logical” science, even though at times that compromised the scientific process. For example, the creation of Deutsche Physik (which denied relativity) and the burning of books by the above-mentioned Magnus Hirschfeld. (As much as my past self would thoroughly disagree, trans people are a cold and logical conclusion of how messy biology can be. More so than arbitrarily dividing all of population into two buckets.)

The adoption of the idea of Social Darwinism (that fittest social groups survive) and the knowledge of what genes do (albeit well before the discovery of DNA structure and the ability to compare genomes) created the foundation of ignorance for ‘scientific racism’ and eugenics. That being said, there was more to it than the current state of not-knowing. According to the introduction of “Nazi Germany and the Humanities” edited by Wolfgang Bialas and Anson Rabinbach, “Creation of the hated Weimar Republic created a deep sense of malaise and resentment among the mandarins, who, for all their differences, had in common the belief that a “profound ‘crisis of culture’ was at hand””. To draw a conclusion, the loss of the war and a tense national atmosphere led to the development of such völkisch ideals way before Hitler’s regime touched the ground. To further quote, “many retained the illusion of intellectual independence”. The general sense of superiority also gave rise to books like Deutsche Physik, a work that opposed Albert Einstein’s work directly.

(Note from the author: Googling “Social Darwinism” will lead you to creationist videos by Discovery Science (A YouTube channel by Discovery Institute, a fundamental creationist think tank). They seem to be hooked on using the aforementioned atrocities to try to link Darwin, and his early understanding of evolution, to Satan and hence to him leading us away from God with his theory. It is worth mentioning that although it bears his name, Darwin did not play a role in coining or using the term.)

To summarise this section: The way the corrupt ideals spread into science and politics in Nazi Germany arose from discontent and false hope. It was more of a fork situation. Both the world of academia and politics took up the story of national threat and superiority due to high levels of discontent originating from the Weimar era, and while intertwined together, I think that the cross-influence only amplified the process. This resulted in academia and politics taking up both ideals independently, and simply supported each other in the downward spiral such as antisemitism.

USSR, Russia, and limiting scientific cooperation.

A nice cup of tea on the following day led to some more thinking about other regimes. Like a true ‘Brit’, I took out my teapot and with a cup of Earl Gray in a fancy Whittard porcelain in my hand, I drifted off again into another rabbit hole. This time instead of west, I dug the tunnel east.
An interesting tidbit from my past regards my primary school. The changing rooms in that place had an interesting design. If one were to pay enough attention, they would see a system of grooves in the floors that were meant to act as drainage. Why drain something from an indoor location? The changing room was meant to serve as an emergency field hospital in case of another war. The school turns out to be old enough to see some of the old soviet practices in its design. For those unaware, Poland was part of the Soviet bloc up until 1991. Just 12 years before my birth, and 13 before Poland joined the EU. So let us journey to the east and see what history has to teach us.

Stalin was a dictator, just like his Austrian-German counterpart. What is slightly different is the ideology that shaped the persecution of scientists at the time –  a different flavour of extremism. I could go on a rant about what Stalinist flavour of Marxism is, but just like Fascism, there are scholars who spend their lives studying it. I am not one of them.

Nevertheless, the parallels between the corruption of sciences in Fascist Germany and Stalinist USSR are rather staggering for such different ideologies. In Germany, anything considered Jewish or going against the greatness of the Aryan race was immediately cut out, while the rest was bent towards the leading political party’s view. Here it was much the same. The humanist subjects took the largest hit in independence, as those in Germany. Lysenkoism played a role in slowing down the genetics research in the USSR. Instead, what followed was an increase in Lamarckism (acquired characteristics are passed on, rather than typical natural selection). This then, possibly, contributed to agricultural decline, creating another subject of memes for the edgy GenZ.

This also led further to isolation of the scientists. While every now and then they would invite foreign scientists (as Feynman wrote in his letters, and let us be honest, this might have been because of his involvement in Los Alamos) the mingling of Russian scientists with the rest of the world was minimal. Did I forget to mention that geneticists were often executed for not agreeing with Lysenkoism? Science is a global endeavour for a reason. It needs way more manpower than any country alone has. A country can never be a fully independent branch, it will simply lead to a slow withering of progress.

To have a nice circular structure in this section and bring it back to my home: Attitudes can also persist after occupation. The Polish government made some unpopular moves in academia during the time of the PIS party. Polish academia uses a scoring system, where each publication in a journal grants you points. Each point tries to quantify your contribution to a field. So technically a biochemistry paper would give you points in both biology and chemistry. They started awarding more points for papers in Polish journals rather than international ones, alongside some mixing of awarding points in political sciences for publishing theology papers. This may be seen as a slight resurrection of the national pride in sciences which I despise so much (Springer Nature’s journals are always going to be my favourite to skim through).

So what?

My Eurocentric summary of history is probably boring you to death. Let us talk about the US. Trump! The name that makes my hair stand on the back of my neck. The similarity of what is currently happening in the USA really makes me think that history does indeed repeat itself.

Firstly, just like Lysenko and his anti-genetics, Trump decided to elect RFK Jr as the minister of HHS. A well known opponent of vaccines is in a position of hiring and firing researchers. The MAHA (make America healthy again) report included a lot of less-than-optimal healthcare research directions. RFK really believes in a mix of the terrain theory (that the terrain of your body i.e. fitness and nutrition, play THE most important part of your immune system) and miasma theory (covered in a previous article here, but basically a medieval theory on bad air making you sick). There are a whole host of reasons for a person to also point out that a recovering drug addict and brain tapeworm survivor does not make for a great leader for a health agency. To be a devil’s advocate though, he did come up as an environmental lawyer. Additionally, RFK supports removal of fluoride from water and has helped to spread misinformation about vaccines in Africa. He has a very tangible body count and actively harms populations.

Secondly, there are the topics from the headlines in the first section. It is clear that the current administration’s aims are not simply doing science to explore x, but rather confirming x under the guise of science. This is why 75% of scientists that answered Nature’s poll said that they are looking to move out of the USA. Additionally, in a piece by the New York Times, experts in Fascism are also moving away from USA. It is something that is now consequently causing the ‘brain drain’ in the USA and, ironically for an administration that is anti-China, hands over the scientific majority to China. (Whether you think that is good or bad, is up to you. I personally am neutral.) Additionally, the administration has already tried to block Harvard’s ability to admit international students which contribute heavily towards their income stream – all in retaliation for Harvard allowing students to express their right to free speech and protest in favour of Palestine. This is slightly more sneaky than executions and imprisonments. Nevertheless, in a capitalist society, it might be somewhat equivalent when the funding we all depend on goes dry.

Lastly, there is a difference I would like to point out. Regimes like the one above often arose from a dire need for a radical leader and major changes. The current administration is exercising what I would like to call stealth authoritarianism (as coined by Spectacles here). Gone are the days of having posters with long-nosed depictions of minorities that eat children on every street (although the ‘they eat the dogs’ moment was close enough for many). The current US president is using rather specialised and closed off social media to reserve their opinions to their most dedicated followers rather than the general public. We live in the age where the algorithm separates us. It is becoming ever less likely to encounter an opinion we disagree with out in the wild without searching for it. Executions are no longer needed to silence the critics, for as long as you have a devoted fanbase, the infectiousness of the internet can create a potent and numerous enough group to win the election.

The fact that someone can be so overtly against reality, so blatantly corrupt, yet at the same time can feed a mirage to the right people to get elected is the true curse of the modern information landscape. For me personally, it is the main reason why CUSAP and similar societies are more important now than ever before.

What can you do

Every good opinion piece should end with a call to action. I also don’t want this entire blog post to be a long way of saying “AAAA WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!”, because we most likely won’t.

  • If you are in the USA and courageous enough, protest. It should be easy enough to find one nearby. This is not the main recommendation. Police brutality has already made itself visible in the past month.
  • What you can do more safely is support local lobbying. Be prepared that democracy is not as accessible as it seems. Genetically modified skeptic has posted their experiences trying to vote down the requirement for schools in Texas to have the 10 Commandments in classrooms. It was not a pleasant experience, but organisation and support for lobbying individuals can go a long way. Even if it means bringing them food and supplies or sitting in to notify them when it is their turn to speak at meetings.
  • Vaccinate your family against misinformation. The emotions can run high when politics are involved, but perhaps you can connect one bit of their viewpoint to that kernel of truth that may help. My personal jab at right-wing oil enthusiasts is to connect it with their dislike of migration, as this is a likely result of climate change. (Yes, I don’t believe migration is bad, but they do. Sometimes, you have to engage one topic at a time.)
  • Join a group to lobby and promote critical thinking. Here at CUSAP we try to go beyond Cambridge; thus we welcome articles written by non-members. You can get in touch with us at the https://cusap.org/action/. Youth against misinformation is another one. Plenty more can be found online.
  • Most importantly, do not shut up. Speak up when you see fake news. Don’t get distracted by trivial problems. Call your local political governors, meet with them, email them. This goes regardless of which party they are associated with. Make sure that they know that the truth is what you support. (It goes without saying, as long as you feel safe to do so)
  • Lastly, for my own sanity: do not be nihilistic about how little significance one action or vote has. One vote can make a lot of difference when it is surrounded by a couple thousand more singular votes.

Alpha (??) Male (???)

Author: Maya Lopez (Blog Chief Editor)

When I was video calling my parents recently, I noticed that a wildlife documentary was playing in the background. The documentary was on some pack of wolves and followed the tale of a dominant leader who got injured and left the pack, so the next oldest sister stepped up and led the pack. “Leader”. I was actually impressed by the up-to-date wording, reminded me of the story I saw a few years back on the term: “alpha wolves” – and how such outdated remains ingrained in our society.  But also, did the documentary just say sister stepping up as a leader? This led me straight back to the memory hole and some reading in between my deadlines, where I rediscovered the tale of science finding that was embraced by a culture, but culture/society refused to evolve with the scientific updates. Given the modern (and possibly unsustainable) rise of “manosphere” and loneliness epidemic, especially amongst young men (of course, while not uniquely exclusive to men) are believed to be linked to the current political climate and radicalization, we’ll explore where we got this “alpha male” myth often dubbed to be backed by “evolutionary science”. And this turned out to be an emblematic case where culture arguably sought after the label of “scientific” to affirm and add prestige to the social construct that some people wanted to desperately believe, and how this is much more difficult to falsify and update than actual scientific facts.  

“Alpha wolves” finding and its correction status

So, where did this all begin? It is no coincidence that alpha-male to this day is often represented as a wolf emoji, as seen on Wikipedia. 1971, L. David Mech , a zoologist specializing in wolves, observed that a strong dominant wolf seems to be leading a pack. And he published his findings in a book called “The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species”. I couldn’t find the exact record of how many copies were sold, but it had numerous reprints and digital releases until it got taken out of print in 2022.  This is perhaps a testament to its influence in all these years in the competitive world of publishing, and essentially popularized the terms alpha wolves, so I think it is fair to say that the book was super well-received in public. Personally, I think this level of success with science communication in itself is indeed remarkable. Perhaps, being the 1970s when eco-consciousness was on the rise and even “Earth Day” was born from a public movement, the conversation about ecology and endangered species was at the right time. However, the cultural impact (unfortunately?) lies well beyond the realm of ecology, leading to the connotation of this term to characterise a specific imagery of wild, dominant, aggressive (?), masculinity throughout the upcoming years.

The book outlines various facets of studies in wolves across different chapters- from their wild life distribution to the pack structure. The term alpha was introduced in a context to describe an apparent leader in a pack that seemed to have achieved its status by dominating others in the pack. Interestingly, this term was used in a similar sense in a report published in 1947, Germany, so Mech’s book arguably stemmed from a long lineage of academic writing that held this prevailing theory of a wolf pack hierarchy. Also fascinatingly, “beta wolves” in this context is de facto #2 in the group (quite a different nuance from modern internet slang, but I’ll get back to this in a sec). But there was a big caveat to all of these studies: they were based on wolves under captivity – an artificial setting, often with individuals of non-blood relatives boxed in the same environment. So while “alpha wolves (and corresponding female pair)” emerged in captivity, when researchers expanded their search and saw if this is also applicable to their natural state, things went awry.

Like in many natural science findings, the alpha wolf finding was actually corrected and updated in a later decade. In fact, the interesting thing is that this falsification came from Prof. Mech himself (in what I call a true scientist fashion)! Upon his further investigation of wolves, he discovered in the 90s that the natural wolf hierarchy is, in fact, just a family. In this context of kinship, bloodshed and battle for the dominant position were rare. In an interview piece from New Yorker, an associate research scientist with a National Park Service research program in Yellowstone,  Kira Cassidy sums up the current notion of the “wolf hierarchy”:

“It’s not some battle to get to the top position. They’re just the oldest, or the parents. Or, in the case of same-sex siblings, it’s a matter of personality.” 

It’s easy to imagine how parents, naturally older and more experienced, lead the pack, and their offspring follow their lead. Mech himself was one of the most vocal proponents to refrain from using the term alpha wolves because “it implies that they fought to get to the top of a group, when in most natural packs they just reproduced and automatically became dominant.” In ‘99, he tried to describe these parents as having “alpha status”, and eventually the field stopped using the term altogether. If you check the International Wolf Center webpage today, you’ll see it being described as “outdated terminology”. Modern research also finds that in natural reserves where pacts occasionally fight for territories, they can observe rather extensive pacts, including aunts and uncles, and multiple “breeding pairs,” making the structure more flexible and less hierarchical. Furthermore, even these leader positions are essentially not about aggression but rather more about responsibility, and submission is more of a chain reaction mannerism rather than an all-hail-and-serve-the-dictator attitude. To quote the Scientific American’s article, “The youngest pups also submit to their older siblings, though when food is scarce, parents feed the young first, much as human parents might tend to a fragile infant.”

When culture decides not to update based on new findings

So okay, alpha wolves weren’t really a thing unless you split up families and smush them into the same room, and natural leaders aren’t really about aggression and bloodshed. If this tale were as famous as the concept of the alpha male, then it would’ve been a great example of scientific falsification updating the societal norm, but that was not the case. What starts the application of the concept/term of alpha to humans is arguably NOT the wolf book I mentioned earlier, but the book published in 1982 called Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes, where the author implies that his observations of a chimpanzee colony could possibly be applied to human interactions. But the thing is this term was still mostly in ecological contex (and not applied to discuss human interaction) till around late ‘90s where on top of the wolf example described above (which gives the pack leadership imagery), it also applied in other non-social animals, particularly to refer to male’s mating privileges due to their ability to hold territory, win food consumption, etc.

Then, who popularized this chimp/wolf term to describe a human male? I couldn’t access the actual source article that did this, but it was mentioned in Wikipedia that around the early 90s is when alpha referred to humans, specifically to “manly” men who excelled in business. But the recorded most pivotal moment in (pop?) culture is perhaps the ’99 American Presidential election campaigns, incidentally the same year Mech denounced the alpha wolves concept.  According to journalist Jesse Singal, from New York magazine, the word entered the public consciousness on a mass scale that year when a Time magazine article published an opinion held by Naomi Wolf, who was an advisor to then-presidential candidate Al Gore.  The article describes Wolf as having “argued internally that Gore is a ‘Beta male’ who needs to take on the ‘Alpha male’ in the Oval Office before the public will see him as the top dog.” Naomi Wolf herself, for context, was a prominent figure in the third wave of the feminist movement, with publications like The Beauty Myth in 1991.  But from around 2014, journalists started to describe her reporting on ISIS beheadings, the Western African Ebola virus epidemic, and Edward Snowden as containing misinformation and conspiratorial, and in 2021, her Twitter (… okay, “formerly-known-as-Twitter”) account was suspended for posting anti-vaccine misinformation. Her Wikipedia page now includes a title: conspiracy theorist.

Singal also credits Neil Strauss’s 2005 book on pickup artistry for popularizing alpha male which sedimented the aspirational tone of the alpha male as a status, but I think the pattern is clear: a frankenstein mish-mash of an outdated scientific-concept (literally, revived from death if you think about how the term was dying out in wolves research) and some vague sense of aspirational male figure that encaptulated the “cool” of the era has entered the lexicon, carrying the prestige of “science word” (not entirely untrue but leaving out the many big caveats mentioned above). And once things become a culture, it is hard to change, despite culture, if you think about it, is inheretaly in constant flux in the history of homo Sapiens. I’m not saying all cultures are bad; certainly not: it’s collective behaviors that have adapted throughout history. However, we often use “well, that’s the culture” as a reason to defend practices even after we, as a society, gained the means and the knowledge on how wrong or even harmful some things could be.

The correction status of alpha males (?) in other species

But wait, did you notice how this conversation of dominant status eventually became specifically about dominant “male” status? Where in the world did our social image of the alpha male even come from? Ultimately, it seems that we didn’t want to dismiss this idea of the almighty dominant male. Even to this day, if you Google “myth of alpha male,” you can find Reddit threads with comments that “acknowledge” that it is outdated and untrue in wolves, but people often ignore the male dominance found in Great Apes. Sure, male dominance CAN be a thing in great ape like Gorilla silver backs I guess (but note they get their own fancy title), but the implication made here seems to be that “wolves don’t matter because wild life closer to humans shows alpha males so we human males should also have alpha nature too errrr”. But what if the underlying assumption about the domineering male in relative species… does not hold as well as you think?

So let’s go back to our assumption about relative specie chimps and see if the assertion from the 80s holds true. Long story short, once again, like in the context of wolves, it turned out the scientific reality is more complex than the earlier rendition of it. Chimps are social creatures, like wolves and humans, and, indeed, there is often an alpha male in a group with mating privileges. But dominating other males with power and bloodshed turned out to be not the only way to achieve the top status – one can groom their way to the top. 2009 research found an interesting correlation with different males and their “styles” to achieve their status. Essentially, they saw that smaller chimps with perhaps less intimidation power compensated for this by grooming other members more frequently and equally. This also speaks to the complex nature of the alpha status too: they’re also judged by the other members of the group – in effect, being a popularity contest rather than a pure dictatorship. So while alpha male is a thing, it does not have to be the pure aggressive type that we typically imagine, and the stereotypically “beta-moves” might totally be his strategic winning move.

Let’s also interrogate the other half of the phrase: does it even have to be alpha “males”? Our other equally close relatives, Bonobos, will tell you otherwise. They, in fact, are often termed a matriarchal society for often being led by an experienced female senior(s) as a leader in the wild. In such enviornment, a routy and aggressive male that gets too excited by a presence of fertile female in fact can get his butt kicked – or more like toe bitten off in the extreme case by the experienced females who might gaurd such young female. This was the case for the group of bonobos in Wamba forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and his social position in the group plummeted. While the toe-bitten level of fight back is unusual, Dr. Tokuyama describes that “Being hated by females … is a big matter for male bonobos,” as the alpha male attitude here giving unwanted & violent sexual provocation is often met with a strong resistance by the females who woud band together to fend off such behavior.  As a homo Sapiens, I can’t say that this an-eye-for-an-eye tactics lending itself to violence is ideal, but, it is interesting to see an entire specie dynamic where aggression of male that evokes alphaness is arguably seen as reckless, meeting a stong resounding: NO.  

Can we finally update our alpha-male myth?

During my teenage years, I almost got the impression that alpha/beta categorization is increasingly becoming… cringe – a hype, a target of satire that became no longer cool upon oversaturation in the internet lingo. But the modern narratative around manosphere, while not mainstream (… I hope), is hinting otherwise. The very definition of masculinity for some people is somehow seeming more aggressive, dominating, and hierarchical. While such views may have always existed to some degree, highly visual-focused trends nowadays seeping into youth culture are perhaps accelerating this issue in a possibly dangerous way.  Perhaps alpha-male is too catchy, too photogenic, too trendy at this point to go out of fashion overnight (and in fact, during research, I found it immortalized & perpetuated in courses, coachings, and AI characters!).  And you know, as a story archetype (and possibly some people’s …let’s say “romantic type”), I can see some point – but maybe we can leave that to the realms of Wattpad’s Twilight spin-offs.  And I feel something inherently sad about reducing complex human social behaviors and the multidimensionality of personality we can have as REAL individuals to be reduced to a simple slogan and the law-of-the-jungle type of mindset, all with an undertone of violence and a dog-eat-dog world view.  

With simple slogan perpetuates a simple view of the world; an easy pill to swallow compared to a mentally demanding task of critically assessing social constructs.  After all, we are all facing a historic level of exhaustion and work demands. However, next time a trendy catchphrase from a view “supported by (evolutionary) biology” creeps up into your feed, let us ask ourselves, what complexity are we removing and at what cost?  Constant refrain from a critical reassessment of our own culture around us could quickly spiral true subordination of mind, ripe for exploitation (…thus very un-alpha if you ask me).  So let us practice our critical thinking and be wary of narratives that sound too… black-and-white.  Maybe science can help you update and be more flexible with thinking, because hey, science is ultimately unafraid to evolve and update, and so can we.


War on Paracetomol

Author11: Isha Harris(Co-President)

Paracetamol doesn’t get nearly enough credit as a wonder drug. While not as acutely lifesaving as penicillin, the quality of life improvement multiplied by the billions of people who use it means that paracetamol offers a pretty insane contribution to human wellbeing.

At any hint of a headache, I pop a couple pills, and am sorted out in 20 minutes. This saves me a day of pain, and the accompanying physiological stress – the blood pressure spikes, heart rate increases, and general bodily strain that prolonged pain can cause. It’s possible I go overboard with the paracetamol: before an exam, I usually take a few just in case a headache strikes. There’s probably a <1% chance of this happening, but given the huge stakes of remaining headache-free for the exam, I figure it’s worth it. I’ve also carefully optimised my coffee regimen, balancing the optimal buzz with avoiding bathroom breaks. So I arrive at every exam drugged up, ready to lock in. Maybe it’s just the placebo effect of feeling like I’m doping, but if it works it works.

This habit has been received extremely badly by friends and peers. Most people have a much higher threshold for taking paracetamol than me. They gasp at my willingness to take it for ‘minor’ discomfort, and if I suggest they do the same, I’m met with various justifications: toxicity, tolerance, making the headache worse. Or the classic ‘just drink water’, as if hydration and medication are mutually exclusive. Instead of resolving their discomfort quickly and safely, they’ll endure hours of decreased productivity or outright misery.

I think this is quite bizarre, and have always just assumed they were wrong and continued to sing paracetamol’s praises. But this is admittedly quite vibes-based of me, and as a good empiricist, I figured it was time to look into the data before I continue to assert that I’m right. Here’s what I found.

On paracetamol toxicity:

  1. For patients without prior health risks or sensitivities, paracetamol causes few to no side effects at recommended doses. A paracetamol dose has a few slight immediate side effects. For example:
    • 4 mmHg BP increase in already hypertensive patients. Ref
    • ALT (a liver enzyme) levels rise slightly, but this is comparable to the effect of exercise. Ref
  2. Prolonged, daily use at maximum dosage *might* pose risks. Long-term use has been linked to possible increases in blood pressure and cardiovascular events, though findings are inconsistent. For example:
    • Using paracetamol for more than 22 days per month raised the relative risk of cardiovascular events by 1.35 in smokers but showed no increased risk in non-smokers. Ref
    • Some studies suggest a potential association with cancers like kidney and blood, but again, evidence is limited.
  3. Medication overuse headache, or ‘rebound headache’, is a genuine risk for very frequent users. With time, regular overuse can lower your baseline pain threshold, leading to persistent, often severe headaches that don’t respond well to analgesics. It can be seriously disabling. But in the case of paracetamol and ibuprofen, MOH typically only develops after taking it on 15 or more days per month for months or years. Significantly higher than the occasional use I describe.
  4. Paracetamol is safer than other painkillers. Ibuprofen, while still extremely safe, has higher risks of stomach irritation and other adverse effects. Ref
  5. Overdosing is very dangerous. Paracetamol has a narrow therapeutic window, meaning the difference between an effective dose and a toxic one is small. Excessive intake can cause severe liver damage. Ref

Some other common myths:

“It interferes with your fever, which we’ve evolved for a reason.”

  • The data suggests paracetamol might only slightly prolong the duration of an illness (a few hours), if at all. Ref

“You’ll build a tolerance, and it won’t work anymore.”

  • I couldn’t find any studies at all that suggest paracetamol tolerance.
  • Paracetamol works via COX enzyme inhibition, not receptors like opioids or caffeine, so tolerance couldn’t develop by the same mechanisms anyway.

“Pain is natural, and good for you! It’s better to let your body build resilience.”

  • While much is said about the risks of taking paracetamol, few people talk about the cost of untreated pain.
  • Pain isn’t just unpleasant – it’s physiologically damaging. Ref It triggers the stress response, engaging the sympathetic nervous system and releasing adrenaline, which raises your heart rate and blood pressure. And it makes us miserable – mental state is a huge, and overlooked, predictor of human health.

In conclusion, paracetamol is incredibly safe when used correctly. Occasional, moderate use – like my once-a-fortnight headache relief – is nowhere near the thresholds associated with risk.

Purity culture

I think that the aversion to paracetamol is a symptom of modern purity culture. There’s a growing tendency to glorify ‘natural living’, and to believe that struggling through life without help from modernity is something we should strive for. I disagree – enduring pain unnecessarily doesn’t make you virtuous; it’s just bad for you.

There are plenty of other examples.

  • Reluctance to use epidurals during childbirth. And the rise of home births. Epidurals are safe; home births are not. But people have got it the wrong way round, because they assume natural = good.
  • Washing your hair less is good for it. I too was taken in by this as a teenager, enduring greasy hair and being miserable for days. But one day I remembered I have free will, and didn’t actually have to live like this. And I have seen no difference in my hair whatsoever.
  • The ChatGPT backlash. Camfess is currently embroiled in AI debate, with Cantabs coming up with all kinds of bizarre reasons to be against it (water/energy use, Big Tech and capitalism is bad, sanctity of art, weird claims about training data being exploitative).

The obsession with preserving ‘sanctity’ is maddening. Clinging to tradition for its own sake; suffering through inefficiency for strange abstract reasons of nobility. I hear this depressingly often from my fellow medical students, who claim that a future of AI in medicine threatens the sanctity of the patient-doctor interaction. But if AI can deliver zero wait times, more accurate diagnoses, and better outcomes (as the evidence suggests it can) doctors are Hippocratically obligated to endorse its rollout.

I have a hunch that this purity culture is a legacy of religion, which has a habit of resisting perfectly benign pleasures, like masturbation, for no reason. A lot of people around me are turning to Buddhism (Ref), which I find the whole shtick to be arguably the endurance of suffering. Each to their own, but it doesn’t seem like a very pleasant life, or really that necessary.

Humans have always resisted change, clinging to the familiar even when it doesn’t serve them. It’s why progress, whether in technology or social norms, is so often met with opposition. This is even true amongst many progressives, who are bizarrely circling back to conservatism on many fronts. The vast majority of the AI luddites I have encountered are leftists.

It’s such an exciting time to be alive. Technology and medicine make our lives easier, freeing up time and energy for productivity – or simply pleasure. So embrace it! Life is for living, not enduring. This means using the tools available to us, and supporting innovation to make even more.

The moral of the story: don’t lose an entire day to a headache. Pop that paracetamol.

↩︎

  1. This article was originally posted on Co-President’s personal blog and adapted for publication here for CUSAP.   ↩︎

Sound of Science

Author: Maya Lopez (Blog Chief Editor)

Some of you watching a Sci-Fi film may hear dialogue (perhaps especially those poorly written?) and feel like “yeah, that’s Sci-Fi jargon”. These terms may be of some far-future technology that you are certain doesn’t exist, or perhaps they are just some Latin portmanteau that sounds “science-y”. But what feeling do you get when you read this:

Introductory paragraph found in the entry of SCP-1158. Citation: “SCP-1158” by NotoriousMDG, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scpwiki.com/scp-1158. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

It may read as technical instruction, or a heavily descriptive excerpt from something like Wikipedia (except, wait a minute, this plant thing feeds off of… mammal?!)  One might say it has an “academic tone,” and that is definitely what this writing was aiming for.  However, the excerpt is not from an actual scientific source, but a report of the SCP Foundation: “a fictional organization featured in stories created by contributors on the SCP Wiki, a wiki-based collaborative writing project.” This is ultimately a shared fictional universe work where many writers often submit strange to straight-up creepy pasta tales in such a scientific tone. These works are considered to “contain elements” of science fiction and often horror, but it is not pseudoscience because, well, they are published as fiction.  Hence, these writing styles are rather considered “quasi-scientific and academic”, but today I decided to overthink what about these writings that we register as “scientific”, in an attempt to learn how science is perceived. Furthermore, if a fictional writing can sound scientific, what happens if someone masters such an iconic “sound of science” with malicious intent, and what does the modern scientific report even sound like?

Science-y writing features as seen in SCP


Shared universe is essentially a writing system in which multiple writers take a common world setting and explore different stories within it. I guess it’s kind of like one big fandom and all their fanfics, but they are all canon in a sense.  The OG example that regained popularity upon the COVID-19 pandemic is perhaps HP Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos or Lovecraftian horror (who incidentally took an anti-occultism stance with Houdini back in the day). In terms of the lore, the SCP universe explores the “findings and activities” of a fictional international organization called SCP Foundation. It essentially is portrayed as a sort of private, international scientific research institution/secret society, functioning as the research body against anomalies while acting as a paramilitary intelligence agency. Despite being a private initiative, the Foundation aims to protect the world by capturing and containing “anomalies” that defy the laws of nature, which are referred to as “SCP objects” or “SCPs”. In actuality, these SCPs stem from some sort of photo/concept on the internet (such as an empty Ikea floor to a coffee vending machine) and the writers employ their full Sci-Fi creativity to transform that into either living creatures, artifacts, locations, abstract concepts, or incomprehensible entities with supernatural or unusual properties. Depending on their said properties, it could be dangerous to the surroundings or possibly the entire world; therefore, the motto of the foundation: Secure, Contain, Protect.

Aside from the shared settings, SCP is exceptional in how they have extensive writing guidance on the “reports” to be submitted. Most of their articles are stand-alone articles in the report format called “Special Containment Procedures” of the specific SCP object. Typically, the SCP objects are assigned a unique ID followed by code referred to as “Object Class”. This classification system according to its lore is suppose to reflect how difficult to contain the object, but stylistically, there is a similarity to taxonomical categorization system (ie ​​Linnaean taxonomy) or even Chemical Hazard Classificaions found in SDS sheets (which are, for you non-lab dwellers, a detailed handling procedure for individual chemicals and reagents). Particularly in the latter, the different hazards are not only identified through pictograms for various categories, but can also have further indications of danger levels. In labs, we use these sheets to construct overall risk assessments of any wet-lab (ie, non-computational) experiments. Thereby, the structural mirroring of “Special Containment Procedures” to scientific handling procedures like SDS sheets inherently adds to the “sciency” realism.

Additionally, these containment procedures often come with ”Addenda” (which can be images, research data, interviews, history, or status updates). While you might expect the research data to be the bulk of the body of the writing in an actual scientific report, extensive “supplementary material/information” is nearly unavoidable in modern science. In fact, if you look at an older research publication (for example, even the novel prize-winning human iPSC paper from 2007), they often used to use “(Data not shown)” for less important data that could not fit into the main figures. However, due to increasingly online publication and the data repositories, the data became increasingly accessible and open, perhaps making these supplementaries more ubiquitous and extensive. Personally, the status updates of SCP addenda also remind me of program package manuals, such as those on GitHub. While this may not sound explicitly “natural science” like, it is in fact quite common for a science niche like bioinformatics to develop computational programs, which are maintained and updated on Git pages that accompany the main publication of the methods paper.

Finally, the key stylistic feature of the SCP is perhaps not what is written but rather what isn’t. They utilize black redaction bars and “data expunged” markings to give the readers the impression of sensitive data. While this is not common academic practice, censorship and redaction were not unheard of in some discipline that is inherently more national-risk sensitive area of technologies and science (such as nuclear energy), especially in a historical context. Philosophically, the act of masking information and some data is arguably not helpful in a pure academic sense, given that even negative results in theory should clarify what is not true for the pursuit of truth. However, it is also true that some information (especially those posing a security risk) may need to be censored from individuals without a certain level of accreditation and security clearance. I think this writing style enhances the “authoritativeness” and secretive nature of reports, adding a sense of immersion as if not only these scientific reports are written but “some higher-up” has then further evaluated them before publication and maybe even reassessed, changing what can and can’t be shared.

Down the rabbit hole of science-sounding writing outside of fiction


Of course, I’m not here to pick apart this shared universe entertainment that they are pSEUdo-SCIenTiFIC and bad. In fact, it is very entertaining fiction, and I invite anyone who enjoys a bit of Twilight Zone-like tales to give it a try.  However, understanding that “sciencey” tones can be manufactured regardless of whether the content is rooted in reality, does come with a possibly dangerous use of these languages – especially for things that are not published as outright entertainment. Imagine if such a “sciencey” tone was part of text intended to sell you something; is this just as non-malignant as fiction?

Such was arguably the finding in a 2015 research, where nearly 300 cosmetics ads appeared in notable magazines including Vogue. As briefed in the Scientific American’s podcast, the research ranked each ad on a scale ranging from acceptable to outright lie. Unfortunately, only 18% of key claims of such ads could be “verified” to be true by the scientists, and 23% were outright wrong. However, I was fascinated by the fact that nearly half of the ads were “too vague to even classify”. Obviously, if it’s an outright lie, someone could sue and FDA (in the case of the USA) can take action. However, it is in fact these grey area that keeps such serious charges away. In theory, the Federal Trade Commission and other trade-related organizations could take action if some ads were misleading enough, but I found it fascinating how marketers can aim to cleverly blend a science-y tone with a sales pitch to strategically blur the line between science-based facts and catch-copy.


In fact, this approach of mixing some “sciencey tone” (or some actual scientific fact) and presenting that to a non-science-backed claim (or “story”) seems to be a tactic that’s not limited to sales: it may be just as useful to propagate a desired narrative.  Such example was what I found when I was looking through the articles of Children’s Health Defence. This is the organization we talked about in the context of anti-vaccine (and we had our critical viewing event of their anti-vax film filled with pseudoscientific rhetoric, which we since then signed up for their mailing list because… watching that film required email registration and it allows us to keep eye on next pseudoscience trend that’s up and coming). It is “associated” with the now (in)famous RFK Jr. While many people are probably familiar with them as mis- (or dis-?) information talk point on vaccine – especially after the viral Bernie’s onesies comment, perhaps people are less familiar with how… rigorous, they are with science mis-communication on public health as a whole.

On their website, they have a whole science section dedicated to their “science communication” articles. Honestly, going into this, I was very skeptical of how they might approach science communication based on their anti-vax film tactics. I expected more of an emotional roller coaster and bombardment of all sort of individual testimonies to rile up the audience’s worries and fears, making sure that everyone has something to be concerned about. But I decided to read one of their article anyway, which alleges the dangers of babies facing unexpected “side-effects” like diabetes from antibiotic exposure. The article was written by a frequent writer for CHD – a doctor, who apparently is an “American alternative medicine proponent, osteopathic physician, and Internet business personality… markets largely unproven dietary supplements and medical devices”. Okay, that’s off for an interesting start, but I was more surprised by the way the article was written.  

The article, obviously, does not hide its rather scary main assertion from the get-go, where babies get a higher chance of diabetes DUE TO antibiotic exposure. However, they actually start by sharing a very medically sound definition of things like Type 1 diabetes and autoimmune disease, while hyperlinking to sources like medical webpages. Then, it essentially writes a short review/summary of a science report published in Science, describing a mouse experiment published just a month prior (I mean, are they’re keeping up with new science publications just like PhDs? dedication!). And what surprised me is that this research paper summary section is… actually pretty decent, concisely summarizing the gist of the findings: how antibiotics delivery in a certain prenatal time window results in microbiome disruption, leading to reduced pancreatic β-cell development. This portion is not only a robust summary of a scientific literature but inevitably builds the tone of authority and science-ness (even sharing the fungus’s Latin name!). They similarly then moved on to discuss a pediatric study of diabetes and microbiome in the context of humans.  However, it is the following section that gets slippery. It then runs off to immediately focus on the “side effects of antibiotics” (without, for example, considering why antibiotics are carefully administered or needed in the first place, because… under what circumstances would THAT happen? And aren’t children just being bombarded by these toXiNS everywhere?? (…I am being sarcastic.)) I suppose this is fair, as that can be a focus, but they do something very tricky here. They essentially list a number of possible side effects, mostly linking to relevant, properly peer-reviewed published reports to back their claim on how IT COULD be harmful. However, look further down and THEN they finally list “links to autism risk”, which, unlike side effects listed earlier, is only backed by an article, not from a peer-reviewed source, but some website called MERCOLA that requires email registration to read and which… oh, its the website that the author runs. Honestly, the diabetes risk assertion aside, this is impressive craftsmanship if it were some SCP work: on how well they are “blending away” sources of perhaps less certainty to those more legitimate in the scientific consensus, while also boosting their scientific tone and authority throughout.

Meanwhile, in real science…


So far, we discussed the use of “science-sounding” language and presentation in both fiction and (unfortunately) non-fiction. But now let’s explore the more recent movement in the real scientific writing. Most of us, at some point in our secondary education, may have been taught the rules for academic or scientific writing, such as passive voice, third-person, etc. These are, in fact, some of the specific stylistic guidelines that the SCP writing guide (alongside a strictly defined list of technical words to increase precision in communication) encourages the writers to use this as well. However, such passive voice, particularly in the modern science community, is often seen as overused, and our literary impression of this voice as cold, removed, and overly technical is a shared sentiment amongst academics too. In fact, as some university academic writing guides would clarify, many major publications now ENCOURAGE writing to be in a more active voice. Why? Aside from the tonal impressions, well, because it’s much SIMPLER. Focusing on clearer and concise writing (and I’m still really working on it… trust me) is extremely encouraged in modern science, not only for general readability but because it facilitates researchers to understand each other better across the world. Another explanation of this trend I’ve once heard is scientists reclaiming more of the authorship (both the credit and arguably the responsibility) of the claims we are putting out in the world. We are (and have been for a while, actually) progressing into a field where scientists are using THEIR voice to communicate the science they actually did and how THEY interpret it, rather than the stereotypical “neutral and objective” reporting of “what has been done and was observed”. Ultimately, this may be more accurate as who is to say that observations made are absolute when reader academics should be free to (re-)interpret them based on their expertise.  Evidence is that, but we are also encouraged to critique, reassess, and question to see if we are convinced by it.

Finally, this change in the language of science is not limited to the reports written for fellow academics to read, but also to the wider world. There is an increasing effort by researchers to use “plain English” to proactively communicate the science in a way everyone outside the field can understand (ie, much LESS jargon). This is coming from an increasing interest in reading science from outside of the academic community, and in fact, all the leading researchers of labs in my institute, for example, have such a Plain English summary on their website to explain what their research encompasses. So science, unsurprisingly, is once again evolving – now to be more accessible and more communicative than in the past. And science will probably continue to evolve in the way we communicate because ultimately science should strive to communicate clearly, for it’s the presenting evidence and methods that matter, which should be debated, not the how it sounds. So next time you see an ad or some internet article that sounds so… “sciencey”, try not to jump to the conclusion that this IS science by its tone, and make sure to look into the actual science behind it being discussed. And if this “science” being explained sparked your curiosity, try to read around it; see if there is a consensus or debate even within the academic community, and critically assess for yourself whether you are convinced by the evidence. …Well, unless it’s SCP-2521, also known as ●●|●●●●●|●●|●, and then maybe don’t read (and definitely not write) about it 😉

Houdini – the OG debunking influencer?

Author: Maya Lopez (Blog Chief Editor)

Dealing with pseudoscience propaganda and facing the limitations in “debunking” approaches are our usual days here in CUSAP, but I started to wonder when did this “debunking” became a thing as we know it? As many of us share the sentiment, this day and age seems like a misinformation paradise with so much internet content with suspicious scientific evidence spreading virally. On the other hand, there are numerous content that attempt to fact check or “debunk” – pointing out the error of the information and exploring the actual science relevant to the topic -. These contents are often done by experts themselves – from cosmetic chemists addressing the suspicious beauty science to notable science communicators addressing exaggerated negativity towards science, or even discussing the “too ambitious attempt” to reinvent basic math. And these contents do pretty well, to a point where I’m sure it can be recognized as a whole genre. According to the Wikipedia page on “debunker” (yes, that’s the thing), one of the most ancient examples goes back to Cicero who “debunked” divination through his philosophical treatise published in 44BC. However today, I want to share a story of one name that keeps appearing in the modern section and gets referenced by multiple other notable debunkers: Harry Houdini. Pop culture icon who is well recognized through the various references from Kate Bush’s pop tune to J-drama Trick, to this day – Erik Weisz is a magician and an escape artist who is arguably the first celebrity debunker combating pseudoscience.

Houdini the medium buster and his influencer style feuds and drama:

In the 1920s, when he started to go full ham against spiritualists (which was a popular movement at the time – understandably being the time of grief for many people who just experienced WWI), he was already a well-known magician for nearly two decades. To be fair, stage magicians were apparently known to do these mystic debunking from the late 19th century, but his celebrity status, his continuous pursuit, and his “feud” with notable spiritualists and famous figures arguably brought the spotlight to these debunking at an unprecedented level.

He was a magician by trade, which allowed him to easily identify tricks the fraudulent mediums employed which fooled even scientists. In fact, such abilities shined when he was a committee member of Scientific America in 1922 which held an international competition to find scientific proof of ghosts, offering $5,000 to any psychic and medium (yes really) who could stand the tests of scientists. It was a legitimate attempt on the “modern science” against wildly popular psychic mediums. While many mediums shied away from the public test, some took the challenge. However, Houdini exposed these cases as a fraud.

Notable psychics (and their tricks) vs Houdini:

mediumassertion of the mediumtrick
George Valiantine of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.Predicted aliens to visit Earth in the 1920s. Can communicate to spirits through a séance.Physically left the seat in the dark and touched the seance attendees as a “touch of the spirit”.
Mina Crandon, aka “Margery”From communicating with the dead via séance sessions and materializing “telepasmic hands”. She also claims to have been producing (?) “ectoplasm”.He actually debunked her in two of her séances each time trying to convey rest of the committee that she has been physically moving to “show the sign of ghosts” (via bell ringing, etc). She is one of the most notable figures he “combatted” so definitely check it out if you want to know the whole fiasco.
Joaquín Argamasilla, aka “Spaniard with X-ray Eyes”Clairvoyance; can therefore “read” numbers/dice within a box.Houdini specifically revealed that he was peeking at the number through a blindfold and a small lift of the box lid.
Nino PecoraroHas a deceased medium guiding him. Can make instruments play without touching.Houdini and others suspect him to be escaping rope ties and actually manipulating instruments. → events prevented via impromptu tightening of rope leading to a later confession.

As he further became a renowned medium-buster, Houdini further pursued his cause by going to séances undercover with a reporter and a police officer, further exposing what he deemed as nefarious activities that are “defrauding the bereaved.” While these continuous and successful debunk of notable psychics of the time can be seen as a feud on its own, perhaps the most notable feud is between a celebrity author, who you might not suspect to be a strong patreon of “unscientific spiritualism” when his most famous work is the Sherlock Holmes series…

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thinks Houdini’s supernatural, while H.P Lovecraft co-authored denunking essay:

In fact, many of the notable medium tested in the Scientific America committee was brought in by the choice of none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. While he is known for his medical degree and beloved for creating the epitome of the rational-detective archetype: Sherlock Holmes, he himself was deeply spiritual – beliefs ranging from communicating to the dead through séance and fairies.

Houdini and Doyle were initially friends, but Houdini’s persistent attitude against spiritualism eventually pulls them apart. Doyle would even invite Houdini to his house where his wife and self-acclaimed medium performed “automatic writing” to communicate to Houdini’s dead mother – only for Houdini to sit through hours of the session and only then reveal that all those 15 pages of English message in perfect grammar can’t be hers as she is not even fluent in English-. Furthermore, his debunking of Margery – who was unlike other publicity-seeking mediums and Doyle trusted extremely – caused a new suspicion on Doyle: what if Houdini is the most powerful medium? Doyle started to believe that all his magic acts were well…in fact magical and any medium performing in front of him failed because he was blocking their powers through his supernatural abilities (should I write a piece of Aurther the OG conspiracist?). Houdini was hoping that Doyle would realize that this was not the case, and one day invited Doyle to his mansion where he “performed slate-writing” – a method medium often used to supposedly communicate the message from the dead through unguided writing -. He essentially performed a magic trick, hoping to disillusion his friend with the following message:

Sir Arthur, I have devoted a lot of time and thought to this illusion … I won’t tell you how it was done, but I can assure you it was pure trickery. I did it by perfectly normal means. I devised it to show you what can be done along these lines. Now, I beg of you, Sir Arthur, do not jump to the conclusion that certain things you see are necessarily “supernatural,” or the work of “spirits,” just because you cannot explain them….

From 2006 biography: The Secret Life of Houdini (Atria Books)

However, Doyle’s belief was firm and their fallout only became a matter of time. Nevertheless, Houdini continued to pursue his fight against spiritualism and found notable collaborators (after death anyway,) along his journey. Houdini hiers  H. P. Lovecraft – now renowned creator of the cosmic horror genre, Cthulu lore in his own right – and his friend C. M. Eddy, Jr., for a project on a book to debunking religious miracles titled: The Cancer of Superstition.

Debunking of his lifetime:

Perhaps most famously, his final “evidence” against spiritualism was ultimately upon his death. He had told his wife – Bess – in advance a secret code which he promised that he would deliver whatever it took after death if such a spiritual realm existed. This approach – is not only romantic – but is arguably quite a scientific one in its philosophy (albeit not bulletproof). His hypothesis was there are no ghosts and an afterlife of the spiritual realm that can be contacted. So he sought to prove that by setting up a risky test (even though mediums may very well attempt various fraudulent techniques) which if mediums succeed, would disprove his theory suggesting that the spiritual realm is real and can be contacted. Perhaps this can be seen as his last glimpse of hope that somewhere out there a true medium can prove him wrong and the world of the dead actually exists to everyone’s comfort. Or perhaps he intuitively understood the need for a risky test and that he could only be certain of their fraud through an active attempt to disprove his theory.

Either way, while Bess encountered some attempts of fraud (which was later exposed), she did not encounter a genuine instance where the message: “Rosabelle believe” came through. 1936, after the one last unsuccessful séance on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel, Bess put out the candle that was burning beside a photograph of Houdini since his death. Later she is noted to have said “Ten years is long enough to wait for any man,” ending her search for one last voice from her loved one.

Legacy of debunking and backfire effect:

Houdini – as one of the OG celebrity debunkers – immediately shows his influence. Even in his days, apparently, multiple magicians followed suit: The Amazing Randi, Dorothy Dietrich, Penn & Teller, and Dick Brookz, to name a few. Furthermore, his debunking certainly remains iconic to this day inspiring modern debunkers across the world both in real life and as a fiction archetype.

However, I think the bright “success” of Houdini also illustrates the inherent limitations of debunking. Despite his debunking of individual mediums, for example, this does not necessarily put an end to the whole spirituaslim trend at the time. This itself is perhaps inevitable, but I think it speaks to how easy for “made-up” and pseudoscientific claims to proliferate while debunking one by one will always be a game of catch-up. The proliferation is perhaps unstoppable so long as the interest is there as a trend. Furthermore, it can be argued that the debunking also fueled the trend to some extent. It made a whole spectacle out of debunking and the harder you criticize the fraudsters, the “true medium” somewhere out there will seem ever more so valuable and coveted.

Finally, the relationship between Doyle and Houdini envokes the backfire effect – which is warned in the Debunking Guidebook (yes this is also a thing!) where if the message by the debunker spends too much time on the negative case, if it is too complex, or if the message is threatening – it can only strengthen the belief of those you are trying to debunk. The slate-writing magic performed by Houdini for example seems emblemeatic. Perhaps Doyle felt “threatened” (whether knowingly or not) about his intelligence as his message essentially was that just because you couldn’t understand the mechanism it’s not supernatural. Or maybe it was a more direct threat to his motivated belief – where Doyle’s attachment to the idea of the “spiritual realm” was much stronger than that of Houdini to a point where he couldn’t just let it go. Or perhaps not explaining how this trick was done (as Houdini often guarded his magic tricks and their IPs inevitably as part of his magic career) acted as a barrier and the final proof required to rule out the possibility that Houdini is actually supernatural.

Regardless of whether Houdini’s tactics and debunking are the best approaches against the modern pseudoscience epidemic, it is an interesting lesson that we can learn from the past. Perhaps there are no “perfect cure-all” tactics but let us all embrace our inner Houdini and wear our skeptic hats when presented with phenomena unexplainable by modern science. While supernatural and occult have their own charm (I’ll admit it, who doesn’t love good ghost hunts and mysteries!), let us consider if some of such explanations would feed into “defrauding the bereaved.” And at those moments let us be as brave as Houdini and be willing to stand our ground to say no, and propose an explanation that is as scientific as possible.

Featured Sources and recommended reading:

I hyperlinked most sources but here are a few that might be of your interest 😉

Scientific American Artilces:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/houdinis-skeptical-advice/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-american-vs-the-supernatural/

The debunking handbook:

https://skepticalscience.com/the-debunking-handbook-redirect-page.shtml

→ fun video on the mysterious death of Houdini (and his extent of debunking mystics)

CUSAP After Hours: Debate with compassion while sharping your philosophical razors

Author: Maya Lopez (Blog Chief Editor)

Following our first event in 2024 which was more of a lecture format, we then had a workshop on debating – but with a dash of compassion – to see if we can really change minds. This was organized by our two co-chairs of CUSAP, where we discussed the theories and practical tips on addressing conversations with misinformed individuals and some role-playing in a relaxed at-home evening at Queen’s. Here are some of the takeaway messages I got from the session, a few tricks that everyone can have under their sleeve to be a better communicator, and a handful of “philosophical razors” to further sharpen critical thinking.

So why should I even “debate”?:

A long long time ago in my previous life as a teenager, I used to attend academic debate events. I often hear people say you’ll learn to love the things you’re good at. But for me, receiving awards in debates was never really enjoyable. Academic debates (especially those meant to discuss truly debatable topics) are inherently about the art of debate and presentation. Hence typical signs of toxic online debaters could apply here too: it could resemble a play of words, a heated battle going back and forth, and tactfully trying to point out the opponent’s logical flaws (ie, being a nitpicking jerk aiming for the GOTCHA moment). Somehow the better I scored, the more I felt like a… horrible person.

And really, anyone doing this even in the calmest manner in everyday life is far from likable and most likely won’t convince others with different opinions. (Case and point, Socrates might have many philosophy and logical frameworks credited to him, but arguably what sent him to his death row is his bona fide troll-ness…). Furthermore, in academic debate, there is more or less a referee to fact-check – but who is there to do that in real-time in everyday conversations?

This is why I personally shied away from debates as I hit college – it was mentally draining and felt even like pulling the worst out of me. But naturally, there are times in life when you will encounter those with different opinions – hopefully just a “debatable” opinion – but what if some of such “opinions” are harmful? or dangerous? or demeaning? It may be more immoral to NOT debate – or really to show and persuade other ways of thinking. So this CUSAP event was also my personal journey to re-study debate in a different light – as a way to empathize and suggest different ways to look at things with compassion.

So then, what’s the trick?

We covered many theories during the session but here are a few highlights:

  • Golden minute → A technique commonly practiced by clinicians where they give about a minute at the beginning of patient examination to just let the patient describe all of their symptoms. Being attentive during this minute through other active listening techniques without interrupting can not only make your patient feel heard but also give a great opportunity to let their emotion and perceptions be shared. Similarly in the context of misinformation debate, the person who you are talking to might very well be in some sort of unease or (emotional) pain. So give them time to let it out. …and academic debate-wise, this is quite tactful because you let the opponent reveal their cards first… But all jokes aside, listening is a genuinely underestimated aspect of a conversation because it’s easy for us to carry in our bias too. We might assume where their misinformations are coming from and attribute that to certain personality characteristics. So let them speak before we make unfair assumptions.
  • Good faith principle → Speaking of unfair assumptions, this next technique literally is just that. It is apparently even a way of thinking by law, and as a word suggests, one should not assume that the misinformation/conspiracy theory is coming from a bad intent. Of course, the boundaries of mis and disinformation can be murky, but in most daily contexts, what are the odds of encountering individuals who profit off of spreading post-truth? Rather than an evil mastermind, it’s more likely that we are just talking to someone who’s genuinely confused, agitated, concerned, or scared.
  • New information over denial of info → Bombarding with denial (ie screaming telling YOU’RE WRONG), is quite ineffective at altering beliefs. Studies suggest a difficulty in people simply changing beliefs when they are presented with opposing facts because cognitively these two juxtaposing facts will need to compete over the position of the belief. So rather than confronting the misinformation head-on, we could just present new information that will make the listener think (or better yet question) the premises of their conclusion. 

Let’s say a person takes an anti-COVID vaccine stance which they say is because they can’t trust evil pharma and this is just a scam to make a profit. Sure, big pharma is a company too which is profit driven. But, I read that AZ didn’t make a profit with the Covid-19 vaccines. Also, there are worldwide equitable programs like COVAX, no? …Hopefully partially agreeing, but also showing new facts regarding their premise of all big pharma projects = bad will get them to explore views instead of if we were to just opposing their conclusion that COVID vaccine = bad. Of course, this is not bulletproof, and this can lead us to….

  • Steel-man tactic → The person you were talking to doubled down and argued that vaccines bad because big pharma bad. Okay, then you know what, let’s explore that together. You may know this tactic’s evil twin brother called straw-man which just dodges the bullet, but in this case, you purposely bolster their argument and then explore what their strongest version of the argument will look like. An interesting post here details the process we can put into practice, but essentially this will allow the two parties in conversation to be together on the same page to explore nuances. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up agreeing with the big-pharma-bad part and the difficulties in capitalism in general, at which point is this at all about vaccines? and off we go to the anti-capitalism march! Or maybe there will be some nuances: well not all projects are bad I guess, especially if particular projects are non-profit. Either way, exploring further into the why behind the misinformed conclusion, can lead to constructive exploration, leading ultimately to an undated conclusion.

Of course, there were a lot more tips that we covered in the workshop, but I personally think it boils down to our intent. Think about why we want to persuade them. Most likely, we care about them to some degree. Then show that. TELL THEM THAT. In fact, I’d argue that if your intent to “debate” is just to show off your “smartness” (not even for the knowledge’s sake but especially to “put them down”) perhaps you should not be engaging this in the first place. Perhaps, we need to first ask ourselves about the good faith principle – and if we fail this litmus test, we may do more harm than good.

Some final thoughts and sharpening your critical thinking with philosophical razors

Overall, this was a very uniquely CUSAP workshop – not just because of the theme around pseudoscience, but because it reflects our will to improve as a empathic communicator. It is perhaps far too common amongst academic circles to be lost in the pleasure of the logical precision and vast amount of facts we can present about a topic during a debate. This may be an excellent tactic in academic debates, but our intellect should also realize that to change the hearts of others, we can’t just end in such “self-indulgence”. While I say this, it’s not an easy feat (I’m most definitely a beginner in the techniques mentioned above). Besides, we are people too, and when topics are touchy as pseudoscience, it is fair to acknowledge that it might hurt our feelings just a bit too – being denied of our daily efforts in pursuit of science -.

Furthermore, just because you are a student of STEM doesn’t automatically immunize us to pseudoscience too. Even before debating others in an attempt to persuade, our own logic and perception should be also challenged (albeit, as a CUSAP member I do recommend standing firmly on the ground that we are convinced to be scientific, and acknowledge that not absolutely everything is a matter of perspective). In an attempt to persuade, is our explanation getting overly convoluted? Shave it down with your trusty Occam’s razor! Did we poorly phrase how we think things “ought” to happen, by making a sudden leap from what IS taking place based on our preconceived notions and expectations? Even if this is from good intentions, philosophically these two notions should be separated with Hume’s guillotine!

At this rate, it feels like swiss-army-full of these philosophical razors will sharpen your critical thinking to make a perfect debate case, but don’t get yourself too carried away. In the context of pseudoscience, it’s tempting to pull out Alder’s razor, which claims that if something cannot be experimentally tested or through observations, then it is not worthy of debate. Especially in many pseudoscience topics, this might be the kneejerk reaction you will gravitate to (you know that it is a waste of time to even contemplate Earth is flat!). But this razor has its cavitate where this philosophy itself is not “scientifically validatable” and at which points it puts the whole premise under a strain. This is where we might have to dial down on this whole dismissive attitude toward all “unprovable” theories (and hence how our science is right), but rather focus on the theories that can be proven wrong using Popper’s razor (also known as the Popper’s falsifiability principle). While this will allow us to present the best scientific theory that is not currently falsified, should we be debating “theories” so fundamentally fantastical with equal priority as those at least partially based on scientific reality? We can use Sagan’s razor (aka Sagan’s standard) to cut down such extraordinary claims that are not supported with extraordinary evidence, to ultimately pick our games.

There are still more of these philosophical razors, but at the end of the day whether these concepts help us with critical thinking or the debate tactics we learned in the session are all something that can’t be done easily without practice. Sometimes the conversation will get emotional, and sometimes the conversation happens at the wrong moment when things are very personal. While practicing these skills on the go out in public, therefore, might seem scary, I think CUSAP has cultivated a safe space for all of us – united with the goal of betterment – to explore and discuss our ideas. Putting this knowledge to the test and practicing our “art of compassionate debate”. 

If this kind of science philosophy is your spiel or you just want to boost your science communication skills (and trust me, we hold a lot of casual, at-home vibe sessions!), consider joining us at the CUSAP mailing list or Instagram. Come say hi at one of the upcoming events if you can make it 🙂

Sources and Recommended Reading:

  • Most sources are hyperlinked in the text but here are some few key picks:

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: How “science” betrayed us & haunt back 50 years later.

Author: Maya Lopez (Blog Chief Editor)

The year is 1966. A 29-year-old American epidemiologist, Peter Buxtun filed an official protest with the Service’s Division of Venereal Diseases. He overheard a conversation with his colleague about a man whose family traveled a long distance to see a doctor, away from their hometown. The man was diagnosed with tertiary syphilis – a later stage of infection that damages the central nervous system – and was given a shot of penicillin. However, when the Public Health Service heard of this treatment, they were enraged as the unknowing doctor treated a “research subject” – from the Tuskegee Study -.

The epidemiologist found this rather… strange – why would you NOT treat a clearly ill individual at his later stage of symptoms when you have an effective treatment? After reviewing nearly 10 roundup reports, he realized the horrors of the supposed  “research”.

“I didn’t want to believe it. This was the Public Health Service. We didn’t do things like that.” 1

He knew that something had to be done. He consulted the literature on German war crime proceedings and the Nuremberg code and wrote a report comparing the CDC work to that of Nazis. This didn’t fly well with his bosses – seen as merely a complaint from an “errant employee” and shortly dismissed on the basis that the “volunteers” had full freedom to leave whenever they wished and this “serious work” was not complete. But isn’t the problem the fact that such a study is taking place? November 1968, a few months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Buxtun filed another protest. This is no longer just an ethical critique within epidemiology. This harbored political volatility. For the first time, officials realized how this case may have severe political repercussions, but once again, the claim was rejected.

So in 1972, Buxtun took a step beyond internal protest and became the whistleblower, bringing the story to Jean Heller of the Associated Press. The expose of the study was first out in the Washington Star and by the following day, it made its way to the front cover of the New York Times.  And this was how one of the most notorious, modern medical research finally came to an end – after 40 years of deception and harming of unknowing participants. Incidentally, this can be seen in light of the “self-rectifying” capabilities of science – the nightmarish research conducted in the name of science was rejected and ultimately taken down by a scientist.  And yet, in 50 years, this very pseudoscience that was rejected was resurrected, only to fuel more pseudoscience….

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

So what exactly took place in Nazi-like research atrocity that was conducted in the name of medical science?  Tuskeegee is a city with a university in Macon County, Alabama, USA. The study started in 1932 and consisted of 399 Black men, who already had contracted syphilis and 201 of those who had not contracted it yet. However, these “volunteers” were not told what they were signing up for. In the midst of the Great Depression when medical care was already hard to obtain in this rural region, the Public Health Service and CDC in cooperation with local academic and medical authorities like Tuskegee Institute (now known as Tuskegee University) advertised a social medical roll-out program with following benefits: free physical examinations accompanied with rides to and forth the clinics, hot meals on examination days, and treatment for some minor ailments and injuries. It also had an added guarantee that their family would get recompensation if they agreed to an autopsy of the body after a series of medical studies.

This is particularly compelling in the context of the Great Depression and how male breadwinners have additional incentives to help with family financially. But for those who wondered if this could be too good to be true, there was added encouragement from the already trusted local authorities within the community (like pastors, black doctors, etc), emphasizing that you’d be considered lucky to join such“special medical program” to better their lives and the field of medicine, and convinced the participants that it is worth their time. So the men never agreed to any “syphilis study” at all.  People participated and agreed to free body checks and collection of data based on trust; the official authoritative figures in lab coats, doctors, and medical practices.

However, the doctors that they entrusted did not provide effective treatment even once the symptoms started to develop. This was despite scientific evidence of penicillin as an effective syphilis remedy, within the first decade of the study. In fact, participants were often not told if they had syphilis as doctors only commented that they had “bad blood” – which meant various daily malignities not limited to syphilis. But surely, once your untreated syphilis is worsening, you and your family might seek help?  Like second opinion or treatment? In some accounts, it is revealed that doctors were told that the participants would lose all “benefits” from the study if they sought after treatment, showing that the study had no intention to cure these men, EVER. By the way, this study, colloquially known as the “Tuskegee Syphilis Study”, comes with a full title: “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male”.

From its inception, this study was structured as a funded, onslaught of slow death, to propel the shaky theories and the hypothesis it is based on. It’s arguably funded pseudoscience research that is riddled with death and harming the lives of many to be born. During the course of 40 years, 28 confirmed and possibly 100+ men died as a direct result of untreated syphilis from this study. Furthermore, it led to many more infections as a result of untreated participants, including children born with congenital syphilis.

The Pseudoscience of Tuskegee Study and Our Critical Thinking

Naturally, upon the leak of the Tuskegee Study to the public by the whistleblower Buxtun, there was a massive public outrage leading to the termination of the experiment. However, we need to acknowledge that the field (including those not directly involved), didn’t all just immediately say: “Yup, this is messed up; that was bad of us.” Some scientists and the medical community attempted to “still see value” in this or even outright defend it:

“There was nothing in the experiment that was unethical or unscientific. – Dr. John Heller (assistant in charge of on-site medical operations) 2” 

Now, many, many unethical measures are needless to be said – especially with the blatantly obvious premises and clear willingness to MAKE SURE all participants suffer a slow death due to the “autopsy-focused” nature of the study. However, the other half of Heller’s claim of this statement is also completely wrong. This study was EXTREMELY unscientific.

Starting with the premises of the experiment, the conception of the study was fundamentally founded on race science belief that was based on pure racism. It was believed that syphilis would manifest differently depending on your race.  African Americans were thought to show more damage to cardiovascular systems than to their central nervous systems, which was where the manifestation of the whites who they believed to have their “superior” brains.  Additionally, the experimental design is also flawed and the two study groups were not strictly maintained. For example, individuals starting off as syphilis-negative were kept in that group even if they later contracted and tested positive – ruining the integrity of the control group. Furthermore, we often discuss in science how new research addresses the knowledge gap, ie, it should contribute to some unanswered question or provide novel data to the body of knowledge. However, in this regard, the Tuskegee Experiment also fails to be “scientific”: it really adds nothing to the body of knowledge on syphilis. Syphilis is -and has been even back then – a well-documented disease. There are many historical records of what untreated syphilis looks like across time and place.  Multiple waves of infection surged nations across history before the establishment of useful treatments, and these outbreaks seemingly left a culturally ingrained record of how nasty this disease becomes when untreated. In Europe, there are numerous medical paintings well depicting such “untreated” syphilis (Google Image at your own discretion pleae). In Edo-era Japan, a poem talks of the nightjars (then, being a code for illegal prostitutes) “lacking nose”:

“鷹の名にお花お千代はきついこと”

To the Nightjars, ohana-ochiyo (pun with words sounding like falling nose) is indeed harsh3

 referring to the notorious terminal symptoms where noses fall off.  It is clear that to the eyes of those who conceived this study, this was really a sick “passion project” – a morbid curiosity, entranced by autopsies and examining the different ways that the black bodies succumb to the disease, hoping to find a difference in the manifestation of the disease for the “whites”.

While this is an extreme case of how clear the lack of scientific bases is, this study leaves an important message to all modern scientific thinkers – critical thinking. This may sound obvious but given that science (especially nowadays more than before) is a group endeavor and often institutionalized, being critical at all times requires not just checking your own bias on the research topic, but also when you are told what to do. During the days of Buxtun, disagreeing with the senior was seen as a much more unacceptable practice. However, the whistleblower facing a brutal punishment is a phenomenon far from over. In 2010, a metastudy of 216 corporate fraud is said to have identified over 80% of named employees who reported the fraud faced some sort of punishment including being fired. This kind of reaction unfortunately is not reserved for private institutions. Another account found that amongst the nurses who reported misconduct, all of them had suffered from some level of informal retaliation (including ostracism and pressure to quit), nearly 30% faced more formal reprimands, and 10% were suggested to seek psychiatrists. The message is clear – whistleblowers despite the public image of a heroic spotlight, face the danger of personal and professional stakes to this day, which only exacerbates in a work environment where proper legal protection may be lacking.

Buxtun, while not the only one who protested in the long course of study, took an exceptionally courageous step of not letting this issue die – despite all the rejections of his protests. More broadly, this is a testament to continuous critical thinking that should be required of all scientists to prevent a top-down approach to study. If anything, science should have its roots in not being afraid to point out that something is wrong.  The field-defining nature IS the falsificationism. This constant questioning should extend beyond the factual premise that lies as a foundation of your hypothesis under investigation, but also to the motive and the implication of the study. What question will this study answer? What is this for? And At what cost? Naturally, the Tuskegee study paved the way for numerous ethical guidelines that are legally binding including the modern practice of informed consent. While these legal reforms to protect whistleblowers do take place in later decades (Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989) for example, ultimately it cannot truly encourage people to step out of bystander, unless we address the research culture which is an uphill battle for the whistleblowers currently. Hence, researchers must be conscious of and vigilant on these matters across the board.

Beyond the History Textbook: When the Pseudoscience Revives to Haunt Us Today

I could have finished my writing here with a neat lesson-of-the-day, except in recent years, this study has resurfaced but with malignant intent.  While this brutal history forever remains accessible to the public, ranging from President Clinton’s Apology to educational content in Black History, my personal impression is that more discussion should’ve been made FROM the science community. Sure, maybe there are “enough” retailing in terms of science history, US history, politics, etc, but this had a catastrophic impact on the trust of populational medical research and servers as a primary example in the field that highlights the importance of informed consent and whistleblowing (though, note that consent was established as a prerequisite far before the end of the Tuskegee Study). So many measures now exist to make such atrocities near-impossible.  While this may have been not intentional, the lack of such proactive discussion from the science community of all levels perhaps buried this away as trivia for those “in the know”. Retrospectively, this may be one of the failures of our community – to understand and effectively address the underlying distrust of institutionalized science and authority by individuals from a marginalized community that has such a history of exploitation.  

In 2021, when COVID-19 vaccines were under way, a documentary-styled video production called Medical Racism: The New Apartheid, was distributed online via anti-vaccination group Children’s Health Defense, laced with conspiracy theories about newly made vaccines. The central assertion of the video is said to be that: the US wants to harm minorities with vaccines. They supposedly talk about the classical anti-vaccine evidence regarding the “link” between autism and the MMR vaccine, but they allege the COVID-19 vaccination efforts a secret experiments on the African American and Latin communities specifically. And to illustrate their point, they refer to the Tuskegee Study.

Yes, the Tuskegee experiment was real, and as Clinton puts it, it was “deeply, profoundly, morally wrong”. However, what we see here, is an exploitation of a truth to pursue a malicious motive. A racially targeted propaganda ONCE AGAIN, to hurt the minority community that is relatively more vulnerable by proactively dissuading them from accessing health care. To me, this is what makes this particular exploitation OF Tuskegee Study evil: it tarnishes the very thing that we should have taken as a lesson. The study happened because of its context which added up like a perfect storm: the community was already a medical care desert in the midst of an extreme economic crisis, fuelled further by racism on the side of the researcher. It’s only natural that such betrayal by “the science”, by the healthcare providers leads to more distrust and therefore this forms a negative spiral of real scientific healthcare not reaching out to them. Despite this recognition of the danger of losing trust, here we are this very narrative being regurgitated not to promote the accessibility of medical care nor transparency of science and research, but to dissuade people from excluding themselves from science as a whole.

The video piece supposedly further assures their target audience why they will not need the “supposed” immune boost from the vaccine by performing mental gymnastics: claiming that African Americans are “naturally immune from COVID-19” and that vitamin D will protect you from the disease. The irony of the production doesn’t end here but by how they are presenting the subject as well. The message is clear: viewers should not trust the medical authorities (the CDC and big pharma), but you should totally trust our information because look! Kennedy with all his “authoritativeness” is gracing us the serious advice.  While it is hard to measure the effect of this propaganda given that the video itself became unavailable shortly after its release on SM platforms, the impact it may have had to contribute toward radicalization and vaccine-hesitancy (which was apparently higher in minority communities) is easily imaginable. In a sense, it is “clever” production that dissuades the trust of mRNA vaccine by actually presenting no evidence that vaccines are unsafe, but it successfully taps into the larger historical trauma – fear-baiting on their memory of deception deeply ingrained in the community.

Unfortunately, there is perhaps no quick fix to trust that is once lost. After all, it is understandable self-defense skepticism in a population that was traumatized in such a manner. However, as the new medical frontiers are being explored and studied, these must be with the intention to deliver – to as many people as possible. If so, the science community must not let the brutality of historical trauma haunt us in the present, to be further exploited to contribute to the inequality of healthcare in the future. Rather, the past needs to be told openly to prevent such exploitation, and show a proactive stance that we have and will continue to evolve – as apology alone is a mere word, that will not earn us back the trust that is lost amongst some. These accounts of history don’t need to be for fear-mongering as well. The acknowledgment of what has happened in the past should also be in conjunction with how we have changed. For example, in the US, the National Research Act – a federal law on ethical guidelines for human medical research passed in 1974, and many institutions have added measures regarding the race and ethnicity of protected groups in studies. Policies and guidelines are often not the sexiest conversation science can offer. But for constructive conversation, these “follow-ups” on the old news highlighting what we have learned, and what we are doing now should be proactively communicated with compassion and acknowledgment of the historical misconducts. Hopefully, such conversation (including the uncomfortable introspection into the darker chapters in history) can lend to the promotion of our consistency, reliability, and our compassion – that we care -, to further the medical frontier to as many people as possible.

We will be hosting a screening event of this anti-vaccine film by Children’s Health Defense on upcoming Saturday (Feb. 22nd) at Queens. Join us there to explore and analyze how such misinformation and pseudoscience was being spread, and further discussion with the CUSAP team! Thank you for reading this rather lengthy journey of history and see you at the event!

Sources and recommended reading:

Some excellent reading on Buxton and whistleblowing behind this study:

  1. https://web.archive.org/web/20200519123834/http://advocatesaz.org/2012/11/15/i-didnt-want-to-believe-it-lessons-from-tuskegee-40-years-later/ ↩︎
  2. https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/28/archives/exchief-defends-syphilis-project-says-alabama-plan-was-not.html ↩︎
  3. This is self-translated. I’m no poetry major sorry. ↩︎
Tuskegee Truth Teller

More in general about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study:

Click to access The_Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study_1932_to.pdf

https://thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(05)01286-7/fulltext

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

https://thispodcastwillkillyou.com/2019/10/29/episode-36-shades-of-syphilis/ (amazing podcast of two STEM experts talking about disease)

https://www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study

Unpacking Immigration Misinformation in The 2024 Elections: Claims, Facts, and Psychological Influence

Author: Leila Yukou Lai (Speakers and Academics Officer)

During the 2024 elections in both the UK and the US, immigration emerged as a prominent issue in political campaigns. Figures like Farage claimed that, 

“Mass immigration is making Britain poorer……. half of the immigrants coming to the UK are dependents who do not work” 

“We need to prepare for Channel migrant ‘invasion’ from countries ‘with terrorism, gang culture and war zones”

“Immigrants are causing divisions in communities and have made the UK unrecognisable”

Similarly, Trump’s campaigns included assertions such as,

“We have more terrorists coming into our country now than we’ve ever had – ever in history, and this is a bad thing. We have thousands of terrorists coming into our country” 

“They are eating the cats and dogs”

“They are taking away your jobs” 

Some of these statements are partial truths, while others are false information. This article will fact-check the prominent immigration-related claims from the 2024 elections. We will examine how political campaigns leverage concerns like economic threats, national security fears, and cultural anxieties to create sensationalised perceptions of immigration that shape public discourse in ways often misaligned with the underlying realities of the issues. Additionally, we will examine the psychological roots and impacts of immigration narratives.

We will further discuss practical strategies for addressing and countering such narratives in everyday life in our Feb 4th Event, so please register to join if it interests you.

Fact-Checking Prominent Claims & The Psychological Roots

Economic Threats

ClaimFacts
“Mass immigration is making Britain poor……half of those that have come aren’t coming to work, they’re coming as dependants”FarageThe former part of the claim can be debunked by research led by Professor Dustmann from UCL, which found that immigrants to the UK, particularly those from the EEA and post-2004 EU accession states, made significant positive fiscal contributions, with EEA immigrants contributing 34% more in taxes than they received in benefits and recent EU immigrants adding £20 billion to the public purse. In contrast, UK natives’ tax payments fell 11% short of the benefits they received, resulting in a net cost of £617 billion.
The latter part of the claim is partially accurate. The inaccuracy lies in the overall visa statistics, as only one-third of visas issued (all types) in the most recent reporting period were for dependents. However, regarding work visas specifically, he is almost correct—43% were dependents. Nevertheless, he omitted the fact that these dependents are ineligible for benefits but allowed to work, positioning them to potentially contribute to the economy rather than becoming a burden which he falsely implies.
“Immigrants are taking away your jobs”TrumpThis claim can be debunked by insights from Economics research and experts. 
Firstly, economists from the Brookings Institution suggest that immigrants often fill labor-intensive positions, such as gutting fish or working in farm fields, which are typically shunned by native-born workers. This suggests that immigrants are not necessarily competing for the same jobs as the majority of American workers. 
In addition, analyses from the US National Bureau of Economic Research (2024) reports that immigration does not significantly drive down wages for American workers overall.
Building on this, it’s noteworthy that, although immigrants represent around 15 percent of the general U.S. workforce, they account for about a quarter of the country’s entrepreneurs and inventors, according to Harvard Business Review. By creating new businesses and innovations, immigrants contribute to job creation and economic growth, further undermining the notion that they simply displace American workers.

National Security Threats

ClaimFacts
“We have more terrorists coming into our country now than we’ve ever had – ever in history, and this is a bad thing. We have thousands of terrorists coming into our country” TrumpThis claim implies more terrorists have entered the US under the Biden ministration, which is misleading. 
Data from U.S Department of Homeland Security indicates that the actual number of individuals on the terrorist watchlist caught at the border is in the hundreds (139 at the southern border and 283 at the northern border as of July 2023), not the thousands as Trump claimed. 
Furthermore, since the 2021 fiscal year (the beginning of the Biden administration), the number of individuals on the U.S. government’s terrorist watchlist apprehended at the borders has increased each year. This trend indicates that border screening measures have become more rigorous, rather than more lenient as Trump suggested.
“We need to prepare for Channel migrant ‘invasion’ from countries ‘with terrorism, gang culture and war zones”FarageWhile it is true that the top foreign nationals involved in UK terror-related offenses from 2002 to 2021 were people from Algeria, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Somalia, India, and Sri Lanka, it is important to note that these offenses represent a small fraction of their respective communities in the UK. 
In the year ending 30 September 2024, the highest number of terrorist crimes were still conducted by UK nationals and those who are ethnically White, according to data from the Home Office.
Research published in the British Journal of Political Science shows there is little evidence indicating more migration unconditionally leads to more terrorist activity, especially in Western countries.

Cultural Anxieties

ClaimFacts
“Immigrants are causing divisions in communities and have made the UK unrecognisable”FarageConcerns about cultural identity are rather subjective and difficult to address purely with data. 
However, Farage’s claim can still be challenged, a review conducted by the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford, which concludes that higher ethnic diversity in UK localities does not consistently correlate with higher social tension. Instead, local economic factors (e.g., unemployment, funding for public services) are more predictive of community conflict. 
Therefore, this claim of immigration undermining social cohesion lacks credibility. 
“In Springfields, they are eating the cats and dogs”TrumpThis claim was fostered by a comment made by Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who later admitted in an interview with CNN that he was willing to “create stories” to get his message across.
According to state officials from Ohio, even Republican leader Mike Dewine, there is no credible evidence to support the rumor that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are stealing or eating pets. Local law enforcement and animal control records do not reflect any such incidents, and no verified reports exist.

Sensationalised Language, Psychological Impact of Immigration Narratives

Having clarified the relevant facts, let’s now examine the linguistic choice employed by conservative leaders in their claims about immigration. Even if some of their claims are partially correct, it is undeniable that the statements are highly sensationalised and crafted to elicit strong emotional responses. This dynamic was evident in Ohio, where baseless allegations about the Haitian community in Springfield eating pets triggered public panic and a wave of hoax bomb threats. Similarly, in England, false narratives claiming that an asylum seeker was the perpetrator of a knife attack in Southport, though not directly linked to Farage’s claims, led to widespread riots spanning from Plymouth to Sunderland.

One reason such rhetoric remains effective is its reliance on several psychological phenomena, including in-group/out-group biases and the negativity bias. For instance, using language like “invasion”, Farage portrays migrants as an external force poised to disrupt national order, framing the situation in a way that elicits anxiety and heightens threat perception. This framing aligns with Social Identity Theory, whereby the in-group (domestic population) feels compelled to defend itself against the out-group (immigrants). Similarly, when Trump claims immigrants are “taking away your jobs” or there are “thousands of terrorists coming into our country”, he is tapping into the negativity bias which refers to the human tendency to pay more attention to, and be more influenced by, negative or threatening information than by neutral or positive details. These emotional depictions overshadow data indicating, for instance, the benefits that immigration brings to local economies or that instances of immigrant-linked terrorism are statistically rare.

In addition, repeated exposure to a single narrative can increase people’s belief in its accuracy, even when that information is demonstrably false. Therefore, simply by the virtue of repetition, political campaigns can embed the same message into public consciousness without necessarily adhering to factual accuracy. As a result, it is challenging for data-driven clarifications about immigration to break through the emotional impact of sensational rhetoric. Nonetheless, recognising these psychological levers is a crucial step toward fostering more nuanced, evidence-based discussions on immigration, rather than allowing panic and misinformation to drive policy and public sentiment.

Susceptibility to Immigration Misinformation

Research suggests that individuals with higher levels of ethnic moral disengagement are more likely to believe in racial hoaxes. Moral disengagement occurs when an individual justifies or rationalises harmful beliefs or behaviours, often by dehumanising out-groups or reframing actions as morally acceptable. This cognitive process allows individuals to convince themselves that commonly accepted ethical standards don’t apply to them, hindering their empathetic capacity, especially toward marginalised groups. Such tendencies are often linked to authoritarian worldviews, which favor strict hierarchies and resist social change, making these individuals particularly susceptible to immigration misinformation. 

Our speakers for the upcoming event, Dr. Tessa Buchanan and Malia Marks, have both conducted research on the relationship between authoritarian tendencies and susceptibility to immigration misinformation, and they will share their findings with us further at the event. Their insights will not only shed light on the psychological dynamics of misinformation but also equip us with tools to critically assess narratives surrounding immigration. We invite you to join us on Feb 5th at the Queen’s College, Cambridge for a fruitful discussion. 

Campaign Catch-22: Why Election Campaigns Fail at Changing Minds

Author: Mohith M. Varma (Social Secretary)

U. S. election campaigns rank among the most expensive in the world. Even with vast investment in advertisements, rallies, and canvassing, election outcomes often depend on just a few battleground states, while most American states grip firmly onto a given political direction. Why does this happen? Why is it that, despite billions of dollars spent to induce a shift in how people think, voters often appear to have already made their minds up and refuse to budge?

At the heart of this mystery lies a possible contributor: an evolutionarily acquired aspect of human nature that may have once served us well. Consider our ancestors in the time that survival hinges on the swift choice. If you were part of a small tribe and a sudden threat approached-say, a wild animal or a rival group, quickly sticking to a decision could be the difference between life and death. Doubt, hesitation, or second-guessing could have catastrophic consequences. The inclination to accept initial judgments and avoid uncertainty— this tendency is so practically adaptive that it became an evolutionary imperative for survival.

In modern life, this psychological wiring still affects us. We are predisposed to defend once a decision has been made about a potential candidate or political position. Changing views may, at times, feel like admitting to a prior mistake and can feel uncomfortable too. When presented with evidence that contradicts our beliefs, it is very uncomfortable, especially if those beliefs are tied to our identity and social ties. This leads to confirmation bias, which is essentially the tendency to find only evidence that backs previously held views rather than evidence that may contradict them. If you have already made up your mind that the candidate is not a good fit, you are likely to disregard any evidence pointing in the opposite direction.

People, in a polarized political climate, often surround themselves with similar minded people and maintain those beliefs instead of questioning them. This is even magnified further in the age of social media. We select which information to see in our news feeds (this effect is further amplified by social media algorithms), we add friends with who we agree, and we go to groups that hold true to what we now know to be true. This leads to an echo chamber, in which the alternative views are not only ignored, but often actively discredited. Hence, despite vast sums of money spent on campaign ads, the impact may be small. In fact, it is known that the more people are exposed to information that challenges their opinions, the more those existing opinions can harden. It is known as the backfire effect. In other words, the more forcefully a campaign seeks to change the person’s opinion, the more entrenched they may become.

Moreover, identity politics is another aspect that cannot be sidestepped. It’s more and more part of people’s identities to associate with a particular party today. The political gap today is not just one where both sides have different policies but one where both belong to bigger cultural movements. For many, the thought of changing sides is seen as abandoning some greater group within society and can be quite uncomfortable. In fact, billions of dollars to run presidential campaigns are not just about swaying minds but galvanizing the base. In states that are reliably red or blue, campaigns may basically be about maintaining each front in turn, sustaining level of support, and ensuring turnout.

This brings us to: What can be done to help people break free from these entrenched positions? How can we encourage more thoughtful decision-making among voters?

Fostering open-mindedness is an important first step. When people feel appreciated and understood, they are more likely to change their beliefs. We need to establish forums for genuine dialogue rather than merely criticizing the other side or denigrating those who hold different opinions. Listening to others without judgment and understanding their concerns can help bridge the divide, making it easier for people to reassess their views. This reflective form of empathy can result in better, more nuanced decisions. Whereas interactions that devolve into personal attacks—common in polarized debates broadcast on news channels and even on social media posts—tend to reinforce divisions rather than promote reflection or change.

Misinformation is one of the main factors that strengthens deeply entrenched views. News and social media can form echo chambers where users opt to see content only confirming their beliefs. Campaigns could do more to directly address misinformation by promoting fact-checking initiatives, partnering with trusted sources, and encouraging voters to seek reliable, evidence-based information. Another way to prevent the spread of misleading or deceptive narratives is to be transparent about campaign messaging, such as clearly stating the source and backing for policy proposals.

Lastly, we need to invest in an informed electorate. Voter fatigue resulting from the sheer volume of political commercials and messages can lead some people to refrain from participation or withdraw from participation. Campaigns are most effectively optimized by including information in the materials on the concrete issues in question, as opposed to techniques based on negative advertising or politically driven narratives.


Although these solutions may appear idealistic, they undeniably do not lie in a realm of impossibility. The art of any successful implementation of a solution will be in enduring effort. In this sense, such approaches are not sensation-grabbing, but instead will require a generation-long, systemic change in the cultural drive toward the making of an informed, participatory, and more reflective voter. It is going to take time, resources, and effort, but if the right strategies are put in place, change is not only feasible-it is critical for a healthier, more effective democracy.