Yesterday I started talking about possible consequences of reductionist science – when something intricate is abridged into a simplified explanation. Diminishing complex and interactive processes can change what they mean, and those reductions are not necessarily neutral.
In genetics you might read of a gene being switched on or switched off, and it’s easy to picture the kind of light switch you see on a wall. The switch has only two possible states, on and off. There is no maybe.
Yet most so-called genetic switches are more complicated than those that control our lighting. A change in a person’s physical state is rarely a one-to-one correlation with the finding of a certain gene in their body. Most likely a “switch” is a statistical observation. With many disease genes having the gene means that a higher percentage than what might be otherwise expected in the population has this gene and also has an illness. But then you’ll discover possibly large numbers of people who have the gene and don’t get sick, and people who get sick who do not have the gene.
Reducing poorly understood and very complex processes associated with genes to metaphor nouns like “switch” changes people’s behavior. Companies can create and market tests for popular disease genes and make some real money, because the potential market isn‘t the relatively small number of people who are sick, it’s the number of people who are worried about being sick.
Consequences of simplistic portrayals of statistics includes clogging the medical system with unnecessary tests, dividing who has access to medical information according to income, the stimulation of unnecessary procedures and surgery, and use of the information by insurance companies and employers. What is less clear is whether people are helped and lives are saved.
Human genetics has acquired some notoriety for these reductionist explanations and products. One can see skepticism increasing, and there is some legislation now limiting the use of genetic information by insurance companies and employers. Currently, we’re possibly seeing a repeat performance from some portions of the neuroimaging business, as researchers start explaining how our minds work from observing changes in the metabolism of brains.
In talking about neuroimaging, let’s be clear that I’m not criticizing people for getting x-rays or MRIs or other pictures of their insides. Neuroimaging refers to taking pictures of the brain, via several possible methods, to focus on the processes of the brain – not what the brain looks like, but what it “does.” Neuroimaging tries to capture changes in brain metabolism; people who do this work speak of the brain “lighting up.” This is a metaphor, like “switches” in genetics, based on statistics. Neuroimaging itself can be useful in medical research or diagnosis of disease or injury. Problems arise when the tool is misused. I have three areas of concern about the use of neuroimaging to explain how humans think.
First, neuroimaging is far from an exact science, as much as we constantly read of the brain “lighting up.” There are concerns about the qualifications of some who take measurements and read results, as there are no particular professional standards enforced over who does this kind of work.
Also, the tests themselves can be questionable. Some studies of the accuracy of neuroimaging say that up to 20% of results are false positives. If the statistical correlations are not that strong to begin with, then an error rate of 10 or even 20% false positives can devastate the conclusion that anything meaningful happened – much less what it might portend.
Second, we have the problem of correlation. Yesterday I mentioned my pup’s correlation of my mailbox buzzer with what I do. There’s the story of a study showing European cities with the highest birth rates having the highest population of storks. We love to make connections between seemingly related events, even when true cause and effect hasn’t been proven.
Finally there is the problem of a new industry, based on novel uncertain science, purporting to tell us how and when and why we think. I thought nothing could be more intimately intrusive into human affairs than some of the gee-whiz genetics of the 1990s. Now in the 21st Century my very mind is being deconstructed and reduced to metaphorical lights in my head.
The ideology of science is based on methodology that is accountable and neutral. The real-world practice of science is heavily influenced by politics and by money. Funding from government agencies, foundations and corporations skews what happens and what is concluded in some science. Medical information is also not always neutral. If a genetic test shows I have some disease-correlated gene, will it cause me to be denied insurance or employment? If my brain is shown lighting up in certain areas that are interpreted as mental disease or disability, or potential criminal behavior– if these sometimes dubious tests are used as a basis for conclusions about my thoughts we could see a terrible sorting of our population, with resulting changes in medical care, employment and education.
There is no doubt that good science saves lives, feeds people, and reduces suffering. There is also ample reason to be wary of science that is coopted by greedy companies, unscrupulous politicians and credulous media. Our minds, our thoughts and our feelings belong to us, and like our genetic life substance, the highest possible vigilance and skepticism is needed to safeguard who we really are.
