Category: Books and literature

Discussion of books and other literature

Trick or Treatment

Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine applies the methodology of double-blind, randomized clinical trials to a number of different forms of ‘alternative medicine.’ Written by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, the book describes the history of clinical trials and evidence based medicine: citing historical examples such as finding the cause of scurvy, evaluating bloodletting as a treatment, and the importance of hygiene in hospitals, as empirically and statistically demonstrated by Florence Nightingale.

The bulk of the book consists of an examination of four very common forms of alternative medicine: looking at the clinical trials that have been carried out on them, as well as meta-analyses and systemic reviews that evaluated the quality of those studies and their conclusions. In general, the determinations made about the treatments are not very positive:

  • Some evidence suggests that accupuncture can be effective for treating pain and nausea, though higher quality studies have generally found less evidence than more problematic ones. No evidence was found that accupuncture treated any other condition, despite how practitioners have advertised it as a cure for many maladies
  • Homeopathy was shown to be no better than a placebo at treating any illness. This is really no surprise, since the philosophy behind it is bunk and the ‘medicines’ are demonstrably just water.
  • Chiropractic therapy was shown to have comparable effectiveness to conventional physiotherapy in treating back pain, though with significant risks that do not exist for the latter treatment. Specifically, the ‘high velocity low amplitude’ manipulations used can tear blood vessels in the spine, causing strokes and infarctions.
  • Some herbal remedies were shown to be effective (such as Saint John’s wart for mild to moderate depression). That being said, much evidence was uncovered of ineffective treatments (including many of the most common), contaminated medications, lax oversight, and possible adverse interactions with pharmaceuticals, when people do not inform their doctors about herbal supplements they are taking.

Perhaps most disturbing of all is the evidence of very poor medical advice provided by alternative care practitioners. All homeopaths surveyed suggested (completely ineffective) homeopathic remedies to protect against malaria during an extended trip through Africa. Chiropracters were willing to perform adjustments on the delicate and developing spines of children and infants, as well as perform adjustments without warning or notice about the significant risk of damage to blood vessels in the spine. Alternative practitioners of all stripes advised parents to avoid using highly effective vaccines on their children, and sometimes told people to discontinue conventional therapies for diseases as serious as cancer and AIDS, leading to suffering or death.

The book also covers a number of critical related topics, including the placebo effect, regression to the mean, the reasons for which large numbers of people (and doctors) have faith in alternative therapies, and issues about medical ethics. In an annex, the authors provide more concise summaries of the research done on many other treatments: ranging from reiki to meditation to yoga. Some are deemed effective, others harmless placebos, while some are identified as dangerous.

I definitely hope this book gets a great deal of public attention. Many of the abuses described are very serious. Unfortunately, the people who would probably benefit most from the book are those who are least likely to accept its analysis and conclusions. The logic of the double-blind, controlled, randomized clinical trial is extremely powerful. Most impressively, it produces unbiased results, even when the thing being tested is not fully understood. For instance, fresh fruit was identified as a cure for scurvy long before the mechanism of action was known. If alternative therapies were as effective as claimed, that would show up readily in the thousands of high-quality trials that have been conducted. The patchy nature of positive results, and the slew of negative ones, thus speak volumes about the relative effectiveness of conventional and alternative therapies.

Fungi are surprisingly compelling

On the basis of a recommendation from a friend of mine who works on environmentally-friendly gardening and landscaping in North Vancouver, I am reading Paul Stamets’s Mycelium Running: a book that details ways in which human beings can achieve ecological outcomes through the intelligent use of fungus. They can be used to increase the rate of forest recovery after logging, clean up contaminated sites, and so forth. I will post a review of the whole book when I finish it.

One aspect of the book I found surprising and interesting are the ways in which the similarities of animals and fungi are emphasized. Both ecologically and genetically, the two are apparently more closely linked than any other two kingdoms. Both breathe oxygen (fungi can be suffocated), both sometimes attack and kill plants or animals. Representatives of both kingdoms sustain themselves on dead organic matter, while others live inside other live organisms and extract nutrition from them parasitically.

Some species of animals extrude their digestive organs when eating. Fungi might be considered an extreme elaboration of this. Instead of having a stomach inside the body, filled with digestive enzymes, the mycelium leaches them out into surrounding matter, then draws in the liberated and partially processed nutrients therein.

In any case, fungi are quite fascinating. For one final example, consider the genus Pleurotus. While their culinary properties are their major claim to fame, their ability to metabolize crude oil is also rather remarkable. You can start with a bucket of crude spilled on a beach somewhere, introduce some spores, and eventually wind up with material that is entirely safe for the natural environment in general.

Generation Kill

Written by a journalist embedded with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the Marine Corps, Evan Wright’s Generation Kill describes the experience of invading Iraq alongside them in 2003. The book provides a graphic account of what transpired among the men of the Battalion and its subsidiary units, as well as on battlefields between Kuwait City and Baghdad.

Some of the more notable elements of the first person account include the lack of coordination between different units, poor logistics and intelligence, near-total lack of translators, wide variations in competence and attitude between officers, and the force with which the sheer terror and agony of the experience is recounted. While large portions of the invading army may have had tents, cots, and warm meals, the recon Marines operate for the entire war on pre-packaged food and holes laboriously pick-axed into the ground. They spent much of the war in bulky chemical protection suits, fearing gas attacks that never came. The Marines are intentionally sent into ambush after ambush, receiving massive amounts of fire from within open-topped Humvies, as a feint to confuse Iraqi forces about the overall American strategy. The book certainly does a good job of conveying the brutality of it all: for the Marines, their Iraqi opponents, and for the civilians all around. The most interesting aspects of the narrative are definitely the characters of the individual Marines, as effectively illustrated through quoted statements.

The book does reinforce some broader conclusions that can be drawn about the war: particularly in terms of how the treatment of the civilian population has been mismanaged. What is less clear is whether the lesson to be drawn is that much more attention needs to be paid to post-occupation planning in future conflicts, or whether expectations of anything other than absolute carnage following a ‘regime change’ are misguided. Probably, the answer lies somewhere between.

The book has also formed the basis for an HBO mini-series of the same name. The series and the book parallel one another very closely. Indeed, given the arguably greater capacity of film to depict the majority of the events described, just watching the series may be a superior option to just reading the book.

Manifestos on the Future of Food & Seed

This collection of essays, edited by Vandana Shiva, varies considerably in tone and degree of novelty. The manifestos themselves seem ham-fisted and loaded with unsupported assertions. It is not that no convincing case can be made for many of the arguments raised; rather, the authors simply choose not to do so. It is an approach that will win them few converts. In general, the book contains a number of positions towards which I am sympathetic: that patents on living things are highly dubious, that the present food system is unsustainable, that the agricultural policies of most states are inappropriate and often immoral. It simply manages to convey most of these points in a shrill and off-putting manner: the kind of voice that makes you take an opposing stand almost by reflex.

Most of the authors seem to profoundly misunderstand the nature of the global trade system. As with so many other blanket anti-globalization activists, they seem to think the WTO is some kind of wicked and powerful entity, enforcing its will against states. It is more accurate to say that it is an imperfect vehicle for trying to create some trade rules formulated on something other than economic and geopolitical power. It is a goal rarely achieved – how could it be? – but a worthy one nonetheless. Similarly, the WTO does not impose outside restrictions on the kind of food safety laws states can adopt. It simply requires that the same standard be applied to domestic producers as importers. You cannot reject beef produced using recombinant bovine growth hormone abroad while allowing domestic industrial agribusinesses to use the same substance. Naturally, if you are big and economically powerful, you can more or less do as you like (witness WTO rulings against American maize subsidies, for instance).

The book also seems to be a bit short of real content where genetically modified organisms and antibiotic resistance are concerned. Both naturally raise important questions of health, safety, and ethics. The nuances of the discussion, however, are poorly served by a book that asserts that the Green Revolution was actually harmful to the world’s poor. Genetically modified organisms could certainly produce adverse outcomes. At the same time, they might be able to help us reduce our dependence on toxic pesticides, reduce the carbon emissions associated with shipping and refrigeration, and deal with the consequences of climate change. Similarly, while there is much to lament about current global trade practices, the kind of protectionism advocated by most of the authors is unlikely to help either the poor or the sustainability of agriculture. What is necessary is that the total social and environmental costs of economic activities be borne by the relevant parties: not that food is grown in a particular place, domestic producers receive preferential treatment, or that the world re-fragments into disparate economies.

While the book doesn’t really make it, there is an excellent case for a global transition to new forms of agriculture. Important elements include replacing vulnerable monocultures with resilient polycultures, sharply restricting the use of antibiotics, reducing the intensity of fossil fuel use, and otherwise taking into account the many social and environmental costs of agriculture that are ignored when it is undertaken in an industrial manner. There is likewise a very strong case to be made about reforming the global intellectual property regime. It is extremely dubious to be able to patent a gene that you have moved from one creature to another. It is similarly dubious to sell seeds on a ‘licensed’ basis, where they can only be legally used for one crop.

In the end, it is hard to see who this book is for. It doesn’t contain enough substantive argumentation to convert anyone – though there is one good essay written by a local foods grocer, railing against both Walmart and Whole Foods. It likewise does not contain a viable plan for changing the nature of the global food system. Here, Michael Pollan seems to adopt the most reasonable position: accepting the popularization of organic and local food as progress, while others angrily reject them as insufficient. A book that helped to enlarge that beachhead, while providing some strategic direction towards a genuinely sustainable global food system, would have a lot more value than this short, flawed text.

Big Bang

In the past, I have praised Simon Singh for the clarity and quality of his explanations, when it comes to matters scientific and mathematical. That capacity is on display once more in Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe. The book provides a good introduction to the history of cosmology, from the ancient world to the recent past. The book covers the contributions of figures like Keppler, Copernicus, Galileo , Newton, and Einstein. It also provides good information and anecdotes on those who actually provided the data that validated the theories. The book provides a good basic description of relativity (both special and general), though those seeking a better understanding would be better served by the first half of Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe, which contains the best explanations of relativity and quantum mechanics I have encountered.

One thing it should lay to rest is the false and pernicious belief that it was only the European crossing of the Atlantic that led to the general belief that the Earth is spherical. Not only did the ancient Greeks know this by 300 BCE, they knew the size of the planet, the size of the moon and the distance to it, and the size of the sun and distance to it. All this from trigonometry and logical reasoning, starting with Eratosthenes. It also does a good job of explaining the ways in which now discredited theories stood up to scientific scrutiny at the time. It was only with refinement that the heliocentric view of the solar system had more predictive power than Ptolemy’s geocentric model, for instance. Similarly, the debate between Big Bang and Steady State theorists could only be resolved through the improvement of both theoretical positions and empirical measurements. The book touches upon some of the key ideas of Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which could be an excellent thing to read as a more technical follow-up.

For me, this book lacked some of the excitement of The Code Book and Fermat’s Last Theorem, but I think this was almost entirely because I already knew most of what is in it: from Grecian planet measurement to the detection of cosmic microwave background radiation. For those less familiar with our evolving knowledge about the origin of our universe, this is an extremely clear and accessible introduction. To those unfamiliar with the origin of the stars, galaxies, and elements that make up our universe, this book is a great place to start.

My non-fiction list

One thing I have noticed about grad students (a category that partially includes those merely destined to eventually attend grad school) is that any bookshelf or stack of books has the power to draw their eye. Upon entering a new dwelling, their eyes dart across book spines in search of improved understanding of the denizen of the place.

In something of the same spirit, here is a brief analysis of the books in my non-fiction to-read list. The subject areas and number of books are as follows:

Science (7)
The environment (6)
International relations (6)
Law and politics (5)
Security (3)
Economics (3)
Cryptography (2)
Math (2)
Travel (1)
Cooking (1)
Music (1)

It would also be interesting to analyze the rates at which books in different categories are added and removed, but that is a project for another time.

Among those I have reviewed:

The environment (6)
Science (6)
Economics (4)
Security (3)
International relations (3)
Religion (2)
Cryptography (1)
Math (1)

Hopefully, the span of time I will be spending in Vermont (July 26th to August 6th) will allow me to add a few items to the second list and remove some from the first.

Contesting city streets

Self-portrait with pink handlebars

At present, I am reading a book about how the ‘motor city’ emerged as the dominant North American standard. It is quite interesting, really. The fact that automobile promoters played a role in the demise of streetcars is well known. What seems to be less well known is how the very idea of urban streets was contested and ultimately redefined in the period between 1920 and 1930. At the beginning of that span, automobiles were seem as a deadly and dangerous new element in street life: particularly effective at killing children. Now, thanks to school safety campaigns devised during the transformative period, automobiles are recognized as the road-going default: the normal thing to find on urban streets.

Only 20% into the book, I cannot comment on it comprehensively. Still, I have the sense that the next such conflict may be between fossil fuel automobiles and greener options – particularly cyclists and transit.

Our personal experiences often leave us incapable of glimpsing the assumptions that underlie the way we live. Good historical writing gives one a sense of how things were seen before. So far, this book has been accomplishing that task well.

The Botany of Desire

Anti-war graffiti

The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World tells the story of four plants and the desires they have gratified in people: the apple (sweetness), the tulip (beauty), marijuana (intoxication), and the potato (control). Each story is rich and fascinating; likewise, each has important lessons for appreciating the positon of humanity within nature, as well as the choices confronting us. This book has convinced me that I need to finish the business of reading Michael Pollan’s entire canon.

This book taught me quite a bit about agriculture, plant breeding, and genetics. The section on apples contains very interesting analysis on the differences between reproducing plants sexually (though seeds) or through cloning (with grafts). Similarly, the sections on tulips and marijuana say a lot about hybridization and the steady development of desirable traits. Finally, the section on potatoes confronts deep questions about the future of agriculture: most importantly, whether the monoculture can persist. Michael Pollan argues very effectively that the question “do we genetically modify plants or not?” is largely an extension of the question “do we continue to plant vast fields of clones?” The alternative – in terms of polycultures and local varieties – is especially interesting to consider in the face of a changing climate. It may be that the biotechnicians in lab coats will be able to develop new varieties that increase our resilience – enduring floods and droughts, etc. It is equally fair to suggest that a global agricultural system based around massive monocultures of just a few key species is especially vulnerable to disruption.

While this book raises deep questions, it is also charming and accessible. Pollan is especially gifted at conveying the eccentricities of some of the characters involved, as well as at inverting relatively familiar ideas into provocatively unfamiliar new forms. In particular, his discussion of intoxication accomplishes that – both in relation to the apple cider that was Johnny Appleseed‘s real gift to the American frontier and in terms of the myriad Cannabis sativa and indica hybrids that have emerged as ironic products of America’s drug war. Certainly, the book does a good job of advancing the hypothesis that domestication of plants was not a one-sided imposition. Rather, human history is deeply entwined with the history of the plants that have both nourished and manipulated us.

Fixing Climate

Writing on the wall

Written by Wallace Broecker and Robert Kunzig, Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal about the Current Threat – And How to Counter It combines relatively conventional thinking about the nature and consequences of climate change with a rather unusual solution. It is rich in personal anecdotes, but feels a bit as though it lacks overall rigour.

Climatic history

Much like Richard Alley’s Two Mile Time Machine, this book discusses how various types of natural record can inform scientists about the past state of the climate. These include core samples of ice, mud, and sediment. They also include fossils, living trees, and much else.

This book tells a number of interesting stories about how some of this data has been collected and analyzed, as well as about the personalities of those who did the work. It highlights those areas in which there is a good level of understanding, those where there are competing theories, and those where present theories have not yet proved adequate for explanation.

The two big points made are that climate is unstable and sometimes prone to big abrupt shifts and that human emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHG) are ‘poking the ill-tempered beast with a sharp stick.’

Likely consequences

Broecker’s book claims that the two most plausible threats from climate change are sea level rise – from melting ice in Greenland and West Antarctica – and droughts induced by changes in wind patters and precipitation. It also mentions the possibility of a thermohaline circulation collapse.

The book does not contemplate truly catastrophic runaway climate change scenarios, in which the full potential of burning tropical forests and melting permafrost is brought to bear. Instead, it restrains itself to the possibility of a 14 metre sea level rise – possibly over centuries – and the emergence of very profound droughts in some areas that extend for hundreds of years.

The book highlights how there are big uncertainties about the timing of changes, but asserts strongly that prompt and extensive mitigation action is required.

What is to be done?

Where Monbiot and Romm have detailed plans for emission reductions through different wedges, Broecker asserts that the best mechanism for dealing with rising atmospheric GHG concentrations is to do as follows:

  1. Use a huge number of machines to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the air.
  2. Store it temporarily in a chemical compound.
  3. Separate the compound from the CO2, recycling the former for re-use in the machines.
  4. Bury the CO2. This can be done in the deep ocean (delaying emissions from right now until later, ‘shaving the peak’ of the concentration rise), in old oil and gas fields, or in saline aquifers.

At the same time:

  1. Dig up enormous quantities of carbon absorbing ultramafic rock.
  2. Grind these to fine powder.
  3. Let them absorb atmospheric CO2
  4. Dump the carbon-bonded rock somewhere

At the same time, emissions from fixed sources like power plants should be captured and stored. With this combination of activities, the authors assert, we could reduce the global concentration of GHGs to whatever level we prefer.

This scheme strikes me as very impractical. Every chemical step can be accomplished, but the matters of scale and energy make me doubt whether this could ever be used on a global level. Broecker assumes that our total emissions will continue to grow, from the present level of about 29 gigatonnes. The sustainable level is about 5 gigatonnes, so we would need to deploy an enormous array of capture stations, provide them with carbon-absorbing chemicals, process those chemicals once they are exposed, return them to the machines, and bury the CO2. Even if it would be technically possible to do all this, it is not at all clear that doing so would be cheaper or easier than cutting down on total energy usage, while also investing in the development and deployment of renewable power.

Even if climate change could be addressed, a society built on fossil fuels cannot last. The scheme basically assumes unlimited access to hydrocarbon energy, combined with very limited potential for renewables. To explain why, think about the energy chains involved. Broecker repeatedly asserts that it will take only a fraction of the energy from a set quantity of hydrocarbons to absorb and sequester the resultant GHGs. He basically assumes that we will have cheap coal at least for the foreseeable future. There is reason to doubt this. While we will not exhaust oil, gas, or coal by the end of the century, we may approach or pass the point where it takes as much energy to extract and process as it contains. In that case, we would need renewables regardless of whether we had capture capabilities or not.

In the end, the book is a relatively interesting one. If you want detailed information on paleoclimatology, Alley’s book is probably a better choice. If you are looking for relatively practical solutions to the climate change problem, Romm and Monbiot are probably better bets. That being said, reading this book will definitely inject a few new ideas into your thinking about climate, climate science, and how humanity is to respond. It is also worth noting that it is possible that capturing CO2 straight from the air will prove viable in terms of energy and economics. If so, we should see firms starting to do it pretty soon after a decent carbon price is imposed in developed states.