Blogyagi

Click on the photo to go to collateralmurder.com

What occurs in this video and the diversity of reactions to it are both examples of confirmation bias, the brain’s tendency to pick up information that fits in with preconceptions and to throw away information that does not fit.

The helicopter pilots are trained to spot weapons, so they spot weapons wherever they look. If you are told long enough that “Everything could be a threat”, pretty soon you will start behaving as if everything is a threat.

In 21st century Western civilian life, this might be termed paranoia. In situations with high threat density (such as Iraq or the African savannah of 200,000 years ago), it functions as a positive selection influence for survival.

Confirmation bias is extremely difficult to overcome, particularly when the biases are instilled early in life. Thus the Jesuits and “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man”. This is also why good medical science requires double-blind trials.

You can see your own visual confirmation bias in action here:

Coming back to our video, then our reaction will be based on our worldview going in.

If you see the war in Iraq as a just war, and the insurgents as murderous criminals, then you will likely see the incident as a justified reaction to the presence of a potential threat to friendly units. The “cowboy” nature of the pilot and gunner is part of a necessary de-sensitisation to the suffering of victims that is an essential part of functioning as a soldier who needs to kill as part of his or her duty.

If however, you see Iraq as an unnecessary opportunistic invasion of a sovereign nation, and the insurgents as justified in resisting a foreign occupation force allied with a local puppet government, your view will likely be different. You’ll see the helicopter crew as murderers itching for an excuse to shoot up innocent civilians video-game style.

My bias has elements of both. In my opinion, the war (in Iraq & Afghanistan) is illegal, immoral and pointless, and serves to put Australians in more danger than we would be in were it not being fought. The behaviour of the pilot and particularly the gunner sickens me. That said, it’s pointless to blame the military for acting like the military. Soldiers kill people. It’s what they’re trained to do, particularly in a situation where they perceive threats to themselves or their fellow soldiers.

So string up Bush/Blair/Howard (and Obama/Brown/Rudd if you like), and bring our boys and girls home.

And challenge your biases. This flawed monkey brain of ours is more powerful than you may think.

Michael

Wikipedia on Confirmation Bias

Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises (PDF)

The substance of the following article by Simon Singh was printed in the Guardian last year. The British Chiropractic Association decided to sue him for his trouble. The offending paragraphs can be found at Jack of Kent’s Blog

Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.

You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying – even though there is not a jot of evidence.

I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared:”Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.”

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Edzard Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.

Simon Singh is a science writer in London and the co-author, with Edzard Ernst, of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial. This is an edited version of an article published in The Guardian for which Singh is being personally sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association.