Alleged effects include howling

When dogs howl at night, it's not the full moon that sets them off. Dogs are communicating for all sorts of reasons. We're just not all that good at understanding what they're saying.

We make so many mistakes about attributing cause and effect for so many reasons, that it's almost surprising we get it right as often as we do. But all those mistaken beliefs we realize we have, don't seem to teach us a lesson. Pretty soon after catching ourselves out, we're at it again, taking mental shortcuts, being cognitive misers.

It's so pervasive, you would think we would know this about ourselves, at least, even if we don't understand dogs. Yet we commonly under-estimate how much bias is affecting our beliefs. That's been dubbed the bias blind spot that we (allegedly) tend to live in.

Even taking all that into account, "effect" is an astonishingly over-used word, especially in research and science communication where you would hope people would be more careful. The maxim that correlation (happening at the same time) does not necessarily mean causation has spread far and wide, becoming something of a cliche along the way.

But does that mean that people are as careful with the use of the word "effect" as they are with the use of the "cause" word? Unfortunately not.

Take this common one: "Side effects include...." Well, actually, don't be so fast to swallow that one. Sometimes, genuine adverse effects will follow that phrase. But more often, the catalogue that follows is not adverse effects, but a list of adverse events - things that happened (or were reported). Some of them may be causally related, some might not be.

You have to look carefully at claims of benefits and harms. Even researchers who aren't particularly biased will word it carelessly. You will often hear that 14% experienced nausea, say - without it being pointed out that 13% of people on placebos also experienced nausea, and the difference wasn't statistically significant. Some adverse effects are well known, and it doesn't matter (diarrhea and antibiotics, say). That's not always so, though. (More on this: 5 Key Things to Know About Adverse Effects.)

If the word "effect" is over-used, the word "hypothesis" is under-used. Although generating hypotheses is a critical part of science, hypotheses aren't really marketed as what they are: ideas in need of testing. Often the language is that of attribution throughout, with a little fig-leaf of a sentence tacked on about the need for confirmatory studies. In fact, we cannot take replication and confirmation for granted at all.

Occasionally, the word "effect" is used to name a literal "hypothesis." That happened with "the Hawthorne effect." You can read more about that in my post, The Hawthorne effect: An old scientists' tale lingering "in the gunsmok e of academic snipers".

Benefits Of Healthy eating Turmeric every day for the body

One teaspoon of turmeric a day to prevent inflammation, accumulation of toxins, pain, and the outbreak of cancer. Yes, turmeric has been known since 2.5 centuries ago in India, as a plant anti-inflammatory / inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and also have a good detox properties, now proven to prevent Alzheimer's disease and cancer. Turmeric prevents inflammation: For people who

Women and children overboard

It's the Catch-22 of clinical trials: to protect pregnant women and children from the risks of untested drugs....we don't test drugs adequately for them. In the last few decades , we've been more concerned about the harms of research than of inadequately tested treatments for everyone, in fact. But for "vulnerable populations," like pregnant women and children, the default was to exclude them. And just in case any women might be, or might become, pregnant, it was often easier just to exclude us all from trials. It got so bad, that by the late 1990s, the FDA realized regulations and more for pregnant women - and women generally - had to change. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) took action too. And so few drugs had enough safety and efficacy information for children that, even in official circles, children were being called "therapeutic orphans." Action began on that, too. There is still a long way to go. But this month there was a sign that

Not a word was spoken (but many were learned)

Video is often used in the EFL classroom for listening comprehension activities, facilitating discussions and, of course, language work. But how can you exploit silent films without any language in them? Since developing learners' linguistic resources should be our primary goal (well, at least the blogger behind the blog thinks so), here are four suggestions on how language (grammar and vocabulary) can be generated from silent clips. Split-viewing Split-viewing is an information gap activity where the class is split into groups with one group facing the screen and the other with their back to the screen. The ones facing the screen than report on what they have seen - this can be done WHILE as well as AFTER they watch. Alternatively, students who are not watching (the ones sitting with their backs to the screen) can be send out of the classroom and come up with a list of the questions to ask the 'watching group'. This works particularly well with action or crime scenes with

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