From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2005-06-13 16:22:21 UTC
Subject: Thank you for the ADV posts, Danee!
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Cc: Danee DeVore <ferrets4all@aol.com>
Message-id: <2F33EB5A-E28D-4A80-BBE0-C544444E1B81@mac.com>
People have trouble at times grasping the importance of doing
studies. I think that you are doing a wonderful job not only of
educating people about ADV but also of explaining the foundations
needed for the work to have any meaning and to be of any help to
ferrets and ferret people.
We tend to be an impatient country. We so often want everything in
an instant, disposable, microwavable, just-add-water form.
To further complicate things, the basics -- such as how scientific
inquiry happen and the basics of science itself -- are so often not
taught in our schools that people have no concept of science, or even
of what science is. It doesn't hit people that a term like "global
warming" means not that people in any location will feel hotter but
that the energy which drives storms is far more present in atmosphere
and oceans. It doesn't strike folks that if there was a Spiderman
that each time he webslung he would use about 4% of his body mass in
the mass and energy expended. It doesn't cross people's minds that
it is through study that a researcher avoids disastrous surprises.
It doesn't even cross people's minds that surprises happen, that in
science as much as infancy crawling must precede walking, nor that
the best researchers are the ones who work hardest to find the holes
in their own reasoning so that the final result is not a convincing
sales job but is instead a proven body of work which has met many
challenges and still proven out in experiment.
So, the upshot of this lack of understanding on what science is, is
that people tend to figure that if something is convincing that this
is the same as being proven, when in reality nothing could be further
away from reality. People confuse looking things up and building a
convincing argument with actually knowing. That not only is a route
to bad science (or no science) but it helps shape unwary and easily
victimized consumers, too.
The sad fact of the matter (Sorry.) is that there is absolutely no
replacement for careful study. Steve's doctoral advisor used to say
that if 75% of a person's hypotheses panned out that then the person
wasn't trying hard enough. (If the number was under 25% then the
person was exceeding that individual's abilities.)
In the popular comic strip Non Sequitur this week one of the main
characters right now wants to grow up to become a "preconceptualist"
because then she can create theories and not listen to any challenges
or do any testing. Of course, she has wanted to grow up to be a
dictator at one point, and a White House reporter taking graft in the
past comics. That character likes to avoid the kind of hard and
careful work which are essential for medical research.
Without doing research step by step and knowing that surprises can
happen we will all wind up falling on our faces from placing faith
into hypotheses which are fine works of art, but are not how things
really work. Recently, an excellent example of that occurred*, You
have all read of the claims for lifespan increase from caloric
restriction. Can you believe that no one thought to consider if
perhaps it was not the calories themselves but their source that
mattered? No? Well, then you were expecting carefully and
rigorously done research which is good for you because that means
that you are not an intellectual push-over. Too many people just
swallowed the premise and never asked. Guess what? Someone finally
asked. In the first of such studies (and hopefully far from the
last) it turned out that by restricting the source of protein and fat
to half of the amounts normally eaten there was a 60% increase in
lifespans of fruitflies, whereas restricting the sugar calories only
added an insignificant 2% to their lifespan. That is NOT what people
expected. Surprise! (BTW, I am NOT suggesting a protein or fat
reduction for ferrets; members of Carnivora have a long history of
adaptations which have restricted their dietary options. Besides,
there isn't a verifying study, yet, let along research into sources
for multiple species, or further break-downs of source components.
Nor is added quantity of life necessarily the same as added quality
of life; the two can at times have different requirements.)
There is NO substitute for careful research. People like UGA's ADV
researchers may not be as flashy as folks who create arguments and
behave as if an argument is the equivalent of fact, or who try to
argue against needed research. (I guess preferring guesswork?) But,
face it -- those people who don't challenge and don't do actual
careful experiments including into where they themselves may be going
wrong have to use flash, fear, and sensationalism because the
extremes of argument are all they have. They don't have proven
facts. It is always important to keep hypotheses separate from facts
in your mind. We are all always learning.
If someone truly loves her or his ferrets and understands the need
for careful research then that person will know to take precautions,
too keep an open mind, and to know that given enough time and enough
well-challenged experiment the results will be REAL RESULTS -- real
infections avoided, real animals saved, even perhaps real vaccines
eventually.
Think where you will be 5 years from now if nothing is done. Now,
think where you will be if the slow, hard research such as that of
the ADV experts at UGA continue. That will be a BETTER place.
Like Richard Feyman wrote: "It doesn't matter how beautiful your
theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree
with experiment, it's wrong." Or to say it in the oh-so pleasing
words of the wise man Yogi Berra: "In theory, theory and practice
are the same. In practice, they are not."
Now, I guess that I have strayed from my point to some extent that by
talking about WHY people tend to not understand what science actually
is -- not merely the introductions of possible answers which is the
route toward the needed work -- but then the absolutely essential
parts of ripping those same ideas apart, and testing, testing, and
more testing under carefully controlled conditions. In today's world
where most people have no idea how to challenge and test ideas, let
along that there are all sorts of aspects which need accounting-for,
people are easily swayed by the easy looking tv, movie, and sales
talk images of science which pretty well don't resemble actual
science in the least. So, the pathologists working with DIM need to
be sure that certain pathogens are not the cause because it is not
enough to suspect that they are not caused by a certain "bug" given
that sometimes a disease will present with an an unusual appearance
compared to its typical one -- like ages ago when there was that
mutant strain of coccidia which would have simultaneous massive egg
blooms that were fatal (a disease that died out due to very careful
isolation and then treating all ferrets in the affected households).
It is not enough to assume that certain animals won't be contagious
at certain times -- there needs to be the carefully found proof. It
is not enough to assume that animals who have the virus and are
asymptomatic are not contagious. (Remember the recent news story
about some asymptomatic people with herpes passing it along -- a
story I have not looked into further but those with herpes may want
to do so to see if there is a foundation for the statement.)
When people forget that real science (as opposed to the fictional
variety or the publicity garnering version) involves years of
painstaking careful challenge, careful experiment design to avoid
alternative causes (like avoiding the caloric restriction assumption
study gaps), careful measurement, careful controls, etc. then they
are looking for the sexy media image of "science", but are forgetting
that concepts which are unproven could lead them down paths that
might not help, or at worst could hurt ferrets and their people who
love those ferrets. Research into dangerous ferret illnesses like
DIM and ADV does take time and does take extreme levels of hands-on
care to help those ferrets. The more complex the illness is, the
harder the work.
So, instead of expecting instant answers to such questions as how to
best know when ADV is contagious, which animals can spread it, and
can we have a vaccine, everyone should remember that it is essential
to lay the foundation and to progress step by step. Hypotheses are
great fun but as something to stake a conclusion upon they only are
all air and light so they weigh nothing -- meaning that it isn't any
surprise that the foundations of some turn out to be faulty. Once we
get beyond dreams, assertions, concepts, arguments, sales jobs, PR,
and hypotheses we enter the realm of reality where a strong
foundation is ESSENTIAL to satisfy our needs and to save our
ferrets. So, it is fine to discuss concepts as long as we recall
that if we ever to actually KNOW then we need the careful research to
see which hypotheses pan out and which ones don't, or what their
nuances turn out to be. Our ferrets matter too much to figure that
guesswork could ever take the place of actually studying.
ADV is way too serious to not do this the right way!
Support ADV research!
--Sukie (who is looking forward to further reports on the carefully
done ADV research)
* http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050611/food.asp
End of ferrethealth Digest
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