Anecdotally Speaking……

by Kristina Chew, PhD on May 22nd, 2007

Store this one away for the next time you hear “anecdotally” that some herbal supplement, special tactile technique, some biomedical treatment, or some marvelous device, has effected miraculous results and changes in an autistic child, even to the point that that child is said to be “no longer autistic.” From Conspiracy Factory; the writer and his wife are both biologists; she was 38 years old when they started to try to get pregnant:

We prepared for fertility treatments over the next month. We both were tested for a variety of sexually transmitted diseases, and had our Rh factors checked. Around this time we changed the brand of toothpaste that we use, as the toothpaste that is available in CostCo changes from day to day. Four weeks before we started fertility treatments, my wife got pregnant. We knew that it was very likely that she would miscarry, so we didn’t get our hopes up. She didn’t. Nine months later, a healthy baby boy was born. He’s now over a year old, and is healthy and cute and a damn lot of fun.

We’ve told this story to many of our friends and family. What have we heard from them?

“I guess you proved that doctor wrong.”

“Had you changed your diet?”

“There must be something in your water.”

People are really lousy at making conclusions about this. In general, people are lousy at finding causal relationships.

I assert that it was the toothpaste. I think it makes my point rather well.

There’s no way to put a causal relationship on any of this. We had a baby, even though the odds were against it. But millions of women have my wife’s condition. Thousands of them will become pregnant. Less than half of those thousands will carry their baby to term. My wife happens to be one of the lucky ones, and we remind ourselves that every day. That’s the only viable conclusion.

I tell this story to anyone who tells me that reiki “works for them”. That echinacea “cured their cold”. That homeopathic belladonna “cures their son” every time. That the “president of Gambia cures AIDS”. Pass it around, would you?

Go here to read the full post on An anecdote about anecdotes.

It’s yet another example of the fun one can have with correlations that play potentially fast and hard with the truth.