The Power of Numbers to Deceive

Large numbers are impressive, so people often fail to put them into perspective. That’s why advertisers and advocates love to use them to get more sales or to garner support for a cause. Examples pop up daily, especially in this age of COVID-19.

 

Every day the local and national news media blast out the latest coronavirus totals. Millions of cases and over one quarter million deaths get our attention. In fact, relative to other causes they are very big numbers. It is a serious problem, but no one reminds us that 15 million is less than five percent of the population. Furthermore, I have never heard a news organization report on the number of people who have recovered. It’s sure to also be in the millions. It seems that people come out on two extremes: they either don’t take it seriously enough or they are unnecessarily terrified of catching it and dying. Perhaps if the news gave a more honest, measured account, more people would have an appropriately moderate reaction.

 

I found another example in a health report. “The Federal Trade Commission is sending 70,142 checks and PayPal payments totaling $3,864,824 to consumers nationwide who bought Quell, a wearable device that supposedly would treat chronic pain throughout the body when placed below the knee.” The company was fined almost $4 million for misrepresenting their product! Consumers who were gullible enough to buy the product will be reimbursed. That’s about $55.10 each for a device that is advertised on sale for $99 – not exactly a money-back guarantee – but the $4 million fine seems impressive.

 

Class action lawsuits are also typical. Chipotle, accused of falsely advertising its food as GMO-free, settled for $6.5 million. After the lawyers took 30%, that left their customers with a claim of $2 per meal with a cap of $30 per household, but it “could be less than this depending on how many claims are made.” Again a big number reduced to peanuts per person.

 

Similarly Johnson & Johnson, a favorite target for lawsuits, was ordered to Pay $6.3 million in the Infant’s Tylenol Settlement. That came out to $2.15 a bottle.

 

The number of home burglaries in 2018 was 685,766, about half of total burglaries (1,230,149), and about half of those happened when people didn’t lock their doors. But when buying a home security system you will hear, “A burglary happens once every 26 seconds.”

When big numbers are spread across many people, it doesn’t add up to very much.

 

In some cases, the news media implies big numbers just in their tone. A couple of years ago they wanted us to believe that school shootings were common, but what happened to school shooting news when the presidential campaigns got into full swing? The problem didn’t go away, but the news did. 

 

According to Education Week, twenty-five incidents occurred on school grounds or during school-sponsored events resulting in five student deaths, only one under the age of 14. Any such deaths are tragic, but that’s five out of 56.4 million students. Should anyone panic over such minuscule probability?

Headlines about these extremely rare events like shark attacks are easy to ignore, but when kids are involved, it’s different. Parents are terrified at the prospect of their child being abducted. Nosey neighbors report them for letting kids walk alone and authorities respond. An elementary school in South Carolina won’t let the kids whose mother wants them to walk home, leave school without an adult. “Today, only 10% of American kids walk to school, down from about 50% in 1969.” 

Reuters tries to assure parents: “Kidnapped children make headlines, but abduction is rare….On average, fewer than 350 people under the age of 21 have been abducted by strangers in the United States per year since 2010.” Then Parents.com tells them, “Every 40 seconds in the United States, a child becomes missing or is abducted.” But they don't tell them that 0.1% are abducted by strangers, over 95% simply ran away and 99.8% are later found alive. 

 

It’s an endless battle against the media, politicians and charities selling products or ideas and raising  funds using big numbers. The best defense is perspective.

Flashback – Price Deception

[On New Year’s Eve 2012 I posted a look at the various ways advertisers use prices to convey a false impression. Make prices appear low to suggest a bargain; jack them up to give the impression of special quality or luxury items. Because of the date, I ended with a brief note on champagne. Though it’s only June, why not read this and then find something to celebrate?]

We are deceived by a lot of things, by ourselves and by others, especially advertisers. We are all familiar with the pricing scheme of marking items as $19.99 instead of $20 to make them seem like a bargain, even though many people, when asked, will describe the $19.99 shirt as a $20 shirt.  Consciously we are not fooled, but subconsciously it registers as a better deal. Consider that  nine-tenths of a penny per gallon on the price of gasoline.

Surprisingly, the opposite strategy is also used. When paying a higher price, we often believe we are buying better quality even when we are really getting substantially the same thing. In prior postings I brought your attention to tests of (more expensive) organic foods showing that they are not nutritionally superior. Recently we learned that family cars outperformed luxury cars in the new crash tests. I have seen many Consumers Digest-type articles saying that ordinary moisturizers help your skin as well as the high-priced brands that claim to be superior. Higher-priced brand name drugs continue to sell well against similar or even identical generics by virtue of perceived quality. “When served microwaved food from the frozen food section in the setting of a fine restaurant, most people never notice.”

I remembered some time ago seeing a story about wine judging. Experts were asked to rate a certain group of wines. Later, in what they thought was a different event, they were presented with the same wines. The ratings of the same wines by the same judges came out completely different – no correlation whatsoever. I couldn’t find that source, but was overwhelmed by similar stories.  One told of wine tasting experts fooled in general, recommending wines with expensive labels with eloquent descriptions of their superiority over the same wine poured out of an different bottle. Experts also gave differing descriptions when served a white wine and the same wine with red food coloring added. Others couldn’t tell if a wine was red or white when they drank them from black-colored glasses.

It’s not only the experts who are fooled. “Expensive wine is like anything else that is expensive, the expectation it will taste better actually makes it taste better.” This article gave even more examples.  HDTV clarity and cheese tasting elicited the same perception errors based on price. A January 2008 study showed that adults rated the same wine as tasting better when it came from bottles labeled $45 than from ones labeled $5.

How would this apply to the art world? Experts always want to tell us what to think and what is real art. We often look at the work and scratch our heads. Here is a comment from a friend who visited an exhibition of what was proclaimed to be a major contemporary British artist at the Aberdeen (Scotland) Art Museum. “Imagine a giant empty exhibit hall with nearly-blank canvases, each about 7 feet square, or painted unevenly in reddish-orange oil. A life-size bronze casting of a rumpled sleeping bag.” I'm sure most of us would be equally puzzled at the praise for such an exhibit, but in the art world there is so much hype, and it’s so easy for the experts to pompously fall back on the accusation that others "just don’t get it." We buy that logic and that’s why we get what we get. (For an amusing spoof on contemporary art check out a film called Untitled).)

The effects of high price and over-reliance on so-called experts apply in many other fields. So before you buy something based on the name or the price, do the research. Whether it’s food, art, drugs, wine, cosmetics or cars, more expensive is not necessarily better. When all you have to go on is expert opinion rather than evidence, you are usually safe to trust your own taste.

Which brings us to the real topic for today – champagne. It is, after all, New Year’s Eve.  In this case I have done the research for you, and guess what?  More expensive is not necessarily better. As this British source says, “In a blind test that has thrilled the marketing departments of the major retailers and perturbed at least one of the grande marques, six wine experts gave a resounding vote of support to some of the less glamorous bottles.”

So buy what you like and save a little cash. Happy Critical Thinking in the New Year [or Independence Day], and Cheers!

And Speaking of Sugar

Last Friday I flashed back to an entry from February 2012 where I showed how eager the media is to help us blame sugar for the obesity and the diabetes epidemics instead of the taking responsibility for our own choices.

Shortly after deciding to feature those comments I came across this related news report. “The Sugar Association is asking the Food and Drug Administration to require more detailed information about artificial sweeteners on packaging.”

The problem as they see it is that, because sweeteners do not provide nutrition or calories, they are not required to be listed on nutrition facts labels. Instead they are listed under ingredients in smaller print on the side of the package.

The industry argument is, “Consumers deserve to know what is in their food so they can make informed decisions for themselves and their families.” By making these changes, the FDA “will bring the complete transparency in sweetener labeling that we know consumers want, deserve and should expect.” 

They innocently portray themselves as merely calling for transparency by putting the information on food labels as “sweetener,” followed by the name. This is similar to the tactics of the anti-GMO crowd. By forcing producers to list an ingredient on the package, they hope that past misinformation will give shoppers the impression that a safe ingredient, because it is highlighted, is really dangerous. It’s a subtle scare tactic dressed up as transparency that they have pulled off elsewhere*, but it’s not based on science!

I referred to information sources I trust like WebMD and the Mayo Clinic rather than believing folks like Global Healing, Nutralegacy or Doctors Jocker and Axe. Here is what the real doctors at Mayo Clinic have to say. 

Under the heading of possible health benefits, they state, “Artificial sweeteners don't contribute to tooth decay and cavities. Artificial sweeteners may also help with: Weight Loss and Diabetes.”

As far as concerns: “according to the National Cancer Institute and other health agencies, there's no sound scientific evidence that any of the artificial sweeteners approved for use in the United States cause cancer or other serious health problems. Numerous studies confirm that artificial sweeteners are generally safe in limited quantities, even for pregnant women.”

So they are safe and sometimes beneficial, but the Sugar Association has for a long time believed, “Consumers Are Confused: Decoding Artificial Sweeteners,” as that headline from ten years ago stated. The article goes on to say, “August marks the five-year anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) receipt of a petition to help clear up some of the confusion...." So this has been going on for 15 years, and they are taking another run at it. Why? Before you start feeling bad for the Sugar Association, follow the money.

“The U.S. Sugar program is the federal commodity support program that maintains a minimum price for sugar, authorized by the 2002 farm bill....” It was designed to “protect the incomes of the sugar industry-growers of sugarcane and sugar beets, and firms that process each crop into sugar.”

This Reason Magazine article from last year calls it welfare for the rich, saying that it costs Americans as taxpayers and consumers about $4 billion per year. It does this in several ways: 

1. “Subsidies when sugar prices fall below a certain level;
2. Protection from foreign competition (a limit on imports); and
3. A guarantee that prices stay high (the sugar program imposes quotas on how much sugar may be produced in America).”

They are willing to spend a lot of money lobbying to maintain this sweet deal.

This Market Watch story from 2018 confirms the $4 billion cost while pointing out, “On average, U.S. sugar prices are about twice as high as world prices.” 

So, Big Sugar is trying to subtly frighten more people into buying their product at twice the price, based on a false (but popular) notion that the alternatives cause cancer and other problems, while downplaying the truth about the health concerns around sugar itself. They are counting on only a tiny minority of critical thinkers to figure it out.

*Note how successful they have been in giving high fructose corn syrup an undeserved bad rap.

Is Chiropractic Effective Against COVID-19?

Everyone wants to take advantage of the pandemic; some offer products and services that lean toward quackery and others less so, but they are trying to lure in customers by playing on fear. Sometimes the connection is dubious. For example, CNN reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) “called on tobacco and nicotine industries across the world to stop taking advantage of the global pandemic and marketing directly to children and teens.” (How anyone can use the pandemic to put a positive spin on teen smoking is very puzzling, but WHO is worried.)

As another example, many chiropractors are posting information on their websites similar in wording to this one: “Regular chiropractic adjustments have been proven to boost your immune system. This is accomplished by improving the state of the nervous system which in turn improves the immune system.”

The International Chiropractic Association (ICA) found these claims troubling. Concerned with the credibility of their practice, they tried to clarify in March with a 15-page bulletin stating in part: “There are no vaccines, no drugs, no natural remedies, no alternative therapies that have been tested and the outcomes peer reviewed to meet any credible evidence-based standard in science. This includes chiropractic.” They had “previously provided clear reminders to its members of the importance of not advertising” such abilities.

Where would hundreds of chiropractors get this idea? They believe that straightening a patient’s spine positively affects the nervous system by reducing stress. Stress reduction is loosely linked to immunity. As explain in the Annals of Vertebral Subluxation, which tracks chiropractic research, “It is well established that the nervous system controls and coordinates all functions and systems of the human body including immunity and the immune system.” This theoretical connection feeds an assumption that it is ethical to advertise chiropractic as a treatment and prevention during the pandemic. But it’s not.

This train of thought – less stress to nervous system to immunity – has never been proven to exist. This site quotes another ICA report warning, “there exists no credible, scientific evidence that would permit claims of effectiveness for conferring or enhancing immunity through spinal adjustment/manipulation to be made in communications by chiropractors.” Furthermore, last month “more than 150 chiropractic researchers from eleven countries criticized [any suggestion] that chiropractic care (primarily spinal manipulation), can have a meaningful impact on immune function.”

At the end of the 15-page ICA report, they make the lack of evidence clear by asking for more funding to support “necessary clinical research required to validate the role of doctors of chiropractic in promoting health and vitality by stimulating a healthy immune response.”

As these renegade chiropractors advertise viral immunity, along with several other questionable benefits, they undermine the credibility of the profession, providing more ammunition to the naysayers. Numerous skeptical publications, including this one, describe chiropractic as teetering precariously on the edge between science and pseudoscience.

Such advertising trying to get away with unsubstantiated claims, reinforces the need for critical thinking. Many chiropractors, naturopaths and others claim all sorts of peripheral health benefits. Patients walk in expecting miracles and walk out with placebo-effect satisfaction telling their friends. But wild claims and customer endorsements don’t constitute evidence. Eventually, the professional associate must move to protect the reputation of the profession before the FTA steps in to protect consumers. But none of this would be necessary, if critical thinking prevailed.

Flashback - Food Label Funny Business – Part 2

[Last Friday’s flashback related to serving size, like the “single serve pizza” or the chicken pot pie that each contains two servings. Trust me, it’s easier to cut a small pizza in half than the soupy-centered pie.

This week I flash back to early last year in another example of how important it is to pay attention and to “Read the Label.”  It’s not about serving size this time but about a surprising comparison, finding out an energy drink is about as unhealthy as a gooey donut. Here are the details I shared in January 2019.]

Every gardening class on the use of pesticides repeats the mantra, “Read the Label.” Even a bottle of Lysol brand cleaner has the statement, “It is a violation of Federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling.” This is true of many other household cleaners, even though most people do not think of them as pesticides (killing bacteria) or otherwise hazardous.

But this little bit of wisdom applies not only to household cleaning and garden chores, but also to what we eat. I found a rather surprising example recently.

Since about 60 years ago Americans began worrying about the amount and types of fat contained in their foods. Eating fat was believed to clog the arteries, and many assumed that the fat in food turned into fat in the body. Government guidelines picked up the message, and most of the funding from about 1970 on went to scientists trying to prove the dangers of fat. 

More recent research shows that we should be more concerned with sugar than with fat. Experts now blame the obesity epidemic on sugar, as cities try to tax or ban sugary soft drinks and experts try to discourage sugar consumption in general. (Sugar moderation is especially important to avoid developing adult-onset diabetes.)

Here is the example that surprised me. Below are pictured two products: a 32-ounce bottle of Gatorade and a container of Boston Cream Donuts from the bakery at my local grocery store. Which would the average person guess contains more sugar? 

 

The Gatorade, as does its rival PowerAde, contains 21 grams of sugar per serving with a little more than 2.5 servings per bottle. That’s 56 grams of sugar as pictured here.

The package of donuts contains 10 grams per serving with 4 servings total. That’s about 28% less sugar in the four donuts pictured compared to a single bottle of sports drink, and the donuts contain less than half the sugar per serving!

How many other surprises are lining the grocery store aisles? We never know unless we read the label.

Failure of many people to do so is how the foodies and other self-proclaimed health experts get away with their absolute rules – never eat prepackaged foods, never eat anything you can’t pronounce, avoid GMOs and gluten. These stances are easy to remember but extreme and often nonsensical. If we just take a minute or two to read the label, we can make good choices without going overboard.

The Opposite of True

Some ideas are repeated so often that large numbers of Americans believe them without question. This makes a handy tool for politicians, advertisers and fundraisers. They get our support to fix problems that either don’t exist or have been exaggerated out of proportion. I covered some of these, stories about child abductions and clean air problems, about two years ago. Here are a few more examples.

Police killed in the line of duty:

Watch the news and you would believe that this issue is at an all-time high. There is a war on; blue lives matter! But the data tell a different story.

This website lists all deaths in the line of duty by cause and by year. The overall figures match fairly well with this other site, so I believe the information is accurate. 

Ignoring causes like accidents, heart attacks, etc., I looked only at gunfire, assault and vehicular assault, that is, purposeful acts. The total for 2019 was 58, somewhat below average. Of the last ten years, the highest were 2010, 2011 and 2016. The lowest were 2013, 2015 and 2017. There seems to be no pattern or trend.

Naturally, no one should feel good about any number above zero. Every case is a tragedy. The problem is a lack of progress, not an escalation.

Vietnam Veterans:

After so many years the stereotype of the mentally scarred Vietnam veteran still rings true in the public imagination. Reality is surprisingly different.

Research done early this century and summarized by Peter Rowe in the San Diego Union-Tribune found that those who served in Vietnam were “more likely to be married, college educated and gainfully employed than other members of their generation.”

Furthermore, a Harris poll of returned veterans “revealed that 90 percent said that, ‘looking back,’ they were either ‘very glad’ or ‘somewhat glad’ to have ‘served their country.’ Eighty percent said that returning home was ‘about the same or better’ than they had ‘anticipated.’” A large majority rejected the popular notion of the former soldier struggling to readjust, haunted by flashbacks and nightmares. 

Scam Victims:

We hear it over and over on the news and public service announcements: Make sure grandma and grandpa don’t become victims of scams. As a senior citizen who doesn’t answer the phone unless I recognize the number and who dumps in the spam bucket those weekly messages that my email is about to expire unless I follow the link, I resent the implication! The truth is that younger people are more susceptible to scams. 

This is true in the US, but I have seen similar reports from the UK and Australia. Here is an Experian article about a Better Business Bureau report. “Americans ages 18 to 34 were more susceptible to scams (43.7% were victims) than Americans 55 and older (27.6% were victims). However, while occurrences are less for older Americans, seniors still lose more money in scams than younger victims.” (They probably lose more only because they have more.) 

The Inc. website reports the same tendencies.

Going back to the Experian numbers, there is something fishy about their numbers. In the article they show a graph of those scammed by age group, which they took from the original report.

To get 43.7% they merely added 25 + 18.7. That’s like saying if 10% of first graders have red hair and 10% of second graders have red hair, then 20% of the whole group have red hair. WRONG! The right answer is 10% provided the classes are of equal size.

So their report of 43.7% for the younger people is really closer to 22%, and their number 27.6% for the seniors is less than 14%. The conclusion is still the same but the math is pathetic! (Remember, Experian is one of the three companies that calculate your credit score and they have trouble with this simple calculation!)

The overall point here is that we are often fed stories that are no more than stories that someone wants us to believe to raise donations, increase their ratings or get support for passing a new (unnecessary) law. 

Flashback – Food Label Funny Business

[Over the years I have warned about the importance of reading labels on food packages. Today I will flash back to one of these and next Friday to another. The first emphasizes the importance of paying attention to serving size before taking the package information at face value.

Here, from December 2015 is “Brownie Mix Tricks.”]

This is not about some fancy recipes to make or decorate brownies. It’s  how the information on the box can easily be misleading or deceptive.

On the front of this box of brownie mix the label says, “110 calories.” This looks very reasonable for a dessert.  It is less than two graham crackers, little more than a single chocolate chip cookie.  But let’s look at the fine print.

Trick number one: the serving size is 1/20 of a package. That seems like a very small brownie. When I made them, I cut the finished brownies in an 8x8 pan first in half, then cut each of those slices in half. Then I turned it and cut again in the same way. I had 16 small, square brownies about 2 inches on a side.  Now 1/16 is not 1/20; it’s actually 25 percent larger. So 110 calories becomes almost 140 calories.  But wait!

Trick number two: the front of the package refers us to the nutrition facts label on the side of the package. There it says again 110 calories (with 20 servings per package), but that is for the contents of the package only, the powdery stuff. When you stir in the water, oil and eggs a serving size has 160 calories, which becomes 200 calories for the size brownie I cut, and the calories from fat have increased from 9% to 38%.

So we have a package that honestly and legally reads 110 calories, but the brownie I put in my mouth has 200 calories, nearly double that amount. This seems a little bit tricky, at best. We are expecting one amount and getting nearly twice as much.

The government’s solution to this problem is to make the nutritional labels larger. The behavioral model’s solution to this problem is to promote critical thinking. The government’s solution is the same problem with a bigger font size, but we still have to figure it out for ourselves. At least the behavioral model gives us a chance to be better consumers, as this somewhat trivial case shows. And it also gives us a chance to be more successful in many of life’s more complex challenges (where the government can't solve it for us - we still have to figure it out for ourselves).

P.S.  The brownies were delicious!

Flashback – Freedom and Responsibility

[What results from a lack of responsibility is often deceptive. No one gets hurt, and any important job usually gets done. When an individual fails to take care of it, someone else takes up the slack by doing it for them. The so-called helicopter parents fit into this category. But what happens when this behavior occurs on a societal level? – The helicopter government steps in with programs and regulations, and we give up our freedom one step at a time. It's true both for citizens and for corporations.

I reminded everyone of this consequence back in July 2011.]

Some think the opposite of freedom is slavery or perhaps living under a dictatorship, but in our society the opposite of freedom is the benevolent authoritarianism of warnings and legal restrictions resulting from our failures in the dimension of responsibility.

We are told that we are all victims of the economy, of our high-stress jobs, and of our non-stop lifestyles. The word is used in ads everyday, one even asking me if I am the victim of hair loss. We are presumably victims of big oil when gasoline prices rise, of big drug companies, or of big insurance companies when they raise their rates or dispute our claims. 

Especially in legal cases involving civil suits, attorneys first persuade prospective clients that they are victims (you’ve seen the ads on TV) then persuade juries that their clients are victims and someone should pay. In those same TV ads you often hear the word settlement, because the targets of these lawsuits fear that juries will buy into this point of view. It's cheaper to settle out of court, because those juries, from a basic lack of economic understanding, assume that a big corporation or insurance company will pay the cost out of their own pocket and it will never get back to us.

Claiming victimhood is an easy answer. It takes no effort. What went wrong is someone else’s fault; we are not to blame; we share none of the responsibility. It’s a passive stance. I don’t have a high-paying job, not because I didn’t bother to finish high school, but because I am being discriminated against. I got lung cancer not because I refused to quit smoking, but because the tobacco companies tricked me. My kids have too many toys not because I bought them, but because of the cartoons on the TV. The banks fooled me into getting a mortgage I couldn’t afford. When I have a sore knee, I ask the doctor for a pill or for surgery rather than losing some weight. I get to put all my problems in someone else’s hands. Responsible people don’t act like this, but victims do.

When we feel and act this way, we need to be protected. That’s when the warnings and regulations begin. Since these people can’t take care of themselves, we must require warnings on cigarette packages, on ladders, on hairdryers, and on almost every other product, telling them not to use them in ways that may seem stupid to the average person. When we sign up our kids to play sports, we must sign “hold harmless” forms. All the warnings don’t stop the lawsuits, so next come the regulations: all playgrounds must provide soft landings, all car trunks need an escape handle, all lawnmowers must have an automatic shutdown device, etc. Some cities ban the sale of certain foods or of fast food in certain neighborhoods. Victims are treated like children and must be protected from the real world and from themselves.

Where does it all end? The old analogy of boiling a frog applies. Throw a frog into boiling water and he jumps back out. Put him into a pot and slowly increase the temperature and he sits complacently until it’s too late. Likewise, when we don’t behave responsibly, our freedoms slowly trickle away.  Each of those efforts seems well-meaning and harmless at the time, but each is another example of someone restricting our choices for their interpretation of our own good. Each restriction is a loss of freedom, the consequence of patterns of behavior that show weaknesses in the dimension of responsibility.

Flashback – Why So Much Bad Advice

[This message was originally posted over six years ago, but since then the dynamic of bad information driving out the good has only gotten stronger with more fake news, advertising weasel words, political spinning, echo-chamber exchanges, media bias and health fads without any scientific basis.]

Why do bad ideas and bad advice seem to persist in a society with easy access to good science? One reason may be the tendency to cling to beliefs then look for evidence to support them, instead of accepting the conclusions of well-designed experiments. In his book The Righteous Mind Jonathan Haidt proposes that feelings and emotions come first, and that most reasoning works to justify rather than to test beliefs, that our “intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning.”  John Stuart Mill presented the same thought more than 150 years ago:  (paraphrasing) the more you argue, even while making clear, rational points, the deeper others dig in to protect long-held beliefs. Adding to the sad situation are the effects of scientists and doctors who would rather become famous as authors or TV stars by promoting popular beliefs than risk challenging them, as they should, with the truth.

One case that comes to mind is the persistent belief that artificial sweeteners are dangerous. Simple research is reassuring, but the belief is ingrained in our culture. The National Cancer Institute states clearly and unequivocally: “There is no clear evidence that the artificial sweeteners available commercially in the United States are associated with cancer risk in humans.” The Mayo Clinic’s view is that “there's no sound scientific evidence that any of the artificial sweeteners approved for use in the U.S. cause cancer or other serious health problems.” So who do Americans trust, these authoritative sources or a Facebook friend who watched some guy in a halloween costume on YouTube with scary stories?

Likewise folk remedies of all kinds continue to circulate. One longstanding belief is that magnetism has magical healing powers, leading people to buy bracelets, insoles and other magnetic devices. This is odd because over the past 15 years the FTC has ordered Magnetic Therapeutic Technologies, among others, to stop advertising magnets as a cure for numerous diseases or even as a pain reliever. No credible evidence exists of healing powers, and none can be claimed in their advertising. One recent well-designed test of such devices confirms this fact concluding: “Wearing a magnetic wrist strap or a copper bracelet did not appear to have any meaningful therapeutic effect, beyond that of a placebo, for alleviating symptoms and combating disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis.” Does that slow the sale of magnetic shoe insoles? – Not for people who don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story, a persuasive ad or a celebrity endorsement.

It’s your money to use as you please. You can save it for college and retirement, give it away to companies selling you magnetic health devices, or even flush it down the toilet. Two of those choices make the same amount of sense, but as Paul Simon sang, “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

Buy Now, Pay (or regret) Later

Usually on Black Friday I write about perspective – that any deal on electronics is not worth the life of the person trampled in the stampede. Another aspect of perspective is appreciating what we have and not constantly yearning after more or bigger or newer. The problem is that understanding the difference between wants and needs is only a first step. It must be followed by the discipline not to ignore reality by buying something anyway, especially something you can’t afford.

What seems to be catching on today is a new gimmick called point-of-sale installment loans. “This holiday season, it's not enough to spot a great Black Friday deal on a big screen TV or a sweater. You need to consider whether you want to take out a loan at the checkout, too.” 

That’s right; shoppers no longer need to go to a bank for a loan to buy something they can’t pay for. An installment loan at checkout breaks the cash register receipt into a number of easy monthly payments. That service is now available at Wal-Mart and at many other retailers, both brick-and-mortar and on line. And installment loans are expected to be “hot this holiday season, as retailers attempt to drive sales and shoppers demand easy-to-understand credit.” Retailers are partnering with finance companies to give shoppers these loans, even to people who might not qualify for regular credit cards. Instead of paying at the time of purchase, shoppers can take the items home and pay in 3, 6 or 12 monthly payments.

This is not a new idea, but was usually limited to big-ticket items. Furniture stores have used it for years. The problem is that the eventual monthly payments add up to more than the original price – sometimes 20% or 30% more. 

Not paying cash at checkout is not new either. Credit cards made that possible years ago, and both arrangements involve interest. But shoppers generally ignore the interest in light of the convenience and recognize some advantages over credit cards. Installment loans have no late payment fees, which are a big revenue source for credit card companies, and people tend to like the idea of a predictable, fixed amount each month.

It really is the same idea as a mortgage or car payment, but now the idea is moving downstream to less expensive purchases. Another source says installment plans have a “wide appeal but resonates most strongly for debit users. Four-in-ten would consider using an installment plan for everyday purchases like groceries and household items.”

An American Banker article has another explanation for the trend; “many younger Americans are uncomfortable carrying credit card balances, partly because they saw their parents struggle with debt during the financial crisis and prefer the more certain repayment terms of installment loans.”

This brings up a few issues. First, the financial problems of the parents of younger Americans were not the fault of the credit card. They were problems of discipline and perspective. Going into debt in a different way is no guarantee of success. Since installment plans have no late fee, what do they do instead, send debt collectors or repossess the sweaters and Christmas toys? (This is not addressed in any of the stories.)

In effect, this is just another marketing ploy to get people to spend money they don’t have. The example in one of the articles was of a woman who bought tires from Wal-Mart. She was all right with paying the $644 in three monthly payments of $224, but she “doesn't remember the interest rate.” (It’s about 18% APR.) In this case, tires were probably a necessity, but sweaters, purses and toys?

All this is happening while U.S. household debt, according to Motely Fool, reached $13.54 trillion earlier this year, “an amount that has risen for 18 consecutive quarters.” 

Wake up America; debt is debt! Have a happy Black Friday, but don’t do anything foolish.

Words Matter

I don’t watch many ads on TV, but I happened to see this one near the end of a football game last week. It was one of those public relations ads from Exxon Mobile telling what a wonderful job they were doing developing biofuel from algae. Someday this fuel will be used to power planes, ships and trucks “and cut their emissions in half.”

Wait a minute; something is not right here! Biofuels are carbon-based. When they burn, they emit mostly carbon dioxide. The only way to cut emissions in half is for the same amount of fuel to produce twice the energy as traditional diesel or jet fuel. That involves a factor called energy density.

Now biofuel is generally good. It comes from plants that extract CO₂ from the atmosphere. When biofuel burns it releases the same CO₂ back into the atmosphere, so it is considered to be carbon neutral. 

The downside is that first generation biofuels, such as ethanol, are produced from edible crops. They require a lot of space to grow and a lot of energy to plant, harvest and transport.

Biofuels processed from algae are a second-generation biofuel, similar to fuel made from the inedible and discarded part of a food crop, such as cornhusks or switch grass. The advantage is that food and fuel do not compete with each other, as when ethanol is made from corn.  And the production consumes “small amounts of energy while producing considerable fuel output.”

Other advantages are that algae production is efficient, in that, it can be grown “in almost any climate thanks to the open- or closed-tank approaches that are available today. As long as we can provide this natural product with enough sunlight to create photosynthesis, then it has the capability to grow quickly.” It is a renewable energy source that can be refined into a variety of products, and it can yield almost five times more fuel per acre than sugar cane or corn.

Two major disadvantages according to the same source are that it currently requires about 20% more energy to grow than it yields and production cost is still higher than the alternatives.

Exxon Mobile confronts the skeptics by citing partnerships with several major universities and a private firm to use gene technology and other research to build on the advantages and overcome many of the disadvantages. It looks promising, but they still “face some significant technical hurdles before biofuels production from algae will be possible at a significant commercial scale.”

The question remains about the claim of half the emissions. All fuel from wood and manure to jet fuel has a characteristic called energy density. “Energy density is the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume or mass.”  Gasoline has an energy density of about 45 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg). “Ethanol produces 30 megajoules/kilogram.” For that reason, a car will go farther on a gallon of pure gasoline than it will on a gallon of ethanol or any mix of ethanol and gasoline. Adding ethanol at the pump reduces MPG.

This 2011 paper from Stanford gives the energy density of algae-based biofuel at 20-25 MJ/kg, about half that of gasoline. Even if the research at Exxon Mobile’s partners could double it to equal that of gasoline or diesel, it would still be far short of their claim of cutting the emission of planes, ships and trucks in half. 

Deeper reading at the Exxon Mobile site gives the answer: “If key research hurdles are overcome, algal biofuels will have about 50 percent lower life cycle greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum-derived fuel.” The saving is not in emissions but in the energy expended during the entire production and delivery process.

The claim in the ad is inconsistent with that explanation thus is really inaccurate. Perhaps the advertising firm misunderstood, or the company just dumbed it down for football fans. In either case, I love it when I’m right!

Staying Conscious

Last time I explained how people tend to make decisions based on how they are feeling 95% of the time unless they make some effort to stop and think things through. The 5-second countdown trick is one way to pause, to slow down the process and avoid impulse decisions. 

We must be always alert because everyone trying to sell something takes advantage of this tendency to make decisions based on feelings. They play to our subconscious. 

Shortly after that I ran across a related article. It was called “Don’t get fooled or conned again” and presents five more tactics or techniques people or companies use “to get us to do what they want.” In most cases that means buy a product or service, but it may also mean adopting a particular political point of view.

Some of these tactics are obvious, like promising to send a huge windfall, but asking for a handling fee or a bank account number to get the process going. Most of the tactics though are common but more subtle, like offering a third item free when you buy two, even when two or three is much more than you need.

The tactics, referred to as superpowers, begin with understanding that the process of being fooled takes place inside your mind. If you are not alert to what is happening, you can be manipulated to buy whatever they are selling. "They’re trying to sell you on a story, to get you to buy into their narrative.”

The first is misdirection. Misdirection is why “companies and governments often release bad news on Fridays or before major holidays” when they know we will be distracted.

Next come time pressure and opportunity. The two are closely related. We are presented with a limited time to act or a limited number available. Any special sale or limited time pricing falls into the time pressure category. Car dealers have sales with catchy names near the end of each year with artificial deadlines, think Toyotathons and Happy Honda Days. Sometimes they combine the two by saying the sale is over at the end of the month or when they have sold a certain number.

Made up days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday also are examples. Estimates for this year are that those two days will result in sales of $12.3 billion (a 25% increase) and $9.48 billion (up 20%), respectively. And some companies have already started Black Friday promotions, so be careful to think first. Something you didn’t want or need is not a bargain, in spite of the great price.

The last two tactics are also closely related. “Social compliance refers to how we respond to people in authority” whereas “Social proof refers to how we constantly look to others around us for clues as to how to behave.” Both are powerful. Social compliance comes when encountering someone either with authority or perceived authority, such as a recognized expert. Examples include a treatment or pill advertised with a doctor’s endorsement or advice from TV doctors, who depend on hype to keep the audience engaged.

Social proof comes from the many customer endorsements (instead of evidence) in those same ads. It explains why when one person begins to applaud, the rest tend to join in. It drives much of the behavior on social media where likes draw more likes and people tend to congregate on line with others who share their philosophy. 

In one study in 2011, a cognitive neuroscientist at Temple University exposed 32 teens to a series of Instagram photos while they were in an MRI machine. They mixed them with other pictures and randomly assigned ratings. The teens were allowed to like a photo or pass. “Teens were much more likely to like images that seemed popular [and] skip pictures with few likes. And the brain's reward pathways became especially active when the teens viewed their own photos with many likes.” That is how social proof works on both teens and adults, likes draw more likes and memes go viral with hardly the firing of a single brain cell.

The article presenting the five tactics concluded: “Be careful when you feel emotionally moved by the headline, and be even more careful when you agree with the headline or when the headline makes you happy, because that’s when you need to watch out.” The best defense against being fooled and conned is critical thinking.

New Thoughts on an Old Idea

Looking through my various news feeds, I came across a recent reprint of an article published at Inc.com in 2017. It was called “How to Change Your Life in 5 Seconds” and gives a simple tip on how to avoid procrastination. By merely counting backward from five to zero, mimicking a NASA countdown, you can overcome the inertia that results from feeling unmotivated to do whatever comes next in life, simple decisions like getting out of bed or starting a project.

The thought behind the countdown suggestion references a Harvard Business article from four years earlier that, in turn, presents an interview with a Harvard professor who published a book in 2003, How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market. The book is about how to ensure your marketing message gets through to potential customers, based on years of research and “drawing heavily on psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and linguistics.”

So what does that have to do with procrastination, or anything else for that matter? The key discovery is “that 95 percent of our purchase decision making takes place in the subconscious mind.” In fact he suggests, “95 percent of all cognition occurs in the subconscious mind.” In terms of buying behaviors, we leap before we look. Decisions in general are not based on logic or rational thought. “They're based on emotion, on how a person feels about the action.”

It follows that if you give yourself time to think about not feeling like getting out of bed or not feeling like doing whatever needs to be done next, the result is procrastination. The countdown is a conscious effort to block those feelings and, in those 5 seconds, it’s possible to be out of bed already or taking the first step toward any other task that lies ahead.

But this practice could go beyond the simple, everyday decisions. According to the original source, the same appears to apply to buying decisions as well – and we don’t only buy material goods, we buy ideas and opinions.

Take as an example the common tips for selling a house. Some include: half-empty closets; turning on all the lights; clean or new curtains, door handles and cabinet hardware; inexpensive shrubs and brightly colored flowers for curb appeal; cut flowers or cookies in the entryway instead of the more typical coatracks and key hooks. All this is superficial. It targets the emotions, the feelings, the 95%. It’s manipulative, and it works.

This goes far beyond buying a house. Retailers study how they can get us to buy more: One site lists 15 tricks such as:

• Oversized sales signs;
• Shopping carts at the entrance to inspire larger purchases;
• High profit items at the front of the store so you have walk past them to get to essentials, which are in the back of the store;
• Most profitable items at eye-level;
• Music to make shopping fun;
• Plenty of elbowroom;
• Customer rewards cards;
• Low-cost impulse items at the checkout; and
• Limited time offers, vanity sizing, and other psychological tricks.

One age-old piece of advice to overcome these mind games is to make a shopping list (of items, or features in the case of a larger purchase like a house or car) and stick to it. Also, what if everyone did a countdown before putting something in the cart? What if everyone did a countdown before driving into the car lot? What if everyone did a countdown before believing what we hear or see on social media, on ads from purveyors of health and beauty miracle products, on the national news or in political speeches? 

Use the countdown trick as a safeguard to buy just enough time to let the critical thinking kick in. Make it your trick to defend against their tricks. Use it to protect yourself from the marketing ploys and emotional appeals aimed at that vulnerable 95%.

Essential Oils and Climate Change

To try to win an informal debate, I remember hearing a woman once say, “I don’t care what the scientists say; I just feel better when I eat gluten free.” I also happened to know that this same person took the opposite view on climate change. She was convinced that climate change was a real, impending disaster based on information that the vast majority of climate scientists agreed on the premise.

Furthermore anyone who held a different view on climate change would be condemned, labeled a “denier,” someone whose opinion on that or any other subject should be disregarded because they were stupid. But it was not enough to ignore them. Anyone who disagrees in the least must be branded, cast out, unfriended or otherwise ostracized for the good of the world.

Using the opposite arguments in defense of two strongly held points of view did not faze her or the people she associated with at all. On one hand, science was good; on the other, science was too skeptical of the ancient wisdom or the latest fad.

Speaking of the latest fad, one that has been going strong for the last few years is a belief in the power of essential oils.

Although the name might imply it, there is nothing particularly essential about an essential oil, in the sense of it being necessary for life. The name comes from the fact that the oils extracted, usually by fermentation, contain the essence of a plant’s fragrance.

As this article written by a scientist, professor at McGill University with a PhD in Chemistry, explains, most of the claims about the powers of essential oils are unproven, untrue, misrepresented or exaggerated. For example, promoters claim that “either sniffing the right essential oil or rubbing it on the skin can support the immune system, enhance mood, promote sleep, cleanse the body’s organs, boost the libido, ease breathing, foster alertness, treat kidney stones, oxygenate the blood, relieve pain, reduce anger, prevent constipation and, of course, eliminate toxins, … readjust chakras, harmonize bio-electrical frequencies, cleanse negative energies, drive out evil spirits and promote sexual stimulation.”

He explains that a few of these are backed by evidence, such as using lavender aroma as a sleep aid. Many of the other claims have resulted in warnings to companies by the FDA, but that can’t control all the outrageous claims. “Sales of essential oils are dominated by multi-level marketing (MLM) companies,” who sell to independent distributors relying on commissions. No one can monitor what every one of these sellers promises in private conversations. 

Once again it is so easy to ignore the science, or simply not ask what studies have confirmed the seemingly magical powers. Take it on faith.

Interesting how, in one particular realm, scientific consensus is considered a strong argument in favor, with any minor expression of doubt leading to the accusation of being a denier. Meanwhile, in so many others areas, from psychic powers to performance bracelets to the healing power of magnets to detox cleanses to super foods to essential oils, taking the opposite stance is the favored response. No deniers there! No critical thinking either.

GMO Green Beans?

On a weekly shopping trip we picked up some whole green beans, a favorite at our house. As she opened them later, my wife commented that they were labeled as Non-GMO. The GMO labeling is a subject of mockery in the family – as is gluten-free, natural, organic and a number of other scientifically meaningless qualifications when it comes to healthy eating for most people.

The first thing I wondered was whether anyone was selling genetically modified green beans. This was not an idle thought. I have previously written about orange juice and tomatoes labeled as non-GMO when, in fact, it is impossible to buy the modified version of either.

I looked up “GMO green beans” and discovered this website which answers the question directly saying, “To date, no GMO green beans have been commercialized.” They go on to say that researchers in Brazil are trying to get approval to work on it. Until then, “breeders of green beans in many world areas are also applying traditional plant breeding methodologies to develop new varieties with better combinations of characteristics…to improve yield, eating quality, and resistance to fungal, bacterial and viral diseases…to enhance the green beans grown and eaten by people, as a component of nutritious and healthful diets.” They are using the slow, old-fashioned method of modification that no one is afraid of.

Because that site seemed to be in favor of GMO technology, I continue to look for more evidence from a source on the other side. The Seattle Organic Restaurants site lists the “Top 20 Foods and Products that have been Genetically Modified.” Green beans are not on the list.

A site called superfoodly asks: "Are Canned Beans Healthy? Here’s The Biggest Safety Danger.” GMOs are not mentioned. The biggest danger according to them is BPA in the packaging. But as they report on it, they admit, “what the science suggests about it doesn’t appear to match the risk perceived by the public.” What is believed to be the number one danger turns out to be a case of ignorance. “Even when rats were fed up to 70,000 times the concentration of BPA that the typical American eats, they didn’t experience a change in hormone levels, weight, or reproductive orders.”

How does Delmonte respond to the challenge? Their website states, “The FDA, USDA, World Health Organization, and the American Medical Association have concluded that products containing genetically engineered ingredients are safe. Even though there are no health risks (allergens or negative nutrients) associated with GMOs, we decided to provide information about GMOs in our products to consumers so that they can make informed choices.” Apparently the informed choice is whether or not to avoid something that has been deemed safe. That makes no sense except by understanding that the job of Delmonte is to sell beans and other food, not to educate the public; and they can certainly sell more by appealing to unwarranted fears of GMOs stirred up by rumors and other misinformation, some of which is purposely disseminated by parties with a financial interest.

That explains why they take a similar stance on BPA. “Cans are lined with epoxy resins, of which BPA is a component…to make the plastic flexible so it completely covers the inside of the can. Based on extensive research, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and many other regulatory agencies around the world have concluded that BPA is safe to use in packaging.” But Delmonte goes on to proudly announce that they don’t use it anyway.

It doesn’t end there. The other side of the label at the top says, “With Natural Sea Salt,” just another phrase with implied (but not real) health benefits targeting superstitious food shoppers. 

The real motive for all these enticing myths displayed on the packaging may be to distract shoppers from the writing on the bottom of the label – 14.5 oz. on a can that used to be 16 oz. That’s the real deception – shrinking packaging with or without BPA raises the price.

This is not intended to pick on Delmonte, everyone does it. It’s easy selling fake benefits to the ignorant public, and it will persist as long as Americans continue to get their health and science information from celebrities, charlatans and social media.