Luck or Hard Work?

As I was doing research for another entry, I ran across an interesting Quote of the Day on the Forbes website.  “People that work hard and legitimately do everything they can, tend to be luckier” – Julian Edelman.  For those who are not sports fans or happened to miss it, Julian Edelman is the receiver on the New England Patriots who made the spectacular, shoestring catch near the end of regulation time that allowed the Patriots to win the Super Bowl.  It looked like luck was involved as he sprawled between two defenders to keep a deflected ball from barely touching the ground, but a great deal of skill and excellent reflexes were evident in the many replays.  (Google Super Bowl highlights.)

It struck me as a very good thought, along the lines of people making their own luck, the saying popular among motivational speakers.  But do most people really believe this?  And if so, does our behavior reflect it?

My first stop took me to this headline from 2006, again from Forbes:  “Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work.”  Worldwide research, including many studies over the prior decade usually in sports, music and chess where performance is easier to observe and assess, but also in other areas like business, have supported a few surprising conclusions.  The first is that “nobody is great without work…  There's no evidence of high-level performance without experience or practice.”  Second, there is a difference between deliberate practice and mere repetition.  “Consistency is crucial.”

Though there are some skeptics, experts pretty much agree that success depends on hard work.  But do ordinary Americans believe hard work is superior to luck in most cases?  I searched for likely poll questions for a clue.

This source shows results from a Pew Research worldwide questionnaire.  In less developed countries citizens believed luck or political connections were more of a factor, but the US led the pack with the opposite stance.  When asked, “Which forces affect your success?” 79% listed hard work and only 19% mentioned being lucky.  (More than two answers were possible with the sum being more than 100%, so some may have answered both.  It wasn’t a pure either/or question.)

A Reason-Rupe Poll from the fall of 2011 asks a similar question but sorts the responses by political affiliation.  They asked which was more important, either hard work or luck and help from others.  Overall, 81% voted for hard work over the luck and help, which got 15%.  The range was surprisingly close. Tea Partiers were at 89%, Democrats at 74%, with Republicans and Independents in the middle.  In a separate analysis by race, findings were similar with the lowest agreement by African-Americans, who still favored hard work by about three out of four, a sizable majority.

More recently, a 2013 Rasmussen Reports of American attitudes found “86% Believe Individuals Make Their Own Success” by hard work and good decisions.

It appears that the sentiment expressed after the Super Bowl is widespread in America and not divided across political, racial or any other lines.  Most Americans think you get ahead through hard work.  It is difficult then to explain how politicians can get any support for notions like the one-percent haven’t worked hard for their wealth and don’t deserve it.  Conversely, why are we expected to assume that everyone who is not making it in America is a victim?  The behavior factor in most cases is totally ignored.  The news media always portray the homeless and others in difficult situations as being “down on their luck,” downplaying at best any poor decisions that may have led to their predicament.  Hence young people today who could benefit by learning from the mistakes of others see only victims of circumstance rather than behavior to avoid.  Great learning is lost by our need to be compassionate in all cases and a failure to be intellectually consistent.

Own the Problem and Solve It

Sometimes there are easy solutions to situations, as long as the principle doesn’t get in the way.  If everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton donated $8.35 to Planned Parenthood once a year they wouldn’t need any government funding.  Problem solved for less than a couple of trips to Starbucks.  And if some of the 90 million who didn’t bother to vote in November joined in, the needed contribution would be even less.  Since the donations are tax deductible, a portion of the contribution would indirectly shifted back to the government.  It would be like stealth government funding.  Of course it’s the principle of the thing.   

Isn’t falling back on the principle of the thing a lot like whether it’s more work for the husband to put the toilet seat back down or for the wife to put it down herself?   Now that’s a worthwhile argument. 

Both cases fall under the heading of responsibility, taking ownership for what you see is the problem.  In the first case the problem is that everyone does not want to be forced to support a cause that some people strongly believe in.  If you don’t think your time protesting is not worth more than $8.35, you are undervaluing yourself.  And think of the anxiety avoided with one simple action of writing and mailing a check.  In the second case, if you really care about domestic tranquility, you make the effort – though it seems almost laughable to call it effort.  In general, if you really care, you don't let principle stand in the way of an easy fix.

But Americans are falling more and more away from taking responsibility for problems that are under their own control.  That's when the law steps in and everyone loses.

“Apple could be facing a class action lawsuit in California, demanding they find a technological solution to prevent their customers from texting and driving."  It stems from a fatal crash caused by the other driver using FaceTime while driving.  First of all, FaceTime is not texting.  Second, how does the phone know if you are driving or just riding in a car (or on a train)?  Finally, and most important, why should Apple or any other company be held responsible for the reckless behavior of their customers? 

In America the last question is never dealt with.  It is just assumed that if a customer misuses a product, it’s the company’s fault for not anticipating every inane use for their product.  For proof of this, look up dumb product warning labels on the Internet.  So much extra time and expense with lawyers and labels to avoid being sued by irresponsible people who refuse to admit to a mistake made by individuals, themselves or others.

But we have not yet gotten as bad a France where they just passed a law making it illegal for restaurants to offer free refills of soft drinks (even if you are not fat and really thirsty).

But that’s what happens.  When a sizable number of citizens act irresponsibly the lawmakers go to work to protect us or steer us in the right direction.  We lose our free choices because so many previous free choices have been poor ones.  So many problems can be easily solved by taking responsibility and so much freedom lost by ignoring those opportunities.

If the Burgers Don’t Kill You, the Packaging Will!

A few days ago I turned to CNN Health to find this distressing headline: “Report finds chemicals in one-third of fast food packaging.”  First, everyone knows chemicals are bad.  Just put the word in a headline and you get attention.  Second, everyone knows that fast food is bad.  It makes you fat and sick.  Put both in a research report and news organizations are bound to jump on it, seeing another opportunity to put everyone in a panic, hopefully guaranteeing that they will comeback for more scary details.  Journalism today is about getting pageviews. And there is no better way to do that than with a hard-hitting health scare.

For the record, my Merriam-Webster defines chemical as a substance obtained by a chemical process.  Such a process may occur by itself, as for example burning or rusting, or be caused by an outside force.

This article, “Everything is Made of Chemicals,” describes a cup of tea as a “cocktail of butanol, iso amyl alcohol, hexanol, phenyl ethanol, tannin, benzyl alcohol, caffeine, geraniol, quercetin, 3-galloyl epicatchin, 3-galloyl epigallocatchin and inorganic salts.”  So there are many good chemicals, but the use of the word, as in “chemical warfare” or “chemical dependency” has given it an automatic negative connotation.

As for fast food itself, all things in moderation applies.  The 2004 documentary “Super Size Me” did a lot to spread the rumor that all fast food is bad.  But since then it has been debunked by many and characterized as a joke, a stunt, and full of misinformation.  In 2014 an Iowa high school science teacher actually lost weight on a McDiet proposed by his students.  Furthermore, the Super-Size-Me experiment has never been reproduced.  But the original misperception thrives.

So the headline itself, calculated to portray scary health news, is based on a couple of widely held but basically false beliefs.

Now back to the story.  The report featured in the CNN headline came from the Silent Spring Institute, not the most objective source.  It said researchers found fluorinated chemicals in one-third of the fast food packaging tested.  They took 400 samples of packaging from 27 fast food chains.  That seems like a decent sample size, but then they split it into 6 categories.  Now we have sample sizes of about 65 to 70 making it far less reliable for drawing generalizable conclusions.

In conclusion they tell us, “The packaging your food comes in could also have a negative impact on your health” because similar chemicals that have “largely been phased out” have been “linked to” several diseases.  That’s not exactly how they put it, but when you put all the information together it’s hardly very persuasive.

Fluorinated chemicals are used in fast food packaging for their grease-repellent properties, but are also used safely in many different products from carpeting to auto parts, from hospital gowns to the surface of touchscreens, from body armor and other protective clothing to nonstick cookware.

With such a variety of applications, it almost seems silly even to ask how we can protect ourselves from them in fast food packaging, but they do.  "For people who wish to reduce their exposure to these chemicals, they may be able to take some steps ... for instance, by taking the food out of the packaging sooner rather than later.”

Of course standing in most fast food restaurants, it’s easy to observe how little time the food stays in the packaging.  When it comes off the grill or out of the fry basket it goes into the packaging and the cashier generally puts it immediately into the bag and hands it to the customer.  Even if you drive all the way home to eat, the exposure time (to perhaps dangerous chemicals) is probably less than twenty minutes.

People are likely get more exposure from their carpets, touchscreens and nonstick cookware.  But that’s not the point when a journalist can compose scary headlines or a research group can use it as a reason to entice more donors.  Critical thinking, People!

Preying on the Scared and Desperate

Alzheimer's Disease is frequently in the news either promising another advancement toward a cure or presenting another story of heartbreak.  It is dreaded by millions of older Americans, as they see this news or have personal experience of a friend or loved one wasting away.  With so many people so scared, why not take advantage and make some money?  At least that’s the way some thinking goes.

Major news organizations recently carried a story about Prevagen, a highly advertised memory supplement derived from jellyfish protein. “The Federal Trade Commission and New York's attorney general have charged the company with fraud and false advertising.”  The makers sell the pill as a memory booster that can get into the human brain and protect it from deterioration.  The FTC complaint goes on to say that the company “failed to show that Prevagen works better than a placebo for the nine cognitive functions that were tested.”  They further accuse the company of preying on the fears of older consumers to the tune of $165 million.

In the specifics, the FTC charged that claims for clinical proof were invalid.  In the study 218 subjects got either the pill or a placebo.  They failed to find a difference within the whole group.  They then “conducted more than 30 post hoc analyses of the results, looking at data broken down by several variations of smaller subgroups for each of the nine computerized cognitive tasks. This methodology greatly increases the probability that some statistically significant differences would occur by chance alone. Even so, the vast majority of these post hoc comparisons failed to show statistical significance between the treatment and placebo groups.”

The Alzheimer's Association did not comment specifically on Prevagen but noted that to date no product has been proven to help memory.  They went on to express their “serious concerns about people using dietary supplements as an alternative or in addition to physician-prescribed, FDA-approved therapies.”  That’s a pretty clear warning.

Immediately, “the company pushed back hard, insisting its product is safe and calling the FTC a ‘lame-duck’ federal agency with heads who are about to be replaced by the incoming administration.”  But the FTC calls the supplement a hoax.

The resistance on the part of the company is no surprise.  Over 4 years ago the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent them a warning letter about Prevagen.  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gets involved in cases of false advertising and consumer protection, while the FDA gets involved in cases of safety and efficacy of drugs.

That letter said that though they are marketed as a supplement, therapeutic claims “establish that these products are drugs because they are intended for use in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease.”  Plus the company ran clinic trials without making the proper application.  In addition, it cannot be classified as a supplement because the main ingredient no longer comes from jellyfish, but is synthetically produced and is “not a vitamin, mineral, amino acid, herb or other botanical, or dietary substance.”

The company also failed to report complaints of side effects as required by law.  Of more than 1000 adverse events and product complaints they received only two were reported.  “Some of these adverse events resulted in hospitalization.”

This is an important lesson:  Especially the scared and desperate need to exercise high levels of critical thinking and do some research, lest they become easy targets.

But in my own research on this subject, I found that too little research can also be dangerous.

The first entry in Google was labeled as an ad, but the source was Consumer Health Digest and it sounded reliable.  Other articles on the same site gave some good advice and did not appear to be advertising for any particular product.  “The Truth about Weight Loss Supplements,” for example, was responsibly presented.  It included: supplements not being necessary if you have a healthy diet; those to avoid, like detoxes, water pills and laxatives; and what might be beneficial.  It advised to check with your doctor first.

Their “Prevagen Review: How Safe and Effective is this Product?” however was in total conflict with the facts as presented above, calling it “a brain power supplement that has been clinically tested and found to improve health performance of the brain.”  The multiple hospitalizations are not mentioned instead calling it “safe and effective” with “no known information regarding its possible side effects.”  The only major drawback they mentioned was the price. 

Then at the very bottom of the article, an article written by someone without any medical qualifications, they rate Prevagen sixth out of six memory supplements.  And remember the Alzheimer’s Association expressed serious concern about all of them.

So we must be doubly careful, both about the marketers trying to lure us in based on scare tactics and deception, and about the quality of resources used to investigate.

Cats and Dogs

There was a time not too long ago when you or your parents took your favorite pet to the vet only to hear that nothing could be done.  The most humane solution would be to put Rex or Fluffy out of his misery.  This was a sad occasion, and afterward the family would miss the pet terribly.  For weeks or even months it would be hard to think of the missing “part of the family” without sorrow.  Some members recovered faster than others, but later everyone could fondly remember the good times with their beloved pet and perhaps consider getting a replacement. 

The reason this was a common scenario is that pets don’t live that long.  The average life expectancy is 10-12 years for dogs and 10-14 years for cats.  (George Carlin once remarked that you didn’t buy a pet; you bought a future tragedy.)

But times have changed.  The pet as “part of the family” is no longer in quotation marks.  Pet food ads refer to Mom and Dad as the pet’s parents – and many buy into this.  When they make a trip to the vet, the response no longer is, “There is nothing we can do,” but rather “how much do you want to spend?”  Pet owners - wow, these days some would even be offended at the concept of ownership, but I refuse to write pet parents – even must buy health insurance for Rex or Fluffy because, as this news item from CBS tells us,  “Pet care costs can top human medical bills, new report reveals.”

Doctors for your pets now have access to modern technology and methods and use the same diagnostic tools and treatments as medical doctors.  According to one pet insurance company, stomach problems, which are common in pets, can run more than $6,000.  “Growths and lumps can tally upwards of $15,000. Heart surgeries can run as high as $20,000 and monthly medication bills can add up to more than $100.”

“Veterinarians rely on many of the same tools and procedures, including MRI and CT scans, hip and knee surgery, laser surgery, cancer vaccines, flu shots, ultrasound, and alternative medicine techniques such as acupuncture.”  There is even chiropractic for dogs!  In one example a dog diagnosed with intervertebral disc received a CT scan, an MRI and spinal surgery for $44,296.  The highest claim for a cat on that insurance company’s records was over $14,000.

Another pet health insurance company tells us that the biggest health problem with pets in 2017 will be obesity-related issues.  The Association for Pet Obesity Prevention “estimates that more than half the nation’s cats and dogs are overweight.” 

This can lead to serious and costly problems.  The most common is vomiting and diarrhea and other digestive troubles which can usually be treated for about $850.  As in people, being overweight can lead to other ailments (with average costs per insurance records shown):  cancer ($2,033), joint pain or damage ($3,480), arthritis ($966), urinary infections ($590), heart disease ($1,232) and back problems ($2,033).

What advice do they give?  Exactly as for people, counting calories, avoiding unhealthy snacks and getting more exercise can reduce these problems. The dogs and cats, however can’t blame it on the influence of peers, enticing television ads, the evil fast food industry, lack of sidewalks or any of the other creative excuses that their owners (their human companions) come up with.  

This may have something to do with perspective.  Granted, it’s not as outrageous as some people having their dying pets cloned to try to exactly reproduce the same critter.  It’s not as egregious as the example of a family wanting to deny access to a tornado shelter to another family because it would leave their dog outside.  But to treat pets like (or better than) children and to expect the same healthcare standards makes no sense.  Those who did this in the past would have been laughed at if they were rich and pitied if they were not.  True, we all should be free to spend our money as we please, but to spend on pet healthcare or even basic pet care and then expect food and housing assistance or relief from college loans or sympathy when social security doesn’t pay the bills is irresponsible.

Reality is that pets don’t live as long and there is a surplus.  Breeders sell them and shelters practically give them away.  Pets are not the same as people.  Take good care of the pet to avoid obvious health problems. But when it dies or is euthanized, though it’s sad, it’s really not the same as losing a family member.  Get a grip!