The New York Times just finished a five part series called Preventing Cancer. In it, they review some common assumptions that people have about the causes of cancer and means of preventing it. Each of the five articles deals with a different potential cause. I’ve summarized the articles here, but I encourage you to read the articles. They help illustrate why epidemiology research can be so difficult, and why it’s necessary to look at medical discoveries carefully.

Part 1: Diet
The article focuses on the effects of fiber and reports that there is little—almost no—evidence to support the idea that a proper diet can help prevent cancer. A good diet won’t hurt, however, and does help prevent conditions like heart disease.

Part 2: Exercise
Again, there is little evidence that exercise can help prevent cancer. There is some evidence, however, suggesting it might be beneficial in colon and breast cancer. As with following a healthful diet, exercise has other benefits that make it worth doing anyway.

Part 3: Stress
Stress doesn’t appear to influence the development of cancer either. This article does talk about some new research suggesting that cancer tricks the immune system into leaving it alone.

Part 4: Toxins in the Environment
Once more, a connection that seem like common sense is difficult to find.

Part 5: Genes
The study of cancer genetics actually has led to advances in the treatment of cancer, if not its prevention. The result is that cancer may become a disease that a person lives with (and for which a person consumes pills) for years. The situation is likened to that of AIDS nowadays.

I wish they could have expanded on the cancer genetics, but given space constraints and the interests of most readers, I understand why they didn’t. I suspect that I’ll make that a topic of personal study later on.

This post refers to:

Kolata, Gina. “Which of These Foods Will Stop Cancer? (Not So Fast).” New York Times. September 27, 2005.

Kolata, Gina. “But Will It Stop Cancer?” New York Times. November 1, 2005.

Kolata, Gina. “Is There a Link Between Stress and Cancer?” New York Times. November 29, 2005.

Kolata, Gina. “Environment and Cancer: The Links Are Elusive.” New York Times. December 13, 2005.

Kolata, Gina. “Slowly, Cancer Genes Tender Their Secrets.” New York Times. December 27, 2005.

A well-educated person has more tools at her disposal, and in an increasingly complex world of stem cells and Medicare reform, an application can probably be found for every one of those tools. Education is often the key to employment, especially well-paying employment.

Society benefits from an educated citizenry as well because of the readily available supply of workers to fulfill important roles. Otherwise, we might need to import educated people. In addition, those well-paid people pay more in taxes.

Given the importance of education, it’s understandable that people want to assess the health of learning in the United States. There have been several educational assessments performed recently.

One assessment, whose results were published at the end of November, found that there were large discrepancies between scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal test required by No Child Left Behind, and the scores from tests that individual states use to measure progress. States are judged based on how students perform on the state tests, not the national one. Unfortunately this means that instead of raising their educational standards, some states apparently lowered them.

Another assessment, this time of state science curriculum standards, was conducted by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (not affiliated with Fordham University). They assessed the science curriculum standards in 49 states (Iowa doesn’t publish science standards) and Washington DC. The most commonly awarded grade was an F, and Kansas had the distinction of earning an F-.

The Fordham Institute report is long, but if you have the time, I suggest reading it. In skimming it, I found it to be written with a fair amount of humor. If you lack the time to do so, I’ve presented the grades received by some of the states that I believe will be of interest to the Two-Penny Words audience.

Arizona: B
California: A
Massachusetts: A
New York: A
Pennsylvania: C
Vermont: C

The report also looks at the change in science curriculum standards over time. It points out that while standards have improved in some states and worsened in others, the overall picture has stayed the same. Unfortunately, that’s not good news, since many other nations have improved their science standards, and now outperform the United States in other international assessments.

The report also points to a threat that I hadn’t considered before: “discovery learning.” Discovery learning starts from the admirable principle that students should discover scientific concepts for themselves. The problem is that many ideas are too complex for this type of learning and that there is simply too much material to cover for this to be applied in more than small doses.

I also found two of the recommendations made in the report to be worth noting. The report calls for more involvement of bench scientists and better editing of science textbooks and other learning materials. I hope that the recommendation for better editing will be noted by science writers as both an admonishment and a rallying call.

The final assessment I’d like to discuss is the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, which is conducted by the US Department of Education. The last assessment was carried out in 2003 and involved nearly 20,000 adults (defined as people of age 16 or older). The study noted improvements in literacy for Blacks and Asian Americans, but a decline in literacy for Hispanics.

To me, the most disturbing finding of the study, however, was that when stratified by education level the percentage of people considered “proficient” decreased for most education levels. The study defined proficiency as the ability to read and understand complex texts and draw inferences from them. These complex texts permeate everyday life and range from mortgages to Medical forms.

The three assessments discussed here paint a grim picture of American education. Still, I believe there is hope for the American mind, provided that we do not succumb to complacency.

This post refers to:

Dillon, Sam. “Literacy Falls for Graduates From College, Testing Finds.” New York Times. December 16, 2005.

Dillon, Sam. “Students Ace State Tests, but Earn D’s From U.S.” New York Times. November 26, 2005.

Janofsky, Michael. “Report Says States Aim Low in Science Classes.” New York Times. December 8, 2005.

Kutner, Mark, Elizabeth Greenberg, and Justin Baer. 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL): A First Look at the Literacy of America’s Adults in the 21st Century. National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, 2005.

Gross PR, Goodenough U, Haack S, Lerner LS, Schwartz M, Schwartz R, et al. The State of State Science Standards. Washington, D.C.: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2005 Dec.

A few days ago, I found this op-ed piece about evolution and intelligent design. The column is called Common Ground, and it is written by Bob Beckelis and Cal Thomas. Thomas is a conservative, Beckelis a liberal, and the column is about their attempts to see eye to eye.

Bringing together liberals and conservatives is an admirable goal, but on this issue my overall impression is that these guys don’t know what they’re talking about. There are a number of points in this editorial that bother me in this column and which I hope to address eventually, but for now I’ll start with a brief foray into science history.

Thomas, the conservative, points to four great scientists who didn’t believe in evolution: Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Johannes Kepler and Galileo. He writes:

And what about some of the greatest names in science — men like Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Johannes Kepler and Galileo? Charles Darwin was a devout Christian as a young man, but his religious views — like his scientific ones — “evolved” as he got older. By the time he wrote The Origin of Species, he was as good a practical secularist as any non-believer. Was the later Darwin smarter than the combined wisdom of those scientists who believed the universe did not come into existence by chance but had a creator behind it?

All four of these men were indeed great. What Beckelis and Thomas don’t tell the reader is that three of these men (Kepler, Galileo, and Newton) died at least 80 years before Darwin was born and 100 years before he embarked on the voyage that led him to formulate his theory of evolution.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was a German mathematician. He is best known for his three laws of planetary motion. Kepler’s first law of planetary motion is that the planets’ orbits are ellipses, rather than intricate combinations of circles, which were considered a perfect shape therefore believed to be the basis for the geometry of the heavens. Kepler also showed that the sun is at one of the two foci (singular: focus) of these ellipses.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) is known for many achievements. His most famous is perhaps the observation that both heavy and light objects fall at the same speed. He was also the first to describe the force of friction and inertia. His observations of space using some of the earliest telescopes showed that the Milky Way consisted of stars, the moon had mountains, the sun had spots, and Jupiter had moons.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is best known for the inverse square law which describes how gravity works and for his three laws of motion. He also demonstrated that any object that had mass exerted a gravitational pull. Thus, while the earth was pulling on his famous apple, Newton deduced that the apple was also pulling on the earth. In addition, Newton is the inventor of calculus.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) is considered the father of modern evolutionary theory. In 1831, over a century after Newton’s death, he embarked on his voyage around the world aboard the H.M.S. Beagle. His voyage lasted five years, and by the end of it, Darwin was arguably one of the most well-travelled men in history. The specimens that he had sent back to England at various points during the voyage had earned him a reputation as a respected naturalist. His first book, The Origin of Species wasn’t published, however, until 20 years after his return. He spent those years observing the natural world and refining his theory of evolution.

The century between Newton’s Death and Darwin’s voyage was marked by many scientific discoveries, many of which would influence Darwin’s ideas on evolution. In 1735, Carolus Linnaeus published a system of scientific nomenclature that is still in use today. Linnaeus was the first to classify humans in the same family as the great apes. However, his system was meant for identification and description rather than studying the relationships between species.

Darwin wasn’t the first proponent of evolution. Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck were also early evolutionists. Lamarck published his thoughts on evolution and other matters in 1809, the year of Darwin’s birth.

Comparative embryology, the study of embryos of different species, also began prior to Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle. In 1826, the mammalian egg was discovered by Karl von Baer. von Baer described the initial development of vertebrate embryos, showing that they all started development from a mass of apparently homogeneous cells and went through similar initial forms.

Darwin’s work was also influenced by the observations of two geologists: William Smith and Charles Lyell. Both Smith and Lyell studied geological stratification and the fossils accompanying these strata. Their work was instrumental in showing that the earth had to be far older than the few thousand years suggested by Biblical accounts. This meant that the earth was old enough to have allowed for the gradual evolution suggested by Darwin. (It was shown much later that evolution does not always happen gradually.)

The point of this trip through history is that scientists do not work in a vacuum. They are influenced by the ideas of others, evaluating and re-evaluating these ideas as new evidence is collected. When Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, he had had over 130 years worth of evidence that Newton, Galileo, and Kepler didn’t have, as well as the benefit of an extensive tour of the globe.

This post refers to:

Thomas, Cal and Beckelis, Bob. ‘Intelligent design’: What do scientists fear? USA Today. November 30, 2005. Accessed online December 1, 2005.

Tallack, Peter. The Science Book. Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 2004.

Johannes Kepler: His Life, His Laws and Times. Accessed December 7, 2005.

The Galileo Project. Accessed December 7, 2005.

Isaac Newton’s Life. Accessed December 7, 2005.

Darwin, Charles Robert. MSN Encarta. Accessed December 7, 2005.

The Darwin exhibit. American Museum of Natural History. New York, New York. Exhibit runs from November 19, 2005 to May 29, 2006. Visited on November 22, 2005.

Erasmus Darwin. Accessed December 7, 2005.

Zoological Philosophy.. Accessed December 7, 2005

Developmental Similarities: Karl von Baer. Accessed December 7, 2005

William Smith. Accessed December 7, 2005.

Charles Lyell. Accessed December 7, 2005.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised by what is presented in the curriculum of Christian schools, but I always am. This article provides some wonderful examples.

However, I’m glad we now know that Thomas Jefferson was the anti-Christ. Perhaps this will convince people that there’s a possibility the Founding Fathers didn’t intend for the laws of the United States to be based on the Bible.

This post refers to:

Vinciguerra, Thomas. “Here’s the Problem With Emily Dickinson.” New York Times. Nov. 27, 2005.

These days it seems like a lot more people are taking medications for a variety of ailments. Patients are supposed to be informed by their doctors and pharmacists about the risks of these drugs. Technology has made it easier for health care professionals to do so, but it is still common for patients to not receive much needed information.

In addition, although safety information is available in the package inserts that are included with drugs, they often aren’t read because it can be so difficult. They are often several pages long and in very small fonts. The information consumers want is also often buried among a lot of other information.

Even commonly used drugs that people might think of as safe still have risks that can be serious and should be known about. A recent New York Times article, talked about the dangers associated with acetaminophen. The drug is sold in several over the counter and prescription products, including Tylenol, Nyquil, and many narcotic-containing products. When taken in high doses, acetaminophen can cause serious liver damage, but infrequent use at the recommended dose is not harmful to most people.

In many cases, the danger comes not from the drug itself but from the way it interacts with other drugs or foods. Grapefruit and grapefruit juice, for example, have dangerous interactions with several medications, many of which are prescribed quite commonly. It’s important to always be cautious with everything you put in your body.

One of the sites I frequently use to check the safety information on a product is rxlist.com. The site contains the text and other information in package inserts, but the information is organized so it’s easy to find what you’re interested in. Near the top are tabs that provide information about dosing, side effects, and warnings. The text is presented in a font size is readable, and can be scaled up or down by the web browsing software. The drug search function is also “fuzzy,” meaning that you don’t need to know the exact spelling to find what you’re looking for. It’s best to be wary, however, because some drugs do have similar names that can be confusing.

This post refers to:

Franklin, Deborah. “Poisonings From a Popular Pain Reliever Are Rising.” New York Times. November 29, 2005.