Hacking Yourself to Ungullibility, part 2

If you are wondering where part 1 of this blog is, it's not here, because I didn't write it. This entry is following up on Bruce Schneier's recent blog and Security Matters commentary in the March 2008 edition of Wired magazine, titled "Inside the Twisted Mind of a Security Professional." I'm an information security professional by day, so I'm a big fan of Mr. Schneier. He is the epitome of a critical thinker, and while he often writes about complex computer security issues, he also frequently comments on critical thinking for every day situations and every day people. His latest commentary is a perfect example of this, so I highly encourage you to read it. It's short, and it is essentially "part I" of this blog.

So what does the mind of a security professional have to do with increasing your own ungullibleness? If you read Schneier's commentary first, you already know the answer, but I'll summarize. Thinking like a security professional means not accepting things at face value. It means looking at things from a different angle to see how they might be used mischievously, maliciously, or sometimes just differently. As Schneier concludes, "If people can learn how to think outside their narrow focus and see a bigger picture, whether in technology or politics or their everyday lives, they'll be more sophisticated consumers, more skeptical citizens, less gullible people." In other words, to become ungullible, you have to think how you might take advantage of a gullible person. Then you know what to look out for.

Mr. Schneier notes in his commentary that an undergraduate class in Information Security at the University of Washington is trying to teach it's students how to think this way. It doesn't come naturally to most people, so it takes practice. Students are asked to "hack" every day objects and services (GM's OnStar service, traffic lights, etc), and then blog about their results.

To pick up where Mr. Schneier left off, I'm going to ask you to do the same thing, but with more of a focus on gullibility rather than security. Below are some suggested exercises for hacking yourself to ungullibility. Remember, it doesn't come naturally to most people, so practice is necessary. But hopefully you'll also find it fun. And please post back here in the comments with your results!

Exercise #1 - Hack your TV
TV commercials are a great way to practice critical thinking. I often use them as teaching tools with my own children. Instead of shielding them from commercials, I ask them what parts of the commercial they think was true, what parts were exaggerated, and what parts might even be untrue. I also ask them what tricks the advertiser used to make the product more appealing than it really is, or pressure you to "buy now" (before you have a chance to think critically through your purchase decision.) So how about you? Pick out a favorite commercial on TV and pick it apart. Late night infomercials are too easy - so I advise picking a normal product, maybe even one you actually use, to keep it challenging. If you aren't much of a TV watcher, then a magazine ad may suffice. And don't forget to report back here with your findings!

Exercise #2 - Hack your Email
Dig into your email's 'Sent' folder and find the last email that was mass-forwarded to you that you in turn mass-forwarded to others. These "chain letters" often have emotional or political messages, or are intended to warn you about some new threat. But they often are full of misleading, incorrect, or even made up information. For example, following the devastation of hurricane Katrina, a family member once forwarded me such an email that warned people to be careful about where they bought yard mulch because it might come from the thousands of trees that were knocked down in the storm, and could therefore spread the ecologically devastating formosan termite. It was all false, and only served to spread fear (and possibly drive down much sales). Find a chain letter email that you actually forwarded, and now critically analyze it for potentially false information and tricks that it uses to get you to forward it to others. Give yourself extra credit if you NEVER forward such emails, then find the last one you received and analyze it. Reading snopes.com is a good way to learn how to recognize the true from the false emails, but using it to research your answers for this exercise is cheating.

Exercise #3 - Hacking your mind!
This is probably the most challenging exercise, but arguably the most important in becoming ungullible. As I stated in my "Top 5 Concepts for the Ungullible Mind," we are all guilty of deceiving ourselves on a regular basis. Our mind is wired to make many kinds of logical mistakes, and it's capable of tricking itself. That's why placebos work. We complain that we "always get stuck in the slow lane" because we remember the frustrating times better than we remember the times we sped through the fast lane, not because the former is actually more frequent. We take our neighbor's advice for the latest herbal remedy (it worked for her, and her mom!) over the advice of our doctor. We jump on the slightest mistake made by our most hated politicians, yet we all too easily ignore or justify similar gaffs made by politicians on our own "team." We prefer explanations that support our pre-existing beliefs (e.g. "After death experiences prove there is an afterlife") over more mundane alternative explanations (e.g. "Or maybe it's just the effects of a dying brain under immense stress, similar to the euphoria and visions caused by some drugs"). If you truly want to become ungullible, you must learn to be ungullible of even your own mind. Don't trust it too much. Look for independent verifications. So what was the latest or most significant mistake in logic you made?

Please share your answers with the rest of us in the comments below. I plan to do the same, but I've got to think about them first. That last one is really going to be difficult. ;)

If you are interested in reading some of Bruce Schneier's books on national security in a post-9/11 world, information security in the modern world, and email security for the average internet user,then Ungullible recommends the following (respectively)...

Airborne Crashes

Earlier this month, makers of the herbal supplement Airborne agreed to pay $23.3 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over false advertising. The popularity of this supposed cold preventing supplement, with it's "The One Designed By A Teacher" slogan, has been enormous. So who is right? The millions of consumers who swear that it works? Or the legal plaintiffs who claim that it doesn't? And should the average person have been at least a little skeptical of this product without knowing all the complicated science behind it?

Ungullible Clues
Let's start with the last question. Is there anything about the product that should have made the average person at least a little skeptical of it? What questions could you have asked before purchasing Airborne, without needing a scientist to help you answer it?

Clue #1: The Slogan Impresses You? Really?
Airborne's slogan is "The One Made By A Teacher," and a little digging into the Airborne website explains that a 2nd grade elementary school teacher researched and tested several different herbal supplement concoctions, and settled on the Airborne formulation to reduce her exposure to colds in the classroom. No offense to elementary school teachers (my wife is one), but being exposed to hundreds of snotty nosed 7 yr olds every day does not qualify one to research, design, and test cold medications. The fact that the makers of Airborne would highlight the fact that it was designed by an elementary school teacher should be your first clue to begin digging deeper with more questions.

Clue #2: Herbals Are Food, Not Drugs
I know that herbal supplements and other "alternative" medications are quite popular these days, so this clue may generate a fair bit of angry responses, but here's why you should always be at least a little bit skeptical of herbal supplements. Herbal supplements are treated by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) as if they were food, not medicine. What this means is that all they have to prove is that the supplement is safe to ingest. They do NOT have to prove that it is effective as a medication. So making an "herbal supplement" instead of a medicine is a favorite way for manufacturers to avoid the scientific process of proving that their product works, and instead relying on flawed anecdotal experiences to market their product.

Clue #3: Drug Company's Greed Benefits You
So you don't trust the big bad FDA and money grubbing drug companies either? OK - I can understand some of the mistrust in these companies, but sometimes that mistrust is misplaced or overblown. Sometimes the greed of the drug companies does conflict with the consumer's needs, but here's one place I think it benefits us. Drug companies are constantly looking for newer and better drugs to sell you. They have to keep discovering or making new products to survive. So if there was any truth to the claims of these herbal medicines, don't you think that the drug companies would be furiously working to discover, extract, and greedily patent the key medicinal ingredients for sale? Even if they couldn't patent it, it still would be valuable for them to discover the active ingredients because they could then purify and possibly improve upon it, making a drug that was more effective than the herbal source. And being able to call something an "FDA approved medication" would then make the drug far more marketable than it merely being an "herbal supplement." So in this instance we both win - the drug companies get to make more money, and we get better assurances that we aren't buying snake oil. The fact that the big drug companies are largely ignoring herbal supplements is another reason to be skeptical of any medical claims made by them.

Now Let's Dig Deeper
OK - so far we have provided a few clues as to why we should approach this product with a healthy amount of skepticism, but we haven't provided proof (or even a large amount of evidence) that the product doesn't work as claimed. Is there any harm in using it, just in case the product's claims are true? Here's what a little more digging on the internet uncovers:

Answer #1: Real Science
The Psychology Department at the University of Vanderbilt researched and summarized several studies of the main ingredients of Airborne: Vitamin C and echinacea. Their conclusion? There is no evidence that the product prevents colds at all, and the dosage for reducing the duration of a cold is too small to be effective. So at a minimum, the product harms your wallet by wasting your money. While it's true that a healthy immune system helps to fight disease, it seems that maintaining a healthy body and washing your hands frequently prior to a cold, and getting plenty of rest during a cold, would be a far more effective and cheaper method than the use of these herbal supplements.

Answer #2: Bad Science
The study most often cited in support of Airborne was sponsored by the company that makes the product (source). Does that sound like a conflict of interest to you? Do you honestly think they would pay for a test unless they knew they were going to get the results they wanted? Wait... it gets better... The company that performed the tests were later found to not have any scientific facilities, not have any scientists on staff, and not have any doctors on staff. In fact, the company consisted of only two men who started the company for the sole purpose of performing this one test (article). If that doesn't smell fishy to you, then I have some week-old sushi on sale that you might be interested in.

Answer #3: Do No Harm?
One of medicine's main goals is to help, not harm people. We've established in Answer #1 above that this product appears to not prevent nor even reduce the duration of colds. But does it do any harm? The product contains 1gram of vitamin C, and instructs you to take one tablet every 3 hrs at the onset of a cold. Although it's inconclusive, some scientific studies suggest that vitamin C doses this high might contribute to kidney stones and constipation. Also, pregnant women are advised by the product to avoid it's use because it's vitamin A content can lead to birth defects.

Conclusions:

The product has given us many reasons to not trust it. It has changed it's claims over time to avoid regulation under the FDA, it continues to make claims that are not supported by scientific testing, and it has employed the research of fake testing labs to try to lend credibility to it's product. In addition to not benefiting anyone but the manufacturer's wallet, it may also be harmful to some people at higher doses (but still within prescribed limits). I don't know about you, but I'm going to continue washing my hands frequently to prevent the spread of germs, but I'll keep my money in my wallet when it comes to this product.

If you are interested in getting a settlement refund on your Airborne purchases (up to 6 bottles without receipts), visit the official settlement website. If you are interested in learning more about recognizing snake oil medicines and bad science, then Ungullible recommends the following reads...

Top 5 Concepts for the Ungullible Mind

Before critically examining our first topics on gullibility, I want to discuss some basic concepts which form the basis for ungullibleness. If you want to improve your ungullibleness, it is vital that you begin to understand these points, even if you don't initially agree with them.

#1 People are stupid
And, yes, I do mean the all-inclusive "people." You. Me. Einstein. Everyone. Humans are extremely clever when compared with the rest of the animal kingdom. We love to sit back and admire our position atop the intellectual tree. But we aren't as smart as we like to think. We frequently confuse correlation with causation (e.g. I danced. It rained. Therefore rain dancing causes rain.) We allow our emotions to override evidence. We confuse what we want to be as evidence for it being (e.g. "ABC must be true, because otherwise 'bad thing' XYZ would be true."). We have subconscious biases. We become emotionally invested in our beliefs. We hold on with dear life to anything that remotely appears to support these pre-existing beliefs, and we frequently disregard, ignore, or are blinded to anything contrary to them, causing us to become more entrenched in them. We are guilty of so many logical fallacies that philosophers and scientists have had to study and categorized them as a method for recognizing and avoiding them. As a result, we have difficulty changing our mind about our beliefs, even when faced with new evidence to the contrary.
The Main Point: You must learn to not place too much trust in personal experiences, even when its your own or from someone you trust. Be ungullible of even yourself!

Man cannot escape from these traps with his mind alone. He must use a tool that he invented to independently and unemotionally validate (or invalidate) his theories. And that tool is...

#2 Science! Science! Science!
Don't get me wrong - science is not perfect. There are things it can't answer. And it's practitioners are human, and so by definition are individually guilty of the same logical fallacies noted above. But as a tool of understanding, nothing has come as close to providing the results and progress of science. It is the only tool that allows us to overcome the logical traps we so easily and frequently fall into. The Scientific Method works something like this:

1. You have an idea on how something works.
2. You create tests whose results should help confirm or deny your theory.
3. If proven wrong, you modify your theory and start over.
   
4. If test results are favorable to your theory, you publish your theory, test methodology, and test results for other scientists to review.
5. Other scientists try to poke holes in your theory or test methodology.
   
6. The longer your theory stands up to attempts to knock it down, the more respect it gains.
   

Most classroom descriptions of the Scientific Method focus only on steps 1, 2, and 3 above, so many people are unaware of the rest of the process and it's importance. The rest of the process, whereby other scientists participate, is perhaps even more important than the individual scientist's work. Individually, scientists can be either liberal or conservative, religious or not, skeptical or gullible, or anywhere in between. They are guilty of biases and self delusions. But as a collective group, these biases eventually cancel each other out in the peer review process. Science sometimes makes false starts and follows dead ends, but just like the overall long term trend of the stock market is upwards regardless of short term fluctuations, the overall progress of science is towards more "truth" and a better understanding of our world.
The Main Point: Independent cold hard science trumps personal anecdotal evidence. If your personal experience or claim is contrary to current scientific thinking, that's a clear sign that you need to critically examine your experience or logic for possible flaws or a more scientific explanation. Yes, it's always possible that you've found the Next Big Idea that will turn the world of science on it's head, but don't bet on it.

#3 Watch Out For Scientific Doublespeak
Pseudo-science will frequently use scientific sounding words to confuse people and lend an air of sophistication to their claims. They use phrases like "harmonic resonance" and "quantum energy" in ways that sound scientific to the casual observer, but in actuality make absolutely no sense at all.
The Main Point: Learn to recognize this tactic and become more ungullible of the claims when you encounter it. Scientists use big confusing words when speaking to each other because they are already familiar with the jargon. But they rarely do so when communicating with the general public. So when you see such phrases in magazine and newspaper ads, or on the internet, it's time to dial your B.S. detector up a few notches.

#4 Occam was one sharp guy
Occum was a 14th century English logician and Franciscan Friar who is credited with stating that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. If that was confusing, then just remember it as, "All things being equal, the simplest explanation is the best." This rule of thumb (it's not a scientific law) is often called "Occam's Razor" because it so quickly and easily cuts away competing explanations by selecting the simplest of them.
The Main Point: You should almost always take the simpler explanation over the grandiose one. This often means accepting a mundane and boring explanation over a fanciful and attractive one.

#5 Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
The more powerful and/or bizarre your claim, the more likely I am to challenge it, and the more evidence I'm going to require before I accept it. If someone claims something that is contrary to multiple well established ideas, then it's more likely that that the new idea is wrong, rather than the multiple established ideas being wrong. It's not impossible that the new idea is true, but the burden of proof should be proportional to the disruption it will cause.
The Main Point: If it's too good to be true, it probably is. Be more ungullible of ideas that make huge claims. Until the claim can be independently verified (see "Science! Science! Science!" above), assume that the claim is probably false.

I think that mostly covers it, but please let me know if I've missed anything, or if you disagree. If you are interested in reading more about the mistakes in logic that people make, and how to avoid them, Ungullible recommends the following books...

> Hello world! _

Welcome to the inaugural post at ungullible.com. While I'm sure the content and style of ungullible will evolve with time, my hope and goal is to make this an entertaining and informative site about everyday critical thinking. I hope to challenge you to think more critically about your everyday experiences in ways that help you to make better and more informed decisions.

Why "ungullible?"
I consider myself a skeptic, and originally began looking for variations on that word as a site name. But there are a couple of problems with that word: (1) it, and most variations of it are already taken as domain names; but perhaps more importantly (2) it has too many negative connotations. Unfortunately, many people associate skepticism with closed-mindedness and pessimism. I don't agree - I think being skeptical is a good thing. To me, it just means that you look at everything with a critical eye before you accept it. The more amazing someone's claim, the more closely you should scrutinize it before accepting it. In short, it means the opposite of "gullible."

What do you mean by "everyday critical thinking?"
This site will not be about debunking or ridiculing the arch enemies of skeptics such as cults, bigfoot, and alien abductions. Those are easy targets, plus there are already plenty of sites dedicated to them. While I may occasionally touch on these big issues, I want this site to be more about the everyday impacts of uncritical thinking to the average person: products you purchase; medicines and health services you consume; spam and phishing scams you fall for; chain emails you fill your family's and friends' inboxes with; political issues you vote on; etc.

Do I offend?
My intent here is to teach and entertain, not to offend. However, I will inevitably and eventually step on your toes by challenging a closely held belief of yours. No matter how skeptical you already consider yourself to be, we are all gullible about something (yes, even me), and I hope to eventually find and challenge your ideas too. Also, keep in mind that just because I challenge an idea, it doesn't mean that I think it is gullible to believe it. I'm an equal opportunity skeptic and we can't know ahead of time where the questions will lead us. The important thing is not what you believe, but whether or not you ask the right questions and answer them honestly before arriving at your belief.

If you have any thoughts on the direction this blog should take, or suggestions for future topics, please feel free to leave feedback in the comment section below.