Dr. Perle's article on evidence vs. personal opinion.http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=5393

Perle, Stephen M.

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The Danger of TruthinessBy Stephen M. Perle, DC, MSComedian Stephen Colbert, of the TV show "The Colbert Report" coined the word truthiness on Oct. 17, 2005.1  Truthiness, which was the Merriam-Webster word of the year in 2006, is defined as: "Truth thatcomes from the gut, not books," and "The quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true,rather than concepts or facts known to be true."2  I recently read a paper by a chiropractic student regarding the association between vaccinations and autism;the paper concluded that there was no association. I was a bit surprised when I read this paper, as I thoughtthe student would have been the anti-vaccination type. I bumped into the student after reading his paper andwe had a conversation. He told me he didn’t believe any of it. He had decided that all the research wasbiased because it was paid for by drug companies (not true, but his belief). The only evidence this student needed, in his opinion, that vaccines caused autism was anecdotal. Theanecdotes were from the one person he knew whose vaccinated children were autistic and whoseunvaccinated child was not. Yet he denied this was an anecdote. He said this was all the research he neededto know. The student just knew that vaccines cause autism. How did he know? His gut told him. That’s truthiness.I have encountered truthiness before. I had a conversation with a chiropractor about the biomechanicsresearch that shows that the line of drive of an adjustment should be 90 degrees to the skin; otherwise, onejust wastes energy stretching the skin.3,4  The doctor with whom I was speaking said that this research wasinvalid. I asked what was wrong with it and she said she’d never heard of it before and thus never read it.However, she knew it was invalid. I asked how she knew. She said because it just couldn’t be valid. Sheknows how getting the right angle "sets" the vertebra. I posed a hypothetical situation to her. What if researchers at each and every chiropractic college each did20 studies and they all showed that one cannot control the direction the vertebra will move with anadjustment? Her response was that it wouldn’t matter because she still knows it works. This is also pure- 1 -truthiness. Colbert suggested that truthiness is a characteristic of less intelligent or less thoughtful people because onedoes not find the truthiness in a book. The social scientist Jay Stuart Snelson calls the resistance to changeone’s paradigm "ideological immunity." According to Shermer, Snelson noted that ideological immunity isactually found in more intelligent people.5  "Educated, intelligent, and successful adults rarely change theirmost fundamental presuppositions. ... That is, the higher the IQ, the greater the potential for ideologicalimmunity." An example of ideological immunity can be found in a story about Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes.6  Sir Arthur was a believer in spiritualism. He believed in spirits,seances and mediums. Houdini put together an illusion to show Doyle that one cannot necessarily believewhat one sees. The illusion involved Doyle writing something on a piece of paper, but not showing it toanyone. He then selected among a bowl of cork balls. He had previously cut a randomly chosen ball in half,which showed him that the ball was made of nothing but cork. Doyle dipped the cork ball in paint and putthe ball on a slate he had suspended from the ceiling. Without touching it, the ball rolled over the slate tospell out the words that Sir Arthur had written on the paper. Houdini told Doyle that there was nothing supernatural about what had been done. He assured Doyle that itwas done by trickery, which he wouldn’t explain. However, Sir Arthur was positive that Houdiniaccomplished this trick by psychic aid and could not be convinced otherwise. When it came to almostanything, except for spiritualism, Doyle was a well-known skeptic and thinker. However, as Snelsonsuggested, those with higher intelligence may have a greater propensity for ideological immunity and canlose their propensity for thinking critically.7I have previously discussed the ethics of credulity on a practitioner’s part as a violation of their fidelity duty.Patients have faith in us (credat emptor), so they expect that what we tell them is more than just our beliefs. They expect it to actually be true.8  Truthiness can be a violation of one’s veracity duty. Here are two waysthat the student who wrote the paper on vaccines could express his belief that vaccinations are the cause ofautism: 1. Vaccinations are a cause of autism. 2. All the scientific evidence I have read says that vaccinesare not the cause of autism. However, I don’t believe the science. I know in my gut that they are the cause ofautism. Plus, I’ve seen all the data I need in just one family.- 2 -I doubt he would use #2, even though that is the honest answer. The first response is more likely what hewould say. Clearly, that answer is full of truthiness, but not truth.References1.  "The Colbert Report," Oct. 17, 2005. Origin of the word truthiness. 2.  Definition of truthiness. Merriam-Webster dictionary. www.merriam-webster.com/info/06words.htm. 3.  Bereznick DE, Ross JK, McGill SM. The frictional properties at the thoracic skin-fascia interface:implications in spine manipulation. Clin Biomech (Bristol, Avon), 2002 May;17(4):297-303. 4.  Kawchuk GN, Perle SM. The relation between the application angle of spinal manipulative therapy(SMT) and resultant vertebral accelerations in an in situ porcine model. Man Ther; in press. 5.  Shermer M. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions ofOur Time. San Francisco: WH Freeman & Co; 1998, pp. 59-90. 6.  Polidoro M. Houdini’s impossible demonstration. Skeptical Inquirer, 2006;30(4):20-1. 7.  Bensley DA. Why great thinkers sometimes fail to think critically. Skeptical Inquirer,2006;30(4):37-52. 8.  Perle S. "Credat Emptor." Dynamic Chiropractic, 2003;21(1). Click here for previous articles by Stephen M. Perle, DC, MS.Page printed from: http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=53937&no_paginate=true&p_friendly=true&no_b=true- 3 -

The Danger Of Truthiness

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The Danger Of Truthiness

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