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These studies are always funny. So what this is trying to tell us is: Volunteering boosts your health, while the data only provides us with "volunteers are gene

These studies are always funny. So what this is trying to tell us is: Volunteering boosts your health, while the data only provides us with "volunteers are generally in better health". Now this study "tried" to adjust to that by some filtering, but this is still a pretty big leap. Essentially what they would need to do is this: Have one group of people who "actively" is kind to people, i.e. they actually act on their desired. Then compare the results to a control group who "wants" to be kind to people, ideally has a proven track record of being kind to people, but are not allowed to act on that during the duration of study. Then of course they also need to still be as satisfied and happy as before, otherwise they turn into a biased control group. Then if there are no differences, and compared to another control group of "normal" humans, there is a statistically significant improvement in health, then and only then, they may be on to something... Otherwise this is just another case of survivor bias. This is all just pointless. At least here it's for a good cause, but I always am amazed by what kind of conclusions people derive from the well established: Causation implies correlation... Erm, NOT.

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
I started counting the number of qualifying words, even in the linked studies, and then just gave up. Is human behavior truly so opaque that experiments cannot be designed that conclusively determine specific causation?
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  Designing the experiments is easy. Designing experiments anyone would want to participate in is tricky… and then you get volunteer selection effects.
- __MatrixMan__ 6y ago
  When faced with a choice between: - causality is less widely applicable than we like to think - our behavior is more complex than we like to think I'm more inclined to doubt causality. Not that it's not a useful framework in general, but that is less useful when applied by humans to humans regarding human constructs like kindness.
  - morlockabove 6y ago
    What does that even mean? What's the difference between A and B? I assume You don't think a spirit comes down and mediates inter-human interactions- they're not beyond physics- but rather that they're "beyond causality" as in 'normal' models don't have as much predictive power as you'd hope? But if it's that, then I don't see a practical difference between both choices.
    - __MatrixMan__ 6y ago
      You're correct. I'm not proposing some kind of spooky process that can't be described in terms of causation. But I am proposing that we should have some skepticism when importing an explanatory style that has worked well in physics and expecting it to perform equally well everywhere. I think we're likely to make mistakes of this sort: If a cat's head appears from behind the couch, and then later its tail becomes visible--you wouldn't say that the cat's head caused the cat's tail--they're just different parts of the same phenomenon. We're familiar with cats, so we don't make this exact mistake, but I think that we are quite susceptible to misapplying causation to things that we don't understand well, like happiness. Years ago I had this idea that many of our ideas about causation are flawed in this way. So I developed a habit of taking a causal claim that seems true, flipping the arrow around, and then testing the mutated hypothesis--just to see if it worked backwards. I was surprised by how often it did. I don't have the data to convince you that the habit of mistrusting my instincts about causation and using "deep down, it probably goes both ways" as a heuristic has caused me to reap benefits that I would have otherwise ignored, but I suspect it strongly enough that I plan to keep doing it. So the difference between the alternative perspectives is that if you're skeptical about the universal utility of causal nitpicking, you'll learn to recognize when you're wasting your time trying to prove that the laws of physics demand whatever you've noticed. You'll bail sooner on perspectives that don't work, and you'll be more creative about finding new ones. On the other hand, if you demand a certain style of causal argument, you're more likely to double down against the opacity of human behavior to other humans. You'll design experiments and write articles that inspire further nitpicking about which is a cause and which is an effect, and the matter will remain in stasis--perhaps indefinitely--where its capacity to positively affect people's heath is limited. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to uncover underlying mechanisms when we can. When that's in cards it's pretty great. I'm just saying that we shouldn't always expect results of that sort to be within reach, and that reasoning from correlation alone can get us further than we tend to let it.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  One cannot possibly design proper controls with human behavior. Even in pharmaceutics, confounding variables are already common place that led to a considerable replication crisis, with human behavior it would be even more impossible to control for every variable, and measure only what one wants to measure. A very simple problem with such a design which would perhaps indicate that human beings that are not allowed to be kind would be less happy is simply that human beings become unhappy when they are told what to do, not necessarily anything related to kindness; it's certainly not implausible. And the fundamental problem remains that a man cannot be compelled to participate in any study, and that alone is a selection bias that cannot be overcome — studies thus select upon the kind of person who have the time and willingness to participate in them.
go13 6y ago
journalists that received their degree in social science and other similar fields probably never heard of causation/correlation principle and with no principle like this in their mind they can passionately promote whatever social justice agenda they have. (and im not against helping others or being kind. Im against nonsense in social columns on mainstream media like bbc)
- bumby 6y ago
  Social sciences do seem to have a reasonable background in statistics and experiment design based on those I’ve known. What makes you conclude they wouldn’t know the causation/correlation principle?
  - will_pseudonym 6y ago
    The gigantic replication crisis in social science and medicine for a start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - bumby 6y ago
      This is a very good point. But it makes me wonder how much is innate to the topic. If physics has as many confounding variables, I’m wondering if there would be equal difficulty in reproducibility
anordin95 6y ago
I agree that some of the examples are a bit fluffy, but later in the article, they mention a much stronger study! They cite an example of high school students being split into a control and treatment group for tutoring students with a clearly observable output based on biological data.
- tyu2 6y ago
  It's "strong" in that you can see some effect in blood of people tutoring vs people waiting. But that's about it, you can't draw other conclusions from it. It says absolutely nothing about volunteering, health, being kind, etc.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
onlyreply 6y ago
amen nigga

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

I started counting the number of qualifying words, even in the linked studies, and then just gave up. Is human behavior truly so opaque that experiments cannot be designed that conclusively determine specific causation?

wizzwizz4 6y ago
Designing the experiments is easy. Designing experiments anyone would want to participate in is tricky… and then you get volunteer selection effects.
__MatrixMan__ 6y ago
When faced with a choice between: - causality is less widely applicable than we like to think - our behavior is more complex than we like to think I'm more inclined to doubt causality. Not that it's not a useful framework in general, but that is less useful when applied by humans to humans regarding human constructs like kindness.
- morlockabove 6y ago
  What does that even mean? What's the difference between A and B? I assume You don't think a spirit comes down and mediates inter-human interactions- they're not beyond physics- but rather that they're "beyond causality" as in 'normal' models don't have as much predictive power as you'd hope? But if it's that, then I don't see a practical difference between both choices.
  - __MatrixMan__ 6y ago
    You're correct. I'm not proposing some kind of spooky process that can't be described in terms of causation. But I am proposing that we should have some skepticism when importing an explanatory style that has worked well in physics and expecting it to perform equally well everywhere. I think we're likely to make mistakes of this sort: If a cat's head appears from behind the couch, and then later its tail becomes visible--you wouldn't say that the cat's head caused the cat's tail--they're just different parts of the same phenomenon. We're familiar with cats, so we don't make this exact mistake, but I think that we are quite susceptible to misapplying causation to things that we don't understand well, like happiness. Years ago I had this idea that many of our ideas about causation are flawed in this way. So I developed a habit of taking a causal claim that seems true, flipping the arrow around, and then testing the mutated hypothesis--just to see if it worked backwards. I was surprised by how often it did. I don't have the data to convince you that the habit of mistrusting my instincts about causation and using "deep down, it probably goes both ways" as a heuristic has caused me to reap benefits that I would have otherwise ignored, but I suspect it strongly enough that I plan to keep doing it. So the difference between the alternative perspectives is that if you're skeptical about the universal utility of causal nitpicking, you'll learn to recognize when you're wasting your time trying to prove that the laws of physics demand whatever you've noticed. You'll bail sooner on perspectives that don't work, and you'll be more creative about finding new ones. On the other hand, if you demand a certain style of causal argument, you're more likely to double down against the opacity of human behavior to other humans. You'll design experiments and write articles that inspire further nitpicking about which is a cause and which is an effect, and the matter will remain in stasis--perhaps indefinitely--where its capacity to positively affect people's heath is limited. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to uncover underlying mechanisms when we can. When that's in cards it's pretty great. I'm just saying that we shouldn't always expect results of that sort to be within reach, and that reasoning from correlation alone can get us further than we tend to let it.
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
One cannot possibly design proper controls with human behavior. Even in pharmaceutics, confounding variables are already common place that led to a considerable replication crisis, with human behavior it would be even more impossible to control for every variable, and measure only what one wants to measure. A very simple problem with such a design which would perhaps indicate that human beings that are not allowed to be kind would be less happy is simply that human beings become unhappy when they are told what to do, not necessarily anything related to kindness; it's certainly not implausible. And the fundamental problem remains that a man cannot be compelled to participate in any study, and that alone is a selection bias that cannot be overcome — studies thus select upon the kind of person who have the time and willingness to participate in them.

go13 6y ago

journalists that received their degree in social science and other similar fields probably never heard of causation/correlation principle and with no principle like this in their mind they can passionately promote whatever social justice agenda they have. (and im not against helping others or being kind. Im against nonsense in social columns on mainstream media like bbc)

bumby 6y ago
Social sciences do seem to have a reasonable background in statistics and experiment design based on those I’ve known. What makes you conclude they wouldn’t know the causation/correlation principle?
- will_pseudonym 6y ago
  The gigantic replication crisis in social science and medicine for a start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bumby 6y ago
    This is a very good point. But it makes me wonder how much is innate to the topic. If physics has as many confounding variables, I’m wondering if there would be equal difficulty in reproducibility

anordin95 6y ago

I agree that some of the examples are a bit fluffy, but later in the article, they mention a much stronger study! They cite an example of high school students being split into a control and treatment group for tutoring students with a clearly observable output based on biological data.

tyu2 6y ago
It's "strong" in that you can see some effect in blood of people tutoring vs people waiting. But that's about it, you can't draw other conclusions from it. It says absolutely nothing about volunteering, health, being kind, etc.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

onlyreply 6y ago

amen nigga