Analog Science Fiction and Fact 04/01/11 Read online

  How did this become a horse race? Dustin wondered, but he heard himself say, “Ready,” just as LeTourneau and Helms and Westmoreland said the same.

  “Then let’s get started,” Shelly said. “Go!”

  Dustin clicked on the spreadsheet he and LeTourneau had prepared, then imported the data from the file their assistants had assembled from the sealed treatment records. The spreadsheet’s cells filled with information: patient code numbers, control group numbers, treatment options, and so on. The automated data controls that Dustin had worked on for the last month color-coded the trials and the success versus failure rates, and Dustin could immediately see that the data were not random. There were major clumps of color, indicating that certain tests were much more successful than others. They clearly had a real phenomenon here. The trick would be figuring out what it was.

  “Put the most successful treatments at the top,” LeTourneau said, and Dustin ran the macro that did that. The clumping of the colors became even more evident in some columns. Dustin expected those columns to be the ones in which the patient was given the homeopathic remedy, as opposed to the saline control, but those columns hardly correlated at all. The biggest correlation was with the column labeled “patient confidence.” That wasn’t even one of the major controls; it was just one of the outliers that they had tacked onto the form to help identify the placebo effect in their samples. They expected the standard 30 percent increase in success rate among this group, but what they saw was more like 99. Nearly every positive outcome also had a high patient confidence in homeopathy.

  “Holy shit,” Dustin said when he saw that. “It’s the placebo effect on steroids.”

  “How many of the people who were told they were getting a placebo reported a positive effect?” asked LeTourneau.

  Dustin looked for the color-coding on that variable. Down at the bottom of the chart. “Almost none,” he said. “But look at this: There’s almost no correlation between success and what they actually got. It’s only what they were told that matters.”

  LeTourneau shook his head. “So you were right. All the dilutions and succussion is quackery. It’s the patient’s own belief in the cure that matters.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions here,” Dustin said. “There could be plenty of other interpretations.” But the more they examined the data, the more likely their first impression became.

  “Belief,” said Dustin. “That’s all it comes down to. You’re doing faith healing. And very damned effectively, too, pardon my French.”

  “Faith,” LeTourneau said, a tone of distaste in his voice. “Merde, and pardon my français. I had thought I was doing science. Fringe science, perhaps, but science.”

  “You are! Look at these numbers. Pfizer would kill for correlations as strong as these. It’s just not the kind of science you expected.”

  Dustin heard a commotion from the studio monitor and saw Dr. Helms and Dr. Westmoreland red faced and shouting at one another while Shelly tried to calm them down. He heard her say, “Let’s cut to Doctors Wegner and LeTourneau. How are you two doing in there?”

  “Should we tell her?” whispered LeTourneau? “It will kill any last hope for alternative medicine.”

  “Nonsense,” Dustin said aloud. “It’ll bring it into the mainstream.”

  “Bring what into the mainstream?” Shelly said. Along with her voice came the sound of her guests still bickering. Something banged, like a chair tipping over, but the studio monitor showed only Dustin and LeTourneau. Facing the wrong way.

  Dustin swiveled around on his chair to face the camera and tugged LeTourneau to do the same. “Homeopathy. Naturopathy. Reiki. Hell, probably even voodoo. We’ve got a correlation here that’ll knock your socks off.”

  “Don’t,” LeTourneau said. “Think of your career.”

  “Think of everyone’s,” Dustin countered. “This is revolutionary. When the dust settles, medicine will be light-years beyond where we are today.”

  “What?” Shelly said. “What have you found?”

  Dustin swiveled back and pointed to the screen. “Zoom in on this,” he said to the camera operator in the doorway. “This is nothing short of mind over matter.”

  The headlines read, “Doctor Loses Mind Over Nonsensical Matter” and “Second Opinion: He’s a Quack.” Dustin didn’t care. This was repeatable. This was science. And it blew everything practically everyone thought they knew about medicine right out of the water.

  Trouble was, most people had enough vested in the status quo to dismiss his and Dr. LeTourneau’s findings out of hand. Within seconds of their announcement, Shelly Nguyen’s feuding guests had joined forces to denounce both Dustin and Dr. LeTourneau, accusing them of fraud, chicanery, and general malfeasance, and they were just the tip of the iceberg.

  He and LeTourneau wrote up their results and shopped for a publisher anyway, weathering rejections from the Journal of the American Medical Association, Nature, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Not even The Lancet would take them.

  Shelly Nguyen took pity on them—or simply knew an audience draw when she saw one—and had Dustin back on her show, but Dustin found himself on the other side of the debate now, trying to convince a skeptical mainstream doctor that his data were real while enduring the ad hominem attacks on his integrity and intelligence that he had enjoyed laying on others not so long ago.

  Finally, he had had enough. Interrupting his tormentor in mid tirade, he said, “Do you know what science actually is?”

  “Of course I do,” said Dr. Warren Morgan of the British National Institute for Clinical Excellence. “It’s you who has apparently for gotten.” “What would you do if you had incontrovertible proof that faith healing worked?”

  “You don’t have such proof. That’s what I’ve been—”

  “That’s not what I asked you. I asked what you would do if you had such proof. What would you, as a scientist, do with that data?”

  “That’s a nonsense question. Such data doesn’t exist. It can’t. It—”

  “So you admit you’re so closed-minded that you can’t even speculate on what you would do if you encountered data that conflicted with what you currently believe to be true.”

  “I admit no such thing,” Dr. Morgan spluttered.

  “Then answer the question. If you had proof that faith healing works, what would you do?”

  Dr. Morgan said, “Certainly not what you’re trying. By going public with this poorly designed study of yours, you’re undermining belief in established medicine.”

  “That’s your problem?” Dustin said. “I’m causing people to lose their faith?” He laughed. “So it’s not the act of believing that bothers you; it’s what people believe in?” He pressed ahead over Morgan’s objection. “You would suppress data that conflicts with your world view because it might lead to people losing their faith in the system. You call that science? I’ll show you science.” He turned directly to the camera and held the manuscript for his article out before him. “I’ve got data here that proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that a person’s belief in a cure is what actually cures them up to 99 percent of the time. It doesn’t matter what—”

  “Nonsense!” shouted Morgan.

  “—what you believe in, so long as you actually believe it. I could tell you that holding your hand on your television set while I wave this study in front of the camera will cure your insomnia, and as long as you actually believe it, it will.”

  “You can’t prove that,” Dr. Morgan growled.

  “Ah, but I can. Let’s give it a try. Here’s the deal: I’ll bet you a thousand bucks that at least 80 percent of the people who try this tonight will call this show tomorrow and report having a good night’s sleep. I’d claim 99, except some poor misguided souls are going to believe you rather than me. But I’ve got the real science right here, and I’m betting that the public is quicker to accept the truth than any number of supposed scientists who stick their heads in the sand at the first sign of data t
hey don’t like.”

  Shelly said, “You’re going to perform a faith healing? Right here? Right now?”

  “Why not? I believe it’ll work. The data says it will. And I’m betting enough people out there believe it’ll work too. I could potentially help more people tonight than I’ve cured in my entire medical career.”

  Dr. Morgan snorted. “That might not be something to brag about.”

  “We’ll see who’s bragging in the morning,” said Dustin. “So here’s the deal,” he said to the camera and the millions of people watching through it. “If you suffer from insomnia, then get up and come to the television set. If you can’t get up, then reach out to it. I’m going to wave this manuscript three times in the air, and because you believe it’s going to work—because a scientifically designed double-blind study says it will work—your insomnia will be cured.”

  “This is ridiculous!” Dr. Morgan said.

  “This is the future of medicine,” Dustin shot back. “Adapt or admit you’re a dinosaur. Ready? Hands on your televisions! Reach out to the power of science! On the count of three. One . . . two . . . three!” He waved his manuscript up and down. “Your insomnia is gone. Now go to bed and have a good night’s sleep and call me in the morning to tell me how well it worked.”

  He heard a soft rustle to his side and looked over just in time to see Shelly slip downward in her chair, her head lolling to the side. Both he and Dr. Morgan leaped toward her to steady her before she hit her head on the arm of her chair. Had she had a stroke? A heart attack? Years of training helped Dustin assess her condition in a few short seconds, and he realized she was fine. She had simply fallen asleep.

  “Well, doctor,” he said to Morgan. “What more proof do you need?”

  Dr. Morgan looked at Shelly, who began to snore. Then at the manuscript in Dustin’s hand. “I think,” he said, “I’d like to have a closer look at your data.”

  Copyright © 2011 Jerry Oltion

  Previous Article SCIENCE FACT

  SCIENCE FACT

  Smart Seti

  Gregory and James Benford

  2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the first Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, SETI. With no detections in the near-zone search—we’ve scanned some 500 stars within a few hundred...

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  SHORT STORIES PROBABILITY ZERO

  SCIENCE FACT

  Smart Seti

  Gregory and James Benford

  2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the first Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, SETI. With no detections in the near-zone search—we’ve scanned some 500 stars within a few hundred light-years—it’s time to rethink the problem.

  While the total SETI listening time is only about a month spread over those 50 years, the silence is striking. Apparently, we don’t have neighbors who want to talk. Or have we missed something in our assumptions?

  We decided to study the underlying conventional wisdom behind the search.

  The traditional, targeted SETI strategy has much to recommend it. The background noise minimum in the “water hole” region near 1 GHz seemed plausible, as did the assumption that the altruistic radiator would beam forth steady, targeted signals of very narrow bandwidth, to make detection easy.

  But we looked at SETI from the viewpoint of those who would pay the bill—and found very different conclusions than traditional SETI. Traditional SETI research takes the point of view of receivers, not transmitters. This ignores what signals should look like in general, and especially ignores the high emitting costs, which a receiver does not pay. We assumed, like conventional SETI, that microwaves are simpler for planetary societies, since they can easily outshine their star in microwaves.

  Broadcasting is expensive. Some appear to believe that beacons—that is, signals detectable beyond 1,000 light-years (ly)—can be cheap. Our analysis says otherwise. With the very lowest priced technology we have today, beacons that can stand out above the background noise cost $200,000 per light-year. A more likely cost is at least ten times that. So a 1,000-ly beacon will cost $200 million to more than $2 billion. Even hailing Alpha Centauri would cost close to a million dollars. None of the small groups who have sent brief signals to the stars have paid this price, and their messages will not be heard beyond a few light-years.

  Motivations

  Why, given such costs, should anyone bother?

  All search strategies must assume something about the beacon builder. SETI has assumed a high-minded search for other life forms. But other motives are possible.

  What could drive a beacon builder? Human history suggests two major categories of long-term messages that finite, mortal beings send across vast time scales:

  • Kilroy Was Here: These can be signatures verging on graffiti. Names chiseled into walls have survived from ancient times. More recently, we sent compact disks on interplanetary probes, often bearing people’s names and short messages that can endure for millennia.

  • High Church: These are designed for durability, to convey the culture’s highest achievements. The essential message is This was the best we did; remember it.

  A society that is stable over thousands of years may invest resources in either of these paths. The human prospect has advanced enormously in only a few centuries; the lifespan in the advanced societies has risen by 50% in each of the last two centuries. Living longer, we contemplate grander legacies. Time capsules and ever-proliferating monuments testify to our urge to leave behind tributes or works in concrete ways (sometimes literally). Marvin Minsky argues that the urge to propagate culture quite probably will be a universal aspect of intelligent, technological, mortal species.

  Thinking broadly, high-power transmitters might be built for a wide variety of goals other than two-way communication driven by curiosity. For example:

  • The Funeral Pyre: A civilization near the end of its life announces its existence.

  • Ozymandias: Here the motivation is sheer pride. The beacon announces the existence of a high civilization, even though it may be extinct, and the beacon tended by robots. This recalls the classic Percy Bysshe Shelly lines,

  And on the pedestal these words appear:

  ‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

  Look on my works, Ye Mighty, and despair!’

  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

  of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

  The lone and level sands stretch far away.

  • Help! Quite possibly societies that plan over time scales on the order of 1,000 years will foresee physical problems and wish to discover if others have surmounted them. An example is a civilization whose star is warming (as ours is), which may wish to move their planet outward with gravitational tugs. Many others are possible.

  • Leakage Radiation: These are unintentional, much like objects left accidentally in ancient sites and uncovered long after. They do carry messages, even if inadvertent: technological fingerprints. These can be not merely radio and television broadcasts radiating isotropically, which are fairly weak, but deep space radar and beaming of energy over solar-system distances. This includes “industrial” spaceship launchers, beam-driven sails, “planetary defense” radars scanning for killer asteroids, and cosmic power beaming driving interstellar starships with beams of lasers, millimeter or microwaves.

  • Join Us: Religion may be commonplace in the galaxy; after all, it is here. Seeking converts is common, too, and electromagnetic preaching fits a frequent meme.

  Thrifty Aliens

  Our grandfather used to puff on his corncob pipe and say, “Talk is cheap, but whisky costs money.” In SETI, even talk (broadcasting) is not cheap.

  So is cost/benefit analysis arguably universal?

  Whatever the life form, evolution selects for economy of resources. Social species evolve to an equilibrium in which each species unconsciously carries out “environmental coordination,” which can follow rules like those of a market, especially among plants. Economics
will matter.

  A SETI broadcaster will face competing claims on resources, some from direct economic competition. Beaming will be essentially altruistic, since replies will take centuries if not millennia. SETI need not tax an advanced society’s resources. The power demands are for average powers less than a GW, far less than the 17 TW we use globally. Still, setting up a beaming complex will cost a lot, judged by our mature microwave technology.

  We can’t assume aliens will be infinitely rich, either. Do the rich of our world spend money on interstellar broadcasts? After all, receiving is cheaper and you gain more real information. So far, attempts have been few and weak.

  But even altruistic beacon builders will have to contend with other competing altruistic causes, just as humans do. Only by minimizing cost/benefit will their effort succeed. This is parsimony, meaning “less is better,” a concept of frugality, economy. Philosophers use this term for Occam’s Razor, but here we mean the press of economic demands in any society that contemplates long-term projects like SETI.

  Note that parsimony directly contradicts the Altruistic Alien Argument that the beacon builders will be vastly wealthy and make everything easy for us. An omnidirectional beacon, radiating at the entire galactic plane, for example, would have to be enormously powerful and expensive, and so not be parsimonious. (We estimate one would cost nearly the total output of Earth for a year. Good luck asking the United Nations for that.)