Challenging Preconceptions

Maybe it's the result of being the youngest of seven kids, but for some reason I like finding out I'm wrong. Luckily I'm given the opportunity on a fairly regular basis, although thankfully now that I'm an adult, this is no longer accompanied by "atomic wedgies".

I'm used to actively reexamining some things, taking a proactive approach to maintaining intellectual health. But it's a lot harder to challenge preconceived notions that are so ingrained you don't even know you have them. You can't be proactive if you don't even know there's something there to be acted on.

For some reason, though, this last week gave me three separate chances to reexamine such deep-rooted ideas, in three different fields of inquiry. I'm not sure what to make of them, but I feel like I unearthed little treasures of self-knowledge here, and I wonder where they'll lead me.

The Quality of American Health Care

I've always taken it for granted that America has the best health care anywhere in the world, bar none, GO USA!! I tend to be patriotic and naturally assume that we're the best at pretty much everything. This article by Ezra Klein at the very leftist "American Prospect", however, made me rethink that by looking at the national health care systems offered in four other countries. Each system pays at most half of what America does for health coverage, and yet the service is at least as good (and in some cases better). I guess I always knew we paid more, but I just assumed that we were getting much, much more than they were. Now I'm not so sure.

Anorexia and Calorie Restricted diets (CR)

Lab experiments in mice seem to show that if you reduce your calorie intake (to as little as 2/3 of what's generally accepted as healthy), you can extend your healthy lifespan by up to half. That means you could, potentially, live to be 150 in reasonable health. Sounds great, right? That's what I thought, and I did some research into the concept, which now has some 2,000 adherents around the country. But then I read this article on Slate, asking the very sensible question "But how is this different than anorexia, which everyone says is a disease?". It made me take a real step back to reconsider the entire notion, not just of CR but of how we classify behaviors and conditions. I also was forced to realize just how much "framing" -- how an issue is put to you -- influences how I react to it ("Anorexia BAD, but Calorie Restriction GOOD!").

The Superiority of the Human Mind

Everyone knows that some animals are better at certain things than humans are -- leopards run faster, birds can fly, fish swim better, elephants are stronger, etc. But I alway assumed (without even realizing I was assuming) that humans were unquestionably at the top of the mental abilities ladder. I never thought an animal would prove to be better at any aspect of cognition than a human is -- but I was wrong. According to this article by John Noble Wilford, chimpanzees are clearly better at immediate memory tasks than people are:

Tetsuro Matsuzawa, a Kyoto primatologist, described a young chimp watching as numbers 1 through 9 flashed on the computer screen at random positions. Then the numbers disappeared in no more than a second. White squares remained where the numbers had been. The chimp casually but swiftly pressed the squares, calling back the numbers in ascending order — 1, 2, 3, etc.

The test was repeated several times, with the numbers and squares in different places. The chimp, which had months of training accompanied by promised food rewards, almost never failed to remember where the numbers had been. The video included scenes of a human failing the test, seldom recalling more than one or two numbers, if any.

“Humans can’t do it,” Dr. Matsuzawa said. “Chimpanzees are superior to humans in this task.”

Dr. Matsuzawa suggested that early human species “lost the immediate memory and, in return, learned symbolization, the language skills.”

“I call this the trade-off theory,” he continued. “If you want a capability like better immediate memory, you have to lose some other capability.”

So there you have it, three items in the last week that have challenged my preconceived notions and shown me once again how dangerous it is to think we have all the answers, even when we're just sure we do.