Anecdotes as evidence.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Aronson JK
PROVIDER: S-EPMC1126236 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Jun
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description: Not available
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Project description:Beginning in the late 1980s, Eric Davidson's group at Cal Tech developed a modularity hypothesis of developmental gene regulation, showing that in an expanding number of cases, particular aspects of development were governed by compact 'modules' of transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs), and that these modules were separable, complex and interconnected. Davidson made no attempt to further generalize the hypothesis, but others took up the idea, transported it out of development and extended it to a general rule of clustering. Despite such misbegotten origins, the 'extended' modularity hypothesis--that TFBSs in general tend to come in compact clusters--has been highly productive, yet it has never been challenged with a large, diverse and unbiased dataset to see how universal it actually is. The aim of the present paper is to do so. Applying human-mouse-rat phylogenetic footprinting to neighbourhoods of a diverse set of TFBSs, including both developmental and non-developmental signals, we find that the extended hypothesis holds in at least 93.5% of cases. Based on this particular sample, we found a mean module length of 609 nucleotides containing, on an average, 24.5 presumptive regulatory signals of length greater than 5 and averaging 8.5 nucleotides each.
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Project description:Dogs that have a vocabulary of object labels (Gifted Word Learner dogs-GWL dogs) have great potential as a comparative model for studying a variety of cognitive mechanisms. However, only a handful of studies, with a small sample size of 1 or 2 dogs, have examined this phenomenon. GWL dogs appear to share many of the same distinctive characteristics, but due to their rarity, it is not clear if these similarities are only anecdotal or indeed reflect characteristics that are similar in these rare individuals. Here we present the first study conducted on a relatively large sample of 41 GWL dogs that were recruited and tested using a citizen science model. After testing the dogs' receptive vocabulary of toy names, we asked the owners to complete a questionnaire about their and their dog's life experiences. Our findings highlight several characteristics that are shared among most GWL dogs, such as their learning speed, their large vocabulary, and that they learned the names of the toys spontaneously, without the explicit intent of their owners. Our findings validate previous anecdotal evidence on common characteristics of GWL dogs and supply additional support to the hypothesis that these dogs represent a unique group of dogs.
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Project description:BackgroundDespite an increasing body of research highlighting their efficacy to treat a broad range of medical conditions, psychedelic drugs remain a controversial issue among the public and politicians, tainted by previous stigmatisation and perceptions of risk and danger.ObjectiveThis narrative review examines the evidence for potential harms of the classic psychedelics by separating anecdotes and misinformation from systematic research.MethodsTaking a high-level perspective, we address both psychological and psychiatric risks, such as abuse liability and potential for dependence, as well as medical harms, including toxicity and overdose. We explore the evidence base for these adverse effects to elucidate which of these harms are based largely on anecdotes versus those that stand up to current scientific scrutiny.ResultsOur review shows that medical risks are often minimal, and that many - albeit not all - of the persistent negative perceptions of psychological risks are unsupported by the currently available scientific evidence, with the majority of reported adverse effects not being observed in a regulated and/or medical context.ConclusionsThis highlights the importance for clinicians and therapists to keep to the highest safety and ethical standards. It is imperative not to be overzealous and to ensure balanced media reporting to avoid future controversies, so that much needed research can continue.
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Project description:The invasive Spanish slug (Arion vulgaris) is an important pest species in agriculture and horticulture in Europe. In the last decades it has spread across the continent where it outcompetes native slug and snail species, thus posing a threat for biodiversity. A popular anecdote suggests to promote Roman snails (Helix pomatia) in gardens because they are able to control A. vulgaris. We examined a potential interrelationship between these two species using a mesocosm experiment with lettuce plants. 13C-15N stable isotope labelling of lettuce allowed us to investigate interactions between Helix and Arion on weight gain/loss and herbivory. Additionally, we wanted to know whether different watering regimes (daily vs. every 3rd day watering of weekly amount) and earthworms alter these interactions. Egg predation of Helix on Arion eggs was further tested in a food-choice experiment. Arion showed a five times higher herbivory per body mass than Helix in a single-species setting. However, in mesocosms containing both species percentage of herbivory per body mass was significantly lower than in Arion-only mesocosms, especially when watered every three days. Overall isotope uptake via eaten lettuce was unaffected by the presence of the other species. Only very little predation (three out of 200 eggs) of Helix on Arion eggs was observed. Our results provide no evidence for a clear dismissal or confirmation of the popular gardener's anecdote that Helix snails have a negative effect on Arion abundance or herbivory.
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Project description:BackgroundEcosystem modeling applied to fisheries remains hampered by a lack of local information. Fishers' knowledge could fill this gap, improving participation in and the management of fisheries.MethodologyThe same fishing area was modeled using two approaches: based on fishers' knowledge and based on scientific information. For the former, the data was collected by interviews through the Delphi methodology, and for the latter, the data was gathered from the literature. Agreement between the attributes generated by the fishers' knowledge model and scientific model is discussed and explored, aiming to improve data availability, the ecosystem model, and fisheries management.Principal findingsThe ecosystem attributes produced from the fishers' knowledge model were consistent with the ecosystem attributes produced by the scientific model, and elaborated using only the scientific data from literature.Conclusions/significanceThis study provides evidence that fishers' knowledge may suitably complement scientific data, and may improve the modeling tools for the research and management of fisheries.
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Project description:People are inundated with popular press reports about medical research concerning what is healthy, get advice from doctors, and hear personal anecdotes. How do people integrate conflicting anecdotal and statistical information when making medical decisions? In four experiments (N = 4126), we tested how people use conflicting information to judge the efficacy of artificial and real medical treatments. Participants read an anecdote from someone in a clinical trial, or who had undergone a medical treatment previously, for whom the medical treatment was ineffective. We found that reading anecdotes for either artificial or real medical treatments shifted participants' beliefs about the efficacy of a medical treatment. We observed this result even when the anecdote was uninformative, was paired with an icon array, or when participants were provided with thorough medical decision aids about reproductive health procedures. Our findings highlight the pervasive effect of anecdotes on medical decision making.
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Project description:Expertise in science, particularly in animal behaviour, may provide people with the capacity to provide better judgments in contrast to lay people. Here we explore whether experts provide a more objective, accurate and coherent evaluation of a recently reported anecdote on Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica) "tool use" (recorded on video) which was published in a major scientific journal but was received with some scepticism. We relied on citizen science and developed a questionnaire to measure whether experts in ethology and ornithology and lay people agree or disagree on (1) the description of the actions that they observe (the bird takes a stick in its beak), (2) the possible goal of the action (nest-building or grooming) and (3) the intentional component of the action (the bird took the stick into its beak in order to scratch itself). We hypothesised that contrary to the lay people, experts are more critical evaluators that is they are more inclined to report alternative actions, like nest building, or are less likely to attributing goal-directedness to the action in the absence of evidence. In contrast, lay people may be more prone to anthropomorphise utilising a teleological and intentional stance. Alternatively, all three groups of subjects may rely on anthropomorphism at similar levels and prior expertise does not play a significant role. We found that no major differences among the evaluators. At the group levels, respondents were relatively uncertain with regard to the action of the bird seen on the video but they showed some individual consistency with regard to the description of the action. Thus, we conclude that paradoxically, with regard to the task our experts are typically not experts in the strict sense of the definition, and suggest that anecdotal reports should not be used to argue about mental processes.
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