It’s fun to run into such a wonderful example of pure pseudoscience. Let’s deconstruct this one: Field Effects of Consciousness and Reduction in U.S. Urban Murder Rates: Evaluation of a Prospective Quasi-Experiment. This study comes from the Maharishi University of Management.

The idea here (which, let’s be clear, is a tenet of religious faith, not a scientific theory) is that consciousness is a field, and that there is a universal field of consciousness of which we are all a part. When individuals engage in transcendental meditation (TM) they are not only affecting their own consciousness, they are affecting the entire field.

The point of this and other similar TM studies is to confirm the belief (they are not testing the belief) that if enough people put good vibrations into the universal field of consciousness, society in general will benefit. How many is enough? Well apparently they have an answer for that. It is the square root of 1% of the population. Why? Because math.

That is such an excellent example of pseudoscience, having the trappings of science without the real essence of science. Look, they use numbers and everything. Apparently there isn’t a dose-response effect, there is a threshold effect, and once you get over the magic threshold the effect kicks in. That threshold has a simple mathematical formula, the square root of 1%. There is no established theoretical reason for this, but it sounds nice, having more in common with a magic ritual than a scientific process.

This is what they claim to have done with the experiment: The tracked the murder rate in the 206 largest US cities where FBI murder statistics were available. They then compared the baseline period from 2002-2006 with the intervention period from a 2007-2010. The intervention period was when the, “Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi group exceeded 1,725 participants beginning in January 2007.” So they claim that murder rates were increasing and then when participant #1725 (because 1724 was not enough) signed up, the rate started to drop.

What is really funny is the blatant frequentist nonsense they spout in the press release. They claim:

“They calculated that the probability that the reduced trend in murder rates could simply be due to chance was 1 in 10 million million.”

So they think the probability that the murder rate declined from 2007 to 2010 was one in a trillion. Right.

This study screams p-hacking and assuming causation from correlation. The authors should take a look at spurious correlations website. There are countless trends in any variable you want to look at in society, and you can find countless correlations if you look. That does not mean there is a causal relationship.

If you look at the FBI statistics there has been a general downward trend in homicides since 1991 (hey, maybe vaccines are decreasing homicides). Like all long term trends, there are likely to be ups and downs over shorter periods. The trend leveled off a bit in the early 2000’s and then resumed the previous downward trend.

There is no consensus on what is causing this downward trend in crime and homicides in the last 25 years. No one societal factor explains the trend. That is why it is also laughable that the study authors claim that no other factor explains the drop in homicides during their study period, as if this lends support to their TM hypothesis.

This study, and other similar studies touted by the authors, is entirely worthless. They are simply taking credit for general trends in society. TM has been around since the 1950s, and became popular in the US in the 1970’s. Despite TM’s popularity, the 1970s was the beginning of a two decade historic increase in crime and murder rates. They should take credit for that also.

It’s interesting that the authors call their study a “quasi-experiment” which is a sort-of admission that it is not a real experiment. There is no real control. They cannot control for how many people are using TM at any time (so how do they know their magic 1,725 figure is reliable). This is like prayer studies – how do you know people who are not part of the study aren’t praying for the subject?

Also, how do they define “society.” Does Canada count? Does the universal consciousness field obey political boundaries. Should they include the population of Canada in their square root of 1% calculation, or include Canadian crime statistics (which did not follow the same trend)? What about Mexico – does language matter? Perhaps they can use east and west of the Mississippi as a control. Or can they go state by state?

That’s the problem with studying magic. There are no real rules. This raises p-hacking to a new level, because you can arbitrarily make up whatever variables or thresholds you want. Essentially all they are doing in this and the other studies they tout is cherry picking favorable trends.

They then do useless frequentist statistics to make it seem “statistically significant,” but they are crunching the numbers as if this were a clean experiment and not just looking at societal trends. The numbers ultimately mean nothing because there is no real control group.

Applying numbers to magic does not make it science.

A reader writes:

I have a situation that is so out there I almost wouldn’t believe it if it wasn’t happening to me. The company I work at has three branches and around 100 employees. The owner of the company has a brother who needs a liver transplant. Two weeks ago, a company-wide memo went out that all employees would be required to undergo testing to see if they were a suitable liver donor for the owners brother. No exceptions.

Last week at the branch the owner works out of most of the time, his assistant went around to schedule days off for everyone so they could go get tested. People who declined were let go. One of these people was born with liver disease and therefore ineligible to donate. She had a doctor’s note. Other people also had medical reasons as well and some were just uncomfortable with the request and didn’t want to do it. One was pregnant. They were still terminated. My employer’s assistant has said that because our employment is at will, he can legally fire us.

I’m in remission from cancer. I’m ineligible to donate and any kind of surgery would put a major strain on my system. Even if I was healthy, I would still object to possibly being forced into donating an organ just to keep my job. Soon they will be scheduling people’s days off for testing at my branch.

I know this situation is nuts, but I don’t know what to do. I know I could just go for the testing and then be declined, but I don’t think I should have to do that. I’ve had enough with hospitals. Other coworkers who don’t have medical conditions are afraid they won’t be declined because they will be a match. I’m looking for another job but in the meantime I don’t know what to do and I and many of my coworkers are really stressed out.

What the actual F.

He’s firing people who don’t want to sign up to donate part of their liver?

Your boss is both an absolute loon and an incredible jerk.

He’s also not very smart, since doctors won’t accept organ donations from people who aren’t willingly and happily volunteering, so all of this ridiculousness will be for nothing.

But let’s talk legality. I showed your letter to employment attorney Bryan Cavanaugh and asked him to weigh in. He says:

This employer is violating the Americans with Disability Act (ADA). The ADA’s purpose is broader than just protecting individuals with disabilities from unlawful discrimination and requiring employers to offer individuals with disabilities reasonable accommodations to perform the essential functions of their jobs. The ADA also prohibits employers from requiring employees to submit to medical examinations and medical inquiries, unless those medical examinations and medical inquiries are job-related and consistent with business necessity.

In this case, the employer’s requirement to undergo a medical examination (and presumably to undergo further medical procedures if the employee is a good match) has nothing to do with the business. It has nothing to do with the operations of the company and the employees’ ability to perform their jobs. Therefore, the employer is violating the federal ADA (and probably other state and local laws) by requiring employees to undergo this testing (which is not job-related and not consistent with business necessity) and by terminating the employment of those who refuse.

So to our ongoing list of your boss’s characteristics, which currently includes loon, jerk, and not smart, you can add law-breaker.

As for what to do, you could have a lawyer explain this to your employer on your behalf, and/or file a complaint with the EEOC, the federal agency that enforces the ADA. (Note that you have to file it within 180 days from the violation.)

But I’d also start job searching. Even if this gets quickly settled, you’re working with someone who has such a skewed idea of the employment relationship that he thinks he has say over your internal organs. Get out get out get out.

Note: This situation is so outrageous that it occurred to me to wonder whether the letter is real or not. At this point, I’ve received so many credible stories of outrageous behavior by employers that I’m willing to believe it and I’m treating it as genuine (and the letter-writer included a note to me outside the letter here that makes me think it’s real), but the reality is that I have no way of knowing. Letter-writer, assuming you are real, take this as a measure of how messed up the situation is. Commenters, I’m requesting that we not get derailed by debates about veracity. Thanks!

our boss will fire us if we don’t sign up to be a liver donor for his brother was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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