Pseudoscience & Pseudohistory in the Martial Arts

Pseudoscience and the martial arts have enjoyed a long history together. Traditional martial arts are full of tales and mythology from Qi/Chi to incredible feats of prowess. Even modern martial arts have their fair share of myths concerning effectiveness and tactics. There seems to be something about the martial arts that just attracts pseudoscience and, unfortunately, many of its practitioners do not think critically about the claims being made.

Qi/Chi has been looked at in a lot of places (like Bad Martial Arts) and all I want to say here is that Chi cannot be measured, contradicts everything that we know about the natural world and can easily be explained by other, natural, explanations. To use Occam's Razor: what is the simpler explanation? That magic exists and people 2,500 years ago discovered its secrets? Or, that 2,500 years ago people found that by training and concentrating they could do stuff that other people couldn't?

I've also noticed that this acceptance of mystical energies also opens the door for alternative medicine which is also rampant in the martial arts. Many people think that acupuncture, for example, is the flip side of martial arts and can be used for healing. Despite zero evidence supporting the effectiveness of acupuncture (among many other studies) for healing, many martial artists think that because a pressure point can cause tremendous pain when hit a certain way, that they can harness these "energies" for good. This is particularly rife in the Oriental martial arts where many masters are involved in Traditional Chinese Medicine or some other kind of alternative medicine. Calls for evidence and trials seem to fall on deaf ears. Pointing sham acupuncture and other controlled trials doesn't seem to garner much interest either. It's almost as if the Orient does not need evidence to substantiate its claims.

The laws of the natural world apply as much to the dojo/training hall as they do outside.

Pseudohistory is another thing that the martial arts suffer from a great deal. Hapkido, Bujinkan and Daito Ryu are examples of having controversy in their lineage. We will probably never know for certain about the true origins of these arts. A lot of this stuff happened a long time ago when people weren't so keen on writing things down. Also, many things were transmitted as part of an oral tradition, thus making verification extremely difficult. On the other hand, how much does it really matter? Modern martial arts are not immune from this either: the origins of Sambo are unclear, was it Oschepkov or Spiridnov? Imi Lichtenfield was clearly the origin of Krav Maga, but who runs it now, is it the IKMF, Commando Krav Maga, Tactical Krav Maga? I think that it's important to keep in mind that the lineage of a particular art is secondary to the quality of the training. Gauging the quality of training is something very personal and which will depend on the goals that you have for training. But if you can't ask questions or ask for evidence, then you're probably in the wrong place. The bios of the indivudual instructors are also very important, as they will be giving you your regular instruction, not Ueshiba Morihei or Carlos Gracie. Are they interested in the same sorts of things that you are interested in? Do they train regularly with their own masters?

So, for example, this is good, this is not so good.

Pertussis antivax vs. MMR antivax

I recently started looking at the "Pertussis vaccination causing epilepsy/brain damage" scare story in the 1970s. It is really striking how similar it is to the current MMR antivax lunacy and I think that it's instructive to look at the parallels between it and the current unpleasantness. They were both kicked off by a single report, Wakefield et al., 1998 in the MMR case and Kulenkampff et al., 1974 in the Pertussis case, which was subsequently picked up and reported as gospel truth by an overly credulous media. To quote a WHO report from 1986:

In 1974, one report received massive public and professional attention. It is interesting to speculate about the reasons underlying this response. Newspapers and television were prepared to challenge official views and emphasized disagreement between experts. The low level of disease, and therefore the poor memory of its effects may have made the late 1970s the right time to question immunization.

and:

Much more confusing has been the rapid emergence of spurious, mythical contraindications. These are not written down but have become part of an orally transmitted set of beliefs amount the community providers of immunization.

Unfortunately epilepsy is one of those contraindications. The debate appears to have been kicked off by a Wakefield-like report (Kulenkampff et al., 1974). The NCES (National Childhood Encephalopathy Study) follow-up study showed that there was little or no correlation between brain-damage (epilepsy, encephalopathy etc.) and the whooping cough vaccine. The brain-damage reported was typically caused by other means. However, it seems that this long-term study was not as widely reported in the media as the original Kulenkampff report. Following on from this Shorvon et al., 2008 in Epilepsia reported:

Large-scale studies of this issue have produced conflicting results, although the recent consensus is that the risk of vaccine-induced encephalopathy and/or epilepsy, if it exists at all, is extremely low.

The large-scale studies which did show some link (typically very tenuous) have subsequently been disproved by further research. Also, this almost negligible chance of some probably unrelated brain-damage pales into insignificance compared to the risks of widespread lack of immunization which can result in death or severe brain-damage in babies. Germany & Sweden stopped their immunization programs due to the health-scare, but had to start them up again when Pertussis epidemics struck. In the US, they had the same problem, despite all the research showing that there is little or no risk. A retrospective in the New York Times said:

Unfortunately, because of the sensationalistic media, the organization of a group of parents who attribute their children's illnesses and deaths to the pertussis vaccine, and the unique destructive force of personal injury lawyers, we now have a national problem that shouldn't be.

I think that that quote sums up who is responsible for misleading the public quite well. It's exactly the same as the MMR hoax being perpetuated at the moment. This, naturally, not an unusual opinion. An article published in Vaccine 2003 reached a very similar conclusion:

Public backlash against this (pertussis) vaccine not only took place earlier in Britain than the United States, but also was so widespread that a series of whooping cough epidemics soon followed. As with the more recent dispute involving measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, the United Kingdom played a primary role in defining, promoting, and ultimately exporting this controversy. This essay seeks to explain this phenomenon by situating it in Britain's long history of suspicion regarding vaccines evident among both the public and the medical profession, a theme dating back to the compulsory vaccination laws of the 19th century. It argues that anti-vaccinationism, far from being simply a new development related to the public's lack of awareness of childhood vaccine-preventable illness, actually represents a revival of a much older movement.

MMR wasn't the first vaccine to come under fire, and it looks like it won't be the last.