Skeptoid 4: Astronauts, Aliens, and Ape-Men

by Brian Dunning

  Logically, the argument in favor of going barefoot — both for everyday locomotion and for athletes — is a compelling one. It is a fact that that’s how our feet evolved to work. Record setting runners like Zola Budd and Abebe Bikila have proven that barefooters are perfectly capable of competing at the highest levels of the sport, no shoes needed. A friend of mine visited Africa and brought back pictures of the feet of some guy who never wore shoes his whole life. They didn’t much look like human feet, more like great big thick gray leather pads. He could probably walk on any kind of surface at any temperature without the slightest inconvenience. And forget worrying about arch support; he had no discernible arches. If you don’t mind looking like a hobbit, his way of life might not be so bad. Go anywhere, anytime, with no concerns and no stability problems. After all, that’s exactly how the overwhelming majority of Homo sapiens have lived their entire lives, throughout our entire 500,000 year history, and how some do still today.

  There are quite a few web sites advocating the barefoot way of life (like Barefooters.org and RunningBarefoot.org). Most of the benefits they tout have to do with freedom, comfort, and the carefree lifestyle. But they also cite some health benefits. One 1949 study published in The Journal of the National Association of Chiropodists found that bare feet avoid most risks of foot fungus. Over 100 Chinese rickshaw coolies were interviewed, all of whom trotted all day every day on hard pavement pulling a rickshaw with bare feet, and aside from some temporary pain and swelling when they began their careers, none reported any foot problems. The study concluded “Shoes are not necessary for healthy feet and are the cause of most foot troubles,” though it does appear that this conclusion is probably premature, based on this data alone. Ill-fitting and restrictive footgear was claimed to be particularly at fault, but since modern Nikes are not best described as “ill-fitting and restrictive”, it may be hard to translate the 1949 conclusion to today’s runners.

  The principal medical claim put forward by the barefoot proponents is that wearing shoes weakens the muscles in your foot, through disuse. While this sounds like it should be obviously true, it does not appear to have been thoroughly studied or proven. And there’s a good argument that the opposite might be true. When you wear a shoe with a sole of average thickness, around 22mm, the lateral leverage angle on your ankle is significantly increased, which, logically, should make it more prone to injury; and requires greater strength in the muscles and tendons that stabilize the ankle to compensate.

  A search of the literature reveals that most researchers complain of a lack of good studies comparing injury incidence between barefoot runners and shod runners, so it’s premature to make any kind of authoritative statement that either barefoot running, or running shoes, help prevent injuries. If you hear this claim made by either side, that claim is not yet supported by a good body of research. But what has been established pretty clearly is that running barefoot keeps you more up on your toes, closer to the stride of animals, while shoes let you strike harder with your heel. This means (and nobody really disputes this) that shoes make you run in an unnatural way; or at least with a stride that’s notably different from that which our ancestors evolved.

  This heel-to-toe stride encouraged by shoes does appear to be correlated with pronation, but the link is not necessarily causal. It’s easy to imagine how constant landing on the heel could cause cumulative stretching of the ligaments and eventually ally roll the foot inward toward the arch. However, whether this cause exists or not, it’s not clear that such pronation is a problem. There doesn’t seem to be any proven correlation between pronation and injury incidence. But the claim that feet are weakened by frequent shoe wearing are everywhere, and are easily believed, since it sounds so logical.

  In response, shoe manufacturers have been quietly entering the arena, making less shoe-like shoes. The Vibram FiveFingers is basically a glove for your foot, providing little more than a thin sole to protect you from sharp objects. Vibram says “Stimulating the muscles in your feet and lower legs will not only make you stronger and healthier, it improves your balance, agility and proprioception.”

  The Vivo Barefoot is slightly more conventional looking but has no rigid structure and only a thin puncture-proof sole. The benefits Vivo claims for going barefoot is that it “Strengthens the muscles in your feet; realigns your natural posture; feeling the ground stimulates sensory perception; and flexes your feet as nature designed.”

  All of these claims, I think, have to be regarded as marketing messages. They are not the result of proven research. They sound satisfyingly logical, and some of them may well be true; but at this point, we don’t know that they are. Yes, we did evolve wearing bare feet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best thing to do.

  That evolution has made us into bipeds that walk and run barefoot across the savannah is not a perfect argument that we’re well adapted to do so. There are many examples in nature of creatures that evolved detrimental traits. The giraffe’s laryngeal nerve runs all the way down its neck into its chest, loops around its aorta, then runs all the way back up to its larynx; making it absurdly long and prone to many types of failure. The Irish elk developed antlers so large that the energy required to grow them exceeded the available food sources and the species became extinct. The mating ritual of the Kakapo flightless parrot is more likely to attract a predator than a mate. The retinas in all vertebrate eyeballs are inside out, creating an unnecessary blind spot. The list goes on forever. The point is that evolution does not create perfectly adapted creatures; it creates adequate creatures.

  The human body too is full of evolved points of failure, and we’ve learned to fix many of them. If shoes do indeed improve our ability to walk, they would be just one of many examples where we’ve used medical science to improve our bodies’ inherent weaknesses. Our appendix doesn’t seem to serve much purpose except to potentially kill us, so we’ve developed the appendectomy. Wisdom teeth try to force too many teeth into too small of a jaw, so we routinely remove them. Nearly everyone has bad eyes, so we correct our vision. Orthopedically, our knees’ lateral retinaculum exacerbates many knee problems, so some modern knee surgeries include a routine severing of this structure.

  There is other anatomical evidence that the human transition to bipedality is not a very complete one. Walking upright has left human females with a pelvis that, relative to other primates, doesn’t allow much room for the birth canal. This makes giving birth more dangerous for humans than it is for the great apes that knuckle walk. And then there’s this strange foot we have. While nearly every other animal on the planet walks on its fingers and toes, we lay one additional segment down and walk on our ankles, and even crawl on our wrists as babies. Trading one joint for extra surface area was fine for gripping tree branches, but it makes little sense for walking on flat ground. Among other things, it leaves us with one fewer joint to absorb twists, making us more prone to ankle and knee injuries.

  So is there a clear, science-based verdict on the barefoot issue? From my research, I conclude that the jury is out; but any benefit that may be found by either wearing shoes or going barefoot is likely to be small, and to differ widely among different people, based on their habits and their anatomy. The most interesting revelation, for me, was that barefoot running does indeed appear to be a perfectly viable option for both athletes and casual joggers. The only real risk is puncture injury, which you can solve by either developing feet like that African guy, or by getting some of those barefoot-wannabe shoes. Once you get past some initial pain and swelling, similar to what the rickshaw coolies went through, you’re probably no more or less likely to develop any significant injuries than if you were to wear shoes.

  Zola Budd, by the way, is long retired but still runs tens miles per day in her native South Africa. But things have changed for her. “I no longer run barefoot,” she told the UK Guardian in 2005. “As I got older I had injuries to my hamstring. I found that wearing shoes gives me more support and protection from i
njuries.” But hers is only one data point, and is anecdotal. We just need a few thousand controlled data points before science can make such a declaration.

  REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

  Editors. “Barefoot Running FAQs.” Vibram FiveFingers. Vibram USA, 1 Jan. 2010. Web. 25 May. 2011.

  Harmon, K. “Running barefoot is better, researchers find.” Scientific American Observations. Scientific American, 27 Jan. 2010. Web. 2 Feb. 2010.

 

  Kerrigan, D., Franz, J., Keenan, G., Dicharry, J., Croce, U., Wilder, R. “The Effect of Running Shoes on Lower Extremity Joint Torques.” Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. 1 Dec. 2009, Volume 1, Issue 12: 1058-1063.

  Moen, R., Pastor, J., Cohen, Y. “Antler growth and extinction of Irish elk.” Evolutionary Ecology Research. 1 Feb. 1999, Volume 1, Number 2: 235–249.

  Olshansky J., Carnes B., Butler R. “If humans were built to last.” Scientific American. 1 Mar. 2001, Volume 284, Number 3: 50-55.

  Ridley, M. Evolution. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004. 282.

  9. EMERGENCY HANDBOOK: WHAT tO DO WHEN A FRIEND LOVES WOO

  How you can help a friend or loved one with a potentially harmful pseudoscientific belief

  It’s the #1 most common question I get: My wife, my friend, my mom, my boss, is investing their health or their money in some magical or fraudulent product/scheme/belief. What can I do about it?

  This is a tough situation to be in. Whether it’s a loved one who’s ill and is being taken advantage of by a charlatan selling a magical cure with no hope of treating the illness, or a friend who’s out of work and is going into deeper debt to buy into a hopeless multilevel marketing plan, it’s really hard to watch. The hardest is when they have a real problem and are expending their limited resources trying to solve it with a medieval, magic-based system that you know can’t possibly help. But all too often, they think it’s helping. Cognitive biases, anecdotal thinking, placebo effects and cognitive dissonance combine to build a powerful illusion that our brains are hardwired to believe in. At some point, it falls to a caring friend to try and rescue them with a candle of reason.

  You’re up against a foe who’s far more formidable than you might think. This isn’t like settling a bet with a friend where you can look up the answer on Wikipedia, see who’s right, then buy each other a beer. You’re going after someone’s religion. You’re setting out to talk someone out of believing something that they know to be true, for a fact, from their personal experience. That right there makes your task nearly impossible, but it’s worse. Their belief has spiritual underpinnings that make it deeply moral and virtuous. Imagine if someone came to you and flashed a magazine article that said it’s best to turn your children out into the street and never talk to them again. It’s not only unconvincing, it’s laughable. Your effort to talk someone out of their belief in their sacred cow is likely to be just as laughable.

  So what should you do, give up? You may be surprised to hear it from me, but I advise you to do just that, in many cases. Know which battles to fight. Weigh the risks. Consider the context of your friend’s belief: Is he in imminent danger of harming himself or others? Probably not; and if not, this may not be the time to take what might be your only shot. So I want to make this a rule: Before you decide what to do, consider the risks and the context. How terrible are the consequences of your friend’s belief? Think that through comprehensively. Make sure you have a good understanding of the risks to your friend if you do nothing, and the risks to your relationship if you attack their beliefs and (in all probability) fail to convince them. It may well be that this first strategy I’m going to present is the safest.

  STRATEGY #1: DO NOTHING

  Doing nothing now doesn’t mean giving up. When you choose not to confront your friend’s current weird belief, there’s still an effective strategy for helping him out that you can follow. By accepting and tolerating your friend’s weird belief, you’re actually setting yourself up to be in a position of great influence the next time something weird comes down the line. Your friend likely knows that you’re a skeptical person, and eventually he’ll recognize that you’ve been putting up with his weird belief and saying nothing. In fact he may someday ask you, “Hey, you know I believe in this weird thing, how come Mr. Cynical Skeptic has never tried to talk me out of it?”

  Ask “Is it important to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re important to me.”

  Think what a powerful message that sends. It may sound corny, but it’s a statement that your friend will always remember. You’ve just communicated that your friendship is more important than your “evil debunking hobby”. You’ve made it clear, unequivocally, that you don’t want such differences to come between you.

  And now look at the position you’re in. You’re trusted. You’re an ally at the most important and fundamental level. This is exactly where you need to be if you want to be influential on someone. You can now begin to introduce critical thinking using topics that are more about exploration than confrontation, and this is a journey you should take together. Next time you’re in the car together, play a few Skeptoid podcast episodes. Play episodes like The Baigong Pipes, Is He Real or Is He Fictional, The Missing Cosmonauts, and When People Talk Backwards. Topics such as these do not attack or challenge anyone, they instill an appreciation and a passion for the value of critical thinking. Once introduced, I find that most people want more.

  Gather every bit of skeptical material you can find that you know will interest your friend, and that does not attack or challenge his belief. So long as you remain a trustworthy friend and not an irrational adversary, you’re in a position to introduce him to the fundamentals of critical thinking, and to the value and tangible rewards of reality. Don’t underestimate the value of seeds that are well planted in a good environment. If your friend comes around on his own, his growth is far more complete than any that’s forced upon him.

  Always remember the story of the little boy who couldn’t get his pet turtle to come out of his shell. He tried to pull on its head, he shook it, he squirted water, he did everything he could think of. But the turtle wouldn’t come out. Then his grandfather took the turtle and placed it on the warm hearth, and within a minute the turtle was out of his shell. The little boy never forgot that lesson.

  STRATEGY #2: THE INTERVENTION

  Sometimes the situation is urgent and you don’t have time to do things the easy way. There might be a medical crisis, an emotional crisis, or a financial crisis, and an immediate intervention is needed. Sometimes a friend’s situation is dire enough that helping him is worth the loss of the personal relationship. In these cases, and probably only in these cases, would I suggest a confrontational approach. And to do this effectively, draw on the established principals of the counseling intervention.

  First you want to gather a group of friends or family, and you need to meet with them separately. Try to get a group, but even if there are only two of you, it’s worlds better than just you by yourself. Your next task is to present your evidence to the group that the magical system your friend is relying on is pseudoscientific and cannot help him. Do not expect them to accept what you say at face value, and do expect that some of them might buy into the magical system as well. Be prepared. Show your work. Print out pages from the web. Use the Science Based Medicine blog, use Skeptoid, use Quackwatch, use Swift. Search the best sources and have all your ducks in a row. The most important thing you need to do at this stage is to be certain that everyone in the group is united in their understanding of the useless, pseudoscientific nature of the magical sacred cow.

  Tell the group why you’re concerned about your friend and why the help is urgently needed. Be prepared to explain why you feel an intervention is warranted. And this is important: Don’t merely be prepared to show that the magical sacred cow is u
seless, you must also have an alternative path — one that is proven to provide the kind of help needed — to suggest to your friend. Make sure everyone’s in agreement that an intervention is warranted, and that a better alternative path is needed. If they’re not, only invite those who are to proceed.

  The main criticism of counseling interventions is that they are ambushes. Not only is it just plain wrong to ambush someone, it creates the practical problem of putting your friend on the defensive. So I don’t propose making it an ambush. My recommendation, which you may or may not choose to follow, is to call your friend up and say “Hey, Jim-Bob and Bubba and Sally-Sue and I want to come over and talk to you about your cancer,” or your new business, or your psychic friend, or whatever the problem is.

  Now, of course, conducting the intervention is up to you. I feel that trusted friends who can speak knowledgeably about the subject carry more weight than showing the printed-out articles from the web, but leave them for your friend to read. Anyway, it’s going to be a really crappy hour, it’s not going to be fun for anyone, but with some luck you may just make a big difference in your friend’s life. He may not love you for it, but the idea’s to help him, not to win brownie points for yourself.

  STRATEGY #3: BE THERE

  In some cases, doing nothing may seem too slow, and an intervention may be too harsh and unwarranted. In these situations I often recommend that you just “be there” for your friend. Your skeptical cat is probably already out of the bag to some degree, so your friend’s radar is probably already up just waiting for you to launch into him about his sacred cow.