Blog | Ehsan Misaghi

How free is freedom of expression?

Mon, 27 Jul 2020 02:38:56 +0000

The term freedom of expression, which includes freedom of speech, has been thrown around a lot lately, from university campuses to grocery stores to courtrooms. But do we even know what it means to have freedom of expression or what that freedom looks like? Let’s start with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1):

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration in and of itself does not impose any limits on freedom of expression. Neither does the First Amendment of the US constitution (2):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Before we delve into the intricacies of freedom of expression, I should warn you that this post will probably ask more questions than provide answers; this is intentional. The reason for that is, first of all, I do not have a formal training in law. Secondly, the main purpose of this post is to actually ignite discussion and conversation. The other purpose of this discussion is to challenge us to think more deeply about what we think we know and what other explanations can tell us. Ultimately, we all must come to our own conclusions.

Freedom of expression is a two-way street

Freedom of expression should apply to all humans (even though some autocratic governments might disagree with this), so everyone has the same freedom to express their opinions. That also means we have the freedom to challenge and critique each other’s opinion. Challenging an opinion is a form of expression. Freedom of expression doesn’t mean one can say whatever they want and then get mad when someone challenges their opinion. If one chooses to put their thoughts and opinions out there, they are also inviting those thoughts and opinions to be critiqued.

Freedom of expression doesn’t mean we are free from consequences that arise from things we say or opinions we express. This is not a limitation of freedom of expression. This is merely being responsible for our actions and expressions. If someone expresses a hateful opinion and loses their job because of it, that is not a limitation of their freedom of expression, that is them being held accountable for something they have said. Suppose you are sitting in a crowded theatre (hopefully in a world without COVID). Someone decides to exercise their freedom of expression and yell “fire,” out of nowhere. Everyone panics and rushes towards an exit. On their way out a few people get injured in the chaos. Should we hold the person who yelled “fire” accountable or should we say since they had the freedom to express their opinion, that’s totally fine? (3)

Freedom of expression is a basic human right and thus, all of us humans should have the right to it. (1) To ensure that is the case, we have laws so that our collective freedom of expression is protected. Some people might argue that adding more laws, for example banning hate speech, fraud or obscenity, is jeopardizing our freedom of expression. While it might be technically true that by adding laws, we could be limiting the freedom of expression for some, there is a very simple answer for that: We live in societies and we are bound to have clashes between each other’s freedoms. Those laws are there to protect us in case of these clashes.

Tyranny of the majority

One major flaw that has been attributed to majority rule is that it can give rise to the tyranny of the majority. (4) If you are in the majority, chances are you enjoy the benefit of having elected representatives pass the kinds of laws you support, you have the freedom to express yourself more easily, have more people that agree with your opinions, your opinions have (most probably) been previously expressed by others and you don’t have to go through the trouble of advocating for them, and your basic rights are protected without having to go through multiple hoops. In many cases, minority groups would have to advocate for the same rights the majority readily enjoys. For an example, refer to the case of civil rights protections for transgender workers that was just recently ruled by the US Supreme Court. (5)

Over the years, we have realized that democracy should protect the rights of the minorities as well as the rights of the majority. Therefore, some countries have divided the power structure into legislative, executive and judiciary branches. Some have conducted (or have learned to conduct) consultations with minority groups before proceeding with projects that affect them (for example, when choosing team names that make use of terms related to indigenous peoples or building pipelines that pass through indigenous reserves). Some have introduced pieces of law such as Bill of Rights and some have given minority groups platforms to express themselves and to advocate for their rights.

Social media platforms have been a double-edged sword in this regard. On the one hand, they have given a platform to minorities to freely express themselves. On the other hand, their algorithms have been designed to show the “best/hottest/most upvoted” comment at the top (i.e. majority’s opinion) and to learn the most from the data that is abundantly available (i.e. data from the majority), which accentuates the majority’s opinions and thoughts. This goes more into the concept of bias and more specifically, confirmation bias, which is beyond the purpose of this post (refer to further reading items 7 and 8). All of this is to say that freedom of expression should include everyone, and that means minorities are included as well.

Academic freedom

There is a lot of debate going on between opponents and proponents of unlimited freedom of expression in academia. Should there be a limit to our freedom to express? If so, who gets to decide where that line is drawn? In fact, I would argue that we are not debating free speech, but rather where and how to draw a line between morally acceptable and morally unacceptable speech.

Universities have been under scrutiny for not letting specific talks and/or debates to happen on their campuses. Students are scrutinized for being “snowflakes” and being triggered by opposing opinions. Some argue that universities are marketplaces for ideas and should let controversial debates happen for people to make their decisions themselves. I do believe that universities are the breeding grounds for opinions, and different types of opinions should be allowed to be expressed and subsequently analyzed and challenged. However, universities are where knowledge grows. For knowledge to grow, we need well-informed and reasoned ideas to come to fruition and for that to happen, we need open-minded debates, not name-callings and hate speech. Again, the question is: what is considered hate speech and what is not?

As far as the human rights declaration and the US constitution go, there are no lines drawn for hate speech and understandably so. These are discussed in case laws and legislations that define and rule on hate speech. For instance, Canada has specific human rights legislations and multiple case laws on this matter. (6)

If a speaker has a history of name-calling, racist and sexist speech and is not there to actually further the realm of knowledge, I’m not sure what the benefit of that person speaking on a university campus is. If our initial reasoning for them being there was to have an open discussion and challenge people to think, hate speech is not conducive to that. For example, how is calling a specific race “lazy” or a specific gender “not real” going to help spark an open debate?

Most college students in the US, when surveyed, agreed that they want hate speech banned. The numbers are higher when you ask minority students. (7) You know why? I suspect (keyword being suspect) that these students are probably the ones that are being attacked in those name-callings and discriminatory speeches. So, who should we listen to when inviting speakers to campuses? The students who are going to listen and learn from them, people who might be affected or victimized by this kind of expression, or the people outside of colleges that probably have no relations whatsoever to students or the affected individuals? Students might be biased, sure, but as are the people who are not directly involved with campuses.

Asking speakers who are going to be speaking on campuses to use the correct terminology (for example gender vs sex or indigenous vs native) is not banning free speech, it’s making sure that the campuses are actually a breeding ground for knowledge, and not for hate or for incorrect assertions. We won’t invite someone who doesn’t know the difference between theory and hypothesis to speak to us about genetics, because arguably this person doesn’t know how science works and we wouldn’t want them spreading false information. With the same logic, why should we invite someone to talk about gender, when they don’t know the difference between gender and sex? And you can easily generalize this to other fields as well.

It’s not just about freedom of expression

Reducing all human rights to only freedom of expression is misguided and short-sighted at best. Basic human rights include many other freedoms and rights as well. Articles 5 and 12 of the human rights declaration, respectively, assert (1):

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

(emphasis mine)

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

This means that people’s reputation is also a protected human right and one can’t just attack someone’s reputation citing freedom of expression and their rights. The world and our interactions with it, its components and other humans are much more complex than one would think. We can’t just reduce them to one article of the human rights declaration (or even a few articles, for that matter) and call it a day. Even the declaration itself is general at best and we need detailed laws and regulations to govern those interactions. A question to think about is: what if my right to freely practice my religion infringes upon your right to security or vice versa? The declaration does not have answer for this. This is something that legislations and case laws would deal with.

Freedom of thought, belief (including religion and lack thereof), opinion and expression are protected in many countries. These countries have laws to protect specific populations and actions as well. For example, perjury, counselling suicide and creating child pornography are expressions but are not allowed in Canada, as well as many other countries. (6) I would be very surprised if the people who think we shouldn’t have limits on freedom of expression would also support the creation of child pornography. Again, the question is: where do we draw the line?

Another point worth making here is that specific types of racist, sexist and xenophobic speech can make a hierarchy of human worth and that is also against the human rights declaration. It is a running thread in the declaration that all humans are equal in rights and there is no hierarchy between them. Someone degrading a certain race or claiming that a specific race is good at math or is stronger than other races is not only making a hierarchy of humans but also reducing those groups of people to those specific traits. These might be considered microaggressions in the short-term, but there are long-term consequences as well. What if a member of that group is not good at math or is not stronger than their peers? Wouldn’t that make them feel less than their peers? So, not only does this make a hierarchy of humans based on which groups they are a member of, it also makes a hierarchy within those groups. As a matter of fact, I don’t see what good would come out of expressing these (false) claims in the first place.

Some more examples to think about

Most of you might remember the bakery that refused to bake a cake for a homosexual couple’s wedding. At the time, the camp of people supporting the bakery claimed that this was OK, because “it was based on their values” and that businesses should not be pushed to do things they don’t want to do. This most probably was coming from a place of privilege. People in that camp were probably not refused services because of their identity. I don’t think these people would have been OK with that bakery refusing to provide services to white people or people of colour or bald people or men or tall people, and the list can go on.

This debate came up again during the current COVID pandemic, when specific businesses decided that they will require a mask for customers to enter their premises. I can’t say for sure where the people that thought the bakery had the right to refuse specific customers would stand on the issue of masking. However, if we agree that businesses have the right to refuse a specific group, what they are doing now is essentially that. They are freely expressing themselves, as are the people not wearing masks. But the consequence of not wearing a mask in this situation is the businesses not allowing them into their premises, which is a right they hold as well.

I would argue here that the difference between the bakery’s refusal to bake a cake for a homosexual couple and a business’s denial of services to people not wearing masks is a bit deeper than that. The bakery in question refused a specific group based on their identity, something the customers do not have control over (refer to the examples above). A business requiring customers to wear masks is refusing a specific group based on something they have almost full control over: wearing a mask or not wearing one for a short period of time (for example, while they are shopping). One can argue that there are people that might have trouble wearing a mask and I’m not denying that. However, there is good evidence that no healthy person should have a problem wearing masks. If someone is unhealthy enough that can’t wear a mask, they should be isolating themselves, because chances are, they are the most susceptible to getting infected by the SARS-CoV2 virus.

Another example that comes to mind in terms of freedom of expression is kneeling during the national anthem. Is it OK for someone to kneel during the national anthem? Is that not freedom of expression? If this is OK, can someone kneel as a form of protest to show their dissatisfaction with something? If yes, how minor or serious does that dissatisfaction need to be for this to be OK? Is burning the flag of another country OK? If yes, under what circumstances? Is it OK to burn your own country’s flag? If yes, when and why? You see, there are a lot of questions and there may not be simple yes or no answers for them. Most of these are ethical questions and their complexities stem from the fact that the world we live in is too complex for us to answer questions like these with a simple yes or no.

I hope this post got you thinking about this matter a little further and I would be happy for you to exercise your right to freedom of expression in the comments section and let me know what you think. Please feel free to share this article with others and ignite conversations in your circles.

I would like to thank Spencer Millis for his edits to this article. You can see his articles on conversion therapy ban and universal basic income, and , respectively.

References

Trust and accountability in teams

Fri, 14 Jun 2019 17:46:56 +0000

During the last two weeks, I attended two workshops as part of a series called “Pathways Learning Series” that University of Alberta provides for their staff. The first workshop was called “Trust and accountability” and the second one was called “Teams from good to great.” The topics covered in these two workshops sparked an interest in me to write a little bit about teams and what roles trust and accountability play in a team environment and share some of the models that are used to evaluate the greatness of teams. So, let’s get started!

What is trust?

Different people might have different definitions for trust, but if I were to define it in my own words, I would probably say “the freedom to be vulnerable around others knowing that you will be safe and you won’t be judged.” In fact, a lot of theorists in the field define trust in terms of vulnerability. At work or in the context of a project group at school, a definition of trust could also be “knowing that someone is going to do what they said they are going to do.”

Trust might very well be a trial-and-error process. How many times have you trusted someone you thought you knew well, just for the same person to turn around and stab you in the back? This also tells us that trust has an embedded element of time or at least the number of situations (especially difficult ones) you go through with a person. The more you know the person, the more you trust (or mistrust) the person.

One of the first things I learned when I did my Mental Health First Aid training was the importance of social and mental health along with physical health and the fact that the World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.” A quick search in PubMed revealed a few studies that reported higher happiness levels in people who trusted others1,2. Given the definition of health above, we could argue that trust is important for happiness and in turn for mental and social well-being.

Character and competence

So, trusting others improves our well-being, but who are those “others”? How do we find them? More specifically, how does someone’s character and competence affect our perception of them and how does that perception affect the level and type of trust we put in them?

We all might have that colleague at work who we trust to do a great job at a specific task or someone who we would go for advice on how to do a specific thing at work, but we would never open up about something outside of work. This person might have a high competence in that task, but they might not possess a great character and thus we would avoid talking to them about things not directly related to work. We might not even go to someone who seems competent in a task at work, just because the person’s character is such that they would probably use that against us at some point in time in the future. We might have a friend who doesn’t know a lot about what we do in our day-to-day job (or can’t give us solutions to problems we might be having), but will be there to listen (non-judgementally) when we are stressed or burnt out. Deciding whether we trust someone with a specific set of characteristic/personality traits (character) and a specific set of skills (competence) is not that easy and as pointed out, they could be very intermingled as well. As a side note, psychologists suggest having a support system composed of different people with different sets of characteristics and competencies that you could go to for different things. Having a one-size-fits-all person that could be there for you for everything, is not realistic, nor is it healthy.

Accountability

One of the things that comes to mind as soon as we talk about accountability, is a person’s accountability to their immediate supervisor and that the supervisor might blame them for something not going right, because they “didn’t do their job.” In a high-performing team, everyone is accountable to the others in the team (and vice versa) and that’s where accountability is tied to trust.

A very good example of accountability and trust being tied together is how a pit stop works in racing competitions. If you look at a pit stop from above, what you see is a team of mechanics working on their specific tasks, trusting that the other members of the team are going to do their job and making sure that they are doing the best they could, because they feel accountable. If someone messes up, the whole team is going to be unsuccessful. The mechanic taking out the tire trusts the next mechanic putting in the new tire. The one who is putting in the new tire trusts the one besides them who is taking care of the fuel and so on. The tasks are defined, the team members know who is responsible for what and who is accountable for that job and they trust that they are going to do their best.

The RACI Model

One of the models that helps teams achieve their goals is the RACI model. It pushes us to determine who is Responsible for a specific task (working on the task), who is Accountable (has the final authority to decide), who should be Consulted (included in the decision-making process), and who should be Informed (of the decisions and the tasks). You might have been on a team where tasks are not specifically assigned or a few people in the team would say “we’ve got this!” But, unless we define specific people to be responsible, accountable, consulted and informed, there is a high chance the trust we have built in that team is going to take a hit. One of the major things the “we’ve got this” mentality would do is to open us up to blaming and finger pointing. Joe would think Jane’s got it, and Ali would think Fatima’s got it and when no one’s got it, everyone will start looking for someone to blame, because they weren’t “responsible” or “accountable.”

Beckhard-Burke Model

Richard Beckhard and Warner Burke suggest five elements that they think are really important for a team to work together and to interact well. These five elements are: purpose, goals, roles, process, and relationship. A successful team should have a common known purpose that all the team members are passionate about. They should have clearly defined goals that are in line with the purpose of the team. Each member of the team should also have clearly defined roles that would help steer the team in the direction of the goals and toward the common purpose. There should be a process in place to get things done. In fact, research has shown that high-performing teams spend 20% more time on defining the team’s strategies and processes compared to low-performing ones4. Great teams also foster great relationships between the members. They trust each other, they are open and sharing, and they are interdependent, while being autonomous when it comes to making decisions pertinent to their development and to their role.

Pinch vs. Crunch

Regardless of how great the relationship is within a team, there is a very high chance conflicts might arise at some point in time. The responses to these conflicts could be multifold. Some of these conflicts are like pinches. Some are like crunches. Pinches have the tendency to grow into crunches if left unaddressed or “pocketed.” Sometimes we bury the hatchet (pinch), but we don’t bury the handle, just in case we might use it later (when it becomes a crunch). A crunch could lead to an explosion and if left unresolved, it could cause fundamental damage. However, resolving the situation, whether it be a pinch that we can’t let go or a crunch, would result in improved relationship.

Staying above the line

There is a concept that a fine line separates success from failure and a not so good team from a great team3. Below that line, we are in denial, we constantly emphasize that “it’s not my job,” we blame others, and we don’t address any issues that arise in the team. Above the line, we see the issue(s) and problem(s), own them, find solution(s) and follow through. By staying above the line, the team members can pave their way to success, together.

Bringing it all together

As discussed, trust and accountability are essential to a successful team. They are built over time and through processes and relationships that are fostered within the team. These processes and relationships along with the purpose, goals and roles of the team and its members define the team and pave its way to success. The characters and competencies of the individuals within the team are important determinants of how much and what type of trust we put in them. We know that regardless of how great and how successful a team is, conflicts are bound to happen at some point and that our response to those conflicts could make or break the team. By staying above the line, we acknowledge the problems and define a clear path to resolve them and improve the relationship within the team.

What do you think are some of the important characteristics of high-performing and successful teams? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

References

Carl, N., & Billari, F. C. (2014). Generalized trust and intelligence in the United States. PloS one, 9(3), e91786. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0091786
Kaliterna-Lipovčan, L., & Prizmić-Larsen, Z. (2016). What differs between happy and unhappy people?. SpringerPlus, 5, 225. doi:10.1186/s40064-016-1929-7
Hickman, C., Corbridge, T., & Jones, J. (2019). The Oz principle: Accelerating growth by getting accountability right, from c-suite to front line. New York: Portfolio
Wiita, N., & Leonard, O. (2019, January 17). How the Most Successful Teams Bridge the Strategy-Execution Gap. Retrieved June 14, 2019, from

Ethical Dilemmas

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 15:48:25 +0000

During my commute today, I was listening to another episode of the “Philosophize This” podcast (no surprises there) and the host, Stephen West, brought up the trolley problem. This is one of my favourite ethical dilemmas and it is an interesting thought experiment. For those of you who don’t know what this is, I’ll explain it: Suppose that you are the conductor of an old trolley. There are 5 people stuck to the rails and if you continue operating the trolley the way you do it right now, those five people are going to get killed. The ONLY WAY for you to avoid that is to pull a lever and change tracks. However, there is one person stuck to the other track and if you go that way, you will kill that person. Now, what do you do? Do you continue in the same way and kill five people or do you pull the lever and kill one?

Now, let’s look at a slightly different scenario: You are on top of a bridge that is above the tracks. There are five people stuck to the tracks and a trolley is coming. The trolley is not able to stop in time and if you don’t do anything, those five people are going to get killed. However, there is someone sitting on the side of the bridge. The person sitting there is big enough that if you push him down the bridge and on to the tracks, he will be able to stop the train, but he will get killed. Would you do it?

Some people might say, “I will pull the lever in the first scenario, but I won’t push the guy in the second scenario, because I’m physically touching the guy in the second one and I’m directly killing him.” OK, I’ll ask it another way: Suppose there is a lever that will launch this guy on to the tracks, would you pull that lever then, since you are not physically touching the person? And, as if it is not complicated yet, let me introduce a third version of this dilemma: You are a doctor and you are caring for five people in the ward. Each one of them has an organ that is failing and if they don’t receive a transplant soon, all five of them are going to die. A healthy person walks into your office for a routine checkup. This person is a match for all five of those people. Would you open him up and use his organs to save those five people, which would mean killing him in the process?

By now, some of you might have already given up on doing anything about any of these scenarios, because you say “I don’t want to be responsible for someone’s death.” However, you might want to consider the fact that by being in those situations, whether you do something or sit there and watch, you are responsible for the results of your action(s) (or inaction(s) for that matter). Five people might get killed because you didn’t do anything or one person may get killed because you did something. By the very nature of you being in those situations, you are somehow responsible for what happens.

There are really not a lot of differences between these three scenarios. You are saving five people by sacrificing one. However, let me introduce another twist. What if that one person, if alive, will go on to develop a vaccine that will save millions of people from a contagious disease? Would your answer change to any of those questions? What happens is that we, most often, judge a situation by the consequences we think are going to happen. We might think the lives of five people are more important than the life of one or the life of someone who could develop a vaccine and save a lot of people is more important than someone who couldn’t, but how do we decide that? Almost always, we only have a limited account of what might happen and we decide based on that limited information. Maybe we think in terms of the contribution to society, but what constitutes a contribution and why more contribution to society is superior to less contribution, when there might be a myriad of other factors in play as well?

I know I opened a pandora’s box and posed more questions than I answered, but hopefully this would spark a conversation in your daily lives and in here as well. Please comment below if you have something to add. I would be happy to read your perspectives on this matter as well.

Disclosing Conflicts of Interest (especially in medical research)

Fri, 18 Jan 2019 23:55:12 +0000

I attended a talk this morning by Dr. Patrick McDonald, a Paediatric Neurosurgeon based off of Vancouver, on the topic of disclosing conflicts of interest. He shared a lot of wisdom with the attendees and basically inspired me to write this post. Some of the material I have used and/or mentioned in this post are directly or indirectly related to what he presented during his talk.

A lot of us have very busy schedules. Physicians are normally even busier and this might be the premise behind many physicians and surgeons not wanting to add more to their already busy schedules. Disclosing every conflict of interest they might have in a research paper is time consuming, requires a considerable amount of effort and attention and of course, adds more to their already busy schedules. However, doing that could potentially save a lot of time for the same person and/or their fellow researchers in the long run. It could also lower the burden on the healthcare system, save lives of thousands of people and inspire patients’ trust in the healthcare system.

Conflicts of interest arise in situations where we have diverging secondary interests that affect our primary professional obligation(s). For a physician, the primary professional obligation is to treat patients and protect their wellbeing. For instance, secondary interests might arise when the same physician is reimbursed by a company for research they did on a drug or device developed by that company, or when they serve in a board of a non-profit that believes in a specific set of health-related activities, or when they are a practicing member of a religious community that considers a medical act “sinful.” As you can see, not every conflict of interest is financial in nature and it can take various shapes and forms.

Disclosing any “potential” conflicts of interest has been shown to mitigate a lot of problems. It is also common sense that when I’m reading a research article from a researcher about a drug from a company that has “sponsored” the study, I would make sure to tread carefully, do more research and take things with a grain of salt until I have more (independent) data to prove that what the researcher is saying is factually true and that the secondary interests haven’t influenced their primary obligation in a way that would deem the conclusions of the study incorrect. As another example, suppose a researcher believes in an ideology that considers any non-straight sexual act a sin and they report findings in a research article that a specific non-straight sexual act is a health risk to people involved. Consider the different approaches you would take on this finding when the researcher has disclosed their conflicts of interest and when they haven’t. This is also true in disciplines other than medicine. Suppose an environmentalist is a member of the environmental advisory committee to the government. Their views on the environment could potentially impact the way they propose action and eventually pass laws. In contrast, if the person is a firm believer in climate change being a “hoax,” their proposed approach and policy will potentially be influenced by their views as well.

The US government has introduced legislation and some journals have started processes in order to make the disclosures mandatory and open to public. In 2009, the United States government introduced the so-called Sunshine Act that made it mandatory for all the drug and device manufacturing companies to disclose any payments to the physicians. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has a that you can type in a physician’s, hospital’s or company’s name and get the information about the payments transferred between the involved parties. Studies have shown that since the introduction of this piece of legislation, a lot of medical researchers have started to disclose conflicts of interest and the amount of nondisclosures, in most cases, have decreased significantly. Canada and some European countries are following suit, but there is still a lot more work to be done.

Last but not least, it is very important to emphasize again that physicians and medical researchers are in no way the only people with conflicts of interest or the only people whose conflicts of interest could result in dire repercussions, nor are all pharmaceutical companies and their C suite executives thinking of their market cap (as you can probably tell, I’m very pro-business and I don’t hold grudges against big corporations just because). Medical research is under a lot of scrutiny because its results and the results of any (even small) misbehaviours are in the public eye, which is not the case for many other fields whose nondisclosure of conflicts of interest could result in repercussions in the same level of magnitude as the ones caused by nondisclosures in the medical field. Therefore, by all means, let’s ask physicians and medical researchers to disclose their conflicts of interest (and I will try to disclose my conflicts of interest as well), but let’s not discriminate against them as the only people who have to report that information. Hopefully, that will open the doors to more open communication and open data that can give us more confidence in trying to make a decision when it comes to our health (and other aspects of our lives as well).

References and further reading:

Industry Financial Relationships in Neurosurgery in 2015: Analysis of the Sunshine Act Open Payments Database:
Conflict of interest policies and disclosure requirements in neurosurgical journals:
US conflict-of-interest case draws attention across continent:
Avandia Drug Case: and
The Open Payments Data Website:

4 Days of Whitehorse, Yukon

Sat, 16 Jun 2018 02:55:30 +0000

Just a few days ago, I had an opportunity to go to a conference meeting hosted in the beautiful Yukon and its capital city, Whitehorse. This was my first time visiting this territory, which is the traditional land of the people of Kwanlin Dun, Ta’an Kwach’an, Carcross and Tagish, Kluane, Champagne, Aishihik, Little Salmon and Carmacks, White River, Ross River, Vuntut Gwitchin, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Selkirk, Nacho Nyak Dun, Liard, and Tetlit Gwich’in. I arrived a couple of days prior to the commencement of the conference and thus had some time to explore around the territory and I absolutely loved it! If you are planning a trip there, or if you are already there on a trip and want to know what to do, this guide is for you! I also hope that people who didn’t have plans to visit this beautiful place, would change their minds after reading this post.

Before you go, make sure you have sunscreen, hiking shoes/boots, flip-flops, hoodies/sweaters, bell, and bear spray packed. You can’t take bear sprays on a plane (not even in your checked baggage), so you have to buy it there (it’s ~$50) unless you are not flying there or if you are very confident in your wildlife encountering skills (if that’s a thing, even). This is for the summer time. I believe winters would be really really cold up there (not that I’m not accustomed to 30-40 below, but just saying), so go prepared if you decide to do this in the winter. Also, just so you know, some of the roads, hiking trails and places are closed during the winter time. Make sure to go online or call the specific places you want to visit before you go. Parks Canada would be my first go-to in this case.

If you are flying to Whitehorse, Air North (Yukon’s Airline), First Air, Air Canada and Condor Airlines have direct flights from most cities (including non-Canadian cities) to Whitehorse. At the time of this writing, WestJet is in the process of launching routes to Whitehorse as well. Transferring from other international airlines to any of these is also possible through various Canadian or non-Canadian cities. Also, you would need a car to drive around, preferably a 4WD, but if you are staying on the main highways, you should be fine with a sedan too. There are a few rental car places inside the airport and downtown. Budget, Driving Force, Fox, and Norcan are some of them.

Now that you are in Whitehorse and have a car to drive, let’s ’explore’ around!

A day trip to Haines Junction and Kluane National Park: Get your breakfast at the Baked Cafe and then hit the road along the Alaska Highway to get to Haines Junction. If you feel hungry, there are a few options for food here. I have personally tried Frosty’s Restaurant and Village Bakery and Deli and both are really good. In terms of driving ahead and around the National Park, you have two options: drive north towards Beaver Creek or drive south towards Haines. I did both, but not that far. There are a bunch of small airports north and south of Haines Junction that could fly you over the mountains in the National Park and of course, Canada’s highest peak, Mount Logan. You could call them beforehand to make sure the weather is good enough for them to fly over the Park. North of Haines Junction, there are short and long hikes. Soldier’s Summit is about 1 km long and Alsek Valley is about 52 km. Don’t worry, there are hikes with lengths in between! South of Haines Junction, drive to the Kathleen Lake and you could do a short hike along the lake (Kokanee Trail - 1 km) and/or you could do any of the longer hikes that go over the mountains as well: the King’s Throne (10 km) and the Cottonwood (85 km) trails are two of those. There are a few hikes along the Dezadeash Lake as well. There is also a hiking trail called ‘Rock Glacier’ (1.5 km) that goes through a bunch of trees and a small mountain and is at the bottom of a used-to-be-Glacier. You could drive down into British Columbia afterwards and/or go to Haines, Alaska. Once you’re done, on your way back, make sure to pay attention to the horses and elks by the road. The elk there have been introduced from Elk Island National Park in Alberta sometime in the 1950s. If you come back before 9 pm, make sure to check out the G&P Steak and Pizza for a drink and dinner.
A day trip to Carcross and Southern Lakes: Make sure your camera’s memory card or your phone’s storage has enough room, as you will be taking a lot of pictures today! Get some breakfast at the Burnt Toast Cafe and head south through Alaska Highway South and then Klondike Highway South to get to Carcross. Before getting to Carcross, make sure to take a peek at the Emerald and Spirit Lakes and if you are not too early, there is also the Caribou Crossing that’s worth stopping by and checking out. Then you are going to get to “world’s smallest desert,” the Carcross Desert. Make sure to do a little hike in the sand, which means you should be prepared to have some sand in your shoes unless you have flip-flops with you. It is a beautiful scene with the desert being surrounded with trees and of course lakes, especially the Bennet Lake, which is one of the reasons for the formation of this desert in the first place. Apparently, the desert is a great skiing location in the winter, too. Once you get to Carcross, make sure to do a walk inside the town and check out some of the businesses there, especially the Matthew Watson General Store, which is the oldest operating business in Yukon (over 100 years of history is in that store, I believe). There are also a few hiking spots around town that you could probably go on if it’s not May or June, as that time is the lambing season for goats and sheep and you shouldn’t disturb them. (after all, they don’t have socks to hang from their hotel rooms, amiright?) I would suggest driving down to Skagway, Alaska if you have the time. Even if you don’t cross the border, it’s definitely worth it to drive down until the border. Make sure to check out the Bove Island and all the awesome scenery on your way. Once you are happy with your drive south, drive back to Carcross and drive east towards Tagish. You will go through and around a bunch of other lakes on your way back. Once you get to Jakes Corner, drive up on Alaska Highway towards Whitehorse. Make sure to check out Antoinette’s Restaurant for your dinner, if you haven’t already eaten something at Jakes Corner (or if you have, but you are still hungry).
Hiking around the Yukon River: Trust me, you are gonna need more room for photos again! Drive or walk to the SS Klondike National Historic Site. Try to do this on a not-rainy day, so that you could get to see the Sun Deck on the SS Klondike. Walk around and on the ship and get a gist of how people used to travel down and up the Yukon River, especially during the Gold Rush. Start your ~16 km (about 4-5 hours) hike from there and go south on the designated trail (Millennium Trail). There is a point where the Millennium Trail merges with the Miles Canyon Trail. If you are tired and don’t wanna continue, cross the bridge at the Robert Service Campground and walk along the other side of the river until you get back to the SS Klondike site (absolutely not recommended, as you are missing the best part of the hike). If you are not tired or if you are, but you want to see why you are doing that hike, continue on walking after the campground and you should get on the Miles Canyon Trail. Continue this trail and make sure to watch for cars, as a part of this hike will be at the Miles Canyon Road. Just before the Canyon, there is a viewpoint that is looking to Ear Lake. Check that out! Once you reach the Canyon, stop and take a breath, you’ve earned it! It is a great scenery as it is with all the other places in the Yukon. Cross the foot bridge, which apparently used to be a suspension bridge and pay attention to the Canyon once you get to the other side, as this location used to be a very important and difficult passage for a lot of stampeders and ship captains back in the day. Continue on the Miles Canyon Trail on the other side of the river until you come back to the SS Klondike site again. There is a map on the City of Whitehorse’s website that shows the trail. However, the instructions there are based on starting the hike from another location. You could walk around the SS Klondike site in the middle of your hike if you want to go with those directions; they are a bit more detailed compared to what I’ve written. That map/document could be found . Once you are done your hike, check out the Klondike Rib & Salmon for some great food and desserts. If you still have time, make sure to drive to the Yukon Wildlife Preserve through the Klondike Highway North. Be prepared to walk for about 2 hours to see some of the Yukon’s wildlife, all in one place. There are different animals there: muskox, bison, deer, lynx, and fox, to name a few. Once you are done taking pictures and enjoying your time with the animals, drive a few more kilometres to get to the Takhini Hot Springs. Get into the hot water and the tiredness of your hike earlier in the day is gonna go away pretty soon.
Check out the museums around the city: Put your history caps on and learn about the rich history of the Yukon! Start by visiting the MacBride Museum, which is a diverse museum on the Birds and Mammals of the Yukon, the building of the Alaska Highway, the Gold Rush, Boats of the Yukon and much more. They have a few tours of the museum that are done a few times during the day and its included in your admission fee, so if you want, you can call ahead of time and go when there is a tour going on. Visit the Old Log Church Museum next that has a lot of info about how the Europeans and of course, Christians at the time, interacted with the aboriginal people of Yukon. They have tours throughout the day too. If this is your last day, check out one of the many Sushi places for your lunch and drive to the airport. The Transportation Museum and the Beringia Interpretive Centre are within metres of each other and within a walking distance of the airport. If you want to visit both museums, let the front desk at the first one know as they have a deal for visiting both at the same day. Make sure to check out the means of transportation that are on display at the Transportation Museum. When I was there, a retired pilot was there and he was telling me all about how he was flying some of the airplanes that they have pictures or models of at the museum and also about a plane that he and one of his friends had built down in Calgary back in the day! He gave me quite a lot of information and very interesting facts in that short timeframe. The Beringia Interpretive Centre has great videos running at the theatre and also very great information about the geological formation of the region along with the wildlife and animals of the Yukon. In case you are flying early in the morning and you can’t squeeze the two museums by the airport into your schedule, you could either visit them one of the previous days or you could probably do this when you get to Whitehorse, if you have the time the very first day. Oh, and before I forget, world’s largest weathervane is also sitting right in front of the Transportation Museum. Check that out as well and wait for some breeze to see how it works!

I hope you have a blast in the Yukon. The second largest city/town in the Yukon is Dawson City. Just in case you wanted to visit there as well, you could take a flight from Whitehorse or you could drive for about 6 hours to get there. Let me know if you have any comments, additions or anything of similar nature in the comments section below! In the meantime, Go North, my friend, Go North!

Constructive feedback and criticism

Mon, 08 May 2017 19:44:28 +0000

Having been a judge in different fairs and conferences for pre-secondary, secondary and post-secondary students, I have had my fair share of listening to students presenting their work, asking them questions both to clarify what they have said and to evaluate them, scoring them based on their research topic, methods, presentation and expertise, and giving them feedback on how they did and how they could potentially improve or do more. I have always heard from the more experienced judges that the feedback should be constructive, regardless of the student’s level and I have tried to implement that to the best of my ability. The problem with this approach most often is that some of us don’t know what constructive feedback really means!

Let’s start with what constructive feedback is not. Constructive feedback is not necessarily an all-positive feedback. It is also not unduly beating around the bush before getting to a point that might upset the person. It is not faking interest and awe when what you have just heard or seen is not up to the expected level. It does not mean evaluating things you are not supposed to evaluate, either, for instance, how great (or awful, for that matter) the personality of the person is (unless, of course, this is what you are evaluating).

Now, on to the constructive feedback itself. Constructive feedback means that you are paving the way for the person to improve. Hence, commenting on things that the person can actually control and/or change. This also means that you are telling the person what is already up to the standards and what is not. Therefore, it is good to start with the strengths and move on to the things that need improvement and then summarize at the end. Speaking from experiences, students who present their findings don’t do it as a one-time thing only. They are mostly interested in doing that frequently. Therefore, the more constructive feedback they receive the better their presentation will be the next time around and the more they will appreciate your help as they continue presenting.

Last weekend, I was at a fair, judging a few projects that were presented by students who were in elementary or junior high school and I got the chance to give them feedback and see some of the other feedback sheets that they had gotten. To my surprise most of those feedback sheets had some variation of these words on them: “Great job!” and that’s it! As much as a teenager would like to hear that they did a great job, they need to know what can be improved. There is definitely something that needs to be improved and if you can’t see that as a judge, then you should probably work on your judging skills or present some sort of work and get criticized by other judges before judging someone else’s work. When I get comments from supervisors or other fellow researchers on a document I have written, whether it be a poster or a thesis or a scientific manuscript, I would like to see a “great job here” or “this is awesome” somewhere in the comments. This makes me even more inspired to continue this line of work. But, I also need to know where my weaknesses lie so that I can improve my current work or works that follow. I know that an elementary school student might be very happy to see a “Great job!” on the feedback sheet, but they are going to be our next generation of journalists, scientists, engineers, supervisors, etc. and that is why we need them to know how to fact check, how to work with the facts, and how not to give fake information or information that is not backed up by evidence. And the road to that starts from these fairs and the projects that they do during their early ages. We have a big responsibility here and that is to prepare them for all those.

All things considered, I think starting with what they did right and well, pointing out the areas that need improvement and finishing off by summarizing the points is the best way to give constructive feedback, whether we are the parents, the teachers, the fair judges or friends. As for the parts that may upset the person, it is good to follow the “is it true? is it necessary? and is it kind?” rule. If what we are trying to say will help them improve, then, why not? If we can make it less upsetting and make them comfortable before saying it, even better! Let’s bring up a better next generation, a generation that will learn from their mistakes and use what they have learned from their mistakes to improve and prosper.

Communicating research

Sat, 15 Apr 2017 00:54:13 +0000

This has been on my mind for a long time now. Time and time again I have seen news articles about research studies that don’t really correspond to the studies they are supposedly reporting. Sometimes, the title of the news article or the main point it conveys is totally different from the one the research study, itself, tries to communicate. Other times, correlation is interpreted as causation, or a statement is extracted from the research paper without its preceding or succeeding statements that explain the conditions in which these results hold true. As a result, I have seen a lot of us, researchers, complain about the media not reporting exactly what we meant in our papers.

One of the reasons for this, I believe, is that we don’t give the media enough information about research and its settings. Obviously, someone who hasn’t been in that setting and/or doesn’t have a clue as to what it entails will not be able to explain it accurately. Unless our journalists are scientists themselves or they have been in close contact with scientific research, they won’t be able to accurately report/communicate research to the general public.

The second reason for this is that our scientists are being trained on how to do wet lab research or how to analyze a specific type of data in a computer program, but not how to talk to the people outside of their field. We are so used to using jargon in our talks and abbreviating long scientific terms in our writings that we forget that our audience may not be the same each and every time.

Having journalists that have trainings in science or have been in a research setting before could help alleviate the first issue. However, I think I can provide more insight into the second issue. One of the things that I think researchers need to know is that if others are not reporting your research or if they are reporting it wrong, you should be doing something about it: Maybe write a letter, very much like the ones you write to scientific journals about the papers they have published, albeit using a different language, to the journalist or the corresponding media outlet. You could also work on your lay-person summary skills and write your own version of what your research entails. Another avenue of action could be to volunteer to train journalists about what it is you do in the dark rooms of your lab every day from dawn to dusk.

All in all, we have to make sure the people that are most often our end product users, know what we are doing about the problems they face everyday. We might even be able to raise money to fund our next project by informing donors about the studies we undertake. I know I’m going to start enriching the tutorial section of my website with related articles and will occasionally write about my research, what it entails and how it can benefit the general public. Let’s make science and research information available to everyone!

Confirmation Bias

Sun, 27 Nov 2016 01:40:48 +0000

This subject was on my list of writings for a long time and today I decided to finally write about it. Induction is a way of reasoning. But, it definitely has downsides to it. Suppose I move into a new town and the first few people I see are all physicians. Does that mean that everyone living in this town is a physician? Of course, not. It just means that the people I have seen are doctors. However, this may lead to me forming a hypothesis that maybe the vast majority of the people living in this city are doctors, which is a legitimate hypothesis. In order to test for that hypothesis, I have to devise a study protocol. I have to randomly select a sample of the people in that city and see if they are physicians. My main focus in this post is actually the process of random selection.

Statistically, random selection means that everyone in the population has the same chance of being chosen into the sample. If you go around and ask only the people who carry a stethoscope, your sample is biased. If you go around and ask only the people who own a shop, your sample is biased. Because, there is a high chance that the person with a stethoscope is a doctor and a person who owns a shop is not. Now, this is when I have good (or at least neutral) intentions!

If, for whatever reason, I decide to mock a group of people (which I hope I won’t!), I actually try to be biased. More specifically, I use Confirmation Bias, an informal logical fallacy, in which I only seek out information that supports my hypothesis and disregard anything that says otherwise. Unfortunately, many of the new developments on the web are going this way. For example, the personalized ads on Google, suggestions on Netflix or Amazon, and the “Because you liked …, you’ll like …” principle in general is feeding the beast even more. But, that’s a subject for another post I’ll probably attend to later!

A few weeks ago, I saw the video of Jesse Watters going down to New York’s Chinatown and interviewing people. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, here is the video:

I don’t exactly know what this correspondent’s actual intentions were, but this is an example of how nonrandom selection skews the results of a study. I don’t want to go into a detailed assessment of this video, but there are a few things I want to point out:

The host says they wanted to sample “political opinion” because China was mentioned 12 times in the first US presidential debate. What he doesn’t say is how that 12 times compares with other words or countries mentioned in the debate. Also, he doesn’t say why New York’s Chinatown was chosen.
The correspondent actually starts the interview with a cultural stereotype.
He doesn’t comment on cultural norms, e.g. the fact that some of the people call Hillary as “Clinton’s wife”. I remember I read a piece somewhere and a gentleman from China had commented on it “Please write more.” This is a cultural practice there, somehow meaning “Keep up the great work,” while this may mean “you haven’t written enough on this piece” for people from some other cultures.
He has chosen some of the people who couldn’t answer the question, apparently because they don’t speak that much English.

This is something that we see a lot in our everyday lives. I remember a few years back when there was a debate going on in Iran in terms of which soccer team has the biggest number of fans and a TV correspondent went to a stadium to talk to the fans of a specific team and the people he chose to show on TV were either the not-well-educated fans or the fans who couldn’t speak the country’s official language well. He didn’t comment on what he saw and who he talked to, but the representation was enough for many people to start mocking the fans of that team.

It is also important to comment on the population that we have selected the sample from. For example, if the population we are looking at is birds in Australia and we only choose a random sample of 10 birds from Melbourne, our sample is biased (even though the sample has been selected randomly). However, if the population we were interested in was birds in Melbourne, our sample would be acceptable. But, going back to the video above, the host starts with talking about China in general and then goes to the New York Chinatown. This is how first impressions can be important. Although they say that they have gone to the NY Chinatown for this interview, you would induce that these people interviewed are representatives of the Chinese all over the world.

And here is a video from Big Think on Confirmation Bias and the effect of first impressions to end the post. Please share your views about this in the comments below.

Thanks for reading! :)

Blog | Ehsan Misaghi

How free is freedom of expression?

Freedom of expression is a two-way street

Tyranny of the majority

Academic freedom

It’s not just about freedom of expression

Some more examples to think about

References

Further Reading

Trust and accountability in teams

What is trust?

Character and competence

Accountability

The RACI Model

Beckhard-Burke Model

Pinch vs. Crunch

Staying above the line

Bringing it all together

References

Ethical Dilemmas

Disclosing Conflicts of Interest (especially in medical research)

4 Days of Whitehorse, Yukon

Constructive feedback and criticism

Communicating research

Confirmation Bias