Beating the Spread

There’s a before-and-after photo going around showing the change in toe spread after 28 months of running barefoot.

Here it is.

Toe Spread After Running Barefoot for 28 Months

I thought I’d make a similar one, though mine is for barefoot hiking, not running.

My Toe Spread

However . . .

Notice anything? There’s a slight scratch on my foot for both the before and after shots.

Yup. I faked it. I took both pictures yesterday.

A lot of my way of thinking is scientific thinking. I am well-aware that humans are really good at fooling themselves (just take a look at homeopathy, for instance. We see what we want to see, and disregard the rest (called confirmation bias)). The whole purpose of well-designed studies is to take that into account and to try to remove its effects.

With the toe-spreading, all I did was use the muscles in my toes and feet to spread my toes apart, and I got those two wildly differing photos.

Now, let me be very clear: I am not claiming any deception on the part of the original photo. I’m not even saying that it is wrong.

It’s just that we don’t know if it is wrong. We just don’t know if he relaxed his foot in his latter photo the exact same way he did in the former.

Part of what science does is measure things, and figure out how to measure things so that we can really tell if something is truly happening. I’d love to think that going barefoot for any length of time gives the toes a chance to spread back out a bit to a more natural configuration. I even suspect that is the case.

But proving it is difficult, given what we can do with our muscles. I’d need a way to first properly measure what “toe spread” even meant, and how to measure its default position on a foot.

That’s part of the problem with a lot of things about barefooting. They feel right, but that could just be our biases. Without proper measurement and compensation for the biases, though, we may just be leading ourselves astray.

I’m afraid I’m just naturally suspicious about a lot of claims, and really prefer that they be evaluated scientifically. On the other hand, if we waited for everything to be proven before acting, we’d never get out of bed. So we do the best we can.

So all I’m trying to do here is make the case for a bit of skepticism. Sometimes “because I prefer it” is a good enough excuse for going barefoot, even if it has nothing to do with what is provable. Other claims for the wonders of bare feet should also be taken with a grain of salt. We shouldn’t allow our enthusiasm for going barefooted to influence us to make claims that, in the end, cannot be supported. If nothing else, it can cause non-barefooters to doubt our other, more legitimate, claims.