Science Versus Muddled Magic

ΩΩIt doesn’t matter what the topic, there is a huge, huge gap between wishful thinking and any hard science and neither has much to do with philosophy which is all about thinking about difficult things that fall into no known category.  The field of biological sciences seems to be a locus point for a great deal of savage fighting over what is real and what is not real.  That is, the parts of the brain activated the most in any debates about living things and history involve deep, hardly recognized emotions.

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ΩΩSo instead of viewing Nature as something quite interesting and which is a full expression of all past events going back to the beginning of the earth as a viable planet.  That is, many humans cannot emotionally accept the concept evolution and the mechanics of life on earth.  That is, the ultimate truth is, all evolution begins with random chance and ends with survival of the fittest.  Between these two forces, all things that live manage to exist unless they are annihilated thanks to various mishaps, environmental changes or killed off by other rival organisms.

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ΩΩViewing life thorough the lens of modern science is scary for people who would far rather have some entity floating nearby that can be bribed or cajoled into suspending natural forces or granting various wishes.  Medicine is one field, next to religion, that seems most effected by this massive split between ‘science’ and ’emotion’.

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ΩΩEmotions have immense tidal effects on all living things.  Sadness leads to declining health and even death, for example, even in various animals who can pine away.  If one is secure, happy, optimistic and feeling dominant, one’s health improves whether one is a lion, a horse, a bug, or a human.  Scientists observing animals can see clearly how the top animal in any social setting leads directly to better health and greater strength.

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ΩΩAnimals who are losers in mating, eating or social standing games, usually dwindle away and die or are forced to the outer edges of the herd or colony and is eaten by predators.  So mental health leads to better physical health, more or less.  At least, in Nature.  But in human society, we have complex social systems whereby people are much more protected compared to say, herds of zebras or a swamp full of crocodiles.

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ΩΩThis is why humans have spread so far across the earth.  Even the weak do better than say, weak wolves.  We protect each other to astonishing degree except when we go to war or other hostilities.  Modern science has greatly changed all other systems humans use even in remote corners.  Whether the people there want this or not, modern technological civilization had penetrated even the most remote places.

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ΩΩEven as science coupled with (and it grew up with!) the industrial revolution has taken over the entire planet, it is a very precarious thing since the very deepest parts of science and technology depend on being totally at odds with the natural way our minds operate.  That is, the only mechanism humans could use to create a culture has been to rely on the deepest, most subconscious parts of our brain to hold onto any ideas, technology and social systems.  That is, our entire culture is basically a conflict between the conscious ‘science’ part of the brain fighting desperate battles with the subconscious religious part of the brain which stores all important memories, all systems such as how to make a fire or raise a child or have sex.

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ΩΩTechnological and cultural changes normally move at a glacial pace due to unease in the subconscious mind which wants things to always be the same.  Survival depended on rejecting new things and clinging to old things.  The US, one of the more innovative modern scientific cultures has hit this sort of wall in Afghanistan, for example.

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ΩΩWorse, both Europe and the US, home base of modern science and industrial innovation are sliding backwards away from this culture and heading back to the safety of older philosophical, religious and technological systems at every level.

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ΩΩIt is painfully obvious what is fake and what is real, what is science and what is magical wishful thinking, at least, to me.  One glaring example in medicine is ‘homeopathy’ which is a Victorian concoction based entirely on the very ancient ‘magic water’ so beloved by countless generations of humans who needed some sort of sop when sick.

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ΩΩLike virtually all fake ‘medicines’, the Victorian creators of this belief system clothed it heavily in the robes of modern science.  But it is neither ‘scientific’ nor modern.  The idea that water can ‘remember’ anything at all is childish.  Water has specific components which define ‘water’: two hydrogen atoms connected to one oxygen atom.  Period.  End of story.  It has a specific atomic weight, it has rigid vapor, liquid and solid states based on temperature.  Like all real things in the real world, it can be analyzed and broken down and understood.

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ΩΩHolistic healers, on the other hand, hate this sort of thing.  They want individuality, speculation and of course, grand theories that are impossible to replicate or prove.  That is, it is all about faith healing dressed up in modern language rhetoric to give it the appearance of being rational and scientific.  England has a lot of homeopathic ‘medicine’ and  this is finally being directly challenged by real doctors sick and tired of the entire concept of ‘homeopathic’ medicines which are only water with barely a single atom of any other elements.

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Doctors call for homeopathy ban – Telegraph

Delegates to the British Medical Association’s conference are expected to support seven motions opposing the use of public money to pay for remedies which they claim have ‘no place in the modern health service.’

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They are also calling for junior doctors to be exempt from being placed in homoeopathic hospitals, claiming it goes against the principles of evidence-based medicine.

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The conference will also hear calls for homoeopathic remedies to be banned from chemists unless they are clearly labelled as placebos rather than medicines.

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The NHS needs to make £20 billion in cuts over the next few years and doctors say the health service cannot afford ‘sugar pills and placebos.’

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ΩΩI am not against placebos.  Humans who are made happy by popping fake pills are not being harmed directly and they are free to choose.  But asking the collective population to pay for this silliness is not rational.  If England is cutting medical care, it is best to cut out fake medical care first.  That is, if people feel a compulsion to drink magical water and can’t accept water from the tap but must have it rendered magical in a factory, then let them pay for this just like they buy say, beer or wine which is more substantial than homeopathic water cures.

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ΩΩForcing young doctors to work in fake hospitals set up to dispense medieval medicines is utterly wrong.  If homeopaths want fake hospitals, again, they can pay for this themselves.  The overhead for fake water cures could be made much cheaper by not going through the ritual of purifying the water by diluting it over and over until the garbage they put in it is vanishingly small.  Skipping this unnecessary step is OK since the difference between treated water and regular water is nil.

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ΩΩJust as rabbis  have to bless food in Jewish communities and so food producers have to hire rabbis to bless food in say, NY where there are lots of Jews, these blessings are ridiculous since food is food.  But the need to have religious food is just like religious medicine: people are scared and want reassurance and various hand waving, pouring water from one container to anther, muttering magic words is all-important.  Which is OK, just keep this all where it belongs: outside modern medicine.  And put it where it belongs: into temples and churches or social settings.

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ΩΩThe Huffington Post is the mainstream media outlet for funny medical advice.  Here is a classic from yesterday:  Mark Hyman, MD: 9 Steps to Reverse Dementia and Memory Loss As You Age

Treating Individuals, Not Diseases

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He begins with the top premise of all counterfeit non-scientific ‘doctors’: we are all individuals and are so different from each other, we need special medicine which generally is magical in nature.

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One of the problems of modern terminology for health is the use of ‘disease’ to describe various human health conditions.  Diseases generally are contagious conditions or genetic mutations that cause health problems.  In English, it has expanded to include all sorts of conditions.  For example, people feel ‘pain’ in all sorts of ways and for all kinds of reasons including psychological reasons.

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People have individual feelings, histories, psychologies and there is some genetic variations which modern medicine certainly takes into consideration.  Indeed, the medical world goes to great lengths to differentiate people according to genetic characteristics.  The ‘alternative’ medicine people love to pretend modern medicine is ‘one size fits all’ yet, when I look into alternative medicines, I find Victorian-style ‘this snake oil cures EVERYTHING’.

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It doesn’t matter what the ‘medicine’ is, the list of things it fixes is often very lengthy!  I see no ‘individuality’ at any level of any holistic magic cures except in one area: eating food.  Since humans eat nearly everything on earth, the holistic healer can pick and choose various foods to fix ‘diseases’.

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There is no effective known treatment for dementia. But we do know a lot about what affects brain function and brain aging: our nutrition, inflammation, environmental toxins, stress, exercise, and deficiencies of hormones, vitamins, and omega-3 fats.

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This ‘doctor’ is very clever.  He admits there is no cure…but like all holistics, he believes that if you eat various foods, etc, you won’t go senile.  Of course, toxins are a big issue.  My husband was injured by chemical toxins that can kill.  They got absorbed into his body and affect his nervous system.

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Stress is bad.  Animals who are unhappy, get very sick and even die.  Exercise is always good.  All animals move about when they aren’t hibernating, this is natural.  Inflammation is funny talk for ‘having bacterial or viral germs infecting something’.  The cure for this is, of course, modern medicines.

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Drinking too much alcohol is bad for the brain. Starving to death is also rather bad for not just the brain but the entire body.  So eating healthy foods is good for the brain and everything else.  But of course, this isn’t what this story is about in the Huffington Post.

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Even though no long-term studies have been done to look at treating dementia based on genes, there are so many scientific threads that weave together a picture of how and why our brains age and what genes are involved. This leads me back to George …While this area of genetic testing and nutrigenomics is new, and more research is needed to help us refine our understanding and treatment, there are ways to look through new doors into an entirely new era of medicine that no longer focuses on the disease, but on the person and their uniqueness.

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ΩΩHe goes into the typical ‘success stories’ where ‘tailored diets’ revive sick people who are happier eating various VERY ODD foods, not normal foods.  The list the doctor gives has exotic foods which is very typical of ‘tailored’ food diets so beloved of all sorts of witch doctors and witches since the early days of humans trying to control nature while still living in caves or tents.

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ΩΩThis doctor babbles on about ‘genetic tests’ he conducts before telling people to eat various odd foods.  Also, he wants them to take various ‘supplements’ since the medicines are not valid and thus, cannot advertise themselves as cures, only additions to a diet.  Dr. Hyman mentions his ‘genetic tests’ calling them ‘nutrigenomics’ which is a nifty ‘scientific’ name and thus, piggy back rides on modern medicine which believers of ‘holistic’ food-based medicine despise so much:

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Misleading Marketing of Genetic Tests

Marketing of genetic susceptibility tests both via doctors and direct-to-consumers is growing in the USA and in Europe. Companies have a powerful financial incentive to sell not only genetic tests but associated advice and individually tailored products, including skin creams, supplements, medicines and foods (what they call “nutrigenomics”)…

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I note with amusement the constant wails about how ‘big Pharma’ are all about profits whereas…all forms of magical or eating food healthcare is also very much…all about profits, too!  DUH.  Hooking a ‘scientific’ looking test to the usual clap trap about eating various ‘tailored’ foods is a great way to make lots of money from gullible people.

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…However, strong associations between genes and susceptibility to common diseases found in early studies are typically not confirmed by larger, later ones. Most of these genetic tests will therefore be misleading and the associated products and advice are, at best, a waste of money. At worst, they may also be harmful to health.

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I have and still do grow happy food: my plants live natural lives and are not modified in any way in the labs of Monsanto, my chickens run free and are very happy and healthy and eat lots of bugs so their eggs taste great and are healthy, too.  My other animals were all organically handled and not abused.  This is good for us, for them, for the planet.

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But the fake health cures based on ‘genetic’ tests are rather queer.  In Hyman’s story, he fixed this man’s ‘dementia’ by having him eat kale, watercress, cilantro, milk thistle and lots of mineral additives in pills.  After eating these various foods, the patient’s grandchildren loved him again. How touching. HAHAHA.  Note that the ‘herbs’ and such are queer things we don’t eat every day.  He didn’t tell this man to eat carrots and broccoli, for example.  Why not, we might ask?

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Well, those are common things.  The patient wouldn’t feel special.  It doesn’t sound like ‘medicine’.  It has to be somewhat exotic for it to look real.  Eating normal good foods isn’t good enough for  magic.

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The U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has the legal power to assess the clinical validity of genetic tests. However, in current practice, only tests that are sold as kits to multiple laboratories are assessed for clinical validity. Tests that are not supplied as kits, but provided as “clinical laboratory services” by individual labs, receive no such assessment. Most direct-to-consumer genetic tests currently on sale fall into this category. In addition, Roche and other companies are lobbying to stop the FDA from assessing the clinical validity of certain genetic test kits, with a proposal for a new category of test (the “in vitro analytical test”, or IVAT). If they succeed, misleading genetic test kits could be sold worldwide to a much bigger market.

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HAHAHA…a tool many ‘holistic’ guys are using to peddle oddball diets and thus, put some ‘science’ into their magical cures…are working hand in glove with BIG PHARMA!!!!  HAHAHA.

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And big Pharma sees big profits selling these useless tests to doctors who will sell the results to foolish patients who will hear stuff like this, from the other Huffington Post article by Dr. Hyman:

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He had a gene called apo E4, which is a high-risk gene for Alzheimer’s disease(ii) and also made it hard for him to lower his cholesterol and detoxify mercury from his brain.(iii) He also had a version of a gene for detoxification of metals and other toxins (glutathione-S-transferase, or GST)(iv) that was very inefficient, making him accumulate more toxins over his lifetime. Having the combination of a problem with GST and apo E4 puts people at even more risk for dementia.(v),(vi) In another study, people with an absent GST gene were likely to have much higher levels of mercury.(vii)

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George had another gene called MTHFR(viii) that made him require very high doses of folate to lower his blood levels of homocysteine, which is a substance very toxic to the brain. Lastly, he had a gene called CETP that caused his cholesterol to be high, which contributes to dementia. Combine this gene with the apo E4 gene and your risk of dementia goes way up.(ix)

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This is pure rubbish.  But boy, does the doctor sound ‘scientific.’  Oh, by the way, if you want to avoid mercury poisoning, avoid fish.  Humans have polluted all the waterways and oceans with way too much mercury.  Not to mention other toxins.

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Since the FDA does not assess clinical utility, tests of limited diagnostic value can still end up in widespread use. An example is the FDA-approved Factor V Leiden genetic test kit, which aims to identify people who have inherited an increased risk of developing venous thrombosis, or blood clots in the veins of their legs and elsewhere. The test’s clinical validity is relatively well established; it is now one of the most commonly performed genetic tests in U.S. labs. However, the clinical utility of the test is limited because it is not clear that people with the mutations should be treated any differently than other people.

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ΩΩThe last sentence is most important: it makes little difference what the tests say since people are pretty much genetically similar compared to say, two different finches on separate islands in the Galapagos Islands.  So it is normally not very necessary to have very detailed information since it makes little difference.  But psychologically, it makes a big, big difference if a doctor wants to have someone eat oddball foods they normally would reject.

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ΩΩMore silliness from the Huffington Post , the pop TV doctor, Chopra, dismisses all modern science and makes a stream of silly statements about ‘consciousness’ which shows how religious thinkers operate:  Deepak Chopra: Consciousness and the End of the War Between Science and Religion

• We live in a universe that exhibits intelligence, self-regulation, and creativity.
• Consciousness preceded the brain. It created life and went on to create the brain itself.
• Consciousness is primary in the world; matter is secondary.
• Evolution is conscious and therefore creative. It isn’t random.
• At the source of creation one finds a field of pure awareness.
• Pure awareness is the source of every manifest quality in the universe.

At the finest level, Nature is too complex to unravel through such weak ideas as randomness, materialism, and unconscious mechanics. Nature behaves, and as we know from ourselves, behavior is tricky.

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ΩΩThe idea that the universe operates due to ‘thinking’ is so self-centered, it is hilarious.  Humans would dearly love to think that there are no laws of Nature set by the way negative and positive poles work in the sub-atomic level.  The article is riddled with ridiculous jumps of logic and silly comparisons, all hitched to the idea that there is a ‘thinking’ something or other out there that ‘creates’ things by thinking about things and the conscious mind is more powerful than real reality.

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ΩΩHAHAHA.  A losing proposition.  Harsh reality ALWAYS wins in the end.  One can ignore it at one’s peril.  There is no force in nature more dangerous and more powerful than random chance!  I like to talk about natural forces as if they are ‘gods’ or ‘goddesses’ because it is a fun way to talk about elemental forces.

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ΩΩSo, if I had to rank the various ‘goddesses’ of the Cave of Wealth and Death, I would say that Lady Luck is the eldest and most powerful.  She created the Big Bang quite accidentally.  And she ultimately gets to roll the knuckle bone dice to see what random events will happen to us.  We scurry about, hoping to avoid these random things but there is no magical medicine that can protect us from random germs or random deterioration of our cellular material leading to cancerous mutations, etc.

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ΩΩThe mechanics of gravity and the nature of materials determines many things including if we live or die.  The first human who figured out the mechanics of fire making and the material uses of flint for making good stone tools are the ones we descended from, the other humanoids who didn’t do so well with the physical materialism and mechanics, didn’t have any offspring.   They were made extinct.

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ΩΩI do not admire people who deny reality.  The physical world can’t be ignored.  We can have an interior world, the mind we use to run our physical bodies is very important.  And it has this thing we call the ‘conscious mind’ but we also have its twin which is of greatest importance: the UNCONSCIOUS mind!  This is the deep, dark part of our eldest evolved parts of the brain and it is also extremely dangerous and very, very persistent and it controls our dreams as well as our sex lives, our ability to eat or run from danger and a host of other mindless things.  And we never, ever escape the unconscious mind.  It rules us nonstop.

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ΩΩAnd it is quite irrational and would dearly love to imagine that the real world doesn’t matter except…it wants sex, food and flight or fight episodes, sometimes, one right after the other.  And fending off this mindless consciousness is very, very difficult if not nearly impossible.  At least, anyone looking at history notes this fact.  It is hard as rock.

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