Scientific Dogma 2

What’s wrong with science

The edifice of science may look solid from the outside and the people populating it may seem pretty sure of themselves and their theories, but from where I stand it all looks pretty shaky – and decades – if not centuries (in the case of Einstein) out of date.

It can be very personally confronting to allow for possibilities other than those accepted by the mainstream and when you start to question one precept it undoubtedly leads to more questions than answers. For some it is much less threatening to stick with what they know.

In addition, some of the untruths that are enthusiastically propagated are undoubtedly done so deliberately in order to generate profit for some sector (“Follow the money”) eg: ‘global warming’ and the imposition of ‘green’ taxes.

One theory (the ‘sociology of knowledge’) characterises science as an irrational movement driven purely by sociological factors (rather than the evidence and argument they claim). It is characterised by the dogmatic protection by institutional incumbents of their power and income, and not at all by an open-minded search for truth. Furthermore, science has become a modern priesthood punishing or ridiculing non-believers and dissenters.

The trouble is that you can’t separate science from human behaviour.

Science can be manipulated in so very many ways – and often by genuine, well intentioned researchers (putting aside scientific fraud which is much more common than most suppose). There is the formulation of the wrong hypothesis, collection of the wrong data and ‘data torture’ where with computers, any number of analyses can be run until the collected data proves something – which the researchers can then retrospectively state that they were out to prove/disprove.

The majority of studies are probably never published for a variety of reasons including the fact that they run counter to a favoured theory or don’t prove anything of interest. There are hundreds of ways the data can be massaged such as by excluding certain groups from the study, or by manipulating the cut-off point.

Then there are the processes of peer review and publication whereby the scientific norms are kept in place by colleagues who may lack imagination, or be jealous, or not have got the funding, etc. Although ostensibly anonymous, most worlds are pretty small and the majority of reviewers will have a pretty good idea of who the author is – or could certainly find out.

Science assumes that there is no observer effect and that it is actually possible to take objective measurements. Although quantum physics tells us otherwise – that the beliefs of the observer affect the outcome regardless of methods such as double blinding.

Finally there is the fact that there may be no will to find the truth. The naturopath, Dr Nicolas Gonzalez, discusses this in How the establishment sabotages natural medicine studies. In this podcast he describes how the oncologists he was presenting his data to were shocked (and no doubt embarrassed) by the results he was obtaining with treatment of pancreatic cancer using methods they did not understand and had never been taught. They literally didn’t want to know – it threatened their worldview and their status as the experts.

Evidence-based practice

There is currently a big movement towards evidence-based practice (EBP) in many fields including medicine, dentistry, nursing and education. The idea being that all practical decisions made should be based upon narrowly selected research studies.

But what if the very assumptions underscoring such an approach are faulty?

It starts with the way everything has been divided everything up and labelled so that right from the outset these divisions and labels obscure the oneness of everything. It happens in medicine with the study of anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and so on and then progresses into specialising in particular body parts eg: Ear, Nose and Throat, gynaecology, orthopaedics, neurology, psychology etc. And, of course, particularly the division between the mouth and body (ie: dentistry and medicine).

The way allopathic medicine works at present is that individuals are all considered to be the same – fruit rather than apples, pears, oranges, kumquats, etc. Then all people with the same notional disease are grouped together so that if you are testing a particular intervention for diabetes you want a group of ‘diabetics’. The effectiveness of this intervention upon this group are then monitored.

In the naturopathic world everyone is considered to be literally unique. They have their own particular genetic hand, nutrition, stress, life experiences, exposure to toxins and they may have the disease commonly referred to as diabetes for a variety of different reasons – each requiring a different approach.

For some it may be mercury toxicity from their amalgam fillings that has compromised the production of insulin by their pancreas or the ability of insulin to bind to cell receptors. In some a trauma and particularly the loss of a child (possibly a miscarriage, still birth, cot death, or abortion) can trigger pancreatic dysfunction.

Others may have been exposed to other toxins. Arsenic is particularly thought to affect the pancreas and is often found in sources such as chicken, well- and ground-water and wood preservatives. For some it may have been caused by one or more nutritional deficiencies and/or eating a diet unsuited to their metabolic make-up.

And yet others may have a structural problem relating to their spine and the nervous supply to the pancreas. Exposure to electromagnetic fields and particularly dirty electricity has also been shown to particularly affect pancreatic function.

The job of the naturopath is to work out which of these factors are at play and seek to rectify it (Tolle causam ie: ‘Identify and remove the cause’). So there is no homogenous group of people that allopathic medicine refers to as ‘diabetics’. There are just people with the symptom of poorly controlled blood sugar for a wide variety of reasons.

This means that it is difficult to prove naturopathic approaches using the criteria that allopathic medicine has established. First, because there is no one homogenous group of diabetics for whom one approach will work and second because this method does not allow for an approach tailored to each unique individual.

Dreaming a different dream

We need people who can dream different dreams and see things differently. The story of humanity has always been that of the struggle between the free-thinking individual and established power structures which seek to maintain the status quo and their dominion.

“Being realistic is the most commonly travelled road to mediocrity. What’s the point of being realistic? It’s unrealistic to walk in a room and flip a switch and lights come on. Fortunately Edison didn’t think so. It’s unrealistic to bend a piece of metal and think that you are going to fly people over the ocean in that metal. Fortunately the Wright brothers didn’t think so.”
Will Smith

The biggest threat to these elites is an imaginative, awakened, critically thinking and politically motivated populace. And the greatest triumphs of the human mind have always challenged the existing systems of power and control. Ideas are dangerous things and by controlling the dissemination of ideas you can control the populace – all that has changed is the methodology.

Rupert Sheldrake and Nassim Haramein aren’t unschooled ‘cranks’ – they are just people who have the ability to see things differently and have put their ideas forward for discussion. They will have known that by sticking their heads above the parapet that they were going to take a lot of flak.

And yet they did it anyway.

Hats off gentlemen. I salute you.

Quotes about new ideas and dogma

“The idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.”
Elbert Hubbard

“It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.”
Thomas Jefferson

“By not caring too much about what people think, I’m able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed.”
Albert Ellis

“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”
John Maynard Keynes

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”
John Cage

“Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.”
Baruch Spinoza

“The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas.”
Edward de Bono

“Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ‘crackpot’ than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.”
Chauncey Depew

“Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyse data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong. The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.”
Edward de Bono

“Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“The completeness of the resulting control over opinion depends in various ways upon scientific technique. Where all children go to school, and all schools are controlled by the government, the authorities can close the minds of the young to everything contrary to official orthodoxy.”
Bertrand Russell

“We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”
Edward Bernays

“We need men who can dream of things that never were.”
John F. Kennedy

“Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.”
Albert Einstein

“Corporations are structures – they are built to resist change. Everyone who serves structures is dedicated to resisting change.”
Barry Carter, Ormus expert

“Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
John F. Kennedy

“In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don’t know it.”
G. K. Chesterton

“In my experience, the most staunchly held views are based on ignorance or accepted dogma, not carefully considered accumulations of facts. The more you expose the intricacies and realities of the situation, the less clear-cut things become.”
Mary Roach

“Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, ‘My current model’ – or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel – ‘contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised.’ In terms of the history of science and knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude.”
Robert Anton Wilson

“The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.”
William Osler