I’ve come to the conclusion that it is probably best to be well and not adjusted. That could very likely mean that you are actually healthy.
Jiddu Krishnamurti said, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”.
In my opinion, and I think in various other people's opinions, our society is profoundly sick in many ways. Things are not right. Being well adjusted to that is probably not a good thing. That's why I strive to not be adjusted.
That’s why it is fairly easy for me to say that science is full of shit!
Why is science full of shit?
[This article has been adapted from a transcript of a video I made. If you prefer to watch the videos, here it is. Excuse the quality, it was my first attempt and I have learned a lot for next time. Feedback, constructive criticism, and support - subscribing, liking, commenting - are extremely welcome.]
Let's start off with a seminal paper by none other than a titan in the world of science John Ioannidis. John Ioannidis is one of the most published and cited individuals alive today in the field of science. One would be hard-pressed to find seasoned scientists who do not recognize him as highly influential. Of course, you're always going to find some people who will have issues but John's work speaks for itself.
In 2005 John published a paper that was entitled, Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. Maybe that means his published research findings were false, which would let everyone off the hook, but I think John’s examination of published research is too detailed and rigorous for my tongue in cheek remark to hold any seriousness.
This is a an important paper for people to read and I recommend you read it. It clearly exposes the limitations in this field and some of the reasons why people think science is being worshiped with religious like fervor - especially during the pandemic era of the last three years. This also connects to why sometimes people see the modern adoration of science as scientism.
Now everybody parrot just “follow the science” and “trust the experts”… Do not question! Kaw! Kaw!
This in itself is an affront and antithetical to the principles of science because science itself is a continually questioning process and that's why it's important that we don't say things like “the science is settled”.
There are clearly good working theories and even though I'm telling you why science is full of shit, I think science is an excellent tool. It should be continued to used and I use it all the time. But using it and recognizing it for its limitations are two things that can coexist.
When we don't recognize the limitations of a tool that we have, we tend to use that tool in grotesque and destructive ways. Thus, I think it's important at this juncture in history (and likely always will be) to balance out some of the zealous nature of the flag wavers of science as religion.
Let’s look at a few other examples of why we need to be cautious in treating science as settled and to know that science is full of shit sometimes.
Dr. Marcia Angell:
Dr Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet:
Dr Herbert E. Ley, Jr., former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration
Dr Rayford Brown, Chair of the Food and Drug Administration Committee on Analgesics and Anesthetics
A group called calling itself CDC Scientists Preserving Integrity Diligence and Ethics in Research or CDC SPIDER put a list of complaints in writing in a letter to CDC Chief of Staff the members of the group have elected to file a complaint anonymously for fear of retribution.
If you still think that after the last three years trust in these alphabet agencies who are charged with the health of the people - not just in the United States, this includes places like Canada with Health Canada, the UK and various other agencies including global organizations like the World Health Organization - is any higher than it was prior to the pandemic, I think you need to think again.
Trust has gone down precipitously towards these agencies. They have contradicted themselves repeatedly. They have been hypocritical. They have given mixed messages as well as bad advice.
I can point to a spot on the World Health Organization's website - it has been there since early 2020 and maybe even before that (but that's when I found it) - that claims that one should not exercise in a mask because it is hazardous when you do. Exercising in a mask obviously creates moisture through sweat and increased respiratory rate which can then lead to an environment where other pathogens and organisms may grow. It also causes unnecessary and dangerous challenges for the person exercising.
It says this on their website and yet in many places where the public health authorities claimed to be in accordance with the WHO, they pushed forward mandatory masking for those exercising - even outdoors!
That's crazy!
Now let's look why science is full of shit in relation to their sacred cow, RCTs.
Randomized controlled trials are basically the gold standard in many people's minds for all science. Randomized controlled trials certainly have their place and they have value.
Again, I'm not discarding the baby with the bathwater. I'm not throwing out science. I still believe science is a fantastic tool, has a lot to teach us and we should continue to practice good science. That requires us to be humble and assess its strengths and weaknesses with as much accuracy as possible.
I found an article here published in Evidence-based Mental Health in 2017, July 14th, The Limitations of Using Randomized Controlled Trials as a Basis for Developing Treatment Guidelines. Here’s the abstract. It is worth the quick read:
I could go on and on on about RCTs. Maybe I will another time.
Instead, let’s take a quick look at the differences between in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro.
In vivo is Latin for “within the living”. It refers to work that's being performed in a whole living organism.
In vitro is Latin for “within the glass”. When something is performed in vitro, it happens outside of a living organism.
Ex vivo is also outside of a living organism and it is Latin for “out of the living”.
It would it would stand to reason by any sort of common sense that the most accurate representation of life as we know it would be studying something inside a living organism.
That would also speak to what I just read in the abstract of that paper about the limitations of RCTs, in the sense that you can do all you want in a study but no study is ever going to account for all the variables. No study is going to account for true real world action or the true real world dynamics that go on and that's why it's important not to hold these things too high up on a pedestal as some sort of mathematical truth. It is not a two plus two equals four equation.
That sort of translatable accuracy is outside the scope of the science of biology and medical practice.
In my opinion, a lot of it comes down to the dance between the science and the art. It comes down to a person, a clinician, who is charged with using their intuitions, their training, their skill, AND the evidence from various trials to focus on how they can best serve their patient, or the experiment, or the treatment in question. This requires a lot more than just abstract studies or even studies done in real living people, in vivo study, but without all the variables that exist in the real world.
This next aspect of science is full of shit speaks to a few things we've already touched on some of the quotes I read from some of these leaders and chairs and editor-in-chiefs of these journals, in the sense that there's money involved in all of this. When money gets involved people's vision and understanding get clouded.
Money could be involved in a fairly innocent way. But often the funding provided and is implicitly, or even explicitly, asking for a study to be framed in a particular way. This usually means the study is going to be rolled out in that way. That could be fine. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that but we have to know there's a limitation because if the study is not done in a certain way the funding will dry up.
Often, there is even a worse and less innocent bias. Maybe it's still innocent but less conscious, or there could be a conscious aspect to this as well - if the researchers know their findings are contradictory and antagonistic to the desires and the profits of the funders, the funding is going to dry up too. This leads to a bias to either cover up or alter findings. This could lead to the researchers creating the findings they need to continue making a living in the field that they are pursuing.
Beyond that there's certain silos in the medical industry - and other fields as well. It's like the saying, “To someone with a hammer, everything's a nail”. Well, for many cardiologist everything's a heart and for many neurologists everything's a brain, etc., etc…
You're going to see silos where certain fields of belief stay in those fields of belief and do not see things from a different perspective, just because that is how they've been taught, that is who they answer to, those are the conferences they attend and so on and so on. These are echo chambers without awareness of themselves.
Another thing to keep in mind is: We just don't know.
Let's look at consciousness for a second. In philosophy of mind, we have a conundrum called, the hard problem of consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness basically dictates that while we might look at the brain as one and the same as consciousness. This is just as supported as various other hypotheses. Just because some people believe the brain is where consciousness resides, we have not been able to pinpoint it to a specific hard material location there.
What does this mean?
It means that consciousness might not be a derived from a hard material object. This is unacceptable for a reductive materialist. Many people are hoping for this straightforward answer, or something like it. For example, if we put certain brain pieces together we get a spontaneous synergy that gives rise to consciousness.
There's been many different hypotheses around consciousness and the nature of mind. One of them is that consciousness resides outside the brain when certain elements and characteristics and circumstances are aligned.
One of the analogies is that the brain might be like a radio transceiver and consciousness is the radio station being transmitted in the air. If you destroy the brain, you're not destroying consciousness, in that particular brain and in that particular person, you can no longer pick up the signal of consciousness.
I'm not saying that's what I believe or that is a more accurate or plausible hypothesis than the one which would state that the parts of the brain create consciousness but it's something to keep in mind. We cannot just discount this possibility.
Beyond that, there's something that any good scientist will say and that's that life is still a mystery. For every discovery and advance in science, we still come across big questions and in my mind, that's a beautiful thing.
In my mind, that gives me hope. It's exciting.
We don't want all the answers. That's just not the nature of a living in a dynamic universe. Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate, and who many regard as one of the greatest scientists of all time, said, “I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned”.
What do you think?
Let me know in the comments.
Well...first thing I did this morning is encounter this post. Read all of it. Watched the video. In order not to comment reflexively, hastily or shallowly, I am going to go and plant all my onions and leeks, including those for seed production, (I prepped all the beds yesterday - ouch!) and reflect on what you've said here. Perhaps I'll come back with something worth reading.
Great job by the way, Brad. These things matter. It's nice to encounter thinking and caring people still left on this planet, even if only on the internet.