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Ask yourself this question: Would you fly on an airplane built on "belief," guesswork, or circumstantial evidence? What about an airplane built with "ancient natural physics" used by tribes thousands of years ago? Or... would you rather fly on an airplane built using the laws of physics as discovered by science? If you answered yes to the first option, then you are either being a wiseguy or you could possibly be suicidal, in which case you should get help. :-) For the rest of us, the obvious answer is that we'd rather fly on an airplane that we know is going to work. Why would we treat our bodies and lives any different?
I've been a member of this site for while and I often find myself de-bunking myths and superstitions about health and wellness. I can't help it. I know it's probably annoying, but when I see something posted that appears to be erroneously false or un-scientific, I feel that it could actually harm someone if they follow that faulty advice.
So, I figured I'd provide the community with a "Baloney Detection Kit," which was first made by the great scientist from the 20th century, Carl Sagan. While sharing the same title, mine has different information. Here's a link to Sagan's: http://users.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html. Also see: http://www.skepticreport.com/skepticism/baloneydetectionkit.htm. All of the stuff on these pages applies to the health industry as well.
The greatest way to determine whether something is true is to use the scientific method. Science is the systematic search for truth. Before science, people just believed whatever made sense to them. The problem is that what makes sense to some doesn't make sense to others. The only way to solve this is to create a way to try to eliminate the human element from determining what is fact or fiction.
Everything we enjoy today: alcohol, food, safe sex, cars, Internet, airplanes, TV, radio, music, home heating, electricity, modern medicine and national defense were given to us by science. There is no reason to believe that science doesn't work. There is every reason to believe that it does.
So as it applies to health and wellness, when something is claimed, it must be backed up by evidence. And the bigger the claim, the more evidence required. As Carl Sagan said: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Here are some guidelines:
1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the "facts."
Just because someone tells you something, doesn't mean it's true. The best confirmation is an unrelated 3rd party like a medical journal or reputable and neutral source. My first source is www.wikipedia.org. Then I'll also check www.www.pubmed.gov.
2. Arguments from authority carry little weight - "authorities" have made mistakes in the past.
Just because Dr. So and So on Oprah said that if you put magnets on your body it will heal you, doesn't mean it's true. There is good reason to be skeptical. Much of what you hear on TV and other media is baloney. Use an authority at most as a reason to research further. Don't trust them just because they are on TV.
3. Correlation does not mean cause and effect relationship.
This is a tough concept to grasp for many of us. Correlation means two or more things were found together or are related. Causation means one caused the other. Example: Let's say a study finds that people who take a multivitamin live longer. That doesn't mean longer life was caused from the vitamin. Maybe people who take a vitamin are also more likely eat better and exercise, which lengthens their lifespan. Maybe people who take a vitamin are more likely to monitor their health better and prevent diseases. There are lots of reasons why taking vitamins and longer life could be "correlated" but not share a causal relationship. A good research study needs to account for this.
4. Placebo (fake/mock treatment) effect is often the cause of healing in treatments.
Going along with the above correlation statements, often people think that because they tried something someone told them to take, that what they took or did caused their ailment to heal or pain to go away. However, often just thinking that something will work causes the brain to to relieve that symptom. On average, in drug studies, about 30% of patients report relief after taking a placebo, which they thought was a real drug. This means that almost 1/3 of the time, on average, you could take "nothing" that you thought was "something" and it will fix your ailment. What a coincidence it would be if most health products worked on about 1/3 of the people that bought them? I wouldn't be surprised at all.
When a friend tells us that something worked for him or her, that's not reliable scientific information. We need to research it further using reliable sources to confirm that there is scientific research to back it up. There are no "secret" healing methods that traditional doctors are unaware of. If something's not being used in the mainstream, it's almost always because it hasn't been proven to work. Usually most of these supplements are harmless, but they are a waste of money.
If you want it to work, it will work. But why waste your money? Why not just want "air" or "nothing" to work and get the same effect, except it's free!
That's enough for part 1 of this blog. Part 2 will be coming shortly.
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About the Author
ewilson
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San Diego,
CA
Interests: Health, wellness, science, physics, nature, outdoors
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