Bad, bad science
As a promoter and fan of holistic, complementary and alternative therapies, I’m often irritated by those of a scientific, rational and evidence-based mindset.
The fascinating thing about such people is their assumed authoritative attitude - often an arrogance - that thinks if something can’t be proven by scientific and rational means, it can’t be much good.
There’s a lot of it about and I’m sick of it. The most galling aspect of the holistic and rational divide is how the rationalists control the terms of engagement – somehow making anything ‘unscientific’ or ‘’unproven’, of little value.
So obviously flawed when you stop to think about it, rationalism has nonetheless reached Emperor’s new clothes proportions - with people still rushing for fast-acting, ‘scientifically-proven’ and ‘evidence-based’ medical solutions despite such disasters as Vioxx, Seroxat and Thalidomide.
Religious in their scientific views, many rationalists are not happy about facing the sort of challenge that alternative medicine deals with on an everyday basis. Whether you like him or loathe him, just consider the kicking organic and complementary whipping boy Prince Charles got just this week on TV for speaking out and suggesting that conventional medics abandon their “conventional mindsets” on health policy.
Another supreme example of scientific arrogance comes in the form of Ben Goldacre, who, in his Guardian ‘Bad Science’ column, dishes out “satirical criticism of scientific inaccuracy, health scares, pseudoscience and quackery”.
An ardent critic of popular nutrition and lifestyle gurus like Gillian McKeith and Patrick Holford as well as anti-immunisation campaigners, homeopathy and iridology (and many other things that are - on his terms - hard to ‘prove’), Goldacre epitomises the brittle worldview that denies people of their own valuable personal knowledge and positive experience.
He and his ilk, those to whom ‘not scientific’ seems to mean ‘not true’, need reminding that the word science comes from the Latin “scientia,” meaning knowledge. We all know things - and by the Webster’s Dictionary definition that says science is “knowledge attained through study or practice” - we are all scientists.
Sadly however, we’ve been scared off being by countless boffins who have made us question what we know in our own experience and instinct to be true, with their expert-status, use of jargon and unquestioned power.
Our own fear and laziness too have allowed them to smother our instincts; having us going against our own judgement, headlong into counter-intuitive medical interventions and prescriptions.
“To anyone who’s interested in science,” says Goldacre, lauding his self-elevated medical status over us and characteristically going for the messenger and not the message,” it’s simply offensive to find newspapers and television channels filled with people who adopt a cloak of scientific authority … ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith has a non-accredited correspondence course doctorate from the United States and a primetime show on Channel 4 television.”
I’m no fan of Gillian either, but sadly for Ben, growing numbers of people seem to be excited and inspired by taking a pro-active interest in their health, experimenting with food and diet. The same is true in holistic therapies - where despite the lurking, (again rational) spectre of government regulation - many are finding that ‘feeling’ better is a worthwhile validation, even if no costly trials back them up. They just know.
Maybe Ben is so shrill because the scientific stranglehold that has kept people in the dark - and arguably unwell - is loosening a little.
“They misrepresent, from their position of dominance in the mainstream media, what scientific evidence for a clinical assertion would actually look like,” says Ben. “The entire field is based on a small palette of simple academic errors.”
“But most offensive to me, as a hard working NHS doctor, is the way that media nutritionists assume the moral high ground, as if they were somehow the source of all that is right and good in the management of lifestyle risk factors for cardiovascular disease and cancer” he adds, sounding like his monopoly is being challenged.
Sorry Ben, but the people I meet and know don’t care about these breaches of your lofty scientific rulebook. They’re too busy living their lives, taking their chances and trying stuff out in the real world. I say more power to their elbows and less to prescription-pad protocol, even if it is ‘evidence-based’ and ‘scientifically-proven’.
