According to the American historian Daniel J. Boorstin, The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. Together with the same advice from George Bernard Shaw as he warned us to beware of false knowledge as it is more dangerous than ignorance!
And it is indeed true! The illusion of knowledge and false knowledge is actually the enemy of the progress of humanity as a whole. And one of the most dangerous forms of delusional knowledge that comes to my mind first when I think about this subject is Alternative medicine.
I was once in a taxicab and the radio was on, the host would welcome callers who are seeking solutions/remedies to various diseases. Guess who was advising people on that talk radio show? A self proclaimed Doctor of… cupping therapy! Whenever a caller describes the symptoms of his illness, the so-called doctor would advice him/her to go on and do the cupping therapy in specific spots, he had names for these spots as a matter of a fact. Other callers were advised to just eat honey mixed with some fucking herbs! And he would back up his nonsense every now and then with some religious texts. Listening to that was depressing in a way, especially in the part where they thank him immensely because he had just convinced them that he has the magical solution to their problems. And the worst thing of all, he didn’t advice them to go check a “real doctor” just to make sure he didn’t misunderstand the symptoms or something of that sort. No, he didn’t bother himself, he was too confident about his claims. Or I guess he was too afraid to diminish his credibility as a “Doctor” by saying so, who knows.
Cupping therapy, as disgusting as it seems, serves nothing more than the reddening of the skin due to capillary expansion, excessive fluid accumulation in tissue spaces and purple discoloration of the skin due to rupture of blood vessels. And a placebo effect. There isn’t a shred of evidence that proves it is capable of healing anything.
The belief that everything can be cured with cupping therapy just because it was done by ancient civilizations is a dangerous belief indeed. Most of the so called alternative medicine is as effective as praying to a holy cow. But one ought not to blame the victims of these practices and beliefs. They are mostly exploited by these charlatans given the fact that they are vulnerable and desperate to try anything with tremendous hope of getting some positive results.
I’ve had many discussions with many Alternative medicine/pseudoscience believers, and what I noticed is that if you just question them about the validity of their claims, they become angry. Sometimes to the point of withdrawing from the discussion by blocking you in the virtual world, or breaking off from the discussion in the real world. I thought this happens only when the topic is religion. I was wrong. They have spent months or even years investing both financially and emotionally in that practice or belief. And one can’t just come along and tell them that it’s all bullshit while expecting a positive reaction. Even if you do it as respectfully as you could, they do get mad. Which makes it hard to discuss the subject as objectively as possible. A friend of mine on Facebook, who is not a friend of mine anymore, was an astrologer. She did astrological readings to people. I asked her once to do me one, which she kindly did. I thanked her immensely for her time and effort. I then watched the reading, which turned out to be quite good, and complemented her for it. I then asked her if she believes in astrology or is she doing it just for fun. She said that she believe it to be true of course. She asked me the same question, do I believe in astrology? I said no. She said why? I asked her as politely as I can to explain to me how is it possible that there is a connection between the position of stars and planets in the universe and people’s personalities/lives. She said that we are all connected by energy … And she kept on talking that New Age, Deepak Chopra mambo jambo kind of nonsense. I then explained to her the linguistic and psychological tricks behind the way these readings are written. She immediately became defensive and even aggressive in the way she talks. she proceeded by telling me that I am a narrow minded person and she has no time to waste explaining to me how Astrology works. And then, to my surprise, I didn’t have the opportunity to reply because she had already blocked me. I never thought that her reaction would be like that. We could’ve at least agreed to disagree on that matter. I had the same discussion with some Astrology believers, here in my country Morocco, but none of them had any notion of how astrology works, some of them actually confuse it with Astronomy. But none of them reacted as aggressively as my old virtual American friend. I guess that’s why I was surprised.
Finding the truth about something is always difficult, and most importantly, tricky. Especially if your source of information are unreliable articles on the internet, Television and traditions. And speaking of that, Carl Sagan writes:
Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don’t practise these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, a world of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who saunters along.
An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on earth – scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children on television and radio and in movies, newspapers, magazines, comics and many books might easily conclude that we are intent on teaching them murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity and consumerism. We keep at it, and through constant repetition many of them finally get it. What kind of society could we create if, instead, we drummed into them science and a sense of hope?
From The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan.
It’s actually true. People do actually some effort to educate themselves and find out about science, but all what they can find is sophisticated nonsense. So they fill their minds with it. The more it stays unchallenged in their heads. The more irremovable it becomes. Another major factor that plays in the widespread of pseudoscience is the fact that it’s easily understood! How beautiful it would be to just think and focus about what you want and then get it when you least expect it! Such is the absurdity of the Law of attraction. To name a few!
And speaking of promoting science, Carl Edward Sagan ( 1934-1996) was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, author and a Science Popularizer. And the latter seems to me as important as all the other work he did. He knew the importance of advocating scientific skepticism to fight against the expansion, or shall we say the infection, of superstition and irrationality to future generations. Sagan had, if I might say, an uncanny ability to explain complicated scientific subjects in a simple fashion in order to make them easily understood to non-scientists. He hosted, co-wrote and co-produced a Television series called “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” in 1977 which is consisted of thirteen episodes that are filled with a wealth of scientific facts and historical knowledge narrated by his hypnotizing voice in a poetic manner, on a journey through time and space. And he is also best known for his research of extraterrestrial life. Not to mention that he was an author and co-author of more than 20 books.
If you are, my dear reader, interested in the subject of Alternative medicine and its efficacy. I would recommend to you a book called “Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial”. It’s written by two people. The first is Professor Edzard Ernst, an academic physician and researcher specializing in the study of complementary and alternative medicine. And the second is a science journalist who makes a living out of writing articles and books about science in a non academic manner to make them readable by the general public. It’s entertaining, educational and it will challenge some of your beliefs when it comes to medical practices. So if you value scientific evidence. And the conclusions of scientific experiments, you may go ahead and read it. If you don’t value evidence and you won’t change your mind no matter what. Don’t read it. You’ll just waste your time.
Finally, I hope I have given you enough stimulus to go on and read some of Carl Sagan’s books, too. Or watch his Television series if you haven’t done all of that already. I know that the new edition by Neil deGrass Tyson is much more advanced, but if you’re one of Sagan’s admirers like myself, you can’t help but watch his own edition. And needless to say that I had the honor, and certainly the joy, to draw the portrait you’re seeing now.
Yassin's Art! 