Science vs. Ideology

Carl Remick carlremick at hotmail.com
Wed Nov 3 07:25:04 PST 1999



>Carl,
>
>you are joking, aren't you?
>
>Are you really suggesting that there is not a cumulative improvement in
>medical science?
>
>Is packing the womb in ice as good a treatment for hysteria as a
>sedative?
>
>Is bloodletting with leeches as good a treatment for high blood pressure
>as the current rest and low fat diets?

Nope and ditto for the other examples you gave, which are skewed toward discoveries made long ago. I'm thinking of the recent tendency to pepper people with contradictory findings about whether high-carbohydrate or high-fat diets produce more lasting weight loss; whether anti-oxidants reduce or promote cancer; whether tea, coffee, alcohol, etc. is a net risk or benefit at whatever level. Endless examples can be cited, of course, all of them deeply tedious controversies. The effect, at least in the U.S., has been to produce the most hypochondriacal society ever seen. If I were of a conspiratorial cast of mind, I could well suspect that this escalating hysteria has been deliberately induced to keep the public's mind off other topics ... such as politics.

Of course, if you want something *real* to worry about, there's always GM food ;-) There was a nifty article in today's NY Times about the junk science behind a recently USDA-approved squash, which I will post here anon.

I'm sure you'll enjoy it, Jim.

Carl

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