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PR OFFENSIVES If scientists, attired in their white lab coats, are the priests of this new religion, the proliferating ‘sceptics’ groups could be likened to the evangelists crossed with the dragon-killing saints. They have a hard- line attachment to ‘science’ and ‘reason’, and hold little sympathy for anything that fails to conform to their views. In the area of health, reductionism is


Health freedom or the world of the sceptics?


WE DESERVE THE FREEDOM TO USE ANY THERAPY WE WANT, SO LONG AS IT IS OSTENSIBLY NON-HARMFUL, AND ESPECIALLY IF IT DOES NOT CREATE LONG-TERM SIDE-EFFECTS THAT ARE LIABLE TO BE A BURDEN ON TAXPAYERS DOWN THE TRACK.


BY MARTIN OLIVER W Inside the sceptic mi ndspace


e live in interesting times. Wherever you look, things are in a state of accelerating flux. Against such a backdrop


many people are searching for something solid to hold onto or believe in. In some cases this is provided by one’s family; in others religion, and increasingly people are flocking to science. If the militantly atheist British author


Richard Dawkins is correct, God does not exist, and we should instead believe in a reductionist form of science. Elevated to the level of a religion, this risks taking on some of religion’s less desirable qualities, such as a marked intolerance of everything that fails to fit inside its version of what is true. In addition to this is a belief that


all human experiences can be defined through scientific terms. While the most devout within this community reject such non-scientific qualities as intuition, knowingness and gut feelings, they ignore the fact that many scientific breakthroughs of the past, such as those achieved by Einstein and even Descartes himself, were achieved through an intuitive leap.


REDUCTIONIST AND HOLISTIC Reductionism (or Cartesianism), a scientific view championed by the French philosopher Descartes in the 17th century,


is essentially the belief that a biological system such as an animal can be reduced to the sum of its parts. Today this forms the basis of much of modern science. Such a philosophy is highly mechanistic, and indeed Descartes himself believed that creatures were essentially complex machines. While reductionism is valuable


to a point, it falls down when faced with multifaceted interactions such as those between body and mind, which are increasingly regarded as a single continuum and could play a role in the placebo effect. These can only be explained through holism, a fundamentally different scientific direction that involves creating wholes out of the small Cartesian pieces. In today’s scientific community,


while curiosity is valued, certain non- reductionist lines of enquiry are generally frowned up, resulting in a mild form of censorship. However, some important discoveries have slipped through the net. In 1988, French scientist Jacques Benveniste claimed to have discovered, to his amazement, that water diluted to high-potency homoeopathic dilutions affects biological reagents. This effect was replicated in laboratories in Italy, Israel and Canada before being aggressively debunked.


Clear vision naturally!


SCIENCE = reductionist science. REASON = the sane and responsible view of people who embrace ‘science.’


JUNK SCIENCE = often used in relation to science that stands in the way of corporate profits.


QUACK = a derogatory term for a naturopath, often a practitioner of a therapy whose scientific basis conflicts with the reductionist model.


QUACKERY = derogatory term for naturopathy, often forms of naturopathy whose scientific basis conflicts with the reductionist model.


SNAKE OIL = a similar derogatory term, except that it carries connotations of dishonesty in the practitioner supposedly peddling a healing method that he or she knows does not work.


ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE = another favoured term for natural healing modalities, as it inaccurately conveys the impression that they would only be used by a small number of people.


WOO = derogatory term for non-reductionist science, and beliefs in energies and forces whose objective existence is disputed by the scientific mainstream. It is primarily intended to highlight the supposed weak- mindedness of people who have left the straight and narrow reductionist path.


ENERGY = a reference to electricity and other fuels, or sometimes to sound and light. Sceptics consider anybody who refers to ‘energy’ in the context of healing to be guilty of a ‘woo’ heresy.


WITCHCRAFT = a heavy-handed comparison intended to deter people from a natural therapy by playing on irrational fears of evil.


SUPERSTITION = derogatory term for the precautionary principle when applied to risky technologies such as GM food.


www.vision-training.com


generally the territory of pharmaceuticals, while holism is frequently encountered in the field of naturopathic healing. For its efforts, naturopathy has faced aggressive and well-orchestrated media and PR campaigns. Effective PR involves constructing a narrative that might be a gross distortion of the true picture, and to keep repeating it endlessly until it will hopefully sink into the mainstream consciousness. However, despite all the bad press that natural therapies have received over the years, many would say unjustifiably, consumers continue to flock to it.


DEBATE AND THE POWER OF THE INTERNET When it comes to natural therapies, large numbers of people experience a


remarkable benefit every day, but for those who are yet to be convinced, they have to look to outside sources of information, including the media, and decide who to believe. On both sides of the debate, arguments are often dominated by emotion and personality type rather than facts, with the nurturers (dominated by women) most supportive of it and the autocrats (dominated by men) most critical. Throw into this mix the far-reaching


influence of the internet. Recently the British journalist George Monbiot raised the question of how many of the anonymous comments following online articles come from ‘astroturfers’ within corporate PR units, as a means of presenting an impression that a majority thinks a certain way. Monbiot was contacted by one whistleblower who claimed to be from a team working for corporate clients, and who posted under 70 different aliases, or ‘sock puppets’ as they are now known.


HEALTH FREEDOM, OR HEALTH CONTROVERSY The average sceptic nearly always advocates whatever involves a higher level


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