A Series of Tubes

As I’ve mentioned before the tree sit has a bit of a “us versus them” feel with some tree sitters protesting science. There was a post on indymedia that justified the expansion of the University when it was for art but not when it was for science:

” The construction (below Performing Arts, right above the Music Recital Hall) is the new building that will house the Digital Arts & New Media program.

Pretty cool stuff, and not Science, but Art!”

This got me thinking about other battles science has had such as that between intelligent design and darwin’s theory of evolution (A picture of darwin pulled from wikipedia is shown at left). I recently went and watched NOVA’s series on the dover school board trial.

There are unfortunately prices to be paid if you don’t take science seriously, just as I think people are missing out on great cultural experiences by not exposing themselves to art. The price you pay in the case of science is that you are susceptible to bogus, unproven, and potentially harmful non scientific theories. In the case of Darwinism and creationism, recently returning under the name Intelligent Design, throwing out Darwinism means that you would throw out modern genetic theory.

The discarding of science is not just the domain of the religious right. I highly doubt that the tree sitters are fundamentalist Christians. Actually before I get into this I would like to point out that I have no idea what any of the tree sitters views are regarding evolution or modern medicine.

The discarding of science on the left comes in the form of alternative medicine which is unproven, unscientific, and mostly based on theories of diseases that predate the germ theory of disease. For this post I will focus on Ayurveda because it provides a contrast that highlights my point most beautifully.

Ayurveda is an ancient Indian healing practice that uses ancient religious beliefs to prescribe various teas, oils, scents, and massages to cure you. I like my massages, teas and whatnot, but the disregard of repeatedly confirmed modern scientific medicine is what gets to me. Deepak Chopra, shown at left, is probably the most public face on Aryuveda. You can see Deepak’s lack of respect for science in his defense of Intelligent design and his use of the term “quantum healing” which has nothing to do with anything quantum at all. But what about those teas oils and scents. Do they work? Do they have any effect?

Well the placebo effect can account for any anecdotal evidence provided to support Ayurveda, which is why modern medicine requires that double blind studies be done in order to rule out any placebo effect. What does Ayurveda provide you with? The answer is a triple whammy: lead, mercury and/or arsenic.

Toys are being recalled left and right from Chinese manufacturers for having toxic levels of lead, yet Ayuredic medicines, which has been scientifically shown to contain toxic levels of lead, mercury, and/or arsenic in 20% of properly administered medications, continues to be sold. This means that you may be (20% chance per medication) at risk for dangerous levels of heavy metal toxicity from a non scientific, unregulated, and ancient medication. The thing is that the toxic levels of metals are actually part of the prescribed cure in Ayurveda so you can’t take them out:

“Heavy metals are integral to some formulations and have been used for centuries. There is no point of doing trials as they have been used safely and have mention in our ancient texts.” cited from here.

So there you have it. Failure to understand and a failure to respect science can be harmful to your health.