Mind, Make-Believe and Medicine: Exploring the Divide Between Science and Wishful Thinking

Description

This book delves into the world of alternative medicine and related phenomena in several different ways, both from a scientific perspective and the perspective of supporters and practitioners of those phenomena. An attempt is made to explain not only what those perspectives are, but also why they are often so radically different. Why do lots of people believe things that other people don't? To find answers, we don't just examine the things people believe in or not, but also human traits in thinking, reasoning and belief. Acknowledgements Introduction About Me Reasons for Writing This Book The Role and Value of Science in This Book How This Book is Organized Contents 1 Staying Alive No Panic! See the Pattern Invisible Threats Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Tell What the Future May Bring … Everyday Future-Telling When Predictive Stories Become Manipulation It’s All About People Trust and Truth Emotion and Information It Stands to Reason … From Reasoning to Science Conclusion 2 It’s the Science, Stupid! Einstein Was Wrong! Oh, Wait, Not so Fast … Science—What Is It Good for? Absolutely Everything! What Exactly Is Science? Break It to Make It Branches of Science The Scientific Method Observation Hypothesizing Prediction Testing Peer Review Replication Plausibility Why Science Is Hard Reality Is Complex The Brain Getting in the Way Nobel Disease Anti-scientific Views and Sentiments Bad Science Scientists Are only Human … Corporate Influence and Financial Interests Politicized Science Pseudoscience How to Recognize Pseudoscience The Pseudoscientific Mindset Conclusion 3 Our Daily Bread, All-Natural All Natural! The Real Nature of Nature What Is ‘Natural’ Anyway? Natural Food Eat What You Need Do-It-Yourself or Take-out? Organic Food GMOs Food Additives Why Add Chemicals to Food? E Numbers Supplements Do We Need Supplements? Too Much of a Good Thing Raw Foodism Nuke It! Raw Water The Best Food Is No Food? What the Science Says About Breatharianism Conclusion 4 Get Well Soon Back Quartet in Ache Minor True Natural Medicine Why We Still Need Medicine Mummy’s Kiss Let Food Be Thy Medicine … Traditional Medicine The Emergence of Science-Based Medicine What’s in a Name? Medicine Diverging ‘Just Treating Symptoms’ Stimulating Self-healing? But Does It Work? What the Science Says What Makes Medicine Tick Regular Medicine Alternative Medicine Alternative Cancer Treatments The Patient Got Better—But Was It the Treatment? Testing Treatments Conclusion 5 What Is Wrong with You? Rotten Apple Diagnostics Experience and Intuition Getting It Wrong Alternative Diagnostics ‘Live Blood Analysis’ Getting It Right After All The Root Cause of Disease The Holistic Approach One Cause, One Cure Risks and Medical Errors First, Do No Harm Oops … What the Science Says Why Does Alternative Medicine Still Exist? The Practitioner’s Perspective Alternative Training and Education Health Freedom Conclusion 6 Big Bad Pharma and the Healing Herbs Good Intentions, Bad Medicine Funny Food Medicines: Cure, Comfort or Curse? Traditional Medicine Western Traditional Medicine Miasma Theory The Doctrine of Signatures Traditional Chinese Medicine Ayurveda Big Books of Medicine ‘Used for’ Is Not the Same as ‘Effective For’ Herbal Successes Looking Things up at the NCCIH and RationalWiki What the Science Says Drawbacks of Herbal and Traditional Medicines Environmental Damage Dosage Problems Interactions, Side Effects, and What Happens in Your Body Quality and Regulatory Problems Toxic Ingredients, Contamination and Adulteration How Would You Like Your Arsenic Sir, Boiled or Roasted? Traditional Medicine with Modern Effectiveness Pharma Time! How Pharmaceutical Products Are Made ‘A Promising New Substance’ Clinical Trials Problems with Pharmaceutical Products The Money Problem The Mechanistic Fallacy Hail the New Pill, just Like the Old Pill Big Pharma and the Alternative World Conclusion 7 Shaken, Not Stirred A Most Wonderful Remedy Exactly What Is Homeopathy? Problems Right Away But It Works so Much Better! Dilution or Oblivion Pure and Simple Homeopathic Proving Homeopathic Proving as a Medicine Trial The Verdict on Homeopathy What About Baby Jason? Ethical Considerations Homeopathy and Vaccination What the Science Says Proving Disproved Crunching the Numbers on Homeopathic Dilutions Homeopathic Dilution Scales Making Your Own Homeopathic Remedy What About Our Oceanic Beer? The Case of Oscillococcinum Why Homeopaths and Patients Think Homeopathy Works Conclusion 8 An Ounce of Prevention … Not Anti-vaccine No Trespassing Enter the Vaccine Natural Immunity Maternal Immunity The Anti-vaccine World Integrity of the Human Body Vaccine Mandates ‘Vaccinating = Medically Treating Healthy People’ ‘Vaccines Can Have Serious Side Effects’ ‘What About Long-Term Side Effects?’ ‘Vaccines Have Not Been Properly Tested’ ‘We Need Real Vaccinated Versus Unvaccinated Trials’ ‘Vaccines Aren’t Tested for Long-Term Effects’ ‘Vaccines Don’t Prevent Infections’ ‘Those Diseases Are Very Rare, so We Don’t Need Vaccines Any More’ ‘But All Those Toxic Chemicals in Vaccines Can’t Be Good!’ ‘You Can’t Trust Vaccines’ Other Anti-vaccine Propaganda and Myths What the Science Says Making Vaccines Other Vaccine Ingredients (and Why They’re Safe) Testing Vaccines Keeping an Eye on Things The Vaccination-Autism Myth The 1998 Lancet Paper It’s Mercury Poisoning! Wakefield’s Fraud Exposed Explaining Autism Diagnoses The Bad Thing About the Vaccine-Autism Myth The Immune System Going Rogue Conclusion 9 Toxins Everywhere Whodunnit? What Is a Toxin? How Toxins Work Toxins, Poisons and Venoms Toxins in Evolution and History Plant Toxins Avoiding Toxins Dealing with Toxins Toxins and Poisons in Human History Toxins in Our Modern World Lead Detox Why Is Detox so Popular? Detox Supplements Are We Being Poisoned? ‘But Toxins Accumulate in Your Intestines!’ Colon Cleansing Bentonite Clay Detox Foot Baths and Footpads Poisoning Conspiracies Water Fluoridation Conspiracies Chemtrails What the Science Says Detox Charcoal Revisited Real Detox Substance Detox Chelation Therapy Antidotes Let Toxins Be Thy Medicine Conclusion 10 The Energy Problem Party Tricks Energy Medicine What They Feel Is Real But Patients Feel It Too! The Origins of Life Energy Forms of Energy Medicine Acupuncture Bioresonance Hulda Clark’s Zapper What the Science Says Qi Questioned Rosa et al. Fake Limb Energy? Acupuncture Research Bioresonance Revisited The Tricks Behind Bioresonance Machines How to Test a Bioresonance Machine The Real Universal Life Energy Other Types of Body Energy Conclusion 11 Radiation The Neighbourhood Epidemic What Exactly Is Radiation? We’re Bathing in Radiation! What Makes Radiation Harmful? Healthy Radiation? Why People Fear Radiation Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Anti-radiation Products Real Anti-radiation Measures Fake Radiation Shielding Harmful Anti-radiation Products? Back to Craigavon What the Science Says The Electromagnetic Spectrum What Makes Ionizing Radiation Harmful Nuclear Radiation Cell Phones and Cancer Cancer Statistics Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Revisited Looking at Nerve Signals 5G So What Actually Is 5G? How Smartphones Are Bad for People’s Health Conclusion 12 Our Very Human Brain Packing Up Alternative Science? We’re All Fallible We’re All Human The Believing Brain Smart People Rationalization Dunning-Kruger Alternative Medicine on Trial The Dilemma Open Mind Communication Across the Divide ‘Don’t Trust Anyone!’ Real Conspiracies How Do They Know? Spilled Beans: Best Before Date Where Conspiracy Beliefs Start Social Traits and Social Media The Dangers of Disinformation and Misinformation What Can We Do? Conclusion Appendix A.1 Common Biases, Fallacies and Bad Practices A.2 List of Common Biases and Bad Practices A.3 List of Common Fallacies Literature and Web References Index