As part of my study, I spend a lot of time on Pubmed, the National Library of Medicines journal database. Nutritional Medicine occupies a strange position between solid, research-based diagnosis, and traditional, sort of common sense, dont-mess-with-3000-years-of-blahblah-history, and Pubmed is one place where these two curse one another variably with eye of newt and ganglia blockers. It is also a place where one can see some of the problems rising from the ubiquitous application of single-variable research systems to everyone AND that other guy.
Those who have ever watched Bill O Reilly run off at mouth, quoting reports from mysterious "French Commissions" that never existed, should understand that information is like any commodity; the more there is, the more of it came steaming straight from the bulls ass. Nevertheless, the intergrity of Scientific information seems still to be remarkably intact, at least as far as the layman is concerned. They say things like, "Hey, it's science, I looked it up on the internet", and they MEAN it. I am not saying that true science, ie , data gleaned from judcious observation and testing, is irrelevant or non-existent, but it's scope is limited and it's findings subject to bias interpretation and further observation. Nevertheless, believers look to the Science for capital 'T' Truth and religious satisfaction, and as such, have a nasty habit of applying the scientific method to areas it was never designed to penetrate. You know, like, how gays have that gene or something, in their brains, and that is why they are so good at violin.
At its heart, this predilection is just the time honoured tradition of preserving ones sanity in the face of incomprehensibility by making generalizations. BROAD generalizations that take the complicated out of dynamic, multifaceted systems that less than a millionth of the population actually understands. The problem with doing this to science is that we are denying ourselves an objective lens with which to view the world, and are instead granting Science dominion over man in the same omnipotent form that Jolly ole God occupies. Just because we now KNOW that thunder is not angels breaking wind, we get all uppity. How many of you know exactly how it was scientifically determined that thunder is caused by a sonic shockwave from the rapid expansion of air surrounding a bolt of lighting? I only know the definition of thunder because I looked it up on wikipedia, an information source in which I have complete faith. FAITH.
It is also weird how this pnemonenon has led to people not daring to believe what is blatantly obvious if it cannot be somehow proven by Science. Some of NLMs recent headline include such items as, "Multiple stressors compound heart disease risk", and "Quality of life after stroke worse". No kidding, and like, having to eat chicklits out of a deadmans ass sucks too. Ill take my grant money now.
The real problem is...here it comes...the problem is that Life and the World are very, very COMPLICATED. And most people will die never knowing how or why anything works. There, I said it.
The quest for knowledge is one thing, but should never be confused with the quest for certainty, which is a thorny path strewn with grenades and mouldy feces; in short, tempting, but ulimately unwalkable. For there are a great number of false prophets and well commissioned scientists alike who may well say what they mean without ever knowning what they are talking about.
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