Today’s post is about how knowledge and belief systems that are perpetuated by nodding heads . . . often with the distinction of peer reviews. However, before lunging into the deep end of the pool, I would like to request a little help from you. I have a birthday coming up soon and would like to increase our readership by 10%. Can you share and recommend this initiative to friends and colleagues? Thank you! It would make my day, 82nd time around the Sun!
In today’s world, we are deluged by input from countless sources, most of it being irrelevant to our interests and purposes in life. The question is whether the “noise” is credible or propagandistic or merely intended for entertainment. This pattern establishes itself very early in life and is reinforced by family and ethnic traditions, religion, academia, and politics. When there are disparities in content, people tend to polarize around the societal norms or whatever appeals to their personal preferences.
With the massive control over content and, where the web is concerned, visibility, the question is whether matters that are critical to our well being are at the forefront, i.e., top on the search engine results . . . or perhaps so far down the list that they sleep in obscurity.
The catalyst today is a claim some of us have heard many times before, but most of us only know one side of the story. It involves viruses, with a few experts here and there insisting that their existence has never been proved. Most of us would regard such notions as ignorant, not iconoclastic; however, they are being espoused by highly credentialed experts in the field of virology and vaccines. Since I do not know the correct answer to the question, I will not venture an opinion. Like everyone else, I was indoctrinated from childhood so suspending judgment takes an act of will. Settling the debate is a matter for specialists, most of whom make their livings by upholding the prevailing points of view.
Science and mysticism are both ostensibly dedicated to Truth, but we always start with a frame of reference that was, for all intents and purposes, inherited, meaning we did not make the original observations and come to conclusions. We began with a curriculum and then tried to fit pieces together. Being in the health field, I would argue that nothing beats very well constructed, long-term clinical trials. If these are skipped, we are dealing either with opinion or hypotheses that rest on arguments in which most heads nod the same direction.
These matters are important to our well being and involve diet, life style, and the strategies we use to overcome risks to our health and complications when such arise. Keep in mind that many claims involve conflicts of interest, such as who benefits from which conclusions.
Politics is another game, different underlying motivations but still slanted to appeal to bases. As Machiavelli wrote more than 500 years ago, a prince must appear to be what the people like. Speech writers have mastered this dictum so discerning audiences must differentiate between reality and empty promises about jobs, lower taxes, and a solution to homelessness, drug addiction, and crime. In short, it is one thing to read pretty words off a teleprompter and another to have a viable agenda for security and sustainability.
If we keep in mind the fact that the “health” industry and “defense” industry are major funders of candidates and constitute a large part of the economy, we should also see that modifying those behemoths would take enormous planning and strong will power. For most people, nodding is easier. For me, disentanglement to the maximum extent possible is the solution. In my more realistic moments, I see a division occurring between the so-called 15-minute cities and communities that strive to have the best of both worlds: modern conveniences and smaller environmental footprints.
In the interim, I exercise my disdain for the status quo by boycotting the top players in the game of power. This includes everything from groceries to search engines. Sometimes, there are inconveniences involved, but I try to support the efforts of those whose views align with my own. For instance, I try to find organic and sustainably grown food, not just for myself, but for my cockatoos and dog as well. The birds are very discerning and easily recognize GMO corn. They investigate organically grown corn carefully, sometimes for 20 minutes or an hour before taking a bite. They love corn, but know the consequences of diving in without exercising the precautions they have learned are necessary.
People have differing food preferences and knowledge about food. What we learned in school was not very helpful. Also many studies fail to differentiate between raw and cooked food; between frozen, canned, and fresh food; and between genetically modified and sustainably grown food, some of which might be wild crafted or grown without chemicals and some might be certified organic. The studies rarely take into account the method of cooking such as fried, baked, steamed, etc. In short, we have to further our educations in order to be on top of what is needed to be healthy. In the next essay, I will discuss constitutional needs and balance.
Copyright by Dr. Ingrid Naiman 2024 || All Rights Reserved
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Image Credit: Cockatoo with Corn
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