On Tradition, Health, and Science.
Nearly every field that has become hostage to corporate, regulatory and sociopathic capture has a tendency to wield The Science as a bludgeon to discourage novel and pragmatic thinking.
First, A Confession
As you know, In recent years I have begun exploring several lines of medical thought that the mainstream has categorized as either “alternative” or “pseudoscience.” The vast majority of my colleagues are so averse to these schools of thought, their mindset is stuck at “this is quackery.”
They are lightyears away from taking these ideas seriously enough to glean insights from them.
The journey which led me to these traditional schools of medicine began as an exploration of new scientific discoveries. As a result of my education, training, and heavy empiricist sentiments, I also stayed away from these alternative practices.
I was determined to stick to “science.”
It took years of reading, introspection and meditation to let go of the need for scientific and logical certainty.
Newton Did Not Discover Gravity
This should be plainly obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense. However, I am sure there are some among you who are astonished at the suggestion that Newton should not be credited with the ‘discovery’ of gravity.
Humans have known about the tendency of objects to fall towards the earth since the beginning of mankind. Animals are aware of it. The only creatures on earth who may be ignorant of this force we call gravity are those who are negligibly impacted by it.
The entire history of ballistic technologic development could not have been without a pragmatic understanding of a “force” that results in objects falling to the earth.
We didn’t need a nerd sitting on a lawn in a university campus to have a practical and productive understanding of gravity. We already had it.
Newton merely formalized this understanding. He derived a mathematical and physics-based model of a phenomenon known to everyone.
Obviously, there are benefits to formally modeling the phenomenon of the natural world. However, we should not ignore the tremendous benefit of taking a pragmatic approach to understanding the natural world. If we had waited for Newton’s formalization to implement our intuitive understanding, we would not be as technologically advanced as we are.
For understanding and managing human health, the pragmatic and intuitive approach is of critical importance.
We Are Not Projectiles
Mathematic and theoretical physics benefits from relatively low-overhead and low-risk research development. Take Newton for example. He simply made observations about the nature of bodies with mass, and derived principles and formulas. Relatively low capital endeavors. No need for an institutional ethics board.
The benefit of working with scientific models for inanimate objects is that you can relatively easily test the theory, and fine-tune the model.
Unfortunately, humans and living creatures are not as easy to play with for several reasons. Autonomy. Ethics. Risk. Capital.
Despite the desire of mainstream medicine to view itself as “scientific,” it is inherently limited in its ability to hypothesis test for several reasons. Furthermore, the complexity of the subject (living creatures) necessitates several assumptions underlying the hypothesis.
These limitations, however, do not stop people from mentally equating the rigor of medical “science” with that of physics, mathematics, and chemistry. It’s just science.
Okay?
No. Medicine is an application of science, amongst other disciplines.
What people fail to realize is that because human research is so complicated and limited…it has had to develop a way to arrive at answers that appear scientific. Today, this process is epitomized by “evidence-based medicine.” At the pinnacle of this hierarchy are meta-analyses and systematic reviews of available clinical data.
Through aggregate data analysis and statistical wizardry, we are led to believe that we have an understanding of health and disease.
We cannot rely on science to account for the complexity of human existence. Not unless you want to wait for hundreds of years before you have a model approximating reality.
What concerns each and every individual is their own health, today.
The brute force, data aggregation approach lays in contrast with traditional schools of medical thought - which tend to focus on function, spirit and story.
This dichotomy is beautifully illustrated in psychology.
Bottom-Up or Top-Down?
Let’s take the example of depression to illustrate what I mean.
Practices like those of psychoanalysts or behavioralists take into account individual and social context to assess elements of a person’s life which may be contributing to their depression.
Does the person lead a healthy life? Are they in a healthy environment? Job satisfaction? Sense of purpose and fulfillment? Romantic relationship? Sleeping well?So on, and so forth.
By analyzing these elements of life, the therapist partakes in a top-down assessment. One can also think of this hierarchically. Is this person’s life aligned with their own and societies values? If not, it may be contributing to personal anguish and despair. How do we address this?
This is the pragmatic/practical approach.
Now, let’s contrast this with the “formal” and “scientific” approach to understanding and treating depression.
Zoom in.
Scientists have spent decades trying to understand the electrophysiologic organization of the brain, trying to map different circuits to different brain functions.
Associated within this topological organization are the functional differences of a variety of neurotransmitters: dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, etc.
Based on analysis of electrophysiologic and electrochemical data, some proposed that depression may be related to a deficiency or dysfunction in serotonin producing (serotonergic) neurons.
This can be likened to a bottom-up inference of the basis of depression. This diagnostic approach laid the foundations for novel therapeutics - e.g. selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. Which have become some of the most lucrative drugs on the market.
So, does this bottom-up approach account for more of our observations than the top-down analysis?
No.
Does the treatment paradigm informed by this assessment produce better outcomes?
F*** no.
To this day, simply improving sleep quality has multiple times better impact on depression scores than any prescription anti-depressant.
The Problem
First, the general population seems to believe that medical “science” is real and has similar merits & veracity as does engineering or mathematics. Medicine isn’t a science. Nor are general principles derived from aggregate data analysis practically applicable to individuals.
Second, after the Rockefeller takeover of medicine, our institutions have all but dispensed with top-down approaches to understanding the health of body, mind, and spirit. Many of the strides made from top-down vantage point are lightyears ahead of the bottom-up approach. In some cases, there are insights gleaned from the top-down that are inaccessible from the bottom-up.
What do I mean?
No brain MRI, electroencephalogram or blood test will tell you that a person is depressed because their duties at work have changed as a result of new management and they no longer have the job satisfaction they once had. These changes have impacted mood, which impacts life at home…and several other downstream consequences which eventually have led to the formation of a major depressive episode. Inaccessible.
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
-Isaac Newton
It may very well be the case that many of our academic endeavors truly have built on the shoulders of these giants.
For modern medicine, however, this could not be further from the truth.
The giants of our past who set the foundations for our understanding of the body, mind, and spirit are physicians like Hippocrates, Galen, Ibn Sina, Hildegard, and Vagbhata.
But, current medical paradigm hasn’t built upon these ideas, it has merely discarded them.
Rather perversely, the giants were killed and their organs harvested in the name of profit.
As for me?
My goal is to resurrect the wisdom of these giants and unify them with our modern understanding of the biophysical world.
Wish me luck.
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Absolutely wishing you - and us all - luck 😊🙏
Medical education self-selects for rule-followers and compliance.