That Word SCIENCE – NaPodPoMo – Self Powered Healing

In today’s episode of Self Powered Healing, I’m going to dig in and talk about that word SCIENCE. Do you ever hear things or read things on Facebook or other social media that drive you up the wall?  

Well, here are some that have driven me up the wall, especially since the pandemic has been around. People will tell you, “Trust the science.” “The science is settled.” “Well, you’re just being anti science,” or “Why are you a science denier?” People throw these statements around without understanding what is really meant when they use that word science.  

The one that drove me really to a rant on the whole topic was when a friend on Facebook posted “The results of science is fact.” I did go on a rant, but I am not the type of person that starts a battle on facebook because I know it’s not possible to win it, and it’s not a good idea, I like to keep my friends, but I did do it in my journaling.  

The reality is, science is never settled. We should trust science knowledge to a point, but we should verify it. And just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I’m anti science or a denier of science.  

We really need to look at two different meanings for that word science, and I’ll distinguish them this way.  

First, I’ll talk about true science. True science is incontrovertible. It’s what we are all seeking to know. It’s what really is going on under the hood and in your body or in the world. But we don’t know it all, and we may never know it all. But it’s not open to question, it just is what it is.  

When people talk science, what they really mean is, our current knowledge of science, what we understand today. And it’s always changing, always evolving as we learn more, things come in that are new and old things have to be kind of thrown out.  

So in reality, what we know is merely scientific observations as seen through the lens of flawed and biased human beings, because we are all, including scientists, flawed.  

But what does it mean when people say, do you believe in science? Why don’t you believe in science? It’s not a religion.  

When we talk of scientists and what they do, they’re always in pursuit of that true science. But they start with a hypothesis. They think they understand what something is doing, what’s going on. And if a scientist follows the scientific method, he or she will test that hypothesis and tweak it.

Or he might throw it out totally based on the results. And once the tweaked hypothesis is conclusively proven, he has a theory. Remember, it’s still a theory.  

Theories are still theories and can be proven wrong as we learn more. Which is why studying science requires that you keep an open mind.  

Here are some of the things that influence our knowledge of science and why it can become flawed. First, we have that flawed hypothesis. And we might have flawed testing or analysis where we jump to the wrong conclusions.  

Another factor in there is ego. I know firsthand, I worked in research for seven years. I was the lowly lab tech person that helped and prepared stuff for the PhDs that were doing the studies. And too often their ego trumped the reality of what was going on. And then there are peer reviews, and some of those peer reviews are paid for by companies who have a vested interest in the outcome of the studies.  

Sometimes, though, flawed methods are used strictly because we want to get to a certain conclusion. Take the work of Ancel Keys. In the 1950s, he studied the diets of 22 native cultures around the world. His hypothesis was that saturated fat was bad for us and that native cultures overall did not consume saturated fat.  

His final analysis was based only upon 6 of those 22 cultures, because the others, all 16 of them, disproved his hypothesis. In other words, he cherry picked the data that fit his hypothesis. And the reality is, he needed to throw out his hypothesis at that point, because it just didn’t work. And it goes totally against scientific method and it proves nothing except perhaps the gullibility of people in general. Because his very flawed study brought on the low fat diet craze that really hasn’t helped us all that much.  

Sadly, Ancel Keys is just one example of flawed science.  

Sometimes flawed theories take on a life of their own and become part of the culture, even though they are flawed. Such was the case with Ancel Keys.  

Scientific study is not perfect, and as I talk about disease theories, you’ll learn that there are other flawed theories that have greatly influenced our health.  

Thanks for listening today. If you have any comments on this episode or on the whole NaPodPoMo concept in general, you can visit this page to leave comments either on this page or at SelfPoweredHealing.com/November2024. You can also find a listing and link for all November’s episodes on that same page: SelfPoweredHealing.com/November2024.  

By the way, Self Powered Healing is still looking for interviews with people who want to share a story of healing. Do you have a healing story? I would love to hear about it and see if maybe you could share it on our show. So if you’re interested in sharing, then visit selfpoweredhealing.com/share to schedule a chat.  

You aren’t committing at this point. You’re just having a chat with me to see what’s going on. It will be confidential unless or until you decide you want to share. And if you get there and there’s not a convenient time for you, send me a message because we’ll always find a time.  

And remember this always,  