Dec20

Chemotherapy is Poison, That’s Why It Works.

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Chemotherapy is Poison, That’s Why It Works.

Unfortunately, I’ve known a few people who have had cancer over the years. Heck, I’ve had it – still do, but it’s not an aggressive, worrisome one. I’ve seen cancers cured with surgery alone. I’ve seen cancers cured with radiation alone. I’ve seen cancers cured with chemotherapy alone. I’ve seen cancers cured with a combination of two, or all three. I’ve seen cancers that have gone into periods of remission because of these treatments, allowing people many good years. And, of course, I’ve seen cancers that simply couldn’t be cured by anything. But what I haven’t seen is doctors pushing inappropriate chemotherapy on patients because they’re sadistic monsters who want to poison people.

“Cancer” is not a single disease, but over a hundred different diseases that form from a similar mechanism. Normally, cells in our body die off, and those cells are replaced. The cell death is called apoptosis, and different cells in your body apoptose at different rates (forget what you heard about that “every seven years” thing. . .) Because of a large number of factors, occasionally those replacement cells will be faulty. Your genetics cause a misreading of your DNA, or a mixup in the instructions from the RNA, or an epigenetic flaw causes a cancer cell to be expressed or a cancer suppressor to be repressed. Exposure to a known carcinogen can trigger the production of cancer cells in a similar manner – sometimes on its own and sometimes because you have a genetic susceptibility to the carcinogen. Age is actually the biggest culprit, because cell reproduction can degenerate in accuracy over time. For the same reason all the other cells in our body change as we age, and not for the better, a cancerous cell can be created instead of an identical replacement cell when the aging process interferes.
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Dec17

Chiropractic Cures Nothing

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Chiropractic Cures Nothing

There’s an interesting idea out there among people who adhere to a belief that can be proven to be less than substantial that in order to contradict or challenge that belief, one must become an expert in that belief. It’s silly, and it’s frustrating to run into. It’s also usually hypocritical, because people who are firm believers in something do not apply the same standards to themselves – and in this particular case, the folks who are insisting that one must become an expert in the workings of chiropractic before being qualified to dismiss them feel no such obligation to become expert in the voluminous amount of medical knowledge that provides robust evidence for the failure of chiropractic. I mean, you’re presenting me with a book about how chiropractic can fix an area of the brain. . .if I have to learn all about chiropractic to say it doesn’t work, how come you don’t have to become an expert in neurology to tell me that the neurological impairment evidence is wrong? (The first place I saw this argument was coming from Christian Apologetics. . .who didn’t, BTW, become experts in any other religions before declaring that they were immune from criticism by anyone without a degree in Biblical Theology. . .)

The flaw in the argument is that you really don’t need to be an expert in something to know it’s bogus if there’s good, solid information that it couldn’t possibly work and/or it’s making ridiculous claims in the first place. I could be picking anything to poke at right now, but because the thing that’s irritating me right now is ridiculous claims about chiropractic and being told to STFU until I become an expert in chiropractic, that’s what I’m gonna talk about.
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Aug24

Something that Breaks my Heart

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Something that Breaks my Heart

Many years ago, I joined an online forum community. One of the areas on this community was for scientific discussions. I had never had much interest in science in general, but I had been reading books about the brain – partly out of curiosity about my own issues, and partly because they were really fascinating. By the time I found this place, I had graduated to reading a fair number of skeptical and science blogs. My curiosity had been aroused. At the same time, my critical thinking skills were being tested and honed. Finding a place where people were discussing research and providing evidence and links to studies about brain things that were relevant to me was wonderful and exciting.

When people posted things that were well-supported, I found new sources of information in links and searches. When people considered implications or possibilities, they provided evidence and reason for their ideas. When people posted things that looked suspicious, I went off in search of the truth, and found out all kinds of knowledge that either rebutted or supported these things.

In fact, if it hadn’t been for someone posting about epigenetics in a way that sounded an awful lot like magical thinking, I would never have delved as deeply into this fascinating process as I have, and would not have learned most of the amazing things I now know about genetics, evolution, and developmental neurology. I had learned a lot about the physical structures of the brain and their functions, but without the input of the other curious and intelligent people there, I wouldn’t have known about the interconnectivity and the complex chemical and electrical communication that makes these structures function as a whole.

This was different from reading scientific information from scientists. While some were writing for public understanding, most were writing for their peers. These were not always places to pose elementary questions or ask if some speculation you had might have some factual support. This forum was, and I looked forward to visiting it every day. The dialogues were lively, and disagreements were usually battles of who had the most robust evidence. I was interested in science, but it was this particular place that got me excited about it.

No more.

Sadly, an extremely small number of people have been given carte blanche to ignore all the rules that used to make this discussion area work. Should anyone dare to post anything remotely resembling fascinating new information, they descend upon the conversation and shut it down. Every thread looks like a copy-paste of every other thread; evidence is disregarded in favor of dogma; anyone who disagrees with what is basically the only topic of the entire area is told they are wrong with a thinly veiled insult to their intelligence.

Cognitive dissonance should be a call to arms – go out and find the truth! It should prepare you to learn more and change your mind if you discover that the best evidence contradicts what you think you know. Now, the ability to ignore that conflict is treated as the highest of virtues.

Here was a place filled with creative, curious people, who had unusual approaches to connecting ideas, different ways of putting things together and taking them apart. Here was a place where the goal was not to be right for the sake of being right, but to be right because you could show your work. Here was a place that was exciting and interesting and challenging.

It is gone, and I don’t anticipate it ever coming back. I used to direct people to this place to get information; now I tell them they won’t find what they’re looking for there. It is hostile and uninviting to the very type of thinkers it used to attract. I miss it terribly.