I am finding the ongoing changes in and challenges to my thinking interesting, and sometimes even amusing. To be clear (and repetitive, I know), I have been a science-oriented person as far back as I can remember—wondering about how things work and how to test ideas and wanting proof for everything. I still consider myself a scientist, even though I have not worked in that realm for years ... yet the way some individuals apply scientific theories is problematic for me.

First is evolutionary theory. More specifically, I don’t understand why, since change is about the only real constant there is in our lives, some people look backward in order to find/create guidelines for living today and tomorrow. One common example of this is the so-called paleo diet, which is supposedly based on what “our ancestors” ate and therefore we should eat. It should be clear from modern diets that our global, aggregate predecessors did not have a monodiet: dairy foods have historically been very rare in China and Japan, while they’ve been very common in other cultures, e.g., Scandinavia. People look at our current dental pattern, extant fossil records, and make all kinds of divergent claims about our ancestors’ consumption of meat—and to me, much of it seems selected to justify one’s current dietary preference. Back then, one diet didn’t fit all, so why should one think it will today? Also, trying to eat like our forebears did seems to me to be shortsighted—a path that contradicts the ongoing changes in our biological systems today. (That should not be read as any sort of endorsement for the increasingly artificial, processed, packaged food industry.)

The second area is the “skeptic” crowd, for lack of a better way to describe it. Quackwatch encompasses some of this, although it does address charlatans as well. My problem with these folks is that they seem to be as close-minded and dogmatic as some of the proponents of the disparaged theories and approaches. Things such as acupuncture, herbal medicine, and energy therapies are summarily dismissed, although they have a long history of success—and in some cases, such as herbal medicine, the approach is being pursued by pharmaceutical companies (although this is really nothing new, as anyone who knows the history of aspirin can attest).

A lot of what the skeptics reject rests on a differing view of how the mind and body work than the customary dualistic view encountered in Western science. The simple facts that the placebo effect is real, and that trying pretty much anything different can often bring about a short-term improvement in illness, are sufficient for me to conclude that today’s Western science does not understand well how brain activities/phenomena—or the “workings of the mind” if you prefer—can influence bodily processes. Given the gamut of known sensory capabilities, wherein one can have no sense of smell/taste and another can be so exquisitely attuned he earns a living using those senses, is it really such a leap to move from the common experience of one person sensing another giving off “vibes” to some other person sensing an aura?

Second, skeptics seem to have a hubris about them with respect to the scientific capabilities of our time, suggesting that current technology is all that’s necessary to explore all of both inner and outer space. If our science and tools cannot find something, then it must not exist, the thinking seems to go. I imagine the scientific men of previous times may have thought similarly, until the telescope came along. Or the microscope. Or the electron microscope. Or the particle accelerator. Or the computer. And so on.

Now that I’ve rambled this far, it seems that my objections can be summarized fairly neatly: some people use these ideas as rationales for trying to affix us in the past or present, rather than being open to inevitable changes coming our way. Yes, it is true that many frauds attach themselves to “alternative” ideas, or fabricate their own worthless alternative systems; but many do the same to modern science and medicine. That’s a poor basis for rejecting an idea.

I have had experiences that my rational mind cannot explain or understand. After a lifetime of rejecting them because of that inability, I have chosen instead to accept that “there are more things than are dreamt of in my philosophy”. No, I do not uncritically accept every idea I encounter, and I keep in mind that there are plenty of people who would be perfectly happy to separate me from my money without giving any value for it; but I am willing to entertain the possibility that at least some of what is now derisively referred to as “woo-woo” ideas may in the future turn out to be as observable as a Tetrahymena.