Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Doctors and scientists don't want you to know.

You can see them, in fact you can't avoid seeing them in places like Whole Foods acting whole foodier than thou and wearing ill advised lycra and sweat shop shoes. Pushing carts full of  "Organic" foods and spoiled unvaccinated children and heads full of superstition and self-importance they're everywhere you find the upwardly mobile. There's a massive industry out there to support them, make them feel like insiders, to fill their lives with homeopathic remedies, crystals, magic beans, gluten-free, fructose-free food and evidence-free ideas.

Everybody likes to feel special and capitalism is thriving on making us into pop-culture dependent hipsters so proud to have our special exclusive knowledge of hip things, we can hardly fit  our chakras into our yoga pants. Of course the hipsterism isn't only about food: the pure and artisinal assembly lines churn out ant-technological, pseudoscientific bullshit by the megaton and the paranoid neo-Luddites suck it all up along with their raw food and Japanese (because Subaru means love) cars. Guess what, the wheat growers who don't want you to know about the fictitious dangers of gluten, are making a fortune from gluten-free hipster food!  "Studies show" shout the diet doctors.  No they don't, whisper the real scientists. They're not even studies.

Can we go on laughing at the Low Information Right for denying climate change, when people who vote Democratic are equally terrified of telephones and vaccinations and electric meters  -- who tell you "organic food" tastes better or makes you healthier or is free of the terrible toxins we just know are everywhere because Doctor Oz tells us so? Because people who make toxic pesticides from "natural sources" tell us so? 

We are a faith-based nation and whether Evangelist or Atheist or pagan, we cling to our beliefs ever harder as contrary evidence piles up and supporting evidence remains absent. Are we less deranged than the religious extremists who pray while their kids die from preventible illnesses?  We're hipsters and like our tea-sipping opposite numbers we cling to our beliefs because they define who we want so much to be.  We listen only to movie actors and con men in white coats who tell us to eat it raw because science can't be trusted. We drink water imported from Indianapolis or Atlanta and it makes us feel superior and healthier than the philistines from Indianapolis or Atlanta who aren't part of our cult and drink it from the tap.

 Sure, absolutely. The world is full of scientists who live only to fool you about climate change and the dangers of  "processed" foods and "chemical" fertilizers and mysterious toxic energies that can only be warded off with amulets  made of copper or magnets or discarded electronic components. Eat "paleo."  "Eat Raw."  How many people die every year from undercooked food?  Thousands and thousands and millions get sick and die.  A vaccine may soon be found, but never fear, it may save a hundred million lives, but it won't pass the hipster barrier. All it takes is one person to have a toothache afterwards and the hipsters and irate mothers and charlatans will flock like vultures.  No, our lives are toxic and never mind we've doubled our longevity, our disease free productive years and even our size since scientific medicine took hold.

Vaccinations don't cause autism any more than does improper nursing technique or potty training, which used to be blamed for the same reason:  it appears in youngsters. Large, properly conducted, statistically valid studies by real scientists prove it. What? but my niece, nephew, son, daughter were diagnosed after getting vaccinated. That's close enough to a "study" isn't it?  Measles kills. People go deaf and blind and suffer brain damage from it. People exposed to dead viruses aren't more likely to be autistic than people exposed to the live one, but we might as well show a Muslim he should see the truth in Christianity.

Pyramids don't sharpen your razor either.  Gluten doesn't harm or inflame you if you don't have Celiac disease. Sugar doesn't cause hyperactivity, cane sugar isn't less fattening than fruit sugar and neither gives you diabetes, dairy products don't cause excess mucus and hell yes -- calories do count.  Raw food isn't better for you or lessen nutritive value, in fact it can be deadly.  Fluoride in drinking water won't harm you, Iodine in salt won't either. There is no such thing as "grain brain." Soybeans don't 'feminize' you. Remember all that blather about coffee being a killer back in the 80's?  Fake research bought and paid for just like the bogus study. A whole generation still believes it.

Homeopathic medicine is a hoax, mysterious toxins aren't building up in your blood, you don't need regular enemas and no, Obama isn't listening to your thoughts through your Smart Meter. A store I do business with has a sign on the door telling you not to enter with a cell phone. Guns are OK. Which is more dangerous?   Think the fluorescent lights don't put out more RF than a phone?  Think is the key word here. We don't want to, we don't know how to and it's better to be hip, to belong, to feel superior than to be honest or right. 

All those things being advertised as things "doctors don't want you to know" can be pretty safely ignored as scams but the idea that anything new is dangerous.  The idea that science is about hiding evidence may be dangerous to your finances, but when it gets to the point where we experience and tolerate a recrudescence of deadly diseases long since eradicated, it's time for some sort of showdown.  When the man in the white coat selling books and cults tells you there are things "doctors don't want you to know;" that scientists are trying to delude you and pollute your precious bodily fluids, it's time to stand up and slap these idiots down. Enterprise is poisoning our health and our children's just like it's poisoning our politics. Measles, Pertussis, even Polio are returning and these things kill people. Vaccinations don't cause Autism, don't contain Mercury and sorry if I'm offending you again, it's a deadly hoax, a bought and payed for fraud and I don't care what your hipster friend says or what some website says:  it's bullshit.

Bullshit kills

2 comments:

Mark DesLauriers said...

Bulllshit does kill, but apparently one can make a good living from it, the joys of capitalism. Apparently if you want to get elected you must pander to the anti vaxxers....Jindal et al...sighs....oh, welcome back.

Capt. Fogg said...

As the song goes: you got to know when to walk away, you got to know when to run.

That gets more tempting all the time.