Health and pseudo-science
I have found it important to reflect in front of a large number of sometimes find information online comments I’m hearing from time to time around. I think that sometimes, instead of facilitating access to accurate information, The Internet strengthens people in their mistaken beliefs, or directly provides false information, which can be dangerous for health.
Scientific reasoning
In this blog, I always try to share reliable information. I do not claim to be infallible, but I try to find the data and proven reliability recognized as the World Health Organization, the Ministry of Health or they are equivalent in countries like the US, France or England sources.
Because these agencies base their publications reviewed studies, according to scientific reasoning. To be validated, the results of an experiment must be able to repeat the same results, and also should be able to access all the information on the conditions of the studies, to turn check by varying one of the results are altered conditions. Thus, science advances, and only then can we have some assurance on the effectiveness of medicines, procedures, exercises, etc…
The Internet is not much scientific information
The problem is that today we have access to much information that is unproven, or simply is totally false. The Internet often poses no evidence or arguments as unscientific as defending “works for me”. And just because sometimes traditional medicine fails, or because a doctor does a bad job, some people jump happily esoteric solutions without any scientific basis.
As you can imagine the reader do not believe in alternative therapies or what they call pseudoscience. I do not want to be misunderstood: I have no opposition in principle to anything. I ask only one thing: if someone wants one thing, that the scientific data show, that is for other people to contrast them neutrally. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case with such alternative things.
Why do so many people use them then? Simply because we are not as rational as we think. If we were rational, nobody would buy lottery. Something in our psychology that makes us thinks that we are special, and pushes us to ignore the statistics. In the same way, that we ignore at 99.999 chances that we did not win the lottery and focus on the only way those things come out well for us, sometimes we believe that alternative therapies will work. And indeed, by mere suggestion, we can even believe that they have worked. But believe one thing does not make it true.
Why do I write this article?
Simply to draw attention to readers on the reliability of health information that may be available. Informed via the internet you can never replace the advice of a doctor. And if you do not like your doctor for any reason, you will see another. Maybe a particular medical mistake, or do not know to communicate well with your patient, but that should not be a reason to forget everything that science and medicine have made to our health in the last century. And what remains to be discovered.
