don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

Let me begin this rant with a factoid -- it might encourage perspective on the topic before us.  Scientists last week found evidence off the coast of Australia of a long-suspected meteor strike of 250 million years ago. This event destroyed 90 percent of all species extant at that time! Consider this: The event was 200 million years BEFORE the dinos got wiped out by a lesser extraterrestrial "visitor." It seems to me that occasional reflection about our tentative, temporal hold on life and our quite modest place in the cosmos is a very good thing. It reminds us of what matters a great deal, and what matters hardly at all--and that nearly everything fits the latter category.

"God Bless America!" We see this slogan on bumper stickers, walls, marques and elsewhere--it's ubiquitous but, if there were a god, would he (she or it) "bless" America? Well, I suppose that depends on the nature of "blessings." There is not a lot of evidence for gods OR blessings, though most fervently believe in both. Yet, simple rules of critical thinking for assessing evidence would show that neither claim has scientific support.  (See James Lett, "A Field Guide to Critical Thinking", Skeptical Inquirer magazine, Winter, 1990.) 

Reason does not apply to slogans like "God Bless America" or to anything associated with religion. Religious claims are matters of faith, held by the devout despite the lack of supportive evidence--that is, after all, the meaning of faith! Faith means "a firm belief in something for which there is no proof." (Merriam-Webster). Suggestions that a god would "bless America" would not stand up to any of Professor Lett's six rules of evidence, namely, falsifiability, logic, comprehensiveness, honesty, replicability and sufficiency. These rules are useful for reasons that go beyond debunking silly bumper sticker slogans. They are valuable for assessing all manner of claims. They can help you avoid being snookered by any number of merchants within and on the fringes of the medical system, as well as scam artists from other disciplines run amok in contemporary society.

In Professor Lett's words, "Apply these six rules to the evidence offered for any claim and no one will ever be able to sneak up on you and steal your belief." Lett explains that his students are vulnerable to shysters because they can easily "steal their beliefs," given the paucity of critical thinking skills in our society. He mentions, "students in my classes (who) simply do not know how to draw reasonable conclusions from the evidence. At most, they've been taught in high school what to think; few of them know how to think.

A lot of Americans seeking blessings from "above" do so because they have been taught WHAT to think, not HOW to think. To know how to think, and to be ready, able and predisposed to do so, that is, to engage in critical thinking, is one of our nation's greatest needs. We need to promote remedial thinking skills a lot more than we need silly bumper stickers that proclaim, beseech or "pray" that "God Bless America." How about a bumper sticker like this: "Please!  Somebody Teach Americans How To Think!" 
 
The absence of critical thinking skills is a major factor in the prevalence of unhealthy lifestyles, in my opinion. This absence accounts as much as anything else for the fact that America is a nation of flabby, disease-ridden people. It explains why the vast majority of Americans are not just fat and out of shape but also superstitious, drug-addicted and entitlement-dependent. It also explains why Americans are highly vulnerable to irrational appeals, foolish programs and ludicrous leaders like George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Jesse Jackson. It explains why I have not been proclaimed "Master of the Universe, All-Wise and Triumphant Leader and Triathlete Extraordinaire." Or, something like that. 
 
While a graduate student in urban planning at UNC-Chapel Hill many decades ago, I remember reading that 1914 was a landmark year in the history of medicine. This was the claim by a physician/historian named Henderson, whose research on the world's second oldest profession led him to view 1914 as a watershed because for the first time ever beginning that year, "the average patient with an average disease interacting with an average physician stood a better than 50/50 chance of benefiting from the encounter." Despite remarkable scientific advances in the 90 years since this date, with dazzling advances in medical practice and the advent of wonder drugs and all the rest, the average patient with an average malady seeing an average doc still has about a 50/50 chance of benefiting from the encounter. All of which means that he/she has about the same odds of being worsened by said encounter! Why? Again, I think because patients do not know how to think, only what to think about their treatment options. A pity they don't get more attention at how to think regarding ways to regain their health and to live wisely so as not to fall ill from diseases and other perfidies that could be avoided or minimized in the first place with sensible lifestyles. 
 
If you doubt this, consider the testimony of Becky Cherney, president and CEO of the Florida Health Care Coalition. The FHCC represents more than a million workers and it has sponsored health care studies for twenty years. In response to a question about why we pay so much for health care, yet are so dissatisfied with what we get, Ms. Cherney replied:

Waste. Last June, a study found that when we go to a doctor, we get correct care 55 percent of the time. Another study found that 30 percent of everything done in the health care system is waste...we have to educate employees ... And we have to stop subsidizing bad behavior. We know the cost of smoking, yet we continue to treat the smoker the same as others. The same with obesity. We know the cost, now we have to do something to change those behaviors because health care is too expensive.

Hear, hear. Just so. 
 
Ms. Cherney might have added, "Let's teach consumers HOW to think, rather than what to think (for example, "I think I need more drugs, I think I need another doctor, I think I need more tests," etc.) I found an amusing statement of the overemphasis on what to think rather than how to think in the novel Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk. It's a tale about Tender Branson, the last survivor of a non Rome-based religious group called the Creedish Death Cult. The author gleefully satirizes "the bedrock lunacy of the modern world." 

Explaining the amount of rote memorizing required of cult members, Branson observes,

We were kept busy learning. We had a million facts to remember. We memorized half the Old Testament.  We thought all this teaching was to make us smart. What it did was make us stupid. With all the little facts we learned, we never had the time to think. None of us ever considered what life would be like...We were all so worried about our worst fear, squeezing frogs, eating worms, poisons, asbestos, we never considered how boring life would be even if we succeeded and got a good job.

Maybe the Surgeon General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services and all the others focused on the obesity epidemic should put a little LESS emphasis on promoting the facts about diet and exercise. Maybe it would be more effective if, instead of more and more sensible and sound messages that represent WHAT to think, it might be wiser to encourage the populace how to think, about diet and exercise and a lot more. Personally, I'd welcome greater attention to education in skills associated with HOW to think. This might lead to clearer distinctions between superstitions versus science, faith versus evidence and self-reliance versus dependence on doctors, drugs and deacons. 
 
Be well. Look on the bright side of life--with a keen sense of amused skepticism. 

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MENTAL DOMAIN under the skill area of effective decisions. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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