Science should be a process of learning and discovery. Sometimes, we learn that what we thought was right is wrong. But science is based on the search for answers and, ultimately, on the integrity of the searcher. And while science is a powerful force in understanding how the world works, it is not truth. This is because science does not deal in truth. There are facts. Facts are things that can be recorded and observed. These facts are combined and interpreted into ideas, stories, and predictions to create a larger picture of how things behave and operate. And all our models and theories are representations and approximations of reality as we see it. That is not truth.
We know this because scientific theories change with time. We must update our stories and beliefs as we acquire new information or data. And how can a belief be true if it is subject to change at a moment’s notice?
While ideally, the goal of science is to understand and explain reality, and we try to be as faithful and accurate as possible so we can get an ever deeper and ever more fundamental understanding of the way the world works. Science does not operate in a vacuum. It is created by and for man. And all humans are biased creatures. While we may strive to be critical thinkers, we are, in fact, subject to unending biases of the mind. Biases can happen due to our wiring or by experiences that influence our beliefs. You can learn a lot about biases in the book Thinking Fast and Slow.
More than biases, money is the most significant influencer and corrupter of science. And at this point in time, it is a necessary evil for our society. For several decades, scientific experiments have become very expensive. As a result, the budgets of university physics, chemistry, biology, and astronomy departments can no longer fund them.
Now, funding comes from outside, opening a pathway for funders’ interests to enter the process. Whether it is government funding, corporate, or even private money – money is rarely given away without a purpose, goal, or something that corrupts the purity of the science.
Many people enter the fields of science and medicine with the intent to make the world a better place and practice good ethical science and medicine. The problem is that without funding, research does not happen. And not only are scientists forced to play the funding game, but they also have to play the game of getting published in journals. These journals have just as many agendas, if not more, than the funders. Science careers depend on publication. When the funding comes from those with commercial or profit interests in research results, the funded scientist quickly finds themself in a conflict of interest.
Success as a researcher is contingent on being published and, ideally, publishing as often as possible in the most prestigious outlets possible. An article is more likely to get published if it contains beautiful, clean, positive, innovative results because they are considered the best. But actual research rarely looks like that. So then, a researcher’s focus is altered to make the research as beautiful and publishable as possible rather than focusing on accuracy. As a result, it creates several problems.
One is fraud, the straight-out manipulation of the facts and study. The other is to create misinformation, i.e., to censor the data. Throwing out extreme variables, selecting for controls, or repeating the experiment until the desired results are generated. The challenge is that, as a researcher, there are many choices to be made constantly in the research, and if you’re not right there with them, there is a lot of flexibility in how the data can be analyzed and presented.
A common way this happens is inflation bias, also known as “p-hacking,” “data dredging,” or “selective reporting.” This is the misreporting of true effect sizes in published studies. It occurs when researchers misuse data analysis to find patterns in data that can be presented as statistically significant, thus dramatically increasing and understating the risk of false positives. This bias is done by performing many statistical tests on the data and only reporting those with significant results.
Another problem faced by researchers is that they also have to please the funders to ensure the continuation of their funding. Much like an elected representative responds to the interest of their big campaign contributors, this has to happen. Unfortunately, there is limited funding and jobs for researchers, so this becomes more about survival than science.
The problem of how science is funded has, like the problem of how elections are financed, reached a critical stage that is destroying the integrity of science, as these statements by editors of the two most prestigious medical journals stated:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement [sic] of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines.” — New England Journal of Medicine Chief Editor Marcia Angell, M.D.
“Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue . . . flagrant conflicts of interest . . . science has taken a turn towards darkness.” — Lancet Chief Editor Richard Horton
“Health research is based on trust. Health professionals and journal editors reading the results of a clinical trial assume that the trial happened and that the results were honestly reported. But about 20% of the time, said Ben Mol, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Monash Health, they would be wrong.”
Sadly, science has become of the last century what people and companies pay for. So why does someone sponsor a grant? It is to prove a theory of theirs. People do not research science purely for science anymore but for specific answers to questions, funded for desired outcomes.
And as a result, this inherent bias of funding has led to the collapse of scientific culture. Money takes precedence over integrity and facts. And many theorize that it started around 1906 when two of the most corrupt, evil, and powerful men of the times decided to change our medical system. We will dive more into this in the next chapter.
I want you to keep in mind that everyone says they have a study they like to point to, but do you realize that 30% of studies cannot be replicated? Why does this matter?
Reproducibility is central to science. Right? So, a scientific claim is validated and credible just because of an authority saying, “This is true; you have to believe it” simply because that person has a good reputation, Ph.D., Md, etc. Scientific claims gain credibility through the ability for them to be independently reproduced. In other words, a study is only validated when someone else can follow the same procedure and find the same results.
But that often does not happen, or people never know it did not happen. This lack of transparency and accountability is another reason our science is often flawed. Fortunately, with the rise of the internet and some diligent groups, this is all changing. We can finally view, research, and challenge them online. This information revolution is showing that there is a lot of bullshit, biased, and manipulated misinformation out there. How big of a problem is this really?
Over one third of all publications are retracted, often without public notice. Like a house of cards, theories, and models crumble instantly, yet many in the world believe and utilize them as if they were created for a purpose, not for facts and science.
Let’s talk about one popular study in particular. The underpinning study puts forth all the benefits and the idea that the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest options for people. Even more ironic is that the study was retracted in 2018. It is still a hot topic on all the big news sites in 2023! This study was cited before retraction 1905 times and cited another 950 after retraction. You can see more about it and many other retracted papers on a great site called Retraction Watch.
Top 10 most highly cited retracted papers
The Retraction Watch Leaderboard
With this in mind, you can see how it is so dangerous to “trust the science.” Nonetheless, doctors tend to believe that they follow science when they really just follow the money. This becomes problematic when we realize how biased and corrupt the majority of Western medicine is.
The problem arises when you want to work with the medical system, but you are convinced and say that higher levels of copper and iodine are necessary. When you tell doctors anything outside of their comfort zone or that conforms to their perceived standard of care, they will often scoff and ask for the data.
This is where it becomes interesting. On the one hand, there is unlimited data and understanding of how these essential minerals are critical to the human body’s functions and health. On the other hand, and much like these minerals, doctors are generally untrained and incapable of treating people with nutrition, exercise, and other lifestyle factors before prescribing life-altering and often destroying western therapies.
What’s frustrating is while something as simple as minerals and how essential though missing they are from most people’s bodies, doctors will ask for the “level of studies” produced by big pharma. Unfortunately, their blind faith in these corrupt criminal organizations stops them from looking at these simple and basic solutions.
If it is not in a mainstream journal, doctors do not have the time or interest, in general, to learn about it. Thus WSIATI applies, and these simple solutions do not even enter their minds.
Even more sad is asking for these studies demonstrates that doctors do not even understand the costs and barriers of the studies and the profits behind them. There will likely never be studies of any significant size or depth on minerals that offer so little profitability. Who will spend tens of millions of dollars on this?
Add to this fact that a popular piece of data is often used even though it has been retracted or has never been reproduced in further studies. Think about the cholesterol myth and the defunct studies behind it. So all too often, the narrow-mindedness of doctors conforms to their limited set of accepted understandings. Thus doctors only operate within the safe decisions of the system built by and for big pharma and insurance companies.
So I hope you can see that the only choice we have in such a situation is to self-educate and do our best to make well-informed decisions, and where necessary, with acute conditions work in the western paradigm, but for only as long and as much as you absolutely need to survive.
Before moving on from this chapter, there are two more points to be mindful of.
Causation Vs. Correlation
One of the big issues in studies is mapping out sufficient variables to know if the variables they point to for their story merely correlate to the occurrence or if they actually cause it.
Correlation and causation can exist simultaneously, but correlation does not mean causation. Likewise, while causation and correlation can exist simultaneously, correlation does not imply causation. Causation means one thing causes another—in other words, action A causes outcome B. On the other hand, correlation is simply a relationship where action A relates to action B—but one event does not necessarily cause the other event to happen.
Correlation and causation are often confused because the human mind likes to find explanations for seemingly related events, even when they do not exist. We often fabricate these explanations when two variables appear to be so closely associated that one is dependent on the other. That would imply a cause-and-effect relationship, where one event results from another event.
However, we cannot simply assume causation even if we see two events happening, seemingly together, before our eyes. Why? First, our observations are purely anecdotal. Second, there are several other possibilities for an association, including:
The opposite is true: B actually causes A.
The two are correlated, but there’s more to it: A and B are correlated, but they’re actually caused by C.
There’s another variable involved: A does cause B—as long as D happens.
There is a chain reaction: A causes E, which leads E to cause B (but you only saw that A causes B from your own eyes).
Authority Biases
Always be careful of biases towards authority. Just because someone has an M.D. or Ph.D. or other forms of authority does not mean they have the answers, just authority. We have learned this more than ever with the covid fiasco. So I just want you to get curious. Get the facts yourself, and question all that you can.
Please do not get me wrong. I am not saying that all science is corrupt or wrong. Or that all doctors are bad. Nor does it mean that everything you know is false, though it might well be. A lot of what I believed when I was younger turned out to be wrong. My hope in saying this is that you will constantly challenge your assumption stacks and the stories you read and hear, always do your research, and always keep questioning because only you can verify the facts and create your answers, as there is no absolute truth.
