“There is a human tendency to accept what appears in print as having withstood some incredible truth test.”
Rachel Page Elliott
With
the advent of the information era how do we deal with the huge volume of
‘printed’ matter? How do we ascertain the validity of all that we read? What
filters do we inherently possess? Are there parameters that will help us to
determine truth?
I
often hear, “I read it on the internet,” and the context and implication is
that because it is available to read it must be true. How did this system
develop? Should we overcome it?
Popular
belief, and teaching, in scientific circles is that if a topic has been
researched and a
paper published in a journal, then we must accept it as true
and valid. I say that we need to question this notion. Research is affected by
the person conducting the experiment. Bias is inherent. Scientific models set
up to test theories are flawed. I believe it is possible to prove anything you
want to prove provided the experiment is set up correctly.
Scientific
medical research can prove the efficacy of acupuncture in managing pain. If a
different phrase is placed in the search engine we can find as many articles
disproving the efficacy of acupuncture. The same applies to homeopathy. Search
for adult stem cell therapy and there is surprisingly little research to back
up a very popular modality. Now, isn’t that interesting?!
