The Enemies of Reason Part 2 Rambling

 This blog is ramble about the second part of the documentary, The Enemies of Reason. 

This is a follow-up on the blog about the first part of the documentary which is named,    "Slaves to Superstition" . Which dealt with the world of clairvoyance. It included Psychics Fortunetellers, Astrologers and the so-called Psychic Mediums.

 The Second part is called " The Irrational Health Service " . Which is about the world of so-called " Alternative Medicine ".  Alternative Medicine is a cluster of disciplines which claims to cure and heal but has yet to prove any real efficacy. It looks like it would work but it doesn't. Alternative Medicine can also be called Pseudosciene. The documentary is hosted by renowned Evolutionary Biologist Richard Dawkins.

Dawkins firstly delves into the field of "Faith Healing" or "Spiritual Healing". Palpable by name, this part of pseudoscience falsely claims to heal and cure people by spiritual practices and acts of faith. Dawkins visits a "Faith Healer" which claims to cure various illnesses including terminal cancer by meditation and recorded chants and claims to even change the structure of DNA. The "Healer" explaining DNA sequence to Richard Dawkins was hilarious. It was like a U-19 player telling Sachin how to play a Straight drive. Even more funny thing was Dawkins able to keep a straight face while she was barfing nonsense about DNA. 

Then Dawkins goes off to meet "Ayurvedic Healers". The "Healer" spouts some nonsense about chakras being like black holes or something and claims to energise a person chakras by some machine. However,One thing is true that Root chakra can engulf a person whole life if you let it especially in teenage years. 

Dawkins then meets Deepak Chopra who espouses quantum healing which is a big misnomer like Scientology. Like Scientology, It sounds scientific but it is not by any stretch of the imagination. It just exploits quantum jargon to sound scientific but it's not. It is just complete nonsense like others cause there is no evidence backing their wild claims. Dawkins states at one point, " If any remedy is tested under controlled scientific condition and prove to be effective then, it ceases to be alternative and will simply become medicine. Alternative Medicine either hasn't been tested or failed the test.

Lastly, Dawkins sets his sights on the burgeoning field of Homeopathy. Which has also no scientific backing. Their "Medicine" barely contains any real medicine, it  contains mostly water. However, Dawkins provides some reason why people may turn towards this modality. He says that a medical doctor gives about 8 minutes on an average to a patient while homeopathy doctor gives about 1 hour. In one hour, the doctor speaks very nicely with patient. Asking how they are doing and how are other things in life. The doctor talks to the patient like a friend would and that definitely comforts the patient. They feel good after someone speaks kindly and nicely towards them. Also, Homeopathy might benefit fro the Placebo effect.  

At the end, Dawkins says we should always stick to logic, reason and scepticism. These are the reasons behind the ginormous progress of science in the last century and abandonment of these disciplines brought about the dark ages. He says a brilliant quote, "Abandon Reason at your own peril".