Cancer Journal #59 Nov 13

 I have some things to say about Ross Douthat's wish that there was a viable middle ground between standard medicine and alternate treatments--a way of perhaps blending the two to the benefit of both kinds of treatments.  I'm heartily with him on that but it's only in an alternate world that that happens.  

I think of an example from the history of Christianity and astronomy that illustrates the point for me.  I don't know how helpful it will be for you.  Copernicus proposed that the Earth revolved around the Sun and the Catholic Church had no problem with that.  100 years later Galileo said the same thing and he was put on trial, convicted of doctrinal error and confined to his residence for the rest of his life.  What happened in those 100 years?  I'll tell you.  There was a Reformation with the reformers saying that the only authority for spiritual matters was the Bible, not whatever Catholic Church wanted to tack on to Christianity.  This prompted a Counter Reformation in which the Catholics became super strict in their interpretation of the Bible.  There's a passage in the Bible which says that Isrealites were able to defeat an enemy in battle until the end of the day.  Moses raised his arms which stopped the Sun in the sky, thereby extending the time that the enemy could be defeated.  This was taken as proof that the Sun went around the Earth rather than the Earth rotating in its orbit around the Sun as Copernicus and Galileo proposed.  

What I say is, "With all due respect Mr Pope, that's just stupid.  When someone says that they saw the sun rise this morning, we don't correct them and say that what they actually perceived was a point of rotation of our Earth in its relationship to a stationary Sun that made the Sun visible during the course of that rotation.  Let the text of the Bible take the same shortcut that we take."  (Let's set aside right now problems with Moses stopping the rotation of the Earth around the Sun).

My point is that the Catholic Church could get lax and loosey goosey with Bible interpretation when there was no one contesting them on who is more correct in their Biblical interpretation.  You get someone saying they are more faithful to the truths in the Bible and you get a silly race to the bottom in which poor Galileo was collateral damage.

I don't know how useful you find all this in understanding standard medicine's relationship to alternate medicine.  Perhaps it's obvious that when you are contested, you will become more rigid in your position than if you were not contested.  Be nice if it were just the opposite.  In that better world, we would say, "Hey, maybe there are some treatments offered by alternative medicine that we could make use of.  After all, it isn't about us winning or losing,  It's about the the care and welfare of the patient."  And, of course, it's not all one sided.  There can be a vilifying 'follow the money' case that alternate medicine makes against standard medicine.  I may be naive but I'm not buying the whole of that deal.  But then, what do I know?  I just wish it could all be integrated a little better.  As they say in the musical Oklahoma, "Why can't the farmers and the cowboys just be friends?"