Why do people believe in things when the body of scientific evidence shows otherwise

[technodad]

This is not intended to be an attack on any denomination of belief. The aim of this thread is to try to understand why people choose to believe things, when there are far more likely explanations and why people choose to not trust the scientific opinion.

I am not particularly thinking about a discussion about religion because clearly "faith", some old books and preaching make a difference there (although, please discuss religion if it is relevant). I am thinking more about things like:

• People don't believe global is happening when the vast majority of the scientific community can provide evidence that it is.

• People believe in ghosts when their existance violates all the laws of physics and pretty much all "ghost events" (if not absolutely all) can be explained without mystery.

• People don't get their kids vaccinated (e.g. MMR), when it is clear that not vaccinating is orders of magnitude more dangerous than vaccinating.

• People think that palm reading, tea leaf reading, etc actually works...

• People believe in "alternative" medicines work, when every "alternative" medicine that actually works is now simple called "medicine"!

The rules are as follows:

1. You can say what ever you like, and I don't care if you insult me.

2. If you post something, you may have someone say something that challenges your deeply held beliefs, so please only post if this is acceptable to you.

3. No one is allowed to complain about anyone being horrible, or arrogant, based upon the fact that people will only post here if they are up for a debate (see 2).

4. There is no 4.

Don't know what? You said "thyroid patients". I am one (or was - considered cured).

But I would have had exactly the same response no matter what branch of medicine you'd targeted. If you'd said "doctors prescribing statins are peddling shite", I'd have challenged that too. I don't take statins & I don't know anyone who does.

Incidentally, the medication you are taking is neither alternative nor complementry - it's conventional medicine, discovered, researched & tested by scientists.

Your real issue is that the NHS won't fund it for you. And that is NOT the fault of individual GPs who would rather "peddle shite".

I expect your GP would truly love to prescribe the right medication for you, but for some reason can't.

Be angry with the right people.

Incidentally, the medication you are taking is neither alternative nor complementry - it's conventional medicine, discovered, researched & tested by scientists.

I never said it was.

No my real issue is that I have to hide it from my GP in case they chuck me off their list. Which has happened to other thyroid patients who have to self medicate. I don't care about having to pay for it. £80-worth lasts me about 5 months.

BTW, NDT was widely used before they 'discovered' synthetic thyroxin and decided it was better (cheaper).

The OP was "Why do people believe in things when the body of scientific evidence shows otherwise". My response was, because when your GP tries/has to persuade you that your treatment is OK, when it isn't, and that a useless test (tsh) is enough, when it isn't, it becomes harder to believe anything.

I am lucky that I didn't fall apart when my thyroid did. But some people do, and remain totally untreated because doctors (have to) rely solely on the tsh test. And who try to do otherwise get hauled up before the GMC and threatened with getting struck off. So yes, it is scandalous.

It worries me a lot that you're taking medicine that wasn't prescribed for you.

I understand you feel better on it, but doctors have to take a lot of things into account when they prescribe anything - lots of things that won't have occurred to you because you're not trained in the way they are.

Where do you get it? Online?

And there are LOTS of symptoms seen in hyper/hypothyroidism that are also evident in other, more serious illnesses.

Diagnosing yourself is dangerous, Primal, it honestly is.

NDT was widely used before they 'discovered' synthetic thyroxin and decided it was better (cheaper).

Hmm, I thought that what was 'discovered' was natural thyroxin and that synthetic L-thyroxin is chemically identical.

Another of DHs uncle's (healthy bunch I married into!) was born with hypothyroidism and lived a long but really not very healthy life thanks to NDT which was the only treatment available in his infancy. Better than nothing for sure but not better than synthetic thyroxin.

Undermedication with thyroxin is quite common, because the 'normal ranges' for the herd really don't seem to apply to everyone - patients really do need to get dosage adjusted until they have the correct dose for them - which may go up (or sporadically briefly down in the case of Hashimotos) and does require a GP who is on the ball - but you won't find internet forums full of people like DH who now essentially don't have any problem so long as they keep taking the pills and adjusting occasionally.

(To clarify - you wont find those forums not because there aren't lots of such people but because they're getting on with their lives and don't need one)

Better than nothing for sure but not better than synthetic thyroxin.

For me and many others it is far better. If you have converting the synthetic T4 to T3 then it won't work.

I was 'overmedicated' on thyroxin because I was really ill otherwise. I thought I had MS .

I am not stupid, and I am far from alone. I get regular blood tests. The only one the drs worry about is my tsh. Because it is suppressed, as it should be if I am taking T3. All perfect and I have a brain and memory again.

I was on 200mcg thyroxin, so far from undiagnosed. Have seen an endocrinologist (useless).

I have an example of archaeological sites remaining unstudied for political reasons.

Here in the UK we preserve and celebrate our Neolithic/ bronze age sites, such as dolmens. But did you know that dolmens occur over much of Europe?- particularly, but not exclusively, on the Western seaboard of the continent?

I've seen pictures of dolmens in Germany- all of them overgrown, some covered with heavy metal graffiti. Apparently, it's because the Nazis were keen on prechristian mythology, so no one since then will touch them because of that association.

Yes - the nazis use of prehistory to try to prove their aryan origins is a well documented example of the abuse of archaeology.

Holo - i think a good recent example of the political complexities that can engulf archaeology is the former Yugoslavia. Good concise article here.

Oh dear, looking at my post from last night it sounds a bit patronising- sorry, wine had been taken

That's a good article.

I feel even sorrier for the dolmens now though- they weren't constructed by "Nordic" or "Aryan" peoples at all, but have sadly been tarred with the same brush

Only a few pages in but I just wanted to comment on the idea that medicine is only medicine if it works. We now know that certain medicines may only work for certain people due to their genetics- does that mean we can't call the drugs that don't work for certain people 'medicine' any more?

No, because the way it works is they are tested on a number of people at the same time.

I think all medicine varies from person to person anyway.

The only ones declared not medicine will be the ones that have no positive affect at all on anyone tested.

Doctors do harm people. Often unintentionally but still. Statistics vary but it could be 1 in 10 people admitted to hospital. Or it could be 11,000 people every year subject to serious or severe harm, including death. But that's probably a underestimate because not all incidents of avoidable harm are reported. a look at this report www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmhealth/151/15106.htm#n31

Btw, given the number of NHS patient interactions every day, those figures are quite 'good' - millions of people have hospital, GP or community appointments or admissions every day.

It is a shame we have got sucked down a narrow channel about health. Surely, most people would agree that there is still a lot to be learnt about treatments and medication.

The kind of beliefs I thought this would be about would be the huge ones like God / Allah / Buddah etc. Transubstantiation, the dead rising again, that the Qu'ran is literally the word of God, the Hindu reincarnation and all that kind of really, really massive stuff. Millions of people around the world believe their religion and live their lives accordingly. Surely that has got to be worth more discussion than arguing the toss over homeopathy!!!!!

Of course medicine can harm people. Every procedure and drug has side effects and risk factors. Did anyone ever deny this was the case?

As for the subject QueenBee, I think in some ways it's more amazing that someone believes in homeopathy and reiki etc which can be shown to be false than the idea of a creator which can't be.

Surely, most people would agree that there is still a lot to be learnt about treatments and medication

Absolutely. Any scientist will tell you that the things they don't know are massively more exciting than the things they do. There's much to learn about everything.

So how do we learn it? The scientific method. And when the scientific method consistently shows, after countless tests, trials and reviews that an hypothesis is baseless & wrong, what should we do?

Well, according to many posters, ignore it, because "science doesn't know everything, and my Auntie Doris's sciatica (which completely stumped every medical professional she consulted) was cured with magic water and having her aura read!" (Followed up by a quick quote from Shakespeare, in order to sound learned).

Science works. Just does.

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"Of course medicine can harm people. Every procedure and drug has side effects and risk factors. Did anyone ever deny this was the case?"

Homeopathy doesn't, BOB.

Exactly

Safest treatment in the world. Though I did know someone who claimed they could do Reiki via email. That has to be extra safe.

I wanted to ask "Will they get better when you send it or when they open the email?"

The discussion seemed to focus only on the potential harm of complementary therapies. There was no acknowledgement that conventional medicine causes plenty of harm.

As for homeopathy not having side effects... I do know the plural of anecdote is not data, and I've worked with expert reviewers of medical evidence, but... I did have treatment from a homeopath once and got side effects. I'd gone to see her about terrible migraines. Got a horrible dose of thrush as soon as I started taking the homeopathic remedies. Thing is, thrush was a side-effect of conventional medicine - I'd first developed it as a result of taking antibiotics, then it kept coming back.

Anyway, I had the worst case of thrush I'd ever had, really horrible and unbearable. But that was it. Never ever had thrush ever again.

Very weird, esp. as homeopathy did nothing for my headaches!

It could all be coincidence, of course, that I just happened to have a particularly severe case of thrush, which just happened to be a side effect of conventional medicine, and that it just happened to go away and never come back again (it's been about 15 years now). It really seriously could. But I really do think it was a side-effect of homeopathic treatment.

I honestly can't see how drinking water can give you thrush. If it did, we'd all have it, all the time.

You could argue that homeopathy does harm people, by giving them false hope, and having millions spent on it by the NHS when the money could have gone elsewhere.