When We Preach Science
Let’s use familiar traditions to reframe modern scientific knowledge
I grew up in a household where turmeric is considered the cure-all. Got acne? Rub turmeric on your face. Have a cold? Put turmeric in your water. Cut your finger? Sprinkle turmeric on it. Our medicine cabinet was never stocked with Tylenol or Dayquil like in other homes. Instead, bottles of turmeric, dried basil leaves, cloves, ginger powder, kasturi pills, and other kitchen ingredients lined the shelves of our bathroom.
This is the approach to health that my family has kept for generations. In my family where tradition and culture are kept alive through a myriad of ways, Ayurveda has worked itself into daily practices of staying healthy. My family trusts our turmeric more than any Tylenol, because it is what they know best.
It is easy for you and I to accept new scientific discoveries and welcome progress with open arms. We grew up in the age of science and technology. Science is familiar to us, and so we embrace it. But there are also people who, like the members of my family, are hesitant about the unfamiliar medications and seemingly endless treatments promoted by conventional medicine. We tell them that vaccines are supported by science. We tell them that these medications are experimentally proven to work, even if their names are too long to pronounce. We give them injection after injection, pill after pill, and we expect them to nod along.
If you take a close look at our current society, you start to notice something. Science, we say. Trust science. Science knows best. You can’t know better than science. You don’t believe in science? You monster, how could you? We sit on our pedestal of science, looking down at everyone who can’t possibly understand us. They must be stupid, ignorant, or just outright evil. But what happens when we take a moment to try and understand them?
As humans, we embrace the familiar and fear the unfamiliar. Science may be our “familiar,” but it certainly isn’t for millions of others who live in this country alongside us. For them, their familiar is their culture, their long-standing traditions, and their belief systems. They trust in their traditions whole-heartedly.
There can only be one right, we may think. Science or tradition. One or the other. Well then obviously, science must be right…right? Modern medicine has reached heights that have never been seen before. We’ve discovered the wonders of inoculation. We’ve advanced surgical and operative care. We’ve created life-changing medications. Why, in just under a year we’ve just created, tested, and are now mass-distributing a vaccine for a disease that has rampaged our world. Why can’t they see the answers and just trust us?
Trust only happens when we’re on the same playing ground, on the same level. How can we expect anyone to trust us while we sit atop our high horses?
It is naive to think that modern medicine has all the answers. To think we know everything? That is naiveté. And to think that only we know everything, that no one else does…or did. That is ignorance. It is ignorant to dismiss age old traditions and cultural practices just because something newer and shinier and more modern exists.
We are constantly learning new things, but we are also constantly rediscovering and relearning old things. History repeats itself, and no experience or technology is inherently new. Pharma companies advertise and sell turmeric (for high prices might I add) for its antibacterial properties, something that my family already knew and followed for generations. Recent studies have shown that the basis of modern cognitive behavioral therapy was laid out in the Bhagavad Gita, ages ago. Even the modern practice of vaccination and inoculation dates back hundreds of years, when Buddhist monks drank snake venom to develop immunity to snakebites. Our ancestors, believe it or not, knew quite a lot, and cultural traditions have helped to carry their accumulated knowledge from generation to generation. By dismissing their wisdom as foolish quackery, we are doing ourselves a grave disservice.
I’m not advocating for alternative medicine to wipe out our existing conventions. Turmeric is great, but penicillin is important too. We’ve accomplished a lot in modern medicine, and we can’t just let it go. What I am asking is that we give the beliefs and hesitancies of our neighbors a spot in our consideration. To achieve this, preventative healing traditions must go hand in hand with modern interventional medicine. We need to reframe and integrate our scientific knowledge into frameworks that they are familiar and comfortable with. If we want to win their trust, we need to stop preaching and start listening.
