Come be we and be free

APE IN A CAPE: Question Of The Day

gailsimone:

Some of you may know that I am a genuine card-carrying skeptic, which doesn’t mean, as is often said, that I don’t believe in anything. What it means is that I don’t believe in extraordinary things without evidence. Someone’s opinion or anecdotal evidence isn’t enough. This is a big problem on the…

I don’t know, I mean, I’m not a believer, per se - too many things fail to pass the ‘Where’s the money?’ test for me to put much stock in them (and figuring out/researching cons is one of my hobbies). But by the same token, I don’t necessarily disbelieve things either - there’s a whole great big universe out there, and we only understand a small portion of it (and some of that portion we’re a little foggy on too).

My mom has a friend who is big into crystals and the mystical properties of rocks or whatever. She gave my mom a bit of tumbled amethyst to keep in her pillow, since my mom has trouble sleeping sometimes - and it worked. Mom slept better when the rock was in her pillow. I’m a geology student - I can draw you the physical structure of that rock, its chemical formula, tell you how (and with a bit of effort, where) it formed. None of my scientific background can tell you whether my mom slept better due to the placebo effect, or just the reminder that her friend cared, or what - and since there’s nothing harmful in that belief (it’s not like she absolutely can’t sleep without it - losing the rock didn’t generate anxiety or anything), I don’t really need to know the why behind it, or try to debunk it.

On the other hand, if someone told me that my dad really didn’t need to take his heart medication, as long as he kept a chunk of lapis lazuli in his pocket…sorry, I’d need multiple peer-reviewed papers in major medical journals, based on rigorous testing, and probably a couple years of it being a recognized treatment avenue.