Lessons from Comanches on Medical Experts

shortlink: https://t.ly/3ht0

People flourish in a hierarchy from which they derive their position, their existence, perhaps their identity and their dignity. That hierarchical constellation is the habitat in which they have proven they can survive, or more than that: experts owe their success to it, they have climbed up in it, step by step. To get this far, unconditional trust in that hierarchical system of certainties, conventions and authorities is necessary. When a life or career is shaped around such a fundamental trust, whether misplaced or not, then any questioning of the validity of the house of cards is a life-threatening attack on the very essence of life. Then rational counterarguments only dig deeper into the sand. William M Briggs wrote a gem as an illustration, which I have edited into Dutch. (The original English version is here)

T.R. Fehrenbach, American historian and author of Comanches, History of a People, leert ons dat mannelijke Comanche-indianen vroeger zakjes met "medicijnen" bij zich droegen. In deze zakjes zaten dingen als wolventanden, speciale stenen, misschien haar dat van een vijand was afgepakt en andere soortgelijke voorwerpen.

These items were the medicine that protected the Comanche warriors in battle. The medicine gave courage, fighting spirit and a certain degree of invulnerability.

That sounds a bit contradictory: after all, you are either invulnerable or not. And even if the Comanche warrior were invulnerable in the absolute sense of the word, their enemies also had their own medicines that in turn provided their own degree of invulnerability. Anyway: medicine could beat medicine.

Now you laugh, dear modern reader, confident in your science and your superior understanding of causality. You laugh at the simple nature of the Comanche and their flawed theories, their assumptions about cause and effect. After all, you have a cell phone and maybe even a computer, great scientific achievements, of which you are proud because you live in the same culture as the men who created these wonders. Which was very smart of you: being born at the right time...

Laten wij ons nu eens voorstellen dat we met onze kennis terug in de tijd worden gestuurd en naar de Grote Vlakten worden gebracht. Dan zouden we, nobel als we nu eenmaal zijn, proberen deze naïeve mensen te leren wat oorzaak en gevolg is en waarom hun "medicijnen" niet werken. Correlatie is immers nog geen causaliteit!

We were guaranteed to have a fight. Comanche warriors would shower us with countless stories of how their medicine became stronger after, for example, the addition of a sacred stone, and how this allowed them to achieve an impossible victory over a stronger enemy. And how their medicine failed them when they failed to fulfill a vow through misfortune or, worse, through inattention.

They always had their medications with them, and their survival was the ultimate proof of efficacy of their medications.

Ze wisten door al deze bewijzen dat medicijnen werkten, dat kon niet anders. En onze banale preken over "wetenschap is een proces" of "wetenschap is zelfcorrigerend" of "we weten het nu" of "gouden-standaard gerandomiseerde proeven" of "bijgeloof" en ga zo maar door, die zouden alleen maar dienen om het vertrouwen van deze strijders te vergroten, niet alleen dat hun medicijnen werkten, maar zij zouden ook gesterkt worden in het besef dat wij zelf niet meer dan armetierige, zielige wezens waren die niets maar dan ook helemaal niets begrijpen van hoe de wereld in elkaar zit.

The question is whether we would still be able to reach our time machine with all our hair on our heads...

William M Briggs on his latest book Everything You Believe Is Wrong: "Are you an expert, a professional, a bureaucrat, a teacher, a professor, a Fourth Wave or an FvD'er, een liberaal, een progressief of een conservatief en reken je jezelf op enigerlei wijze tot de opgeleide klasse, dan is de kans groot dat alles wat je gelooft verkeerd is." (I haven't read it yet. In any case, this parable really appealed to me.)

The tangle becomes increasingly sticky, the constellation tightened. The unbridled expansion of the hierarchy shows its full glory with yet another honorary doctorate for Marc van Ranst, with which once again a piece of academic independence is siding behind an activist media player who does little more than propagate the government narrative.