How do you know what is real?

Headlines in today's Sunday Star-Times: 'Science is only now proving what natural health practitioners say they have known for years'. http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/4944581/Making-better-babies

The story pits Peter Gluckman, chief science advisor to the Prime Minister, against Loula George, Naturopath. Peter Gluckman announced the other day that he had discovered a link between a mother's diet during pregnancy and the chances of her baby later being obese. Loula's reaction: well, duh, we know that already.

But do we? In Peter Gluckman's world, this was 'the most important finding of my career and means that, for the first time ever there was a way of working out what a mother should eat'. This was new knowledge. He 'wasn't sure naturopaths have much to contribute to this matter. It's not evidence-based science. Belief and knowledge are two different things.'

This article highlights the chasm between objectivism where knowledge can only be proven by recognised scientific methods, and subjectivism, where there is no one reality, no one answer.

Peter Gluckman dismisses naturopaths out of hand - they work on a belief system - not a knowledge system. Their ways are pseudo-science, hocus pocus, witch doctory, quackery.

To the naturopath, it is not that simple - what Loula George has been doing for over 20 years has shown good results in her patients. It is common sense to eat well before and during pregnancy so that your baby has the best chance of being born healthy. Science doesn't need to prove anything to tell us that.

So how do we really know something? Do we need absolute, replicable, measurable proof? This seems to be Peter Gluckman's argument. But how real is this? Can we expect that gradually science will give us all the answers about how the world really works?

Don't get me wrong, I think that science has given us some pretty cool stuff - electricity, computers, technology, cars. But I'm not convinced that science is the total answer when we are dealing with something as unique and sensitive as our own selves.

Western medicine is based on science. Objective, positive science. A medicine is only approved once it has been through clinical - scientific, replicable, provable, trials.

But do we know everything we possibly can know about medicine? The scientists will agree with the non-scientists that we do not. The difference is in our approach to developing more knowledge. While scientists will work in laboratories to build on the absolute proofs they have already, others will seek alternative forms of therapy, based on alternative forms of knowledge.

Many of these are based on close observation of individuals, and have centuries of history. Alternative practitioners have theories which guide how they approach a patient. Many of these approaches focus on identifying and implementing treatment that is right for that individual in front of them. Defining treatment may be based on science, on beliefs, or a mixture of the two. And many, many people will tell you that the various approaches work for them.

So why does Peter Gluckman dismiss this knowledge out of hand as a quackery? And how many people out there will only visit traditional medical practitioners because of some fear that what will be prescribed for them will be witch-doctory of some kind? I'm not convinced that our traditional medical practitioners have all the answers. Like all other areas of our lives, I believe that medicine should be a combination of science - provable facts - and beliefs / best guesses / approaches that work.

Don't dismiss alternative practitioners out of hand. Find out more about them, about their approaches, about their beliefs and knowledge. It might surprise you how much they know.