I think this may have something to do with my general failure as a person, but anyway... I was working my way through the July-August Utne Reader, and I have to say that it never fails to make me think, which is, I guess, the point of reading it. I'm not done yet, but I have some thoughts. Really, one thought, two articles. I express ire at the first one here.
The first, which is simpler to explain, is about to Matt Sutherland's Spirituality and Health article, "You're Grounded: Connecting with the earth can cure chronic pain - and stop insomnia." I don't generally read Spirituality and Health, as I feel that it is filled with woo, but the Utne is an aggregator, so you get all kinds, which I usually like. However, I am very angry at this article.
The general premise is that Clint Ober discovered that we are exposed to electromagnetic fields (EMFs), and that the only appliances that do not create these fields are grounded appliances. He claims that if you sleep on a mattress that is grounded, it protects you from these EMFs, thereby reducing insomnia and improving chronic pain.
The title, which suggests that there is some kind of evidence upon which it is fair to base a statement about "curing" something. Modern medicine is not that great at curing anything, primarily because things come back and then you're a terrible person for saying you've cured something when you haven't. Th evidence upon which this is based are the anecdotal claims of a man named Clint Ober, and one blind (only he knew who got what mattress, supposedly) study he did with 60 random people he rounded up. We don't know anything about the conditions of that study, what medical problems the people had, how they got put into the different groups, etc. The only results reported in this article are the results from the treatment, i.e. the grounded pads, so we can't compare them to the results of the control to assess placebo effect, which one would imagine to be quite high in a sleep study where people just had to say whether or not they felt better rested. From what I can tell, the language of curing is Sutherland's, not Ober's.
Additionally, Sutherland makes it sound like the scientific establishment is a big mean bully just picking on poor Clint Ober. "When Ober took the question to prominent sleep researchers in California, they laughed him out the door." I'm sure it happened exactly like that. They probably called people out to the lobby so there would be as many people laughing as possible. And this is the kicker, "Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Earthing is the silence surrounding it." No, that's not remarkable. It's not remarkable at all. It's fringe science.
I actually think there might be something to it. Research has found that there are some small links between electromagnetic fields and cancer, and the World Health Organization recently classified cell phones as "possibly carcinogenic to humans," the radiation dangers of which had until recently been almost entirely dismissed by mainstream science. Science changes its mind given new evidence, so it's entirely possible that EMF may have some connection to chronic pain and insomnia that we have not yet discovered. However, none of this research is mentioned in the article.
It is not presented as a new idea that has potential, but rather as a cure that is being ignored by science. To me that seems like incredibly irresponsible reporting. I'm disappointed in Utne because there is good alternative science reporting out there. Reporting that addresses new ideas with the appropriate skepticism. Reporting that is fair to both established science and the person with the new idea. How are people supposed to separate this kind of reporting from science writing of much higher quality when it's all billed as the "best of the alternative press?" Who are they supposed to trust?
The first, which is simpler to explain, is about to Matt Sutherland's Spirituality and Health article, "You're Grounded: Connecting with the earth can cure chronic pain - and stop insomnia." I don't generally read Spirituality and Health, as I feel that it is filled with woo, but the Utne is an aggregator, so you get all kinds, which I usually like. However, I am very angry at this article.
The general premise is that Clint Ober discovered that we are exposed to electromagnetic fields (EMFs), and that the only appliances that do not create these fields are grounded appliances. He claims that if you sleep on a mattress that is grounded, it protects you from these EMFs, thereby reducing insomnia and improving chronic pain.
The title, which suggests that there is some kind of evidence upon which it is fair to base a statement about "curing" something. Modern medicine is not that great at curing anything, primarily because things come back and then you're a terrible person for saying you've cured something when you haven't. Th evidence upon which this is based are the anecdotal claims of a man named Clint Ober, and one blind (only he knew who got what mattress, supposedly) study he did with 60 random people he rounded up. We don't know anything about the conditions of that study, what medical problems the people had, how they got put into the different groups, etc. The only results reported in this article are the results from the treatment, i.e. the grounded pads, so we can't compare them to the results of the control to assess placebo effect, which one would imagine to be quite high in a sleep study where people just had to say whether or not they felt better rested. From what I can tell, the language of curing is Sutherland's, not Ober's.
Additionally, Sutherland makes it sound like the scientific establishment is a big mean bully just picking on poor Clint Ober. "When Ober took the question to prominent sleep researchers in California, they laughed him out the door." I'm sure it happened exactly like that. They probably called people out to the lobby so there would be as many people laughing as possible. And this is the kicker, "Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Earthing is the silence surrounding it." No, that's not remarkable. It's not remarkable at all. It's fringe science.
I actually think there might be something to it. Research has found that there are some small links between electromagnetic fields and cancer, and the World Health Organization recently classified cell phones as "possibly carcinogenic to humans," the radiation dangers of which had until recently been almost entirely dismissed by mainstream science. Science changes its mind given new evidence, so it's entirely possible that EMF may have some connection to chronic pain and insomnia that we have not yet discovered. However, none of this research is mentioned in the article.
It is not presented as a new idea that has potential, but rather as a cure that is being ignored by science. To me that seems like incredibly irresponsible reporting. I'm disappointed in Utne because there is good alternative science reporting out there. Reporting that addresses new ideas with the appropriate skepticism. Reporting that is fair to both established science and the person with the new idea. How are people supposed to separate this kind of reporting from science writing of much higher quality when it's all billed as the "best of the alternative press?" Who are they supposed to trust?
Comments