I can fly.

It’s true. I can, without the need of some external mechanism like an airplane or jet pack, leave the control of gravity and direct my movement in three directions. This is not a jump or a hop, I return to the earth only when I’m damned good and ready. Without providing a link, I can reference eighteen different studies (three of which were performed by government agencies) that validate this claim. And I can provide testimonial evidence from sources as varied as I choose, such as when Pope John Paul II said, “Wow, you see that kid over there? He’s actually flying. Fuckin’ Eh!” Only admittedly, he said it in Polish, so it sounded more like “Wow, widac, ze dziecko tam? On faktycznie latac. Fuckin ‘Eh!”.

This is of course outrageous. The claim is ridiculous, I offer no support for any of my assertions, and it flies in the face of all that we know about the physical world. Anyone reading that, even the most deluded of souls, would conclude that I am lying, and rightly so. However, I wonder if I put together enough web sites on the subject whether or not I might convince a few people. Let’s face it, we as a society have a hankering for unsubstantiated claims.

The seed point for this particular post today was an article I read on the always-excellent Neurologica blog by Dr. Steven Novella entitled The Chiropractic Conundrum. The article talks about a study recently published by Edzard Ernst (I’m not going to provide the link, I want you to read the Neurologica entry first you lazy pricks) who is a professor of CAM and is acting as, to quote Dr. Novella, “the Energizer Bunny of holding CAM up to the light of rigorous science”.

I won’t give away the ending and thus take away your interest in reading either of the two pieces, but suffice to say that what Ernst found was a dramatically higher ratio of totally unsubstantiated claims vs. the legitimate claims of chiropractic on websites for both chiropractic practitioners and their professional associations. This should come as no surprise, of course. But it’s heartening to see that people, especially those who are on the same side of the conversation like Ernst, are willing to question and point out these indiscretions.

As a rational and logical person, though, it saddens me that these claims can be so easy to believe to so many. Nobody believes I can fly, but they take as writ the notion that a chiropractor can crack your spine and fix your inner ear infection, that droplets of water can make you sleep better, or that poking needles into the right parts of your body unleashes the invisible magic of the universe to make your sex drive improve, and all with absolutely no proof aside from the word of the jerk who’s selling the service and his devoted followers.

Honestly, people. We live in an age where there is so much knowledge and so much ready access to that knowledge, but for whatever reason so many of us from all walks of life do not seem to possess the ability to navigate that knowledge and understand what is the best answer we have to a problem and what is nothing more than an unsubstantiated claim made by, well-meaning or otherwise, a salesman.

Jim