It seems like people these days really have a hard time agreeing on anything, and most of what we argue about is misinformed. Nonetheless, we continue to drone on and on, spurred on by a few members of our tribe or a couple of dozen likes on Instagram.
Can we just agree on one thing? Gene Roddenberry was a genius!
Who is Gene Roddenberry, you ask? You’re kidding me, right?
As the creator of the original Star Trek, he was able to capture very distinct personality types in character development and then exploit them in a science fiction realm. One of the things I continue to be amazed by are the one liners that came out of that show.
There are times when I will be in a conversation with someone and a Star Trek quote will just come to me.
Here are a few examples:
First there is the overly emotional Dr. McCoy, “I am a doctor, not a bricklayer.”
Then there is the struggling fix-it engineer Mr. Scott, “You can’t mix matter and antimatter cold.”
The starship captain himself, Kirk: “To boldly go where no man has gone before.”
But one of my all time favorites comes from Mr. Spock, who in Season 3, Episode 9 says, “In critical moments, men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see.”
Oh, Mr. Spock, we need you now more than ever.
Critical moments need critical thinking.
Spock’s quote starts with “in critical moments.” To me, that means…
When the pressure is on.
When stakes are high.
When you feel like you are in a make or break situation.
When your reputation is on the line.These are the times the logical Mr. Spock would say that as humans we cave in and create the reality we want.
We tend to see what we want to see, or we hear things wrong, or our memory stores the data wrong, or we put two and two together thinking it should equal four but it turns out the problem is not linear. Here are some examples for you to think about that fit into this category.
Which of the following statements would you say are true?
Carrots improve your vision.
Vitamin C boosts our immunity.
Coffee stunts growth.
Sugar makes you hyper.
Your body needs a good internal cleanse every now and then.
The great wall of China is visible from space.
Bats are blind.
The thing is it is not just Mr. Spock who accuses us of seeing the world as we wish. Diane Halpern, former President of the American Psychological Association and Professor at Claremont McKenna College, writes in her text on critical thinking that, “the rapidly accelerating pace of change and widespread availability of a glut of information has made the ability to think critically more important than at any other time in history.”
To Dr. Halpern’s point, I did a quick internet search for each of the six statements bulleted above. While none of them is actually true, all of them require some deep critical thinking to come up with a reason why they are not.
Here’s what I mean:
I did a Google search with “does Vitamin C boost your immune system” as my key words. The sixth citation down (after all the ads), is from the Cleveland Clinic. Talk about a reputable source! The title of the article is “3 Vitamins that are best for boosting your immunity.”
Now, let’s face it. Most simply take into account:
The question you typed in.
It is the first page of Google.
That you see it is from the Cleveland Clinic.
You may figure... why even open it? Case closed! Vitamin C boosts the immune system.
The thing is...you would be wrong.
I can hear you now. “Scott, now you are being a mean old blogger who is picking on Vitamin C. My Grandmother and my Mom swore by it and they never had a cold in their life. And they never let me down. And I love them. Who are you to insult my Grandma?”
So, don't take my word for it. Do some critical thinking and digging for yourself.
According to Dr. Jen Gunter, MD who does a podcast called Body Stuff, the immune system works just fine like it is and if you actually were to “boost” it that is what becomes the problem that will often bring people to their demise. Your immune system does not need a boost!
It turns out that most of us (please consult your own physician for any health related thing you read here or anywhere else), get enough Vitamin C in our diet and do not need to supplement it at all. If your body has enough Vitamin C, then it eliminates what is not needed in your urine. So for most of us, that 500mg of Vitamin C we take at about $0.10./day ends up in the toilet.
But wait a minute... The Cleveland Clinic said…
Actually, no they didn’t. If you open the article they say you don’t need it unless your doctor advises it. But the marketing people who run the Cleveland Clinics blog posts know that if they put a number in the title you are more likely to open it. So, turns out, the article is true, but the title is a little misleading.
I fully realize, some of you right now are rolling your eyes at me because I am making an argument against a longtime belief. You probably don’t care as much about bats not being blind (they are not blind, they just rely 3x more on their hearing) but when I put detoxing your inners on the list, well them’s fighting words.
This is part of the problem. Some of us have made very public claims about some of these things. You might even have an anecdotal story of knowing a person who takes Vitamin C and never gets sick. And you have told this story over and over again so not only do you believe that it is true but you have claimed it publicly so your reputation is on the line. This isolated example of the person you know does not support a direct correlation between Vitamin C consumption and immune system boosting. While both of the observations may be true, the conclusion is false.
Folks, critical thinking is a skill. And for most of us, on most topics, we should likely say less and study a lot more. Rather than coming to a rapid conclusion, let’s get a lot better at saying, “I don’t know, but I am open to learning more.”
