Buddha

Don't Believe "Experts" Or "Nice People" Without Proof: Ask To See Independent Studies Published In Peer-Reviewed Journals

Much of what great numbers of people assume to be true are found to be false when logic and critical analysis are applied to them.

All too often, smart people whose job is to market something to the public use these notions and assumptions as hot-buttons to pass something into public use that is not as good as it seems. Sometimes what they sell to or get people to believe is actually bad for the people who accept it as a fact or buy the product.

Organic Vitamins?
A good example of this is "organic whole-food-grown-type" vitamins. While they seem wonderfully natural, and are sold as "food," they actually are not "food," yet they cost 4 to 14 times more than other vitamin products while delivering doses of nutrients that are too low to do much good. Vitamins cannot be organic the way food can be, and this word is misused to sell products. By law a vitamin product that is called "organic" on the label must contain 70 percent organic materials, so the vitamin content can be no more than 30 percent of the tablet, making the doses of vitamins and minerals in the tablets low to produce optimal effects.

Furthermore, a tablet amount of organic foods (1000 milligrams) can't compare to a real organic orange or a peach or organic brocolli that might weigh 84,000 milligrams, which is three ounces. People pay high prices for doses of important nutrients like calcium in "organic whole-food-grown-type" vitamins that are too small to provide important benefits like improving bone density. This can produce a harmful deficiency to someone like a senior woman who has a serious need for calcium to reduce her risk of bone fracture.

At this time "organic" is a magic word and a hotbutton to people who are religiously seeking healthy products. People buy things that are organic without even looking critically at what they are buying. While we all want organic, clean, pesticide-free food, vitamins with any kind of useful potency are not "organic" and can't be.

Other examples of this can be seen in politics, where people buy into something that is later shown to be false, such as Iraq not actually being in possession of or manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. This was the reason promoted by politicians to make people believe we should go to war with Iraq. It was later shown to be false.

In about 588 BC, in the Kalama Sutta, the Buddha specifically told his follows to eschew blind faith in anything, including his own teachings. What he said translates to "Don't take anyone's word for it." This is also the motto of UK's Royal Society and mine.

In God I trust, all others MUST provide solid scientific references!