Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rolled up his sleeves during an interview last week.
Canadian scientists were outraged.
Not only did he have the tell-tale marks of cupping of his arms, he was pleased to talk to the interviewer about it.
U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps and various other swimmers at last summer's Olympics had odd dark circles on parts of their body, produced by a suction cup. The idea is that these machine-produced hickies pull blood to the surface and help with various physical ailments.
Like most homeopathic remedies, there's no scientific evidence to show cupping works, hence the outrage from the scientific community. After all, how can the prime minister say he supports the work of scientists and then subscribe to a health regime that has no scientific basis?
Both Trudeau's actions and the reaction of many Canadian scientists speaks to the status of belief in modern culture. Beliefs are personal and whether they are scientific, religious or political in nature, the stronger those beliefs, the more personal they are.
Unfortuately, belief has become increasingly black and white, wrong or right, with us or against us. Finally, belief is increasingly used as a crutch to reject contradictory facts, as if the very act of believing is licence to be close-minded and diminish truth.
Take Christy Clark, for example.
She is unfairly getting pasted online for her response to a woman who bluntly informed her that she would never vote for her. Clark's response was as quick and dismissive but it wasn't wrong. She has the right to turn away from any voter, any time she wants.
John Horgan was also confronted by a voter this week and his response - blunt and confrontational - was as correct and appropriate as Clark's.
What Clark said to reporters afterward, however, is what deserves condemnation.
"She says she didn't vote for me last time and she's never voted Liberal and she never will, and she's not going to vote for me again," Clark said.
The problem is that's not what Linda Higgins said.
What she did say - and the video proves it - was "I would never vote for you."
That doesn't mean she didn't vote for Clark before, that doesn't mean she's never voted Liberal, that doesn't mean she never will vote Liberal.
Now Clark supporters are online insisting the woman was planted by the NDP, an unsubstantiated claim that sounds a lot like when Clark told reporters earlier this spring that she thought the NDP was hacking into the B.C. Liberals website.
In the same way that some scientists think cupping means Trudeau is anti-science, Clark seems to believe anyone who disagrees with her must love Horgan and the NDP. Yet there's no doubt there will be area residents who despise Clark but will still vote Liberal, because they like Mike Morris and Shirley Bond.
Contradictory beliefs held simultaneously is a human trait that even the greatest minds have done.
Sir Isaac Newton made invaluable contributions to physics, chemistry and mathematics, yet he also spent years on various alchemy studies, trying to transmute objects into gold and concoct an elixir for eternal life.
Both Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr were instrumental in the development of quantum theory (all we need to know - without quantum mechanics, there would be no modern computers, no lasers and much of today's technology wouldn't exist). Yet both men went to their graves rejecting many of the ideas they fostered, even though the math and the experiments clearly showed they were wrong.
Werner Heisenberg and Hans Geiger (the Geiger counter is named after him) were two of the greatest German scientists of the first half of the 20th century. Both actively supported Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime.
In other words, a PhD and a superior intellect are no guards against stupidity.
Blasting Trudeau as if he believes the Earth is flat, vaccines don't work and climate change isn't happening, all because he's trying some ancient remedy would be as ridiculous as calling someone like Newton an anti-science quack.
Quantum physics has shown electrons can exist in two places at the exact same moment.
Turns out ideas and beliefs work much the same way in the human mind.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
