On this Earth Day I want to say: Support science. Support the work of scientists. Science is the pursuit of knowledge. Science is about facts and evidence - not opinions. Medicine is applied science - scientific discoveries are turned into real-world medical treatments. Yes, scientific theories and what we know in science and medicine can change over time as more evidence is found. But science is not political, or it shouldn't be political. This is because we all benefit from science and scientific knowledge.
Sometimes there is bias in science (as when scientists receiving money from a corporation or working for a corporation then do research with results desired by that corporation), but that is why it is important to have transparency in research studies and results, and why good research involves peer review (other scientists review the research) and open discussion, and the importance of others having similar research results in an area. This is also why government funding of basic research is important.
Science is a process of understanding how the world works - it is curiosity driven and uses empirical evidence, particularly information acquired by observation and experimentation. Data is recorded and analyzed by scientists and is part of the scientific method. Basic science results in discoveries that may lead to incredible uses down the road and to amazing benefits to society. An example is the discovery of penicillin, which eventually changed medicine. Government funding has supported basic science for years - for example, NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation. Without government support, most basic scientific research will never happen.
Basically every post I've ever done is science based. Even the ones on sinusitis, Lactobacillus sakei, and the results of self-experimentation. And yes, self-experimentation in science and medicine has a long and honorable history. A very famous example was when the Australian physician Barry Marshall drank a petri dish containing Helicobacter pylori bacteria (from a patient) and soon developed the symptoms of peptic ulcer - this led to his eventually being awarded the Nobel Prize in 2005.
Similarly, through self-experimentation - my four family members, as well as many people writing to me, have reported amazing results within days of using a L. sakei product without changing anything else in their lives. These self-experiments were based on scientific evidence presented in the original Abreu et al study (2012) on sinusitis and the sinus microbiome. This is science at its most basic: doing "A" to a person with condition "B" and seeing the result "C" (which can be a positive effect, no effect, or negative effect).
So take a moment and appreciate all the different fields of science and how they have changed our lives: oceanography, chemistry, physics, earth science, ecology, geology, meteorology, astronomy, zoology, human biology (includes microbiology, anatomy, neurology, immunology, genetics, physiology, pathology, and ophthalmology), botany, anthropology, archaeology, criminology, psychology, sociology, computer science, statistics, mathematics, etc. Some areas of applied science are: engineering, computer science, and medicine. Wow....So please...Support science and the pursuit of knowledge. It's not political. It's not opinions or wishful thinking. Don't deny science.
