All right everyone, you can forget diet, genetics, chemicals, and all the other proposed causes of autism. Here it is, the real reason why autism is on the increase.
It has to do with the upcoming events of December 21, 2012. Nobody is really sure what is going to happen but something is going to happen. Are you plagued with tingling and other mysterious ailments (or ailments you didn't think were mysterious)? If so, you are being prepared for something. Don't ask me what. But the world is going to change and all of us on the spectrum are going to be on the cutting edge or something like that. Yes, we are the chosen ones! Chosen for what? (Don't ask.)
I heard this nonsense today from my New Age friend who has just come back from Sedona, Arizona all bubbling over with enthusiasm. This person is so scientifically illiterate that I don't even know where to begin. She spouts off all this psuedo-science without having a clue as to what real science is all about. And, My God, the things that come out of her mouth! I look at her and think, you don't really mean what I just heard you say, did I?
She's bought the whole New Age mumbo-jumbo, hook, line and sinker. Now she wants to open a healing center and do energy work. She admits that it might not work with everybody, because everyone's different. I said it sounds like the good old placebo effect to me. What does that matter, she says, as long as it works?
The more she's gotten into this, the more anti-Western medicine she's gotten. Which, I suppose, is her right. Except that her chosen philosophy could possibly bring her on a collision course with the kind of work we do. For the last 150 or so years Western medicine has been built around the notion that there are physical causes for disease, such as germs, and that these diseases can be treated with physical means such as drugs. Animal research plays a major part in developing and testing these new drugs and treatments.
In contrast, New Age thought focuses on mind/body/spirit. While traditional medicine is starting to acknowledge the role that mind plays in health, this is not what New Age believers are talking about. What they are saying is that the body possesses the energy and ability to heal itself without medications of any kind, you only have to develop your powers in that direction. In this New Age bears an eerie similarity to Mary Baker Eddy's "Christian Science" which denies that disease had material causes or that it even exists. It's all mind over matter.
Now, if what New Age says about disease is true, then Western medicine has been on the wrong track for nearly two centuries now. And if that is the case, then what we do at my workplace--animal research--is not only a waste of time, it is wrong, scientifically wrong and morally wrong. The people who stand outside and picket are right. I don't know if my friend realizes it yet, but there are very few New Agers I have met that support animal research.
She may come to find that as she travels in New Age circles that she may have to choose between New Age and her job. Either she will come to the conclusion that she can no longer participate in animal research even indirectly or she will find that even if she has no problem with it, her New Age friends may not be so tolerant. It's kind of like someone who says they are pro-life but supports Planned Parenthood. If they think that they will be equally welcomed by both sides they are very much mistaken.
I did say to her that I do think there is a place for the kind of work she envisions doing, mainly in the areas of stress relief and relaxing. I think they can help some people but that it should not be intended to replace mainstream medicine. As long as she sticks to that, I don't really have a problem. It's the other stuff, like the autism-December 21st connection, that I have a problem with.
It has to do with the upcoming events of December 21, 2012. Nobody is really sure what is going to happen but something is going to happen. Are you plagued with tingling and other mysterious ailments (or ailments you didn't think were mysterious)? If so, you are being prepared for something. Don't ask me what. But the world is going to change and all of us on the spectrum are going to be on the cutting edge or something like that. Yes, we are the chosen ones! Chosen for what? (Don't ask.)
I heard this nonsense today from my New Age friend who has just come back from Sedona, Arizona all bubbling over with enthusiasm. This person is so scientifically illiterate that I don't even know where to begin. She spouts off all this psuedo-science without having a clue as to what real science is all about. And, My God, the things that come out of her mouth! I look at her and think, you don't really mean what I just heard you say, did I?
She's bought the whole New Age mumbo-jumbo, hook, line and sinker. Now she wants to open a healing center and do energy work. She admits that it might not work with everybody, because everyone's different. I said it sounds like the good old placebo effect to me. What does that matter, she says, as long as it works?
The more she's gotten into this, the more anti-Western medicine she's gotten. Which, I suppose, is her right. Except that her chosen philosophy could possibly bring her on a collision course with the kind of work we do. For the last 150 or so years Western medicine has been built around the notion that there are physical causes for disease, such as germs, and that these diseases can be treated with physical means such as drugs. Animal research plays a major part in developing and testing these new drugs and treatments.
In contrast, New Age thought focuses on mind/body/spirit. While traditional medicine is starting to acknowledge the role that mind plays in health, this is not what New Age believers are talking about. What they are saying is that the body possesses the energy and ability to heal itself without medications of any kind, you only have to develop your powers in that direction. In this New Age bears an eerie similarity to Mary Baker Eddy's "Christian Science" which denies that disease had material causes or that it even exists. It's all mind over matter.
Now, if what New Age says about disease is true, then Western medicine has been on the wrong track for nearly two centuries now. And if that is the case, then what we do at my workplace--animal research--is not only a waste of time, it is wrong, scientifically wrong and morally wrong. The people who stand outside and picket are right. I don't know if my friend realizes it yet, but there are very few New Agers I have met that support animal research.
She may come to find that as she travels in New Age circles that she may have to choose between New Age and her job. Either she will come to the conclusion that she can no longer participate in animal research even indirectly or she will find that even if she has no problem with it, her New Age friends may not be so tolerant. It's kind of like someone who says they are pro-life but supports Planned Parenthood. If they think that they will be equally welcomed by both sides they are very much mistaken.
I did say to her that I do think there is a place for the kind of work she envisions doing, mainly in the areas of stress relief and relaxing. I think they can help some people but that it should not be intended to replace mainstream medicine. As long as she sticks to that, I don't really have a problem. It's the other stuff, like the autism-December 21st connection, that I have a problem with.
