Brews You Can Use
Okay, this is frustrating: Only A Fraction Of The Population Has The Genotype That Makes Moderate Alcohol Consumption Heart Healthy. According to the story, a new study has shown that moderate alcohol consumption improves the health of only 15% of the population.
Well, crud. That conflicts with a lot of other articles that have been flying around for many years. The articles first started with wine: wine, we were told, is good for the heart. Then we started seeing articles about the health benefits of beer. And then health-benefit articles about hard liquor and alcohol in general started flying around.
And now it looks like we're starting to backpeddle. Neither the story or the study, as near as I can tells, takes aim at the benefits of wine (except for the picture of the wine bottle at the top of the story), but if this study represents the pendulum swinging back, I assume beer is going to be attacked next and then wine.
Why do I say it's frustrating? Simply because it's yet another example of why we can't trust science. If a particular religion flip-flopped as often as science, it would have as many adherents today as the Canaanite religion. I realize such an analogy is seriously flawed, but it also has serious merit: both claim a measure of authority within their sphere (matter/spirit) and both have acknowledged leaders (scientists/clergy). But one changes its mind more often than the wind.
So, does science suck? Not at all. It has obviously done us a lot of good (starting with the Internet). It just ought not be latently worshipped like it is in our culture. Truth never changes. And neither does science's obvious inability to grasp it. If it can't even come to a consensus on something as miniscule as whether a couple shots of vodka every week help a person's heart, I sure as heck am not going to trust it on something like the origins of the universe.
The article also shows why you can't trust the media and why, as Nassim Taleb points out, the more read, the less you know . . . unless you're careful to read only the right stuff and you read it (very) thoughtfully.
