Q&A

Should Christians use homeopathic medicine and why are climate scientists self-censoring in academic journal articles?

A listener has emailed in to ask where we stand on alternative medicine, such as homeopathy or chiropractors. Is it fine for believers to partake in these kinds of complementary treatments and therapies, alongside traditional evidence-based scientific medicine? Why are they so stubbornly popular despite mountains of research suggesting they mostly don’t work? Or should Christians shun anything without a double-blind randomised control trial behind it? Then we move on to discuss a fascinating and alarming article by a climate scientist, who revealed that in a recent paper published in the ultra-prestigious journal Nature he deliberately simplified his findings. The paper was subtly tweaked to suggest that climate change alone was to blame for recent increases in wildfire risk in California, rather than acknowledging other factors were also present. Why are some climate scientists feeling unable to present the complexity of their research but instead tell simple, moralistic tales about the climate crisis? And should we even care as Christians?

The climate scientist’s article in The Free Press.

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