In Part I, I introduced the idea that important information about our health is being withheld from us, and that the lack of this information has contributed to our expensive and tragically ineffective health-care system. In Part II, we’ll take on the first of two things responsible for that withholding: the current reductionist paradigm.
We’ll begin in chapter four by introducing reductionism and its opposing worldview, wholism, in a philosophical and historical context. In some ways these two lenses represent a more fundamental division in consciousness than any other in modern society, including political and social views and religious affinities.
In chapters five through twelve, we’ll examine exactly how reductionism has affected the way we think about nutrition and health. We’ll consider how it influences not just how we interpret research results, but also what kind of research is done in the first place. We’ll look at its role in the ascendency of genetics in the scientific community—and the limitations of genetics for addressing disease—and at how reductionism influences the way we think about the connection between environmental toxins and cancer. We’ll see how reductionism has infected the most fundamental tenets of research, as well as the development of health products and services, turning powerful institutions into veritable zombies: seemingly animate, yet devoid of any compassion or desire to make us well. Last, we’ll broaden our view to the repercussions of reductionism in our eating habits far beyond our individual and collective health, in areas as diverse as human poverty, animal cruelty, and environmental degradation.
By the time we’re done, you’ll discover that “conclusive proof” can look very different depending on which paradigm you embrace. You’ll discover why most research into diet and health is contradictory and confusing. And you’ll see why it’s so important for us to rescue nutrition from the rustic backwaters of science and social policy to which it has been relegated.