So Exactly What Was “Elementary My Dear Watson”?
(And How Can It Help Your Health)
From the Desk Of Dr Craig Hindson
Your Chiropractor in Westboro
The Game’s Afoot!
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s internationally famous detective Sherlock Holmes was brought to life in a series of books which are collectively the best-selling book series in history. Holmes is credited as being a master of deduction and he announces in “The Study in Scarlett” that “I have a turn both for observation and for deduction.”
Since its discovery in 1895, 8 years after Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story was published (1887), chiropractors have claimed that the basis of chiropractic is deductive in nature as opposed to all the other healing arts (based on the practice of medicine) which are inductive in nature.
Deductive thinking starts with a general principle and works down toward a specific conclusion.
For example:
1. All mammals need oxygen. 2. A whale is a mammal. 3. Therefore, a whale needs oxygen.
If the premises are true and the reasoning is valid, the conclusion necessarily follows.
A very ordinary example would be:
1. Water freezes at approximately 0°C under normal atmospheric conditions. 2. The temperature outside is −10°C. 3. Water left outside long enough should therefore freeze.
You are predicting a particular outcome from a general principle.
Inductive thinking starts with individual observations & works upward toward a general conclusion
For example:
1. Patient A with this infection developed a fever. 2. Patient B with this infection developed a fever.
3. Patient C with this infection developed a fever. 4. Therefore, this infection commonly causes fever.
The conclusion is probable rather than logically certain. A future patient might not develop a fever.
A simple everyday example:
1. Every morning this week there has been heavy traffic at 8:00. 2. Therefore, there will probably be heavy traffic tomorrow at 8:00.
That is a reasonable conclusion, but it is not guaranteed. Tomorrow may be a weekend.
In medicine the inductive emphasis is on quantifiable evidence that a treatment produces a resulting reduction in symptoms. And indeed, it can be demonstrated that drug A reduced type of pain Z. Inductively, this is proven. One intervention produces 1 outcome. And this is the focus when promoting an intervention. However, this does not produce the multifaceted state of being called “Health”.
Health is defined by the World Health Organization as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” So if the drug A removes pain Z but kidney failure results 5 years in the future, then for 5 years medicine has successfully been practiced (removing symptoms) until the patient had a massive loss of health with kidney failure.
Deductive and inductive duality: Most good science includes both these aspects of reasoning.
The definition of medicine is: “The diagnosis and treatment of symptoms and disease” Inductively it can demonstrate that. What it cannot demonstrate is its main deductive premise, which is ever apparent but never spoken and that is that “The removal of symptoms and disease brings health”. A close look at the 3 biggest casues of death (heart disease, cancer and stroks) and the lack of symptoms prior to end state or death gives casue to doubt this premise.
Interference to nerve flow
In 1895 a man adjusted a spine and hearing was restored, heart problems went into remission and digestive issues reduced but the link between the spine and these results at that stage could not be inductively demonstrated. But that didn’t matter to those early patients.
So chiropractic results were explained deductively with the first principle that 1. the innate (inborn) intelligence of the body always causes it to move towards health and healing, and if this principle is true then 2. interference to the 100% flow of innate intelligence (which in chiropractic we call a “subluxation”) will result in less than 100% healing and function, and the body will move towards lack of ease (or dis-ease as the early chiropractors termed it.) 3. When a subluxation is removed, innate intelligence flow is restored and 4. a sick body can now move towards 100% healing and function and, if the body has no permanent damage or defect, move towards health.
When a person is adjusted, and so-called “miracle-results” happen – by recognizing the concept of “innate intelligence” with the sole focus of maintaining function (health) within the body, and by understanding that the chiropractic adjustment restores innate intelligence it should not surprise us that the body is indeed moving back towards optimum function.
In fact in the words of the fictional Sherlock Holmes “It’s Elementary My Dear Watson!”
Or according to the very real Developer of Chiropractic, Dr BJ Palmer DC PhC. “It’s As Simple As That!”
Loving Life Chiropractic | 842 Byron Ave | Ottawa | ON | Canada | K2A 0H8 | (613) 725 2525